Real Change Vendors: Irritating? Perhaps. Panhandlers? Not usually.
Around the Seattlest newsroom, this contributor's distrust of Real Change News is well known; we've long been dubious of how their editorial side balances activism and reporting. (Since the paper has paid, non-indigent writers, supported by charitable donation and the sale of copies, which is itself more or less an act of charity, we've always wondered why they aren't more consistent and aggressive going after the city for its manifold failures. Could it be they don't want to rock the boat with the people they're simultaneously lobbying for badly needed funds?) Still, we were a bit offended to read about how other cities are cracking down on their vendors in this morning's Seattle Times:
As Real Change, a nonprofit activist publication based in Seattle, expands, its distribution model has come up against anti-panhandling rules in some surrounding cities. Timothy Harris, executive director of Real Change, said that one of its vendors in Tacoma and one in Auburn who were selling the paper were told by police to stop. Neither was arrested.
Yes, it appears that other municipalities here in the Puget Sound region find Real Change vendors a nuisance. The "panhandling" charge is particularly galling, since most vendors aren't actually homeless, which fact has itself been leveled against Real Change by critics shocked to discover that selling the paper can actually pay nearly minimum wage earnings.
At the same time, just this weekend we were subjected to outright panhandling by a Real Change vendor. Outside Piecora's Saturday night, waiting to hit up Chop Suey for the Kultur Shock show, a man wandered down the block to us, informed us he'd just moved in to an apartment down the way, and proceeded to explain--showing us his Real Change vendor's badge--that he needed money to buy copies to sell. (For those who aren't familiar with the business model, vendors buy copies of Real Change at a wholesale rate and resell them for about a dollar a piece; no money to buy copies, no copies to sell.) We politely declined.
But treating vendors vending like panhandlers? That's B.S. Cities in the Puget Sound region are increasingly uncomfortable with the poor and homeless in their urban cores (redeveloped as condo-topia) while at the same time continuing a long tradition of accomplishing virtually nothing on the affordable housing and anti-poverty front. Again, we find ourselves shaking our heads in disgust at a self-satisfied, "blue state," urban bourgeoisie that supports high-end dog boutiques for pampered canines, but which finds the sight of the less fortunate--even those trying to make a decent, honest living--a serious affront. There's some people out there who need to think long and hard about what of people they are. Seriously...
Thanks to brappy for contributing the above pic to the Seattlest Flickr pool.
