Mayor-elect Michelle Wu said contiguous she plans to name Dr. Monica Bharel, who served arsenic commissioner of the authorities Department of Public Health arsenic Covid-19 exploded, to service arsenic the cabinet-level caput of the city's efforts to bash thing astir Mass and Cass aft Wu takes bureau connected Tuesday.
Wu had vowed to marque Mass and Cass 1 of her archetypal priorities - and to bash truthful with an accent connected public-health and attraction alternatively than simply evicting everybody oregon tossing them successful jailhouse cells.
In summation to Bharel, Wu said she volition elevate the Boston Public Health Commission's enforcement director, Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, to different furniture station arsenic caput of wide public-health efforts, and volition support Sheila Dillon arsenic manager of the Department of Neighborhood Development, which oversees the disposition of vacant metropolis buildings and land. Wu asked urrent public-health main Marty Martinez to enactment connected agelong capable to enactment the modulation to Ojikutu.
The moves, Wu said, volition assistance with her extremity of turning vacant metropolis buildings into attraction facilities and lodging for the stateless who present congregate astatine the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.
Dr. Bharel, Dr. Ojikutu, and Chief Dillon person dedicated their careers to serving the nationalist and each brings a way grounds of results. This is the squad that we request for Boston arsenic we prioritize nationalist wellness and lodging and halfway the information and dignity of each those struggling with substance usage disorder, intelligence health, and lodging instability.
In her ain statement, Bharel said she volition enactment with Wu to assistance person neighboring cities and the authorities to assistance Boston woody with the crisis, since Mass and Cass has go a spot for radical crossed the authorities and New England to congregate.