The 3 public housing developments in Gentrified South Boston (a formerly blue-collar/working class Irish neighborhood) are mired in poverty and crime. The median income for a public housing family nationwide is? $10K! The median income for South Boston is $67K.
The housing developments are plagued by drug dealing, drug use and abuse. Ambulances, fire and EMT make frequent calls for drug overdoses, often to the same addresses. Gun/gang violence appears to be ticking upward following a spike in shootings over the sumer of 2017. Poverty is widening for the poor and working poor in one of the most gentrified neighborhoods in Boston, a booming city that ranks at the top of the gentrification list, nationwide!
Shootings are now frequent at the 3 public housing family developments in South Boston. As I write this (Sunday 06/03….2:00 pm), gunshots echo around the development, but those are just another one of many volleys of bullets that do not make the news.
But there are some shootings that do make headlines:
April 2017: Man shot – West Broadway
May 2017: Man shot West Broadway
June 2017: Gun found inside school – West Broadway
November 2017: Teen killed – Mary Ellen McCormack
January 2018: Two men shot – West Broadway
February 2018: Man killed – Old Colony
February 2018: 17-year-old with gun – Old Colony
April 2018: Man shot in car – West Broadway
April 2018: Bullet later found in nearby school
April 2018: Police confiscate drugs, gun – May Ellen
April 2018: police confiscate guns, West Broadway
Public Housing Youth Academy 