Spare Change News

Category: Profiles

  • The Welfare Vote

    In early August, I received a voter registration letter and application from the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA). I remarked that DTA was doing their job — perhaps because of a voting rights lawsuit brought against the agency in December of 2011. The lawsuit was brought by NY-based independent think-tank, Demos, and New England United…

  • Nuns on the Bus

    Sister Simone Campbell gets off the bus in Columbus, Ohio, a day that included a visit to House Speaker John Boehner’s office. The tour was organized by NETWORK, a social justice advocacy group which is run by Catholic Sisters. The tour was intended to highlight the work Sisters do, meet the people they serve and…

  • First Person: A Paper With A Future

    First Person: A Paper With A Future

    Like any good Greater Bostonian, I always dutifully bought each new issue of Spare Change News when it came out every other Friday. Jesse, my Spare Change vendor who sells the paper in Court Square, not too far from the State House in Boston, was a very nice guy. He was big on the mission…

  • New Editor Named at Spare Change News

    New Editor Named at Spare Change News

    The Homeless Empowerment Project/Spare Change News recently announced the hiring of its new editor-in-chief. The Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, author, Gods, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Race, Religion, and the Future of Democracy, was hired to replace outgoing editor-in-chief Tom Benner, whose family is relocating to Singapore. Sekou also previously served on the board of the…

  • An Underdog’s Approach

    James Shearer Spare Change News The other day a student who was doing a project on Spare Change asked me why I do what I do? Meaning helping the homeless, and why I’m so dedicated to it? And what led me to sticking with Spare Change? Even though I was vocal about how it wouldn’t…

  • Kamikaze Moods: Based On a True Story

    Jacques Fleury Spare Change News Kamikaze: of or pertaining to a suicidal attack by a Japanese airplane pilot in World War II. — Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition Seuqcaj woke up one morning in the year 2000 and felt the white walls in his apartment closing in on him. At first, he thought…

  • Why the Wealthy Should Worry About Inequality

    Mike Reilly International Network of Street Papers The work of Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and former Chief Economist for the World Bank, is recognized worldwide. He has written a long string of books, numerous papers and a wide variety of essays and articles, many focusing on equilibrium in the…

  • The Grand Champ of Women's Boxing: A Massachusetts fighter opens the door to first-ever women's Olympic boxing

    Noelle Swan Spare Change News NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court’s first woman justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, was still a newbie. Astronaut Sally Ride had just become the first woman in space. And Gail “The Champ” Grandchamp wanted into the Olympic boxing ring. She wanted it with all the ferocious energy…

  • After Aurora, Questions That Need to be Answered

    James Shearer Spare Change News Late last week, an unassuming gentleman walked calmly into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. With the exception of his outlandish clothing, nothing seemed out of place. It seemed to the folks who were there that he was just part of the show, which happened to be a special midnight…

  • Women On The Rise: Cambridge Organization Forges Personal Relationships within the Growing Female Homeless Community

    Zachary Goldhammer Spare Change News On The Rise, the name of the Cambridge women’s day shelter located at 341 Broadway in Cambridge, has recently taken on a new meaning. The phrase not only represents the ideological aims of the program—to rehabilitate women who have been left on the streets—but also an unfortunate reality: the number…