Humans are social animals, and our social natures have been greatly harmed by the pandemic. We all know the big numbers: one million dead in the US, with more than 60 percent of adults and 75 percent of children likely to have had the virus. Worldwide, the official death count is over six million, though because of what it cites as undercounting, the World Health Organization believes the number of deaths could be closer to 15 million.

But that’s just the death count. The pandemic’s fear factor caused the largest part of Americans to isolate themselves from normal social patterns, thus exacerbating a mental health crisis that included unprecedented deaths from opioid overdoses, suicides, and alcohol abuse. Gun sales produced a population of 335 million Americans owning more than 400 million weapons and, unfortunately at times, using them to kill and terrorize their fellow Americans.

Students participated in virtual education, which denied them the social aspects of time spent in school – and the watchful eyes of teachers. When they came back to the classroom, students and teachers showed higher rates of depression and anxiety. Emergency medical services data show an increase in opioid calls and gun violence.

Social damage has been made worse by the fact that there was a lot of movement in and out of neighborhoods while individuals and families hunkered down in their apartments. Now, as we start to emerge, it is important that we work on stitching together neighborhoods, introducing and re-introducing residents to each other, and building back our communities.

In the 1970s and 1980s, it was an awareness that residents in the Codman Square area felt isolated despite being in a densely populated neighborhood that led local nonprofits to participate in community organizing activities. In the late 1980s, a survey pointed out that the greatest concerns in that community were crime, drugs, violence, and youth hanging out with seemingly nothing to do.

The problem of isolation came home to me when there was a drug crackdown on one street near Codman Square that resulted in 38 arrests for drug dealing. I remember commenting to the police that they must have gotten a lot of calls for drug activity on that street, and being told that the police, in fact, had received no phone calls. I spoke with people who lived on the street and found that they didn’t really know their neighbors, and so they didn’t know who was supposed to be there and who was not. They also had no trust in the police.

To address these concerns, a group of nonprofits, assisted by local churches and neighborhood organizations, convened several hundred residents to come up with a plan to deal with the concerns brought out in the survey. Residents met for two months and produced a strategic plan for Codman Square, which was called the “Action Agenda.” It was a 40-page document that addressed many different areas of concern, including social isolation.

To address this, the Codman Square Health Center, which had been funded for several community organizers, sent them to go door to door, informing residents about what was happening in the community and how they could get access to services. They also left them with information packets. A monthly newsletter alerted residents of meetings and of positive things happening.

Residents who wanted to organize their streets were informed that they could get a grant of $100 and help from community organizers to have a block party to introduce residents to their neighbors. The formula was to find two to three people who wanted to do this, and help them with food and, most important, a fire engine. A Saturday would be chosen, and the fire engine would appear, which would bring out children, who,, in turn would bring out the adults. Hamburgers helped keep people engaged, and, if available, a police representative would talk about forming a crime watch.

The exact formula isn’t that important, but the idea needs to be considered to help Bostonians re-engage with each other as the pandemic wanes.
Some communities are in the process of doing this by themselves. Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association has established two committees, an Outreach and Engagement Committee to build up membership in the civic association, and an Events Committee with an agenda geared to regular community activities that include a summer community picnic with games and music, a Native American event, a Fields Corner restaurant tour, neighborhood park clean-ups, a Savin Hill Park tour, a neighborhood yard sale, and a plant sale.

The Wu administration should consider assisting neighborhoods with similar efforts as residents emerge from more than two years of isolation. An engaged community is a safer and more vibrant place to live.

Bill Walczak lives in Dorchester. His column appears regularly in the Dorchester Reporter.