I started thinking about the kids who age out of foster care, many of whom become unhoused because of that. How many among them loved their school art classes and wanted to create more beyond the class room? Sadly, we’ll never know.
This puts words to something so many quietly feel. A place to create is a lifeline. The Sanctuary Studios idea is deeply humane. It recognizes that dignity, purpose, and the simple act of making something are basic needs. Thank you for reminding us that society’s worth is measured by how it treats the dreamers who don’t fit the mold. I hope more people take up this call to reimagine what shelter really means.
Yes. And I really liked Christine's reflection. If you combined the creative studios school with the sanctuary studios idea that would be something. It would work for homeless families and adults and immigrants too for learning basic life skills to help people get back on their feet given enough time to pull things back together.
Some people are just depressed or grief stricken from some major crisis or deep loss and there is a lot of crisis out there. This can cause some people to just give up at least for a year or two. That maybe used to be dealt with through family back in the day but with everybody moving around all of the time for work or whatever the familial community has broken down for many. A lot of people don't have support systems to help them back up when they stumble and we all stumble.
Of course some have sever mental heath or addition issues - that is another issue that would have to be though out a different way but still the arts would be valuable in that arena too.
I am a certified peer recovery specialist and work in the behavioral health field as a Teaching Artist so I can relate to many of your points. The benefits of the arts is so vast. In Baltimore we have something like 15k vacant properties. Not all are city owned but I often imagine these as artist housing with private rooms and shared amenities like kitchen, dining area, studio spaces and places to gather in community etc.
This reminds me of something I had totally forgotten about. When I was substitute teaching here in Sacramento, one of my assignments was to sub for a school that was structured for homeless children and non-English speaking immigrant children. Food and lodging was provided for 6 weeks for the families, after which they had to leave. 6 weeks was the length of typical curriculum units.
All the lesson units were pretty much arts based. The art that the students produced usually took up an entire classroom, and those classrooms were fabulous with the themes the kids worked on together. It was successful for most of the students and they learned English much faster than on the streets, as well as all the other grade appropriate subjects. You could see when their time was about to expire. The kids would start acting out, knowing they were going to have to leave, just as they were starting to do well and make new friends. That was the down side.
I just got to thinking that these kinds of schools could offer an incentive for long term housing as long as the children were in school and doing well. Money is incentive for putting a roof over your head, but giving the children the opportunity to stay in place and learn is more valuable, if providing long-term housing is the reward. For adults and homeless families it could boost self-esteem long enough to pull their lives together and not have the stigma of being homeless, spending less time surviving living on the streets, and more time elevating the necessities of lifestyle skills, maybe culminating in also giving parents the opportunity to eventually buy their own homes at much lower rates, and relaxing "rules" for financing.
Perhaps that would work better than just handing out money to survive on with low outcomes, but working as a family to get the foothold necessary to make it out of the nightmare of homelessness for the parents and kids. I think this would be good for all involved, including the public where it could be demonstrated that EVERYONE is working toward training families how to live life successfully, and not merely survival and monetary handouts while living on the streets; using public money, which would be earmarked for a system of necessary positive outcomes.
I don't know if that program still exists but in my opinion, that was excellent. Enhanced it could be very productive for working together and uplifting families and communities, not just a band-aid fix.
This, to me, would be a more holistic structure than just handing out money from different agencies to keep people alive.
Start with the kids. That is incentive on it's own, now and in the future.
I know this reply is not directly addressing Artists and their Art, but it is addressing it indirectly.
I started thinking about the kids who age out of foster care, many of whom become unhoused because of that. How many among them loved their school art classes and wanted to create more beyond the class room? Sadly, we’ll never know.
This puts words to something so many quietly feel. A place to create is a lifeline. The Sanctuary Studios idea is deeply humane. It recognizes that dignity, purpose, and the simple act of making something are basic needs. Thank you for reminding us that society’s worth is measured by how it treats the dreamers who don’t fit the mold. I hope more people take up this call to reimagine what shelter really means.
Yes. And I really liked Christine's reflection. If you combined the creative studios school with the sanctuary studios idea that would be something. It would work for homeless families and adults and immigrants too for learning basic life skills to help people get back on their feet given enough time to pull things back together.
Some people are just depressed or grief stricken from some major crisis or deep loss and there is a lot of crisis out there. This can cause some people to just give up at least for a year or two. That maybe used to be dealt with through family back in the day but with everybody moving around all of the time for work or whatever the familial community has broken down for many. A lot of people don't have support systems to help them back up when they stumble and we all stumble.
Of course some have sever mental heath or addition issues - that is another issue that would have to be though out a different way but still the arts would be valuable in that arena too.
I am a certified peer recovery specialist and work in the behavioral health field as a Teaching Artist so I can relate to many of your points. The benefits of the arts is so vast. In Baltimore we have something like 15k vacant properties. Not all are city owned but I often imagine these as artist housing with private rooms and shared amenities like kitchen, dining area, studio spaces and places to gather in community etc.
This reminds me of something I had totally forgotten about. When I was substitute teaching here in Sacramento, one of my assignments was to sub for a school that was structured for homeless children and non-English speaking immigrant children. Food and lodging was provided for 6 weeks for the families, after which they had to leave. 6 weeks was the length of typical curriculum units.
All the lesson units were pretty much arts based. The art that the students produced usually took up an entire classroom, and those classrooms were fabulous with the themes the kids worked on together. It was successful for most of the students and they learned English much faster than on the streets, as well as all the other grade appropriate subjects. You could see when their time was about to expire. The kids would start acting out, knowing they were going to have to leave, just as they were starting to do well and make new friends. That was the down side.
I just got to thinking that these kinds of schools could offer an incentive for long term housing as long as the children were in school and doing well. Money is incentive for putting a roof over your head, but giving the children the opportunity to stay in place and learn is more valuable, if providing long-term housing is the reward. For adults and homeless families it could boost self-esteem long enough to pull their lives together and not have the stigma of being homeless, spending less time surviving living on the streets, and more time elevating the necessities of lifestyle skills, maybe culminating in also giving parents the opportunity to eventually buy their own homes at much lower rates, and relaxing "rules" for financing.
Perhaps that would work better than just handing out money to survive on with low outcomes, but working as a family to get the foothold necessary to make it out of the nightmare of homelessness for the parents and kids. I think this would be good for all involved, including the public where it could be demonstrated that EVERYONE is working toward training families how to live life successfully, and not merely survival and monetary handouts while living on the streets; using public money, which would be earmarked for a system of necessary positive outcomes.
I don't know if that program still exists but in my opinion, that was excellent. Enhanced it could be very productive for working together and uplifting families and communities, not just a band-aid fix.
This, to me, would be a more holistic structure than just handing out money from different agencies to keep people alive.
Start with the kids. That is incentive on it's own, now and in the future.
I know this reply is not directly addressing Artists and their Art, but it is addressing it indirectly.
Great comment Christine all always. Maybe you should work on a book called "Comments".
I always worry about going too far afield from your topic. I'll file away "Comments" for a possible new book, LOL. I like the name.
I love this so much. Thank you, Cecil. #creativefreedomact