John | Photo 02

This is John, one of the StreetWise newspaper vendors in the Chicago area. He's a sharp--even philosophical--man who has been down on his luck but says that he is not going to let the bad economic news keep him down. He says he is just scraping by and is sharing a room with another marginalized person.

John also reports getting scornful looks from some of the patrons who shop in the area where he normally sets up in Evanston, a rather posh spot on Chicago's North Shore. One man, he says, glared at him for about 20 minutes recently.  Others regard him as a nuisance, although in my experience John has never once been anything but polite and professional in his demeanor and "hawking."