Homelessness remains a severe public health issue in the U.S. despite the country reducing overall homelessness by 20% between 2005 and 2013. Though the United Nations (UN) established housing as a fundamental human right in 1991, nearly 554,000 Americans were still considered homeless in January 2017.
Violinist Vijay Gupta aspires to channel the voices of the homeless and incarcerated in Los Angeles County using one powerful tool: music. One way that music has been historically used in the context of health is through the practice of music therapy, in which clients interact with music in multiple ways including creating, singing, and listening to music. Gupta, the founder and artistic director of Street Symphony, uses music instead to advocate “access to a creative and expressive life” for all people, by sharing music directly with impoverished communities. The symphony does not perform in elite venues like Disney Hall, but instead at Skid Row and county jails, the former known for containing a particularly large and steady homeless population. The symphony performers include Gupta, other established professionals, young emerging musicians, and community artists.
Image Source: Luis Diaz Devesa
“Where we put our presence, where artists are able to shift where an audience puts their presence, is a performative act,” Gupta says of Street Symphony’s Messiah Project at the Midnight Mission. For this annual event, the distance between the venue and attendee parking results in audience members having to navigate through the sleeping homeless, in a purposeful disruption.
Gupta’s intersection of music, public health, and social justice is an important channel for opening outsiders’ minds to homeless and incarcerated individuals’ humanity, and to be a “conduit” for these marginalized peoples’ “vital, resilient, brave voice.” Individuals who experience homelessness also experience health problems more severely than their home-owning counterparts, particularly higher rate of chronic mental and physical conditions, and inability to access healthcare. Street Symphony and its free, on-site musical experiences are just one step towards creating a more humanizing societal view of homeless people and helping them to gain the healthcare they desperately need.
Feature Image Source: Punnarong – stock.adobe.com
