Recreation programs left with nowhere to go as migrants move from Logan Airport to Boston shelter
ROXBURY - Seventy-five more migrants are expected to arrive Thursday at the emergency shelter set up at the Melnea Cass Recreation Center in Roxbury, leaving youth programs at the center with no place to go.
"I've been going here for two years now and it's been like a second home to me," said Andy Suarez, who participates in one of the youth programs at the center. Gov. Maura Healey said the programs will be temporarily relocated but didn't elaborate on where they would go.
"We have kids who are also impacted negatively and our program is one of the only few stable times in their lives," said Tony Darocha, a coach for Boston United Track and Cross Country.
The recreation center, which can accommodate up to 400 migrants and unhoused people, is now filled with cots, strollers and play spaces. Healey said the goal is to get people off the street and out of Logan Airport, where dozens of migrants were found sleeping on the floor in Terminal E. The center will also help process migrants' work visas and find more permanent housing for them.
"None of us should stand by while women, children and families sleep outside or in an airport who look like us," said State Rep. Liz Miranda.
Healey said the state had no choice but to use the center as overflow, since the emergency shelter system is at capacity. But the local community, now without a space for their programs, is questioning why Roxbury was chosen instead of a location in the suburbs.
"We sympathize with them, we as a people, in our community, we love," said Roxbury resident Clifton Braithwaite. "But sometimes we love so much that we spite our own selves."
"This is not the first time that this community has been asked to sacrifice over and over again," said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. "So we'll continue to work with the state and ensure that all options are on the table."
The shelter is scheduled to close by June, when it will return to being a recreation center. As a deal for using the center temporarily, the state will make upgrades and improvements.
The state said it's also planning similar overflow shelters in Cambridge, Quincy and Revere.
