“Voices of the Voiceless,” the new mural by Heidi Hansen to raise micro-grants to put homeless, mentally ill women into their own small businesses. It is 6′ x 5,’ acrylic and pastel on a light linen cloth. The painting can be displayed wrapped around it’s hard back, or with all edges extended, — all along the 4 edges are the voices and thoughts of homeless persons I have met along Main Street and 25th in downtown Vancouver, Washington.
Why? To raise micro-grant ”seed money” for homeless, mentally ill women to start their own small businesses.
Work means power. Money is power. Women and persons of mental health problems are marginalized from regular society enough as it is without the exclusion, isolation and de-humanization of homelessness, but there it is. The disabled population and women are the fastest growing demographic making up the homeless in Washington and Oregon.
And so, in my own micro-way, I’ve painted this mural to raise micro-grants so women of homeless and mental health problems can get some power and self-esteem in society and re-create their identity in a manner of their choice.
Truth is, this was an especially difficult mural to do. It was hard to get through all the sensitive and shaming, painful feelings in me as I am still fresh out of homelessness. I know the helplessness, the degredation, the unfairness of being abandoned to life on the street due to bully actions by people more powerful than I.
The cause of my homelessness was a matter of social injustice. The experience was a sink-hole of dis-empowerment and fatiguing, deadening validation of my low self-esteem.
It doesn’t take a lot of time being in the homeless class that the experience changes from being a life stressor to a new sort of identity. This might be the most dangerous of all the side-effects of homelessness: Taking it on as a self-identity.
This new sense of self as a throw-away or being invisible or not worthy of what regular people can do, and have, plus the constant survival drive and helplessness makes homelessness a personal definition — it’s “who we are, it’s what we do,” and that becomes a downward spiral which chronic isolation from regular society and survival anxiety reaffirms. Persons in that state don’t need to ”accept it” — they need a set of financial and social jumper cables to re-start their energy and change their self-identity from marginalized and vulnerable to business owner and social equal.
Part of changing one’s identity is to be around people who are what you want to be more like. For homeless women to be financially powerful means they need to be around successful business people. For mentally ill people to get well, they need to be around mentally healthy people.
These are all the things I experienced while being homeless, and they were hard for me to confront as I painted. I even tried to self-sabotage myself from completing the painting. As I become more visible as I market this mural as a fund-raiser, the shame and fear of people who will judge me and judge me erroneously is difficult to face.
But it will help me grow, help others grow, and create a more meaningful life, So I will do. This is part of The Trauma Project.
The Trauma Project is a free mental health education service to help persons of trauma get the mastery and acumen that puts them back in the driver’s seat.
Here’s the nuts and bolts — this auction’s bidding begins at $600.00. The funds will go to create micro-grants for homeless, mentally ill women to start up their own small businesses. There will be an application and selection process for these grants.
..the only thing worse than this is the chilling phrase, ”no dogs allowed.”
I’ll need volunteer business coaches, mental health counselors and homelessness workers to help select, educate and coach the recipients of these micro-grants to understand and start, maintain their own small businesses and prevent relapsing into problems that will undermine their goals.
..there are many kinds of disabilities…what we don’t know we tend to fear. But there is also in that a wonderful opportunity to educate ourselves and stretch our hearts and minds...bordering the main painting along all four edges are some of the voices and thoughts of this invisible population...there is a Starbuck’s coffee shop on the corner of 25th and Main Street that is so very embracing and supportive and they open their restrooms freely to all. A big shout-out to them, — please give this Starbucks your consumership.
So, if you are tired of seeing and tripping over homeless people — or if you feel the empathy for this most difficult combination of brokenness — then let’s get together and hammer out some solutions using ”Voices of the Voiceless” as a money – raiser to do it.
…the linen canvas can be unwrapped and stretched to become full-size – 5′ x 6′ — and bordered, or have a matted effect, by the voices and thoughts of our neighbors who live outdoors.
I’ll be waiting for your emails and phone calls to either make a seed money donation of the size you choose, and for business coaching volunteers to help select grant recipients and volunteer business coaches to help them use their ”seed money” to start and maintain a small business they can operate from the street, shelters, public spaces, etc.
