Listen now (18 mins) | Listen Now Street Sense is a tabloid newspaper that has been sold biweekly by the District of Columbia's homeless residents for the past 12 years. The publication's focus is on homelessness and related issues confronting the poor. DC has one the highest rates of homelessness in the country with over 2,000 individuals and families sleeping on the streets on any given night, a quarter of whom are veterans. Unemployment, obviously a major cause of the problem, is 7.8 percent in the nation's capital or one and a half times the national average. For DC's African Americans unemployment is 10 percent. Nearly 20 percent of DC's residents live in poverty. Beyond homelessness, Street Sense vendors typically face a long list of health issues. Recently however a city inter-agency council on homelessness unanimously endorsed a plan, that DC's new mayor supports, to end homelessness over the next five years.