City officials, volunteers and community members gathered to carol on a corner of the embattled Mass and Cass neighborhood Tuesday, optimistically heralding a brighter future for the area and its residents as the city heads into a new year.
“Most of our men and women have all been working on themselves over the last year,” said Sue Sullivan, director of Newmarket Business Improvement District, a nonprofit coordinating outreach in the area. “You’d have a lot of them who were on the street in tents and homeless. And now a lot of them, most of them are in sobriety. They’re working every day, and they’re working towards stability in their lives.
“So we talked about a workshop few weeks back, we said, ‘What can we do?’” Sullivan continued. “We want to feel it. Look at it. Bring happiness to the world. And someone said, ‘Why don’t we sing Christmas carols?’”
Over 25 people, including Newmarket BID volunteers, city officials from the mayor’s office and community members who’d camped or used resources in the area, all came out to carol on the street corner. The atmosphere was lively and joyous, with carolers belting it out decked in Santa hats and holiday gear and cars honking and waving back.
The event comes around two months after the city took up a new initiative to clean up the troubled area, strictly banning tents and enacting more robust outreach to connect people with shelters and services.
Carolers on Tuesday said the initiative has vastly changed the area, making it easier for outreach workers to see and triage people in need, prompting more people to actively seek help and making drug dealers more visible to police.
The singers, including several who dealt with periods of homelessness in the Mass and Cass area, stood among Christmas trees planted on the corner adorned with ornaments showing the names of people who’d died in the area.
“It inspired me, just the fact that we was helping somebody somewhere in the world and showing that Christmas is still Christmas,” said caroler Juan Maisonet. “That there’s still bright days out of dark. Just showing people to look forward.”
“We’re here to celebrate, because we want to promote love out into the streets and help people,” said Kurt Kaski, who’s been helping out in the area for the last seven months.
Sullivan said community members are “incredibly proud” of the success of the program. Forty people in the program have moved to other jobs, she said, and they’re working to move seven or eight people on to new work every day.
“This is just really something they could never have done before,” said Sullivan. “So much has changed down here.”
