To a student, panhandlers and Streetwise vendors seem to blur together.
Ed Clark, a veteran StreetWise vendor, would disagree. As a legitimate businessman, Ed has experienced the same difficulties with panhandlers that students have. “I’ve made a few enemies out here,” he says, “because I won’t let them con me, I won’t let them use me, I won’t lend them money … and they don’t want to do anything for themselves.”
The StreetWise newspaper, which covers the city’s homeless population, employs homeless and low-income residents to sell papers. It requires three orientation sessions for its vendors, meant to instill a degree of professionalism. Nevertheless, Clark complains of freeloaders attempting to buck the system, using two or three papers as a cover for regular panhandling.
“We’ve got guys who sell enough papers so where they can afford a six-pack of beer and then they head to Osco … and the next day they don’t have any money to pay their daily expenses, (or) replenish their inventory … So they come running up to you with every excuse under the sun, trying to get you to sell ’em a few papers, and you can’t operate like that. Because you learn to develop your own initiative to the point where you’re reasonably self-sufficient, or else you’re not doing a job that’s satisfactory either for the company or for yourself.”
Clark is enthusiastic about his job, and his philosophy is pure American Dream. StreetWise is purchased outright by the vendors at a minimum of 20 papers for seven dollars. They are then re-sold to the public over the course of the week.
From his selling point outside Whole Foods, Clark can move between 75 and 100 papers on a good day.
He considers selling 250 to 300 a week to be “doing quite well,” well enough to meet everyday expenses and make a modest living.
“We were criticized, I’d say fairly substantially, when this first appeared on the streets of Evanston, but I think now by and large they’ve come to accept it. People have faith in it. They back it because they know it serves a good purpose … There’s always someone who’s interested in something like this, because it’s a form of help that says, ‘Well, at least you’re doing a selling job, (not) standing out there and asking somebody for money outright.’ One of the best (ways StreetWise) serves is to give a little self-esteem.”
Ed also criticizes Evanston city government for its reticence in enforcing its recently passed panhandling ordinance.
“They’re not adamant enough or active enough in seeing who’s using it … I think it’s been a mistake.”
Clark isn’t sure why officials haven’t been more aggressive. “I think they’re testing it, really, to make sure they don’t get in trouble with civil rights. And I think as they have a little more success they can probably go to a higher degree of enforcing it.”
Clark considers StreetWise to have provided him with a bright future, and would encourage students to support legitimate vendors instead of panhandlers. “It’s been a wonderful thing for me … if you work at it and handle it right, it will meet your needs.”
“Sales have always been one of the mainstays of American business,” Clark says. “A good salesman can always make a living.”
