But Goldfinger insists that even the minor problems are being worked out.

He says the next step for the paper is establishing training programs for vendors and human services programs for vendors and human services programs, like help for Spare Change members who are addicted to drugs.

Goldfinger adds that he has established outreach teams that will visit shelters in the Greater Boston area in hopes of establishing distribution beyond Cambridge and the Downtown Crossing area in Boston where most of their vendors are currently located.

Vending Machines

Goldfinger says he wants to see the paper aid people like him, a recovering heroin addict, recapture their lives.

Goldfinger, who worked at Porter Square, says he was successful as a vendor because he was able to get to know his customers.

"I had a rapport with my customers, and I made enough money to lift myself out of homelessness," he says. "It was the first honest work I was able to do in years."

Like Goldfinger, Manuel's job as a vendor has helped keep him off the streets.

Joseph Manuel has been selling Spare Change newspapers for three years now. He says he'll never forget the sweetest of the winter nights he spent outside BayBank asking passers-by for a break.

That night, a man clad in a business suit offered Manuel a cup of coffee that he had bought from Store 24. The man then visited the nearby ATM machine and handed Manuel three $100 dollar bills and another $100 in fifties and twenties.

"He did it because he figured if this guy is standing in this cold, he must need [the money] bad," Manuel said of the man who gave him the $400 gift. "I'll never forget that."

Manuel used the money to buy a coat, three pairs of jeans and boots from the nearby Mass Army-Navy store.

Most newspaper vendors rarely come across that kind of generosity, but if you ask Manuel, he'll say that he has earned it.

"I'll stand out there when it's eight below zero," says Manuel. "I've got a job to do and I'll do it."

"I'm not saying that I'm no better than no one else," he says. "Anybody could sell this paper if they wanted to... you got to want to do something."