Project Description

Washington State announced a stay-at-home order at the end of February.

The world turned upside down and I wanted to do something to help because I watched friends, risking exposure in journalism step up to tell stories about how the world changed in a matter of weeks. This left me feeling useless.

I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how.

Reaching out to Dawn Michelle came to mind because I met her once before at an event for The Salvation Army. I got invited to come down to take photos and as she put it, “See history!”

First thing you need to know about Dawn is she’s positive. She’s like a walking star with how passionate and compassionate she is to people.

I felt a bit weird. Photography doesn’t seem to be the most helpful. It almost seemed useless, but I had to admit picking up the camera and taking photos.

Stresses of the pandemic hit everyone differently. For the Salvation Army, workers needed to wear full PPE. By the end of their shifts, sweat drenched their clothes and like the rest of the world, they reused masks. Beds needed to be six feet apart from each other and this meant less room. Dawn and I talked about how the number of homeless rising because the world being forced into a standstill.

Stress ate away at the workers. Dawn, Hadley, and Hope went outside to get a smoke. Before everything, all three tried to quit by using patches or some sort of nicotine replacement trick. Now its smoke breaks between cigarettes and vapes.

Where are homeless supposed to go with a stay-at-home-order hanging over their heads? Donations helped the shelter, but I knew they didn’t get enough. Washington shelters didn’t enough during normal times, but now? It didn’t cover enough because everyone worked with less now.

Visually, I wanted to get across how the pandemic changed the shelter. That was the goal of this project.