4:30
It was a long winter for the handful of Pittsfielders living in the makeshift village tucked into the woods of Springside Park.
“Oh, it was brutal, said Paul. I ll give you that much, it was wicked brutal.”
Paul is one of the five people now calling the 240 acre park just north of downtown home. They opted to live outside in the spring of 2020 rather than face what they considered threatening conditions in city shelters when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“Just living in that cold, negative degree weather all the time, he told WAMC. Snow you have to dump off. No, nobody helped us. Imagine getting up at 4 o clock or 3 o clock or even earlier every morning to get the tent to get, just get, knock snow off your tent, you know, because you re afraid it s going to collapse on top and you freeze to death. You know? That s what these people don t understand. We don t have it easy out of here. They think we have an easy out here. We don t.”
Pittsfield
Massachusetts
United-states
Springside-park
Linda-tyer
Josh-landes
Michele-mathews
Jim-mcgrath
Natural-resource-program
Open-space
Natural-resource-program-manager-jim-mcgrath
Mayor-linda-tyer
6:21
The Berkshire Vaccine Collaborative is a coalition of county healthcare leaders, including Berkshire Health Systems, the county Boards of Health Association, Community Health Programs, Northern Berkshire EMS, the city of Pittsfield and more. For months, the collaborative has worked to distribute COVID-19 vaccines throughout the westernmost county in Massachusetts. This week, the collaborative said it’s beginning to scale down its larger clinics with almost half the county vaccinated. Collaborative spokesperson Jennifer Vrabel, Executive Director of Communications for Berkshire Health Systems, spoke with WAMC Josh Landes.
VRABEL: The most recent data released by the state shows that about 60% of county residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 43% have been fully vaccinated. An enormous number of those folks have been vaccinated by our large clinics in Pittsfield, North Adams amd Great Barrington. And we ve been able to serve so many people by collaborating
North-adams
Massachusetts
United-states
Great-barrington
Pittsfield
Berkshire
Adam-hinds
Josh-landes
Jennifer-vrabel
Community-health-programs
Berkshire-health-systems
Boards-of-health-association