homelessness Archives

As Greater Boston Housing Costs Soar, Advocates Confront Tent Bans, Sweeps, And Cuts

Catching up with Warm Up Boston about tent sweeps, shelter limits, drug dangers, and the criminalization of people living on streets

OLIVIA DENG August 21, 2025

Collage of a young Jason Pramas overlaid over a photo of Out of Town News in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass.

Out Of Town News And Me

My brief and tumultuous tenure working at the famed Harvard Square newsstand was nothing if not formative

JASON PRAMAS June 26, 2025

50 YEARS OF HOMELESS ADVOCACY IN CAMBRIDGE

An interview with First Church Shelter Director Jim Stewart

ADAM SENNOTT January 9, 2024

UNHOUSED STUDENTS

“The instability of housing for families often creates anxiety and a sense of uncertainty.”

ADAM SENNOTT December 18, 2023

RUNNING A SHELTER, BUT VYING FOR PERMANENT HOUSING

“We’re very under-stocked with housing opportunities. Since we had 52 people in the shelter, getting housing for only 12 of them means that there were a lot left out. So we’re in desperate need of additional housing.”

COHAVIT GIL December 12, 2023

THE WAITING GAME

He’s been to shelters, he has a case worker, doctors will help him—but how much longer can he wait? Meet Billy, one of the many sources informing “Cambridge Unhoused,” who sells Spare Change News in Central Square

CHRIS FARAONE December 5, 2023

IN MASS, A LACK OF COORDINATION HAMPERS EFFORTS TO HELP THE UNHOUSED

“We don’t have a network of communication between the communities, so it’s very easy for people to slip through the cracks, which is not good for them.”

ADAM SENNOTT November 16, 2023

HOUSING FIRST IN MASSACHUSETTS, EXPLAINED

Studies show that permanent supportive housing works, including in Massachusetts. Here’s how it has worked so far, how it could work on a larger scale, and what’s holding it back.

COHAVIT GIL November 9, 2023

“REBUILDING RELATIONSHIPS” AT HARVARD SQUARE’S UNIQUE YOUTH HOMELESS SHELTER

“You’re coming into a space that is primarily filled with people that are in your age range, and I think in any world that’s a safer space to be.”

ADAM SENNOTT November 6, 2023

FOLLOWING UP WITH A FAMILY FORCED OUT BY FLAMES

“In about five minutes, everything we had was all ashes, and there was nothing we could do about it.”

FRANK CHEN November 2, 2023