In the early days of pandemic-era social distancing, Steven Trambert realized his family had a serious problem. His 96-year-old grandmother had been in the hospital and, given the high risks of infection facing the elderly, she was suddenly off-limits. His family had no way of getting in to see her face-to-face or, due to her…
Abby DeRigo Named Executive Director of the Homeless Empowerment Project and Spare Change News
The board of the Homeless Empowerment Project and Spare Change News has chosen Abby DeRigo, a recent graduate of Suffolk University, to lead the organization as it adapts to the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic and moves forward into the new normal. “The pandemic obviously changed everything that I had been thinking about. Now things…
The Changes Come So Fast
My wife, Mary Esther, and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on June 22. We were married in 2002 and the time has just whipped by. So many different things have happened; it’s all good but sometimes there are hard surprises. Mary Esther has scoliosis, stenosis and various other things wrong with her spine. She had…
With Spare Change News closed, a local fund awards one SCN vendor-writer a way to pay rent
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.…
Covid-19 and cages on Boston’s Methadone Mile
Just before all hell broke loose in Minnesota and Kentucky, I happened upon a story shared by a friend and done by Turtle Boy Daily News that said homeless people on Methadone Mile were being locked into a cage. I saw the pictures, but I still couldn’t believe it. Even knowing that I was at…
A New Normal
In a recent ad by Joe Kennedy, who’s running for one of the U.S. Senate seats in Massachusetts, he talks about how now there’s “talk to go back to normal. Our normal was broken.” As far as political ads go, it’s effective. I began to think: exactly what was normal, and what the heck is…
Don’t Lose The Message
In our first issue back, I wanted to thank folks for supporting us during quarantine because of COVID-19, but because of recent events I find myself angry as many people do and need to address it. You’d have to be in a coma to not know what I’m talking about: the murders of Breonna Taylor…
There are a lot of lessons in this pandemic – will we learn them?
COVID-19 has taken over all of our lives. It has separated us from family and friends, closed schools, playgrounds, and churches; it’s taken from us all that we take for granted. Simple things like going for walks seem risky, and many of our cities look like ghost towns. It’s so quiet you can hear the…
Senior Living in the Days of the Plague
The COVID-19 pandemic has me rethinking assisted housing for seniors. I’m watching the death toll among nursing homes and veteran facilities skyrocket. They are like petri dishes enabling the virus to leap from one human being to the next. I’m 74-years-old and my wife is 72. I’m grateful that we haven’t made the transition to…
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…