There are 50 such publications currently sold in communities of all sizes throughout the US. And where they are sold:

• Panhandling sharply diminishes.
• Crime decreases in neighborhoods served.
• At least 20 percent of the vendors move on to full-time gainful employment*.
  

Selling StreetSmarts empowers those having difficulty integrating into the community to become self-sufficient through gainful employment. By offering a hand up, not a handout, StreetSmarts helps these men and women earn the money and the skills needed to win dignity and control over their lives.

The idea is simple: Those who want to work are taught basic business and life skills and given a marketable product that they sell for a 150% profit wherever and whenever they wish.

That product, StreetSmarts, creates dignified work founded on the principle that most of us want to help people who are helping themselves. Coincidentally, many hard-core unemployed persons want to work, to enjoy employment that offers independence, dignity, flexibility, and immediate payment.

Vendors, acting as independent contractors in a wholesale/retail relationship with the publication, earn an immediate 70¢ donation for each $1 copy of the periodical sold.

At Chicago's five-year-old StreetWise, for example, a monthly circulation of 120,000 provides income to 350 active vendors at any given time. Over 4,000 unemployed, mostly homeless men and women have gone through the StreetWise program; most are now employed in full-time, living-wage work. According to its publisher, top vendors of StreetWise earn more than $100 a day. Many vendors earn $1,500 a month or more.

Across the world such publications are empowering thousands of homeless and other hard-core unemployed persons to win control over their lives, taking them to higher levels of self-sufficiency and sustaining them there with a continuum of care.

Vendors, acting as independent contractors in a wholesale/retail relationship with the publication, earn an immediate 70¢ for each $1 copy of the periodical sold.

By helping the poor and hard-core unemployed to immediate and meaningful work, StreetSmarts fills a gap in South Florida's social services community.

Not only can the publication help other programs succeed without costing them anything, every issue of the publication will feature details about social service agencies, their particular niche, contact numbers, volunteer, and gift needs.

Editorially, StreetSmarts will appeal to readers with a mix of general-interest pieces, informative articles for tourists, plus stories by and about those having difficulty integrating into the community, including agency success features, e.g., “Counting Success 345 at a Time: The Remarkable Story of Downtown Miami's New Homeless Assistance Center” (Community Partnership for the Homeless).

StreetSmarts’ publisher and editor, Carolyn Blair and Frank Kaiser, have solid foundations in the community and firmly established credentials in publishing, advertising, and social service. Both have a rich history of synergy.

StreetSmarts is an entrepreneurship, but instead of the primary goal of raising the value of company stock, the primary goal of this micro-enterprise is increasing the worth of individual human lives by leading them to self-sufficiency. Street Smarts Coalition, Inc. is a Florida not-for-profit corporation.

Measuring Success

StreetSmarts will issue quarterly progress reports and an annual report providing detailed measurements including the following considerations:

1) number of vendors graduating from the training program; 2) number of vendors moving to other part-time, full-time or self-employment; 3) number of homeless vendors gaining housing through the program; 4) number of created jobs in the community; 5) increase in circulation; 6) pre/post surveys revealing changed perceptions of the poor, dispossessed and homeless within the community; and 7) total revenues generated through the operation.

Operating funds will come from magazine and advertising sales, grass-roots donations, corporate sponsors, grants, and fund raising.

Excess revenues will be reinvested into StreetSmarts’ Work Empowerment Project where vendors will be offered socialization assistance, housing and substance- abuse referrals, hands-on education assistance, health-care and entitlement referrals, emergency shelter and general counseling. Once a vendor’s basic needs are met, StreetSmarts will help provide a system of case management, tracking, and outreach to existing South Florida social agencies and services.

A Volunteer Mentor Program will be established to offer additional support to vendors such as one-on-one aid with vendors’ individual goals for job training and computer development (using StreetSmarts’ editorial-department computers).

As Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas said at the August 13th Empowerment Zone Conference, “We must empower the minds of our community, unlocking the economic and personal potential of our poorest residents.”

This is StreetSmarts’ goal.

For further information about this income-creation program for the poor, call Carolyn Blair at 305 754 8833 or e-mail her at streetsmarts@kaisercom.com. A complete business plan for StreetSmarts Coalition, Inc. is available below in .pdf form or in hard copy upon request.

*Affirmed most recently by Chicago's StreetWise March 1998 survey.

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Business Plan Table of Contents

Executive Summary
General Concept of the Magazine
Complement Other Homeless Service Agencies
How Others Do It
The Real Need
Measuring Success     

The Magazine
The Market
Production
Circulation
Distribution
Editorial
Advertising

Board of Directors
Advisory Board
Organizational Structure
The Principals—Editor, Publisher, Vendor Services

Vendor Services/Training
The Vendors
Vendor Training Details
Volunteer Mentor Program

Appendix
Vendor Service Documents
Vendor Code of Conduct
Orientation Attendance Procedure Grievance Procedure
Streetsmarts Vendor Orientation
12 Session Outline
Independent Retailers Agreement
Vendor Services Report Code/
Assistance Provided
Intake Form
Quality Assurance Team
Vendor Rules and Consequences
Volunteer Mentor Program
Editorial Content Detail
Proposed Letter to Area Journalism Teachers
Advertising
Classifieds

Financials
Startup Projections
First Year Financial Projections