Vendors from Street Sense Media wrote and staged a play exploring solutions to homelessness in early February. From left to right: Gigi Dovonou, Frederic John, Angie Whitehurst, Sheila White, Carlos Carolina, Robert Warren, Jet Flegette, Leslie Jacobson, Queenie Featherstone, and Maria Lares. Photo by Will Schick.

Written and organised by Street Sense Media vendors, a performance staged on 6 February was the culmination of six months of hard work. The show, which last for an hour and included multiple singing ensembles, examined solutions to homelessness via stories of lived experience.

Street Sense Media vendors stage play exploring solutions to homelessness

In this deeply personal piece for INSP’s ‘Housing for the People’ column, the writer tells a story of displacement and homelessness that spans continents in an attempt to escape the horror of domestic violence and to give her child the chance of a better life, even if it meant experiencing a period of transition living outside first.

Housing for the People: “I was homeless on the road raising a child”

For Vicky Batcher, a regular face with and in Nashville street paper The Contributor, simply liking a Facebook page set her on a road toward a roof of her own over her head. For the latest in INSP’s ‘Housing for the People’ column, she writes about the rush of emotions that experiencing safety and security for the first time in years brought her.

Housing for the People: How an affordable apartment changed my life

Mandee Seeley spent three of her five years in Oregon without a home, living in the national forest with her husband and two children. For the latest instalment of INSP’s ‘Housing for the People’ column, she writes from her personal perspective about the basic requirement of all humans to have a home, and how the system should reflect that.

Housing for the People: “Like the air we breathe, housing is a basic human need”

Gary Barker, who sells Portland street paper Street Roots, writes for the latest in INSP’s Housing for the People – a column that allows those with lived experience of poverty, homelessness and insecure housing tell their story – writes about being “in a hell of my own doing”, but how with the pandemic making the world seem like world was falling apart, circumstances in Gary’s life suddenly made things start to come together. He writes about his work as an ambassador for Street Roots and leading on its MoJo scheme to get vendors into journalism, and how being in housing allows him to “find a way to get problems off my mind”.

Housing for the People: “I came back to life in a time of trouble”

Janiah Miller – an advocate experienced in providing support to political campaigns and offices, assisting in legislative and constituent support, and building intersectional coalitions within the community – writes for INSP’s latest ‘Housing for the People’ column about how the culminating moment of the American Dream – owning a home – is not equitably accessible to all.

Housing for the People: Addressing housing instability with equity in mind

The South Korean street soccer team in training. Photo courtesy of 

With the 2023 Homeless World Cup set to take place in Sacramento, California from 8 to 15 July, INSP is celebrating the crossover between street soccer and street papers. Street papers in seven countries – Argentina, Australia, Greece, Japan, Portugal, South Korea and Switzerland – either have street soccer projects connected to them, or work under the same parent organisation. In some cases, a street paper was borne out of a street soccer team, or vice versa. Let’s learn more.

How street papers and street soccer go together at the 2023 Homeless World Cup in Sacramento

Brian Augustine, who sells Colorado street paper the Denver VOICE, writes for the latest in INSP’s Housing for the People series about how happenstance, and events outside his control, led to him losing the place he called home. Now, he counts the street paper as his home, and the people who come by his place of work as his family.

Housing for the People: “Until I can make my dream happen…”

The co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Bishop William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. The photo was taken Dec. 13, 2021 in Washington, DC, at a Moral March on Washington. Credit: Steve Pavey/Poor People's Campaign/Repairers of the Breach/Kairos Center.

A Poor People’s March is descending on Washington, D.C. this summer. It has the potential to ignite a new progressive movement in the United States. INSP spoke to one of that movement’s leaders, pastor and activist the Reverend Dr. William Barber.

Reverend Barber and the revolutionary power of poor people

In the latest instalment of INSP’s Housing for the People column, Darin Thomas, a participant in The Stewpot’s weekly Writers’ Workshop at Dallas, Texas street paper STREETZine, talks about coming to terms with the fact that he was not to blame for the trauma and violence he experienced as a young boy.

Housing for the People: “Forgiveness was a big eye-opener for me”

For the latest instalment of INSP’s ‘Housing for the People’ column, Denver VOICE contributor Larmarques ‘Misha’ Smith writes about their journey from temporary to stable housing, their experience of shlters throughout the pandemic, and how ensuring housing is a right enjoyed by all should be done intersectionally with multiple goals in mind.

Housing for the People: “We have to go beyond people just attaining housing”

As part of an ongoing campaign to highlight the importance of street paper journalism, Israel Bayer, who leads on INSP’s North America project, writes in this op-ed about the power of journalism and storytelling in affecting societal change, and how street papers are doing so whilst also supporting people to maintain a dignified income.

INSP North America director: “Street papers believe in the idea that journalism can bring people together to make the world we live in a better place”

 in Nashville, Tennessee, receives the COVID vaccines.

With Covid vaccines being rolled out differently across the world, that means marginalised and vulnerable communities in different parts of the world are receiving immunisation at different rates. But it does mean some good news: street paper vendors are beginning to receive the jab, and with the world opening up again, that’s more than welcome.

