The Youth Spirit Artworks (YSA) headquarters, located on Alcatraz Street in South Berkeley, is a studio of utmost abundance. Artwork of all forms created by young adults artists, also known as Aspirants, is displayed on every inch of wall space.
There are mosaic tiles painted with beautiful flowers, silkscreened bags with elaborately colored designs, and canvases of all different sizes with illustrations conceptualized and painted by the artists.
Amongst this cornucopia of creativity are stacks of the latest edition of Street Spirit, reading: Volume 23, No. 1, A publication of Youth Spirit Artworks.
Starting the beginning of 2017, YSA took over the 22- year-old newspaper, Street Spirit, known as the paper for homeless rights and social justice advocacy. While the Street Spirit was funded by The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) since its inception, the AFSC announced in July, that, due to budget cuts, the publication could no longer be funded.
Under the leadership of Sally Hindman, the executive director of YSA, a handover was organized transferring Street Spirit from co-founder, Terry Messman, to YSA.
YSA lead a drive for $27,000 and the donations were able to keep the paper up and running past January 1, the last pay date. According to Hindman, Street Spirit’s existence could not be more valuable than now, as Bay Area is undergoing a time of drastic transformation and gentrification into a Tech Hub much like Silicon Valley. When to have a voice for the homeless and other underserved people throughout the East Bay and regionally.
Many members of YSA are adamant about the crucial role Street Spirit plays in the lives of the homeless.
“[Street Spirit] provides a livelihood for 100 vendors each month,” said Hindman, “It’s significant as a vehicle for community organizing.”
With the handover of Street Spirit from AFSC to YSA comes the inclusion of youth leadership in the process of bringing the paper to print.
The paper will also include works from youth artists and writers. From creating to organizing the layout of the content, the Street Spirit will maintain its reputation as a medium for homeless expression. The only notable difference will be that now, the paper will also include a new youth voice.
When discussing the twenty or so young adults who will be put in place as Youth Leaders of Street Spirit, Hindmand describes their roles as being involved through “Serving on the Street Spirit Advisory Board, writing feature stories, providing their own poetry and prose, writing about their own communities, organizing relevant campaigns, advertising their art for sale as well as events, and gaining experience selling the newspaper as the lowest price point item in their art sales enterprise.”
Members of the Youth Leader Committee and the youth artists at YSA view the Street Spirit as an opportunity for further expression and political activism, and they recognize the role that the paper plays in supplying jobs and income to unemployed or homeless people in the Bay Area.
Berkeley native and prospect head of Street Spirit, William Vaughn, described how he and his peers see Berkeley as a city which is the “home of the homeless.” “I’ve seen more homeless people here than anywhere else,” he stated.
Many Street Spirit vendors depend on their sales as their livelihood.
Vaughn stated, “The [vendors] are out here trying to hustle, so a dollar can actually change that person’s life.”
Youth Leader, Malina King, a senior at Berkeley Technology Academy, is adamant about the positive change YSA will be able to offer to Street Spirit.
King described how she became involved in YSA through YouthWorks during her sophomore year of high school. She has worked with YSA ever since then and has expanded her leadership skills.
Currently, King holds the position of Community Outreach Coordinator for the program.
“This program gave me a platform in order to speak and started my public speaking career … there were many events and venues to go to and allow me to step up in what I already do,” said King.
She aligns herself with the values of Street Spirit and continues to enforce speaking up for social justice and change.
When asked about the various topics that she covers in her speeches, Malina said, “I speak a lot about justice for LGBTQ+, Black Lives, Afro-Latina rights … Anything that involves injustice, I’m there to be the forefront of love.”
While the task of publishing a widely circulated newspaper, with over twenty thousand copies sold each month, might seem daunting to someone not familiar with YSA’s organization, the Youth Leader team says that they are very ready to take on this worthy challenge.
King said, “I was a little nervous at first. I’m happy now because it gives young people who don’t necessarily have the courage to speak up write what they want to say instead of saying what they want directly.”
She and many of the young artists share the sense that, with the transition Street Spirit has experienced, the newspaper will undergo a process of change from being labeled as the “homeless newspaper.”
King explains that, “The paper is becoming much more than it has been and has the potential to bridge the generation gap.”
King and the other people in charge of Street Spirit will do so by adding in coloring pages for younger audiences, featuring stories from people who have different backgrounds, and including various types of media in the paper.
King wants to make sure that the paper keeps with its goal of talking about “people who are dislocated and not homeless because of gentrification and we need to talk about that not just basing our mindset on ‘its a homeless newspaper.’”
King also expressed her realization of the potential the paper has in catalyzing a dialogue about current social movements and acting as a place of expression of political activism.
“I feel like young people should read a lot more in general. Street Spirit will be real stories. Everyone wants to be someone in life so if you can read the street paper and feel and be a part of a movement that is bigger than just you, than just being on your phone or Instagram movement that’s doing something good with your people,” said King.
Another artist of Youth Spirit Artworks, Jay Wills, described that he thinks that Street Spirit is a very good opportunity for aspiring young writers and poets.
Wills stated, “A lot of youth are drawers and painters. Some youth can use their writing ability and channel it into the Street Spirit.”
YSA stated that they would like the newspaper’s original purpose to remain intact: for Street Spirit to remain a paper which accurately and compassionately represents the struggles and lives of the marginalized people that live in the Bay Area as well as the greater Northern California area.
Wills concluded,“[We] want to make sure the youth have every opportunity to express how we feel and not be censored … youth should have freedom. Let the Street Spirit be authentic and let it be us.”