Tag: Spare Change News

  • LAST WORD: James Shearer

    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

    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…

  • LAST WORD: Beatrice Bell

    LAST WORD: Beatrice Bell

    It’s the morning of Good Friday at Spare Change News, and Beatrice Bell, one of the newspaper’s longest-serving reporters, is telling me an amazing story. At the age of seven, after a terrible asthma attack, she found herself having one of those life-changing experiences that are called, in the literature, “near-death.” For three days, which…

  • EXCLUSIVE: Boston’s Long Island slotted for Olympic shooting range

    EXCLUSIVE: Boston’s Long Island slotted for Olympic shooting range

    The Boston 2024 Olympic committee hopes to use Long Island for an Olympic shooting event, should Boston win its bid to host the Summer Games. The event would feature a 57-acre venue that could seat 7,000 spectators. The proposed idea and many other Olympic plans were revealed when Boston 2024 made its bid documents publicly…

  • FORGOTTEN WOMEN? Southampton Street shelter will be a men's-only facility

    FORGOTTEN WOMEN? Southampton Street shelter will be a men's-only facility

    The new shelter on Southampton Street in Boston’s South End, built over a two-and-a-half-week period, is located less than a five minute walk from the Woods-Mullen Shelter and the Barbara McInnis House. City leaders came together to prepare the transportation sign building located at 112 Southampton St. The new shelter will house 100 homeless men.…

  • GIMME SHELTER: Mayor Walsh unveils Southampton Street shelter

    GIMME SHELTER: Mayor Walsh unveils Southampton Street shelter

    Three months after the Long Island bridge was closed, the city has a new location for a long-term shelter. Located at 112 Southampton St. in the South End, the new facility operates in what used to be a sign store for the transportation department. The two-floor building is not fully finished or operational yet, but…

  • Ten Questions with Boston's New Mayor

    Ten Questions with Boston's New Mayor

    BOSTON, Mass.—On January 6, Martin J. “Marty” Walsh was sworn in as the 54th mayor of Boston after serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 2007. SPARE CHANGE NEWS was able to catch up with Walsh before his inauguration for a quick phone conversation about homelessness, housing and gun violence in the city.  …

  • Foreclosures, Economic Inequality Draw Diverse Group in Protests

    Nakia Hill Spare Change News Economic inequalities, social injustices, foreclosures, and $5 debit card fees brought together a variety of people for Take Back Boston on Friday, September 30. White-collar workers, activists, immigrants, LGBT citizens, low-income citizens, youth, and the elderly all marched together from Boston Common to Bank of America’s Headquarters on Federal Street.…

  • New housing policy won’t fit all sizes

    Chalkey Horenstein Spare Change News The last few issues of Spare Change have familiarized the readers with a program called HomeBASE, which is intended for fighting homelessness. Much like the programs Flex Funds and Diversion that came before it, their “housing first” strategy pays a portion of the tenant’s rent for a certain period of…

  • Top Lieutenant: Kevin Weeks writes about 25 years with Whitey Bulger

    Adam Sennott Spare Change News For 25 years, he was James “Whitey” Bulger’s right-hand man and one of his closest friends. “[He] was a guy that taught me a lot, there was a friendship there. I really believed in him,” said Kevin Weeks, Bulger’s former top lieutenant . “And now I look here and I…