If it was really about Boston’s safety…

I am a Boston commuter and I am in South Station multiple times a week. I run the state gun violence prevention coalition in Massachusetts. I think about violence prevention in Massachusetts every single day. I think that makes me uniquely qualified to comment on the potential federal takeover of South Station, supposedly to address violence and crime.

It’s total BS…

Sure, Boston has crime just like any other city. But here are just some of the things that are constantly getting lost in the bluster and blather of Trump’s hollering about crime. Violence is not exclusively an urban problem — rural areas have crime too. Cities across the country have seen significant decreases in violence this year, including the two cities Trump is threatening with the National Guard next: Chicago and Baltimore.

The Trump administration is constantly blowing smoke about where crime happens and what do about it, in service to their endless need for power and control. Every narrative (lie) brought forth by Trump and his cadre of enablers must be met with a counter narrative that is based in facts and data. Which brings me to the core of this piece, the hill I will absolutely die on, and the content of what I will continue to shout from the rooftops:

You know what doesn’t solve violence? Militarization. Force. Power and control.

You know what does? Giving people the resources they need to be safe and well.

I walk through South Station all the time without worrying about my immediate safety. Even the Globe ran a piece with the following headline: “Crime at South Station is minimal, data show. Why does the federal government want to take over?”The piece notes that the rate of serious crime at South Station is “extremely low” and is actually down 16 percent compared with data from the same time period last year. So why indeed would the Trump administration feel the need to take such extraordinary measures? Who is kept safe in doing so? It certainly does nothing to alleviate any concerns I might have about crime and violence in Boston. Such an action would only make me worry — I’d worry about having my commute taken over by federal agents. I have plenty of worry about ICE threatening to flood Boston. I worry about my friends and neighbors being harassed or abducted. And now I worry about the Department of Justice suing Boston because of our policies protecting immigrants from ICE.

If Trump was serious about safety (he’s not) he would support strong gun laws, give back the money he’s stolen from violence prevention programs, invest in housing, and the list goes on.

Pass us by with these threats to take over South Station. Or invade our city. Or sue it. We know what we need to make Boston even safer than it already is. And we could absolutely do that if we had a fraction of the federal resources Trump is currently wasting on the occupation of D.C., or the resources he plans to waste on the impending occupation of Chicago and Baltimore.

His troops and threats don’t get us to a place of community safety. The National Guard doesn’t make us safe.

We make us safe.

*****

In what I think will be a perpetual campaign to expose Trump’s violent hypocrisy I want to highlight yet another example of how he bombards us with meaningless words about safety while simultaneously doing everything he can to make our communities less safe. Here in Boston, a data driven program that addresses homelessness is under threat. Trump wants to get rid of Housing First, a impactful program which gets some of the most chronically homeless individuals into stable housing. It is considered a low threshold service, meaning it doesn’t require sobriety to access. Critics don’t like it because they see it as a giveaway, or somehow rewarding someone for their substance misuse. But here’s what they don’t — or don’t care to — understand about programs based on compassion.

I’ve worked with plenty of survivors of abuse who also struggle with substance misuse. While everyone’s situation is different, there’s a common theme. You can’t heal or recover if you don’t know where you are going to sleep at night. There is no safety without a safe place to call home.

Low threshold housing doesn’t reward substance use. It makes recovery from substance misuse way more likely.

You want people to engage in intensive services that will support being clean and sober? It’s not going to happen when someone is trying to survive on the streets, or in shelter. We have to be honest that shelter is not safe for everyone, and certainly not the best environment to support recovery for all people. No shade to shelter providers — they are doing critically important work and are perpetually under-resourced. But emergency shelter is a stopgap, not a long term solution. Recovery is hard work, long term work, and improbable if not impossible without safety, support, and stability in housing.

So when Trump yells about taking over South Station to make Boston more safe while simultaneously yanking funding from programs that provide safety for the most vulnerable Bostonians, he shows us yet again how it’s never really about safety. He doesn’t care about Boston and he doesn’t care about Bostonians.

*****

It’s been profoundly disappointing to read about the mayor of D.C. buying in to the narrative of a federal invasion being beneficial in stopping crime. It does not, it is a total lie, and it does nothing to address the root causes of why crime happens in the first place. Particularly when those invasions are happening in cities that have already seen significant reductions in violence — reductions that have happened without militarization. I need everyone to get their pens out and their laptops ready. When you see news outlets minimize the fascist implications of the federal takeover of our cities, call that out. If you see articles that somehow legitimize the idea that this is a reasonable option for preventing violence, write that scathing letter to the editor. We don’t need any ‘both sides’ kind of coverage here. Because there isn’t another side. There’s no way to justify the invasion of D.C., or the potential invasions of Chicago, or Baltimore, or… Boston. We shouldn’t stand for it, and we shouldn’t stand for language that normalizes it.

We got us. We make us safe. Not Trump, not Stephen Miller, and not Tom Homan.

Us.