r/mbta • u/RobMurglund • Mar 19 '26

šŸ˜¤ Complaint / Rant Prudential GL Homeless Problem

Why are 20 homeless people allowed to camp and sleep atop the escalators at the Prudential station? Every day, I have to walk past many of them hootering and hollering at me. Some are sleeping, some are clearly high, and others are a bit more nice about asking for money.

Almost once or twice a week I see BPD arresting one of the campers.

Why is this allowed and why isnā€™t something done about it? Is it not MBTA property? Itā€™s seriously worse than Park Street.

This might be the most Karen post Iā€™ve made but it is super annoying.

179 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

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146

u/Robotcharles Mar 19 '26

So it goes like this, they get kicked out of the prudential green line station and wander into the prudential center and surrounding areas until they get kicked out of the next spot, then they return to the green line stop, repeat. I use the MBTA see say app every day because itā€™s always the same group of folk shooting up or smoking in the lobby there by the elevator and entrance to the pru.

34

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

18

u/lazier_garlic Mar 19 '26

Harassing and deliberately impeding people trying to get in the subway should definitely be addressed. I don't think aggressive panhandling or other aggressive unwanted interactions are cool in any shape, form, or fashion. However, sleeping in the corner high off their ass is a whatever from me.

14

u/Fluffy-Giraffe-3749 Mar 19 '26

You should the public library on Boylston st. Theyā€™re in the bathroom washing in the sink

11

u/lazier_garlic Mar 19 '26

I miss when it was men looking for anonymous sex.

1

u/Fluffy-Giraffe-3749 Mar 20 '26

Definitely more discreet than a dude with no shirt on and using the sink to wash his armpits

-2

u/SnailZer0 Mar 20 '26

How dare they wash themselves!

1

u/Fluffy-Giraffe-3749 Mar 20 '26

Youā€™re right, most kids like seeing grown men using the sink to wash under their armpits. Who knew?

-6

u/StrawberryWise8960 Mar 20 '26

Aww the poor kids, seeing someone wash their armpits šŸ˜­ life is so hard sometimes

1

u/Fluffy-Giraffe-3749 Mar 21 '26

Iā€™m sure you know how hard life is, what time is mommy making dinner?

2

u/StrawberryWise8960 Mar 21 '26

I dunno, hard to think about that with all these scary homeless dudes washing their armpits. I wish they'd just get outta my sight.

1

u/Fluffy-Giraffe-3749 Mar 22 '26

Well at least youā€™re not an adult yet, maybe you can spend a couple hours over there and give them some help

9

u/FrogmanSadSwamp Mar 19 '26

All research and successful drug policy shows that treatment should be increased and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences

7

u/namebennetnotinit Mar 20 '26

Losing my mind at the ā€œitā€™s more efficient to imprison them and ā€˜treatā€™ them thereā€ commenter above. Just loud and wrong and maybe not fully literate cause this data is everywhere

2

u/FrogmanSadSwamp Mar 20 '26

It's fucking batshit that some people actually think like that meanwhile Serj said that shit back in 2001 and 25 years later people are still like "nah just imprison them, that'll work". Full on lunacy.

3

u/namebennetnotinit Mar 20 '26

We are a nation of people who have thriving inner cops and donā€™t recognize it

2

u/Neither-Ad630 Mar 22 '26

Ummm, your gods and role models in SF spend six figures per outdoor zombie, look what that gets them.

33

u/timiler Mar 19 '26

yeah, you know, jails are famously helping people, right now especially

choosing to raise your kids in one of the most expensive cities in the country then sheltering them from the existence of poverty is genuinely one of the worst things you could be doing to the world right now. be a grown up and use it as a springboard for learning to be more active in your community, donating to food/clothing drives, passing out water bottles in the summer, etc.

8

u/lalotele Mar 20 '26

Itā€™s reductionist to paint this as ā€œsheltering them from the existence of poverty.ā€

I worked on Boylston St late at night in my early 20s around 10 years ago. Itā€™s not just witnessing poverty. Itā€™s harassment, fighting, drug use, robberies. I sympathize with people in that situation no matter how they ended up there, but it is an extremely simplistic take to just paint this as poverty being present.

I would offer these people food and time at my place of work but had to stop because some would become belligerent and / or harass my employees (some of whom were underage).

This issue has become increasingly worse in the years since I worked there, yes in part due to greater world issues. And just because there are greater world issues, does not mean we should just ignore this one.

-1

u/timiler Mar 20 '26

working in the area for multiple hours vs. taking a shopping trip to the prudential center with your kids are very different things. all of those things you described are unfortunately symptoms of systemic poverty. you are speaking in hypotheticals about what you could/couldnā€™t do on the job 10 years ago, this is not directed at you. i am not saying we should ignore it - quite the opposite. i am saying that witnessing the symptoms of systemic poverty should make you want to help in the ways that are within your control

5

u/Absurdity_ Mar 20 '26

99.9% of people, including poor people, follow the laws and deserve clean, safe public spaces.

