Real Change newspapers double in price. Will vendors see payoff?

Selling newspapers for Real Change for 16 years, Harlan Wood said he's learned his business is all about customer service.

Rain or shine, he'll be outside the Wallingford post office, leaning against the mail drop box, with a trucker hat and blue reflector vest, country music streaming from his phone in his front pocket. He politely greets every person going in and out of the office, joking around with the regulars.

When a man asked for change, Wood pointed to the Real Change masthead on the newspaper with a wink. "There's your change, right?"

He's become enough of a fixture that people will call when he doesn't show up. So anything that disrupts his relationship with the customers makes him nervous.

And recently, he's been having to prepare for just that.

Wood broke the news to one woman as she bought a paper: The price of the Real Change newspaper would double to $4 starting May 6.

"I'm not happy and the office knows I'm not happy," he told her.

It's the first price increase since 2013 for the weekly street newspaper, which focuses on local news about poverty and social issues while providing easy to access work for people around the city, many of whom are homeless.

The nonprofit says it's a necessary change to navigate rising costs to produce the paper and also bring more vendors into the program - the new $4 price will double vendors' income with each sale. Luke Sumner, who took over as Real Change's executive director earlier this year, said the board debated the increase for years and couldn't avoid it any longer.

"It was not an easy decision," Sumner said.

But to some longtimers like Wood, it's too big of a gamble. While he may earn more per paper, he's afraid the price jump will discourage some people from buying the paper at all, threatening the income he relies on for basic expenses.

No longer sustainable

Founded in 1992, Real Change was designed to help people like Wood, who struggle to do other kinds of work. He's disabled and started selling papers while he was homeless.

The nonprofit is part of an international network of street newspapers that all operate with a similar model: A small team of staff journalists write the newspaper. Vendors, who operate like self-employed contractors, pay a discounted price for copies upfront or earn them by helping out with tasks at the nonprofit. Later, when the vendors sell the paper for full price, they keep the profit.

But in Seattle, rising costs have made it difficult to keep the model going, Sumner said.

For one, the newspaper's expenses have increased significantly. Since 2013, when the paper last increased its price from $1 to $2, printing costs have shot up about 75%, he said.

At the same time, the number of vendors selling the paper has dropped. At one time 800 people sold the paper, Sumner said. As Wood remembers, vendors used to be as common as Starbucks downtown.

That's not the case anymore. These days the number of vendors totals about 250.

Sumner attributes the biggest drop to fewer people selling after business dried up during the pandemic but more recently, board members also heard from vendors that their earnings were becoming a deterrent to selling papers. Under the $2 price, vendors took home $1.40 per paper - more than double the price they paid for it, but less than increases in food, rent and other expenses.

"It can't stay at $2 and everything else went up six times," said Donald Morehead, a vendor who's sold papers for more than 20 years and helped inform the price change as a member of the board.

Fewer vendors is not just a problem for Real Change's mission, which is to help provide people with income. It also affects the budget. The nonprofit covers most of its expenses through grants and donations, but it has always received some income from newspaper sales.

With vendors selling almost half as many papers, the nonprofit's reports show circulation declined from 561,000 to 270,000 between 2019 and 2025, causing revenue from sales to drop by half too.

"It got to a point where we really needed to make this change just to ensure some consistency and sustainability going forward," Sumner said.

Vendor concerns

Sumner said Real Change's board held off until now because it was sensitive to the concerns of vendors like Wood.

Even selling 100 to 150 papers per week, Wood admits the income from Real Change is not much compared to the current cost of living. But he said he receives a lot of money from goodwill - people who give a little extra or pay without taking a paper. In seven hours, he can still make $70 to $100 a day, he said.

Wood said some of his customers have suggested a smaller change, to $3, for example.

But really, he'd prefer no increase at all.

"I say we shouldn't even went up, period," he said.

Sumner said the board considered an incremental increase but ultimately decided it would be easier on vendors to raise the price to a level where it could remain for a long time.

The change will put the cost of Seattle's paper slightly above some of its peers. Chicago and Washington, D.C., both charge $3 per paper. Portland charges $1.

But Morehead, the vendor and board member, said Seattle's extreme cost of living more than justifies it.

Eventually, he said the older vendors will adjust to the new price as they have in the past. The 2013 price jump turned out fine, he said. Vendors have needed to navigate other issues too, like fewer people carrying cash. Their badges now have Venmo QR codes.

Morehead has no doubt their customers will also adjust.

"If people support you at $2," he said, "they'll support you at $3, they'll support you at $4, they'll even support you at $5."

As Wood informed his regulars of the upcoming change, he remained unsure. By late April, just one person had told him they wouldn't be able to buy the paper anymore when the cost goes up. Wood said he promised he'd keep selling him the paper at the lower price.

After so many years and getting out of homelessness, he doesn't do this just for the money, he said.

"I love doing this because I get to meet people," he said.

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