Picture Show: In the Shadows of Progress
- Posted by: GOOD , Scott McIntyre
- on August 12, 2009 at 6:00 am
The stark reality of this moment in time is that many people are losing their jobs, their homes, and their ways of life. Yet amid what can seem like ceaseless news of loss, there are those who refuse to surrender hope. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Tent City, a temporary encampment below a freeway in Nashville, Tennessee, where hard-pressed and otherwise homeless strangers have come together to form a community.
Photographed with disarming intimacy by Scott McIntyre, the people of this encampment keep homes of plywood and tarp, unsure how long they’ll be able to stay on the land, part of which is owned by local ministries, part of which is owned by the Department of Transportation. But according to McIntyre, who formed a number of friendships while photographing the camp, that uncertainty doesn’t diminish their resilience. “I learned a lot about what happens to people in rough periods of time,” he says. “And if you take care of your neighbor, your neighbor might take care of you.”
What follows is a selection from Scott McIntyre’s “In the Shadows of Progress.”
Sosa, one of the many dogs living in Tent City, watches over the tent home of Cowboy, his owner. Cowboy has been in Tent City in Nashville, Tennessee for five years.
BJ Edlund (center), and his wife, Kristy, are newcomers. BJ lost his design business and his home due to lack of work and money. “I never thought it would get so bad I lose everything,” said Edlund, whose friends have lived in the encampments along the Cumberland River in Nashville and helped the couple get established. One of them, Ed, is seen at left.
Several paths and trails surround and intermingle through the encampments. Different camps are spread throughout the area along the Cumberland River next to the rail tracks. Here, BJ (left) and Rick make their way back to their camp to start a fire before nightfall.
Like a lot of their neighbors, Brandon met his significant other while living in a homeless shelter in Nashville. The couple says the camp has more of a home feel to it than any shelter they ever lived in.
Colby Green, 41, took his step-daughter, Anastasia, 12, right, to the tent city to fish. Cowboy (left) stopped them along their way back to the rail road tracks to tell them when the fishing was good around the area.
Rick Cole and Theresa Gordon share a kiss while they have company over to their camp.
Mark May, 47, broke his back and both of his arms during a work-related accident. When he left the hospital, he came here with no money and no place to stay. Theresa Gordon and Rick Cole offered him a place to stay and since then he has been contributing whatever he can. Sometimes that involves going to market dumpsters to retrieve discarded produce and any other foods.
Religion plays an important role for the people of the camps. After news spread of a possible closure, several church groups have come to encourage people to try and make lives outside of the encampment.
Camp fires are used for cooking, bug repellent, and, of course, heating. Ted, who’s been at the camp for two years, warms his hands.
Jerry Mackey, 43, came to camps after being the victim of violence and theft at one of the crowded Nashville shelters. “I was tired of getting spit on everywhere I went, here they took me in and gave me a place to lay my head,” said Mackey.
One of the services provided to the people who live in the camps along the river is a food and goods truck that comes a few times a week. The trucks come with food, water, and other necessities like a fresh pair of socks.
Jerry Mackey and his new girlfriend, “Little Bit,” say they are a good match for each other because neither really had a place to call their own. Recently the couple moved into a tent given to them by a friend.
Rick “Papa Smurf” Cole didn’t know what to expect when he first arrived to the camps. After a short while he and his girlfriend took comfort in calling Tent City a home. “I don’t think I ever want to live in a house again, I feel comfortable here,” said Cole.
Despite Jerry Mackey’s financial and health problems, he says he is happy where he is in life. He says the people in the camps made him change his negative attitude into a positive one. Here, Jerry takes in the sunset along the Cumberland River and waits for the skyline of Nashville to light up. “Beautiful place, isn’t it?” said Mackey.
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DISCUSSION: 6 Comments
You know, when I hear all the vitriol against a national health care plan, and then hear bankers complain about consumer protection laws, all I have to do is think about all the tent cities springing up around the country and all those Katrina survivors still living in poisoned mobile homes. THIS is what the American people should be railing against, the fact that people are forced to and then feel more comfortable and accepted living on the fringes. What is wrong with a society who proclaims that it will take in its “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free,” and then shoves them to the edge of existence?
Freedom is about having the capacity to choose to live in Tent City. The Picture Show seemed to suggest those people had finally found “home”. Why are you suggesting that their home is on the “edge of existence”? If those people wanted more than what they have in Tent City then they could pursue other options. Anyway, most of the “society” you’re referring to are more interested in following the American Idols, Desperate Housewives, or insert-mindless-time-wasting-occupation-here, rather than becoming pro-active and reaching out to the “tired, poor, huddled masses.”
I myself recently lost my job and wonder if am I going to find another before the unemployment runs out.
~ It is only due to the kindness of the community that I live in that I am able to keep up the Hope through a terribe economic hardship such as unemployment. I keep reading about these tent cities all across America and it saddens me greatly. We are a nation that will be judged by how we treat our poor. We are not helping them. That there are so many out there who have lost their homes and their jobs, is resembling a third country. It is time that people who are arguing over health care and bank bail outs wake up and look around them. Even in Washington where poverty is rampant; healthcare is the decaying tooth, while the gums have been bleeding and are worn. So much more is needed. These are sad times, and I pray that we all can pull together and treat each other with the love and respect that it appears these people are doing in the Tent City. I for one, am going to do all I can to be kind to my neighbors and give as much as I can where ever I can; and I look back on times when I was wasteful, truly wasteful; and feel ashamed. Ashamed that I didn’t think abou the future. This piece is an eye opener, I just wish it was on the front page of NYT, or WSJ; where it needs to be. Excellent work.
I know i dont wanna end up in a tent city, i have no job, cant find one, a daughter who turned three yesterday, and another on the way… I thought it was time for change
Actually, this article on “Tent City” has given me hope. Home must really be a state of mind. Reading this article I got the impression that the hardship these people have endured may have been a God send because it encouraged them to come together like a family unit giving each other support, acceptance and giving them hope. It does seem a lot better than a homeless shelter. Homeless shelters have crime in them and disease and are run by impersonal bureaucracies. God is truly watching over these people.