KENNESAW, Ga. — Metro Atlanta struggles to keep people in permanent housing - and now a museum exhibit will challenge the stigma of the unhoused and help provide perspective as to why at Kennesaw State University.
The Dignity Museum will bring its first-ever traveling exhibit to KSU next week for its Homelessness Awareness Week. The exhibit works to challenge systemic bias and stigma of poverty impacting more than half a million people in the United States, curators said. Young adults and college students are among that number.
"It's dedicated to highlighting the reality of poverty and basic needs insecurities impacting local communities and college campuses," organizers said in a news release.
KSU will host the week-long experience from Nov. 7 through Nov. 11 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on campus. People can reserve tickets here.
Dignity Museum curated the experience alongside the homelessness advocacy organization Love Beyond Walls. It is meant to be a social learning experience housed inside a transformed shipping container. Visitors who walk through will have their ideas and misconceptions about housing challenged and be introduced to research through storytelling.
"This museum was created to give a platform to the voiceless and stories of those who were born into poverty, those who became homeless as adults, families holding cardboard signs with their children at the stoplight, and their collective fight to beat their circumstance," Terence Lester, the founder of Love Beyond Walls said in a news release.
To learn more about how KSU plans to observe Homelessness Awareness Week, visit its event calendar.
11Alive is investigating what drives homelessness in metro Atlanta and what solutions are available in our series The Way Home. Read our reports here.