Tuesday, November 12th 2019

A woman sits on her possessions under an umbrella in Harvard Square.

Traveling through Harvard Square today, I stop by the homeless guy with all the clever signs outside the Coop.  Today’s reads:  “GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY.”

Then I cross the street to give a package to this petite woman sitting under an umbrella on her pile of stuff.  (See photo above.)  Her sign reads, simply:  “Got empathy?” 

Around the corner I stop by a man selling the homeless newspaper.  We get into an animated discussion about local and national politics.  He is especially tuned to local fraud in the Boston Police and abuses of the parole system, as well as the impact of a Republican Administration on Supreme Court appointments.  His name is Clifton and he lets me take his picture.

Clifton sells Spare Change News

Then across from the Unitarian Church where I got married sits a man, IN THE RAIN, smoking a small cigar.  With his cup in one hand and the package I gave him in the other, he holds the cigar between his teeth and says, “Godblessyou.”

Man sits against a wall in the rain trying to collect change from passersby

Then I read some of the Spare Change Newspaper for a… change, and am astonished by the breadth of its coverage; from the rehabilitation of child soldiers in Syria, to environmental protection efforts around a river in Bangladesh, to the homeless crisis in San Francisco, to the Americorps program and -not surprisingly- the connection between homelessness and lack of access to healthcare.   Dang, I never recognized it as a legitimate source of journalism before.  Check it out!

Spare Change News

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