The Street Pulse Newspaper is a non-profit organization that works to identify and address homelessness and social issues by empowering marginalized voices, providing direct, concrete avenues through which homeless and low income individuals can help themselves and promoting communication and awareness throughout the Madison community.
We recognize that:
Therefore, The Street Pulse strives to serve two functions:
The idea for a street paper in Madison was born in November of 2005 out of the recognition that by ignoring what the homeless have to say, society is missing out on interesting and enlightening stories and points of view. The notion of a street paper, however, was not new. In fact, most major cities in the United States have varying sizes of grass-roots oriented street papers of their own. As a result, the founding team, Mel Motel, Ryan Richardson, Richard Ricundou Claire Muller, Jon Patberg and Becky Ford, drew heavily on other already well founded papers such as StreetWise in Chicago and Street Roots in Portland. From these organizations, we realized that this paper would not only be an interesting read, but also a viable mode through which the homeless can help themselves by selling papers and contributing submissions. Thus, by the winter of 2004, the idea, then labeled The Homeless Cooperative, was firmly in place.
However, as is the case with most of the ideas of ambitious, socially conscious college students, The Homeless Cooperative remained simply an idea. We were certainly intense about this idea and dedicated to its actualization, but in reality, none of us had much computer knowledge at all, let alone any idea of how to do layout. That first hurdle was passed during the summer of 2005 when Jeff Alexander introduced himself as an experienced newspaper production manager that was enthusiastic about getting the Homeless Cooperative started. Mr. Alexander continues to function as our production manager, and without him, Madison's Street Pulse would probably still be just an idea.
So with an actual method of production, the whole team set to work during the summer of 2005 on organizing and developing the Homeless Cooperative's first issue that debuted the last week in October and ran for the month of November. By that time, we had selected Mel Motel, Ryan Richardson and Claire Muller to form our first editorial collective. Alongside this group, Becky Ford worked as copy editor until she left for India in the winter, Jon Patberg took up volunteer and vendor coordination and Danielle Zirkel managed our finances and grant writing.
During this formative stage, we also formed invaluable relationships with some very knowledgeable people from the University of Wisconsin (Professor Will Workman), from local news papers (Nathan Comp and the staff of The Madison Observer), from MATC (Professor Harold Gates), and, most importantly, other street paper expats (Shawn Steen from Real Change in Seattle and Greg Pritchett from StreetWise in Chicago). Each of these people played significant roles in the beginning and we are still grateful to Shawn and Professor Workman who are our mentors into the worlds of starting and running a street newspaper and the techniques and art of journalism respectively. We laud Nathan Comp who, as our ombudsman, furthers our growth through objective, sharp and constructive suggestions. Though these are the major players in the paper, the list is far from complete. I think it absolutely necessary to thank some of our vendors who have gone above and beyond their role as vendor to contribute significantly to the paper content and functioning itself. Namely, we thank Jeff Alexander, Jimmy Luckenbill, Chris 'Merlin' Conley, Rocky Ison, Robert 'BobKat' Hager and many others.
It is absolutely amazing to think how far we have come in this year. While I could continue on in narrative form, I think it might be best to simply list of the important dates. More important than the specific milestones that we have passed, however, are the relationships we have built and the structure we have set up. Every non-profit organization needs a base and I feel that after this year, we are almost to the tipping point, after which, I can rest assured that the StreetPulse will be hitting the streets for years to come.
January 2006 — Mel, Ryan, Claire and Jon sign the lease to our own office (formerly the office of The Onion) February 2006-The Homeless Cooperative changes its name to Madison's StreetPulse Newspaper
March 2006 — The release of the Homeless Cooperative musical compilation CD "Hearts and Minds" debuts at a major benefit at the High Noon Saloon
April 2006 — Major Street Pulse retreat. We decide on our mission statement and vision and seriously consider the underlying currents or racism and power structures.
May of 2006 — Madison-area Urban Ministries agrees to act as our fiscal sponsor-finally we can apply for grants under 501(c)(3) not-for-profit status
June 2006 — Another major Street Pulse retreat. Shawn Steen joins us and we discuss the overall structure of the paper. What roles are people going to play? Who is responsible for what? How are decisions to be made? What are the StreetPulse's areas of interest? How do the positions we form actually operate?
July 2006 — We implement the monthly collection Drives that correspond with the theme of the current issue. The items collected are distributed at Savory Sunday meal sites, thus deepening the relationship between the two organizations
November 2006 — Claire and Jon start regular meetings with Shawn Steen who is the first to agree to be a member of our soon-to-be board of directors
January 2007 — We move out of the 520 West Gilman office, and into 646 West Washington Office, where we share a space with Savory Sundays Inc.
February 2007 — Will Workman agrees to take up the position of editor-in-chief for the 2007-08 year and beyond
February 2007 — the 3rd annual Box City event (the previous two had been sponsored by the MWCC) this year, the Box City is not only a showcase of solidarity with the homeless, but also a major fund raiser for the paper.
February 2007 — Jon, Claire, Becky and Katie meet with Will Workman and Shawn Steen to present and finalize the Foundational documents of the Street Pulse Newspaper.