Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco

February 2012

– Present

(1 year 4 months)

468 Turk Street, San Francisco, CA 94102The Street Sheet is a street newspaper published and sold in San Francisco, California which focuses on the problems of homeless people in the city, and on issues of poverty and housing. Founded in December,1989, just over one month after the Loma Prieta earthquake added thousands to The City's rolls of homeless people, the Street Sheet is oldest continually operating Street Publication in North America and currently has the largest circulation of any street newspaper with 32,000 papers distributed monthly.

The Coalition on Homelessness publishes the newspaper, and vendors distribute the paper on the streets of San Francisco and in various other Bay Area communities, usually in exchange for a one-dollar donation.

The Street Sheet educates the public on homelessness and provides a grassroots perspective on poverty and related issues that is not available from the mainstream media. By providing a forum for homeless people to voice their opinions and concerns, the paper challenges the prevailing mythology: that homeless people are lazy, ignorant, and choose to be homeless. The Street Sheet has brought a new influx of volunteers from business, government and service organizations who join the Coalition's work groups and participate in advocacy to formulate constructive solutions to homelessness in San Francisco.