Category: Opinion
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A Tale of Two Bridges: Marty Walsh Sets Priorities with the FY2017 Boston City Budget
On Wednesday June 22, Spare Change News co-founder James Shearer and I participated in a meeting between Mayor Martin J. Walsh and the Boston Homeless Solidarity Committee. Our “ask” was unsuccessful, even as I appreciated Walsh’s gracious manner. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for Marty Walsh, who appeared to be carrying the weight of…
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Homeless Families
The more I work with the homeless, the more I can’t help but see the multitude of barriers to housing that can arise, including lack of affordable housing, family violence, employment and education barriers and mental health issues. However, one issue that I think is often overlooked in our attempts to alleviate homelessness in Boston…
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Long Road to Recovery
Drug addiction destroys the “American dream” for many people. According to the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2014 approximately 25,000 men and women lost their lives due to prescription drug addiction. My mother, Betsy Cartagena, from Roxbury, Massachusetts, lost her chance at the dream when she…
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Ode to Orlando
For the past few days, I’ve been riddled with overwhelming emotions. Hurt, anguish, resentment, anger. The list goes on and on. I had these same emotions during the 9/11 attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing, the attack on Paris and the attack on Brussels. But the attacks in Orlando really hit me deeply because it was…
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Can Weed Help Homeless People in Massachusetts?
The short answer: yes, possibly. Last month, Colorado’s third largest city announced that it will use a portion of its revenue generated from tax on recreational cannabis to support homeless people and local city nonprofits. Aurora, Colo., expects to bring in $4.5 million from marijuana sales, according to the Aurora Sentinel. The City Council has plans…
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Understanding Homelessness: What It Is and Isn’t
Homelessness happens when people do not have safe and secure places to live. While this definition may sound quite simple, the causes of homelessness are often complicated and varied. For example, some causes include a house fire, economic strife, the loss of a job, a medical emergency, rising rents, a death in the family, addiction,…
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Mary McHale, Loving God by Serving Others
Mary McHale retired in 2009 after nearly forty years of volunteering at the Sancta Maria House, an all-women’s homeless shelter founded in the South End in 1972. She is still remembered fondly by many of the women whom she helped over the years. In McHale’s words, “I have friends from my old days that are…
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Vendor Voices: My Walk for Hunger
On Sunday May 1, I finally got up the courage to go out and participate in the Walk for Hunger. Granted, this year they’d shortened the walk to ten miles because of all the construction that was going on. But that didn’t matter: the point was that I was really doing it. I’d waited for…
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CCSC Students lead “Empathy Project”
Photo: Cynthia Abatt For the past four months, I’ve had the privilege of supervising two senior interns from the Community Charter School of Cambridge. Yusef Ferhani and Christy Felix have joined me each Wednesday to figure out practical ways to involve millennials in becoming part of the solution for America’s homelessness problem. Athletic, bright, attractive…
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Opinion: Homelessness service providers need more state funding
Homelessness knows no season. Many people feel compassion for men and women experiencing homelessness during a Massachusetts winter – when mountains of snow and bitterly cold temperatures can threaten the lives of people trying to get by and living on the street. Now that spring is finally setting in, it’s easier to forget that the…