Toledo Streets

Meet Lawrence. He has four certifications for training in skilled labor. He can run several kinds of forklifts, lay brick and tile, do framing, pipe-fitting, and welding, operate a high-speed production sewing machine, supervise quality control, and use a clicking machine (a 25,000 pound pressure press). He’s applied to over 260 jobs in Ohio in just seventy-some days. No one would hire him. Why? He’s an ex-offender, and he’s on probation for child support (hard to pay when you’re in prison).

He was skeptical about selling the paper because he thought his social skills were inadequate due to being incarcerated for almost 13 years. He decided to give Toledo Streets a try anyway; after all, he had nothing to lose. Since March 8, when he signed up, he’s sold over 450 papers and is catching up on child support. He has more confidence because he realized he had been selling himself short – he does have social skills, and he can succeed at far more than what he is certified to do. All because he wanted to work. And he did – selling the paper. Now he’s selling himself taller.

Lawrence’s story is one of the cornerstones of Issue 17, now out on the streets. If you’d like to buy a copy directly from Lawrence himself, you can find him outside the Toledo Municipal Courthouse on Erie Street in the late morning/early afternoon most weekdays. Tell him you saw him on the Internet.

PANHANDLERS: COUPONS, NOT CASH
Ok, so the weather is warming up and we’re all out walking around, enjoying being outside and supporting local business. It also means the chances are higher you’ll run into someone who’s panhandling. What to do?

We’ve created Toledo Streets Coupons you can print out to hand someone. They encourage the person to contact us here at Toledo Streets and find out about becoming a vendor. We don’t have anything against panhandlers, we just want to help folks move in a more positive direction. Selling a community-based street paper puts someone who formerly capitalized on pity into their own business of capitalizing on a proven program!

Every little bit helps. Because… THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SMALL CHANGE.

Amanda

Panic can set in when you first sit down to plan 12 months’ worth of newpapers for your editorial calendar. Then you start digging in listing all the issues that touch homelessness, and it doesn’t take long to fill a year and beyond. Because what is homelessness but the lack of housing for a human life? And all the humans I know, housed or un-, have stories about thow they reached this point, the now, of their lives. The fascinating part of publishing these stories is observing how unique each is, while also noticing how much common ground we share.

ARCHIVES
So we (and by we, I’m referring to one part-time staffer from 1Matters and a half-dozen volunteers and vendors) are busy putting together the next edition, with a focus on reentry and recidivism. Meanwhile, with 16 issues under our belt – the most recent spotlighting the stories of… people – we thought you may want to take a look back in our archives. You can find 15 of our papers at http://issuu.com/toledostreets.

2012 EDITORIAL CALENDAR
Back to the calendar, since we think you might be able to help us if you know what we’re planning on publishing. Feel free to contact us if you’d like to help with a particular edition. Here are the first few ”themes” as we see them coming up:

• Issue 17: Reentry & Recidivism
• Issue 18: Foster Care & Aging Out
• Issue 19: Veterans
• Issue 20: Mental Health
• Issue 21: Education
• Issue 22: Families in Crisis
• Issue 23: Navigating the System
• Issue 24: Domestic Violence

MUCHO THANKS
Our gratefulness to all who buy papers from vendors on the street everyday. Your interaction/transaction is the beautifully simple goal of what we’re trying to do, taking the philosophy of 1 at a time – your 1 purchase of $1 to 1 vendor – to see lives moving into domestic autonomy through financial autonomy. Unfortunately, we don’t know your name, or we’d thank you personally. But we would like to thank the following organizations who’ve recently purchased ad space or subscriptions:

• Neighborhood Properties, Inc. (NPI)
• Beach House Family Shelter
• Toledo Seagate Food Bank

CHANGE for a DOLLAR
Finally, we’d like to bring your attention to the fact that we’re trying to expand & strengthen our program. If you can help, please consider partnering with us as we help vendors like Greg, who mentioned the other day as he was buying papers that he was saving some of his earnings for a medical co-pay. We know he appreciates the support, and so do the rest of us. Thanks for whatever you can do – there is no such thing as small change.

Amanda

Toledo Streets is more than a newspaper. It’s a program, an opportunity, an investment, a movement, a dream, a megaphone, a bridge.

We’re a jobs program of 1Matters, (the non-profit—sparked and supported by singers John Mellencamp, Crystal Bowersox and others in the music industry—that organizes Tent City), to give the unhoused an opportunity to invest in their own lives instead of panhandling and let them dream beyond their circumstances, let their voice be heard, and let our community bridge the gap of economic difference and meet each other on the same side of valuing hard work. Launched October of 2009, Toledo Streets joined a worldwide collaboration of non-profit newspapers to benefit the unhoused who are trying to change their lives. Toledo Streets aims to empower the unhoused to participate in the community through microenterprise, job-training, and contributorship. Street papers give jobs to people who want to work.

JOBS! Jobs which assist individuals and families with children to reach financial autonomy and afford to get off the streets and into permanent housing. No handouts; each success is earned through hard work. As vendors, they buy the paper for a quarter and sell the paper at a $1.00 suggested donation.

We are seeking funding to cover the full-time launch of Toledo Streets. The modest $35,000 request will produce….

• At least 30 jobs which will dramatically reduce panhandling by redirecting compassion through this productive channel and provide positive esteem-building employment.
• Community Jewels of upbeat vendors committed to the Toledo Streets Code of Conduct which assures the individuals represent our community in a positive light.
• A large PR campaign to raise awareness of Toledo Streets vendors as a positive and productive alternative to panhandling, along with resources for the community to encourage panhandlers to become vendors.
• Partnerships with schools and universities, to offer a training ground of mutual education for students and the unhoused.
• A “Personal Trainer” to assist the vendors in developing and executing business and personal plans.
• Enforcement of city codes through a relationship with the Toledo Police Department.

We need your help to accomplish this.

Please consider investing, donating, subscribing, or purchasing advertising  to help us achieve our $35,000 goal. This will help us deploy our vendor program, our community network, and an excellent product.