homeless man
Grant Park
Chicago
© Marc P. Anderson
I was a young photographer when I took this picture after asking for permission from this much older man. I had a brief but special conversation with him. I wanted to capture his face in that warm, humanizing late daylight. Why? Because a year before, I had been homeless, too.
Financial problems had forced me to work to afford college but a constant lack of enough money was so serious that I temporarily had to drop out anyway. One day an explosive argument started by an emotionally unstable, irrational (non-parental) relative who owned the home where I was living resulted in my own homelessness. The relative, who didn't understand the costs of college but never once was involved in paying any expenses for me, made everything far worse.
I slept every night in the car my mother had bought for me to drive to and from college (lucky to have it) and I washed up in the men's room at train stations. I didn't drink alcohol (I wasn't legally able to anyway) or use drugs. But it was the worst year of my young life and I went through depression that culminated in a suicide attempt.
Eventually I found work, moved into a residence YMCA with dozens of rooms and a large, shared communal bathroom (a form of housing for young and older males that doesn't exist today) and rebuilt my life including returning to school.
So I already had a personal experience involving homelessness. I understood this man's life in a certain way but I also knew I never wanted to repeat the experience. I had recovered from my own homelessness but it left a lifelong scar. I never forgot what it was like.
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PO7408