The conversation topic of the morning was cats.
First, vendors shared their condolences with Paulette, a long-term vendor whose beloved cat had died, taking in the grief that she suffered. Vendors were standing in line to purchase the latest edition of the newspaper (they buy it for a quarter and sell it to you for a dollar, keeping all profits and tips).
Gary, a Street Roots ambassador, had marked out 6-foot increments on the sidewalk using duct tape. For good measure, because it was our busiest morning of the week, he walked along with a tape measure to show people what 6 feet looks like. Daniel, standing those 6 feet from Paulette, talked about his beloved first cat, a tiny creature, all black, rescued from a dumpster the day before Halloween. A little while later, another vendor, Corey, walked by with a fluffy calico kitten perched on his shoulder. That’s Pancake, several people said of the striking kitten, clearly spotting a neighborhood celebrity.
Everyone is talking through masks at a distance and yet, somehow, we forge community. Conversations course through shared experiences while we are motivated to produce and deliver the news, as integral to democracy. Some vendors in that same line discussed the reporting project of Street Roots Managing Editor Emily Green, “The Life and Death of Billy Baggett,” a man who lived most of his life behind bars only to die soon after his release. It’s the sentence beyond the sentence: poverty and ill-health upon release.
In these cold, difficult days of the pandemic, Street Roots vendors still strive to get the news to you, while the reporters dig deep to report on issues that you won’t read elsewhere. We advocate for a more just world, one in which people are not disregarded into poverty, but seen as central to our way forward.
All the while, vendors are entrepreneurs on the streets, forging connections with you. This year has been more difficult to earn money in that way, and yet we remain as determined as ever to create the conditions to do so, in ways that are inscribed with community connection and dignity, uplifting people’s skills and passions.
So, after 20 years, in the middle of a pandemic, we also managed to create a new program — the Street Roots Ambassador Program. This effort began in the earliest days of the pandemic, with vendors forming what was then called the Coronavirus Action and Prevention Team to get public health supplies out to people in camps.
Since Oct. 1, the team’s director, Raven Drake, has joined the staff to build and manage the Ambassador Program. This is a new way our vendors can earn income. They are still emphasizing human connection but, in addition to vending the newspaper, ambassadors do outreach to unhoused people and — eventually — housed people. So far, ambassadors have helped count unhoused people for the U.S. Census, register people to vote, and conducted surveys to make sure unhoused people have a voice in policy. Most recently, the ambassador team conducted a survey to bring the input of unhoused people — particularly Black and Indigenous people, who are overrepresented in homelessness — to the Metro services tax measure. They also have helped people connect to pandemic-related funding, most recently working with a line that stretched around our block to help people apply for the $500 pandemic relief offered by the city.
And ambassadors work daily to make life a bit better for other Street Roots vendors — the way Gary made sure people were spaced and masked for public health while communicating, as he describes it, “good will.”
Hospitality courses through all our work. We are challenged to treat each other as cherished guests on this earth, and because so much is inequitable, that takes commitment.
It’s been a hard year, and yet, with you, Street Roots will emerge stronger. We are more than halfway to our goal of $200,000 for our year-end fund drive — the biggest source of income that keeps Street Roots operating. We have $99,765 left to raise. Every one of your contributions helps us get there, and it’s all, I can promise you, appreciated.
Right now, we can double your impact. Until Dec. 25, the Coon Family Foundation will match donations up to $14,000. So donate on our website or through the Willamette Week Give!Guide. Or mail your contribution to Street Roots, 211 NW Davis St., Portland, OR 97209. And from all of us — thank you!