Thursday, August 23, 2007
After graduating from the University of Kansas in 1996, Craig Sweets decided that helping the homeless was what he wanted to do with his life. Since then, Sweets has been editor of Change of Heart, a streetpaper that gives the Lawrence homeless an opportunity to be published.
The paper is composed of stories, poems and artwork submitted by the homeless. They can then receive a small income by passing out the newspaper to the public.
“They don’t like to hear people telling them to get a job; this is a job for them,” Sweets said. “We want to break down the stigma of these people being called hobos and all sorts of names.”
Change of Heart is the only streetpaper in Kansas, and it is a member of the North American Street Newspaper Association. It is published four times a year. The next issue will be published in early September, and vendors who pass out the paper can be identified easily by their red messenger bags.
“They are proud to see their work in print,” said Loring Henderson, the director of the Lawrence Community Shelter. “When the paper is coming out, they start coming around asking, ‘How soon? Can I have extra copies? Can I send some to my family?’”
Sweets hopes Change of Heart will be able to improve after receiving a $9,000 grant last week from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation of Oklahoma City, Okla., which will allow the newspaper to buy two computers, pay for printing costs and pay Sweets a stipend.
“This will be a tremendous help,” Henderson said. “The paper has been struggling for years with donated time.”
The vendors who distribute Change of Heart ask for a $1 donation and get to keep 75 cents of each dollar. They are allowed to keep 10 free papers, and they wear buttons with the Change of Heart logo. Henderson said there were usually about five reporters and five to 10 vendors working on each issue of the paper.
Tracy Fields, who does most of the artwork for the newspaper, recently has written articles about the social service league and the Salvation Army in the paper.
“The paper has a very broad following, and we would like to make it even bigger,” Fields said. “There are some really wonderful business owners that are getting involved with distributing the paper.”
Fields said he liked what the paper stood for and thought that the response from the public had been mostly positive.
“We get anything from people being gracious and really interested in buying the paper to people telling us to get a job,” Fields said. “But for the most part people are interested in it.”
The paper’s next step is to try to build a relationship with the KU School of Journalism, so that students can come help with the newspaper by editing stories, designing the layout and passing it out to the public with the homeless. Although no contact with the school has been made yet, Henderson said they hoped that part of the new grant can be used toward building this association with the University.
“The homeless often feel misunderstood,” Henderson said. “This is a way for them to get credibility and have their issues explained. It helps in several ways, and I’m still surprised at how important it is to them. They really are pleased to be published.”
— Edited by Amelia Freidline
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