Please note: Listed below are three finalists for each of the six award categories. Winners will be announced at the 2nd North American Street Newspaper Awards on July 31 during the NASNA conference held in Chicago, IL.
Best Vendor Essay: Fresh perspective from the street
Title: All Roads Can Lead to Home(lessness)
Paper: Denver Voice (Denver, Colorado)
Author: John Alexander
John Alexander, veteran VOICE vendor writes a very articulate and compassionate article about the variety of circumstances that can lead to homelessness. John looks at his own situation as a homeless VOICE vendor with the detachment and honesty of a professional journalist, and portrays the circumstances of others he has met while living on the street with humility and respect. This essay ultimately creates four portraits that are all consistently humanizing and have the effect of unpacking stereotypes and forcing readers to look beyond the surface of the people we see daily on the streets.
Title: Camp Runamuck founder tells her side of the story
Paper: Street Sights (Providence, Rhode Island)
Author: Barbara Kalil
No other issue defined 2009 in Rhode Island more than the rise of a ‘Tent City’ under a bridge in Providence area. Camp Runamuck, eventually failed. The state of Rhode Island and the city of Providence spent over a hundred thousands of dollars in lawyer’s fees, chain link fences and police overtime to bring the tent city down. Barbra Kalil, one of the leaders of Camp Runamuck, writes this letter to Donald Carcieri, Rhode Island’s Governor, where she expresses a true insider’s perspective of the problems in the city’s emergency shelters and why, tent cities come into existence.
Title: My View of the Bridge
Paper: Toledo Streets (Toledo, Ohio)
Author: Gary Bond
As a formerly unhoused Toledo Streets volunteer and vendor, Gary Bond writes for the paper on behalf of his friends and those for whom he advocates. Gary had recently visited a homeless camp before he wrote this poem/essay from the perspective of someone living at the camp trying to explain what it’s like to readers.
Best Cover Design: Making a statement on the street
Paper: Denver VOICE (Denver, Colorado)
Designer: Ross Evertson and photography by Zoriah Miller
Date: October 1, 2009
The cover uses an extremely arresting image to make people stop and want to know more. The man’s face is like a story; instantly causing curiosity about what happened to him and who he is. He projects confidence, charisma and suffering at the same time. The image is left to speak for itself and not muddied up with text, there is a simply listed table of contents instead, in the hope of leaving the reader curious enough to flip through and find out more.
Paper: L’Itinéraire (Montreal, Quebec)
Designed: Isabelle Clément
Date: May 1, 2009
This photograph has been made after a special make up design. Laure Waridel is one of the most important environmental activists in Quebec.
Paper: Toledo Streets (Toledo, Ohio)
Designed: Amanda Moore and photograph by Love is Greater Photography
Date: November 2009
For our inaugural issue, we wanted to do something that would stand out from any other publication in the region, as well as communicate the depth of our feature story and the level of community involvement in the project highlighted in the feature story (the 20th year of the Homeless Awareness Project Tent City).
Best Interview: Spotlight on change makers
Title:Gregor’s Promise
Paper: Megaphone (Vancouver, British Columbia)
Author: Sean Condon
During Vancouver’s 2008 municipal election campaign, Gregor Robertson boldly promised to end street homelessness in Vancouver by 2015. After a year in office, Megaphone received unprecedented access to the mayor to address his plan to end homelessness. The interviewer did not shy away from uncomfortable topics, asking the mayor about the failed emergency shelters and the recent death of a homeless man in a public park. Nor did the mayor shy away, offering candid responses to questions about how the city will police during the Winter Olympics, the city’s notorious open drug market, and his ability to keep his promise to end homelessness.
Title: Gomorrah: That ol’ one-ring circus
Paper: Real Change (Seattle, Washington)
Author: Rosette Royale
An interview with Max Blumenthal, who went undercover in the GOP to write his book “Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party.” Blumenthal says: “What I do in my book is offer a critique of a radical movement that took over a major political party that was once a big-tent party and is now a one-ring circus…. Martin Luther King said the arc of history is leading to justice. And I think that’s true. My book hints that this is a movement that sees itself dying in a culture that’s increasingly diverse and increasingly progressive.”
Title: Who’s raking the muck?
Paper: Street Roots (Portland, Oregon)
Author: Joanne Zuhl
This interview presented a reader-friendly look into the changing and rather messed up world of journalism of late, from a man whose speaks both with personal knowledge and a shared concern for the state of media today. Ken Silverstein, current Washington, D.C. editor for Harper’s Magazine, helped people understand better the workings of major media houses, their failings, but also their resilience.
