How Lucrative Is Selling Street Papers?
Published September 09, 2009 @ 11:28AM PT
Street papers are important assets to the communities in which they operate. They are lauded as sources for alternative news as well as a means of earning income for homeless individuals. But just how much money can a person earn hawking street papers?
Homeless papers have been around for some time, but recently, they've been booming. The increase in homelessness has seen an increase in circulation as well as the number of individuals willing to sell the papers. According to the North American Street Paper Association, each of the 25 street papers in 19 cities across the U.S. and Canada have seen steady growth despite the down economy. In Denver, for example, circulation has increased from 9,800 to over 15,000 in just a year. These numbers are impressive, especially when you consider the economic strain many traditional print media sources are feeling.
The business model varies slightly from paper to paper, but it typically works like this: Street vendors pay 25 cents per paper, which they then sell for $1, keeping the difference. Other incentives are built in, including various sale benchmarks to earn vendor vests and hats, and free papers for attending vendor meetings. Vendors must also agree to a code of conduct which bar the use of alcohol, drugs, and peddling papers on private property.
Street paper advocates say that the beauty of the model is that individuals can earn as much or as little as they'd like -- it all depends on how hard they are willing to work.
But just how much money can a street paper vendor earn?
One couple in Nashville sells roughly 500 papers per month and earns "a couple hundred dollars." Unfortunately, despite their sales prowess, their earnings are not enough to pay for housing. So they live in a tent, saving their earnings for an apartment. According to the Tennessean, most street vendors do not use their income from selling street papers as a primary source of income, but rather as a supplement to purchase other necessities, such as medicine, toiletries, pet food, or utility payments.
To be honest, this isn't all that surprising. But be careful before you write off the street paper model because it's not a livable wage generator for street vendors. The real value of purchasing a street paper goes way beyond the physical transaction of paying money for a news source; the intangible benefits are worth much, much more.
First, it's the unique content. Street papers often provide a grassroots perspective on poverty and homelessness that, in many cases, are detailed in a first-person voice. Street vendors are often themselves contributors, and in this digital age, how often can you buy a newspaper from a contributing author?
For vendors, selling a street paper is a job. For many, it's the only job that will take them. For others, it's the first job they've had in a very long time. For these people, selling street papers is about the confidence created by operating a micro-business. The human interaction and opportunity to form relationships. It's the feeling of not being invisible, of having a purpose. Having a reason to get up in the morning.
Buying a street newspaper from a vendor is so much more than a business transaction. It is human interaction, eye contact, the seemingly mundane exchange of pleasantries that mean a great deal to a person who may have been written off. Street papers may not pay anyone's rent or provide a financial vehicle for getting off the streets. But they are a crucial first step towards re-acclimation into a world that has shunned them.
Photo from the Tennessean.
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Comments (8)
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Author
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Shannon has worked in homeless shelters and service organizations in San Francisco, the Triangle region of North Carolina, and currently in the greater Boston area. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.
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I'm a bit wary about even raising the matter, but... does your analysis factor in such aspects as:
• Business license
• Taxes
• Other self-employment mandatory costs/expenses
We're not talking about "wages" here, technically. Nor about all the other rightful benefits and protections economically and otherwise under laws to protect workers.
Unfortunately, the poorest of the poor and the most direly destitute and desperate also get the worst deals.
I know people locally that tend to hire homeless folks for "under the table" odd jobs, including at/for their own businesses. This can appear and seem somewhat thoughtful and generous too. No doubt, those few bucks (which are characteristically low on any hourly or other usual scale) are precious to the recipients.
But let's face it -- the "employers" are getting cut-rate labor, free of all the lawful "overhead" that they'd be required to pay any real employee. Or more legitimate "contractor".
And this is the exact same formula for "sweatshop" and other exploitations of the poor historically, in fact. And is ONLY possible due to the extreme poverty of those reduced to accepting the deal.
Posted by SlumJack Homeless on 09/09/2009 @ 10:16PM PT
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Dang this peas me off. Thanks for informing us on this. I will always tip a dollar minimum if I have, and will share this info with my friends.
But the thing is - print newspapers are going the way of the dear dodo bird, may it rest in peace...
There MUST be other alternatives, OR, the newspapers could get a clue and start writing papers that are IRRESISTIBLE to commuters and Sunday drivers. *Lightbulb*
Hopefully they uses WISELY farmed and culled forest trees that are taken when they're ready to go, such as the Wisconsin Indian tribe does.
I love this website for sharing such valuable info to the uninitiated.
Homelessness is Wronglessness. I mean, Homelessness, ESPECIALLY in the US, is just plain WRONG in a trillion different ways.
Posted by Cdin Org on 09/10/2009 @ 03:04PM PT
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I have sold streetsheets in washington dc. and i find no one wants to buy from me becuase the corners are swamped with people trying to sell the same paper.
i have to say in my opinion they need to change the stories more freaquantly. so that people want to buy the paper. i would sugesst and forgett he overhead becuase the managers are not living on the streets like me and the mrs.
Put out more papaers difrent issues. so people want to buy the paper.
Ive been homless since i lost my place in june. Im 46 married and starting over.
no one wants to hire me. when they can hire a person who is able to stay clean i dod the best i can with my laptop starbucks and ja few pennies selling papers .
Posted by Mark Parker on 09/13/2009 @ 08:50AM PT
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I sent this as a direct message to the author the day this article ran. I haven't recieved a response, and I feel this article needs some clarification, so I'm posting it as a comment to at least add my voice to the fray.
