Up From the Streets:
Some Basic Tips on Organizing a New Street Newspaper
By Timothy Harris

An Idea That Works
Homeless newspapers are a proven means of creating meaningful work. There are now well over 100 papers in the United States and Europe that are sold by homeless and unemployed persons that sell for about a dollar, and are purchased by the vendor for 10-40 percent of the cover price. The operative principle in all of these is that most people want to help people who are working to help themselves. Through a happy coincidence, most people want to work, and enjoy employment that offers independence, dignity, and immediate payment. A street newspaper that enjoys broad public support can offer this opportunity.

The accessibility of desktop publishing technology has put newspaper publication within the reach of almost anyone. Recent advances in personal computing have made an entire generation of relatively powerful computers available for almost nothing. As we say at Real Change, obsolescence is our friend. Given a computer, a space to operate, and the energies of one or two dedicated people who are ready to begin, there is no reason a successful homeless newspaper could not be started in your own city.

There are now many examples of street newspapers that have grown to become important community institutions. Seattle’s bi-weekly Real Change publishes 15-17,000 copies each issue, and also sponsors numerous empowerment projects such as a homeless art studio and gallery, a writers peer support group, a computer lab, and an organizing project. It employs more than 200 vendors each month. Real Change is funded by circulation, private donations, advertising, foundation support, and events.

There are many ways to organize a streetpaper. San Francisco’s StreetSheet, published by the SF Coalition on Homelessness, is more than 10 years old and has a monthly circulation of more than 35,000. StreetSheet does not charge vendors for papers, and is primarily funded by reader donations and foundation support. Another example of a streetpaper that grew out of an advocacy organization is Cleveland’s Grapevine, which also helped initiate Cincinnati’s StreetVibes newspaper.

North America’s largest streetpaper is Chicago’s StreetWise, a weekly newspaper that also offers job training, housing placement, and a computer lab. Streetwise, founded in 1992, is a multi-million dollar organization, and is a good example of an urban general interest newspaper that is successfully sold by the poor and homeless. This paper has garnered a good deal of corporate sponsorship, in addition to income from circulation, advertising, and private individuals.

Montreal’s Journal’Itineraire is a french-language paper that publishes twice monthly and has an internet cafe. The paper receives a portion of their funding from the Canadian government.

There are many successful and proven models for publishing a street newspaper. Your own strategy for starting a street newspaper should depend upon your experience, available resources, and goals for the paper. Every city is different, and there are many different structures that may be used, depending upon your objectives. Some papers, for example, simply operate as an employment project, and do not have stated political goals. Some offer a variety of social services. Some are explicitly political and see themselves primarily as a tool for social change. Others are largely homeless-run, and have direct homeless empowerment as the goal.

I often receive requests for advice from those who wish to begin a streetpaper in their own community. I have been the Executive Director of Real Change since I organized that paper in 1994. I also organized Boston's Spare Change homeless newspaper in 1992 while working in that city as a poor people’s organizer. Both of these papers started on a shoestring, with less than $1,000 in start up funds.

This is not a blue-print for starting a homeless paper. Specific structure is going to vary with what you want to accomplish. My own bias is toward creating papers that are part of an effort to organize for social change. Homeless newspapers are an ideal vehicle for this in that they deliver immediate and tangible benefits to participants, and potentially reach tens of thousands of people. My ideas about how homeless papers should be done probably reflect this.

Building from the Ground Up
A homeless newspaper is a social enterprise requiring allies. The more supporters your paper has, the more easily it will succeed, and the more impact it will have. Think about who you would like to have on board when you begin your paper, and discuss the idea with others who may be able to help. Ask them who else you should be talking to. It is important to build a base of support so that people are consulted before the project gets too far along. You may want to include existing empowerment and self-help groups, individuals and organizations involved in housing, homeless, and anti-poverty work, local politicians, and progressive business people in early discussions regarding the paper and its goals.

You also may want to begin by creating an advisory board of persons who can lend their ideas, influence, and legitimacy to the project as it is getting started. When I started Spare Change, I held numerous meeting with interested homeless people who made all of the decisions regarding the project's overall vision and goals. This was very time-consuming, but created high levels of participant ownership. While this was in some respects a plus, I found that the strictly homeless-run model did not provide the stability Spare Change needed for long-term survival.

