Spare Change

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Spare Change News is a street newspaper published in Cambridge, Massachusetts through the efforts of the Homeless Empowerment Project, a grassroots organization created to help end homelessness.

Each vendor pays 25 cents for each copy of the paper, then he or she sells it on the streets for US$1. As a result, he or she receives a 75-cent profit for each issue sold.

The biweekly, 16-page paper contains a color front and back page, alternative news, arts features, interviews, fiction and poetry that are written by staff writers and journalists, as well as by people who are homeless or work with the homeless. A full page is devoted to listings of local centers for job/skills training, senior care, women's care, drug recovery programs and homeless shelters.

Circulation is roughly 10,000 per issue. SCN and HEP currently rely on grants and donations to publish the newspaper, but the organization is currently working on increasing its advertising revenue to become self-sufficient.