The Oral History of Homelessness documents homelessness in Minnesota through first-person narratives and portrait photography. Interviews and portraits of individuals and families experiencing homelessness provide us with stories of the daily lives, challenges, and successes in overcoming the most extreme form of poverty in this socioeconomic era.
This project was inspired by the following realities:
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Homelessness as we know it in this country did not exist prior to 1980.
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Homelessness as we know it in this country will cease to exist in the not-too-distant future.
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First person narrative is crucial to our understanding of homelessness.
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First person narratives by people living in poverty are often undervalued, as is all too common with experiences of marginalized people.
St. Stephen’s Human Services opened its homeless shelter in 1981 in response to massive numbers of people becoming homeless due to changes in federal policies. Since then St. Stephen’s has worked with people who become homeless, innovating and refining strategies to help them secure housing. And yet, behind each person who successfully secured housing, stood someone else who had just become homeless. This began to change in 2006 when dozens of Minnesota municipalities joined thousands of others around the country in committing to a set of goals and methods to bring widespread homelessness to an end. Spearheaded by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, this effort was endorsed by the Bush Administration and has been fast-tracked by the Obama Administration.
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The Oral History of Homelessness Project was inspired by the 1930s Federal Writers Project which produced the American Folklore Project a collection of thousands of stories, songs, and more to form portraits of various groups of Americans, as well as "Unchained Memories", the collection of 2,300 first-person accounts and photos of former slaves. Please see the Library of Congress for more information on these collections: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html
METHOD
The project began in 2008 with collecting basic stories and portraits of homeless people at an event called Project Homeless Connect Minneapolis, a one-stop-shop resource fair attended by over 1500 homeless individuals. People are invited to share their stories with a trained interviewer in private recording stations. Following the interview, subjects may have their portrait taken with photos printed for them while they wait. We have collected stories and portraits from nearly 350 individuals to date. An effort to collect stories of homelessness representing greater Minnesota is underway.
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Complete interviews are transcribed and are being archived with the Minnesota Historical Society as the collection, An Oral History of Homelessness in Minnesota. For the purposes of an audio-visual exhibit, interviews have been edited.