Tag: James Shearer
-
VOICES FROM THE STREETS: A wake-up call
In an interview for the last issue of Spare Change News, I spoke a little about the last time I was homeless four years ago. It didn’t last very long, about three or four months, but it was just a tad traumatic for me. And yes, traumatic is a bit of a strong word. But…
-
VOICES FROM THE STREET: Thinking of you, Willa
It’s maddening as a writer when you’re working on your column and you’re way past deadline. Then something pops up. It makes you stop the presses and restart as I’m doing now. I don’t like it but if I don’t get this out it would be lost. By now everyone on the planet has seen…
-
LAST WORD: James Shearer
If it wasn’t for James Shearer and the independent news outlet he co-founded in 1992, homeless people on the streets of this city would be seen but not necessarily heard. While mainstream publications like the Boston Globe occasionally run stories on homelessness, their perspective is usually limited to a trip to a shelter and a…
-
VOICES FROM THE STREET: Voices of the homeless
A few years ago, as I was about to become president of the board at the Homeless Empowerment Project, I found myself walking through Boston’s Back Bay to clear my head and think about the huge responsibility I was about to take on. I was making my way through the T station there when I…
-
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…
-
Observations
James Shearer Spare Change News As fall closes in, I have been watching a few things. Maybe you have, as well. 1. This whole Occupy thing. The Wall Street protests have finally reached Boston, big-time. The protests, which started off as a small rally at an area of the Greenway near the financial district, have…
-
Homeless Again, Part 3
James Shearer Spare Change News I’d forgotten how cruel and unfeeling life on the streets can sometimes be. In the years when I was on street, I would sometimes see myself as a hero. The good guy. The knight in shinning armor. Sometimes it played out well, but more often than not everything blew up…
-
Stupid Human Tricks Part Duh
It never, well almost never amazes me at the stupidity of some people when it comes to certain things, take the latest idea around homelessness, The state legislature the same folks who brought us the budget crisis are now considering a bill to ban sex offenders from shelters, Check that homeless sex offenders from homeless shelters…