Category: Columns
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Coming together to end homelessness
In the 25 plus years I’ve been involved with homelessness, whether it’s been personal experience or as an activist, the one question I always keep coming back to is: “Why can’t we solve it?” There are probably a million reasons why we haven’t, but it’s not happening, and you’d think that with the wealth of…
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IMMORTAL: Spare Change News is 25-years-old
If anyone had told me or any of the founders that Spare Change News would be here 25 years later, we would have shattered the windows of our old offices with the peals of very loud laughter. Hell, if you had told us at the end of 1992—after we’d moved to Old Cambridge Baptist Church—we…
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The man vs. the monster: Aaron Hernandez
Photo: Wikimedia Commons When I see the pictures of Aaron Hernandez being taken out of his beautiful house in handcuffs, I’m witnessing a tragedy. I don’t condone the man’s acts, but I know that it all took place in the pursuit of drugs. Addiction lays low the mighty and doesn’t discriminate. As everyone who’s reading…
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Tell Mass. legislators to step up funding for suicide prevention
A field of pinwheels represent suicide victims. Photo: Flickr Creative Commons I was recently asked to address a group of volunteers who wanted to talk to their representatives and senators about ensuring a small increase in the state budget’s line item for statewide suicide prevention in 2018, which is being discussed in the legislature now.…
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Comic addicts and signed book junkies
Photo credit: Wikimedia commons There are people who appear normal in everyday life but who are out there collecting comics, spending hours of their time like dope addicts, working feverishly to complete hard-to-come-by runs of particular issues. For example, #37 of “Swamp Thing” by Alan Moore is the first appearance of John Constantine, who has…
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Eight Dollars a Month: An Idea For Solving Homelessness
Some of the biggest problems we face in Boston are unemployment, city budgeting and understanding where our tax money is being spent. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the national debt equated to $59,143 per person or $159,759 per working taxpayer in March 2016. Having such a high debt ratio to the population,…
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Contribute to Spare Change News!
Dear readers, I wanted to introduce myself as the new editor-in-chief of Spare Change News and let you know how you can get involved with our organization! We’re looking for writers and volunteers of all sorts. I want to push SCN forward as a community newspaper in addition to a street paper — one capable of covering…
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The Doomsday Clock
The Doomsday Clock is calculated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It first appeared in 1947 when it evolved into a magazine from a newsletter. The Doomsday Clock symbolizes the urgency of nuclear and other dangers, as determined by the broader scientific community, which is trying to communicate the level of danger to the…
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Rising street paper star found dead on the street
Community organizer, activist, and editor-in-chief of the world’s newest street paper Raven Canon was found dead under a highway pavilion in Colorado Springs. On March 4, at 9:30 a.m., a homeless woman was found unresponsive on the streets of Colorado Springs, wrapped against the 29°F cold in a blanket. Raven Canon was at least the…
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Sound the alarm: HUD will face cuts under Carson
Spare Change News co-founder and columnist James Shearer. File photo For those of you who thought homelessness and poverty couldn’t get any worse, strap in. The new head of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson barely got his feet warm when the Trump administration revealed what’s in store for those on the bottom of the…