Category: Political
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Salvadoran Deportations: U.S. Rejects Refugees From Country it Helped Destabilize
Carrying a red plastic bag containing an old pair of shoes and a few other belongings, David Antonio Pérez arrives in El Salvador, deported from the United States. David Antonio, 42, is a divorced father of two who has lived in the U.S. for a total of 12 years. He has spent five years in…
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Housing Justice Activists Rally to Support Jim Brooks Act and Keep Tenants From Eviction
Over 150 people took to the streets of Roxbury on Saturday, March 17 to stand in solidarity with tenants facing eviction in the area, and to urge a state house vote on the Jim Brooks Act which would potentially curb housing displacement in Boston. Despite the rally’s large attendance and political support, the Massachusetts General…
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Boston Takes to the Streets to Show Solidarity With Student Led ‘March For Our Lives’
On March 24, thousands marched from Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Roxbury to Boston Common for March for Our Lives, a rally held worldwide to protest gun violence following the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. Leonor Muñoz, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student, stood alongside her sister,…
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Housing is a Human Right: Homelessness in the Shadow of Wealth
Leilani Farha doesn’t want to live in a world where people have to negotiate to use the bathroom. She doesn’t want to live in a world where residents in the United States, the richest country on the planet, live in encampments infested with rats. Farha doesn’t want to live in a world where people are…
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Allston Residents Apprehensive About Being Priced Out as Expensive Developments Rise
In the span of one year, businesses like like Kirin, Patron’s, Pikaichi, Soulfire, and Sunset Grill close, to name a few, leaving a void on the streets of Allston. At the same time, the skies above Allston-Brighton neighborhood are punctured by towering buildings and condos: the construction of the Boston Landing station and nearby apartments,…
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Black or White, They’re All Just Kids
A couple of weeks ago, not long after the school shooting in Florida, NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesh made this statement while speaking at the CPAC meeting: “Now I’m going to say something that some people will say is controversial. So I’ll say it slowly so all the people in the back can hear me loud…
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Boston Area Workers Defend the Constitutionality of Unions
In just one of 11 rallies across the state of Massachusetts hundreds of union workers crowded outside of the Boston Firehouse, Monday, March 3 to raise their voices against a pivotal Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of imposing union fees in the public sector. The opening remarks of Janus v. American Federation of State…
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From Bulgaria to Switzerland: A Street Odyssey with a Dog and a Cat
“I know about life on the street. I would paint there every day and was in contact with lots of people for whom the street was their home.” Sitting on the cozy and somewhat worn sofa in his small apartment in Zollikofen, no-one would guess that Slavcho Slavov, whom everyone calls Slavo, has lived through…
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Stuck in Section 8 Purgatory: Waitlist For Subsidized Housing Leaves Families In The Cold
When your application for state housing assistance is accepted, the wait list can stretch to up to seven years long. If you need Section 8 assistance for your young family, I hope you’re ready for a decade-plus wait. Hundreds of individual applications for housing can be filled out with nary a positive response. That is…
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Ursula K. Le Guin Stands up for the Arts
Ursula K. Le Guin, who has been called “America’s greatest science fiction writer”, passed away this week at the age of 88. Before her death, she spoke to Portland’s Street Roots. In this conversation, she voiced her support for a free press, arguing that is liberty in action – something that terrifies those who want…