Email me at dog.hotel.hansen@gmail.com, or call me at 360-635-3373. I’ll be looking for your contact. Financial donations can be made at this cash app site: cash.app/$doghotel2018 Thanks so very much. — Heidi Hansen
My life is an example of how anyone can become homeless — it happens for reasons not easily seen. I am a trauma specialist and retired child and family therapist. I have worked all my life and have 2 successful small businesses. I also have a disability and have been homeless. I lost a son to a domestic violence situation. I survived leukemia and injury while I was homeless. I have been and am a successful therapist, artist, writer and mother — and I have been homeless. Let’s not judge, let’s learn.“Voices of the Voiceless,” the 6′ 5′ mural by Heidi Hansen to raise funds for micro-grants to put homeless women into their own small businesses. Acrylic and pastel on linen. Thanks for your support…Looking forward to hearing from you...did you find this dog in the mural? This is my service dog Maile Lei, who saved the day for me many times and gave a lot of cold, alienated persons love and joy. Thanks, good pup.
Here’s the latest photos of my new mural depicting the homeless whom I know on main and 23rd in downton Vancouver, wa. this street — my own old stomping ground while I was exiled from valid society for awhile and did some time being homeless due to a landlord’s retaliation eviction using the infamous ”no-cause eviction” — still legal in Washington and Oregon, though Oregon has made significant strides in legislating it off the books.
but here are my fellows, and the name of this mural is ”voices of the voiceless,” so after I finish putting in the background i’ll be adding those voices — some insights into what it’s really like being homeless in Vancouver, behind the stigma, beyond the stereotypes.
when the mural is finished, it will go up for auction and the monies will go to my Trauma Project — learn all about that here by scrolling through this blog site.
Remember, you can make yourself a part-owner of this mural and The Trauma Project by donating some funds to the Trauma Project to my Cash App account, which is at this link– cash.app/$doghotel2018
Thank you for validating the lives on homeless street, and for considering validating my Trauma Project, which will directly upgrade the mental health experience of the homeless and homeful, both. — Heidi
hello, friends of 23rd and main street, how are you today
cash.app/$doghotel2018 is the link to use if you like this project, and want to be a part-owner by donating some funds that will cover the overhead and expenses of this mural, ”voices of the voiceless.” when the mural is completed, it will be put up for auction to Vancouver city business and government agencies. the monies gained by that auction will go in entirety to fund The Trauma Project,” which you can find out more about by scrolling through this blog from the very beginning. Thank you, — Heidi Hansen, September, 2019.
. ..in the beginning, a lovely doctor’s office maintenance man donated a ceiling tile for the base of my new mural. A serendipitous gift!…and I found a lovely linen cloth at a thrift store to stretch over it as a canvas.… of course, I begin my painting with placing my own service dog, maile lei, front and center… everybody on that homeless street knew and loved her so, and that was definitely her place to go and love ‘hangin’ with friends… maile lei has so many stories to tell about her days and nights on this street, many of them fun, funny and lovely and gracious as much as terrible, dark, treacherous and full of danger and fear and great awful injustices.
… This is where my mural is now, unfinished with a long way to go. this is the stage of painting where i look at it and say, ”ugh..gross..this is never going to work..toss it all out and don’t look back… don’t waste anymore supplies on it.
…But.
My artist’s notes at this point say this, ”I started out just painting a picture of something meaningful that had purpose, but still just a picture. the voices of the voiceless, depicting real homeless people that I knew and their personal context voices that would portray a deeper, more empathetic and engaging understanding than the typical stereotypes, stigma, and sensationalism society seems stuck in….but then, something entirely unexpected and different overtook me as I started to draw and paint the homeless persons I met on the corner of main and 23rd. they popped out of the canvas at me, and i met them all over again, after all this time has passed. we said hello again, this time with an embrace. I was flooded with awe as the truth and responsibility of this painting popped out at me — I must represent each person, each person’s home that they carry with them in carts and packs, with complete respect as I make each stroke on the canvas.. and be utterly accurate in how they chose to organize and store and protect their roaming homes and Selves; on the canvas as in real life.
… I was hit by such a deep respect for my new responsibility to paint my fellows of Main street and 23rd as they were and still are, their body posture, as much personality or defenses or problems as they allow the public to see, their favorite hat or shirt, a broken shoe that has been worn to a perfect fit, style of dress, their favorite item, their typical daily routine.
