This profile is an interview with Julia Powell, a member of Streetwise Ink, a screen printing cooperative focused on empowering community members who have experienced homelessness.

Coop Name: Streetwise Ink

Industry: Screen Printing

Location: Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Contact: streetwise@midsouthpeace.org

When was Streetwise Ink founded?

Streetwise Ink was founded in late 2012 when a group of people with current and previous experiences of homelessness came together in the midst of one of the longest standing encampments of the Occupy Movement. A Homeless Caucus, whose membership would later become the driving force behind Homeless Organizing for Power & Equality (H.O.P.E.) was organized as a direct response to the needs and issues of people most directly affected by many of the economic policies challenged within Occupy. During those initial meetings, the predecessors of H.O.P.E. came up with the four core values that were most necessary to the group as a whole: Dignity, Self-Determination/Autonomy, Mutual Emotional Support, and Solidarity.

H.O.P.E. realized that if they wanted to keep these core values in a system that makes it nearly impossible for people experiencing homelessness to find work (let alone dignified work that pays a living wage), that it would have to come from the community’s own efforts to make it so. From this concept came the idea to form a worker-owned and operated, unionized screen printing cooperative made up entirely of, for, and by people with experiences of homelessness. Our aim is to ensure that the quality of life for our community is prioritized over monetary gain.

How many worker-owners are there?

There are currently 4 active members within the organization, though over 10 people have been through the free screen printing trainings over the past year that Mid-South Peace & Justice Center (MSPJC) hosts for people with experiences of homelessness. We should emphasize that several others are on the waiting list for the next free screen printing training, hoping to join StreetWise Ink in an official capacity once we are fully established. Currently, StreetWise Ink is operating in “startup mode” under the fiscal sponsorship of MSPJC, and is forming an advisory board to assist in the process of becoming a standalone LLC by the end of 2018.

What vision to you hope to achieve?

Streetwise Ink is Memphis’ only t-shirt screen printing cooperative business venture that is organized and operated exclusively by individuals with experiences of homelessness. We are craftswomen and men who provide high-quality, custom, screen printed shirts for a variety of needs. Unlike the vast majority of business programs around the country that seek to “empower the homeless,” we are unique in that we have been worker-led from inception. We seek to further develop hard and soft business skills, and create steady and meaningful work with sustainable income for ourselves and others with experiences of homelessness. Together weare putting people over profit, practicing real democracy amongst ourselves and our community at large.

How does your mission motivate you to succeed as a business?

Of H.O.P.E’s 4 core values, dignity and self-determination aren’t possible to achieve (or are extremely unlikely to achieve) within the usual type of work that people experiencing homelessness can obtain. There are practically an infinite number of barriers for people experiencing homelessness to get any work at all. To make matters in our city worse, we live in one of the few cities with no free secular public shelters. We don't even have oversight for shelter regulations that require even such basic accommodations as ADA compliance (which could be a death sentence as people with any physically noticeable disability are turned away), or keeping those who run the shelters from engaging in the “play-to-stay” sexual exploitation of the most vulnerable. Adding injury to injury, excessive anti-panhandling ordinances have been put into effect to further criminalize poverty. Options are urgently scarce, and more people are being subjugated into poverty and homelessness today at an alarming speed.

All this, despite the fact that it has been proven that housing people and connecting them to needed services is not only effective in ending homelessness but is also cheaper for taxpayers, especially when compared to the cost of jailing them and subsidizing the cost of emergency medical care.

Knowing this, it went against all reason to attempt the task of running a business if it was going to recreate the exploitive form of employment designed to suck the life out of everyone “fortunate” enough to get hired in a hierarchical workplace. We join together with as many of the affected we meet in our area while welcoming all to join in the struggle. We hold tight to our core values, knowing that no one is coming to keep us from perishing on the streets, and that our continued survival may literally depend on us working together create what’s needed. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone with experiences of homelessness that would like to join us.

What did the start up process look like?

We hope to share the full process in a thorough and well documented way (as well as properly thank all of the amazing people who have and are currently contributing to our success) in the near future for those who may find it useful.