November 14, 2001
Project key to homelessness
Cardboard silhouettes bring visibility to invisible problem
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Each of us holds the key.
For this year's Homeless Awareness Week 2001, which runs November 11-17, the theme of You Hold the Key to Ending Homelessness places a high value on educating people about the faces of homelessness.
To this end, cardboard silhouettes will be posted through Sunday in area stores, public buildings, businesses, malls and public transportation to help bring visibility to an invisible problem. The Homeless Awareness Week Silhouette Project is sponsored by the Continuum of Care for the Greater Grand Traverse Area.
Each silhouette will tell a story, the story of a homeless person and how they wound up in that situation. From single mothers escaping abusive relationships to widowers unable to pay rent, their stories relate that homeless are the invisible among us, a part of our community that must not be forgotten.
"A homeless person can be someone next to you in class who may be sleeping on their Aunt's couch because they do not have a home," said Karen Emerson, financial management services coordinator at Northwest Michigan Human Services Agency. "The silhouettes are our way to say this is our project, we want to share it with everybody and we want to help."
The silhouettes made a silent impact last year, Emerson said, and this year their posting has been expanded to include the five-county Grand Traverse region.
As they did last year, area high school students made the silhouettes, tracing themselves, cutting out and painting the silhouettes. They then posted one of the stories compiled by area human service agencies on each one.
Students from Traverse City, Frankfort/Elberta, Suttons Bay, Elk Rapids, Kalkaska and the Forest Area Public Schools participated in making the silhouettes.
Traverse City West High School student members of the National Art Honors Society again took on the project, making another 15 silhouettes this year. Merging a life lesson with an academic one, the silhouette project vividly illustrated the issue of homelessness for the students.
"The project made me so aware that there is homelessness in Traverse City, not just in big cities but in smaller ones, too," said Molly Thompson, a senior at Traverse City West High School who helped make the silhouettes.
Dan Lisuk, an art teacher at West High School, believes that the silhouettes also help dispel stereotypes about homelessness, for both his students and the community at large.
"By putting these stories up, you make people realize that homeless people are not just people living under bridges," he said. "It helps to make people aware that these homeless people live in our community."
Moving beyond the stereotype into the reality of homelessness is a difficult task in a prosperous region where, even in a slumping economy, jobs go wanting for lack of employees. In this area, many people believe homelessness is not a problem.
However, Grand Traverse regional estimates show that there were 1,700 homeless people last year including families and individuals. Area service providers posted the following numbers: the Goodwill Inn served 355 homeless people, 55 of whom were children; the Women's Resource Center assisted 179 women and 154 children; Northwest Michigan Human Service agency served 397 people, with 139 being families with children; and Traverse City Area Public Schools identified 331 homeless young people last school year.
Emerson hopes that this year's silhouettes will not only raise the profile of homelessness in the Grand Traverse region, but inspire people to help out. Whether through a donation, volunteering or spreading the word, individuals hold the key to ending homelessness.
"This project is almost like witnessing about homelessness," she said. "It touches people beyond the classroom where the silhouettes were made to people in the community."