In 2017, Strategies to End Homelessness had the distinct pleasure of working with ArtWorks Cincinnati to inform one of their most ambitious murals to date. Working with Over-The-Rhine Community Housing, Downtown Cincinnati, Inc. and other partners, funders, community organizers and more, ArtWorks Cincinnati commissioned international artists ICY + SOT to create what was officially titled the Faces of Homelessness Mural, a 60-foot depiction of homelessness in Greater Cincinnati intended to inspire empathy and encourage dialogue in our community about homelessness. Installed by ArtWorks’ own Artist Apprentices over the course of the summer, the mural uses the Recovery Hotel as a backdrop for its portraiture of six people from Greater Cincinnati who have themselves experienced homelessness in their lifetime. They are children, women, and men who, through the artists’ rendering, tell a story unique to their lives and unique to our city.
The faces depicted stare south toward downtown from the Recovery Hotel, to the horizon of the city’s skyline. Homelessness, as we know, is often a self-resolving process, and so it was with intention that the artists depicted these people with the same hopes and dreams of any other person.
Strategies to End Homelessness is proud to have worked with ArtWorks Cincinnati, Downtown Cincinnati, Inc., OTR Community Housing, and the City of Cincinnati to make this mural, and its accompanying satellite installations possible.
Satellite Images
To further promote empathy and inspire dialogue about homelessness in Greater Cincinnati, a series of installations was created and installed in downtown and Over-The-Rhine. Inspired by stories shared by, and photos taken of, individuals served by agencies in our community working to prevent and end homelessness.
Satellite images adressed: family homelessness, veteran homelessness, doubling-up, education, domestic violence and LGBTQ* homelessness.