The Street Roots offices in Old Town Portland, Sept. 2, 2025. The independent newspaper launched an emergency campaign to raise $288,000 by September 30.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Street Roots, a Portland-based nonprofit news outlet, needs $288,000 by the end of the month or it may have to cut jobs and reduce services.
The paper was founded in 1999 and focuses on issues surrounding housing and homelessness. It is sold by paid vendors who are often low-income and experience homelessness. But now, the group’s leaders are weighing whether to cut back on those services and the hours that vendors work, according to Nick Bjork, chair of the Street Roots board.
“This could have an impact on (the) number of vendors we can serve or revenue in the pockets of vendors,” Bjork said. “Obviously this is the last part of our organization we want to be impacted and is a significant driver in our decision to launch this campaign.”
The outlet estimates those vendors will pull in about $900,000 in newspaper sales this year. Vendors sell more than 5,000 copies per week.
Street Roots has faced many of the financial challenges that have dogged nonprofits throughout Portland and Oregon in recent years, Bjork said. Generally, those have included increasing costs, changes to nonprofit funding streams and an overall decline in funding.
The paper has also faced an “extraordinary” amount of turnover, Bjork said, including the loss of an executive director, development director and program director. The group also just moved into a new building.
“Those are really key roles, and a couple of them had been with Street Roots for a really, really long time,” Bjork said. “And so, for us, you know, it’s sort of entering this new phase of Street Roots.”
The Street Roots offices in Old Town Portland, Sept. 2, 2025. The independent newspaper launched an emergency campaign to raise $288,000 by September 30.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
So far, the group has raised $312,000 from supporters toward its $600,000 goal, and is now going public to ask for broader support.
Over its 26-year history, Street Roots has covered a variety of social justice issues, but focuses much of its resources on covering homelessness. A recent investigation in conjunction with the national nonprofit news outlet ProPublica reported rising deaths among homeless people despite the city spending roughly $200,000 per homeless resident from late spring 2021 through 2024.
The outlet recently won six first-place awards in a regional Society of Professional Journalists contest.
“We produce an award-winning local newspaper that really gives a voice to the voiceless and covers topics that are very important to the local community,” Bjork said. “In an age of news deserts and the changing landscape in media, I just think right now is such a great time to support a local, award-winning newspaper.”
The deadline for the group’s fundraiser is Sept. 30.