“Nobody should go without the shot”: Dispatches from vaccinated street paper vendors

 Vendor’s Lounge, where she often writes. Photo by Annemarie Cuccia.

Nikki Smith, who moved to Washington DC earlier this year, is already making an impact with her art and advocacy. She moved from a tent to a shelter and has been working on her writing which is now being published in the local street paper Street Sense. And she’s working with an initiative to help women experiencing homelessness become involved in advocacy like her. 

Washington DC street paper vendor Nikki Smith on helping others — and herself

Mindy Woods and her son were forced to leave their dilapidated and mold infested home when it began to affect their health. Their experience thereafter is a story of lows – navigating the Kafkaesque public housing and benefits rigmarole, facing up to the “embarrassment” of having to tell her son’s teachers they were homeless – but also the high of finally getting a place to call home. A tireless housing and social justice advocate, Mindy shares her story here – as part of INSP’s new ‘Housing for the People’ column – to affect public perception and create policy change.

Housing for the People: “We got into our new apartment right before Christmas – it was the best gift!”

Iso Numero's Enkete Mungbaba. Credit: Janne Hukka.

Everyone who is a part of the global street paper network knows what a street paper is – that extends to the staff that put each publication together and those who buy them. But the people who truly know what a street paper is – what it means – are those who sell them. Here, a collection of street paper vendors – from Brazil to Finland – tell us, in their own words, what a street paper is, personally to them.

“Street papers have a sort of superpower” – what street papers are in the words of those who sell them

Interweaving her own personal story with evidence of the current homelessness issue in Oregon, columnist Mandee Seeley drafts a heartfelt epistle to the US President about how to properly address the housing crisis. The letter is the latest instalment in INSP’s Housing for the People series.

Housing for the People: “Dear President Biden…”

Melanie Henshaw (Mvskoke) is employed at Portland street paper Street Roots as its Indigenous affairs reporter, covering stories on Indigenous peoples and the local and regional tribes of the Pacific Northwest. INSP spoke to her about her work.

Q&A: Why Portland street paper Street Roots is investing in Indigenous reporting

' Marcus Vinicius. Credit: Thaís Mallon.

Everyone who is a part of the global street paper network knows what a street paper is – that extends to the staff that put each publication together and those who buy them. But the people who truly know what a street paper is – what it means – are those who sell them. Here, a collection of street paper vendors – from Greece to Australia – tell us, in their own words, what a street paper is, personally to them.

“It was an opportunity for rediscovery” – what street papers are in the words of those who sell them

Janiah Miller – an advocate experienced in providing support to political campaigns and offices, assisting in legislative and constituent support, and building intersectional coalitions within the community – writes for INSP’s ‘Housing for the People’ column about how the affordable housing crisis remains at a historic nadir and how local organizations must continuously elevate affordable housing and homeownership as top priorities in their communities and bringing them to the attention of those with the power to affect change.

Housing for the People: Housing justice as a central voting issue

Thousands of demonstrators gathered at the Bans Off Our Bodies protest in downtown D.C. on May 14. Credit: Kaela Roeder.

As the US repeals Roe v. Wade and rolls back abortion rights, Washington DC street paper Street Sense covers what effect this will have on those on the margins, highlighting the already significant barriers that poor people have to obtaining healthcare, especially those seeking an abortion.

For people living in poverty, getting an abortion was already hard. It’s about to get harder

(left) Mayor and Housing Director of NYC in 1936, artwork funded by WPA Federal Public Housing Administration created 1937; (right) Art Hazelwood and WRAP 2022

Forty years ago, the US federal government slashed affordable housing budgets marking the beginning of the contemporary crisis of homelessness. Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, writing from the perspective of having experienced homelessness at a young age, outlines the history of social disinvestment in the country since the 80s.

40 years of homelessness in America

Depicts a homeless person who passed away on the streets of Multnomah County in recent year. Courtesy photo.

Thousands of people die homeless every year in the USA. Israel Bayer, who leads INSP’s North American project, and has worked with street papers and people experiencing homelessness for more than two decades, recounts times in his work that have intersected with the tragic stories of some of the victims of continually frightening trend.

Death on the streets: An American tragedy

Cheryl Osorio tells her son Jesus to turn the lights off to her home. Osorio and her family live in a house with no running water and which isn't connected to the power grid. Osorio uses a generator to power her house when needed. She uses her wood stove to cook and purify her water. This photo was part of a story about how Covid-19 had affected the Navajo community, and was published in street paper the Denver VOICE. Credit: Giles Clasen

Photographer Giles Clasen has been taking pictures for Colorado, USA street paper the Denver VOICE for about 15 years. Here, he discusses his approach to photographing vulnerable subjects, and how the opportunity to work with the street paper gave him purpose when a Traumatic Brain Injury left him unable to work.

Q&A: Denver VOICE photographer Giles Clasen on using images to change perceptions

In recent months, cities and states across the United States have dramatically increased their efforts to sweep and displace homeless encampments and to criminalize people on the streets. A series of posters as part of the nation-wide campaign ‘Housekeys Not Sweeps’, led by the Western Regional Advocacy Project, is raising awareness and combating criminalization efforts and anti-homeless legislation occurring across the country.

Tagged with 'usa'