Real Change for real life

For students who pass Jon B. Porter outside the University Book Store each day, summer can be a time to work an easily discardable job and make some extra cash.

For Porter, who sits outside the bookstore with his pile of newspapers rain or shine, summer means bad business.

Porter, who has sold Real Change, the newspaper of the homeless, outside the bookstore's back entrance for the last three years, has become a fixture on the Ave. While some wordlessly pass the man whose gravelly voice constantly bellows "Real Change? Thank you," others greet him by name.

Porter is one of 200 Real Change vendors who hawk their product on the street for a living. They are independent entrepreneurs who buy papers at 30 cents each and sell them for $1, keeping the profit for themselves.

During the summer, Porter's income from selling papers will likely decrease because fewer people frequent the bookstore.

Selling papers one by one is a challenge, but for Porter, Real Change has been an escape from serious poverty.

Before he began selling the paper, Porter drove cars for the South Seattle Auto Auction. He has forgotten why he stopped working there, but assumes it was because business got too slow. He had a temporary job with the United States Census Bureau in 2000. After that was over, he became desperate to find work.

That was when a friend suggested he try selling papers on the street.

Porter, who served in the U.S. Air Force after attending several colleges around the nation, feels there aren't many jobs out there for him. Even if he were to take a low-skilled job, he'd make more money selling the paper, he said.

Like Porter, many of the homeless do not have family members who can help them. With no resources to look to, it can be harder for them to get back on their feet if they fall behind financially.

The age of the average homeless person has declined over the last several years. External forces such as rent increases, stagnant wages and lack of savings add an extra dimension to the problem for people who are barely making enough to live on.

"To a lot of people, homeless people sort of look like grandpa, if grandpa was a wino," said Timothy Harris, executive director of Real Change. "It's the stereotype that gets perpetuated largely because it's a kind of sympathetic image that people can do fund-raising off of."

According to Harris, this kind of approach hurts the homeless more than it helps. By contrast, Real Change gives the homeless a chance to show the public that they are taking initiative to help themselves.

The streets are mean, but the shelters aren't any better, said Porter, who has experienced both. According to him, missions like the Salvation Army and Union Gospel are filthy, expensive and often violent.

"Every kind of disease known to man is floating through the air," Porter said. "You'd be better off living in Iraq... There's always fights, stabbings and shootings, you name it."

At some missions, people are required to pay up to $10 per night for shelter. A meal costs another five.

"That's about $450 a month that you probably don't have if you're homeless," said Porter. "Sometimes they let you take a shower, but what good is a shower if you have to sleep in filth?"

Porter lives in the Pioneer Housing Authority on Capital Hill, a low-income housing complex where he pays $410 a month and gets a fair amount of privacy.

From his spot outside the bookstore, Porter sells about 1,200 papers per month. In order to be able to call a spot their own, vendors must sell at least 600 papers a month there. If they accomplish this, other vendors are required to forfeit the spot to the regular vendor.

Any kind of sales job requires merchants to present themselves in a positive manner. Porter has found that he often needs to earn the trust of his clientele for days before he can make a sale.

"People watch you day to day before they actually buy a paper from you," said Porter. "They watch to see if you're drinking, if you're clean, how you dress and most important, if you work consistently."

Real Change, which aims to build awareness and grasssroots support for social change, also provides economic opportunities for Seattle's homeless population. Since its first publication in 1994, the paper's circulation has risen to about 18,000 copies per issue.

"People want to connect to the homeless directly and the homeless want to be engaged politically," said Harris, who sees the paper as a political voice for people with low incomes.

The paper has one full-time staffer who coordinates the production and writing. Real Change's content is dedicated to issues concerning the homeless. A pool of volunteers, both student and professional, contribute art, writing and time to the paper.

For the homeless who want to write about their own experiences, Real Change offers a writing workshop, "Out of the Margins," where homeless contributors work to develop their stories for publication.

Porter submitted a poem, but it was turned down because it was too long. He plans to resubmit the poem after some editing. Those who stop to chat with the man sitting outside the bookstore may find that he's not that different from the bookstore's student customers.

"I just love to learn," he said.