Poor Magazine.

San Francisco 

A new magazine for poor people is on the streets of Berkeley and San Francisco. Poor provides a mix of literature, harrowing-first-person accounts of poverty and deprivation, and tips on where to find housing, health care, and meals.

Lisa Gray-Garcia (who goes by the nickname Tiny) and her mother, Dee Gray, along with a small support staff, edit and publish the magazine on two computers in a small two-room office in the Tenderloin, an impoverished San Francisco neighborhood. In 1996, the San Francisco Art Commission awarded Tiny and her mother a $10,000 grant. It was followed this past May by $8,000 from the Vanguard Public Foundation. The first two issues, each with a run of 1,000 copies, appeared in May 1996 and June 1997, respectively. The women are trying to raise money for a third issue through donations, advertising, and the sale of Poor T-shirts.

The mother-daughter team also conducts writing workshops for people who want to contribute to Poor. "Most of the people we work with have never done any writing before," says Tiny. "We start at ground zero and teach them literary skills."

The result is not the cheeriest journalism, but it does have some humor.

In the second issue's food section, Joseph Bolden reviews the local soup kitchens. "St. Vincent De Paul in Oakland. You get no napkins, 1 fork. My opinion: St. Paul's is consistent. Consistently bad!" golden's preference is for a Seventh Day Adventist Church featuring vegetarian fare where you get as much as you want "if you stay awake through the sermon."

For more information, contact Poor, 1326 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94109. Call [phone] or e-mail the magazine at [e-mail].