Exhibit reveals the faces of Cambridge's homeless youth

Standing next to an image of himself staring out from behind a 3-foot poster, Ethan Stein said there was a lot that passersby don’t understand about the young people they see in the streets of Harvard Square.

“It’s not that I wanted to be homeless, but that’s where I am right now, and I’m just taking it one day at a time,” Stein said. “It’s better than being some place where people are angry all the time.”

The 24-year-old is one of hundreds of homeless youth filling the streets of the square and as of last Saturday, lining the walls of the Palmer Street pedestrian arcade as part of a national “Outside In Project,” which launched in Cambridge over the weekend.

“We’re all homeless and we’re all really young,” said Youth on Fire member Jerrod “Biggie” Basuscci, 24. “We don’t have a direction, but we’re trying to make something of ourselves.”

The exhibit, a partnership between Youth on Fire – a drop-in center for homeless youth in Harvard Square and a prevention program of the AIDS Action Committee – and the Center for Social Innovation, features 35 photographs on three-by-four-and-a-half-foot posters by local artist Anthony Pira. Pira said the idea is to bring the faces of homeless youth to the forefront.

“When you put a face on homelessness, it becomes real and people see it as a real problem,” Pira said. “People think homelessness is just the old guy on the park bench or they have stereotypes they associate with guys getting drunk, or people being in jail, but they don’t understand youth homelessness. …When you put these faces up there and associate with words like homelessness, that becomes real to people.”

Pira said they chose the Harvard Square location not only because it’s a mere two blocks from the Youth of Fire center, but also because the participants frequent the square.

“It’s such an important part for not only the community to see the images and raise awareness but also for the kids to see themselves because for the first time they’ll be able to see themselves as part of the community,” Pira said. “For so long their mentality is that they’ve been ignored or degraded.”

A fine-art-photographer-turned-social-work student, Pira said he initially began working on the project, which he called Invisible Faces, in March as part of an effort to raise awareness about funding needs for programs and organizations that serve homeless youth. Simultaneously, the Center for Social Innovation CEO Jeff Olivet said he was also beginning to work with French street artist JR, a photographer who won a TED Prize for pioneering the practice of plastering poster-sized portraits of vulnerable populations in public spaces.

 Olivet and JR envisioned a national campaign, but wanted to start in Cambridge where Olivet has an office. He reached out to Youth on Fire in the fall when he was informed the work was already underway.

“They said we’ve also got a photographer who has this Invisible Faces project going on and could we merge the two projects,” Olivet said. “So basically, we said, ‘Sure.’ We let Anthony’s photographs drive the national Outside In Project and we dovetailed the two for the action in Harvard Square over the weekend.”

Olivet said the Outside In Project was initially conceived with a broad focus on homelessness but the organization became “enamored” with the more narrowly focused youth campaign. Olivet said the Center for Innovation plans to replicate the work in a dozen or so cities across the country that will eventually culminate in what he called a “Youth Homeless Congress” in Washington D.C. comprised of homeless youth.

“The primary need is housing. It’s access to a decent space and affordable housing to end youth homelessness,” Olivet said. “It’s possible to end homelessness if we target our resources in the right way. …There’s also more funding needed for youth job training, and in the wake of the Connecticut shootings, more access to mental health care.”

Youth on Fire program manager, Ayala Livny, said the organization is facing a $10,000 shortfall in funding its meals program after several years of budget cuts eroded state funding for the non-profit. Masucci said Youth on Fire helped him get back on track. He’s ready to “age out” of the organization in a few months when he turns 25.

“The services they provide are so helpful – whether it’s food stamps, housing, getting an ID, finding a job,” Masucci said, adding the organization also takes the time to meet young people where they are in life. “A lot of people get too caught up in the homeless lifestyle to take time to go back to school. … But no matter what steps you take, however small, you’re still making progress and furthering your goals and they really get that.”

Although she said that raising awareness on a legislative level is important for Youth on Fire, Livny said the impetus behind the project was equally important.

“I say all the time that homeless youth are used to being invisible. People are rude or avoid making eye contact or looking them in the face. They’re used to people wishing they didn’t exist or pretending they didn’t exist and feeling small in the world,” Livny said. “To have those images writ large in the community is the opposite of being invisible; it’s being larger than life. It’s a really powerful and profound experience especially for people who are used to being marginalized.”

Olivet said the exhibit would be up as long as the wheat plaster holding up the portraits stays stuck, which he said could be anywhere from several weeks to several months.