Todd Kline grew up in Ballard. He was living in Malibu and visiting Seattle when he lost his driver’s license. “I couldn’t fly or get on the train or anything. You need four pieces of ID and a place to live to get it back.” In Malibu, he’d been living in his van. “Everything was in Malibu, my paintings, my camera, everything. All my work on computer was not backed up and all my disks were lost.”
Before that, Todd said, he was “a ‘have.’” He worked for ABC through three Super Bowls as a producer. “You’re doing interviews, you’re basically organizing everything. You just want to get the job done, you have such a small window of a story and you want to get it done within minutes, otherwise you’ll lose the story.”
Todd gave up TV production to become a painter, a photographer, a songwriter and a balancer of rocks in Malibu. Stacking cairns of rocks, without any kind of cement, became a passion. He was doing a show at the Shoreline Arts Festival when he got stuck in Seattle. “I ended up homeless in my own hometown — just frantic and living in bushes.”
Then he met Terry Williams. “Terry had been Real Change Vendor of the Year. Since I was a news person, he told me about Real Change. I went to a couple of the events with him and he got me started.”
Rather than sell at one location, Todd likes to “fill in” at various places. “With my health I can’t stand for long periods of time. I bounce around and that’s nice, because I walk eight miles a day.”
He likes to talk with customers; other vendors tell him he’d sell more papers if he didn’t chat so much, but he says he makes most of his money off tips, anyway. On good days he’ll start with just a few papers, and then, between sales and tips, parlay that into $40 or more.
Todd has been on and off the streets; he was illegally evicted from one apartment in Ballard when his disability payments were cut off and he could not afford the rent. He lived in a trailer belonging to Olson’s Furniture for over a year; the business liked having him there watching the place. He’s left Ballard for the Morrison Hotel downtown, but he still goes back there to sell Real Change. He also likes to think of himself as a walking ambassador. “Some people call me Mayor of Ballard, because I know all the history. And I can tell when people are lost.”
Now Todd’s getting his artistic career back underway. Rex Hohlbein, who started the “Homeless in Seattle” Facebook page, helped him get paint, brushes and canvases, as well as a discount at Daniel Smith Art Supplies. “I’ve already got two big paintings done.” And Todd’s balanced rocks have been featured on Hohlbein’s website. “I can’t balance a checkbook, but I can balance rocks,” said Todd.