Real Change

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One of Real Change's vendors in Seattle

Real Change is a weekly street newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, USA, with an unusual distribution model. It is sold by the poor, many of which are homeless, providing them an alternative to panhandling.

Real Change has been published by the Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project since 1994. Real Change started off as a monthly paper, but shifted to bi-weekly several years later. In February 2005, Real Change became the first weekly street newspaper in the country.[1]

Vendors get the first 10 papers free when they sign up; after that they keep 65 cents for every dollar paper they sell. Founder Timothy Harris previously founded the Spare Change homeless newspaper in the Boston area in 1992. Both are similar to Chicago's StreetWise, Portland's Street Roots and New York City's BIGNews, the UK-based The Big Issue, and other such papers.