Everyone in Chicago knows Streetwise. The stories inside are timely, wide-ranging and insightful, but it’s the stories on the street that really hit home—many Streetwise vendors are working to lift themselves from homelessness into self-sufficiency, and Chicagoans often develop long-standing relationships with “their” vendors. Buying and reading Streetwise is a weekly jolt of reality that’s both humbling and inspiring.
And look who’s on this week’s cover.
The staff at Streetwise understand what Kauzu is all about, and they recognize how our innovations can directly—and immediately—strengthen Chicago communities.
The article explains how Kono and Kauzu.Jobs put free, location-based job-finding tools into the hands of the job seekers who need them most, and how Kauzu.Biz connects those job seekers with local, independent employers. Our partners—Harold T. Rice of the Albany Park Community Center, and Andre Kellum of the Centers for New Horizons—explain how the applications match the specific needs of their clients.
We’re obviously thrilled to be featured on the cover of a publication as respected as Streetwise. But at the same time we have to wonder … if Streetwise gets it, what’s the story with the rest of Chicago’s media?
Articles about jobs and unemployment run every day in every Chicago paper. (The Chicago Tribune’s website has run at least 15 pieces about jobs since yesterday.) Ask any politician at any level what government’s top priority should be, and nine out of ten will say jobs.
Yet here’s a Chicago-based social venture—a true, bootstrapping start-up—helping members of the city’s hardest hit communities find jobs, and (with the exception of one story in the Chicago Sun-Times) nobody in Chicago’s media thinks we’re a story worth telling.
Nobody but Streetwise, that is.
Please support Streetwise by buying this (and every) issue. And please share this article, if you believe in our story and our dedication to Chicago’s communities.
Streetwise has always been a great story. We’re grateful they know another one when they see it.
