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…
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…
Hounded: Demonstrators decry Greyhound’s cooperation with ICE
Demonstrators have rallied to deliver a letter to Greyhound Lines, Inc., at its new loading zone in Portland’s Old Town neighbourhood, demanding the bus company stop allowing federal immigration enforcement agents to board its vehicles in order to check passengers’ immigration statuses. But whether Greyhound has any choice in the matter is unclear, with Greyhound…
Rapid rehousing: The problems with this solution
Several families who have received rapid rehousing subsidies marched with advocates on May 9, 2019 to voice their concerns about the program. Meeting at the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center on Rhode Island Ave., they marched nearly two miles in the heat to the headquarters of the Washington D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS), where…
How Trump incites violence: Understanding stochastic terrorism
Three years ago, on 9 August 2016, Rolling Stone magazine published an article by Drexel University Law Professor David Cohen on stochastic terrorism and the messaging coming from the Trump campaign. At the time, stochastic terrorism was a relatively obscure academic term, but his column helped propel it into today’s lexicon, and recent events have prompted discussion…
Prison industry can’t hide from human rights violations
Roughly 500 protesters — led by 19 different organizations — gathered in downtown Boston on Sunday, August 4, to take a stand against the American Correctional Association. The ACA, an accreditation agency for prisons and detention centers in the United States, held its annual Congress of Correction at Hynes Convention Center from Thursday, August 1,…
Massachusetts District Attorneys Sue ICE Over Court Interferences
Marian Ryan and Rachael Rollins — the district attorneys of Middlesex and Suffolk counties, respectively — filed a lawsuit against ICE on Monday, April 29, hoping to put an end to the agency’s tactic of arresting individuals in the vicinity of Massachusetts courthouses. The lawsuit is the first of its kind in the country, setting…
Elizabeth Warren kicks off campaign in Lawrence
Elizabeth Warren made her presidential campaign official in Lawrence, at a Saturday morning kick-off event that alluded to the mill city’s history of labor strikes and long lineage of immigrant communities. The Massachusetts senator’s speech was full of talking points on issues ranging from corruption in Washington, D.C. to the racial wealth gap. But it…
Federal workers protest government shutdown
Senator Ed Markey gives a speech about standing with the people to end the shutdown. Dozens of federal employees rallied at Boston’s Post Office Square in protest of the government shutdown on Friday Jan. 11, the first day that thousands of federal workers did not receive their paychecks. In December, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously…
‘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…