Homeless Like Me Helping to Connect Estranged Family
The best thing about being a digital journalist on the homelessness beat is that the viral nature of the internet can reconnect people with estranged family members who might be living on the streets. Here’s hoping such is the case with Greg Boisselle, whom I met while reporting the Homeless Like Me project. Boisselle told [...]
‘Homeless Like Me’ Project Catches Media’s Attention
If any good came from my Thanksgiving weekend Homeless Like Me project, it might be that it focused some attention on the people without homes rather than homelessness as a social ill or what some call the homeless industrial complex. Tim White hosted an excellent conversation about it on Newsmakers this weekend. (The segment on [...]
Drinking Liberally Hosts “Sock It to Homelessness”
In a fitting follow up to Bob Plain’s five part series “Homeless Like Me,” Drinking Liberally Providence will showcase the important work of the RI Coalition for the Homeless tomorrow night, Wednesday November 28 from 7pm – 9pm at Wild Colonial Tavern. Participants are encouraged to bring new pairs or packages of socks to donate [...]
Homeless Like Me: Project Doesn’t Portray Problem
Homelessness in Rhode Island, by and large, does not look like it does in the dispatches I filed during my 48 hours of living on the streets and in a shelter. In fact, the slice of homelessness that I portrayed plays to the worst stereotypes about those without homes: that they are drunks, drug addicts, [...]
Homeless Like Me: Lost Stars of Harrington Hall
Sleeping at Harrington Hall, the overnight shelter in Cranston, is something of a mix between being in prison and being at a frat house for old men. The very spacious, former gymnasium/auditorium at the Pastore Center state services campus, was even once a part of the prison system. The building somehow related to the psych [...]
Homeless Like Me: Drugs on the Streets of Providence
One of the most common reasons people are homeless is because of substance abuse. This isn’t reason to shun them. Alcoholism and drug dependency are diseases, and diseases aren’t easy to overcome all by yourself. Especially not when every single aspect of life is a struggle, as can be the case when your homeless. It [...]
Homeless Like Me: Sleeping on the State House Lawn
Words can’t describe how thankful I am for the spate of warm weather this Thanksgiving weekend. I’m sure the thousands of other people who spent the night sleeping on streets of Providence would concur. Because I know the area, it’s well protected, grassy and soft and – most importantly – close to other humans in [...]
Homeless Like Me: Thanksgiving, Billy Cormier, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church
Billy Cormier became the first fellow I connected with as I began my 48 hours of living on the streets of Providence when, by way of introducing myself, I walked up to the park bench he was sitting on in Burnside Park and asked him where the free meal was. I had talked to a [...]
Homeless Like Me: 48 Hours on the Streets of Providence
As you sit down to your second helping of Thanksgiving dinner to watch the Patriots game on your big screen TV, please take a moment to think about the almost 5,000 of your neighbors here in the Ocean State who are homeless.
As you settle in for the second half, and maybe a third helping of turkey with all the fixings, they will either be vying for one of the too few beds at the local shelters. Or, worse, looking for a place to sleep outside for the night.
And I’m going to be there with them. I’m celebrating Thanksgiving this year by spending 48 hours on the streets of Providence.
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