Category: Opinion
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Running on Empty Part 2: Doctor Shopping and Crowbar Dodging
The pharmacist had grey hair and his glasses rested down on a bump in the middle of his nose. The woman working the counter came over and I handed her the scripts. She asked me for my address and wrote it on the scripts. I hated when they did that if they didn’t cash them…
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Running On Empty In Vermont: Part One
I kept drinking the wine so the withdrawal from the Klonopin wouldn’t hit me. I didn’t want to have a seizure out here in the boondocks. My wife, Debbie, has already gone into detox at a place called Scatterberry Farm. St. Dismas House said they had a room for me, but it would not be…
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Violence on the Mile
Last week was quite a busy week on what has become known as Methadone Mile, a line of city blocks that goes down Melina Cass Blvd., where Southampton Shelter and many other shelters for the homeless are located. For quite some time now, there have been complaints about people openly using drugs on the mile,…
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Can’t go home-but why would I?
But why would I want to return to what was never a home in the first place? Today I have a home. I live with a family, my wife Mary Esther and her mother, and they love and nurture me in ways I can depend on. My birth parents brought me into the world, took…
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Are the Homeless Trump’s Next Target?
President Trump has been in the news once again for all the wrong reasons. He’s been attacking people of color and saying that they should all go back to where they came from, among other things, but there is one story that people and the media seem to have forgotten about. “It’s a phenomena that…
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Centuries of questions about homelessness
Let’s talk about a 12th century rabbi. I write about homelessness. So I often get asked questions like, “Yesterday I saw a homeless person. What should I have done? Would a dollar have solved the problem? What would the dollar have been spent on? Where do homeless people come from? Why don’t they go live with…
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OPINION: Finanical Literacy’s Role in Financial Stability
Spare Change News does not endorse any City Council candidates, and the content of this opinion column does not represent the views of Spare Change News, its staff, or its board. This opinion piece is by Hélène Vincent, a candidate for Boston City Council in District 8, which includes Mission Hill, Fenway/Kenmore, Back Bay, Beacon…
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Addiction: The Illness That Talks
After more than three decades of heroin addiction, I was on my way to detox again. I had been to at least 40 detoxes, some of which I completed and some of which I bolted out the door before they wanted me to, or as they call it “A.M.A.” (Against Medical Advice). Addiction is like…
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IDs For the Homeless are Common Sense
“Having an ID card is instrumental to giving folks pathways out of poverty,” says Molly Schulman, Community Organizer and Legislative Advocate with the Massachusetts Coalition For the Homeless. She, along with Associate Director Kelly Turley, are at the Massachusetts State House every day advocating on behalf of the homeless on everything from increasing funding for…
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Shelters Shouldn’t Do the State’s job
When I read that Pine Street Inn was planning to create 140 units of housing by putting up a five to six story building in Jamaica Plain I nearly fell over, and not from joy. For years I’ve been a staunch believer that shelter agencies, including Pine Street Inn, should not double as landlords. Why?…