The Street Spirit newspaper, which has chronicled homeless issues since 1995, is back on newsstands this week after eight months out of print due to funding problems.
“We’re back!” the paper wrote on social media Wednesday. “After eight months out of print, our March 2024 issue hit the streets today. Vendors have started to pick up papers and will be selling them all month outside your neighborhood grocery store, cafe, farmer’s market, etc.”
Berkeleyside is resharing this story, a version of which was first published on Jan. 8.
As dozens of police officers rushed into People’s Park, Alastair Boone stood by with a notebook and a recorder, filming the unfolding action on her phone.
The police were there to remove protesters and allow UC Berkeley to fence off the historic and much-contested plot of land, in preparation for a student housing project. Boone, the former editor-in-chief of the Street Spirit newspaper, was there to cover the breaking story. Joining her was current Street Spirit editor-in-chief Bradley Penner. Together, they provided nearly uninterrupted coverage of the 72-hour standoff.
“There is nothing else to do but show up and watch — no matter the time of day, no matter how bitterly cold it is,” Boone said. “It is so deeply part of Street Spirit’s tradition to witness the history of the park unfold and it is frankly an honor for me to carry that torch.”
For nearly 30 years, Street Spirit has covered the news not only at People’s Park, but also countless other sites of tensions and triumphs for the East Bay homeless community. Housed and unhoused residents alike rely on the publication for its unflinching, empathetic, on-the-ground reporting, along with its artwork and resource guides.
But since May 2023, the newspaper has been conspicuously absent from the streets of Berkeley and Oakland. Last spring, the board of Youth Spirit Artworks, which funded Street Spirit, abruptly announced it could no longer support the paper and that it would cease publication.
Street Spirit’s journalists have continued reporting and publishing online, and the dozens of vendors who sold Street Spirit in front of businesses and on sidewalks have instead been hawking San Francisco’s Street Sheet, while uncertainty has clouded the future of the East Bay newspaper.
But after months of fundraising, Boone and Penner were able to raise over $250,000—entirely from individual donors—which is enough to cover a transition period and operations until the end of 2024, according to Boone.
“I think that shows how invested our community is in Street Spirit and in grassroots news, and in support for their homeless community members,” said Boone, who was conscious of waiting to start printing again until there were enough funds in the coffers to avoid another pause in publication or fundraising scramble.
Boone, who’s edited the monthly paper for about five years, has been heartened to hear about readers’ relationship with the journalism and the vendors—the song a particular vendor would sing in the mid-2000s, or the memorable catchphrase of another.
“People feel like Street Spirit is an important part of the cultural fabric of the East Bay,” she said. “It’s a touchstone that they recognize, and they notice its absence.”
The paper had been published by Youth Spirit Artworks since 2017, and the Berkeley nonprofit provided most of its funding, including Boone’s salary as editor-in-chief.
Boone is still open to finding another funder but is focused now on building Street Spirit as an independent organization. She will serve as director, while Penner, who came on board shortly after printing stopped, will be editor-in-chief.
They have already been busy these past six months: Street Spirit has published several articles on its website, stayed active on social media, and hosted fundraiser concerts and talks. They’ve also published “The Eviction Machine” by Vinay Pai, a 78-page illustrated zine documenting the life of William Caldeira, known as 300, a longtime Berkeley resident who dealt with housing insecurity and died in 2019.
Vendors, many of whom are unhoused, were thrilled to hear the paper is returning to print, Boone said.
“A lot of the folks selling Street Spirit have been with us for 10, sometimes 20, years, and so for them Street Spirit is like a part of their identity,” she said. “I think for a lot of them, it’s about representing the East Bay and the [homeless] community they have been a part of for, in many cases, all their lives.” Vending is also an important source of income for many of the sellers. Vendors keep the money they make selling papers, which are $2 apiece.
But with the paper out of print — along with the recent deaths of some longtime vendors and the COVID-19 pandemic initially interrupting selling—the vendor program has dwindled.
The vendors are not the only people in the Street Spirit universe who have experience with homelessness and housing insecurity. Much of the writing and art featured in the publication is created by people with firsthand knowledge of the subjects they’re covering. Penner said that when he first arrived in Berkeley as a transient youth 15 years ago he found community at People’s Park.
“As we continue to witness this feedback loop of development and displacement throughout the East Bay,” he said, “it’s vital that Street Spirit is out here in the undercurrent to ask the deeper questions — why, for whom, and at what expense.”
