{"id":3959,"date":"2016-05-19T14:48:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T18:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/?p=3959"},"modified":"2016-10-21T12:13:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T16:13:59","slug":"cop-dines-with-homeless-mother-of-four-gets-kudos-her-plight-is-ignored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2016\/05\/19\/cop-dines-with-homeless-mother-of-four-gets-kudos-her-plight-is-ignored\/","title":{"rendered":"Cop dines with homeless mother of four, gets kudos. Her plight is ignored."},"content":{"rendered":"

Recent news blurbs\u00a0across our fair state, applaud a state trooper for “sharing lunch with a homeless mother of four<\/a>“. \u00a0(Headline language).<\/p>\n

This was noticed and photographed by a passerby; the trooper then identified by the state police and posted to their online\u00a0webpage\u00a0praising him for his good deed; a CBS affiliate spent hours tracking down both the photographer and the woman for a video interview. \u00a0They got quotes from her about: being a ‘homeless panhandler’, his common decency, and her surprise. \u00a0She was described by her motherhood, her panhandling, and being down on her luck.<\/p>\n

And that’s it! \u00a0Nothing thoughtful about why this young mother\u00a0is\u00a0homeless in Fall River, or what will become of her family. \u00a0No opportunities to reach out and fix a tragedy.\u00a0She clearly needs more than one good meal and healthcare, but the outpouring of interest in the viral photo is entirely directed towards\u00a0how and whether to applaud the police officer [who, quite decently, refused\u00a0to be interviewed], how this reflects on police officers everywhere, how this perhaps restores faith in humanity.<\/p>\n

(Update: It seems the trooper and one local news affiliate did find a way to help her temporarily with material support,\u00a0a bit after that event. And a few cases like this that have famously included a crowdfunding campaign. But the most newsworthy issue is: how does\u00a0this happen in our society, what can we do to fix that, and what permanent fixes could work for the\u00a0family in the spotlight.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent news blurbs\u00a0across our fair state, applaud a state trooper for “sharing lunch with a homeless mother of four“. \u00a0(Headline language). This was noticed and photographed by a passerby; the trooper then identified by the state police and posted to their online\u00a0webpage\u00a0praising him for his good deed; a CBS affiliate spent hours tracking down both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[216,218,219,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fly-by-wire","category-not-so-popular","category-rogue-content-editor","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-11R","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3959"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3987,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959\/revisions\/3987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}