Boston men find therapy through The Barbershop Clinic in Roxbury’s Nubian Square

🌂Grab an umbrella: 50-60% chance of showers, with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 6:37 p.m.

Today we have a story of group therapy that’s a cut above. But first: the union representing workers from Boston Health Care for the Homeless rallied yesterday to protest program cuts and low pay after the organization laid off about 25 employees, including some addiction recovery coaches.

“There’s no money to give us raises this year,” case manager Astrid Mora said. “So imagine our surprise when we learned that the nurses were receiving a 13% increase. And yes, our nurses deserve it, absolutely. But so do we.”

Fernando Gillis, whose recovery coach was one of the people laid off, came to support him.

“Who do I turn to if I have a bad day?” he asked. “Where’s my recovery coach?”

Boston Health Care for the Homeless’ leaders told GBH’s Craig LeMoult that their organization “is confronting one of the most difficult financial periods in our 40-year history. For the first time, we have had to make the painful decision to eliminate some positions,” they said in a statement.

Four Things to Know

1. Local immigration advocates are reporting more sightings of federal immigration agents in hospitals. While reported cases seem to be for people detained in other places who need medical care — not immigration agents targeting hospital patients — the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on hospital grounds can make patients and staff nervous.

“This was a pattern in May during the last surge, and LUCE got a lot of reports of ICE-related violence and ICE agents going into hospitals to take folks to medical care, and that’s really freaking out the staff and patients,” said Martha Durkee-Neuman, a volunteer with LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of MA. “We have gotten multiple calls at ICE outside of hospitals going in, accompanying people to appointments, things like that.”

2. An immigration judge granted asylum to Paul Dama, the manager of the restaurant Suya Joint in Nubian Square who was detained by ICE on his way to church in June. He came to the U.S. from Nigeria on a visitor visa in 2019, fleeing Boko Haram. Dama is today legally allowed to stay in the country, though he remains in ICE detention in New Hampshire. His asylum case is separate from his deportation proceedings.

“Going back to Nigeria would be like a death sentence to me,” Dama said during the hearing. “I was mentally and psychologically damaged. I had nightmares … It felt like I was being watched, like I was being followed around. I didn’t feel safe. I came here to have a normal life.”

3. Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett — two Black men wrongfully accused of the 1989 murder of Carol Stuart after her husband, Charles Stuart, lied to police about killing her — will get a total of $150,000 from the city of Boston in a legal settlement. Bennett will get $100,000 and Swanson $50,000.

Charles Stuart had initially told police that a Black man had killed his pregnant wife, leading police on a months-long manhunt in Mission Hill. Officers stopped, frisked and questioned Black men with no relation to the case, and arrested both Swanson and Bennett. Neither man was ever indicted in the case. Stuart died by suicide.

4. Mark your calendars and start stretching: 24,362 runners have been accepted into the 2026 Boston Marathon, scheduled for April 20, 2026.

Because the Marathon attracts more interested and qualified runners than it has spots, the runners who will line up in Hopkinton this spring not only ran another marathon quick enough to qualify, but beat the qualifying times for their age and gender by 4 minutes and 34 seconds. For reference: We have no reason to believe pop star Harry Styles entered the Boston Marathon pool, but if he did, his recent (very quick!) Berlin Marathon time, 2:59:13, would have missed this year’s mark by about 9 minutes.

For men in Boston, a new project offers therapy at a familiar place: the barbershop

If you’ve ever sought therapy, what was the first step you took to find care? Did you ask your doctor for a referral, scour your insurance company’s database of in-network providers or turn to a friend for suggestions?

A Boston creator and entrepreneur who goes by HAAWWS, 28, went to a familiar place: a barbershop. His first session of group therapy was a powerful one, he said.

“When I broke down in tears, I felt like I needed that. I felt I was harboring a lot and it needed to be released,” he told GBH’s Magdiela Matta.

Rob Badgett, a licensed therapist, has been leading sessions of The Barbershop Clinic at In the Cut barbershop in Boston’s Nubian Square for seven months. The idea came from Vania Arroyo, a photographer and makeup creator who held similar sessions for women in Lynn.

“Our goal is to transform barbershops into safe spaces where men can connect with therapists,” Arroyo said.

Here’s how it works: Badgett hosts groups of 10 men over the course of five weeks, the first, in-person at the barbershop and the rest virtual — all of them free of charge. After that month of group work is done, participants get access to resources. Despite the setting, there are no haircuts involved: Badgett and Arroyo discovered that the men were too loyal to their regular barbers.

And it’s made a big difference, said participant Matt Parker, a youth organizer who lives in Roxbury.

“It just felt like a place where once you enter, once the talking begins, you feel like you’re supposed to be there,” Parker told Matta. “today I know — ‘Hey, therapy might be an option for me.’ And that’s a big discount because often enough, the stigma attached to therapy, especially for Black and brown men, is still very tough, relatively taboo.”

Read Magdiela Matta’s full story here. You can also check The Barbershop Clinic out on Instagram or apply for a spot in a future group here. 

Learn more:

–Wake Up Well: Back to school mental health resources for teenagers

–Facing climate anxiety

–How to face anxiety around money, according to a financial therapist

–Looking for mental health support? Call, text or chat these resources