Help End Stigmas Against Homelessness

Cultural Artifacts:

• Salvation Army ad campaign to help spread awareness

• The film Pursuit of Happyness, about overcoming homelessness

• Comics that depict homelessness

• Songs from an album called “Give US Your Poor” to help end homelessness

• The film The Soloist, about a musician who is schizophrenic and homeless

• BBC documentary on “Britian's Street Kids"

• TV Show Criminal Minds, a serial killer targeted homeless people to solve their “blight” on society

• Advertisement from the US bringing awareness to Homeless and the hunger they face

• Photographs by Jae Hong, Path to photographing homeless began in shock then curiosity

• Daily Mail article on homeless people reading Twitter messages about them

Discussion of Representations found:

The cultural setting of the representations of homelessness we selected is mainstream American culture. Depictions of homelessness come from public advertising campaigns from organizations like the Salvation Army, political cartoons, TV and film, photojournalism, and  musical albums. Despite differences in mediums, the perspectives on homelessness seen in the artifacts are relatively similar. Each representation illustrates the undesirable nature of living without a space of one’s own to protect from the elements and policing, be it a park bench in the snow, a public bathroom, or a box on the sidewalk. These illustrations pulls on the heartstrings of listeners and observers, by presenting homelessness as a miserable existence, waiting for political leaders to alter your situation or for food to come from a source other than the closest trash can. The representations serve as a call to action to encourage average citizens to combat homelessness. The majority of the representations, with the exceptions of the work of photojournalist Jae Hong, The Daily Mail video of homeless individuals reading tweets and The Soloist, fail to dive into the emotional and mental realm of those living without a home. In some popular TV shows, like Criminal Minds, homelessness is potentially seen as a ‘blight’ on society and people try to solve the problem. Many people view homelessness as a rampant problem in many urban (and sometimes rural) areas, and try to solve it in many different ways.

As mentioned in the article, “The body, the shelter, and the shebeen,” by Shari Daya and Nicola Wilkins, “While it is obviously important to consider and critique the social and political dynamics that produce and exacerbate homelessness, this must be done with the awareness that the experience of being homeless is different for different people, and that what is lacking for many homeless people is not simply money or shelter, but also a sense of  belonging that is to be found in both material and emotional comforts.” The majority of the depictions fail to examine structural causes of poverty and homelessness or the lack of emotional belonging and comfort that occurs when one does not have a place to call home. It is important to counter the traditional definition of homelessness, lacking shelter, and include the necessity for attachment to society and belonging, and the misconception that individual failures lead to homelessness. When homelessness is interpreted as an issue of lack of emotional comfort and sense of belonging, the lives of residents of Skid Row, seen in the AP article by Jae Hong, will not be looked upon with pity or seen as criminal, but will be respected as an embraced way of life and community.

Ad campaign:

We decided to go with two different posters because there are multiple reasons that may lead to a person being homeless. Sometimes homelessness is a choice, like it is for some of the residents of Skid Row. Other times homelessness is caused by unforeseen circumstances, such as abandonment or the onset of a mental illness. The goal of our ad campaign is to draw attention to the different reasons one may be homeless and encourage people to learn more about homelessness and how they can help. By educating the public we hope to help remove the stigmas associated with homelessness. We also want to be able to show people how they can help.