Governor Baker’s March 23 emergency order for all non-essential businesses to close impacted Spare Change News and its vendors like myself significantly. Spare Change News closed its doors for 11 weeks and reopened Friday, June 12. Over the past three months, I sold older back issues to the public in my Coolidge Corner, Brookline spot.…
The history of homelessness in the US rears its head in the face of COVID-19
Many will not remember this, but before the early 1980s, there weren’t millions of homeless people in the United States. Far too many lived in poverty, but people were not forced to live in the streets. The advent of contemporary homelessness is well documented. It was created by a federal government response to what was,…
Addressing Poverty Through Policy Reform
Statewide Poverty Action Network (Poverty Action) understands that the root causes of issues such as homelessness are policies that only benefit a small and elite group of people that have put them in place. According to Adriana Lasso-Harrier, the communications manager of the organization, the goal of Poverty Action is to make policy changes that…
Progressives in Congress try to protect homeless, prevent more homelessness
Editor’s Note: For the first time in its nearly 30 year history, Spare Change News if off the streets. While we want our vendors to earn a living, we don’t want them to risk their health to do so. In an effort to provide them with some kind of income while the pandemic rages, we’ve…
Homeless in a pandemic: How do you distance yourself when there’s no place to go?
Jerry (foreground) came to Boston from Puerto Rico six years ago because there is more help to be had in Boston, although “not so much,” he admits. Photo By Luis Edgardo Cotto. One of the populations most vulnerable to the coronavirus is that of the homeless living in Boston, a city with over 2,000 cases…
Former hospital building reopens as homeless shelter sees first case of COVID-19
Pine Street Inn, New England’s largest homeless shelter, has reported its first case of coronavirus among its guests. The person who contracted COVID-19, the illness caused by coronavirus, stayed at a number Boston-area shelters, including Pine Street Inn, according to a statement issued by the shelter on March 26. The individual who tested positive is…
As coronavirus spreads, homeless people are vulnerable
Massachusetts and the United States overall are ill-equipped to deal with a pandemic, and homeless people stand to bear the brunt of this lack of preparedness. Many homeless people have pre-existing health conditions, and public health officials in Massachusetts have not set up places for homeless people to wash their hands, or to isolate themselves…
Family homelessness rises faster in Mass. than any other state
New research from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) finds that since 2007, Massachusetts has been experiencing the highest increase, by percentage, in family homelessness out of all the states in the country. There are currently 3,400 families experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts. HUD categorizes homelessness according to a handful of scenarios: trading…
Spare Change Vendor Remembered
The following is a lightly edited letter from Sumner McClain about Isaac Crawford, a Spare Change News vendor who recently passed away. I met Isaac Crawford several years ago in Porter Square where he was selling Spare Change News, always with a smile. He introduced himself as “Ike,” and I shared my name, Sumner, with…
Won’t be Silent Anymore: Poor People’s Campaign Comes to Massachusetts
Over 300 people gathered in Greenfield, Massachusetts last week for a rally with The Poor People’s Campaign: A Call for Moral Revival.” While in the church that held the rally, it was easy to forget that we’re living in a country with a cruel racist as president, where people sleep on the streets, as billionaires…