…as we said hello at my canvas, I offered them the safety and permanent home of my canvas. as that awesome responsibility to preserve their humanity and individual personhood, as their construction of a community on 23rd and main popped out of me, this mural became more than a painting. I fell in love. my canvas was coming alive.” — Heidi Hansen, September 15, 2018.
..maile lei, Heidi’s beloved service dog, reminds us all that a little cash flow can make big things happen.
If you like what you see here, and would like to become a part-owner by helping fund this project, Heidi is accepting donations through Cash App. The link is: cash.app/$doghotel2018 — Thank you!
——————————————————————————–
Check in here every now and again for more photos of the progress of this mural, ”Voices of the Voiceless,” with artist’s notes if any are to be had. when this mural is finished, it will be used as a fundraiser for my Trauma Project, which is a new series of educational workshops, sidewalk outreach and support groups for those who suffer from trauma, and those who want to know more about it so they can help others, too. all those trauma project services are meant to get people trauma-informed, and teach the trauma survivors how to gain mastery over their experiences and what to do to be happy, joyous and free to live life as they deserve and of their own choosing and control. all these services are free, so the funds gathered from this mural will help cover my overhead and supplies so I can do a really terrific job for those who want to participate. email me at dog.hotel.hansen@gmail.com for more information or if I can answer your questions or schedule you into a workshop. thanks, be well — Heidi Hansen, m.a.
…I hope this little song and posters have brought something useful to you. please visit my other websites listed below for more artwork that can be used to fundraise or provide comfort and communication to help blood cancer awareness month and its peoples. there might be something in the other sites that can be used in merchandizing, so think creative strategy and email me to tell me about it and get my license to use — free, if it benefits persons of blood cancers. …all the art and song here and on my other sites listed below are my own works and copyrighted, but I would be so happy to share them in any way as to help blood cancer awareness month, September, 2019. please email me at dog.hotel.hansen@gmail.com if you would like permission to do so. thanks, — Heidi
Dissociative Identity Disorder is a severe response to childhood trauma, it used to be called multiple personality disorder, but it is really a strong coping skill and it occurs on a spectrum.
It is not what Hollywood portrays, and this writer is against using mythical and boogey-man stereotypes of this and any other mental illness because it is degrading, exploitative, dehumanizing, and makes the sufferers more isolated as they try to cover for their problems due to the scary stigmas and shame Hollywood and media uses them for.
Dissociation is where a person — usually a child — experiences a trauma so pervasive and overwhelming and they are so trapped in a living situation with the source of their trauma that their immature and still-forming personality splits off into many parts, each part becoming a personality of its own.
Dissociation is about hiding, making a disguise to go forward on the outside and associate with the tangible world with tangible people and tasks, while hiding behind the disguise in refuge and an inner place of safety. Usully each personality is assigned core strengths or talents or abilities on the outside, or on the inside.
The goal of therapy used to be integration, or merging all the personalities into one united, viable personality which will always be constant and consistent in their performance and experiences in the outer environment.
This is not possible and sets up the client for failure and shame, and can become abusive as the therapist attempts to weild power and authority to accomplish this unreasonable goal.
The more reasonable, and respectful goal for a dissociative client is to get all the personalities on the inside to form a working community, where they cooperate, contribute, compromise and collaborate.
The inside community usually has a metaphor for their space, some sort of inner geography that can be understood as a gathering place, a shared living space on the inside, and this is very helpful for the client to use to describe their experiences and organize their inner terrain and get the insiders to communicate, collaborate, and compromise.
I knew of one person — and it’s with her permission that I illustrated this and included it as an example here — who had a dream one night, a very bright, vivid and satiating dream. when she awoke, she felt completely filled and at peace, like every part of her was safe and nurtured, understood, and had a home. friends, meaningful tasks, and a place to live and grow.
Her dream was about walking down one New York City block. Along this street was a shop or place where she could get every one of her insider’s needs met. There, each insider could thrive, hide away, live in peace, and learn and experience and have all the things they needed to be consistently nurtured and fed and be themselves with others who knew them and loved them and were like-minded and unconditionally accepting.
This street is a metaphor for what persons who suffer dissociation need — on the outside, but also on the private inner terrain which is so uniquely their own.
That is the worthy goal of therapy — to create that kind of inside and outside living space of this one NYC block.
