Austin, Texas – The City of Austin plans to erect a giant tent to accommodate roughly 300 homeless people who were evicted from their roadside homes as winter approaches. Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the displacement of the City of Austin’s homeless population from their homes under bridges in the city, using the state’s ownership…
News
Are you equipped to respond to an opioid overdose?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 1999 to 2017 more than 702,000 people died from a drug overdose. In 2017, more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses, making it a leading cause of injury-related deaths in the United States. Of those deaths, almost 68 percent involved opioids. Communities are taking…
Austin expels homeless from under bridge, promises them giant tent
Austin, Texas – The City of Austin plans to erect a giant tent to accommodate roughly 300 homeless people who were evicted from their roadside homes as winter approaches. Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the displacement of the City of Austin’s homeless population from their homes under bridges in the city, using the state’s ownership…
Panama celebrates its black Christ, part of protest against colonialism and slavery
Panama’s ‘Festival del Cristo Negro’, the festival of the ‘Black Christ’, is an important religious holiday for local Catholics. It honours a dark, life-sized wooden statue of Jesus, ‘Cristo Negro’ – also known as ‘El Nazaraeno’, or ‘The Nazarene’. Throughout the year, pilgrims come to pay homage to this statue of Christ carrying a cross, in its…
Advocates, Legislators Rally for Rent Control to Protect tenants
Dozens gathered outside the Massachusetts State House on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at a rally in support of legislation that would reinstate rent control in Massachusetts. The state eliminated rent control after Massachusetts residents voted to do so in 1994 by a very slim margin, with 49 percent in favor of keeping it, and 51 percent…
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…
Austin expels homeless from under bridge, promises them giant tent
Austin, Texas – The City of Austin plans to erect a giant tent to accommodate roughly 300 homeless people who were evicted from their roadside homes as winter approaches. Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the displacement of the City of Austin’s homeless population from their homes under bridges in the city, using the state’s ownership…
Horace Seldon: Fighting Injustice, Celebrating Civil Disobedience
Horace Seldon was happily lying on his back, waving his hands and feet in the air the first time Shay Stewart-Bouley saw him. Shay was just starting out as Executive Director of Community Change, Inc., the anti-racism non-profit Horace founded in 1968, and she was at the organization’s forty-fifth anniversary party. It also happened to…
Arts & Culture
Running on Empty Part 2: Doctor Shopping and Crowbar Dodging
The pharmacist had grey hair and his glasses rested down on a bump in the middle of his nose. The woman working the counter came over and I handed her the scripts. She asked me for my address and wrote it on the scripts. I hated when they did that if they didn’t cash them…
Book Review: ‘Prey For Us’
I was introduced to Geoffrey Neil’s wonderful writing because his first book, Dire Means, was about homelessness in Santa Monica, California where some extremely devious people tried to end homelessness through evil means. In that book, I met a woman named Morana Mahker, who was very skilled at both eliminating people and tracking their movements…
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…
‘It changed my life’: Ordinary people power Game of Thrones
‘THEY KNOW ME AS THE ANIMAL MAN OF NORTHERN IRELAND’ Kenny Gracey – medieval livestock owner It’s not just on-screen talent that has felt the Game of Thrones effect – its success has pumped millions into Northern Ireland’s economy. Besides tourists flocking to see the iconic locations, the show had more than 6,000 employees, putting local talent…
Columns
Relapse Ruminations and a Trip in the Way-back Machine
While taking a short ride in my car yesterday I listened to an acapella group called Jersey Dream put out by Clifton Records. The lead singer is a friend of mine named Ron Trautz, and as I was enjoying his voice I thought about how much he has accomplished since we ran wild together back…
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…
Running on Empty Part 2: Doctor Shopping and Crowbar Dodging
The pharmacist had grey hair and his glasses rested down on a bump in the middle of his nose. The woman working the counter came over and I handed her the scripts. She asked me for my address and wrote it on the scripts. I hated when they did that if they didn’t cash them…
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…
Relapse Ruminations and a Trip in the Way-back Machine
While taking a short ride in my car yesterday I listened to an acapella group called Jersey Dream put out by Clifton Records. The lead singer is a friend of mine named Ron Trautz, and as I was enjoying his voice I thought about how much he has accomplished since we ran wild together back…
‘I Always Came Back’: A Story of Survival
“Hey, baby!” Linda Burston, with an illuminating smile and wide eyes, greets every woman who comes through the doors of Women’s Lunch Place. They always know when Linda is in the room; even among the clink clank of dishes being piled high, the scraping of metal fork against ceramic plate, the hum of conversation among dozens of…
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…