BOSTON ( State House News Service ) — A newly opened migrant overflow shelter at a Roxbury community center is nearing its capacity of 400 individuals, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Wednesday.
Wu, who said she visited the state-owned Melnea Cass Recreation Center Tuesday night around dinner time, stressed the safety-net shelter is a temporary operation as neighborhood residents grapple with their community programs being displaced.
“I think the state heard loud and clear that the pool is necessary for the community, for all the multi-generational activity that happens in the neighborhood,” Wu said on Java with Jimmy Wednesday morning.
With the state’s emergency shelter system at capacity due to a crush of new arrivals and families experiencing homelessness, the Healey administration selected the controversial Roxbury site to relocate migrants who had been sleeping at Logan Airport. When Gov. Maura Healey and Wu toured the facility last week, they were met by protestors questioning why the state decided to open a shelter in a historically marginalized neighborhood and not a wealthier community like Wellesley.