Category: Homelessness & Poverty
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VENDOR VOICES: When I was homeless
For me, the 1980s was a time of creativity, a lot of stress and homelessness. I left Boston after six years and went on to complete my associates’ degree at a suburban Long Island college. Once I got back to New York, I registered with a temporary employment agency and worked in my first full-time…
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WHAT ARE YOU?: Transgender women face risks in gendered shelters
By Sabrina Caserta Laze Ma coats her eyes with dark liner, adding a few sparkles for fun. She dabs her lips with plum gloss and picks out her favorite dress. Even though she’s been chronically homeless for six years, she’ll do everything in her power not to look it. “I used to wear towels on…
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OLYMPIC DISPLACEMENT: Boston 2024 opponents discuss the games' history of displacement
If history does in fact repeat itself, Boston’s herculean efforts to host the Olympics in 2024 will result in pushing out the city’s “undesirables,” including a “not in our backyard” attitude toward the growing homeless population. Opponents of Boston’s Olympics bid hosted a panel to discuss the games’ history of displacement and whether Boston could…
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VOICES FROM THE STREET: A certain sadness
I, along with millions of others, watched the events that unfolded in Baltimore last week. Like so many others, I was also angered and saddened by what went down. It’s a scene that has become all too familiar over the last year. A young black man was killed by the police, seemingly without provocation. Freddie…
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GREAT DONATION: Sixth-graders donate cereal to Pine Street Inn
Have you ever heard of someone wanting or needing 407 boxes of cereal? Well, that’s exactly what we, sixth graders at Pierce School in Brookline, collected in our cereal drive for the Pine Street Inn, an organization that works to provide shelter for homeless men and women. At Pierce School, we would usually collect toiletries…
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HOMEWARD BOUND: Housing chief and adovcates demand more funding
At a Boston City Council budget hearing on May 5, the mayor’s chief of housing and local advocates called for increased funds to the housing budget—albeit in different ways. Councilors first heard from Sheila Dillon, Boston’s chief of housing and director of the Department of Neighborhood Development (DND). Dillon, on behalf of Boston Mayor Marty…
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Y2Y SHELTER: Youth shelter coming to Harvard Square
Y2Y Harvard Square recently unveiled plans to open the nation’s first student-run shelter for young adults aged 18 to 24 at 3 Church Street. This new overnight youth shelter is scheduled to open on November 1 at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church. The shelter will house 20 youths per night, seven nights a week,…
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CRISIS MODE: Long Island refugees demand state intervention
Advocates marched and rallied on Thursday, April 23 to call for the state to replace the beds and programs that were lost after the city closed the Long Island shelter and detox unit last October. They say that the city has not done enough to help displaced homeless people and recovering addicts. “We’re here to…
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HOMELESS MOBILIZR: Group connects the homeless with Internet access
In Harvard Square, the paths of the smartest students in the world cross every day the paths of those who spend day and night trying to find a place to stay safe and warm. “One thing that I was immediately struck by was the volume of homelessness on the street,” says Cindy Yang, a student…
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SIX MONTHS: Activists rally outside of Boston's City Hall
On April 8, six months to the day after the city of Boston closed the Long Island bridge, homelessness and substance abuse treatment activists rallied outside city hall and scored an impromptu meeting with the chief of health and human services. The rally and a follow up press conference was organized by the Boston Homeless…