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Family Photos
We’re honored to have our friend and photographer Eric Elmore come by and get to know our families. Eric has a rare gift for capturing the soul of a moment. What you don't see behind these photos is Eric sitting down, bringing genuine curiosity to every conversation, and treating each person like a celebrity he’s genuinely honored to meet. People warm up to him immediately, and we’re so glad he captured so many smiles amid such high stress.
Every night at the respite center, families rest their heads during an emergency. We sometimes hear comments like, "Well, if they just found jobs or made better choices..."
The truth? We are all one missed paycheck, one medical emergency, or one disaster away from this exact position. The difference for many of us is a safety net, having a friend or family member to lean on, or being that safety net for someone else.
It’s easy to judge from behind a screen. But if you sat down and listened to how these families arrived here, you wouldn't feel judgment or disappointment. You would feel sorrow, pain, grief and immense gratitude for your own stability.
We have a mother staying with us who couldn't take the abuse anymore. She packed her two kids and dog into a car with just a few belongings and drove two days across the country. Arriving in Arizona, she faced full shelters, hundreds-long waitlists, and relentless dead ends until other organizations started pointing her to AZ Hugs.
We are so grateful she found us. Within her first week, we got her kids enrolled in school, and she secured a job. Now, we’re helping her land a one-bedroom apartment. She insists on doing it independently, refusing waitlists for reduced-rent housing; she just needed a safe harbor to piece her life back together. (She and her children aren't pictured here, for obvious safety reasons.)
In these photos, you see joy, community, and hope.
What you don’t see is the 130+ families still waiting on our list whom we cannot shelter at the church.
What you also don't see is Austin Davis out on the streets every single night, meeting the families on the waitlist face-to-face and raising funds for motel rooms to keep them safe while they search for jobs, care for their children, and wait for permanent housing. He recenetly lead a peaceful protest at the State Capital because the city of Phoenix and UMOM were going to vacate over 30 families from the UMOM facility without a plan on where these families would go.
The protest worked and they extended the stay for two weeks.
It is vital that the State of Arizona declare a state of emergency for the housing crisis and family homelessness.
is a photodocumentation of the homelessness in Phoenix, AZ.
Homelessness is a crisis for one human.
The word “crisis” fails miserably to describe the extent & severity of homelessness for the thousands of Valley residents, estimated at last count - a severe undercount - at over 7,000.
Poverty & homelessness within the United States are still widely demonized, stereotyped, & portrayed as read more>
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