This Organization is Helping Portland's Homeless Crisis $1 at a Time

Street Roots, a Portland based publication company is helping to solve Portland's homeless problem, and their business model is genius.

They don't reach into their own pockets, but rather, they rely on the Portland population to help them fulfill their mission: to create income opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and poverty by producing a newspaper and other media that are catalysts for individual and social change.

The way Street Roots works is simple. They release newspapers weekly. Those who find themselves in poverty can buy the paper for 25 cents, and then turn around and sell them for $1 each. Their program gives the homeless involved with the program a sense of self worth and a "routine", says Willie Bradford, a seller who usually makes his money outside of the Multnomah County Library.

The model has also been proven in more cities than just Portland. Nashville's The Contributor and New York's Street Sense are just a couple of other successful publications across the country looking to help the homeless population. Nationally, there are more than 100 different street papers in 35 different countries, which employ around 21,000 vendors and reach over 21 million readers. Still think that newspaper is dead?

The catalyst for all of this to happen of course is you! Street Roots even goes as far as giving their vendors online profiles in order to break some tension that may be caused from the idea of engaging with a homeless person. Street Roots wants to normalize the process as much as possible to increase the amount of papers their vendors can sell every week.

While this isn't the clear cut solution to the homeless problem, this is definitely a very good start. Helping Street Roots is as simple as purchasing a Street Roots paper from a local Portland vendor for just $1, or by visiting their website to make a donation. To learn more about different wants to get involved, you can find more information on their website.