A Tough Sell: Stigma as Souvenir in the Contested Performances of San Francisco's Homeless Street Sheet Vendors

Abstract

The San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness’ newspaper, the Street Sheet, is one of the nation's longest-running homeless newspapers. The Coalition's unique “business model” has served as an example for other “street newspapers” worldwide. In this model, homeless persons are entrusted to sell the newspaper on the street, keeping most of the profits for themselves. Using ethnographic data and document analysis, this essay frames the newspaper's vending interactions as performances of a contested “authentic” homeless identity that both transforms the stigma of homelessness into a “selling point” and reinforces the stigma associated with homelessness, ultimately positioning the stigma of homelessness as a souvenir of the Other.

Keywords:

• Performance of Identity
• Homelessness
• Street Newspapers
• Stigma
• Self-presentation
• Souvenir

A version of this essay was awarded Top Overall Paper in the Performance Studies division of the Western States Communication Association, Albuquerque, NM, 2004.

A version of this essay was awarded Top Overall Paper in the Performance Studies division of the Western States Communication Association, Albuquerque, NM, 2004.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Sarah Amira de la Garza and the graduate students of her Advanced Ethnography class for initial input on this project. The author also thanks the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Notes

A version of this essay was awarded Top Overall Paper in the Performance Studies division of the Western States Communication Association, Albuquerque, NM, 2004.

1. In addition to observing vending interactions, I sold the Street Sheet for a period of three hours at the Powell transit station, giving the money I earned to Ken, the vendor from whom I got the papers.

2. At the time of this writing, vendors kept 100 percent of the money earned from selling the Street Sheet. Other SNP programs ask vendors to give a certain percentage (usually ten percent) back to the nonprofit publisher to offset printing costs. Some members of the organization hinted that the SFCOH might eventually do the same, but no changes were made during the time of this research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kurt Lindemann

Kurt Lindemann (PhD, Arizona State University) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University