“The Pencilsword: On a plate”

“Meet the outsider who accidentally solved chronic homelessness”

“Homeless services once worked like a reward system. Kick an addiction, get a home. Take some medication, get counseling. But Tsemberis’s model, called “housing first,” said the order was backward. Someone has the best…

“DEAR NORTH SIDERS: STOP ACTING LIKE CHICAGO DOESN’T HAVE A SOUTH SIDE”

“Our part of town has a few distinctions as well, but unfortunately, to the greater part of Chicagoland, the South Side is defined as a war-torn shit sandwich — aka “Chiraq” — filled with gangs battling over…

“The Town Where Everyone Got Free Money: The ‘Mincome’ Experiment”

“Between 1974 and 1979, the Canadian government tested the idea of a basic income guarantee (BIG) across an entire town, giving people enough money to survive in a way that no other place in North America has before…

“Buy These Pajamas & Rescue a Prostitute; Or, Why Rescue Brands Are Dumb”

“The actual ad copy is “Created by women in India who wish to remain free of sex slavery.” I wonder if were there other contenders for the spot of the word “wish”? “Wish” is nuts — so breezily hopeful…

“Uber Drivers in California Are Employees, Labor Commission Rules”

““The defendants hold themselves out as nothing more than a neutral technological platform, designed simply to enable drivers and passengers to transact the business of transportation,” the commission wrote in its…

“Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant”

“Even self-identified Tea Party Republicans respond three to two in favor of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Every other group — Republicans in general, independents and especially Democrats — is largely pro-immigrant.

“Your Waitress, Your Professor”

“In class I emphasize the value of a degree as a means to avoid the sort of jobs that I myself go to when those hours in the classroom are over. A colleague in my department labeled these jobs (food and beverage, retail and customer service — the only legal work in…