Not All the Peddlers of Seattle's Homeless Paper Are Homeless

On a Tuesday afternoon at the University District Safeway, Edward McClain's booming voice can be heard from almost a block away. "Real Change," McClain says to every passer-by in a rising tone. "Have a nice day."

The most famous hawker of Real Change, Seattle's street newspaper, McClain has been a fixture for 12 years at the Safeway, where he consistently sells between 1,500 and 2,000 papers each month. Like all vendors, McClain buys his papers for 35 cents and sells them for a $1 "donation." (Vendors keep all profits from each paper sold.)

But unlike other vendors, McClain is so successful that he's been able to keep an apartment for the past 10 years; his Real Change income pays the rent and utilities for his one-bedroom apartment in Lake City. "Everything you have in your house, I have in mine," he says with pride.

Though many Real Change buyers assume the paper is sold by the homeless, anyone can be a Real Change vendor. One simply must walk into the newspaper's Belltown office, sign an agreement to abide by the vendor code of conduct, and sit through a one-hour orientation, after which the newly minted vendor receives a starter set of 10 free copies of the paper. Real Change isn't alone in allowing all comers to become vendors. None of the main street newspapers in Portland, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., checks the income or housing status of prospective vendors. Nor do they retire vendors once they've bootstrapped their way out of homelessness.

At the Safeway, McClain, 64, sells a paper every few minutes. When Abara Ijiomah exits the store, he makes a beeline to McClain and buys a paper. Ijiomah, 23, says he buys a paper just about every other week, though he admits he doesn't read it. "I buy more to contribute than to read," he says, chuckling.

Ijiomah says he didn't know that McClain had his own apartment, or that there were no requirements to become a Real Change vendor. "That puts a little different spin on it," he says. "The money should be going to help people find housing and cover medical costs. It shouldn't be a resource for someone who's looking not to have a 9 to 5."

In truth, no one becomes Warren Buffett by selling street newspapers. "We don't have rich corporate attorneys selling the paper," laughs Laura Osuri, executive director of Washington, D.C.'s Street Sense. "It's really not an issue. It's usually always people who are homeless or close to it."

Real Change employs roughly 250 vendors, who the paper claims are "the poor and homeless of Seattle." "We don't have to means test to know that we're serving poor people, because it's fucking obvious," says Tim Harris, executive director of Real Change. (This is apparently a sensitive subject for Harris, who, before this story was even written, wrote an 833-word blog rant entitled "Seattle Weekly: What the Fuck?" Harris' post castigates the Weekly for its supposed "angle" and says, "The word is that the Weekly is a pretty sucky place to work." Harris, who moved here from Boston in the '90s, also criticizes the paper for hiring "out-of-towners.")

Portland's Street Roots director, Israel Bayer, also disagrees with the notion that street newspapers enable people who don't want "real" jobs. "Poverty is a swinging door," Bayer says. "What happens to that individual if he stops selling? Does he fall back into poverty? Are there living-wage jobs out there? The reality is that there's no one out there panhandling or selling a street newspaper that's living in the bling-bling."

Perhaps not, but Warren Goulet, who's been selling Real Change for three months, doesn't think vendors should be able to squat their locations once they've gotten themselves off the streets. "If they make money and can afford housing, let other people have a chance," he says. "I'd like to get a regular job. I don't want to do Real Change forever."

Osuri admits that even she wonders if she should try to transition her best vendors to other types of work. "It's a big question," she says. "Honestly, we don't do anything. We just try to promote Street Sense as a stepping stone, and hopefully these other vendors realize that."

A few blocks west of McClain, a Real Change vendor named John stands outside a Trader Joe's with his papers fanned out like a winning rummy hand. John, who asked that his last name not be used, survives on a monthly $339 check from the government, plus whatever he makes through Real Change. He shares a $450-per-month apartment with his brother up the street. "I'm not supposed to be doing this, but this is how I pay my rent," he says.

John pauses to sell Carrie Nelson a paper. "Yeah, I know not everyone is homeless," Nelson says. "It doesn't bother me at all. At least the money is going to a newspaper."

Trader Joe's isn't John's normal vending location; a video store a few blocks away is. According to Real Change's turf system, vendors who sell 300 copies per month at a certain location get dibs on the spot for half the day and can ask other vendors to scram. Those who sell 600 copies each month have dibs for the entire day. Vendors have their 300 Club or 600 Club membership identified on their badges, which also state the location and vending times of their turf.