SS 245-Photography and the Human Condition
Instructor: Ms. Greco
April 7, 2011
Today a group of former unhouse people came by to tell us about their lives in the street. first my group and I met an amazing woman named Sheral. because Sheral couldn't be with us, one of the staffs that works at the organization decided to read up her story. Sheral Begin telling us the sexual abuse that she endure by her stepfather where she lived with him. while this was going on at home, one of her neighbors asked Sheral’s mother if Sheral can baby-sit for them while they went to work, but that was just a cover up so Sheral can go over his house so they can have sex. when her mother found out about the affair, Sheral was grounded by her mother that summer. at the age of thirteen she ran away to New York and met a man which became her pimp. she traveled all over the state with him selling sex, and making money her man/pimp and he also got her addicted to heroine . after being a prostitute for so long she decided to move back to Boston living in with friends. she was allow to stay with them as long as she supported their habits. As ironic as this might sound to many of you, Sheral started to get tire of supporting other peoples drug habits and moved out. she started to sleep under Bridges. thanks to pine street and what program has done for her she has changed her life completely around and she's trying to build a relationship with her three a strange sons.
Sheral is now sixty three years old she part of the faces of homelessness speakers' Bureau. she goes around speaking events and shares days of being homeless and how she got to that point. I think that’s important for Sheral to tell story to the world because she she's educating other what it means to be un house and she's also teaching us not to give up on people with addiction.
one of the things that stock with me when i left, when one of the former unhouse speaker said even if you see a bagger with nice shoes or clothes, don't jump to conclusion thinking that they bought those things themselves because they might of got that as donation from the shelter.
I'm very excited with my progress on with our project on Faces of Homelessness Speakers. Thanks to the speakers sharing their stories, the way that I use to view homeless people have change. First in foremost I don refer some living in the street as homeless, I simply recognize the as unhoused people. Before my knowledge on the leading causes of homelessness I though the biggest leading cause was substance abuse. Because of my ignorance I use to judge them and worst of all I use to say the most ignorant things about them. There were times that I didn't even spare them some change because I convince myself that they would use that money to buy drugs. Now I truly believe the reason why a lot of individual and families is unhouse is because not having some place to call their own, to simply call home. Not having that front door key so you can open and shut out the world and have your own privacy and space. Which most of us are fortunate enough to have a home to call ours.
My old ways of thinking inspired me to photograph un house people sleeping on the streets or just standing around the train station. Even with the weather getting nicer I've not been lucky on getting the images out of my head into a photo. One of the speakers from last Tuesday gave me a great idea on taking photos of tangible things that unhouse people own.
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