Photo courtesy of homelessgopro.com
Project Allows You To Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
While studying to earn her Master’s degree in social work, my sister has spent the last few winters volunteering at a cold shelter for the homeless in Northern Kentucky. Having previously worked in the mental health field, she and I often talk about the struggles of some her clients – mental illness, alcoholism, physical disabilities – and the challenges they face each day.
Many of them don’t have a family and have been ostracized by the very community they have lived in most of their lives. Rarely, do we strike up a conversation or even utter a hello when we pass these individuals on the street as we head back to work, to lunch, or our home. The problem is that if we don’t engage them, we’ll never really understand their situation.
To build empathy for the homeless through firsthand perspective, Kevin Adler, a self-described entrepreneur and sociologist, has teamed up with a homeless man living in San Francisco to launch Homeless GoPro. The project, which aims to use technology to combat the lack of compassion for the homeless living among us, provides homeless residents with GoPro cameras and allows them to “demonstrate what the city’s 6,500 or so people living on the streets face,” according to an article at RawStory.com.
Homeless For 30 Years
The project’s first video features Adam Reichart, a man who has been homeless for the past 30 years. In the video, Reichart, who recorded his experiences using a GoPro that was strapped to his chest, says that “people are losing their social skills” and “losing their compassion and their empathy.” He goes on to say that most Americans are simply under an illusion that everything is fine.
Adler writes on the project’s website that he got the idea based on his experiences with his uncle, who battled mental illness and homelessness for three decades before passing away at the age of 50. Though Adler has faced some criticism for the project, he plans to provide more homeless residents with cameras. The video of Adam has been viewed over 60,000 times on YouTube.
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