Topic: For those in London: A commission to mentor homeless people in photography

[gothamtomato]

How does it feel to be homeless?

With this commission, rather than photographing the homeless, you'd be mentoring them to photograph their own lives:

https://www.bjp-online.com/2020/02/how-does-it-feel-to-be-homeless/

[Indofunk]

That is an amazing idea!! I hate the concept of "misery porn" (hookstrapped's term, which I like), and I never feel comfortable taking pictures of people down on their luck, but to give them the camera? Definitely! Ideally, they'd take some great pictures, and also find some sort of inspiration or a sense of self worth. Very excited to see how these come out.

[zapsnaps]

I think this could be a very worthwhile project indeed. The number of homeless in 'rich' countries such as the UK is terrible. The fact that homeless numbers have been increasing while (most) of the rest of the country has been making considerable gains in prosperity over the last few decades is a disgrace. A year or two ago, the responsible UK minister admitted the number of homeless was unknown, because it was nobody's job to count them! I hope mainstream UK media picks up this story and that the project and it's finished pictures get wide coverage. Photos have changed opinion before - I hope they can again.

[Francois]

Yeah, homelessness is a big problem here too. And that's even with all our healthcare and everything.
We had a government years ago that decided that some of the mentally ill patients who were not dangerous to others or to themselves would be taken out of institutions. But they didn't plan on getting them apartments or anything, so the mostly ended-up on the streets and it's only a few charitable organizations who put up the bill to give them a shelter at night and at least one decent meal a day.
Our other part of the homeless population is comprised of kids, mostly teenagers and young adults who are drug addicts and have dropped out of school for various reasons. We have in all of Montreal a single organization that takes care of them...

When I look at this, I find it super sad. I see a lot of people who will get stuck in an endless loop because the system let them down.

A program like that photography project would help the young, but when it comes to the older people, I feel that it would help only a small part of that population.