——————————————- To sign up for a trauma masterclass on this subject, or to schedule a consultation, email Heidi at dog.hotel.hansen@gmail.com. Thank you!
in may 2019, while I was in the hospital with back fractures and surgery, a person from animal control volunteered to foster my service dog, maile lei, as her chi and maile had become good playmates. then nobody returned my calls or emailed me to tell me how she was doing until near the end of my hospital stay, when I was told maile lei was in the ”safe haven” program at the humane society. when I was discharged, I went to pick up maile lei and was told she had never been in the safe haven program nor fostered, but was kept in the general kennels and I was going to have to pay nearly 600.00 dollars in kennel fees to get her back. I was never told that until the day I went to pick her up. I found out then I had been lied to all along and they knew I lived on a social security disability check and had no means to pay 600.00. so, without my permission and in violation of the americans with disabilities act, the humane society of s.w. Washington adopted her out. they have never responded to one email or phone call about how she was or is doing, and have refused to communicate with me at all. I am asking all their partners and sponsors to withdraw their support and the general public to withdraw their support and donations until the humane society does what they contracted with me to do and return her safely and promptly to me. I am filing criminal and civil charges against them for fraud, larceny, extortion, violations of the a.d.a., and intellectual property theft as maile lei is also the trademark for a series of creative works I do for supplemental income. please support me in this and write to the humane society and ask them to do the right thing and keep their promise to me and maile lei. I am the only real mom she has ever known and I know all her quirks and habits and I trained her to do her service work and love life. I am disabled, have been recovering from leukemia, back fractures and homelessness and need maile lei’s love, joy and service work now more than ever. thank you. contact me, Heidi Hansen, at dog.hotel.hansen@gmail.com.
maile lei, service dog extraordinaire, needs to come home — can you help Heidi bring her back home
this was the secret password my son and i used when he was young, used in cases when we were not able to communicate directly but a change of plans needed to be made, for example, if someone else was to pick him up after school at the last minute. the password was used to let him know the situation had my permisssion, my knowledge, and was safe.
but the phrase is more than a secret code — it is true that some flowers and plants bloom in the night hours.
this is also a metapor, that some persons bloom in adversity. in times of our greatest despair, we can choose to act out our troubles, or do something extraordinary with them.
we are all children of creation
we are all children of creation – creativity is innate within ourselves. we are capable of innovating solutions, finding new ways, summoning up coping skills we have not thought of before.
trauma changes us, but we get to say how.
trauma will change you, but you get to say how
if you find yourself in a spot in life when everything has crashed around you, the things you normally hang onto for sanity have abandoned you, you feel frightened and alone and shaking in your boots — but yet you are still standing — shout out loud in celebration, ‘i’m still standing.’
the one hidden blesing of trauma is that it clears the decks. when everything is lost or damaged, everything becomes a new blank canvas upon which to paint something new and different — perhaps this is the opportunity for you to become a version 2.0 of yourself — a self you always imagined you might want to become someday – and since all is lost and theree’s nothing left to do but re-create yourself, perhaps you can strategically create that self you had previously only imagined, but now you can make it real.
trauma can provide new opportunities to expand our selves
trauma is mesy, it is unpredictable, it will sneak up and bite you from behind when you least expect it. but truma is not an illness. it’s an event that has caused great pain and fear. the side order that comes in tow with that is shame, guilt, rage — even though you have nothing to feel shame or guilt about, we do anyway.
that’s where restorative justice comes in. ‘putting the monkey back on the back of to whom it belongs.’ within lawful limits, a person must make some justice happen in order to be whole again.
advocating for our selves to restore the balance of what was taken away from us can be freeing
trauma can make us feel as though we’ve gone dead inside. that is why it is so important to fill up our lives with life-affirming actions. things that are creative — you are a child of creation, remember — so fill your days with creative things — anything of your choosing, it does not mean artsy or crafty things although those are great too – it can be anything — making up a new song or joke, walking through the library and picking books at random off shelves you haven’t been to before, and reading one paragraph out of the page the book opens to. it can be creating your own coffee specialty item at your local coffee shop — you might want to tip them for this. making a friend froma different culture and listeinging to their family stories. throw yourself into anything and everything that is life-affirming and validates your sense of self, safety, and sanity.
the self, our personality — is a trememdous gift. trauma will try to rob you of that. but remember there is only one person who owns your self, only one person who can make the decisisons for the development and healing and thriving of that self — you.
