The Shantytowns of America: Inside the Shacks, Cars, Tents and Boxes that America’s Homeless Call Home
From Florida to Louisiana, one photographer has captured these captivating images of homeless people across the United States.
Mary Lou Uttermohlen’s ongoing documentary project, Structure Out of Chaos, shows how the homeless have organized their lives by building shantytowns.
Uttermohlen told Feature Shoot that the series began in 1993 when she moved to Miami.
‘At the time the city was being sued for arresting homeless people prior to public events.
‘During the federal court case a judge ruled that “safe zones” must be established where people could eat, sleep and bath in public without fear of arrest until services could be offered to them,’ she said.
Uttermohlen said that as a result of the ruling ‘shantytowns sprung up all over Miami and across the country’.
There are an estimated 1,200 people living in shantytowns in Miami.
She said that in order to take the portraits she had to ‘build relationships and abide by the requests of the community’, because a lot of people didn’t want to be photographed.
Uttermohlen told the website that there were some shantytowns that she completely avoided because they were too dangerous.
In Miami, laws were passed making it impossible for paroled sex offenders to move home with their families, Uttermohlen wrote.
She said they were required to wear leg monitors and sleep under a bridge each night or they would violate their parole.
The project has been waves of watching people organize until a task force comes along to sweep them away, according to Uttermohlen.
Shelter and services might be offered during a sweep, but the residents usually don’t want to lose their freedom.
The cycle of building villages and having them swept away repeats over and over again.
Homeless people get dis-empowered and disorganized every time the get disbanded.
And the lives of homeless families is a paradox as they need to ask for help but also feel vulnerable of losing custody of their children to social services.
In the past, homeless people built shanties with wood, and electricity was acquired by rewiring streetlights, Uttermohlen wrote.
She said, today’s shantytowns people are living in tents because it’s cheap and easy to move quickly.
Many homeless people work full time jobs, have bank accounts and keep up their personal hygiene.
A newly declassified CIA document explored multiple scenarios of Syrian regime collapse at a time when Hafez al-Assad’s government was embroiled in a covert “dirty war” with Israel and the West, and in the midst of a diplomatic crisis which marked an unprecedented level of isolation for Syria. The 24-page formerly classified memo entitled Syria: Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change was produced in July 1986,…
America has been at war to transfer control of Syria over to the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia; and America has been trying to do this ever since the first of the CIA’s coups against Syria failed in 1949. But only during the U.S. Presidency of Barack Obama did the United Nations become a…
Place Your Bets! Soon after he was elected, a representative from the American embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, came on a local news station and proudly declared that Obama was “the ruler of the world!” I thought, “Say what?” And did a double take. This was no Mandela. As internationally popular as Mandela was, he…
CENTO – the Central Treaty Organization launched by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1958 is totally forgotten now. Even most regional experts on the Middle East and South Asia remember nothing about it. But it had a surprisingly long afterlife of 60 years, and its final, complete…
US military hardware, including M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, have arrived in the northern Estonian town of Tapa as part of continued US efforts to counter the alleged Russian threat. More than 50 units of US military equipment, including four battle tanks and 15 infantry fighting vehicles, were delivered to Tapa,…
It’s getting nasty in “Trump world”. Anyone who doesn’t toe the line of pandering to the Liar-in-Chief is condemned as a traitor deserving a gory end. The event last week of the deadly riot at the Capitol was most revealing of the paranoid mentality. Vice President Mike Pence – despite his usual obsequiousness to Trump…
One Comment
Reblogged this on The Most Revolutionary Act and commented:
*
*
Many homeless people work full time jobs.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy
Reblogged this on The Most Revolutionary Act and commented:
*
*
Many homeless people work full time jobs.