Nashville street newspaper The Contributor will add issues and increase its price in the spring.

Beginning in mid-April, the newspaper sold by the city's homeless community will publish weekly instead every other week and the cover price will change from $1 to $2. The wholesale price — the amount vendors pay for each issue — will only rise 50 cents, from 25 cents to 75 cents.

What that means, executive director Tasha French Lemley tells Pith, is that each homeless vendor will make $1.25 on each issue instead of 75 cents. The slightly higher wholesale price will also help stabilize the publication's finances, which were bad enough in the fall that the paper nearly closed.

"We realize that we've outgrown the business model that we've been at," Lemley said. "It worked for us for a number of years and it's been a great experience, but we can't continue our mission with the one we have. We're hoping that the price increase and the increase in circulation will help us to serve as many people as we possibly can for the long term. Getting more product out on the street will bring more income to our vendors, which is our mission. But in turn, that creates more sustainability for the organization as it increases the source of earned income to The Contributor."

As detailed in a Scene cover story in August, a combination of rapid growth and inadequate fundraising caused The Contributor to burn through its financial reserves at an unhealthy rate. By September, the paper had only weeks left. With the help of emergency donations, The Contributor was able to right itself, ensuring that one of the largest-selling street newspapers in North America stayed afloat and made it to the spring.

"You know, there were a lot of fears when we experienced our struggle [in the fall], but the holidays have been good to us," she said. "[It was] about standard for our holiday season. We're still crunching those numbers, but we've been blessed. Starting this change, we're on pretty strong footing. We've got a few months to make it through this and hopefully be around for the long term."

Lemley explained the The Contributor's role in Nashville — and their financial troubles — previously:

"I love this thing, and this is not the way I thought it would end," she says. "In so many ways, this organization is in its prime. So many of the changes that have happened in the last year have made us stronger. Stronger staff than we've ever had. A stronger board than we've ever had. A better living situation. Better vendors. More people getting off the streets. That's something that we never thought would happen with this paper. "When Tom [Wills] first started training vendors the first couple of years, he would tell them that this isn't going to get you off the streets, you need to find another source of income. It's going to help you with some of your basic needs, sure. And he's long since stopped saying that. A third of our vendors report getting housing since starting to sell." For The Contributor's founders — and even more urgently, its vendors — there is more at stake than saving a business. It stems from Lemley's first days in Nashville, and from the chance encounter that gave "the homeless" an identity, a face and a name. "I'm not trying to be a Pollyanna, but there are actual relationships out there, lives being changed from customer-to-vendor interaction," Lemley says. "People are getting into housing. I just had an email forwarded to me from a lady from one Catholic group to another in a Nazarene group [who are] trying to help pay rent for a vendor whose utility bill is overdue. There's dental work being provided to vendors. There are people contributing the way [a chance meeting with a homeless man named Don] contributed to my life."

Lemley said that they'll add a staffer to help with the need for additional fresh content, but that the move to a weekly schedule is "actually not as hard as one might thing if you're publishing regularly."

"The benefits of going weekly far outweigh the challenges"