Kimberly

Martin: "How long have you been out here?”

Kimberly: “I’m thirty-three. I’ve been out here for five years.”

M: “What brought you to living on the street?”

K: “Drama.”

M: “Did you grow up in foster care?”

K: “Yeah…I had a good experience. I used to live in Pasadena and my foster mom was really nice, real cool with me. She did everything for me, everything. So yeah.”

M: “Are you still in contact with them?”

K: “No.”

M: “Where there a lot of kids in foster care at the same time?”
K: “A lot of them.”

M: “How many at a time?”

K: “Like a hundred.”

M: “So it was a big group home?”

K: “Yeah.”

M: “Do you hang with a certain group of people out here?”

K: “No.”

M: “All by yourself? You’re not afraid at night by yourself out here?”

K: “Nope.”

M: "So you're pretty though then.”

K: “Yeah.”

M: “Do you like the food at the line?”

K: “The pasta and the salad…and I like meeting people.”

© 2024 Martin Schoeller


Overview
Homeless

On the street corner of Sycamore and Romaine in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, Martin photographed the homeless throughout 2015 for Hollywood Food Coalition (formerly known as the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition), which was co-founded by friends Ted and Penny Landreth. The coalition provides many services, but notably, they have been serving hot meals made from scratch every single day for over thirty years. Through partnering with the Hollywood Food Coalition, Martin photographed and interviewed over three hundred individuals.

“Most of the people in this series are clients of the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition. I wanted to give them a face and a voice. The interviews are recorded on my phone and then transcribed. Sometimes it’s a five-minute exchange, other times it’s over an hour - it all depends on how much somebody wants to share with me. The interviews were then condensed to fit the Instagram format, as this series was shared on the platform. Editing is always subjective, but I try to present these interviews as authentically as possible, using only direct quotes from our conversation.

I am very grateful for everyone’s trust and time.”
– Martin Schoeller

For more portraits and stories, please visit Martin’s Instagram here.