Homelessness, making a human connection

[mellie]

I, like many people would see homeless people on the streets and get that overwhelming helpless feeling in the pit of my stomach and wondered what difference I could make, if any.

Since covid lockdowns ended, I have been photographing and documenting the stories of my communities homeless people ( with permission and care of course) and my desire is to create a space online from scratch ( not Facebook etc) to bring it to my fellow mans attention that the invisible beings who live on our streets, and have often had lives, a purpose, children, homes and jobs just like you and me. I want to create a space for the invisible, documenting their stories if possible.



Can anyone suggest where I might start with this, initially I began buying them coffees, food during covid, but as vacant government owned office spaces began to sprawl across our reagional city, which provided shelter out the front of these historical and older enclaved buildings facades, there's been an increasing number of people living in them. Ie Albert St Ballarat Central, formally Centrelink now empty and locked, to prevent homeless people from sheltering inside. They continue to shelter from the elements outside this building which provides some protection, despite our council placing a structure there to stop them.

Also, what are the legalities concerning hosting photographs of persons living and deceased on a website I own wherby I have only managed to get verbal consent to take their photos. Some of these people have already moved on, can I host their images on my website with their verbal consent?

[Sophia]

I’ve just seen and read this.
It’s an interesting and valid question and my gut feeling tells me, verbal consent is not enough proof as it could come back to kick you in the derrière.

A copy of consent to be signed along with the print of their name and date, with wording in effect to protect you or any family member from future legality etc is the way to go.
Some, as you say, may move on, perhaps for many reasons and may have verbally said okay to being photographed when feeling at a low point, but once back to normal living, may be horrified/embarrassed if such photograph is published and may not even remember giving verbal consent.
See, verbal means your word against theirs.

If you wish to publish the book on homelessness, publish photos that don’t show a clear image of their faces, or names.
It will still show the effects of homelessness.

[mellie]

I appreciate your advise Sophia, and will take it in hand.
They, Ballarat council have recently barricaded up an alcove, an abandoned former Centrelink office that the homeless were using to shield themselves from the elements.

I don't know how they sleep at night, both the hungry and cold, and our counsellors who make the decision to remove their mere shelter. Albert Street, just off Sturt Street. Can't have our tourists accidentally taking a wrong turn and seeing it I guess.

Ballarat is Australia's coldest city, so....