A few tattered signs are taped to the walls: "Reading and Writing, Mondays, 12-2." "Defend Your Rights, free legal help for people in police custody." "Haircuts Available." About five middle-aged men wander about, slapping one another on the back and laughing at each other's jokes. The StreetWise headquarters seems like the place to be.
Writers for the Chicago newspaper beg to differ. After almost a year of unresolved conflict, half of the editorial staff at StreetWise has quit.
"I loved the organization and its goals when I started working there," says Kari Lydersen, StreetWise's current associate editor. "But there's no way anyone could be excited by it at this point."
You probably meet StreetWise vendors every day, asking you for a dollar and showing off their badges. The vendors are proud to be employed, proud to work for StreetWise. StreetWise is a unique publication in the Chicago area. It is sold entirely by homeless or financially desperate vendors who see StreetWise as a saving grace. Many have gone through the prison system, lost jobs, fought drug addictions and stared down other challenges to a productive life.
The organization was founded 10 years ago as a grassroots non-profit with few resources and a zealous mission statement that stays alive today: "To empower men and women who are homeless or at risk of being so, as they work toward gainful employment and self-sufficiency."
But despite this noble mission, some StreetWise employees are fed up with bureaucracy, low salaries and questionable priorities. The organization continues to lose staff. Allan Gomez, an editor, quit on Dec. 6, and editor Charity Crouse reported to her last day of work Jan. 17. The two look back on their old employer's mission statement with frustration.
The editors didn't always feel abrasive toward StreetWise's administrative staff. According to Associate Editor Lydersen, Medill '97, StreetWise was at its peak five years ago, when she joined the writing team. The Work Empowerment Center was just getting off of its feet, with computer classes, abuse treatment, job listings — even an on-site social worker.
"It was an all-around good social service center," Lydersen says. Vendors would often write for StreetWise, and the events it covered pertained particularly to issues relating to homeless or poverty-stricken people.
Over the past three years, the editing team at StreetWise has seen a complete change in the organization's goals. While still offering vendor jobs, free Internet and computer use and a limited number of computer and reading classes to its vendors, most of StreetWise's services have been cut drastically. Last spring, the Work Empowerment Center director, Paula Mathieu, was fired for loudly voicing her complaints against StreetWise's management. No new replacement has been found. The organization is in desperate need of volunteers and grant money to resurrect some of its previous services.
How did StreetWise lose its former luster? The editors are quick to blame Executive Director Anthony Oliver, who was unavailable for comment on this story.
"He wanted to change the focus, to make it look nicer, to increase circulation and to make it more respected and corporate-friendly," Lydersen says.
While these sound like perfectly legitimate goals for a paper, the editing team had its suspicions that the real goals lay in making it more profitable for upper management. The mission of guiding the homeless toward self-sufficency left focus entirely.
The newspaper's way of helping the homeless is multi-faceted. Potential vendors walk into the office at the corner of South Michigan Avenue and 13th Street and sign up with Quality Assurance Team Manager Gregory Pritchett. After filling out the proper paperwork, the vendors take a one-day class on selling the newspaper, taught twice a week by Pritchett. There, they learn methods of motivational speaking, sales techniques and the various rules of selling the paper.
After the session, vendors receive 10 free papers to sell. They may subsequently buy copies of StreetWise for 35 cents apiece and sell them for $1, netting 65 cents profit. Vendors head out to neighborhoods throughout Chicago, most of them to the Loop and its charitable businesspeople and tourists. They often peg grocery stores as fruitful sales spots.
"Obviously, we want the vendors to be expanding their money," Pritchett says. "But we also have two more goals: to expand their minds and build self-esteem." The writers and editors of StreetWise take particular issue with the effectiveness of the former goal.
Instead of putting resources into social services for its vendors, the non-profit bought a three-story building on South Michigan Avenue and began to hold StreetWise fund-raising events. The Board of Directors changed from prominent non-profit community leaders to representatives from private businesses and corporations such as United Airlines and Northwestern University. The only notable exceptions are U.S. Congressman Danny K. Davis and one vendor representative.
In addition to a new Board of Directors, StreetWise's content has been re-vamped and re-worked. Present directives from the directors veer the content toward material that the Loop customers might find interesting: businesses, socially responsible investing, the Internet. The shift away from liberal articles on unions, activism and exposés "is not recognizing the 40 percent of the regular readers who care about the issues and buy it for the content," Lydersen says. "The other 60 percent of tourists and Loop business people buy it for charity."
Those content changes were the last straw for Gomez and Crouse. Gomez notes that their stories began to be censored. "We would finish the paper, layout and all, then Oliver would go through and pull stories." Stories pulled were anything too liberal or inflammatory. A memo circulated stating that there were to be no more articles on protests, unions or strikes. Both posts had been reduced to part-time jobs without benefits, so Gomez and Crouse decided to get out.
The two resignations reflect almost a year of turmoil within StreetWise. Oliver announced he would make the organization for-profit, as opposed to a non-profit (he later changed his mind). In January 2001, the editor in chief, Jalyne R. Strong, filed grievances over the lack of social services. In February, five staff members backed her move with letters protesting the problems. As a result, Strong was fired; two staff members were locked out of the building and two more were fired. Within 48 hours, however, almost everyone was rehired so the newspaper could continue its production.
