A street newspaper is a publication created to increase public awareness of poverty and homelessness as well as to provide flexible employment opportunities for homeless people. Most street newspapers provide papers to homeless vendors for 20% to 40% of the cover price, which is usually $1. The self-employed vendor sells the papers on the street and keeps the money he or she makes.

Street Sense is in the middle of this range. It charges vendors 25 cents for each $1 paper. New vendors receive 10 free papers to help them start up.

Street newspapers now operate in 80 countries throughout the world.

The roots of street newspapers go back to the 19th century, when the Salvation Army created the War Cry, a weekly publication in Cleveland. From 1872 to the 1920s, the Christian-influenced paper was sold on street corners to help explain to the public how they could help the needy.

Several other papers followed the War Cry, but most of them were published by religious organizations, and few used homeless vendors to sell the paper.

The first secular street newspapers did not appear until the 1970s. Portland, Ore., claims to have had the first modern street newspaper, the now defunct Homeless Times, which was founded in 1972.

However, the 1990s were when the modern street newspaper movement really took off, as public policy towards the poor changed and as desktop publishing became readily available. In both 1996 and 1997, eight newspapers were started, and an average of five were started in each other year in the decade. In 1992 homeless advocates in Chicago founded the bi-weekly Streetwise, the most widely read street newspaper in the United States, with a circulation of about 60,000.

Along with the growing presence and popularity of street newspapers in the 1990s came the creation of the North American Street Newspaper Association, an affiliate of the National Coalition for the Homeless, in 1996. Three years later this street newspaper trade group developed the Street News Service, a shared database of stories from papers across the country.

International street newspapers also came of age in the 1990s. London's Big Issue, a weekly magazine-style street paper, was founded in 1992 and now has a circulation throughout Great Britain of 160,000. And in 1994, organizers of the Big Issue and other papers founded the International Street Newspaper Association.

In 1999 Streetwise attempted to start an affiliate paper in Washington; this was, technically, the first street newspaper in the District. However, with its management operating out of Chicago and with few stories focused on Washington, Streetwise could not stir up enough interest and folded after a half dozen issues.

Street Sense, however, is completely locally based. With almost all of the stories, volunteers, management and distribution coming from the D.C. area, Street Sense is the first true street newspaper of, by, and for Washington's homeless and poor residents.

Based on information from the North American Street Newspaper Association, various street newspaper websites, and a 1999 speech on the history of street newspaper by Norma Fay Green, journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago