Street Sense

The newspaper features news, features, editorials, poems and art about homelessness and poverty and other social issues. About 50% of the paper is written by homeless and formerly homeless individuals, and the other articles come from our staff and volunteers, who include journalists, students, advocates and a wide variety of other professionals.

Street Sense vendors pay 35 cents for each paper to cover publishing costs and then sell each paper for $1. As of June 2009, Street Sense has about 100 active vendors, selling 16,000 papers every other week, with the average vendor earning $45 a day. Vendors choose their own sales locations, and can be found in downtown D.C. and some suburbs on busy corners and near Metro stations, usually during the lunch and evening rush hours.

In 2008 20% vendors found housing and 25% started part-time or full-time jobs, many of which were offered to them while selling the paper. And last year nearly all vendors reported a marked improvement in their lives since starting the paper. Such changes include reconnecting with family, developing their writing and communication skills or simply gaining a sense of pride and self-respect.

Street Sense not only offers its vendors a newspaper to sell, but it also connects them to other service providers to meet their needs, including finding housing, accessing healthcare or enrolling them in financial management or job training classes. Additionally, Street Sense is planning to start its own regular training workshops to help improve vendors? sales skills to find other sales employment.

Street Sense is one of about 20 street papers in the United States and more than 90 worldwide. Street papers drastically vary in size and circulation but produce social-issued focused newspapers sold by vendors who make an income on newspaper sales. For more information on other street newspaper or background on street papers in general, visit www.nasna.org.