Hi Shannon,
This began as a comment under your "How Lucrative is Selling Street Papers" story. It got a little long and seemed more for the author than the public, so I thought I'd just send it as a message.
To lay my cards on the table, I work with The Contributor as an occasional writer and editor and I've paid close attention to the paper's progress. I don't think selling street papers is a permanent employment solution for our vendors and I know it will never end homelessness, but for many it has been a step up and a move into housing or more lasting work.
I appreciate your emphasis on the personal interaction that street papers create between those who have experienced homelessness and those who have not. Often, people ask us why we don't just sell the papers at coffee shops and news stands, and we have to explain that the personal exchange means more and does more to change minds than any article we could put in print. Most people don't get that, so I was glad to see you emphasize it.
I was, however, confused by your take on what street papers can and can't do as a source of income. I may be wrong, but you seem to be using the recent articles in The Tennessean and USA Today as your primary sources. I have reread both those articles today and I'm finding some things that contradict your stance.
Firstly, in your closing you say that "Street papers may not pay anyone's rent or provide a financial vehicle for getting off the streets" but the article in The Tennessean begins by featuring a couple, Jerry and Karen Andraeson, who got off the streets and pay their monthly rent using money from street paper sales. The article ends with Ray Ponce DeLeon who "got an apartment in Mercury Court, using his work and income from The Contributor to show that he was reliable." The article is not explicit, but Ray also pays rent using money from paper sales.
So, street papers do pay some people's rent and do provide a financial vehicle for getting off the streets.
The meat of your story seems to be the phrase that Tony Angello and Quita Thornton make "a couple hundred dollars" a month selling papers. First off, I'm having trouble finding the phrase "a couple hundred dollars" regarding Tony and Quita's monthly sales in either article. Did this come from another source?
In any case, "a couple hundred" is vernacular and is not an actual amount, but 500 papers per month is. Some quick figuring would show that selling 500 papers per month at $1 per paper (minus $.25 each for cost) would bring in $375 a month. If, as the USA Today article states, paper sales plus tips average $2 per paper, than the couple would bring in at least $875 a month.
The article in The Tennessean states that Tony and Quita had been using their income to pay for nightly hotel rooms for $40 to $50 (paying at least $1200 a month if they stay every night). So rather than saying that "their earnings are not enough to pay for housing" this seems to indicate that, barring other expenses, they may have money for housing after only a few weeks of sleeping in a tent. Obviously, this is far from an ideal circumstance, but we all know how hard it is to come up with first/last month's rent, deposits, etc to get started.
To be clear, I don't know if Tony and Quita will get off the street by selling papers, but I do know that with their work ethic and what they bring in from paper sales, income should not be the deciding factor in whether they do or not.
Again, I don't think selling The Contributor is a permanent solution for our vendors. I want to see them outgrow it and move into more lucrative employment. I have, however, seen paper sales pay for housing. I believe that housing, for many people, is a necessity for finding lasting, sustained employment.
If you find any of this compelling, I would ask you to amend your article to show these facts which I have pulled from the two sources you use.
Thanks,
--Mark Lemley
Posted by Mark Lemley on 09/13/2009 @ 11:32AM PT
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Manufacturing jobs pay much better!We need to get out of these rediculous "free trade" deals!
Posted by Thomas Porter on 09/13/2009 @ 06:11PM PT
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Mark, I wonder...
Do the costs of these papers to the street vendors represent the actual costs to produce them? In other words, does the paper break-even and/or with some ad sales or other subsidy? I'm wondering how the pricing's done.
Also, are there paid staff at the paper? Is anyone paying their rent/mortgage by making/selling those papers?
I was chided before while commenting in a similar entry section when I mentioned that actual street sales of these types of papers is as much of a form of panhandling as it's anything else. When I see anyone claim that any amount of a vendor's "income" is from "tips" I see euphemism. The sales guys at newstands aren't typically so "tipped" when a NYT is purchased, for instance.
I think the true metrics of these operations must adhere to real business models, when discussing what these pose to anyone, and in order to truly characterize things. Especially in terms of analyzing what the "opportunity" for vendors pragmatically is, and all the more in terms of prospects for valid income and/or sufficient for any particular housing
As a former property manager of some years and number of differing properties, I would've been unable to rent someone only able to claim street selling of these, for instance.
Posted by SlumJack Homeless on 09/13/2009 @ 06:29PM PT
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SlumJack,
To answer your questions:
* The paper does break even. Our sales pay for printing cost and supplies.* At this point, there are no paid staff working for the paper.
* As I said in my above post:
"street papers DO pay some people's rent and DO provide a financial vehicle for getting off the streets."
This is not theoretical, it is based on the actual vendors who pay their monthly rent with money from paper sales. We have filled out and faxed forms for multiple Vendors verifying the amount of papers they buy from us to sell in order to secure their housing (which they have kept!).
This article in The Tennessean concurs and I was only troubled that the author used this as a primary source, but seemed to leave out this crucial detail:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090906/NEWS01/909060365/-1/RSS05
As for tips, I have worked at conventional, capitalist, self-sustaining businesses where "tips" were a crucial part of my income. They are a way that commerce encourages better service and interaction between customers and sales representatives. If Contributor customers consistently want our vendors to "keep the change," perhaps this is the community setting the value of the service at higher than a dollar.
Posted by Mark Lemley on 09/13/2009 @ 07:15PM PT
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Quick correction:
We pay an intern a very small amount per month, on a contract basis, for editing services. He is the only non-vendor who recieves money from The Contributor (from paper-sales, donations or ad-sales).
Posted by Mark Lemley on 09/13/2009 @ 07:21PM PT
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