You Are Not Where You Live

categories: mobile homeless, nonprofit, Stories from the Streets

Published October 29, 2009 @ 07:52PM PT

You are not where you live.

This is the painfully-simple-but-so-important message writer Becky Blanton shared during a presentation for TED, an organization that shares "riveting talks by incredible people." Blanton began living in her van by choice. But one year after she began her adventure, she was broke, had fallen into the depths of depression, and felt homeless.

In the short video below, she talks about what she learned during just one year living in a van. She makes painfully important observations about homelessness, from the outside and the inside. Including three key lessons:

1. Society equates living in a permanent structure with our value.

2. The negative perceptions of others can easily impact our self-worth, if we allow it to.

3. Homelessness is an attitude, not a lifestyle.

Although I wouldn't classify Blanton as "homeless", I still found her testimony deeply moving. Partially because Blanton is such a riveting storyteller, but also because you can sense how deeply the experience impacted her.

Blanton had her identity as a writer and plenty of opportunities awaiting her at the end of her year on the streets. Many others are not as lucky.

Image: topleftpixel

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Comments (1)

Shannon, you write that "...I wouldn't classify Blanton as 'homeless'..." - why? If you don't have a home, what else are you? You don't have to be out on the streets every night to be homeless. People who don't have a home of their own, whether owned, rented, or shared, are homeless. Calling Becky's van a "home" would be unreasonably stretching the definition of the word. This is an important point because it relates to the determination of the percentage of our population that actually is homeless - a statistic that is already skewed by the fact that many homeless people feel they must remain invisible to survive.

Posted by Dale Gowin on 11/02/2009 @ 10:46AM PT
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Author

Shannon has worked in homeless shelters and service organizations in San Francisco, the Triangle region of North Carolina, and currently in the greater Boston area. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.