What It Means to be Homeless in Los Angeles, in 360º Storytelling

Over the holidays, we began releasing the latest edition of our My People, Our Stories, a series that take us to Los Angeles, California, where we worked with five homeless people to develop and film their first 360 videos.

This initiative aims at training and equipping underserved communities to use immersive technology to share their own stories, and has been organized in South Sudan, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, refugee camps in Jordan, and more. This time around, we took a different approach and partnered with USC School of Annenberg’s JOVRNALISM class to focus on the homeless population in Los Angeles.

USC Professor Robert Hernandez and his JOVRNALISM students hosted a multi-day immersive storytelling workshop for eleven participants experiencing unstable housing. By giving them portable and easy-to-use 360 cameras, the initiative provided a teaching opportunity and digital platform for those who wanted to share their experiences. The students continued to work with select participants for weeks following the workshop to help them develop their stories.

“The homeless community can be standoffish to the media, especially because the media often parachutes in and uses them for their stories. We wanted to step aside and help empower them to tell their own stories, and in doing so democratize this technology,” says Hernandez.

“They are a community that are often overlooked and ignored, or dismissed by the average person in Los Angeles,” he continues.

Homelessness in Los Angeles is a longstanding and critical issue, with over 50,000 people experiencing homelessness across the county. Los Angeles is second in the United States only to New York City, which accounts for around 78,000 homeless people.

“This [homeless] population is diverse as any, and there is true connection and empathy and compassion and love to be had,” says Daisy Kukuruza, one of the participants, who has been experiencing homelessness since she was sixteen years old. Together with her boyfriend Tim, who is also homeless, they filmed their first 360 video on what it means to have a relationship while faced with the challenges of being on the streets.

“I just think it’s really important to show people that, because there’s so much stigma that’s attached to being homeless or being in unstable housing, and that’s not fair.”

Each of the stories offers a unique and intimate perspective on different aspects of homelessness in Los Angeles, from Tim and Daisy’s love story to exploring what it means to work while lacking a home.

The rampant homelessness in Los Angeles is driven largely by economic factors. There is a growing affordable housing crisis, as the county’s median rent has increased 32% while median renter household income has decreased by 3% since 2000. The county also holds the highest poverty rate across the state of California, which holds the highest poverty rate in the country (when accounting for housing costs and cost-of-living).

Many of those experiencing homelessness for the first time in Los Angeles, like Eric West, said it was due to loss of employment or other financial reasons. Since becoming homeless, Eric has gotten a job, joined welding classes, and is studying to become a certified personal trainer, all in an effort to afford stable housing. In his story, we join him as he bikes over 25 miles a day around Los Angeles to get to his various responsibilities.

Others share their stories of how they ended up on streets. Angela Ade is one of many women — over half of those experiencing homelessness — who list domestic violence as the immediate cause.

Angela, who has been living in her car for the last two years, is one of around 38,000 other people in Los Angeles who are currently unsheltered. That means one in four (roughly 75%) of the homeless population are unsheltered (living in vehicles, tents, makeshift shelters), compared to 5% of the homeless population in New York City.

Alongside Angela is Brian, another unsheltered participant of the program who shares what it is like to live in a tent beside the Los Angeles river bed.

With so many people experiencing homelessness without shelters to turn to, the issue of homelessness is one that is especially visible in the streets of Los Angeles. Yet, as is frequently the case with vulnerable and marginalized communities around the world, little space is given to their stories. In our latest My People, Our Stories series, watch these 360 videos about the impact of unstable housing from the people who are actually living through it.

Check out JOVRNALISM’s page: http://homelessrealities.jovrnalism.io/, where they will be adding additional immersive experiences around the project.