Category: Opinion
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Lost Causes
This election season has brought a degree of polarization that surpasses any previous election I can recall. Beyond politics, there seems to be an increased tendency to judge one another as being worthy or unworthy. The two leading candidates have paid lip service to visions for an America that serves all citizens, but that idealistic…
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Don’t Feed the Homeless, It Only Encourages Them
Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs, in 1988. “Street feeding programs without comprehensive services actually increase and promote homelessness”—Marbut Consulting. Over 70 cities in the United States have passed laws banning or restricting the sharing of free food with the poor outside. A new theory being used to justify limits to the sharing of meals…
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LONG LIVE FREE PRESS!
Navigating double parked delivery trucks, pedestrians walking in the street with faces glued to screens and deferring to bikers tends to make driving in Cambridge feel a bit like playing a video game. I couldn’t help but smile last week, however, when I had to stop my car in the middle of Mt Auburn street…
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Remembering Liam Cunningham
I have a confession to make. When I took over as editor of SCN in 2010, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had just graduated from Bunker Hill Community College and I was in WAY over my head. On top of that, I was quickly told we didn’t have the…
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Addressing Homelessness with a New Lens
When people look around the Cambridge/Boston area they see great universities, a thriving economy, innovation and new construction. Yet, surrounded by all of this wealth, we often lose sight of the fact that there are many in our community who are struggling. They are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table and pay…
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Election Issues: Minimum Wage
The minimum wage has been a very contentious issue in many local governments and state houses, but this year, the issue could be a focal point in the presidential race. It’s important to know that for an increase in the federal minimum wage to occur, the Democrats would have to win the house and senate,…
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Readers Respond
As the executive director of the Homeless Empowerment Project, which publishes Spare Change News, I had the privilege of getting to see all of the responses to Robert Sondak’s survey that ran last month. It was moving to see how many of you took the time to fill out the survey, which included 10 questions…
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Election Issues: Student Loans
Over the next few months, I will explain the finance and economic issues that are going to be important in the upcoming presidential election. In this issue, we will look at student loans, which are a very important issue. College tuition has become increasingly expensive and many students and their families are finding that the…
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Writing for SCN: A Vendor’s Perspective
The 2008 economic recession cost me my newspaper distributor job at Boston Now and opened up new opportunities for me at Spare Change News. After selling Spare Change News for two weeks, I answered a posting by then-editor Emily Johnson stating that she was looking for someone to write a story on community gardening. I…
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4,000 Miles Later: Discovering vulnerability and truth while running across the country.
People say habits are formed in 21 days. I say lessons are learned in 49. At least, that was the case for me this summer as I ran across the country with a group of 22 young adults raising money and awareness for young adult cancer. The opportunity to run for the Ulman Cancer Fund’s…