John Keith reports the Upton Street agreement means the Inn will only turn two of the three buildings it owns there into housing for previously homeless people and sell of the third building at market rates.

Some residents objected to the plan as too large, even though it would have meant fewer residents in the buildings than under the previous non-profit that owned the buildings.

The Southender returns from wherever he's been hiding to dissect the yuppies who unsuccessfully opposed the Pine Street Inn's purchase of an Upton Street purchase for some low-income housing.

The Urban Paramedic is back from basic training and blogging again. And with his Boston job not resuming for another week, he has time to work up a head of steam over Yvonne Abraham tearing into the current president of the Upton Street Neighborhood Association in the South End for daring to call the Pine Street Inn "a very, very nasty place." The UP, who has been there, explains, in some detail that the Inn really is a very, very nasty place:

... The whole facility stinks of urine and body odor. The belongings of the residents are filthy. In fact, most of the residents are filthy.

Night is the worst time. The snoring of 400 people in varying degrees of health makes an incredible racket. Arguments break out. Residents sneak into the rest rooms to shoot up heroin. Others get drunk. They steal from one another. Violence is not unusual.

The staff is extremely dedicated. I give them a world of credit, because they try extremely hard to set rules that will give the homeless a decent place to sleep. But it's an uphill battle. Residents sneak needles and syringes into the shelter. And bottles of booze. And occasionally knives. ...

When last we discussed Upton Street, it was to point to a South End News story about neighbors bemoaning the ruination of their tiny street by a Pine Street Inn proposal to convert three houses that had been used as transitional homes for people with problems into permanent housing for them.

Now the News reports:

Around 50 residents, elected officials, and concerned citizens squeezed into a community room on Shawmut Avenue on April 2, to show their support for the Pine Street Inn’s proposal to turn three row-homes on Upton Street into permanent housing for formerly homeless and low-income individuals ...

This is possibly the longest NIMBY story you will ever attempt to read. I'm exhausted.

Lissa Harris documents the blanket situation at the Pine Street Inn, when a guest there shows up at Dig offices with a blanket full of holes:

... While Pine Street Inn denizens get nasty old blankets, homeless people on the streets get new ones, Bunker says ... Not one to stand for such holey outrages, Neal admitted to periodically stuffing Pine Street's most degenerate blankets into dumpsters, thereby forcing the shelter to buy new ones. ...