Real Change News | NASNA to lay off executive director

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NASNA to lay off executive director

posted by Cydney Gillis on Saturday, July 31 at 1:15am

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In all the time he managed Real Change’s vendor services, I never once saw Israel Bayer on the brink of tears. But, then, he’s never had to tell a roomful of publishers and editors of struggling street newspapers that they’re about to lose one of the few resources they have at their disposal.

Bayer said yesterday that NASNA, an affiliated group of street newspapers sold by the homeless, is laying off its executive director and sole staff member, Andy Freeze. The news was rough on some members attending the organization’s annual conference this week at Chicago’s DePaul University and they pushed back.

Bayer is the board chairman of NASNA, the North American Association of Street Newspapers, which started 15 years ago to help support and launch similar publications. This year’s two-day conference has more than 80 participants from some of the 31 newspapers and magazines that belong to NASNA across the United States and Canada, a number of whom have just started or are preparing to start new publications.

In December 2008, NASNA hired Freeze as its first staff member and, a month later, opened an office in Washington, D.C. Since then, he has helped start three new papers—Toledo Streets, Philadelphia’s One Step Away and the Nashville Contributor—with others in the wings.

Bayer, executive director of Portland’s Street Roots, told conference delegates that NASNA is laying off Freeze at the end of August due to the recession and a lack of funds. The position had been funded with grants from the Ethics & Excellence Journalism Foundation that are now expended, with no new funds in sight to replace them.

In two days of meetings prior to the conference, Bayer said NASNA’s board members had come up with a plan for maintaining all of NASNA’s services and its website themselves, with the organization’s defacto headquarters to be Street Roots’ offices in Portland.

Many delegates expressed shock at the news, questioning why the board hadn’t let its member papers know sooner so that they could have raised money. They then passed an impromptu resolution demanding that the board come up with a dollar figure for what it would take to maintain Freeze’s position until year’s end—a number the board was asked to present in a meeting set later today.

To raise money, some delegates suggested that NASNA’s member newspapers—many of which are all-volunteer operations—pay higher dues to the organization. NASNA currently charges $50 to $2,000 a year for a membership, based on a newspaper’s income.

Even if money could be raised to keep Freeze on through year’s end, board member Serge Lareault, publisher of Montreal’s L’Itineraire, said it wouldn’t buy enough time to raise the real money needed—upwards of $150,000—to keep NASNA’s office open and staffed after January.

Bayer and others stressed that NASNA had existed for years as a volunteer operation and would survive. In the meantime, “we are trying to look for long-term sustainability,” Bayer said.

“I’m shocked to find you’re laying off your executive director. I’m shocked to hear that everybody from this side didn’t know that was happening,” said Bruce Gimbel, a minister and shelter provider who is starting a street newspaper in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. “That wouldn’t have happened at my organization because I would have notified all my constituents [that] we need people to step up.”

“I probably would have paid $1,000 to be at this conference in order to gain [the] $5,000 worth of information, which so far what I feel I’ve gained,” he said. “NASNA is our organization. If you don’t see value in NASNA like I see value, you need to go away.”

“I see a lot of people throwing a lot of punches and I respect that,” Bayer said, his voice cracking. But “we’re in the middle of a recession [and] homelessness is on the rise.”

“If we can come together as a group and there are some solid resolutions ... to help NASNA move forward, we’re all ears,” Bayer said. But “I just want to remind people that we’re all in this together.”