Vendor of the Week
Vendor of the Year: Richard White
Richard White, Vendor of the Year.
In 1986, the year I was born, Richard cast his first ballot at the age of 18 in the Grand Canyon State. “My first election I voted for McCain to get him in office,” he laughs. “Now I voted to get him out.” Now Richard’s a full-time vendor, activist, and organizer — not to mention Real Change’s 2008 Vendor of the Year.
Born in Chicago’s DuPage County, Richard has lived in Seattle for almost two decades and has sold Real Change for nearly thirteen years. And over the past year he’s dedicated his life to advocating for poor and homeless people in Seattle.
As an activist with the Real Change Organizing Project and Nickelsville, he’s played a lead role in protesting the city’s sweeps of homeless encampments — he himself has had his site raided and items stolen. And in June 2008 he was arrested for camping outside City Hall. Did I mention that he’s also an elected Vendor Representative to over 350 Real Change vendors throughout King County?
If you haven’t figured it out already, Richard lives and breathes this work. And between encouraging people to go out and vote and helping to jump-start a “No New Jail” campaign during the past few weeks, he’s been plenty busy.
“The city plans to build a jail for $220 million, but they really don’t need to,” he says. Instead, he says, that money should be spent on social services, which would undoubtedly lessen the need to lock people up. “Attacking the homeless and attacking tent cities is not the solution.”
Why does he do this work? “Because survival is a basic human right.”
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