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This is the third article in an occasional semester-long series on homelessness in Harvard Square. Read the first and second installments here and here.
At the heart of Harvard Square, between restaurants Au Bon Pain and Yenching, Lauren Canon holds a sign asking for food. On the ground beside her, Canon’s boyfriend Justin Newton has a sign that reads “too broke to pay attention.”
As they wait, a woman coming out of Yenching hands them a bag of Chinese food. They pull out a camping utensil and begin eating.
“We’ll take whatever you want to get us,” Newton said. “You want to buy us Chinese food, we’ll take it. You want to buy us subs, we’ll take that. When we’re hungry, we’re not picky, we’ll take whatever you want to give us.”
For Canon and Newton, one of the benefits of living in Harvard Square is the abundance of restaurants. Canon said that the relationships between the businesses and the resident homeless are generally more cordial than what she experienced in Detroit or Burlington, Vermont.
John P. DiGiovanni, president of the Harvard Square Business Association, characterized the relationship as “quite good.”
Most Harvard Square business owners, DiGiovanni said, accept homelessness as a part of the Square’s culture.
“We are not Disney World, where you have anything just perfect and neat and really not authentic,” said DiGiovanni, who owns several Square properties including the Garage.
According to HSBA executive director Denise A. Jillson, some Square business owners address the issue of homelessness through donations that are directed to the root causes behind homelessness.
The HSBA, which includes more than 440 members, has fundraised for Youth on Fire, a daytime drop-in center for homeless youth, and the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. Some businesses also make individual food or financial donations.
Within this cordial relationship, however, store owners identified tensions, saying that the visible homeless population can detract from business and the shopping experience.
Anthony Allen, co-founder of Otto Pizza, said that the homeless who congregate outside his storefront have occasionally intimidated his customers and employees.
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