17 December 2012

Reporters challenge 24-hour experience of homelessness and poverty

Last week, our member paper Street Roots in Portland, Oregon, USA carried out a 24-hour project to give an insight of homelessness through live feeds on twitter.
Eight reporters from Street Roots took on to the streets at 6 am on 13 December to experience a day in homelessness and poverty and share it with their audience live. The team visited local shelters, drop-in centres, tent cities and homeless camps, constantly delivering the voices of homeless and formally homeless people they met along the way.

As well as presenting the world through the eyes of people without a home, the project also invited others to join a live conversation and share their thoughts and experience on the issue.

Here are some of the tweets posted by Street Roots and their reporters while they spent a day and night on the street.

Street Roots reminded that the weather can be of dreadful experience without home:
"Rain is supposed to continue through 6 am. [Our] reporters are out in the elements so many homeless folks face on a daily and nightly basis."

Sarah Beecroft from the paper gave the feeling of sleeping on the streets: 
"Sleeping out isn't easy even if you have a good spot. Vulnerability makes an easy target; hyper vigilance necessary. It's exhausting."

Another reporter Israel Bayer posted his thoughts on homelessness:
"If we learned anything tonight it's that people find a way to persevere. The human spirit is strong. People depend on one another."
Want to know more about it? You can read their footage of the 24 hour project in the next edition of Street Roots, coming out on Friday, 21 December or find their stories on twitter at @StreetRoots hashtag #SR24