The Nashville Homeless Power Project officially launched its its book, Homeless Power: Our Stories of Survival and Struggle, at a party at the Metro Courthouse last night. A lively and diverse crowd assembled to check out the book and shed light on the challenges faced by the city’s homeless citizens.

The book is a collaboration between NHPP and the Vanderbilt Human Rights and the Arts Project intended to raise funds and educate the public about homelessness. It is available for a donation of $20 via an order form on the NHPP Web site.

One NHPP member (first photo above, at right) who is homeless addressed the crowd. In an emotional and impassioned speech, she expressed gratitude and joy at seeing so many local homeless residents “get their own voices out” rather than having others speak for them. She advocated for more affordable housing and higher wages as much-needed solutions to homelessness.

Several Vanderbilt students who have directly participated in the book’s development (second photo above) presented NHPP with a framed poem compiled from quotations from the many stories the book features. The students read the poem aloud, and the selections were powerful. Here are a few:

• “Homelessness is not a crime.”
• “Every day I wake up wanting to get off the streets.”
• “People look at us like we are nobody, nothing.”
• “Pretty soon we’re invisible.”

Homelessness has been a controversial and politicized topic of late, especially as it relates to recently remodeled Church Street Park and to the anti-panhandling ordinance that the Metro Council recently deferred. Regardless of one’s opinions on homelessness, its impact and possible solutions, though, I think it’s fair to concede that there is plenty of work left to be done. The support services and available options for people who are homeless, while much improved in many ways compared with the past, aren’t enough to solve the problem, if it can ultimately be solved. I’m in favor of any reasonable initiatives that can make housing easier to attain and maintain and lead to fewer lives lived and lost on the streets.