Philadelphia Welcomes Its First Street Newspaper

by Josie Raymond · 2010-01-09 12:34:00 UTC
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Philadelphia has quite the publishing history. It's where Ben Franklin established his printing press, where the first political cartoons and the first almanac were published, where the first paper mill began and where the first daily newspaper took off. It's surprising then, that the City of Brotherly Love launched its first street newspaper just last month.

"One Step Away," published by the non-profit Resources for Human Development, joins 25 other street papers in North America. Its writers live in the Ridge Shelter and the Woodstock Family Shelter. They pay 25 cents for each copy of the 16-page paper and sell them for $1, keeping all profits. Unlike traditional print media, papers put out by the homeless have grown during the recession, according to the New York Times.

The Philadelphia Inquirer caught up with contributor and shelter resident Stephenie Bermudez, 13. Bermudez kept her family's living situation a secret at school; she's already self-conscious about being legally blind. But after her writing was published, she made more than $100 selling "One Step Away" at school and got positive responses from other students. Her essay in the paper reads, in part, "We are all one step away ... to getting a home. To losing a home. To rebuilding our lives. To destroying our lives. To retrieving our families. To losing our families. You could be us. We could be you. It's just One Step Away ... "

Photo credit: Bonnie Weller/Philadelphia Inquirer

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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