StreetSmarts: Alive and Well, Thank You

Your report of StreetSmarts magazine's demise ("Riptide," April 22) is, as they say, greatly exaggerated. StreetSmarts will continue to publish. We must. Who else creates meaningful, dignified employment for South Florida's homeless and hard-core unemployed?

Only StreetSmarts takes anyone willing to work, trains them in basic life and business skills, then gives them their own business selling StreetSmarts magazine for a 233 percent profit As an independent entrepreneur, the StreetSmarts vendor has a legitimate and dignified means of earning an income while she or he works toward self-sufficiency,

And although we no longer have office space at Camillus House, we currently have 78 vendors working out of two distribution points in Broward County. We actively seek donated office space in Miami-Dade County, space easily accessible to the poorest of us.

Contrary to the New Times report, I never said I couldn't meet with Dr. Joe Greer, medical director of Camillus Health Concern. We have been tying to meet with him to discuss new digs in Miami, but he is a very busy man. I must add that Dr. Greer is on StreetSmarts's advisory board and is a strong supporter of the magazine and its mission.

It is true that I'm leaving town for a few months. Frank Kaiser and I will be heading off for a five-week assignment from the US government, traveling to Russia and Poland, teaching the art and science of marketing, advertising, and public relations to companies in those countries.

In our absence StreetSmarts's office manager and researcher John Zeller will be managing our temporary headquarters, with our Broward distribution centers handling our vendors. To ensure there is no break in vendor services, John can be reached at 305-654-1102 while we are away.

Rest assured that StreetSmarts is alive, well, and as audacious as ever. Our staff of homeless and hard-to-employ is hard at work on the next issue. We are hardly defunct

Carolyn Blair, publisher and co-chair
StreetSmarts Coalition, Inc.
Miami

"Just because they don’t like the socioeconomic status of these people in their nice, beautiful bedroom community, they’re arresting them," said Benjamin, who has taken on the case for free as part of the work he does for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It’s a blatant violation of the First Amendment."

What’s being violated, said City Manager John Flint, is city ordinance 98-26: No asking for money along Weston roads.

"It doesn’t say by homeless people, and it doesn’t say by millionaires, it just says no solicitation," he said, noting the city is not discriminating against anybody.

The police officers wrote in their
report that while there were , vendors, only a few actually c,, carried copies of StreetsSmarts, a the papers themselves clearly stated ed a $1 "donation."

On Sunday morning, as vendors ( from two mainstream publications went car to car selling papers, t police filled out reports on each the StreetSmarts vendors. 0ne was unshaven, they noted, a couple had rotten teeth, there was c who had tattooed a skull and cross on his shoulder, another with his on the inside of his left arm.

But all were clean, Cononie said, all neat, their white "Helping People in America" T-shirts tucked into their shorts. They had all been trained (be polite), and, he added, they were all exercising their constitutional right.

They lasted about an hour before sheriff’s deputies rounded them up, sat them down on the side of Weston Road and Arvida Parkway and arrested them for soliciting donations on a roadway, a violation of city law.

"That ain’t why they kicked us
out," said Cononie, founder of the Helping People in America shelter. "I would have to say it’s based on discrimination of homeless people with selective enforcement and it’s wrong."
out," said Cononie, founder of the Helping People in America shelter. "I would have to say it’s based on discrimination of homeless people with selective enforcement and it’s wrong."

For two years, his Hollywood shelter has raised as much as $20,000 a month by sending the people who stay there to major intersections across Broward County with a plea for drivers at a red light to drop some change into a plastic bucket.

Last fall, his workers also started selling StreetSmarts, a Miami-based publication written and sold by homeless people. Armed with a newspaper, Cononie claimed his First Amendment right to free speech, and demanded cities extend the same right to his workers as that granted mainstream newspapers.