Mr. Marketing: Marketing puts homeless to work

My recent column about guerilla marketing prompted Portland correspondent Chris Belden to suggest one of the most unique potential solutions for homelessness I’ve heard in years.

“Let’s replace the ‘Will work for food’ signs held by people at traffic intersections with signs saying ‘Shop at Joe’s’?” she suggested.

Before rejecting the idea, consider how it simultaneously addresses three issues:

• Putting signage for Joe’s in highly visible locations
• Helping the homeless earn money and contribute to society
• Assuaging drivers’ guilt for not giving the homeless money

“The guys on the street might even still score a few dollars from drivers passing by,” Ms. Belden adds, noting, “Everyone wins!”

It seems more productive than giving a guy a quarter and hoping he’ll spend it wisely.

Blending homelessness and commerce isn’t new. In 1989, a New York City entrepreneur started Street News — a newspaper for the homeless to sell. Sixty percent of each person’s sales went into a special bank account to help them launch new lives.

San Diego’s personality is different from New York’s. Our efforts lean more toward Father Joe and Solutions for Change. Since nobody’s results are 100 percent effective, perhaps it’s time for something more market-oriented.

Now it’s possible city council members will consider such signs to be billboards. Since they’re apparently not billboards when asking for charity, we might need to limit the paid advertising to nonprofit messages like “Spend Easter at RB Presbyterian.”

However, if such concerns are non-existent, scores of businesses could benefit from hiring the homeless to market them. Restaurants, bookstores, movie theaters, car washes, stationery stores, hardware stores…the list of potential business partners is endless.

Of course it’s important to delicately handle the message being spread. For example, one wouldn’t want to see a homeless guy holding a sign saying “The Hangover — now on DVD at Blockbuster.” Yet standing near the exit to Rancho Bernardo Road at 7 a.m. urging “Get your morning coffee at SidNY’s” might work.

Without question, this is an unusual approach for marketing a business. Some people might even say Ms. Belden is crazy.

Yet as Pistachio Disguisey said in the movie “Master of Disguise,” “It’s so crazy, it just might work!”

With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.

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