How Streetwise vendors are coping during the coro by Suzanne Hanney
Left ot Right: Keith Hardiman, Donald Morris, John Hagan, Merv Sims, A. Allen, and Lester Cherry. Photos by Suzanne Hanney.
Downtown Chicago streets are so empty the only thing missing is tumbleweed, like a ghost town in an old western movie, says StreetWise vendor Keith Hardiman, as fears of coronavirus transmission have led to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s shelter-in-place order keeping workers home until April 30.
Director Julie Youngquist. "To bridge the widening income gap brought on by this pandemic, StreetWise launched a fundraising effort to provide emergency funds to vendors. We began distributing subsidies two weeks ago, and these funds have been a welcome source of relief.”
“It’s a trying time,” Hardiman, who sells the magazine at Michigan and Lake Streets, said on March 30 of the 30-day extension of the state and federal order. “I live in a hotel and pay $37 a night -- $1,050 a month. If I miss a night of payment I get put out. Where am I going to go? But I’ve been making it due to the kindness of people.” He has managed his storage bill but is going to let go of his $70-a-month phone.
Vendor Donald Morris had last sold the magazine on March 16 in downtown Evanston; he sold 120 of 150 copies of the issue about travel tips from other street paper vendors around the world. Since then he had been staying with his 80-yearold sister, whom he had just gotten into a nursing home and who did NOT have the coronavirus, as far as he knew.
Hardiman had bought 28 copies of the March 30 edition about U.S. Census efforts in Chicago and had sold two of them the previous night, working from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Customers told him, “this is to help you out” and “we know this [virus] put a damper on your business, but you’re consistent.” Keith misses his customers, saying “if I can bring a smile to them, this too shall pass. Life is too short to be sad. Any day above ground is a good day.” Meanwhile, StreetWise gave vendors laminated placards for their locations. As of April 6, we will go online-only temporarily. We are encouraging vendors to stay off the streets and to promote digital sales. Hardiman had a run of bad luck during the holiday season. He had been living with a friend and paying him a portion of rent, except that it turned out the friend never paid the landlord. Both of them were evicted. He said he was happy to find the West Side hotel, “better than the streets, better than a shelter,” but he would like to find a studio apartment for $500 or $600, possibly in a near western suburb, “and work my way up.” He also has a regular job at the StreetWise offices on Wednesdays and Saturdays. “Most of the StreetWise vendors rely on the street-level sales as their primary source of income to pay rent, buy food, and pay for transportation and utilities” said StreetWise Executive
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Morris, who is a Vietnam-era veteran, gets some benefits plus Social Security payments and spends one-third of his income on rent for a Northwest Side apartment. His plan for the next month will be to spend just a short time daily selling the magazine. “I don’t want to stay on these streets too long,” he said of his plans for the next month. “It’s best to do a little, like two hours, if you can sell 10 magazines and go home. It’s about being focused on what you can have, not being dependent on the next person. If you can help someone, you do. Until April 30 nobody is going to be walking up and down the streets. It’s going to be terrible but I ain’t going to worry about it. It’s not going to do no good to have an opinion. To get the coronavirus would not be good.” John Hagan sells StreetWise magazine downtown weekdays at Pret A Manger at Adams and Franklin Streets; then at Leland and Lincoln in Lincoln Square on Saturdays and Sundays and at Old St. Patrick's Church. Yes, it’s seven days a week for him because “sitting at home won’t pay the bills, you don’t accomplish anything by staying at home.” However, the downtown traffic is gone, along with that at the church. Lincoln Square is the only place where people are regularly coming out. “It might take a week to make what I used to make in one day.”
