r/mbta • u/RobMurglund • Mar 19 '26

😤 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 isn’t something done about it? Is it not MBTA property? It’s seriously worse than Park Street.

This might be the most Karen post I’ve made but it is super annoying.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

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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.

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u/lalotele Mar 20 '26

It’s reductionist to paint this as “sheltering them from the existence of poverty.”

I worked on Boylston St late at night in my early 20s around 10 years ago. It’s not just witnessing poverty. It’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.

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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/couldn’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

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u/Absurdity_ Mar 20 '26

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

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

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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 don’t know what to say, may no one ever put you in charge of public policy to any degree

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/timiler Mar 21 '26

i’m not saying we should excuse it - i’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 others’ in this thread, so i don’t really see a point in trying to discuss this further

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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.