A rapidly growing street newspaper movement is helping thousands of homeless vendors and raising the visibility of poverty issues around the world, a new report has found.
Over 200,000 vendors earned a living through street paper sales since 1994, and 71 percent of street paper organizations helped vendors get out of homelessness, according to a recent survey done by the International Network of Street Papers (INSP).
“This was the first time that we have been able to gather information like this,” said Maree Aldam, network services manager for INSP. “INSP is a relatively small organization with a broad reach, so it is only now that we have the resources to carry out network-wide research. We plan to build on this so that we can really begin to assess the amazing impact of street papers.”
INSP was founded in 1994 when a coalition of European street papers came together with a shared mission to provide employment for homeless people through the development of independent media, said Aldam. In 1995, the UK’s Big Issue hosted the first-ever INSP meeting for the directors, editors and social workers representing INSP’s membership of 16 street papers.
From 16 street papers in 1995, INSP has now grown to 114 spread across 40 countries. The exponential growth is surprising, considering the recent decline in the newspaper industry.
“Another piece of recent research that we conducted tells us that street paper sales have increased by an average of ten percent compared with last year,” said Aldam. “It’s an amazing figure, given that mainstream print media sales are declining.”
Their growth will continue as INSP has several key projects that are set to expand the global movement of street papers in the coming years. Expansion plans include campaigning, network-wide fundraising, conducting more research, expanding content sharing among the publications through the Street News Service and supporting new street papers in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
“This year, INSP is running its first network-wide campaign,” said Aldam. “Campaigning is something that our street papers are interested in, and INSP is in a position to unite street papers and utilize their combined readership of over 5 million people, to say something about poverty and make an impact.”
The survey also found that a quarter of papers are involved in creating policy change on housing and homelessness in their home city or region. Los Angeles’ Community Connection and San Francisco’s newspaper Street Sheet have both claimed credit for policy changes in their communities.
According to INSP, Community Connection helped stop the conversion and loss of 19,000 affordable housing units. They negotiated over 3,000 employment opportunities that recognize the barriers poor people face. They helped to remove legal barriers, such as misdemeanor arrests and traffic violations, so that residents could move forward in their lives.
“[Community Connection] hosted the United Nations Special Rapportuer on the first official housing investigation mission, who subsequently released a report that highlighted their work in the international community,” said Aldam. “They created a legal defense for residents that were either falsely charged or overcharged by the criminal justice system.” Street Sheet helped to change the way people access the shelter system. The newspaper helped thousands of people get legal counsel in criminal charges when they otherwise would have had none, said Aldam. They also helped hundreds of homeless families access market-rate housing.
“Street papers are now a global movement, and the INSP network is growing in numbers each year, as the concept becomes more widely known,” said Aldam. “We promote the street paper concept wherever we can, as we feel that it’s an effective and intelligent way to tackle poverty whilst providing a source of independent news and journalism.”
