Tennessee is Vicky Batcher’s home, and it is a place she is witnessing turn against people who don’t have shelter and must make their home on the street, a position she knows all too well from past experience. In the latest in INSP’s Housing for the People column, she writes about the jarring experience of seeing the place you live criminalize homeless people – people Vicky has a kinship with – as Tennessee will do with the passing of a new law.

Paul A. and Vicky B., who both sell the street paper The Contributor in Nashville, write about the “great injustice” that is the recent Tennessee Senate Bill 1610, which makes rough sleeping and homelessness camps on public land a criminal act. The bill has since passed into law without the signature of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee.

Memphis’s The Bridge is unique within the street paper network as it is entirely student run. Founded in 2013 by three Rhodes College students, it was inspired by nearby Nashville’s own street paper The Contributor. Here, the two collide, as The Contributor’s Maggie Youngs chatted to The Bridge executive team member Emma Figarsky about how it all works.

In this article, The Contributor catches up with several of its street paper vendors to find out how their lives and sales have been affected since COVID-19 hit. Although The Contributor has been able to continue printing physical copies of the paper during the pandemic, its vendors have had to adapt in order to maintain both their sales and their relationships with customers in a way that is safe for everyone.

Health care is a hot topic in the United States and the debate about health care is likely to be a key issue in the run up to the presidential election in 2020, and differing opinion on how it should be reformed has already been core to the ongoing Democratic Primary. The prohibitively high costs of accessing health care, combined with the high number of people without medical insurance, means that many Americans cannot access the care that they urgently need. Two vendors talk to The Contributor about their experiences of the American health care system.

Randolph B. has found security through his work selling The Contributor. He knows that he will always be able to sell the magazine, regardless of his work situation, and that he has the support of customers with whom he was forged lasting friendships. Despite having recently taken on paid work with Rock City Mechanical, Randolph still sells The Contributor in the evenings and at the weekend. Here, he speaks of his love for his customers and for his adopted hometown, Nashville.

American street paper The Contributor has been going for over ten years as a traditional news print publication. But, last week, the Nashville, Tennessee publication reinvented itself with a sleek new magazine format and updated design.

Today, as part of our vendor wishes series, we visit Vicky who sells The Contributor in Tennessee. She has big plans for the new year…