Greater Boston Legal Services Vandalized
This morning, I read a Globe column, "Green with Idiocy" by Yvonne Abraham that made my stomach turn. It was a diatribe, as it rightly should have been, against the mob of revelers who smashed all of the windows of Greater Boston Legal Services after the Celtics win last week. Next to her column, Abraham attached a video which I've also embedded below (you will only be able to view it if your computer is not behind a firewall). Watching it will make you as red in the face as I am right now.
Greater Boston Legal Services is a United Way partner agency that provides free civil legal assistance to low-income people in Greater Boston. Through their housing services they offer legal assistance to individuals and families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and groups that represent tenants in substandard housing and the homeless. This is a good agency. And the damage will likely cost them a great sum of money to fix.
I love that this is a sports town. I love that feeling when you realize your team has clinched it all. But being a title-town should never be about this kind of destruction.
Outrageous
I can't believe this story! Well, I guess, sadly, I can. I think this not only speaks to a cultural problem where houligans decide a good way to celebrate is to break stuff, but also to a lack of appreciaton and understanding for the role nonprofits play in our community. I simply don't understand the concept that breaking other people's things - cars, windows, signs, etc. - makes you feel good. But, I'll set that debate aside right now.
I wonder if these people would have chosen to vandalize GBLS if they had the understanding of what they do each and every day. I'd like to think that it's pure ignorance and that people who knew better would do better. GBLS and other legal services organizations like them play a vital role in our community. They represent people in a variety of legal issues, often taking on the folks least able to pay with the most complicated challenges. Now GBLS will have to redirect some its funds away from serving people who need help reversing an unfair eviction process, or obtaining legal work permits to they can support their family in order to repair the damages brought on by people who just didn't think about what they were really doing.
If only the same amount of people would celebrate every day victories made by GBLS and nonprofits all over Massachusetts...
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