Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Car Pushed Into Anacostia River By Train
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Devendra Banhart @ 9:30 Club
Saturday Thanks Don't End At Thanksgiving Photo: November 28, 2009
If you're a regular customer of Street Sense, D.C.'s only homeless newspaper, but have been frustrated over the years with its lackluster online offerings, be sure to check out the paper's recently redesigned web site, StreetSense.org. (Full disclosure: I'm a volunteer member of the board of directors of Street Sense, and consulted just a little bit on the design process of this site).
The new site, designed by CITI, offers regularly updated Street Sense content, a Street Sense Blog, an RSS feed, aggregated homelessness news from around the country, information on how to volunteer, a directory of resources for homeless individuals, a home for the personal writing of Street Sense vendors, and will eventually offer a map of where to locate the Street Sense vendor nearest you (the map isn't up just yet).
The existence of the new site doesn't mean you still shouldn't regularly purchase Street Sense from one of their hardworking vendors, but if you enjoy the paper's online content as well, please consider donating just a bit more through the web site.
You can also follow Street Sense on Twitter.
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The site looks great! I signed up for the feed. I have always wondered why you did not link to their stories. Maybe you will now?
Yeah, up until now they weren't really able to put up brand new stories regularly on their old web site. I'm excited to be able to include online Street Sense content in the mix here now.
Won't this regularly updated content site defeat the purpose now of having the vendors on the streets "selling" the news...earning money rather than pan-handling?
No more so than getting the Washington Post or any other print publication online. You can get those for free, yet people still pay for a subcription. I know numbers for most papers are way down, but still, there will always be a segment of the population that wants to buy their news on the street.
I thought the same thing... I thought the whole point was to support the homeless vendors.
You can still go to the SS vendor, pay for a paper, thank the vendor for his service to print journalism, let the vendor keep the paper you just paid for, and then check out StreetSense(dot)com on your iPhone. I just love a win-win scenario.
another advantage to having vendors on the street is the awareness they create for the site. it's not like you're going to actually see a SS ad-buy on websites you frequently visit, let alone click on it (being an ad and all ...)
I tried to go to the Facebook page but the link in the top nav just redirects to the FB home page.
maybe this is just me, but I don't think the point of getting news from a Street Sense vendor is necessarily always getting the news.
It's supporting someone doing something constructive rather than just asking for handouts.
If you have $1 or $2, would you rather give it to a SS vendor or the guy with a fishing pole saying he's probably going to buy beer with it??
That and I'm more likely to buy from a SS vendor b/c unlike most panhandlers, I know the vendors need the money. Some panhandlers are just being opportunistic.
Yeah, maybe. But what about the Street Senses being hawked by upper-middle class white kids? You see that every once in a while.
If you've got an extra buck or two, you should give it to a shelter or food bank. If you give it to a panhandler, at best they'll eat with it inefficiently, at worst they'll drink with it efficiently.
Homeless people sell Street Sense, not middle-class kids.
The invention and marketing of "homelessness" has got to rank right up there as the most counterproductively disingenuous political effort of the past few decades.
Who regularly sleeps on the streets in America? Overwhelmingly, it's the mentally ill. For them, "homelessness" is a symptom, not a cause, of their issues.
This ever-so-unhelpfully labeled problem isn't going anywhere until we fix the abysmal state of public mental health care in this country.
WestEnder, be prepared for the barrage of self-righteousness that is surely coming your way.
As one who has family members that have been 'homeless' I can say that their experience taught me to never give money to people panhandling on the street.
The whole concept of pushing living in public spaces as some sort of exalted right instead of seeing it as a symptom of a bigger, treatable problem is stupid.
But, then, nobody said we treat these issues with any sort of actual intelligence.
Allow me to rant about my favorite topic.... the idiotic misuse of the resources we do spend on 'homeless' issues.
Specifically, the homeless rights advocacy folks absolutely insist on having shelters and facilities in high profile locations, rather than using funds to actually help those they claim to represent.
Case in point? the Mitch Snyder shelter at 2nd and D NW. It sits on some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Yet it's a dilapidated ridiculous three story building.
You could sell the land and get, even in today's market, hundreds of millions of dollars. You could even stipulate that any future real estate taxes on the newly developed site go to fund a specific replacement shelter. Or, you could lease the land to a developer.
Either way, you'd literally have stacks of cash.
You could take that and create the most magnificent shelter imaginable. Complete with fully funded job training, alcohol and drug rehab, mental health services, transportation services, etc.
It's just that it'd have to be in a less high-profile power location. And, perish the thought, it would actually make sense to have it somewhere in the burbs, close to the actual jobs, housing, and/or transportation that many of the recipients of services could use.
By giving up the high price location you'd actually get probably a ten-fold return on your deal, creating a huge windfall for homeless services.
But, no. It's more important to 'keep the homeless downtown' and to have a high power, highly visible location.
Ditto for the various group homes in high price areas like Capitol Hill. Often the actual facilities are dilapidated, verging on unsafe. The real estate has appreciated dramatically. You could sell those properties and use the stacks of cash to buy new, modern facilities in less expensive areas.
As long as we keep the status quo of visibility / 'rights advocacy' over actual smart use of resources I find the entire 'help the homeless' mantra to ring fairly false.
Mitch!!! The last great activist this city produced. The man knew how to get things done.
Just to set the fact straight, when 2nd&D shelter was built, it was pretty state of the art--and it was a crappy neighborhood.
True on both counts. But it's now a dilapidated shack sitting on ridiculously expensive real estate. And has been for some time.
Actually, I think I may agree with you. Never thought of it that way. Thanks
Um, selling a newspaper is not "panhandling."
Unless you're trying to be a good Samaritan and give them money and let them keep the paper, as one person here suggesed. Then you're effectively making them a panhandler.
The Street Sense vendors buy their papers then they resell them to you at a profit. That is retail, not giving.
Also, what's so wrong with giving someone money "just to drink or eat inefficiently" (wtf?) Last time I checked, that bottle of $100 champagne or $50 free range kobe beef is drinking and eating pretty inefficiently when you consider maximum impact per dollar.
Because most of the guys who ask me for $ are drunk
Thanks for all the nice comments, and for the record the SS vendors are not permitted to sell the paper while intoxicated and some of us like myself do not drink alcohol at all.
Street Sense and those who support it have help many of us vendors have better lives and I'd like to personally thank those who buy as well as those who volunteer for the paper.
We (vendors) are out of work but feel hope and even some excitement by being able to sell the paper, write stories, poems and songs and make a few dollars to help cover basic human needs including transportation, hair cuts, clothes to the dry cleaner etc. as we prepare to go and apply for jobs.
Street Sense was recently blessed with the singer Peaches(of the famous duo Peaches & Herb)who performs our new Street Sense theme song which can be heard at our website www.streetsense.org by clicking who we are then vendors media.
Thanks again to all of our donors & volunteers.