Most Improved Street Paper: Striving for quality
Paper: L’Itineraire (Montreal, Quebec)
L’Itineraire made a number of changes from 2008-2009. They increased the number of pages from 32 to 48 pages and increased the variety of stories and features. They increase the format to be a bit bigger. They also added more space for vendor submissions.
Paper: Megaphone (Vancouver, British Columbia)
In 2008, Street Corner decided that a redesign was needed to take the publication to the next level. First, the name. We wanted a name that would represent what we thought our vendors were: empowered. Thus, Megaphone. Along with the name change came a redesign of the visual elements of the publication. It was important for us to not limit improvements to the cosmetic. We added new features and regular columns. We expanded our news, features, and arts section, focusing on local and under-reported news and events.
Paper: StreetWise (Chicago, Illinois)
In November 2008 StreetWise switched from a 12 page newspaper to a 16-24 page full-color glossy magazine. By switching to magazine format, StreetWise was able to offer our vendors a better, more sellable product. Although there were a couple kinks that took a while to iron out the switch has been a resounding success. The organization and the vendor see more bottom line profit, allowing the vendors to make more money, and allowing the organization to invest more money and resources into vendor education programs. Since the switch, ad revenue has risen dramatically with quite a few repeat customers. In terms of content, when we switched to a magazine, we had more room for quality content. Our cover stories can be more in depth and our supporting features are much more organized and user-friendly than before.
Most Improved Vendor Program: Working to help others
Paper: Denver VOICE (Denver, Colorado)
The VOICE opened a ground level vendor office to provide a restroom, training space, and consistent distribution location. New vendor training was improved to incorporate various learning techniques. They also began a monthly training between downtown police and vendors to build relationships and limit negative interactions. Finally they improved their discipline system so vendors and staff can work together while being respectful of each other
Paper: Street Speech (Columbus, Ohio)
Street Speech launched in the spring of 2008 and struggled to get vendors trained and to stay with the program. Because of limited resources and staff, it also couldn’t offer other programs, such as training classes, job searching, and more. Since the beginning of 2009, the program has sky rocketed toward success. The vendor training has become more robust and efficient; there have been new employment-aimed programs created, new programs for benefit-seeking vendors, and programs that work toward vendor cohesiveness, and creating a social network with vendors.
Paper: StreetWise (Chicago, Illinois)
StreetWise added five new vendor programs in 2009. StreetWise partnered with the University of Illinois to provide case management; partnered with local job skills training programs and colleges to provide education opportunities; worked closely with vendors to save money to put a down payment on an apartment; partnered with the Veterans Administration (VA) to sponsor a weekly support group meeting and enrollment to VA programs; and partnered with church, and school groups to provide weekly meals for the vendors.
Best Feature Story: Writing for social impact
Title: Los Pichoneros
Paper: Denver VOICE (Denver, Colorado)
Author: William Hillyard
Los Pichoneros (The Pigeons) explores the world of homeless Mexican immigrants in Southern California. The article analyzes the way in which the downward spiral of the U.S. economy has actually had the effect of keeping undocumented immigrants inside the United States, in a state of limbo. Once here, people are opting to stay and weather the economic storm. With fewer jobs, more of these immigrants are becoming homeless and fall outside the purview of most integral services.
Title: Food banks hire security to patrol the lines
Paper: Real Change (Seattle, Washington)
Author: Cydney Gillis
As the recession and layoffs have driven more people to food banks citywide, wait times and angst about getting the day’s best pick of food have increased. This has led to jostling and altercations at some facilities, particularly those where clients spend hours waiting outside or in cramped quarters. Several local food banks have hired security staff to monitor the lines.
Title: Return of the Dragon
Paper: Street Roots (Portland, Oregon)
Author: Amanda Waldroupe
This feature brings to the surface a problem that Portland’s streets know very well, but the community seems to sweep under the rug. It framed heroin addiction as a health care crisis, so stigmatized that people who want to get out of the addiction feel paralyzed by their status. The writer interviewed several people who used, but not as a means to get high, but rather as a means of alleviating the pain of addiction: they maintained, they survived. Their illness was physical, but society sees it as a moral deficiency, and after years of addressing addiction from that perspective, we have more heroin users on our streets than ever.
Title: Providing Their Own Sanctuary
Paper: StreetWise (Chicago, Illinois)
Author: Brenna Dalorph
StreetWise contributor Brenna Daldorph spent the summer of 2009 immersing herself in the Chicago immigrant community forming relationships with church outreach groups, families of illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants who are homeless, or living doubled/tripled/quadrupled up with others. Brenna opts to document the lives of the immigrants themselves, as seen through their eyes on the street. In doing so, she provides a voice for a huge population who keeps itself invisible and silent in order to avoid deportation.
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