Michael Stoops Loved the Street Newspapers in America
Commentary by Brian Davis
Michael Stoops loved street newspapers. He was the community organizer for the National Coalition for the Homeless, founder of the North American Street Newspaper Association, and helped to foster the development of many papers, including the Street Chronicle. For a guy who organized homeless people for a living, the street newspaper is the ultimate expression of success for those struggling with poverty. Just as the pamphleteers did at the founding of our country, the better street papers amplify the voice of those who have a hard time finding housing and it also puts some money in their pockets. Michael believed there is no better tool than one that can provide income, and a venue for progressive causes.
The first thing I did when I became the Director of NEOCH in 1995 was call Michael Stoops at the National Coalition for the Homeless and talked to him about civil rights for those who did not use the shelters. We were engaged in a series of lawsuits that began before I was a member of the Coalition, so I needed a tutorial. Michael was a quiet man who was a peacemaker. He never asked for the spotlight but accepted it to save the National Coalition for the Homeless. Sitting down and looking for a solution with a group of persecuted homeless people was the way he wanted to spend his afternoons. Michael Stoops passed away on May Day 2017 after a two year struggle following a stroke.
I helped Michael with starting NASNA back in the 1990s in an attempt to spread this wonderful concept throughout the US and Canada. Cleveland advocates had begun publishing a street newspaper in 1993 as one of the few papers in America behind San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Chicago. Michael was always willing to comment on stories that we were writing to give our volunteer writers a national spin in order to make the stories sound important.
We held summer conferences that I helped organize to bring together editors and vendors from around the country in order to exchange information and learn from each other. We met in Chicago, Boston, Edmonton, Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco, and Cleveland hosted the third conference in 1999. Michael had to deal with the headaches at the Canadian border for the conferences, when our vendors with criminal backgrounds were held until they paid an extra $350 to receive a stamp that they were not welcome in Canada and had to leave within five days. He had to put up with our vendor, Marcia, who dressed up as a cow on the plane to San Francisco in order to win the vending competition that we always had as part of the conference. Michael Stoops always made sure that homeless people were a part of the street newspaper movement and the conferences. He paid for their airfare and made sure that they were represented on the executive committee of NASNA.
At our conference in Cleveland, Michael taught advocates about civil rights struggles across the country including the lawsuit we fought against the City of Cleveland to allow our vendors to be able to sell on the streets of Cleveland without getting a city issued license ($200) before they could start selling the paper. Stoops was always working to give a hand up to homeless people. He wanted the people who were drafting laws to hide homeless people to hear from those who have to live with these laws. Stoops wanted those living in poverty to be at the forefront in deciding how to govern themselves. This is why he loved NCH, which has always had current or formerly homeless people on the board, they hired at least three executive directors with previous experience of homelessness. He liked partnering with self-governing groups like CCNV shelter, the vendors at Street Sense and Food Not Bombs.
Michael voraciously read everything he could about homelessness including every street newspaper he could find. Once he got the internet, he spent hours reading papers from around the country for news about homeless people. The street newspaper movement that Stoops fostered had the added benefit of being able to end someone’s homelessness. There are thousands of newspaper vendors who were able to make the rent or pay for dental work because of Michael. He loved to empower individuals willing to try to sell free speech on the cold, rainy, harsh mean streets of America. A vendor can earn money to pay rent or pay off a utility bill depending on the amount of time they spend, and they also could educate the public about eliminating poverty.
Michael will be missed and the loss of his voice on the national stage will leave a huge hole to fill.