Hi! Welcome to Austin Street Humans. Thank you for stopping by.
About ASH
Austin Street Humans is a comprehensive writing-based project to complicate the public awareness of homelessness by sharing many stories.
Why ASH?
The moral: In her TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie argues that when we hear, repeatedly, only one story of a people or culture, in our minds it becomes that one story. For example, many of us associate Africa primarily with starving children and tribal tongues—precisely because that’s the dominant story heard in America. For any people, stories can affirm stereotypes. Stories can contradict them. But the higher the sample size, the more accurate the results—the more stories we hear, the more nuanced our perception of any culture, people group, or person.
Austin Street Humans is an attempt to bring more stories of people experiencing homelessness into the public awareness. Hopefully, the more we read about a sometimes invisible population, the more we realize that a population is composed of individuals, each with a story to tell. And the less we jump to any conclusions at the sight of a face.
What is ASH?
Stories: Our staff writers meet with homeless individuals and have conversations. They connect with a person and talk with them over coffee, on a curb, or at a library. It’s less of an interview and more of a heart-to-heart, and more often than not, they share much of their stories in bits and pieces.
Staff writers record these conversations, then go home and transcribe them word-by-word. Then, they piece together their understanding of the person’s story, processing the conversations into journalistic articles.
These stories are the lifeblood of ASH. Hopefully they allow you to more easily understand a person’s story, both chronologically and emotionally. And hopefully, continuing to read these stories will help you put some faces and experiences to a blanket term.
Blog: Staff writers document their personal experiences here as well—their journeys in learning about homelessness. They write a short reflection piece about each person—what they personally learned from him or her.
Why?
1. Although reporters strive for objectivity, they act as a lens through which to see a person. In understanding where staff writers are coming from—the context in which they meet a person, their background and thoughts on the interaction—you’ll hopefully better understand where these men and women themselves stand.
2. Staff writers’ experiences may be valuable in understanding what you can take away from this project for yourself. Their stories may be an encouragement to you, or provoke thought.
This is not unique work, but it’s our contribution to the study of homelessness in this area.
Origins
Hi! I’m Isabella Zou, and I attended Westlake High School—I’m now a first-year at Yale University.
Ever since I was a kid, I thought there was nothing more heartbreaking than the weathered person holding up a sign while cars—including my own—passed by, their drivers consciously staring forward. I thought it was the most pitiable, unjust thing on earth. I nearly cried every time we drove by a panhandler—I’d stare at them until they were out of sight. Eight-year-old me actually cried uncontrollably, on a family vacation to Puerto Rico, when we walked by an elderly man sitting on the ground, head bowed, cup clutched in a shaky hand. I was imagining the man sitting there, no one paying attention, until he died, and then no one caring.
I don’t know if this is what they call a ‘heart’ for ‘the homeless’. But I do know that during spring break in 8th grade, I went to Houston with my church youth group for a week of serving the homeless. Lots of serving breakfasts, packaging meals, etc. I was scared out of my mind to actually talk to homeless people, and mostly joined in on conversations started by the (also scary) high schoolers. But this was my first experience actually meeting homeless people, and I learned that they have personalities beyond my pity.
After the trip, though, I continued in my homelessness-sucks-and-I-feel-so-incredibly-bad-for-them… but… I’m-not-gonna-do-anything-about-it-cause-I’m-scared… mentality. In 2015, I read an essay by (the incredible) Barbara Kingsolver, called “Household Words,” about homelessness. It completely revitalized the pitying first half of my attitude towards the subject. Which was enough to prompt me to start looking for volunteer opportunities.
It came to a head in August 2016. I had attended a breakfast by Foundation for the Homeless to volunteer, and was planning on continuing once school started (it’s about 4-7am on Tuesdays and Thursdays). I’d gone, though, without my mom’s permission. She’s the kind of mom that loves her kid so much that she’d rather have her get a good night’s sleep than even become President. So we had a fight, which eventually turned to morals, which basically allowed all my red-hot sentiments to bubble forth in a glorious symphony of self-righteousness.
In a nutshell…
Mom: Everyone consciously chooses homelessness.
Me: Nobody chooses homelessness—it’s forced on them.
So I set out to prove my mom wrong. Which led to an agreement that I could volunteer at Mission: Possible! Austin (which has saner working hours), so that I could meet people and find out myself if people choose homelessness. Which led to lots of conversations (and lots of surprises for me), before I started asking for permission to write them down. Which led to the idea that I could share these stories (and my journal entries) with the public. Hence the birth of ASH.
Misc. FAQ’s
Why Austin?
Austin is one city with a large and ever-growing homeless population. Rather than covering homelessness shallowly across the nation, we hope that focusing on one area deeply and thoroughly will create a nuanced Austin story. To that end, Austin Street Humans goes in-depth on the state of homelessness in Austin and links visitors to organizations that serve the homeless in Austin.
But homelessness is widespread across the nation, and although it looks different city-by-city, it equally looks completely different person-to-person. So we hope that everyone can learn something from this project.
Still, you can’t possibly hope to interview all 2,197+ homeless people in Austin.
1. You’re right! And realizing that, we push ourselves to maximize both quality of conversation and quantity.
Sitting there, talking to a man or woman, it’s difficult and unnecessary to cut a great conversation short for the sake of interviewing a larger number of people; it’d be sacrificing quality for quantity. At the same time, we can’t have eight hours of conversation with each person either.
Thus, this might mean is that we only ever meet with one hundred of the thousands. But if they were deep, meaningful conversations, it absolutely will have been worth it.
2. We can work for a more comprehensive understanding, together…! Go to #shareyourstory for more info.
Why don’t you have photos for every story?
Many of the homeless people we connect with don’t want their photos taken. Sometimes, it’s because of shame that their families will find out about their condition, or sometimes it has to do with escaping recognition by the authorities. For those we lack a picture of, we’ve written a short blurb of description so you can get an idea of their faces. Along the same vein, most names have been changed to protect identity.
How can I, an American with a home, help?
Mobilize yourself and your friends to learn about homelessness, and to learn from people experiencing homelessness. Have conversations of your own; explore root causes: or just make a few friends. Share your stories. Contact us at info@austinstreethumans.org to join our team.
At the very least, stay up to date with Austin Street Humans to learn from home.
How can I, an American without a home, contribute?
Share your stories. And reach out at info@austinstreethumans.org with any concerns, comments, questions, etc.!