This photo essay offers an intimate perspective on homelessness in Philadelphia

It’s all too easy for some folks to remember that individuals experiencing homelessness are humans, and that many of them are on the street for reasons that are out of their control.

Like Dennis, who suffers from mental illness.

“I had a place to live in D.C. with my family and I had good jobs,” he told local photographer and homelessness advocate Ted Goldman. “But in 1980 I left D.C. for Philadelphia where I had no job and no place to stay; it’s a mystery why I did that — my mind doesn’t have the ability to know.”

Dennis and several other local individuals experiencing homelessness are the subject of Homeless Narrative, a recent photo essay Goldman put together after spending a year and a half getting to know Philadelphia’s homeless community.

“My hope is to bring greater understanding to what is a complex and disturbing part of our society,” Goldman writes in the essay’s introduction.

Make sure to catch the section where Goldman prompts formerly homeless individuals to discuss how they perceive homelessness now that they are out of the shelter system.