Street Roots
Fourth post: February 2016
Author: Jan Block
The route to Street Roots
Two weeks ago the Angel Squad visited our next agency – Street Roots. The publication. How many Portlander’s walk by a human vendor each and every day and never know the real story behind the person? Majority of us. And how cool is it that Street Roots is not only, for lack of a less official term, contracting the unemployable and keeping human interaction alive. It makes you feel like the good old days – when I was not alive – the extra extra read all about days. Right? So before I launch into the head-exploding operation of this group, I have some news: the Angel Squad found a “Charlie”. That’s right, we have a donor who has eagerly agreed to help assist the agencies we meet with on some sort of financial level. As you may have known finding a Charlie had become one of our goals. So phase one mission completed. Booyah! Our little angel hearts burst when we got the news. But, more on this later. I want to forge ahead about ‘the Roots.
Two of us walked to the operation on Couch Street a foggy and wet Friday morning. Little did we know where we were headed but the direction became clear pretty quickly. You saw a van outside the front door and a handful of folks lingering. Wearing tennis shoes, layers of jackets, hats, scarves, and some smoking ciggies leaning against the front wall. As we approached, a young man exhaled a puff of smoke and asked us, “Hey, have you gotten your Street Roots yet?” No sir, no we had not… with that, we knew we were where we were supposed to be.
Hustle and bustle is how I’ll describe entering Street Roots. Two nice ladies awaited us at the front tall counter. I yelled, “We’re here to see Israel!” She kindly gestured toward the back, seemingly like she knew who we were. But us shuffling to the back was not an option, remember the setting is bustling. There were people everywhere. Quickly we heard “excuse me, papers coming through”. Oh duh, it was Friday. The papers printed on Friday! We were witnessing firsthand the rush. This visual still sits with me. I kept grinning. In an out of place setting, I was watching everyone do their part rushing to find open space to throw the stacks of newspapers. Just as quickly as the papers unloaded, people respectfully lined up the get their stack. At that point, Israel emerged from the clatter and our third angel showed up. We entered through what seemed like an office door to a whole new world – the newsroom. Quiet and calm.
There we sat down with Israel. In his flat brim cap, and Seattle Seahawks gear. He’s a young looking fella to be running such a famous operation. I’m not sure why that stood out to me, I guess that is what I get for having an expectation. Always surprised. We sat at a big table, a nice table. We told Israel who we were individually, and why we were there – to honor his time and the work he is doing while maybe getting a new message out about his operation. Israel’s a smart guy, he picked up on us real quick and became an open book. He’s extremely knowledgeable about his work. He knew stats, demographics, goals, procedures, and his role in society, all of that stuff. Here are some things that stood out to us:
Street Roots is an INTERNATIONAL publication. 122 of ‘em.
Portland Street Roots is one of four weekly papers across the chain. Others are all monthly.
15,000 readership (that’s pretty nice)
70 volunteers at any given time to copy edit, write, proof or lay the paper out plus 10 employees, 7 of which are full time. They are also open 7 days a week.
140 vendors
Each vendor you see has permission to be where they are by the company they are out in front of.
Street Roots has received an SPJ (Society for Professional Journalists – a highly respected organization) award from 2013 to 2015
Their operation does not profit on the sale of any newspaper. It costs 25 cents to print and that’s what they sell it to the vendors for. What the vendors make over that is for keeps.
Vendors pay up front for their stack of papers. No credit unless it’s your first day.
Vendors, let me tell you a bit about the vendors. Vendors go through an orientation. An hour long presentation to explain the discipline of being a vendor and the CODE OF CONDUCT to being a vendor. No harassment, no cat calling, fighting, obvious intoxication, yelling, etc. etc. As Israel put it, “I know this sounds lame but it works.” It’s like an honor system. If Israel gets a call from a business about one of his vendors misbehaving, he handles it right away. Maybe you’ve heard of such a thing. Or maybe you haven’t. Think about that. Majority of these guys behave. Here’s why:
Fifty percent of the vendors are on disability and live in low income housing. They are simply supplementing their income to keep up with the exact same thing every day, every month. (Side note: don’t get Israel going on the low income housing or homeless crisis here, he won’t even go there unless you got the solution. I appreciate someone like that. Don’t talk about it. Be about it. Let’s face it, it’s talked to death.) Anyway.
The other half are homeless. They can be druggies supplying their daily habits, or mothers/fathers trying to get into low income housing and feed their families who are living in a shelter or worse, on the streets. 25 percent of the vendors are VA’s.
I asked Israel at one point, “What level of help do you provide these folks? I mean is this a stepping program for the homeless?” His response shocked me at the time but I’ve come to understand it – that’s not what Street Roots is about. He can’t save everyone. He can however point them in the right direction. He has the Rose City Resource Book – a sponsored booklet of resources (in which I’ve already given mine to a homeless man I fed a few days later and apparently police hand it out like candy). And in two recent examples he gave us he said, “Like today, right now, one of my vendors is a young veteran who served in Afghanistan, he has PTSD and is a severe alcoholic living underneath the Burnside Bridge. My goal today is to keep him from jumping off the bridge. Every day I’ve been focused on this one guy alone.” Wow. Then he said in another instance he had a young mother who was sleeping under a food cart with her daughter at night. He stepped in, made a call and got her housing. So, you can see how this goes. And I can understand that he can’t be everything to everyone. That’s what other nonprofits are for.
So, as the meeting went on, we learned that Israel started out as a vendor himself. He has a high level of integrity about his operation. He doesn’t receive government money, or pay to play type sponsorships for stories in the paper. He is all about organic, breaking news stories in his paper. Bonafide journalism. He also wants to give his vendors a voice. If you pick up the paper, you’ll read a story about a vendor getting their first ever set of keys to an apartment or getting their kids back into their lives. The real root of the operations. You’re not human if you don’t get a feeling over reading something like that.
The final vision I’ll leave with you is that as we walked out of there, there were two drastically different vendors standing by the doorway on our way out. I knew I had a $20 in my wallet and I’d be buying a stack of papers for my office (5 for $20 was well worth it after that), so I approached a long gray haired man with crystal blue eyes wearing a red flannel jacket (I got a thing for that look – old country. Someone joked that I dress my son in a red flannel too, J) in an electric wheelchair and asked him for a stack of 5 papers. Gave him the $20. Told him to keep the change and he said, “God Bless” and I said, “yes, you too”. He said “every day”. We joked, borderline flirted. I knew I started his day of selling off right. But while all of this was going on, my other two angels were being held up by a strapping blue eyed, clear faced, young man reciting a homemade poem to them. Yup, this really happened.
I’ll leave you right here. With this vision. My hopes is that you will consider involving yourself to support Street Roots. Continue to buy the paper. Contact Israel to host a listening party, attend its annual breakfast fundraiser, donate hygienic products, lend your expertize (like my marketing angel gurus will do. Couldn’t get them to stop with the ideas, haha!) or simply gift cards or cash donations. Did I mention Street Roots is a mailing service for their vendors and has 3 computers for access? Yeah, they do that too. All this said, maybe now you’ll have a new understanding of these people you pass by every day. At least shoot them a smile and tell them you’ll get them next time. After all, they are out there working most likely just like you.
Lastly, while we have our first Charlie more are welcome to join the mission. If you’re interested in getting behind us, we’re not going anywhere. Send me a message.
Warmest regards,
Jan and the squad: Refinement, Krista and Natasha