Twenty years ago, I made a leap of faith and moved to Seattle to start a street paper. There was no money. There was no organization backing me. There was no Plan B.
Real Change has always been a little magical, and we have often depended upon the kindness of strangers.
Since 1994, our community has grown. Last year, 1,793 supporters contributed a total of $584,418 to our work. Because of people like you, nearly 800 homeless and very low-income people earned an income last year selling Real Change.
Your support helped us win 16 first-place regional journalism awards in 2014, and it has made us one of Seattle’s most respected community news outlets.
Because of you, Seattle’s unsheltered homeless crisis has moved near the top of the city agenda, and it is finally getting the attention it should.
Our readers are the solid backbone of Real Change’s success. Your generous gift to our 2014 Winter Fund Drive helps us build upon 20 years of gutsy activism, quality journalism and vendor opportunity. It supports the powerful movement for economic, social and racial justice that we all need.
When the Seattle City Council recently convened to hear budget testimony, Real Change arranged 3,123 pairs of shoes outside Seattle City Hall to represent the number of unsheltered people found outside during the 2014 One Night Count in King County
As vendors Susan Russell and Sharon Jones presented their testimony, four vendors entered council chambers behind them and moved slowly toward the front of the room.
They carried a coffin filled with signed OutsideIn petitions to make 1,000 unsheltered people safer by moving them indoors in 2015. From May to October, Real Change had gathered 5,022 signatures.
“We are like you,” Susan said. “I had a job. I helped build Safeco Field, the Seahawk Exhibition Center and the West Seattle Bridge. Then, an uninsured motorist rammed my car and took away my trade. After two years, I had no cushion left.
“I was on the streets for six years. I was beaten. I was robbed. I was raped. Please, please, do not sweep the unsheltered homeless under the rug. It is a death sentence.”
With that, the coffin moved to the front, and four vendors silently poured our petitions, printed on red paper, over the railing and onto the floor.
Susan, as a Real Change vendor, has found the work, housing and supportive community that she needs in order to begin the healing process and feel safe.
But she wants more. She wants a world where people like her aren’t abandoned to the streets and left to their misery. She wants justice for poor and working people. And she wants people like herself to find their power and be heard.
Real Change is both a survival strategy for the poorest among us and a catalyst for social change. We make an immediate difference in people’s lives while we organize and build for power. Your generous support of our winter fund drive helps us to change lives while we work for justice.
Seattle is the third most economically divided city in the nation, behind Atlanta and Washington, D.C. We face a crisis of housing affordability, a crisis of unsheltered homelessness and a crisis of inequality.
Like our vendor Susan, we believe we need to do more. With your support of our 2014 Holiday Fund Drive, we will:
▪ Reach new readers and engage new communities to create vendor opportunity and success
▪ Use new technologies to build an activist newspaper for the digital age
▪ Bridge the race and class divide to support a more united movement for change
▪ Build the leadership and develop the resources we need for long-term sustainability.
Back in 1994, when Real Change began, the number of those left outside on our streets after the shelters were full came to about 500 people. Over the past 20 years, that number has risen in Seattle to 2,303. Last year saw a 16 percent increase in unsheltered people over the previous year.
In a city this wealthy, this shouldn’t be. Real Change has helped build the groundswell of activism and support that helps create long-term solutions to inequality and homelessness, and the city has recognized the extent of Seattle’s unsheltered crisis with new funding and support for innovative solutions.
But we need your help to keep the pressure on. Every single donation is a measure of the deep community support that sustains our work.
With your help, Real Change will continue to build the more powerful movement for social change that this city needs. Our goal is to raise $200,000 by the end of the year to fund our plans for innovation and growth. We raise this one donation at a time, with everyone doing what he or she can.
Your donation to the 2014 Winter Fund Drive is an investment in a strong, healthy Real Change that will be here for many years to come, telling the truth, building power and changing lives.
You can make a single gift or a monthly pledge at realchangenews.org, or you can mail your gift to Real Change, 219 First Ave. S., Ste. 220, Seattle WA, 98104. We need to reach our goal by Dec. 31. We’re counting on your generous donation.
Thank you, from all of us at Real Change. Our community is built upon love, kindness, and courage. Your support makes it all possible.