Street Roots provides an opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and poverty to earn an income by selling the newspaper.
People walk in off the streets, go through orientation, and begin selling the weekly newspaper. Ten complementary papers launch their efforts, and then they purchase each paper for a quarter that they sell for $1, keeping all profits and tips. Street Roots works with roughly 400 vendors annually, and about half of vendors are unhoused. Our commitment to getting money into people’s pockets is straightforward: Income is an antidote to poverty. There are too many barriers to housing and employment, and we are committed to supporting people aspire to their best futures.
Vendors are central to Street Roots. All our work at Street Roots is connected to a larger sense of community for people who are disenfranchised from power and societal belonging. Vendors form community with each other as well as staff and volunteers at Street Roots, coming to the office for morning coffee, poetry groups, and conversation. They also form relationships with customers, often across socio-economic divides. Through our work and our engagement with each other, we are stronger together, lifting each other up – and for 25 years, that’s what Street Roots vendor program has brought to the Portland metro program area.
Become a vendor
New vendor orientation is held every Wednesday and Friday at 2:15 pm in the vendor office at 281 West Burnside Street. When you arrive, please wait outside the front door until a staff member comes to take a photo for your vendor badge ID and get you situated inside. Please allow 45 minutes to an hour for orientation. No documents or ID are required.
Locate a Vendor
Street Roots vendors sell all over the Portland area on public sidewalks outside local business and community partners. Look for vendors wearing an official Street Roots badge. Please note, Street Roots offers a low-barrier program that allows our vendors to make their own schedules. Vendors’ selling hours and days at each location may vary greatly. Here are locations where vendors frequently sell:
Suggest a sales post
Do you have a location that you’d welcome a vendor to sell at? Let us know so we can encourage a vendor to sell there. Email vendors@streetroots.org
Voice a concern
Do you have a concern about a Street Roots vendor? Please contact the vendor program director, Paul Susi, at paul@streetroots.org.
Arrange a Bulk Subscription
Branching Out is a newspaper subscription and delivery service provided by Street Roots vendors. This service creates a more reliable form of weekly income for vendors. Interested in setting this up? Fill out this form, or email Paul Susi at paul@streetroots.org to make arrangements.
Typically, vendors buy papers from Street Roots for 25 cents and then sell them to individuals for $1. With Branching Out, vendors can sell papers to businesses, housing complexes, and anyone who can buy a minimum of 20 papers at $1 per copy on a weekly basis. The customer buys papers in bulk, directly from a vendor, to provide to their customers or residents for free.
To ensure a sustainable income option for our vendors, we ask that customers commit to purchasing at least 20 papers each week from their vendor. We ask that you first commit to one month of deliveries. After a month, you can reassess your newspaper needs.
Street Roots can provide you with a 5″ x 7” plexiglass display, explaining the service to your customers. We can also provide a newspaper holder, at your request. Once you become a subscriber, Street Roots will make a social media post to advertise your business as a Branching Out Subscriber.
If you’d like the 5 x 7” plexiglass display or a newspaper holder, please contact Paul Susi at paul@streetroots.org
You can purchase papers from a vendor using cash or through Street Roots’ Venmo. For Venmo, scan the second QR code to the left with your smartphone or find @StreetRoots on Venmo to start a payment. After you enter the payment amount, type in your vendor’s name, badge number and “Branching Out” in the “what’s it for?” section. Hit “Pay” then confirm the payment by hitting “Pay Street Roots” at the bottom of the screen. (You can skip the option to confirm with a phone number.)
For questions regarding subscription logistics or to find out more ways to support Street Roots, vendor communications, mediation support, and newspaper display materials, please contact: Paul Susi, Vendor Program Director at paul@streetroots.org, (503) 967-3963