Silvestri went on, “When you give the people this much and you show them a little respect, do you know what they do? They clean. They help. They want a place to be warm and that’s it. They don’t want to bother anyone. They don’t want to ruin anything.” Someone interrupted to lament, erroneously, that the senior center was being used as a homeless center instead of a senior center, but that isn’t what is happening at all. The center is only used by seniors during the day, and the city council’s plan would leave one floor open in the evenings after the center is closed to keep people warm. Anyone using the facility for warming benefits would be gone before the center was reopened to seniors the following day.
The woman who interrupted retorted, “You’re forgetting about the seniors and you want us to vote for you?”
Silvestri then exploded: “Why? Why are we forgetting about you?” He was understandably frustrated as there was no imposition on seniors in this plan whatsoever, there was simply the idea of a shared space that seniors would walk into later on. “You want to know what? We’re talking about people’s lives here. And you know what? If I have to lose some votes to save some lives, then I will do so! Because you want to know what?! People are going to die in the street, and if you’re going to look at them in the face and say you’re okay with that, then be so! But you know what? I’m not! I’m not okay with burying people because it’s 15 degrees out!”
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Silvestri spoke with reporters, telling the Boston Globe that his tour of Afghanistan was cut short after he suffered a traumatic brain injury. He said his feelings about this situation were personal as he dealt with pain medication addiction and at a certain point could have been in the same circumstances as many people left out in the cold. “At any moment, I could have been in that situation or very close for several years to needing a warming shelter or a safe place to sleep at night. This could be not just for someone who doesn’t have a home. It could be for my family, for your family, if a pipe bursts, the heat goes out at night.”
He told NewsCenter 5 he understood why people were leery: “There’s a lot of stigma behind addiction. There’s a lot of stigma behind homelessness, and I think that’s what’s basing the fear.
Silvestri told WCVB Channel 5 Boston: “I needed help just like some of these people do. Unapologetically, if I have to lose a few votes to save a few lives, that’s going to be the hill I’ll die on.” Hear hear!
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The Republican Party seems locked in a death spiral of unpopular anti-American rights policies. They seem to believe that the most important things to America are taking away people’s rights to choose what they do with their bodies and Hunter Biden’s junk. Kerry and Markos were right in their hypothesis about the midterms and they have predictions for the upcoming year and 2024.
