After 19 years, the first newspaper in the country that catered to, was sold by and even written by homeless people from around the country, has folded as the advertisers and supporters have evaporated in a changing economy and advertising dollars have headed to the Internet.

The paper's publisher, John L. Washington, Jr., known to Street News readers as "Indio," said recently from his home on Staten Island, "Street News is going under. That's where it's at."

After their Manhattan office closed, shortly after the attacks of 9/11, Washington, a graduate of Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus, moved the operation to his home. But now, he says, "I'm just overloaded with bills, I just can't hack it."

Washington says he owes $2,600 for printing and archive storage. "I've got to pay the storage, it's really scary. They're homeless and everybody's for themselves, I guess."

The first issue of Street News was published in December 1988. “The homeless in New York City were soon given handfuls of papers to sell. [They] would come back to buy more at a discount, selling them on street corners and subway trains across the city. Others were given the opportunity to write articles or poetry, or to submit photographs.

First time writer Jeremy Weir Anderson gave several articles to Washington, who forwarded him a message from a Texas teen, Anderson recalled, "She had written how her depression had lifted when she read my column. Things like that don't happen every day."

Michael Stoops, the acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless and a contributor to Street News since the paper's inception, added, "John Washington is someone that I admire very much for his commitment to the cause of ending homelessness. With very few resources, he managed to keep Street News afloat."