Atlantic Canada's First Street Newspaper
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If you think our enterprise is the kind you like seeing succeed, will you consider sending us a financial contribution toward our high operating costs? You can now make a secure donation to us from your online bank account to our email address: street.feat@ns.sympatico.ca. We would truly appreciate it! (All donors will receive a virtual subscription [PDF format] to our paper.) OUR MISSION STATEMENT: To provide a voice for the poor and needy; to educate and develop a critical conscience; to develop a community based solution to poverty and to generate income for those in need. We focus on issues of poverty. Since 1997, our street newspaper has been "The Voice of the Poor" in metro. Help us help the poor who are gainfully employed in the work of selling our newspaper each time an issue comes out. You always want to know how you can help... well, now you can. Buy an advertisement in the next issue of Street Feat and support under-advantaged women and men in Nova Scotia. Your ad can be in full colour for as low as $33 for a mini business card, right up to a full colour one-page ad, and everything in between. Our circulation targets middle income individuals, the employed, and more than anything else, those who are concerned for the less fortunate, who will see in your ad a business that cares for the same people as they do. If unable to book an ad in the next issue, would you consider purchasing a subscription,for only $20 a year? Volunteer positions are currently available. We are also looking for advertising sales reps. A Portrait of Streets and Shelters (Look for our current issue and buy it from a vendor.) 
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I do believe we should speak up and speak out for equal rights in our society. Those that depend on a fixed income are out there more each and every day, suffering with less and less necessary things one needs to live. The poor barely exist to live a respectful life and to die with dignity. We are human beings and should get more compassion and kindness from any one that lives in this same society. We are all in this together. But it seems the government has each and every one of us playing against each other. There seems to be an under-current existing against the poor. There are so many organizations that are there for the poor, yet so many people still fall through the cracks. Oh yes. And we’re not getting out of poverty any time soon. Usually death is the most common escape. We are labeled and treated as if we are nothing at all in society. The sad thing about it is that it’s the poor that gets the short end of the stick. I think we deserve a safe place to live and eat and sleep, and that should be possible on what one receives to live on. We shouldn’t be impoverished to a point of living in a bug and drug infested place where the rent goes up every time you turn around. How can anyone on a fixed income exist with dignity and grace, not with a slap in the face? This is such a disgrace for our society. Many people are treated like dirt. They are swept aside and hidden to cover the real truth. The system is hiding those that truly need to be seen and heard, not just ignored. They are shut out. They have to run and hide in a place that feels safer than being in our society. Then one can be by oneself, crying silently into the darkest night, taking most anything to dull the pain. We all deserve a place to live as human beings in this world together. We truly are human with a heart and soul, with a face which shows emotions, as such. Those in poverty shouldn’t be treated like some kind of an oddity in a freak show. The poor are poor because that’s the way society goes. It’s a vicious circle until one falls between the cracks, that’s a fact. Some are heard and some simply are forgotten, whipped out of humanity. Others are introduced to insanity. The government and the organizations that are out there to make sure one gets a fair shake in life are power trippin’ and sippin’ wine so fine; livin’ the life that everyone should be able to live but can’t because there is a rut you’re put in. One’s selfesteem is belittled too low for you to get it back to I what it once was. Please don’t forget we are all human. Some may be high up looking down on those that are poor, but no one can say for sure you’ll never be there with those unfortunate beings. What they have to live on should be a crime indeed. Can the poor succeed to get ahead and not live in poverty? Well, why not? The answer may be that the poor have to struggle just to exist. Some get tired of fighting the battle. I can think of many who don’t want to see people rise out of poverty: those whose jobs depend on the poor would lose a lot, for sure. Titles and wages makes some so courageous, full of power. They look down on those that are less fortunate, as such. That’s what feeds certain people’s egos, you see, the poor and the unfortunate that exist more and more as of today. Today, the clock seems to have been turned back to the time in a Charles Dickens novel, in Victorian England. Poverty was common then, and very harsh. Dickens lived in poverty himself, when he was sent to work in a blacking factory for many years. He had a horse and buggy, and took hampers filled with food to the poorest parts of London. If Dickens was alive today, he’d be astonished with the treatment that the poor receive. I’m sure he was thinking about the poverty that would exist past his era. There shouldn’t be s u c h poverty in existence t o d a y . Poverty is m a n-made: it is not God’s will, as such. Why should people be denied the basics of life, and be ridiculed, only because their sin is being poor? Our society acts like it’s a total sin to be poor. Those people that have to depend on an assistance check are simply ridiculed, even when they have no other choice for their survival. Poverty shouldn’t have to be so rampant. There are so many doing without. It is so very difficult to do so. It seems that ‘the system’ wants us to go around in circles until one becomes totally disoriented, with no return. How can anyone possibly exist in such constant chaos, without becoming totally mad with confusion? What’s going to happen to those people who are just starting the rollercoster ride of the impoverished life? One has to hang on for dear life: the ride is such a fast and dangerous suicide mission. So, we have to realize that those who live in poverty, each and every day, work hard to remain alive. Living doesn’t come very easy. There are too many silent cries that will never to be found until it’s much too late. Then it’s too late for any regrets, far too late, for anyone who might have given a shimmer of hope to those that fell between the cracks of poverty. It would be nice if one had a glimmer of hope. One shouldn’t have to end up missing in action because of someone who should have been there, as such, because that was their job from the start. “Oh, whoops, lack of communication.” I think not. Bye for now, Judy, Straight from my heart. To our dear Vendors, Contributors, Volunteers, Readers, Subscribers, Advertisers, Financial Supporters, Suppliers, the Churches that welcomed us, for having made it possible that we reached 14 years of continuous publishing. May we have you with us again during 2012 and beyond! |
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Last Updated on 24 - I - 2012