A year ago, I was called upon to defend a grant application for a writing retreat. The retreat was to be hosted by The Door of Hope Writing Group, which I lead. Our group is made up of men and women who have known chronic homelessness, and those who still do. The grant review panel did not want to hear about the proposed retreat. They wanted to know why on earth we were teaching writing to the homeless.

Why on earth wouldn’t we?

We began a weekly writing group at the Door of Hope, a center that supports the transition into housing, because I believe in writing. Instead of therapy, I wanted to share the exercises that had taught me to write. I quickly learned to adapt these exercises. For the “write off a photograph,” I had to supply the photographs. When practicing description, we had to use something on our bodies—no “bring in an object” as a writing prompt. We don’t write about cars; instead, we write with authorial authority about walking.

I was, and continue to be, amazed that adults were willing to take up pen and paper and write on any subject I happen to suggest. We wrote our version of the Memphis city budget, we wrote about people who were once in our lives, we wrote about Michael Jackson’s death and we wrote letters to one of our members who landed in jail on murder charges.

Rarely do the group members choose to write about homelessness. Our time together is quiet, respectful and creative. When everyone is finished writing, we can choose to read our writing if we want. Folks mostly choose to share. We nod, we clap and we say that we knew the man killed by the pit bulls two blocks over. 

When one of our members said, “Man, we do some good writing in here, others need to know about it,” we began publishing The Advocate and distributing it to our Door of Hope supporters. When the worst killing in our history rocked the city, we wrote a joint essay and held a public reading, with over 60 people in attendance. We wanted to hold a writers’ retreat, inviting the community to come to our house for a day of writing workshops, but didn’t know if anyone would show up. We were sold out.

Over the three years we’ve held writing group, I’ve noticed a pattern. Writers tend to write with us when they first sign on with the Door of Hope. As they transition into housing, the writers often move on. I miss them when they are gone. Or they stay—they fall in love with writing and they keep coming after they have homes of their own.

This year, when I went to defend our grant application to expand The Advocate to a city-wide, monthly online publication known as The Advocate: The Voice of Experience, no one asked me why on earth we were offering writing to men and women who have known homelessness. They just asked that we make sure the public would have an opportunity to experience what we are doing at the writing group. That’s a concern we had no problem answering.

 

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