EUS supported project, Let the Homeless tell their Story was held on 17th October 2009.
LET THE HOMELESS TELL THEIR STORY!
Why let the homeless tell their story? The world has a tendency to privilege and give the podium to many whose policies and programmes contribute to homelessness. One example is (ex) Dr (Hon) Robert Mugabe’s Operation Murambatsvina to restore order which left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. An earlier example is Sir William Chambers who was given the podium with his larger than life statue in Chambers’ Street, Edinburgh. His improvement plan cleared 3000 homes close to the
University of Edinburgh and replaced them with 300 houses. In lieu of such privileging, this digital art
installation grasps the opportunity of UN World Poverty Eradication Day to give homeless people the podium and to stand up and tell their story.
What makes people homeless? Often it is an amalgam of global politics, learned behaviour, family behaviour and the Law. A few people have everything, but still wonder the street in their unhappiness. Many families have been made homeless because of land grabbing by those in power. More recently the cause of homelessness has been the banks foreclosure on a mortgage. In the present global crisis, trade has plummeted and consequently laid-off workers are embarrassed to face their families.
Earthquakes and tsunamis are but two of the many disasters leaving surviving families homeless. For many,
often children, it is the rupture of family relationships which precipitates homelessness. The homeless persons concept of home varies. It may be hugging one’s son or daughter and laughing with them.
Thats a far cry from the dictionary definition of a house or a building for shelter. For others it may be their ancestral land. In some countries home for young children may be in their mothers shadow. Amidst the digital age it may be an SMS to Mum. For those addicted to drugs, home may be the peace to sleep in the shadows of the graveyard without paranoid hallucinations. For ethnic minorities in many countries, home may be freedom from the fear of an armed police raid or the communal torching of their blue polythene shelter. Being homeless also has different meanings. Many homeless want to converse with people and talk to the world. Others are ashamed at their situation and seek anonymity. They too have a story, but their identity has been denied. They cannot work the land to be productive. Their cooking hearth is flooded. They are not allowed on the bus. They cannot get into toilets nor have a shower. They have no address from which to apply for a job or access health care. They have no passport to cross the frontier in the supposedly fluid world of globalisation. They avoid the many gazes of CCTVs in order to urinate. They cannot sleep beneath the moon because their city is bidding for the Olympic Games.
What are the hopes of homeless people for the future? Some have no hopes for the future, but dream their story will be told! Others hope to one day cross the border to get a job and remit money to their family. Many hope for a world with less social prejudice. (That is the least the general public can do for them!). Some harbour both artistic talent and hope! Homeless people thrive in a world of minimal consumption and creative recycling. Are the hopes of 100 million homeless a knowledge pool for a post crisis world?
Acknowledgements
Story Tellers
Claire McLaughlin, Joe Wu, Lavocaro and Bolero, Paul
Garner, Marigo, Lorena Gomez
UN Millennium Campaign and UN Regional Information
Centre
Edinburgh City Council
Councillor Reverend Ewan Aitken
Councillor Jenny Dawe
St Leonards Police Event Planning
Edinburgh University Settlement
The University of Edinburgh
The National Museums of Scotland
Academic Advisors
Professor R.J. Morris, Professor Richard Coyne, Dr John
Lee, Dr Gavin Wallace