Percy Smith

I have been a vendor since about 2005 and I was vendor rep on the board of directors at StreetWise for about five years. Being vendor rep caused me to affect some change in the way we sold magazines as vendors. When I first got there, I saw vendors chasing supporters down the street, saying, ‘C’mon, give me a dollar, give me $2. Let me get some money.’ It made it feel like we were more begging than actually selling magazines. I didn’t really appreciate that, because I don’t consider myself a vagabond.

I thought it would be more appreciated, and the company would grow so much more, if we treated the StreetWise organization as a nonprofit business rather than a pity pot.

I chaired a group for addiction studies. That went well for more than 10 years; I still get calls. We used the modality from Narcotics Anonymous and we proceeded to try to stay clean one day at a time, which is the Narcotics Anonymous modality. We read, we studied, we shared, we met every Thursday from 1 o’clock to 3 o’clock. We celebrated whenever a person had something substantial. We named the group Lifesavers. It was open.

It was a study of how to stay clean. Narcotics Anonymous initiated it and I used that modality because I saw many people treating themselves as slaves: slaves to their addiction. They would work all day and spend the money they worked for all night. I would see people standing on the corner saying,…’I got $5, can you give me $5 to go with your magazines, because I don’t have enough to buy 30 magazines,’ which was the bottom number of magazines to buy each week,” [from StreetWise, to re-sell. Until recently, vendors bought the magazine for 90 cents and sold it for $2. Now they pay $1.15 and sell it for $3.]

It was easy to see what they were doing with their lives, and I wanted to make their lives better.

StreetWise helped me to live, to have a second income to support myself and family.

I have been using a wheelchair since 1998. I was walking down the street and got hit by a drunk driver in 1991. I started a BA in human behavioral sciences focused on substance abuse and finished it while I was a vendor. With that in my arsenal, I thought I could be a lot of help to StreetWise, which I thought was a wonderful thing, because the idea behind Streetwise is to help people who fall down get back up. Selling magazines to earn income and taking that income to live better, I thought is a wonderful thing: to help people get jobs who were considered unemployable. To help these people support their families and pay rent, light bills.

StreetWise basically deals with people on both sides of it: people who can help, and people who need help. People are the best thing God put on Earth and to love and care for each other is one of the best things we can do for God.

July 19, 1996

StreetWise Vendor Melinda Rogers sold the 5 millionth copy of StreetWise. (Inside the newspaper was a round-trip airline ticket compliments of United Airlines.)

August 1996

StreetWise, along with the National Coalition for the Homeless and Real Change Seattle, co-hosted the first meeting of North American street papers. The meeting was held in Chicago and attended by 20 North American street papers, as well as the street papers in Amsterdam and London.

September 1997

StreetWise hosts its first annual anniversary gala.

September 1997

StreetWise launches the Work Empowerment Center including a library and computers.

October 1997

StreetWise moves to its new building at 1331 S. Michigan Ave.