Spare Change News

The mission of Spare Change News is "to present, by our own example, that homeless and economically disadvantaged people, with the proper resources, empowerment, opportunity, and encouragement are capable of creating change for ourselves in society." [5]

The mission of the Homeless Empowerment Project (HEP) is "to empower the economically disadvantaged in Greater Boston through self-employment, skill development, and self-expression. To create forums, including those of independent media in order to reshape public perception of poverty and homelessness." [5]

Cover page of the premiere issue of Spare Change News, May 8, 1992 (cover photo by David P. Henry [6])

Since the founding of Spare Change News, the price of the newspaper has varied. Originally it was sold for $1 and the vendor paid 25 cents for a copy making a profit of 75 cents on each paper sold. As of September 2016, a vendor pays 50 cents for each copy of the paper, then sells it on the streets for $2. As a result, the vendor makes a $1.50 profit for each newspaper sold.[7]

There are approximately 100 active vendors in the greater Boston area at any one time.

The biweekly, 16-page paper contains a color front and back page, alternative news, arts features, interviews, fiction and poetry that are written by staff writers and journalists, as well as by people who are homeless or work with the homeless. A full page is devoted to listings of local centers for job/skills training, senior care, women's care, drug recovery programs and homeless shelters.

Circulation is roughly 10,000 per issue. HEP/SCN rely on grants and donations to publish the newspaper, but the organization works to increase its advertising revenue to become self-sufficient.

The paper was started in Boston in 1992 and was the brainchild of Tim Hobson, who enlisted the aid of twelve other homeless people [8][9] and one housed advocate, Timothy Harris, who was a member and Executive Director of Boston Jobs with Peace.[10][11] In 1994, Harris would go on to use the model of Spare Change News and the Homeless Empowerment Project to found Real Change, a street newspaper in Seattle. Harris was later quoted as saying about street newspapers like Spare Change News and Real Change and creative artistic expression:

"When people think of helping the poor and homeless, they usually think of food and shelter," Harris said. "Those things are necessary, but it's more than that. It's the spiritual. The homeless need to express themselves and be a part of the community. It's important that they have human dignity".

— Tim Harris, one of the founders of Spare Change News, [12]

The first issue of Spare Change News was published on Friday, May 8, 1992.

The newspaper's first managing editor, Tim Hobson, said at its founding that it would be "heavy on politics as well as discussion of homeless empowerment". He also said an important goal was to "put a face on the homeless to show that we're human beings".[5][13]

MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, together with his friend, the historian Howard Zinn, were some of the first major supporters of Spare Change News.[14]

In June 1993, one of the founders, James L. Shearer, appeared before the Boston City Council to accept a special commendation on behalf of Spare Change as the newspaper celebrated its one-year anniversary.[15]

In July 2002, Spare Change News and the Homeless Empowerment Project hosted the Seventh Annual Conference of the North American Street Newspaper Association.

In May 2004, Spare Change News hired journalist Samuel Scott, who was a Boston University graduate as well as former Boston Courant reporter and Boston Globe editorial assistant, to be its first professional editor.[16] He changed the tone of the paper from advocacy journalism to objective reporting on social issues and revamped it from a black-and-white broadsheet into a color tabloid. He was later executive director of the Homeless Empowerment Project.[3]

In November 2007, Boston's South End street newspaper Whats Up Magazine disbanded and merged into Spare Change News under the umbrella of the Homeless Empowerment Project.[9] On February 28, 2008, Whats Up published their first 4-page insert inside Spare Change News.

In 2008, Spare Change News received a grant from The Harbus Foundation of Harvard University Business School, to use it "to support a long-term marketing strategy to increase the awareness of the organization amongst the general public and generate broader distribution and commensurate aid for its vendors."[17]

In October 2010, a Worcester, Massachusetts edition of Spare Change News was launched.[18] It is a collaboration of Spare Change News and the Worcester Homeless Action Committee.

