POVA IN THE NEWS: NALINI Global - Repainting the Face of Poverty

“Poverty and the Arts” was started by Nicole Brandt, a graduate of Belmont university, who became curious of the homeless and the reasons behind their situation. As a student on campus, she began to approach the homeless and have real in-depth conversations with them. What she learned from them forever changed her perspective on the homeless. The common stigma of homelesness soon washed away in her eyes.

Many of the homeless that she became friends with had Bachelors degrees, were extremely talented in art, were former business owners, did not have drug problems, and were not criminals of any sort. They were simply people who got caught in a momentum of bad luck.  One particular homeless woman that Ms.Brandt works with is a master painter, artist, and has a Bachelors Degree in internal medicine and is seeking to complete med school once she finds housing. She has bad credit, no family, and cannot find employment that pays enough to sustain her while attending school, thus the streets have been here home for the last two years. The easy response is to say, “Get a job”, yet when we consider that one would have to work over 80 hours per week working minimum wage just to afford housing in the metro nashville area, the situation becomes more complex. And that doesn’t include transportation costs, groceries, electricity, and the very real prospect of being refused housing if your credit score isn’t high enough. Where do these people go then?