Paper bag art puts faces on homeless

The exhibit depicts average folks who are unexpectedly without shelter.

By MIKE BRASSFIELD, Times Staff Writer
Published September 28, 2007

Rayme Nuckles, CEO of the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County, listens to speakers during the the launch of "Unexpected Faces, Unexpected Places" at the old Federal Courthouse. The event was focused on bringing public awareness to homelessness in the community.
	[Chris Zuppa | Times]

TAMPA -- Susan Sharp was a middle-class accountant right up until she was bedridden with muscular dystrophy, got evicted and lived in her car until it was repossessed.

"I never imagined I would be homeless," said Sharp, 50, of Tampa. "There are cracks that people fall through."

She spoke Thursday on the steps of downtown's old federal courthouse, surrounded by 300 brown paper bags imprinted with portraits of her and 19 others who unexpectedly found themselves without a roof over their heads.

Those paper bags are a mobile art exhibit that will start appearing at festivals and community functions, part of a new public awareness campaign by the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County.

The campaign and its Web site, www.unexpectedfaces.org, seek to dispel the myth that all homeless people are crazy, drunk or lazy.

Instead, the coalition says, many of them are normal working people who have hit a rough patch and need a hand to get back on their feet.

"Homeless people have a stereotype, and we all know what it is," said Dr. Larry Carey, president of the coalition's board and deputy chief of staff at James A. Haley VA Medical Center. "Bad things sometimes happen to good people. Sometimes when you're at the margins, a small bad thing can make you homeless."

He mentioned the example of Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Earnest Graham. Before signing with the team, Graham was evicted from an apartment and was moving his wife and baby daughter from cheap hotel to cheap hotel.

The paper bags show faces with labels: Mechanical engineer. U.S. Army veteran. Honor student and athlete. First-grader. Minister and mom.

They all have another label: Homeless.

The coalition gets phone calls from people like this daily, and refers them to places where they can get help, said its chief executive, Rayme Nuckles.

"Our resources continue to be dwindling," he said, referring to federal and state budget cuts.

A homeless census this year counted nearly 10,000 homeless in Hillsborough County, with a growing number of women and children.

The paper bags also ask a question: What if everything you owned could fit into one bag?

Shawn Watson's face is on one of the bags. The Plant City man, his wife and two young sons had to leave their home after getting into a dispute with relatives. They stayed in a tent for five months. Today they're in a camper trailer, looking for work.

"You ask people for help, and they look at you like you're crazy, like you've done something wrong," Watson said. "Not everybody wants a handout. Some of us want a job."

Mike Brassfield can be reached at brassfield@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3435.

[Last modified September 28, 2007, 01:02:14]