StreetWise Among Best Sellers of Its Kind

By: Claire SufrinStreetWise is one of the nation’s most successful newspapers for the homeless, an analysis by The Chicago Reporter shows. Among 34 papers that address homeless issues in the United States, StreetWise boasts the largest circulation—about 60,000 copies every two weeks.
Circulation figures among the other papers range from about 150 for the quarterly Change of Heart, in Lawrence, Kan.; to 50,000 monthly for the Los Angeles edition of The Big Issue. Its London edition is the world’s largest street newspaper, selling 271,000 copies weekly in 1997, according to the paper’s distribution department.

The Reporter collected information through interviews and by analyzing data on the papers obtained from the Washington, D.C.-based North American Street Newspaper Association. It was started in 1996 by StreetWise, Seattle’s Real Change and the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Twenty-one of the papers use homeless or formerly homeless vendors to sell copies; the others either mail or distribute them. StreetWise has the most vendors, averaging 300, followed by Real Change with 150.Twelve of the 34 papers are distributed free, and 19 sell for $1. StreetWise’s 300 vendors earn 75 cents on the dollar, while Real Change vendors keep 70 cents. POOR Magazine, a national literary and arts journal based in San Francisco and started by a previously homeless mother-and-daughter team, charges $3.95 for an annual edition and distributes between 1,000 and 2,000 copies—half for free.

MacCanon Brown, editor of Repairers of the Breach in Milwaukee, said the paper decided against using vendors because the city’s police “are brutal and we think [vendors] might add to the arrest problem. They already arrest homeless people for sleeping on benches.”

The 6,000-circulation paper ceased publication in early 1997, but plans to resume next spring, Brown said.

The Homeless Grapevine in Cleveland went to court for the right to stay on the street. In 1994, Cleveland police began ticketing Grapevine vendors, saying they needed to spend $200 in fees and licenses to sell the paper, said Editor Brian Davis. On Sept. 27, 1994, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the city, claiming that Grapevine had a First Amendment right to sell on the street. The city lost the case, but won on appeal.

And vendors keep the proceeds of Street Spirit, a monthly published by the San Francisco office of the American Friends Service Committee, an 82-year-old justice and community development organization. “[Customers] like that they’re giving directly to homeless people and not to a non-profit organization,” Editor Terry Messman said.

Many papers provide services to vendors, including writing workshops, computer classes and health referrals. Spare Change, produced by the Homeless Empowerment Project in Cambridge, Mass., offers stipends to homeless contributing writers. Four of the seven paid staff are homeless or formerly homeless, said executive director Jesse Ward Putnam. Street Scene of Los Angeles is written entirely by at-risk youth, and Baltimore’s Street Voice is written by and for drug abusers.

The oldest paper sold by vendors is New York City’s Street News, which debuted in November 1989. Loaves and Fishes, started in Elkton, Md., in 1981, mails 10,500 copies every two months.

While 10 street papers have debuted in the past two years, some papers fold as quickly as they start, said Timothy Harris, executive director of Seattle’s Real Change and co-founder of the North American Street Newspaper Association. “The energy to get it started is immense. The energy to keep it going is rare.”

For more information on street newspapers, visit the following sites:

w StreetWise

w National Coalition for the Homeless

w The North American Street Newspaper Directory

w International Homeless Discussion List and Archives page

w Real Change article: "How to Organize a
Homeless Newspaper in Your Own City"

Sylvia Barragán, Claire D’Alba, Emily Dodson, Mick Dumke, Chanel Polk and Stephanie Williams helped research this article.