A white Democrat governor is taking away a poor community’s recreational center used by black kids to provide shelter for illegal aliens. Sounds kinda racist, amirite?
Massachusetts is a sanctuary state. The governor, Maura Healey, is taking over the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex in Roxbury, one of the poorest areas of Boston. She said today it would be a temporary move to shelter an overflow of illegal aliens in the city, “especially [for] those staying at Logan Airport overnight.” Many illegals have been sleeping in Boston’s Logan Airport’s Terminal E. The Boston Globe reported about 80 people a night slept in the terminal.
The governor posted an emotional statement on X.
Governor Laura Healey (D-MA) cries as she announces that she is converting Roxbury Recreation Center into a new shelter for illegals
Roxbury Recreation Center is utilized by hundreds of Boston residents every day, including many children and seniors pic.twitter.com/G5ZWIdCKOy
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 31, 2024
This comes after a program was announced that gives homeowners the opportunity to welcome illegal aliens into their homes, as one commenter pointed out..
The ‘Immigrant Support Alliance’ in Melrose, MA is now openly asking and giving the opportunity for their residents to house illegal immigrants in their private homes.
“Exploring the Host Home Experience”
This is just a euphemism for “Aiding and Abetting Human Trafficking”. pic.twitter.com/mqSKXu8kUb
— ZNO 🇺🇸 (@therealZNO) January 12, 2024
Poor communities suffer the most because of Biden’s border catastrophe. Public spaces in their communities are taken from them to give shelter to illegal aliens. The governor is doing what other political leaders in blue sanctuary cities and states are doing. They prioritize illegals over its own citizens. The governor is offering an array of services for them.
But in a letter Monday — which she sent to lawmakers and a city councilor who represents Roxbury — Healey laid out specific plans for using the center and pledged to close the shelter by May 31, in time for the state to reopen the complex, and its pool, to the public by late June.
The state plans to staff the shelter 24 hours each day, provide three meals a day for families, and use the same provider, AMI Healthcare, that currently works at two other state overflow sites in Quincy and at a former courthouse in Cambridge, Healey said. Her office said Monday that the state also has opened a safety-net site in Revere.
The first-term Democrat said the state would also provide “around-the-clock security,” laundry services, and legal assistance for the up to 400 people the shelter could house. Staff on site would also help families with school enrollment.
Sounds pretty good, right? No wonder illegal aliens are asking to go to Boston. Meals, healthcare, laundry services, legal assistance, around the clock security. This community center is reported to be for illegal alien families. You can bet the children will be overwhelming local schools, too.
The governor is exploring all options, you know. My question is why wasn’t shelter already available for illegal aliens? That should have been put in place when Massachusetts became a sanctuary state and when Boston became a sanctuary city. Why weren’t they prepared? Was it just empty virtue-signaling that all are welcome, regardless of legal status? Everything was fine until illegal aliens actually showed up.
“While we continue to explore all options to meet the expanding needs of our Emergency Assistance Family Shelter system, the Administration is preparing for the use of the [Cass complex] in Roxbury as a temporary, emergency safety-net site,” Healey wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Globe.
“Our administration is also committed to working with the city and the Roxbury delegation to relocate all recreation programs to alternative sites,” she added.
L. Scott Rice, the state’s emergency assistance director, later said in a statement that officials also plan to “make improvements to the center for the long-term benefit of the community.” Healey’s office said that includes hiring more staff and “renovating facilities.”
Hmmm. Now there are plans to improve the community center. What, when the illegals leave? Is that to be the community’s compensation to smooth things over? It is the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s only year-round indoor facility. There is an outdoor pool for warmer months. The center has a 24,000 square foot indoor field house.
Local officials, including Boston Mayor Wu, were left feeling blindsided by the governor’s decision. The community center is a state-owned facility.
“Roxbury, we know each other, everyone here has the same sentiment: We want to be able to help, but how do we do it humanely?” City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who represents Roxbury, said during the meeting. (Anderson was among the officials to whom Healey sent the letter Monday.) “But also, how do we do it so that you are not contracting and commoditizing on Black neighborhoods?”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu lamented in a radio appearance Monday that the state was turning to the predominantly Black neighborhood to give up a local asset to address the migrant crisis.
“For the first community where this is being proposed to be Roxbury — a community that over so many decades has faced disinvestment, red-lining, disproportionate outcomes — it’s very painful, and it’s painfully familiar,” Wu said on WBUR’s “Radio Boston.”
The complex provides a place for seniors to walk an indoor track and is home to a track club that her own children have participated in, Wu said. The city and state officials had discussed using vacant schools or other vacant private properties, she said, but “there was nothing that was ready to go, according to the state’s specifications.”
“The city, we will step up, and we are already planning,” Wu said.
The Boston Herald published an op-ed on the situation.
An expert on humanitarian crises weighed in on helping those in need. He supports housing the illegal immigrants but now in the community center. He pointed out that stuffing 350 to 400 people into the community center that only has four bathroom stalls is not intelligent. He said there are alternatives, like a hospital in Jamaica Plain. It already has plans for redevelopment in the works. Governor Healey’s people did not reach out to this expert.
He was good enough to work for the Clinton administration but apparently not Healey’s inner circle.
Elisa worked for FEMA in war-ravaged places such as Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia. He was with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights after Hurricane Katrina crippled New Orleans. He’s in Boston now, and his phone is not ringing, and that’s what’s wrong with this migrant crisis.
The next time you hear the sanctimonious rhetoric of Democrats who want to show they are better than you because they support sanctuary states and cities, just remember is it all shallow virtue-signaling. It’s easy to say a city is prepared for illegal aliens and welcomes them when they are in Texas. However, as soon as they get off a bus or plane in a sanctuary city, suddenly that city is overwhelmed and unprepared to handle the situation. Before Boston renovates a hospital or community center, it better build some migrant shelters. The border crisis will be with us for quite some time into the future. There is no end in sight. Massachusetts became a sanctuary state in 2017. It should have been prepared.
