Date of Award
12-2024
Document Type
Campus Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Sociology
First Advisor
Andrea Leverentz
Second Advisor
Heather Zaykowski
Third Advisor
Anthony S. Floyd, Cinzia Solari
Abstract
The City of Boston’s Long Island was once used as a location that supported housing and substance use treatment services for over 400 individuals. In 2014, the bridge that provided access to Long Island was condemned due to faulty infrastructure and safety concerns. The abrupt closure of the bridge resulted in the displacement of social service agencies and the individuals utilizing those services. The unintended consequence of closing the bridge forced those displaced from Long Island to seek out services near Boston’s South End at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melena Cass Boulevard known as ‘Mass & Cass’. Following the closure of the bridge, Mass and Cass, an area well-known for social services, experienced exacerbated challenges related to the increased visibility of substance use and homelessness. As a result, Boston political leaders, service providers and South End residents have long advocated for the bridge to be rebuilt and for services on Long Island to be restored. Efforts to rebuild the bridge have been consistently contested by the City of Quincy because access to the bridge ran through Quincy’s Squantum neighborhood. I used interviews with stakeholders from Boston and Quincy and participant observation in both cities to uncover the broader conditions of the sociopolitical dispute around access to Long Island.
Recommended Citation
Silcox, Joseph William, "The Bridge to Recovery: The Dispute Over Access to Housing & Substance Use Treatment Services on Boston Harbor's Long Island" (2024). Graduate Doctoral Dissertations. 1034.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations/1034
Comments
Free and open access to this Campus Access Thesis is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. Those not on campus and those without a UMass Boston campus username and password may gain access to this thesis through Interlibrary Loan. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the