A new guide to make sense of the language and the complexities of homelessness. Email not displaying correctly?
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Screen shot, Street Sense Media

When she first started as a reporter covering her beat at Street Sense Media, it took Annemarie Cuccia a few months to make sense of the language and the complexities of homelessness.
Now, she’s made a concrete guide to help others catch up quickly.
The glossary of 26 terms and definitions ([link removed]) helps journalists navigate programs, acronyms and terms they need to understand when covering housing and homelessness.
Street Sense is a newsroom that also works directly with artists and vendors experiencing homelessness. That connection offers staff insights into what journalists often get wrong.
“Working with those partners and reading news about homelessness in general, we realized we had access to experts and a level of specialized knowledge that might help other newsrooms report on the issue with more accuracy and complexity,” said Cuccia, now Street Sense’s editor-in-chief.
In 2016, Street Sense Media ([link removed]) started working with other newsrooms in Washington, D.C., to create and share stories about homelessness for World Homeless Day ([link removed]) each October. This year, the Homeless Crisis Reporting Project ([link removed]) includes coverage from Street Sense, Washington Blade, City Cast DC, The 51st and more.
In 2022, Street Sense created a guide for journalists ([link removed]) . (It was originally pitched as a project by a journalist and fellow in the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship. Cuccia was a 2023-2024 fellow.)
This newest offering is “a centralized resource to double-check your understanding of concepts like fair market rent and rental discrimination, and to get some tips about how to handle complex topics,” Cuccia said. “For instance, we, along with many outlets, often report on the yearly Point-in-Time Count, but it's widely considered an undercount. In the definition of the PIT, and several others, we included reporting and writing tips, such as making it clear the PIT represents the number of people experiencing homelessness on one night rather than across the year.”
Some other resources she recommends:
* Find and support your nearest street paper ([link removed]) .
* Get tips on how to share people’s stories with respect from the Housing Narrative Lab ([link removed]) .
* And find people with lived experiences, “whether that is through an organization like Invisible People ([link removed]) , your local advocacy and community organizations, (including the Interagency Council on Homelessness - there's a term we can define for you!), or just talking to your sources and the people you meet out reporting about what they think the media gets right and wrong about homelessness.” She’s also happy to be a resource. Reach out to Cuccia at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

From a 2022 edition of this newsletter, here’s a list of several style guides ([link removed]) to help you better cover your communities.

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That's it for me, thanks for reading!

Kristen Hare
Faculty
The Poynter Institute
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