Just who are these organizers? Here you can meet the RCOP staff who work ever so tirelessly for social justice and equality.

Tim Harris


Tim is the founding Director of the Real Change homeless newspaper and cross-class organizing project in Seattle, and has been active as a poor people’s organizer for more than two decades. Prior to moving to Seattle in 1994, Harris founded the Spare Change homeless newspaper in Boston in 1992 while working as Executive Director of Boston Jobs with Peace, an organization that organized direct action style protests with homeless people while drawing connections to militarism and other misplaced federal budget priorities. Harris founded his first alternative newspaper, critical times, in 1984, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he graduated with a BA in Social Thought and Political Economy. Harris has led numerous organizing campaigns on issues of homelessness, poverty, housing affordability, and civil rights, and teaches an Honors course on homelessness and poverty at the University of Washington.He is a leader in the international street paper movement, and is a co-founder of the North American Street Newspaper Association. Harris is a recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists prestigious Susan Hutchinson Bosch award for outstanding courage and integrity in journalism.

Harris lives in Shoreline with his twin 6 year old daughters, who keep him on his toes and he can often be found strumming his guitar.

Niko Simonson


Little did Niko know that when he was a wee lad in Montana, making faces at his mother’s morning coffee, he would one day become such a coffee connoisseur. Although, what do you expect from four years at the University of Notre Dame and a summer in Guatemala? When Niko isn’t consuming coffee or fighting for rights for the disadvantaged you can find him climbing rocks, taking pictures, or hablando español to anyone who will listen.