As a marginalised group, people experiencing homelessness are disproportionately susceptible to violence at the hands of right-wing groups with an intolerant ideology. But how we as a society relate to homeless communities also plays a role in this, says political scientist Martin Stammler. He spoke to Nuremburg street paper Strassenkreuzer about the subject, Social Darwinism and how it turns to hatred and violence.

"Our society determines whether neo-Nazis feel called to kill": How people experiencing homelessness become vulnerable to right wing violence

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

Megaphone’s new vendor mentorship program provides sales support and fosters confidence. Paul Grigaitis, who was a community newspaper reporter before finding himself struggling with addiction and his mental health, became a vendor at Megaphone only to feel that he didn’t have the confidence to go out and do it well. The magazine’s new program helped him get going.

Mentors help new vendors find the courage to succeed at Vancouver street paper Megaphone

Giorgio arrived in Italy from Ethiopia in 1997 in search of work. Life became increasingly hard after the 2008 financial crisis, and Giorgio became homeless in 2015. A few years later he started working as a Scarp de’ tenis vendor, which he continued to do until 2022. Then came the breakthrough: a permanent work contract, offered to Giorgio when he was 65.

Scarp de’ tenis vendor Giorgio: “The street paper helped me to believe in myself”

TJ Johnston, who works as an editor at San Francisco street paper Street Sheet, writes about his experience of being homeless and losing any discernible form of identification, making life even more difficult than it already is.

Lose your ID, lose your identity

As extreme heat has spread across Europe, and other parts of the world deal with frighteningly high temperatures, street papers and their vendors explain how it affects their work.

Exposed to a dangerous heatwave and unable to work, street paper vendors are on the front line of the climate crisis

Siou is a L'Itinéraire vendor who sells the magazine on the corner of Mont-Royal and Bordeaux in Montréal, Canada. Here he presents portraits he illustrated from photos in an old magazine he came across celebrating the loyal service of factory workers at the Horne division, a smelting facility in northern Québec. He explains why this had personal significance for him, how it related to his own life and memories of his father, and how it is a document of working class men from a bygone era and industry. Later, in a quest to understand what each of the portrait subjects did at the factory, Siou asked his customers to describe their responsibilities from their peculiar job titles alone.

The miners in my mind: L'Itinéraire vendor Siou’s portrait project of Québec factory workers

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”

With soccer on the mind due to the imminent Homeless World Cup in Sacramento, California, INSP editor Tony Inglis writes about the rise of “multiclub” networks and how, if state-subsidised wealth and corporate greed didn’t poison it, the sport could learn something from how street papers have historically been connected.

INSP editor Tony Inglis: “If football cut out corporate greed, it could learn something from the solidarity of the street paper network”

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.

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