Street News

Street News was a street newspaper sold by homeless people in New York City, New York, the USA. Established in 1989, it is the earliest modern street paper still extant and the beginning of the American street newspaper movement. It aimed to provide a way of self-sufficiency to the many homeless and unemployed people in New York.

The creation of Street News quickly inspired the founding of many other street newspapers, including Chicago's StreetWise and Britain's The Big Issue; the paper has been called a "pioneer" for the street paper movement.Street News and The Big Issue have become prototypes of street papers worldwide.

As of 2002^[update] the editor was John Levi "Indio" Washington Jr. Street News prints 3,000 copies of six issues per year, sold by 15 people getting 75 cents out of the $1.25 price.

As of current time, Street News is no longer an active publication and New York City has no official street paper.

Street News began publication in October 1989, founded by its Editor-In-Chief, rock musician Hutchinson Persons, founder of Street Aid and Wendy Oxenhorn (then Koltun). It was funded by individuals and Corporations like Cushman and Wakefield as well as selling advertising space in the paper. New York Times president Lance Primis joined the organization's Board of Advisors and gave special assistance. It was launched with advertisements on subways and buses donated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the homeless salesforce was given permission to sell Streetnews on the trains, weeks after panhandling was declared illegal on the subways. The New York Times came out with the first article written by Sam Roberts which then garnered wide media attention. Sales grew very quickly from an initial 50,000 copies to over a million sold in its first four months of publication. Celebrities such as Paul Newman, Liza Minnelli and the Beach Boys contributed opinion pieces. It sold for 75 cents, with the sellers getting 45 cents (plus the first 10 copies free). Co-founder Wendy Oxenhorn left Streetnews after the first year as stated in a NY Times article over "philosophical differences on how to run the organization."

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