Introduction
The thinking mind, (AKA the analytical mind) and its helpful sidekick reason are wonderful things. In modern American culture, they are the principle tools we use to describe social problems, articulate relevant values and policies, examine alternative solutions, identify the optimal strategies, define appropriate programs, track results, and evaluate outcomes. The Family Housing Fund’s website is filled with productions of the thinking mind—descriptions, information, and studies related to the national and local issue of affordable housing. Hopefully, they represent the left-brain at its best and readers will find them useful.
The Fund has recently launched a new section of its website entitled Spirit, Soul, House and Home that is devoted to another way of approaching and engaging affordable housing issues. This alternative is commonly associated with the heart, emotion, intuition, imagination, art, and the humanities, and might best be described with the simple but marvelously elusive word soul. We decided to include this section because we believe that, in the long run, the most effective and enjoyable way of doing our work is to balance the thinking mind with soulfulness. This poem by Bill Holm seems to express something of this idea:
Someone dancing inside of us knows only a few steps: the “Do-Your-Work in 4/4 Time” and the “What Do You Expect” waltz. He hasn’t noticed yet the woman standing away from the lamp, the one who knows the rumba and strange steps in jumpy rhythms from the mountains of Bulgaria If they dance together, something unexpected will happen. if they don’t, the next world will be a lot like this one.
Spirit, Soul, House and Home is intended to build on the Family Housing Fund’s 20th anniversary celebration, which occurred in 2000. In order to mark this important occasion, the Fund commissioned a group of local artists to create works of art that reflected the theme of home.
The Fund also commissioned artists to work with children living in affordable housing developments to create community works of art, one of which is featured above. Finally, the Fund sponsored an essay and poetry contest among families who lived in developments that had been conceived and built as affordable housing.
The project sponsored by the Fund greatly exceeded our expectations. A total of 23 artists produced more than 50 works of uniformly high quality. The best and most mobile pieces were used to form a traveling exhibit known as “Home Sweet Home”, which was displayed in public spaces throughout the metropolitan area. We used the images to create annual reports in calendar format, note cards, posters, and framed prints. It was a gratifying experience, which greatly enriched our work.
The Fund is now planning a second iteration of this project, which will be known as “Home Sweet Home Again”, set to unveil in June 2004. In addition, the Fund intends to commission literary works including poems that revolve around the theme of home. Finally, the Fund is inaugurating a new section of our website, which will be devoted to exploring, in depth, the relationship between the imaginal, mythical, poetic world of soul and our community’s critical shortage of affordable housing, including its most tragic consequence—homelessness.
Readers who want to join in a more in-depth exploration of soul and affordable housing are invited to continue reading this essay.Please note that this essay is a work in progress and will continue to grow and transform over time.
Above: Theresa Smith and the children from Calibre Ridge, The Heart of the Nest, 2000, ceramic tile, 48 in. diameter
Download printable version of Soul and Affordable Housing (.pdf format).