you’ll need someone to talk to about the pain, the awfulness, the horrors, the ‘world has caved in on me’ experience. one who can use life-affirming strategies to help you re-connect with your sense of self and esteem in a manner of your own choosing, finding a center of joy that you can trust.
find a trauma-skilled therapist. not everyone has the training and expertise to this field. i happen to be a therapist who is, and my trauma project workshops will provide you with a knowlege structure around three types of trauma — the trauma of abuse and violence, the trauma of abandonment and neglect, and the trauma of dehumanization. i’ll also teach you five specific masteries that will help you grow through and even thrive after trauma and throughout your life development.
my trauma project workshops are free and all are welcome to attend donations are appreciated but not necessary to participate.
so call or email me and let’s talk and set up a trauma workshop for you, or individual therapy sessions to addres more personal needs. i want you to be well, mentally and physically, and i’m here to help you do that. thanks for listenting, and let’s talk soon — bye for now..
we’ll talk soon, I’m looking forward to it.
Call or email me to use this coupon to help get yourself trauma-informed. I take online payments using Ally online bank. Free-will donations are also appreciated to help cover my overhead so I can continue to offer free services to low-income and homeless persons. Thank you, and enjoy the next article. — Heidi
are you trauma informed? by Heidi d. Hansen, m.a. june 15, 2019
Heidi’s trauma workshops will help professionals in many different fields be more successful with their clients when they become trauma – informed.
Are you a health care professional? Work in social or human services? Legal services or law enforcement? Sales? Are you in a management or executive position where you train, supervise, organize and motivate employees or departments of the business? Teacher or educator or in childcare? Do you work in non-profit or philanthropic organizations including churches or are you thinking of starting one?
everybody has a story. there are many types of traumas, and they show in up in the workplace, classroom, sales calls, and in patient/client/congregational care. the more you understand how trauma affects a person’s way of relating to their environment, the people and stressors around their environment, the more effective you will be in helping them, and your organization, achieve their goals..
let’s start with the basics. empathy and perspective.
sense of security, personality structure, and esteem are damaged by trauma in invisible ways.
except they are not invisible to the person of trauma. a person of trauma goes to great lengths to hide their dysfunctions so as to appear as normal as can be, because for all intents and purposes, they are normal. they want to work, play and love just as much as everybody else and most persons of trauma are just regular, average people who are skilled, educated/trained, available for relationships and hobbies and life adventures. normal.
except that we know now that the more trauma children and adolescents are exposed to, the more problems they will have in later life with rocky relationships, trouble with the law, with homelessness, domestic violence, unemployment, substance abuse, and mental illness.
we now know that in adulthood as well as childhood, trauma alters the structure of nuerons in the brain that are not reversable. these nuerons are responsible for the chemicals that produce anxiety, depression, impulsivity, low frustration tolerance, poor decision-making.
as a professional, you may have more contact with these individuals struggling with these risk factors than what you see on the outside.
trauma survivors live in a world invisible to most. it is a lonely, isolated world of fears and needs and a sense of being so very different from everyone else sometimes that alone-ness itself is a barrier.
the cure is to be able to connect deeply in life – affirming ways with other people, meaningful work, making the world better for others, but the symptoms of traumatic stress handicap people right at that point — it can be a sensation of living in a tupperware box, almost able to reach out and touch what they see others doing – not being afraid, not over-reacting, not withdrawing or being aggressively controlling but able to really honestly enjoy being with each other, engaged in the moment and find find joy in the day without self-punishment. but they can’t get past the fuzzy tupperware wall. how to live like that is just too foreign a concept for trauma sufferers.
you can begin to assist your people move past those barriers by deepening your empathy for what is happening inside a person of trauma — in a world you are not experiencing. a world which is invisible to you. the following chart will show two columns that may help you see and hear the invisible reality of the person your chosen profession has given you stewardship.
to set up a workshop for professionals, or a private consultation on how being more trauma-informed can help you be more effective in your work, email me at dog.hotel.hansen@gmail.com, or call me at 360-600-8745. thanks, and be well — heidi
please take advantage of this coupon to upgrade your acumen on trauma and how that can help you and your work be more successful. I accept payments made to ally online bank, via western union money transfer services, or by money order.
the trauma project 