Sitting on a sofa in the middle of a brick sidewalk in Detroit, a young man looks into a camera and says heβs lucky.
βI have a roof over my head and a place to sleep,β he continues. βRight here on this couch, actually.β
He goes on to tell the story of how he came to stay at his friend Ashβs house. He recalls worrying that heβd be a burden or people would think he was annoying, and how one housemate, indeed, (the cat) is not pleased with him being there, crashing on their couch. But for the young man, that couch is, for now, all he has. Like many other youths in urban areas, he found himself homeless until someone was willing to take him in.
His story is, technically speaking, not true β and yet it is. Through a Detroit-born organization called , youths who have experienced homelessness have an opportunity to tell their stories in their own way. But laying bare their stories themselves can often be a frightening prospect. Instead, Sofa Stories partners them with local writers who help them create scripts for their own monologues, drawing inspiration from their own lives and telling stories that illuminate the struggle of homelessness, much like a novelist basing a book on real-life experiences.
The stories they share are sometimes harrowing β there are tales of abuse, death, and suicide β the kinds of stories itβs hard to believe someone made up rather than, under the veil of fiction, was able to open up about.
Sofa Stories is the brainchild of Andrew Morton, an England-born playwright who calls Detroit his home (his family moved to the Flint area when he was young; he moved to Detroit in 2017). Mortonβs work usually incorporates some type of social justice element. In Flint, he wrote and directed verbatim theater projects β plays based on interviews with local residents about such issues as arson and emergency financial managers taking over the city.
In Detroit, he wanted to take on a different issue. βWe might see homelessness, or what we perceive to be homelessness, in a city, but young [homeless] people are often hiding in plain sight, β¦ sleeping at a friendβs house because they donβt feel safe in their family home, shared sleeping in abandoned housing or a shelter, living in their car,β he says with a lingering British accent.
According to the , more than 34,000 students in Michigan public schools were homeless during the 2018-19 school year, with about 4,800 of them being βunaccompaniedβ β that is, without a parent or guardian to look after them.
The sofa, he felt, was a strong image to base the project around. βSofa surfing, couch surfing, is something a lot of young people will do to navigate [homelessness],β he says.
He also liked the idea of the performances being outside, βsomething that would catch the passing publicβs eye,β he says.
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In 2019, he received a grant from the and partnered with the , an organization that helps young people experiencing homelessness and poverty.
The project started virtually, but in 2021 they held their first outdoor performances in various spots around Detroit β just an actor, a couch, and hopefully, an audience.
Morton considers that first summer of performances a success but found that performing live, outside, had its drawbacks.
βIf itβs not too hot, itβs too windy,β he says. This dilemma led him to take Sofa Stories in a new direction: video.
With the Knight Foundation grant and his later designation as a Kresge fellow, Morton had the funds to form a βsmall, informal collectiveβ of filmmakers and writers to work with youths in telling their stories through live performance and online at .
The funding also allowed them to give the students, for their work as actors, a small stipend β βone of the best ways to support young people in crisis,β Morton says.
The group takes a βmeet you where youβre atβ approach, working to help young people tell their stories in whatever way theyβre comfortable with. βIt could be a true story, or it could be a fictionalized version of a personβs experience,β Morton says.
For the next phase of the project, Morton says, heβs turning his focus to LGBTQ youth, who, according to the , are 120 percent more likely to suffer homelessness β often due to nonacceptance at home.
In his monologue, the young man on the couch says he identifies as queer, grew up in foster care, and became homeless after his two roommates moved out unexpectedly, leaving him with bills he couldnβt pay. Meanwhile, the cafe he worked for went out of business.
βWhen you live the kind of life I have lived, itβs kind of hard just to remember that people can be nice,β he says. βAsh says itβs our responsibility as members of the queer community to look out for each other, and theyβre right. A lot of us donβt have supportive families.β
In November, Morton was awarded a residency with , giving him a place to rehearse the next series of Sofa Stories and hold an indoor summer performance before taking the project back outside.
In time, Morton plans to turn his group into a formal organization that will continue to work with the Detroit Phoenix Center, running an after-school theater program. The name for the new organization, Every Soul, comes from a lyric in the song βNew York Morning,β one of his favorites, by the British band Elbow: βFor every soul, a pillow at a window, please.β
This story is from the January 2023Μύissue of ΒιΆΉ·¬ΊΕ Detroit magazine. Read more in our digital edition.Μύ
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