In Honor of Black History Month

By Joe Finn, MHSA President & Executive Director Our cultural view of history often takes what one might refer to as the “Great Person” approach. It zeroes in on admittedly talented and gifted persons who led great movements, impacted our government, invented something critical, wrote significant pieces of literature or made some other great contribution…

Thank You, Marylou Sudders

By Joe Finn, MHSA President & Executive Director Sometime in the early 1990s, while I was still at Father Bill’s Place in Quincy, I had the somewhat dubious honor of meeting Marylou Sudders. She was then the Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health (DMH). I had come to see her, quite upset with the…

Thank You for Your Service

By Joe Finn, MHSA President & Executive Director If conservatives find you too liberal, and liberals find you too conservative, then chances are, you must be doing something right. It means, perhaps, that you are approaching governance from a perspective of what is right to do under any given set of circumstances. In my mind,…

We Must Remember, We Must Speak Out

By Joe Finn, MHSA President & Executive Director Twelve years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Israel as a part of the Boston-Haifa Connection sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. I met with municipal workers dealing with an emerging homeless street population on the streets of Haifa and visited the…