Category: News
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Boston Has One of Nation’s Highest Homeless Rates
New research shows that while homelessness in the United States may be down overall, it’s still rising in the most expensive rental markets. And Boston has one of the highest homeless rates. Christopher Glynn, assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire, is one of the lead authors of the national Zillow-sponsored study. The researchers…
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Should the Boston School Committee be elected?
The night of Dec. 11 was cold and biting, but didn’t keep Boston’s residents from making their way to City Hall to attend a nearly three hour hearing, where people spoke of accountability, racial and class discrimination, and freedom when debating the governance structure of the Boston School Committee. Two panels spoke in stark opposition…
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Climate activists and congress members push for a Green New Deal
Sunrise Movement held a protest on Capitol Hill. Photo: Ken Schles. “We’re gonna fix our climate, we’re gonna clean our air, and we’re gonna put people to work,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said to a crowd of protesters in front of the John F. Kennedy School of Government on Wednesday, December 5. She was joined by incoming…
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We Need More Than Words to Fix Boston’s Problems
Last week I went to a Boston City Council meeting where Annissa Essaibi-George presented a resolution to double-down on the council’s efforts to address hunger and homelessness. It’s a nice gesture, and I believe the councilor’s heart is in the right place. Some may see it, though, as a photo-op. Others may be even more…
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Most Mass. communities fall short of state affordable housing goal
The Comprehensive Permit Act, usually called 40B, set a goal for Massachusetts towns and cities nearly five decades ago: develop at least 10 percent of local housing to be affordable in the long term for low or middle income residents. As of a late 2017 Department of Housing and Community Development report, just 67 of…
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Ending Youth Homelessness: An Interview With the Associate Director of the Massachusetts Homeless Coalition
Kelly Turley (second from right), Associate Director of the Massachusetts Homeless Coalition, talks to Spare Change News about the challenge of ending youth homelessness in the Commonwealth. On any given night in Massachusetts, hundreds of unaccompanied young adults and youth are homeless for a variety of reasons. According to the 2017 Massachusetts Youth Count conducted by…
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Global Turbulence: How Easy It Is To Become Homeless
One day you are in Paradise; the next day Paradise is aflame and everyone who lives there is either homeless or dead. There are many homeless people in California but now, a whole town named Paradise has been burnt to the ground and nothing remains. In the outlying areas, there are tent cities in Walmart…
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Uninsured Rate Up 50 Percent for Massachusetts’ Children
Across the country, the number of children without health insurance rose in 2017 for the first time in eight years, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. The research found no state made progress to get more children insured between 2016 and 2017, including Massachusetts. The Commonwealth saw…