Like any good Greater Bostonian, I always dutifully bought each new issue of Spare Change News when it came out every other Friday. Jesse, my Spare Change vendor who sells the paper in Court Square, not too far from the State House in Boston, was a very nice guy. He was big on the mission…
New Editor Named at Spare Change News
The Homeless Empowerment Project/Spare Change News recently announced the hiring of its new editor-in-chief. The Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, author, Gods, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Race, Religion, and the Future of Democracy, was hired to replace outgoing editor-in-chief Tom Benner, whose family is relocating to Singapore. Sekou also previously served on the board of the…
Hubway pedals into Cambridge
Robert Sondak Spare Change News After four months of planning, Hubway Boston’s regional bike share program, an alternative transportation system which is both environmental friendly and pollution free, launched service in Cambridge the week of Monday July 30. The opening of five bike stations represents the first wave of Hubway service coming to Cambridge. The…
An Underdog’s Approach
James Shearer Spare Change News The other day a student who was doing a project on Spare Change asked me why I do what I do? Meaning helping the homeless, and why I’m so dedicated to it? And what led me to sticking with Spare Change? Even though I was vocal about how it wouldn’t…
A Controlled Dangerous Substance Act (Part Three)
Marc D. Goldfinger Spare Change News Start at the beginning with A Controlled Dangerous Substance Act Part I (Dean, his wife Brenda, their friends Billie & Chrissie are all in the holding pens in Orange, New Jersey. The police are trying to get Dean to turn over his connection, offering freedom with lesser charges for…
The Poetry of Alexis Ivy
Alexis Ivy lives in Brighton, Massachusetts. Her recent poems have appeared in Main Street Rag, Off the Coast, Common Ground Review, The Chiron Review, Tar River Poetry, and is upcoming in J Journal and Eclipse. Her poetry collection Romance with Small-Time Crooks will be published by BlazeVOX in 2013. DEATH ROW Texas has taken the…
Kamikaze Moods: Based On a True Story
Jacques Fleury Spare Change News Kamikaze: of or pertaining to a suicidal attack by a Japanese airplane pilot in World War II. — Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition Seuqcaj woke up one morning in the year 2000 and felt the white walls in his apartment closing in on him. At first, he thought…
Why the Wealthy Should Worry About Inequality
Mike Reilly International Network of Street Papers The work of Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and former Chief Economist for the World Bank, is recognized worldwide. He has written a long string of books, numerous papers and a wide variety of essays and articles, many focusing on equilibrium in the…
Howard Zinn at 90 — Lessons from the People's Historian
Bill Bigelow Common Dreams This Friday — August 24 — would have been the 90th birthday of the great historian and activist Howard Zinn, who died in 2010. Zinn did not merely record history, he made it: as a professor at Spelman College in the 1950s and early 1960s, where he was ultimately fired for…
Empty Condos Hold Opportunity in U.S. Housing Crunch
Matthew Cardinale IPS Large cities like New York and Chicago, which have been grappling with a lack of affordable apartments combined with an abundance of vacant, unaffordable condos, are now trying to turn some of those empty condo units into rentals, with varying levels of affordability. Recent changes in the U.S. economy and the housing…