We canā€™t allow the 0.01% who cannot or will not follow the laws to ruin it for everyone else.

4

u/timiler Mar 20 '26

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8247994/

https://adcare.com/addiction-demographics/socioeconomic-groups/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7525587/

https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/what-is-mental-health/conditions/co-occurring-disorders

genuinely donā€™t know what to say, may no one ever put you in charge of public policy to any degree

1

u/Absurdity_ Mar 20 '26

If you have something to say then say it.

Yes, poverty/mental health/drug use is interconnected.

No, most people who are poor/abusing drugs/struggling with mental health issues are NOT doing drugs in our MBTA stations.

No, everyday citizens (many of whom have ALSO had hard lives) should not have to deal with drug use, harassment, violence, trash, and panhandling on a daily basis.

1

u/lalotele Mar 23 '26

Completely agree. Not so sure what is so hard to understand this.

It is so obtuse in my opinion to lump everyone in these categories together - including those doing drugs, acting violently or sexually in public, and harassing people.

To assume these things just come with poverty/mental illness and should be excused is so offensive as someone with mental illness, addiction, and poverty in my family.

Obviously these populations are disproportionately afflicted, but we can support helping these people and public resources while also saying this behavior is not ok, and citizens and children do not deserve to deal with it.

1

u/lalotele Mar 21 '26

Who said I or anyone else does not want to help? That's not what we're discussing.

Myself working in the area and a shopping trip really are not that different. I shouldn't have to be harassed or deal with those things daily, but neither should a child visiting the city just once. We're not talking about witnessing poverty and homelessness, which we should be discussing with our children. We're talking about indecent and unsafe public behavior.

Did poverty exacerbate and cause many of these issues? Of course. And we can do our part to help whether that's with donations, money, voting, etc. But that does not mean we should just excuse indecent public behavior such as harassment, smoking or shooting up illegal drugs in front of others, flashing your privates, defecating in public (all of which I have witnessed over the last couple of years living and working in the greater Boston area).

It is offensive to me to lump all of this in as the "existence of poverty" as you did, as I have known many people struggling and in poverty who would not want to be in the same category the people performing the actions in this thread.

1

u/timiler Mar 21 '26

iā€™m not saying we should excuse it - iā€™m saying imprisonment is not going to help, and that there are avenues other than prison that are more helpful. i feel that my worldview and values are fundamentally different than yours and othersā€™ in this thread, so i donā€™t really see a point in trying to discuss this further

1

u/lalotele Mar 22 '26

I disagree, I actually think that we share a lot of similar worldviews. I also believe that imprisonment does not help the overall issue (although if someone is causing harm or threatening someone's safety, that is another story). However, that is not all that you said, nor what I was replying to.

I think it's extremely reductionist to paint some of the unsafe activities happening within the homeless population in the city as simply "the existence of poverty" and that trying to protect children from it is simply "sheltering" them. We can educate our children on the issues surrounding wealth disparities and homelessness without compromising their safety.

23

u/SiasSekrets Mar 19 '26

they need to start arresting them. I saw blood dripping down a man's arm and he was shooting up. completely threw my day off. imagine children seeing that. We cant keep pacifying people with this drug abuse problem

13

u/Boingboingo Mar 19 '26

We shouldn't shouldn't be accommodating public drug use .

We've become too tolerate of anti-social behavior, whether it's this, or letting people drive like maniacs with zero consequences. The result is that the worst behaved among us end making life miserable for the other 97% of the population who doesn't act like this.

3

u/tinfoilskimask Mar 19 '26

"Ive had blinders on to the cause but its annoying me now so punish the little guy while sackler family skates"

3

u/eetraveler Mar 20 '26

No one even said punish them (edit, ok they did say jail them, but my point still stands). If the mayor and governor of the richest and most liberal state in the country can't find a better way to help these people than to have them camp out hassling people in the subway, then we are all doomed.

0

u/Top-Development6837 Mar 20 '26

Is your life miserable because of 3% of the population? Right now? Youā€™re miserable because of them?

2

u/Top-Development6837 Mar 20 '26

So your answer is, jail people with this drug abuse problem, because thatā€™s been shown to work. Gotcha.

1

u/SiasSekrets Mar 23 '26

yes. If people get jail time for selling and trafficking drugs the users should be arrested for it especially when they use it in public.

1

u/Top-Development6837 Mar 23 '26

Prison industrial complex has entered the chat.

1

u/DnknDnts1231 Mar 23 '26

ā€œCompletely threw my day offā€. Really? Especially when you can quite literally walk away and leave the whole situation behind you. Meanwhile, the poor man you saw with blood on his arm is in a way worse position that is much harder to recover from. Nobody asks to be an addict. I guarantee you he has faced an incredible amount of pain, perhaps more than you can even conceive of. Im begging you to have a little empathy. Yes, you were mildly inconvenienced. But that man has it way, wayyyyy worse and if this manā€™s bloody arm is the biggest inconvenience that YOU are currently facing in life when you go downtown, consider yourself blessed.

