As we approached a corner, we saw a man selling papers. He was wearing the same orange vest that I had ignored so many times in the few days we had been in our nation’s capital.

It was the same orange vest that stood at the top of the stairs, at the doors of the metro, and on the sidewalk.

The conference staff member I was walking with suggested I buy one of the paper’s this man was selling.

I gave the man the dollar I had in my hand, and as he smiled back at me, thanking me for the donation, he said "I’m on page 13."

The paper is called Street Sense. It is written and sold by the formally or currently homeless. They aren’t pan handling. They are making a way for themselves. These newspaper vendors are writing about what they are impassioned by, what they are angry about, and what is important to them. They are establishing a voice seldom heard—a voice for the homeless community.

As I read this man’s article, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. "The Tales of a Vendor," written by Jeffrey McNeil, the column was an account of the way people treated him in his orange vest.

In his words, "Selling newspaper is not for sensitive people. People will cuss you out, ignore you, call security on you, make fun you, and scurry on by. Tourists can give you mixed responses, from curiosity to sarcasm and contempt.

In order to deal with biting comments from people, I’ve had to be quick on my feet and respond with kindness. I chortle when someone pulls out a twenty-dollar bill and gets nervous.

When I tell them I have change they get shocked and say, ‘I don’t want to take all your change. Here’s fifty cents.

Then there’s the crying dollar: when someone who gives you a dollar complains about it and feels they own your soul.

They want to know what you plan to do with the dollar. They come back to see if you are drunk and criticize you for being out selling newspapers.

But the best put downs I get are from young women who will snap at you if you approach them in the wrong way. They will get tense, holler ‘I have no money,’ and scurry past you.

So I have a little fun and say I take Visa. That usually gets a smile and they buy the paper. Attack by wheelchair was on 19th and L at the Corner Bakery, when a guy in a wheelchair panhandling came up to me, stared and said angrily, ‘I hope it gets real cold and windy outside so I do not have to see you no more…’ I wanted to work there and wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. So I continued selling newspapers."

I felt awful about walking past the Jeffrey McNeils I had seen before and ignored.

I was ashamed by hugging my bag close to my body and trying to avoid eye contact with these men and women.

If I had looked into their eyes, I would have seen the light and laughter that filled them—I would have seen the struggle and strength that gave them such character, but all I had seen was the orange vest.

This was a realization. At the conference, we had been learning to look past the orange vests and to look past the blankets that the homeless men and women huddle under on the streets of Santa Barbara.

We were being taught to believe in their capacity as members of our society. I had always thought of myself as someone who respects others—as someone who cares — but Jeffrey challenged this self assessment of my character.

It had almost become a subconscious reaction, a second nature to keep my eyes forward and quicken my pace to walk with purpose past anyone who looked homeless.

I stood at the street corner, Jeffrey’s street corner, waiting to pass, waiting to walk away from the man in the orange vest, past the man who looked homeless.

I was prepared to step off of the curb and not look back. And if I had? If I had walked away, would my day have gone differently?

As a journalism student, I have learned to ask myself "So what" when analyzing a piece of writing. Jeffrey’s article in Street Sense makes a point—with strength, grace, and humor.

I stepped off that curb in Washington D.C. with my nose buried in page 13. Reading Jeffrey’s story forced me into a process of realization and self-betterment.

My day?

It may have gone differently, but Jeffrey affected me—his column made me stop. His story made me think.