In July 2011, Tom Benner, a veteran journalist and former head of the Massachusetts State House bureau for The Patriot Ledger newspaper, joined as the new editor-in-chief.[2]

In June 2012, Vincent Flanagan, Esq., was appointed Executive Director of the Homeless Empowerment Project/Spare Change News. Mr. Flanagan was previously Development Director for Legal Affairs for Give Us Your Poor, and served in various senior level and managerial positions during his 25-year career with the federal judiciary, such as Circuit Executive for the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts.[19]

In August 2012, the Reverend Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, a Pentecostal (Church of God in Christ) Christian minister, community organizer, and activist who studied religion at Harvard University and Union Theological Seminary in New York, joined Spare Change News as Editor-in-Chief.[1] Reverend Sekou was interviewed by Callie Crossley on WGBH Radio in Boston on August 29, 2012 about the mission and future of the newspaper.[20]

In August 2015, Ms. Katherine Bennett was hired as Executive Director of HEP/SCN replacing Vincent Flanagan who had been on board for several years and had moved with his family out of state. Bennett, who is from the South Shore of Greater Boston, was involved in many homeless advocacy projects and was a journalist.[21][22]

On June 21, 2012, Spare Change News celebrated its 20th anniversary in the Harvard Room at the Inn at Harvard in Cambridge. In attendance was Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie C. Decker, and the keynote speech was delivered by Massachusetts State Representative, Byron Rushing. One of the founders, Tim Harris, wrote a note to the gathering congratulating the organization for its tenure and especially thanking co-founder, writer, and Board President James Shearer, for his sticking with the organization since its inception and keeping it alive. Musical entertainment was provided by Building Bridges Through Music, and the Follow Hymn Interfaith Choir of Lynn, Massachusetts, with Doreen Murray as featured vocalist. Poetry readings were given by Book of Hope featuring Jordan Tyler Young and Aminata Keita. There was also an exhibit called "The Homeless are not Faceless".

In August, 2011, HEP/SCN launched the publication of The Hub Resource Guide, a pocket-sized handbook of resources and services in and around Boston. It is similar in concept to The Rose City Resource published by Street Roots in Portland, Oregon.

• List of street newspapers

• "Spare Change Adds Up", Bunker Hill Community College Magazine, Boston, Summer/Fall 2010 issue, p. 32
• Benner, Tom, "First Person: A Paper With A Future", Spare Change News, Aug 24, 2012
• Friedman, Anna M.; Bensson, Anne E., "Vendor Asks Square To ‘Spare Change'", The Harvard Crimson newspaper, March 23, 2005
• Harris, Tim, "Spare Change Reflection", University of Washington, course H A&S 350A "Street Newspapers, Poverty and Homelessness", Spring 2009.
• Jefferson, David J. (March 11, 2010). "Spare Change's Most Insidious Myths". Spare Change News. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Homeless Empowerment Project. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011.
• Jefferson, David J. (May 21, 2010). "18 Years of Empowerment". Spare Change News. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Homeless Empowerment Project. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011.
• Kaye, Lucinda, "Spare Change: Voice of the Homeless", Peacework magazine, June 1, 1996
• O'Neill, Lindsey, "Spare Change? The Elective Interdepence of City Life", The Huffington Post, November 1, 2012
• Ortiz, David, "Newspaper that helps the homeless helps itself: Things are changing at Spare Change", The MetroWest Daily News, Thursday, August 2, 2001
• Saginaw, Michael A., "IAP Activity Gives Students Chance to Help Homeless", The Tech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology newspaper, January 29, 1993. p. 15. Byron H. Paladin, a founder of Spare Change News speaks about homelessness to MIT students.
• Shearer, James L., "Looking Back", Spare Change News, June 15, 2012. (James Shearer, one of the Spare Change News founders in 1992, looks back at the paper on its twentieth anniversary in 2012.)
• Simpson, April, "Voice of Homeless Struggles to Stay Afloat: Lagging Sales Hit Nonprofit Paper", The Boston Globe, July 3, 2005.
• Smith, Patricia, "Homeless lose in paper war", The Boston Globe, February 17, 1997
• Walters, Laurel Shaper, "`Spare Change' Helps Homeless: Newspaper written by street people and aimed at commuters hits Boston's streets", The Christian Science Monitor, June 4, 1992

• Official website
• Spare Change News editions online as PDF files
• Homeless Empowerment Project, Inc. – filings with Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts