Homeless Newspapers Head Uptown

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'Papers are recognizing that you can't hit people over the head with the word homelessness,' explains Israel Bayer, vice chair of the North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA), which provides technical assistance and networking opportunities to member papers.

While these changes have helped some publications achieve a modicum of economic stability, there's also a risk that, in the race to move product, street papers will lose their grassroots relevance and morph into tabloids with a more generic (and less righteous) appeal. That's what's happened to Big Issue, a British paper that has flourished into a glossy commercial publication with an enviable circulation of 123,000 in England and Wales. A household name in Britain, Big Issue still advocates for the homeless and runs articles on pressing social issues, but it's known for its glitzy entertainment news and celebrity-dominated covers. Variations on the British model have sprung up in Africa, Oceania, and Japan.

Still, while they're trying to expand their coverage and base, many North American street papers insist that they're not going to abandon their roots. In order to better cope with harsh publishing realities, these publishers have banded together through the International Network of Street Papers (INSP), which provides consulting services for upstart papers and for older publications that are stuck in the doldrums. INSP and NASNA collaborated to create the Street News Service, which helps papers swap the sort of content that can bring attention to issues facing the economically vulnerable around the globe.

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