By the time I began Real Change in Seattle, I had decided upon beginning with a fairly centralized decision-making process, and democratizing decision-making as the project developed. Your own leadership and decision-making model will have a major impact upon how the project develops. Give this matter some careful thought, and make sure your process is in line with your goals.

Printers Don't Take Credit
Ideally, you will have some sort of institutional foundation to build from. When I began Spare Change, I was able to spend staff-time organizing the paper. When I began Real Change, I didn't have the organizational support, but my wife was willing to carry me on her salary until the paper could support staff. The point is that initiating a monthly paper is a full-time job, and you can't count on the paper to provide any personal income for at least several months.

One means of raising start-up funding that worked for me with both papers was the sale of pre-paid premier issue endorsement advertising. Make up a packet with an introductory letter explaining the project (and perhaps listing early political supporters), a rate sheet showing ad sizes and prices, an order form and return envelope. Mail this to EVERYONE you can think of who should support this project, and tenaciously follow the mailing up with as many calls and letters as it takes.

In starting Real Change, ads were priced from $35 to $160, and over a 5 week period 62 ads were sold raising more than $3,000. Some organizations took about 10 calls before they said yes. Persistence pays. This raised enough money to pay for an initial press-run of 15,000 and other expenses such as phone, copying, and postage. More importantly, the first issue featured an substantial array of community support, which lent legitimacy to the new organization.

The primary initial sources of funding will be circulation, ads, subscriptions, and donations. Most foundations will want to see some sort of track record established before they start tossing out money, so don't count on grants as start-up funding.

So Much to Say, So Few Pages
There are many ways to fill the pages of the newspaper, some more politically productive than others. Our own editorial preference is toward articles having something to do with homelessness, housing, and poverty issues, broadly defined. Our reasoning is that if someone is buying a homeless paper, they are interested in the issues; if they are not, they are probably buying out of charity, and the paper's politics usually won't offend them enough to keep them away. Homeless newspapers are an incredible means of getting information to people who want to get involved.

Between local news items, groups to profile, interesting people to interview, and items such as poetry, stories, and opinion pieces submitted by homeless people, we never have any shortage of material to fill 20 pages. We shoot for a mix of news, profiles, interviews, opinion, and poetry. We have several regular features, such as our columns, letters, Vendor of the Month, political calendar, and national news briefs.

Real Change has an editorial committee, recruited by invitation, of mostly formerly homeless activists and writers that meets every two weeks to plan and select articles. The editorial committee, during its weekly meetings, decides which submissions will be printed, and what topics they are interested in covering in future issues. The committee plans articles months ahead of time, and keeps abreast of the local issues that need coverage. They also work to solicit first-hand pieces from homeless and low-income people. A managing editor keeps the editorial committee organized, and assigns stories to volunteer writers and photographers.

Putting It All Together
There are many possible systems for producing a paper, but over time we have developed a system which is simple, allows for maximum use of volunteer energy, and has the flexibility to accommodate last minute changes. We began eight years ago using Pagemaker and Word on a Macintosh LC II and an LC 550. While our equipment has become more up to date, most of our computers have been donated. Ours is hardly a state of the art system, but it meets our needs more than adequately. The point is that you do not need the latest equipment to produce your paper.

I like Pagemaker because it's set up to make using templates easy. Many people instead use a program called Quark. Production is largely a matter of pouring Word files into a Pagemaker template and then formatting the text, eg. bodytext, headline, pullquote, byline, photo caption, etc. If you do not know what these terms mean, get help. Not only does this system make production easy, but it creates consistency from issue to issue. Articles are largely typed and edited by volunteers. The layout could be done by volunteers as well, although we have hired a part-time production manager for this.

There are lots of people out there with desktop publishing skills looking to help out. We use volunteers for staffing the vendor desk, typing in articles, journalism and photography, administrative work, and many other purposes. It is very important to treat your volunteers well and keep them coming back.

Getting it Out
It will take a while for the paper to catch on and build momentum, but as soon as there are a few people out there succeeding at selling the paper, others will see this and want to become involved. It’s important to begin small and within your means, and build as you go along. Do not overextend yourself by attempting too much too soon.

Here are a few things you can do to get the ball rolling:

• Create a list of all the drop-in centers, shelters, and meal programs and put up posters describing the paper and how people can get involved.
• Go to these places to leaflet and talk to people. In the initial stages the one on one recruitment is crucial.
• Offer an incentive of free papers for vendors to tell other vendors about how to get started.