News

City of Boston Announces Affording Housing Projects to Receive Funding

The City of Boston is investing $40 million to create and preserve 718 units of affordable housing in Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, Chinatown, Hyde Park, and Roxbury, Mayor Michelle Wu announced Tuesday.  “[It’s] a huge number that we’re really excited to see make a difference,” Wu said in an interview with Spare Change News. The funded

Refugees sleeping rough on outskirts of EU

Usually, seeing homeless people is no reason for joy. But in Budapest it is – last year, head of state Viktor Orbán and his right-wing national government passed a law criminalising homeless people for sleeping rough. They are given three warnings and then imprisoned. Thankfully, the law is not enforced everywhere. The criminalisation of homeless

City of Boston Announces Affording Housing Projects to Receive Funding

The City of Boston is investing $40 million to create and preserve 718 units of affordable housing in Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, Chinatown, Hyde Park, and Roxbury, Mayor Michelle Wu announced Tuesday.  “[It’s] a huge number that we’re really excited to see make a difference,” Wu said in an interview with Spare Change News. The funded

Boston to make case for new Long Island bridge to Quincy

The City of Boston is hoping to convey that rebuilding a bridge to Long Island is the best option for accessing and reopening a recovery campus for addicts during a meeting on Tuesday, May 7,  in Quincy. The public meeting, being held at the Kennedy Center facility for the Quincy Council on Aging at 7

Arts & Culture

Central Square, Cambridge, MA

“The form of a city changes faster than the heart of a mortal.”– Baudelaire The streets teem with activity. There is a giant hole where the building filled with many small businesses, owned by individuals, flourished. There was a clothing store over 90 years old, a breakfast place where one whose pockets contained only a few

13 Ways of Looking At Death

1. I drive down Highway 80 and gaze at the landmarks you enjoyed when you were still alive. 2. The farm outside of St David, with grazing, tufted llamas behind a chain-link fence. 3. The roadside yucca tree that declined with each passing. It began lopsided, as if slightly drunk, but slumped more each month,

Champion of the Underdog: An Interview With Dolly Parton

“As a writer, I have to leave my heart open,” Dolly Parton begins. “That’s why I have always said I never could harden my heart, even against hurt or anything. Because as a writer, if you harden your heart, you’re not going to feel all that emotion you need to feel, and you won’t be

‘Friends’ Star Inspired to Action by Friend’s Homelessness

David Schwimmer, former star of “Friends,” turned his artistic talent to telling stories that highlight the struggle of homeless people after discovering that his friend had been living on Skid Row, hiding his homelessness even from those who knew him best. Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons “I had a friend who was homeless for two

The Business of Fancy Dancing by Sherman Alexie: A Movie Review

“I’ve had sex with one Indian woman, 112 white boys, sixteen Black men, seven Asian men, three dudes of ambiguous ethnic identity, one really homely guy, and zero Native American men.” — Seymour Polatkin, poet. I just finished watching “The Business of Fancy Dancing” again and I feel as if this is one of the

Columns

Central Square, Cambridge, MA

“The form of a city changes faster than the heart of a mortal.”– Baudelaire The streets teem with activity. There is a giant hole where the building filled with many small businesses, owned by individuals, flourished. There was a clothing store over 90 years old, a breakfast place where one whose pockets contained only a few

Bizarre Boston: Raising Hell at Harvard

When I think about college students raising hell, I picture kegs of beer, red plastic Solo cups and loud music. Oh, and maybe a beer funnel or two. In my mind, the phrase “raising hell” is just a metaphor for having a wild time. However, maybe it’s not always just a metaphor. For some Harvard

Uncertainties and Impermanence

My wonderful wife, Mary Esther, and I just returned from a visit with the surgeon who will be operating on her back. It’s much more involved than we thought it would be, and we are meditating every day just to help us cope. We’re trying to keep it in the day, but we can’t help

LAST WORD: Christina Sukghian Houle

About a month ago, an artist called Christina Sukhgian Houle dropped into the Spare Change News’ headquarters to meet with some of the vendors. Christina has joined forces with the newspaper’s co-founder, James Shearer, with the goal of making a documentary on homelessness in the Boston area. Christina is a relatively recent transplant to Greater

New Beginnings (Al Action Loves You)

Hello Family,  It’s a new year with a new beginning.  Happy Black History Month. Every day should be  Black History Day.    This country was  built upon the backs of people  of color due to the ingenious idea of slavery. In this country the color of my skin should not be a crime.  So where

Central Square, Cambridge, MA

“The form of a city changes faster than the heart of a mortal.”– Baudelaire The streets teem with activity. There is a giant hole where the building filled with many small businesses, owned by individuals, flourished. There was a clothing store over 90 years old, a breakfast place where one whose pockets contained only a few

The Avoidable Crisis

Stanley Forman: 40 Years After the Soiling of Old Glory

The photo was chilling. Before a crowd of onlookers, a white man appears to be attempting to stab a black man with the tip of a flagpole. “It really showed racism,” said photographer Stanley Forman 40 years after he took the Pulitzer Prize-winning snapshot of an anti-busing protest that had turned violent. “It was whites

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