Portraits Show Homeless Youth As They Wish To Be Seen

Homeless youth. . .

Homelessness rates in the United States continue to rise amidst a failing economic system that is slow to recover from the crash of 2008. Businesses are thriving, but middle and lower income families are still struggling and juggling. Many families are one small calamity from becoming?homeless, and those numbers are growing.

Photo courtesy of Alex Fradkin and BuzzFeed
Photo courtesy of Alex Fradkin and BuzzFeed

Another demographic that is scarcely discussed?are those people forced into becoming?homeless by an ever increasing intolerance fostered by hard right conservatives and bigots. These are kids and young adults who are forced out of their childhood homes by parents that are unable to accept them for who they are – youths that identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, and Transgender (LGBT).

Often, when a teen ‘comes out’ to his or her family, there are some shrugs and gentle, kind words such as,

“So what, you’re still you and you’re still our child. We love you!”

But sometimes it doesn’t go so smoothly and a child is told something like,

“You can’t be a child of mine if you are gay! Get out of my house!”

Those kids – those are the ones who hurt the most. They are often tossed out with nothing but the clothes on their back. Their parents reason that they would have nothing if not for the parents?generosity, so they send them out on the streets with nothing. It breaks my heart.

A study of?homeless young adults. . .

The photos in this article are just a small part of a larger project to explore how these children that have been cast aside are surviving.

A recent BuzzFeed article, written to bring this problem to the forefront, quotes Taz Tagore, co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation,

?LGBT youth have been so marginalized. We’ve seen horrific responses from so many families when their children come out ? we can still hardly believe the way parents are treating their very own children.?

The Reciprocity Foundation is?a nonprofit organization that serves homeless youth in New York City. Tagore, in a joint project with award-winning photographer, Alex Fradkin, is working to change?how we perceive?homeless youth. The project allows the subject of the photo?to dictate how they wish to be portrayed. The results are stunning.

Photo courtesy of Alex Fradkin and BuzzFeed
Photo courtesy of Alex Fradkin and BuzzFeed

The photos in this article are just a small part of a larger project to explore how these children that have been cast aside are surviving.

“The portraits depict young people at various stages of homelessness. Some are in crisis shelters, some in longer-term transitional centers, and a few have been lucky enough to secure long-term subsidized housing. All are, however temporarily, someplace they call home.”

Photo courtesy of Buzzfeed and Alex Fradkin
Photo courtesy of Buzzfeed and Alex Fradkin

All photographs in this article appeared originally in BuzzFeed and are the property of Alex Fradkin and the See Me project. You may view the original article here.