Reframing Homelessness
What is Photovoice?
Photovoice is a visual methodology in which participants take pictures of their lives. Photovoice is frequently used to enhance community engagement and foster social change. This project aims to empower people who are experiencing homelessness by enabling them to collectively produce an exhibit highlighting issues of homelessness.
What Did We Do?
We used focus groups to allow our participants to discuss issues associated with homelessness. We then asked them to document their lives using disposable cameras to take pictures of a day in their lives, focusing on organizations or people who support them or stigmas and issues they face because they are homeless.
The Advantages of Photovoice:
- Empowers participants
- Involves the community
- Shows the community from different perspectives
- Gives a voice to people who are not typically heard
Why Did We Use Photovoice?
Homelessness is a vastly misunderstood experience, and often, people who are homeless feel invisible. We used this methodology to visually depict the lives of people experiencing homelessness in Horry County. We hope that the photographs and narratives from our participants will help to reduce stereotypes by highlighting people's experiences and humanizing the lives of people who are homeless.
All of the photographs on this webpage were taken by a person experiencing homelessness using a disposable camera. The quotes accompanying the photographs describe what the picture signifies to the photographer.
The church group that has the preacher man that talks on Sunday, when he's done talking, he has us go over to Big Mike's restaurant. They hand out stuff there because they won't let him do it in the park anymore.
I have dogs. I had them before I became homeless. The shelter won't let my dogs come in, so I stay out here. I cannot lose them, too.
Home. My dog eats better than I do. When people see my dog with me, they want to help me out. There is no place around here to get shelter if you have a dog, so I sleep outside.
They used to put boxes of donuts in the trash. When they found out people eat them, they started dumping them out first.
Why can’t they turn abandoned buildings into homeless shelters?
Even on the beach used to be okay. You could go on the beach and just chill. Now they get you when you are sleeping. They arrest you if you stop to rest.
Sleeping outside is hard, because you are always hiding.
This is the long way home. I just follow the tracks.
When I get extra money, I sometimes play the lottery. If I win, I’ll give half to my mom. I’ll buy a truck with the rest. I have an idea for a business, but I need a truck to bring stuff to the flea market.
Honey, nobody cares. We have no places to sit down unless we get arrested.
The Midtown has Thanksgiving Dinner. Makes me feel like people care.
The shelter is either understaffed or not enthusiastic about what they are doing.
Then they go out here, and they find our tents and get in the bushes. They wanna cut all the trees down.
Anybody can achieve the American dream in this country. That's why everybody wants to come here.
I've seen people sleep in the woods. Personally, I won't do that. I go in the back of buildings or something like that. But I gotta find someplace to hide to get some rest.
I hate it when they call it 'Dirty Myrtle.' You know they are talking about us.
There were people sleeping here in a tent. The owner allowed them, but the code enforcement ran them off. Now they have nowhere to go.
I was in the woods and walked for about two hours before they arrived. They were doing the whole no trespass thing. Outside the city limits, it's not criminal trespass. The cop is like, 'I'll get you back over here.' I mean, really, dude, I'm disabled. I can't just walk around forever. They don't care. 'You have to get off this property.' Nowhere for us to stay dry without a house.
I eat at Shepherd's Table during the week, but the weekends are hard.
Sometimes I stop and look at this. It reminds me of my childhood: fishing with a Pepsi cola.
I prefer the woods to the shelter, because the grass is softer, and people steal stuff in the shelter.
We would like to thank:
The Department of Sociology at Coastal Carolina University
This exhibit is generously sponsored by a grant from South Carolina Humanities.
South Carolina Humanities, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities; inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage.