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Voices from the Street: Truths about Homelessness from Sisters Of The Road
Published May 2007
Book details: 7 3/8 X 9 • 352 pages• ISBN 0-9769261-6-4, Trade Softcover, $24.95 • Author: Jessica P. Morrell • Foreword by Genevieve Nelson - To read the foreword, click here!
Everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone, especially if that person is homeless, is given the opportunity to tell it. Thus was born Voices from the Street: Truths about Homelessness from Sisters Of The Road, a project with a unique and intimate approach. It compiles the personal stories of more than 500 people experiencing homelessness, who are confiding the facts of their daily lives and pasts, and discussing their dreams, fears, and solutions to homelessness. The results are a book of insight, naked truths and sometimes heartbreak that come straight from the streets and hidden places in Portland, Oregon.
The interviews, part of an organizing project of Sisters Of The Road, begun in fall of 2001 and have spanned into the new century with photographs taken by people experiencing homelessness. These photos, depicting the faces and landscape of homelessness, speak with the eloquence of poetry caught on camera and illustrate both the incredible hardship as well as the amazing resiliency and spark of the human spirit. The book is close to 120,000 words, with sixteen chapters and 25 photographs. The chapters range from describing how the person became homeless to relations to the police and legal system, to veterans, and finally the interviewers’ own thoughts about the process.
There is a new sense of urgency to address the epidemic of homelessness that has swept through this country. What began as an alarming trend in the 1970s, became a crisis in the 1980s, and has now grown to a full-blown calamity. Today the statistics regarding people who are homeless have become as disturbing as the reality of their plight. Evidence of people experiencing homelessness among us is everywhere—found in the haunted eyes of people who peer out from doorways, food lines, park benches, the hollow and secret places of our cities. This book brings those stories into the light.
For more information about the book or how to request data it was based on for your own project, or call her at (503) 222-5694 ext. 15. Voices from the Street Contents:
Chapter 1: I never thought that I’d be homeless
Chapter 2: We were constantly hungry. But that was a long time ago.
Chapter 3: I felt like I had no one
Chapter 4: You get arrested for freaking sleeping
Chapter 5: Homelessness is like a cancer they haven’t found the cure for yet
Chapter 6: It is very, very scary out there
Chapter 7: I am not a lazy person. I have worked all my life
Chapter 8: It is hard enough being out here when you’re healthy.
Chapter 9: It is a freakish, freakish feeling, a lot of anxiety
Chapter 10: I have nowhere to go, I am in tears, I am trying to stay clean
Chapter 11: I do not think that God wants us to be homeless
Chapter 12: People do not like to be forgotten
Chapter 13: No one is really asking for any handouts. We are just asking to feel like we are human.
Chapter 14: Family are the people that care about you
Chapter 15: Just give me a place where I can rest my legs
Chapter 16: I keep moving forward
Chapter 17: I learned that there is much wisdom and a staggering amount of pain walking around on our streets
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C Last updated on Oct 01, 2007 at 02:02 PM |
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