Your generosity fuels everything we do!
Dear Friend of Street Sense Media,
Increasingly since the start of this year, homelessness and those it most affects have been described by national leaders using words like “crime and disorder.” Quickly, federal funding for proven and cost-effective solutions such as housing first vouchers is being sharply cut. Instead, we’re seeing aggressive encampment enclosures, efforts to criminalize sleeping outside and suggestions of mandatory hospitalization of persons suffering from mental illness and substance use disorders – an effort that failed miserably during the middle 20th century. Not only are there fewer investments in new housing vouchers, but existing vouchers, and the housing they currently support, are being defunded. If this continues, we’ll surely see a dramatic increase in homelessness in the coming years.
I simply do not recognize any of the men and women who work here at Street Sense Media in the harsh and dehumanizing rhetoric being spewed forth by politicians and policy makers. I imagine you don’t either. It would be natural to think that in the face of such rhetoric our vendors would be discouraged and defeated. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
Since the start of this year, our amazing and hard-working sales team of vendors have embraced a challenge we put forward to reverse the trend in declining circulation of our newspaper. Especially since 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a dramatic decline in circulation. This year, our vendors, in partnership with you our readers, reversed that trend to a degree we never thought possible. Since January, circulation of our newspaper has increased 75%. It certainly helps that our vendors are selling newspapers chock full of award-winning reporting being compiled by our small but mighty newsroom. Reporting that has kept pace and often surpassed that of much larger, better funded newsrooms. Reporting that has caught the attention of national outlets like Slate.com which has partnered with our reporters to republish our original stories.
Inspired by the work that our sales team is doing, we have decided to launch a new initiative aimed at helping our vendors transition to more traditional and higher paying employment. Through a partnership with the DC Department of Human Services (DHS), we will soon add a full-time employment specialist to our staff along with other job search and acquisition programming. But to sustain this new effort, we need your renewed support. Funding from DHS will cover only 40% of the additional costs. We’re relying on donors like you to help us cover the difference.
This effort comes just two years after a budget shortfall forced us to permanently lay off almost half of our staff. Rather than stay on the mat and lick our wounds, we are once again embracing the kind of ambitious strategic planning that first brought Street Sense Media into being 23 years ago. Throughout each and every stage of our evolution, we have been driven by a belief in the hard work of our vendors and fueled by the generosity of donors like you.
Between now and December 31st, we need to raise at least $175,000 from individual donors to fund the next twelve months of programming, including the new employment program. Inspired by a sales team that increased circulation by 75% over the last ten months, please help us achieve this aggressive goal.
Your past support has made everything we do here possible. It has fueled each and every one of the achievements of our vendors. You don’t just keep the lights on; you power our success. Help us keep proving that hard work, imagination and creativity, not “crime and disorder” are the defining characteristics of the men and women of Street Sense Media.
We hope that we can count on your continued partnership through a generous year-end gift or by mailing a check to Street Sense Media at 1317 G Street, NW Washington, DC 20005.
We thank you for your support and wish you the very best this holiday season.
Sincerely,
Brian Carome
CEO