The history of street newspapers as a means of helping homeless people by providing them with something to sell is interesting. Per Wikipedia: The idea of a newspaper sold on the street as a means of providing income to poor people dates back to at least the late-19th century. The Hobo News, for example, was published in Cincinnati during the late 1910s and early 1920s, by the International Brotherhood Welfare Association. It dealt with topics from labor organizing and unemployment to essays about being a hobo, accounts of daily struggles (arrests), and letters telling hoboes' own stories.
Street News, founded in October 1989 (it debuted on the day of the New York City Marathon) in New York City, is normally cited as the first modern street newspaper. Although there were others already in existence, such as California's Street Sheet, many if not all of the influential street papers launched in the early 1990s (Chicago's StreetWise, Boston's Spare Change, and United Kingdom's The Big Issue), credit the high profile New York paper as their inspiration. After 1989, the concept spread to include more than 100 papers located in at least 28 countries.
The London-based paper The Big Issue, founded in 1991 with a grant from the Body Shop, claimed a readership of over one million people each week, including several regional editions throughout the U.K. It is also the inspiration behind The Homeless World Cup.
Again, from Wikipedia: "It was at the end of the 2001 International Network of Street Papers Conference in Capetown that Mel Young, Co-founder The Big Issue Scotland, and Harald Schmied, editor of Megaphon, a street paper in Austria, came up with the idea for the Homeless World Cup." Cliche as it might sound, the idea arose during an argument in a bar, late at night. They two editors argued about which country had more soccer talent, and "they decided to make it happen and 18 months later the first tournament took place in Graz, Austria. It was such a success that they decided to do more."
In 2003, 144 homeless and "excluded" players from 18 countries participated in over 100 games in the 6 days of the tournament. The rules of the tournament: you have to have been homeless at some point in the previous 12 months, make your living as a street paper vendor, or are an asylum-seeker; 16 year older and over; and teams of 4 on 4 (3 players and a goalkeeper). Each game has two 7-minute halves, with a one-minute break in between. Because of these rules, the games were exciting. Over 20,000 turned out to cheer for the tournament, thanks to large media coverage. The Austrian team won the tournament - as is often the case in soccer, home field advantage is huge!
31 of the tournament's 144 players now hold regular jobs, according to Homeless World Cup.
The 2004 tournament was held in Sweden, and the 2005 Homeless World Cup took place in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was originally suppose to be held here in NYC, but visa problems forced the tournament to find another location. Personally, I recommend Istanbul - they are the easiest location to fly people in from all around the world, and they have the least trouble with visas. Indeed, most international conferences are held in Istanbul.
Instead of losing steam, the Cup got bigger. The 2005 version had 32 teams and 250 players. Italy won for the second year in a row. More importantly, 77% of players from that tournament have significantly changed their lives, meaning (according to HWC): "forever moving into jobs, education and training, coming off drugs and alcohol, finding homes and renewing relationships with their family."
I don't know how reliable that data really is - it sounds like they wanted to put out a positive spin on their event - but the bottom line is that this organization is trying to do something good for homeless people, and fun, too. The goal of the event is "to help people recover from homelessness by generating self-confidence, a feeling of belonging and enhanced self-esteem." The tournament seems to be accomplishing that.
In fact, here is a further breakdown of those 77%: 38% have regular jobs; 40% have housing; 28% have sought further education and training.
The 2006 tournament was in Capetown, where the idea was initially born. 48 countries and 496 players participated in over 300 matches. Russia just beat out Kazakhstan for the title.
So this past month, the 2007 Homeless World Cup was held in Copenhagen. Scotland won this year, beating out Poland and Liberia. The USA finished 36th, just ahead of Argentina (!) at 38th, and Canada at 40th.
From this Bloomberg Media article:
"Victor is the first player to arrive. A 28-year-old laborer from
He's followed by Mahdi, a 25-year-old from
A list of things these homeless men don't have is a lengthy one. They, however, focus on what they do possess, which is a collective love of soccer."
"Homelessness
is about detachment,'' says Jeff Grunberg (founder of the USA Homeless World
Cup), a sociologist who publishes the street newspaper BIGnews, which the
homeless of
Among the program's success stories is
``Now he's the guy who calms people down,'' Cann
said via telephone.
Oh, and in case you are wondering what became of the Street News - I know I was... One article I read said this: "Those were the days when homelessness was the cause de jour in the Big Apple and SN's circulation was close to 100,000. Then, says (Editor-In-Chief) Indio, "The Mayor or President of Transit or both directed the Transit Police to arrest anyone selling our paper on the subways. The Port Authority, Grand Central Terminal, Staten Island Ferry 'n other agencies jumped on the bandwagon. We lost nearly 80% of readership." That was from the early 90's.
Another article I found, from like 1995, quoted the EIC at that time as saying that it's a dying paper that won't last much longer. Indeed, it seems very probable that it went belly-up at some point in the mid-90's.
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I read Mole People, great book.
SML, nice work, too bad they make the homeless play soccer, though. Seems cruel and unusual to me.
Mole People was a good book, very interesting read. It did receive heavy criticism, as a lot of people thought it was fictionalized (I remember reading somewhere that the woman who wrote the book only took one or two trips underground, and relied alot on hearsay with regards to the locations she wrote about). If that's the case, then it falls in the "Gangs of NY" kind of dramatized history.
But either way, it's a great read. And I have actually been to "Freedom Tunnel" - it's a place people used to tag up in, and the entrance was someone in Riverside Park, that lead to this long tunnel with incredible graffiti. And lots of homeless people around, of course (but they left you alone if you were rolling with a decent sized crew).
SML, I'm impressed. I just actually started reading a book called "The Mole People", about homeless who lived in the tunnels and abandoned areas of the NYC subway system. Amazing book. And really tied in with your post. Great job, man.