By Tom deMers

As you read these words, oil is gushing into the ocean a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico. Although I am writing this in mid June, I can predict that with some certainty. Let’s call it what it is, murder. Oil and water don’t mix. The ocean is a living organism. Healthy molecules of water are like healthy molecules of air; they carry and support life. So as we poison their “air,” killing creatures large and small, we long for someone to blame. The need is almost visceral. But while it satisfies, blame may do more harm than good.

Tony Hayward? He’s the CEO of British Petroleum, the company “responsible” for the blowout on April 20. He wants to end the spill not to end the murder, but to “get my life back.” He will surely get it back before Louisiana shrimp and oyster fishermen get their lives back. Deep water fishing will be down too. Then there are birds and fish that will never get their lives back.

Tony is a classic example of how this circus works.

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By Tim Covi

A couple of months back the International Network of Street Papers (INSP) held its annual conference in Melbourne, Australia. The theme of the conference was “Global Collaboration, Real Solutions.” Although the conference largely focused on how street papers could collaborate more, the theme made me think about an initiative that the INSP has been working on for some time—getting world governments, large and small, to fully embrace street papers.

“All of our 108 members are social enterprises,” says Serge Lareault, chairperson of the INSP, “providing employment and consequently transforming the lives of many thousands of disadvantaged people across the globe. Simultaneously we engage millions of readers in issues that are too important to be ignored.” The nature of street papers makes them a great asset to any community.

Reflecting on it, I’m amazed that in the U.S. street papers haven’t been included as an element of 10-year-plans to end homelessness, if not embraced by local governments. These plans, which have been created with varying degrees of success in more than 300 communities in the U.S., outline methods to dramatically reduce homelessness and alleviate its impact on the entire community.

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By Tom deMers

The headline on the morning paper read, “Man [with] panties on his head picked up for begging nude” (Daily Camera 5/14/10). 

Impressive. BP spends millions to punch a hole in the ocean floor and gets big publicity from an oil spill, but here is a homeless guy making a splash of his own with nothing but a pair of women’s thong underwear, earning a buck. In Boulder, even the homeless share in the creativity and entrepreneurial zing.

And they do it on very little sleep. That’s the reason I was heading to Boulder that same day, joining a homeless sleep out smack in the middle of town on May 15, right next to city council headquarters, the same headquarters that had outlawed sleep on city property. Sleep during the day, okay. Sleep at night, no way.

City officials would disagree. Sleep is fine, they say; camping is the problem. Camping with tents, sleeping bags, blankets, ground cloths, anything that could be construed as “shelter;” shelter defined in the municipal ordinance to include, “without limitation, any cover or protection from elements other than clothing.”

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By Gretchen Crowe

It’s close to 9am on any typical weekday morning, and a group of volunteers and staff are hustling to make sure we’ve gotten everything done for the paper’s distribution from  9 A.M.  to 11 A.M. at our Park Avenue and Champa storefront. We unlock the doors as the room fills with the smell of coffee, and our morning begins with talking, training and distributing papers. The room swirls with the chaos of personal stories and needs, advice, and the celebrations of successful days vending the paper. Regardless of socio-economic distinctions, everyone at the distribution center is connected by a newspaper, one that creates community around its very existence.

Overall, the vendor program truly is a thriving community, and has a true heartbeat of its own that can’t quite be seen in the individual vendor on the 16th Street Mall or in the quality of the words we print. Our home office tethers us all to the program, and vendors have a rich and deep connection to their vendor community, to us and to the mission of the paper.

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By Tim Covi

This issue of the paper is dedicated to Denver VOICE vendors, the hardworking folks that hustle hour after hour each day peddling this monthly newsmagazine.

It’s not an easy job. It takes no small amount of grit to handle such a social enterprise, one that involves as much rejection as it does reward. Almost every vendor doubles down on the emotional impact of the work: most people who are homeless at some point internalize that state of being. They begin to feel that they’re not capable of accomplishing much; their self-worth decays; their self-image gets as beat up as hanger meat. So every “no” can be potentially personal at first. And the flip side, every “yes” can be potentially transformational. If you’re reading this, you’ve taken part in that.

I can be pretty disconnected at times from the street side of the paper as an editor. My focus is on putting together a product that will make our vendors’ jobs easier, a product that people will want to pick up each month. Of course some buyers will simply give our vendors a dollar, take the paper and toss it.  But our hope is that by constantly improving our content, we’ll help our vendors get out of that charity niche. Maybe I’m naively optimistic, but I imagine that very few people actually want to live off charity. When it comes to our vendors, I’m quite sure that most want to work for their money, and take pride in their jobs.

I think this synthesis between our vendors and our newspaper is crucial to our product.

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