The uproar was felt throughout Chicago, thanks to coverage by the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader and In These Times. The work environment at StreetWise became uncomfortable and "it drew a lot of negative vibes," Pritchett says.
Not everyone has problems with StreetWise in its present state. "God sent this organization," Pritchett says. A former convict, drug user and vendor himself, Pritchett worked through the StreetWise system to his current high-status post in vendor relations. He cites StreetWise as empowering, reminding the homeless that they have somewhere to turn. He does recognize the numerous cutbacks made in the past few years. "When we lost Paula ..." Pritchett's voice grows soft and trails off. He regains his former fire and says, "There are still the tools in (the Work Empowerment Center) to get the job done. The Board of Directors has done a good job of working with what is available at this time."
The Work Empowerment Center is located on the ground floor of the StreetWise building. Vendors are encouraged to drop by the WEC during regular work hours and use the computers for job searches and educational materials on the internet. A small library filled with both fiction and non-fiction is meant to increase vendor literacy rates. Postings on the wall suggest free services that vendors might use. At one time, the WEC offered regular classes on a variety of issues. A dollar bill infographic inside the cover of StreetWise lists five cents of every StreetWise sold as going toward the WEC.
The actual status of the WEC, however, is contested. Lydersen, Crouse and Gomez note that it's often locked and the computers rarely work. Upon observation of the WEC on a Friday morning, the facility was open, but no one was making use of its seven iMac computers and a 1,000 book library.
Pritchett is still proud of the WEC, saying that it is always open and that computer classes might be starting up in February. Osco vendor Douglas Coaston says he uses the WEC all the time. "I use the WEC three times a week," he says. "I learn how to type and Mrs. Jones teaches me."
No Mrs. Jones works at StreetWise, but vendors certainly wish those services were still offered. They know that the public wants to see them getting themselves back on their feet and garnering more skills. And an organization with usable social services is a much easier sell to socially conscious customers
Even when more social services were offered by StreetWise there was some debate as to whether they were actually used. "They didn't come in," Pritchett says of the vendors. "All you can do is guide them."
StreetWise vendors are not always looking for mentors to help them get their lives together. Many of StreetWise's vendors are very private during the application process. They have little interest in sharing their life stories with the organization and some have even less interest in helping themselves. Pritchett continues to urge them to come in and use the Work Empowerment Center to do job searches and learn how to type.
For those services now not available, Pritchett believes referrals could be the key for the needs of the vendors. Unfortunately, the absent WEC director would be that voice guiding vendors to services.
Crouse believes that no one at StreetWise has made any referrals. An attempt to get on-site medical care at StreetWise was denied for insurance reasons. As an alternate proposal, the Chicago Health Outreach set aside time at the Lakefront Single-Room Occupancy two blocks from the StreetWise building.
"No one was ever sent over," Crouse says. "Maybe there's no demand for social services, but all you have to do is listen near the front door — 'Is there job listings? Can I check my e-mail?' You can just send them down the street."
Crouse argues that the services offered at StreetWise are definitely not enough. "Vendors stay and work for five, six, seven years," says Crouse. "It is not a transitional program. Vendors use it as a crutch." Crouse cites the fact that only about 10 of StreetWise's 220 active vendors are women. She says mothers have no place to put their children while they are selling the paper. As they are homeless or on the verge of being so, the vendors do not have the money to pay for childcare.
"There is no investment or money prioritized for such services," Crouse says. She pointed to state vouchers and funding from women's organizations as possible sources, but restated that it was not a priority to start such programs.
Oliver seems to have vastly different priorities than any of the editing team. As part of a "business incubator program," Oliver received a $40,000 grant to start a program turning vendors into entrepreneurs. The idea was that vendors would begin to wear aprons with advertising pockets on them and the vendors themselves would receive a piece of the advertising pie. Vendors have not yet been spotted wearing such billboards.
Former editor Allan Gomez cites another such business venture titled "Socially Responsible Advertising — SRA." A large electronic billboard would be put outside of the StreetWise building, advertising corporations with a conscience. This $250,000 project also never came to fruition.
The flow of money through StreetWise is a muddy river. Crouse notes payroll discrepancies within the StreetWise budget. Though StreetWise fired Mathieu within the past year, it had a "22 percent higher payroll than the previous year," says Crouse. Due to the cutbacks on the salaries of all the editors, Crouse assumes that the money is going into the salaries of those at the top of the business.
Crouse and Gomez are trying to put their bad experience with StreetWise behind them. Crouse is now putting together her own quarterly magazine and freelancing. Gomez is the communications coordinator for CAN-TV. Lydersen still works for StreetWise as the associate editor, but also works part-time for the Washington Post-Midwest division as she has for the past five years.
She says she worries about the future of StreetWise. "No one has their act together," she says. "There's no funding and no grant-writing. And the sales aren't getting better because the content is getting worse." Even Pritchett admitted his concern with the way things are going at StreetWise. "It's a very beautiful thing," he says of the organization. "The doors need to be open." nyou
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