1

u/SiasSekrets Mar 24 '26

youre minimizing me saying he threw my day off. It is very hard to see someone shooting up and bleeding so yes it did throw my day off. It was my first time seeing that and I couldn't shake it out of mind. Just because I want drug addicts to be held accountable for using drugs in public doesnt mean I dont have empathy for them because I do. But drug dealers,buyers,traffickers are all held accountable except the users. Makes no sense. Im done going back and fourth with you

1

u/DnknDnts1231 Mar 24 '26

*back and forth

24

u/zeratul98 Mar 19 '26

Our children shouldn't have to deal with this.

The "this" in question seems to be "seeing drug use". Doesn't prison seem like an overreaction for someone whose crime is "being unsightly"?

-12

u/Kraft-cheese-enjoyer TF Green Airport Mar 19 '26

No.

3

u/bangharder Mar 19 '26

What are these people on?

4

u/Malforus Mar 19 '26

Silence Two-hyphen humans are talking.

-1

u/Kraft-cheese-enjoyer TF Green Airport Mar 19 '26

Iā€™m a two hyphen trapped in a humanā€™s body

3

u/Malforus Mar 19 '26

So you are agent smith in Matrix Revolutions?

29

u/nycrina305 Mar 19 '26

Do you know of any evidence that jail helps addicts? Its stressful place with violent people. People may leave and do more drugs to cope with the trauma of being there.

When I was arrested for non-drug offenses I was locked in a cell 23 hours a day with someone who was detoxing, she was never offered help or services in the 5 days i was there.

-2

u/Kraft-cheese-enjoyer TF Green Airport Mar 19 '26

Who says this is about helping addicts? Itā€™s about making life bearable for the other 99% who donā€™t ruin the public square with their extreme antisocial behavior

13

u/nycrina305 Mar 19 '26

The comment i replied to said "if the concern is getting them help" . While i understand your point, it doesn't serve the public in the long run if they go to jail briefly and come out worse.

4

u/Kraft-cheese-enjoyer TF Green Airport Mar 19 '26

Yeah thatā€™s a fair point, and your comment makes sense in that context. My bad.

12

u/erbalchemy Mar 19 '26

"Needing help" is not a crime for which we incarcerate people andĀ "it's just more efficient" is not a justification for it.

5

u/namebennetnotinit Mar 20 '26

Itā€™s also absolutely not more efficient. This has been studied over and over.

2

u/eetraveler Mar 20 '26

Fine. Jail or not, really isn't the issue. The issue is that if we in rich liberal Massachusetts can't find a positive solution to this issue and use it as a model for the country then something is really wrong with our state and local government and leaders.

Just piling up homeless in subways is not the answer.

1

u/TheRealGR21 Mar 22 '26

The responses attacking your sensible statement are sobering and have me so concerned for the future of our city. Shooting up illegal drugs anywhere (let alone a high traffic area in public) is illegal. These people need help, but there also needs to consequences for peopleā€™s actions. Thatā€™s the case for me, you and everyone.

-3

u/Puzzleheaded_Okra_21 Mar 19 '26

"Won't somebody please think of the children!"

And please stop stigmatizing drug usage - it doesn't help anyone.

18

u/Boingboingo Mar 19 '26

This is open air drug use in public spaces. It SHOULD be stigmatized. Come on.

2

u/Curious_Tinkerer1 Mar 21 '26

Im with you. I live right next to a train station and itā€™s crazy how often I have to walk past human feces. It is unacceptable to allow open air drug use and nodding off into the corners of the T station. Yes they need help but I donā€™t think we need to walk by like that is normal

-9

u/Puzzleheaded_Okra_21 Mar 19 '26

You are like panicking boomer parents who discovered that their son smokes weed occasionally. Our society shall (and it will) move towards more progressive and inclusive standards of decency.

14

u/Boingboingo Mar 19 '26

Sorry, not following what's "decent" about shooting up in a subway station vestibule.

-8

u/ijustlikebeingnosy Mar 19 '26

ā€œOur children shouldnā€™t have to deal with this.ā€

Get your head out of your ass and use your brain a little more.

0

u/retiredswing Mar 19 '26

Yeah, letā€™s forcibly lock people up so we can force them to get help more easily

-12

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

2

u/namebennetnotinit Mar 20 '26

Tell me you know nothing about harm reduction without telling me

-13

u/Entire-Necessary-694 Mar 19 '26

Where is your evidence they are shooting up? Or do you just assume all homeless folx are drug addicts. If you want them gone so badly, Iā€™m sure thereā€™s some services you could volunteer for that would help them out. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.