OPINION | Street Roots’ winter fund drive is a critical time for the organization, homeless Portlanders and local journalism
Street Roots vendors are bustling all around the city. You might be chatting with your vendor after you picked up groceries. Maybe you’re walking through the farmer’s market or grabbing a cup of coffee. Your vendor is there, holding the newspaper close to the chest, easy to see. They greet you with a simple “good morning” and maybe remember your dog’s name.
Across town, in the Old Town Street Roots office, a vendor sets down a dollar on the counter to buy four more papers to sell, then meanders over to the coffee station, where a volunteer already doctored up a cup of coffee with three sugars, just the way they like it.
Outside the office, four more vendors are huddled around a car, duct-taping a window that was smashed. It’s the car one vendor uses for transportation to his post and to sleep in at night, so fellow Street Roots vendors have sprung into action.
Meanwhile, our news team is hard at work, making public records requests, interviewing sources, editing stories and posting on social media. And in the back office, several vendors and board members have gathered to discuss city hall, camping bans and villages that work.
Street Roots operates through the great dedication of many people, and it’s your support that makes that possible.
These weeks between Thanksgiving and News Years are when Street Roots raises the largest amount of funds to operate year-round. The vast majority of our operational support comes from individual donors like you, followed by grants.
When you support Street Roots, you support a newspaper awarded first place in General Excellence among all small newsrooms in the 2021 Society of Professional Journalists Pacific Northwest Excellence in Journalism Competition. You support our growing newsroom. In order to tackle the systemic inequities with depth, it takes investing in investigative journalism. In order to make sure Indigenous affairs journalism is supported, we invest there.
When you support Street Roots, you invest in promoting knowledge underpinning an engaged democracy. Our editorial team made sure to reach out to every single candidate so you could get the fullest picture possible because that's at the heart of what we do. We don’t skimp on depth.
An engaged democracy also means the poorest people have a seat at the table, and everyone understands issues impacting the poorest people.
When you support Street Roots, you support our vendor program, which conducts orientations every week so people can access this low-barrier opportunity to sell Street Roots and run their own micro-businesses.
The vendor program also works to create a community of belonging by serving coffee while lending an ear, convening a zine committee so vendors can create a holiday publication and hosting memorials to honor those who died in our community. Our office is an access point for civic engagement where vendors pick up ballots alongside other mail and testify to City Council from Street Roots’ computers.
Our vendor program also connects people to new opportunities to tap into their skills, aptitudes and passions. This includes doing outreach to other unhoused people as paid ambassadors, distributing the Rose City Resource guide and giving talks and tours to help people understand experiences of homelessness. These are paid opportunities, and about 40% of our ambassadors have moved on to other jobs.
Additionally, vendors study journalism and storytelling through the Street Roots School of Mobile Journalism and Communication, or MoJo program, so journalism education isn't limited to university halls. We are building a school for the streets.
Vendors also serve on our gratitude brigade, writing thank you notes and helping out in the office as we orient our whole organization toward the fact that we are in it together. Many vendors value the opportunity to thank all of you and reinforce that we are a caring web of relationships.
When you support Street Roots, you support Rose City Resource, a guide to services for people experiencing homelessness and poverty, you support Street Roots’ effort to uplift solutions all around us — while, quite frankly, fighting to ensure life doesn’t get harder. This goes back to the earliest days, when the Burnside Cadillac and then Street Roots vendors led the “Campaign for Legal Places to Sleep,” and has continued for the 23 years of our organization. We push for solutions like villages created by the people who live there, affordable housing, quick housing opportunities through the “3000 challenge” and Portland Street Response.
Ultimately, Street Roots is who we are because of all of you who read the paper, support the vendors and support the organization as a whole.
This winter fund drive, support us through the Give!Guide (giveguide.org) , where we are listed with Civil and Human Rights organizations. You can also support us through our website at streetroots.org/donate or by mail at 211 NW Davis St., Portland, Oregon, 97209.
Thank you!
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots . Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today .
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