"Want to turn them from darkness to light": The Street Tenants Project - Even the Authorities Can't Ignore | Israel today

Moore Shaal's networking venture, in which she documents the homeless, has gained momentum at a dizzying pace - and she really does not intend to stop here • In an interview with her she tells how it all started, claims that everyone can be taken out of the street ("Want to recruit large organizations, make repairs here "), And also responds to criticism

• Moore on together with the occupants of the street

  Photography: 

  Moore on

"Everyone raises their network for their perfect life, as if no one sees the reality. They all live in illusion. So I said: 'Let's see what I see every day, so that you can not ignore"

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Moore who managed to attract a lot of attention on social media, and also a lot of fire.

She is 34 years old, a photographer by profession.

During the Corona period, when most of humanity found itself locked in houses, it took to the streets, to talk to the only people left in them, those who had no home to lock themselves in. 

Whether you have heard of the Street Tenants Project or not, whether you liked or visited her online activity, it is already quite difficult to ignore her and the content she presents on the web, and that is exactly what she wants.

"The street dwellers I introduced to the network have become celebs, and that's great and I plan to continue," she says.

The unconventional project that started on Instagram, where she introduces the street dwellers, talks to them, rediscovers them for us, strives to be something much bigger, and the authorities can no longer ignore either.

It has gained more than 42,000 followers, and the number only continues to rise.

She has raised more than NIS 200,000 in crowdfunding, which she intends to motivate for projects for the homeless: "This project is already much bigger than it started, and I try in every way possible for more factors to enter the picture."

She got into it quite by accident, wanting to talk to someone, and suddenly she got carried away with it in a way that even she could not imagine.

She says that at the moment she cannot imagine her life without them.

"It started from my selfish place. I did not come from a place of righteousness, I did not come to save anyone. I came to save myself. But I feel like I have a crazy responsibility and all I can take on both my shoulders, I will do it. It is him. Gave me (pointing up), I will hug it as hard as I can, and come to war.

How did you manage to build trust in them?

"They want this attitude, everyone. They will tell you - 'Do not want food, no money, no drink. Come. Listen to me. Let me hear you speak. I want to be a part of your world,' they say in their words. I "I did not know it. When I approached them it was my desire for human connection because I was alone during the Corona period. Suddenly I find myself having conversations for half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half."

Weren't you scared?

"There were some I was scared at first, but now I do not understand why they are considered dangerous people. A person who commits an offense and goes to jail gets minimal conditions. Sleep, food, dental care, a doctor who examines him, a profession. A man who has not committed any crime in his life, but has deteriorated because "Wounded soul, look at the situation he is in."

How did you manage to get so many people online?

How did you get so many followers?

"I'll tell you why it caught on. We all saw it, we behaved exactly the same. The general public saw them, thought about them, and went into repression. It's terribly easy for us not to be in reality, to run away to the phone. When I took the reality everyone represses and put it into the smartphone. All the time, which we can not ignore, suddenly a moment is created. Suddenly you only have yourself with them. Then the person you pushed, feels more secure. The

. " 

Even she did not believe that these would be the results.

She has already managed to get four of the homeless people she is in touch with from the street, and she believes that everyone can go out, that everyone can be rehabilitated.

One of them even signed with a modeling agency, discovered it on her Instagram page.

Already during the interview I had with her, every time she gets a call from another street tenant, asking for help, who needs something, trying to promote everyone in their own way.

Thanks to social networks, she was able to reach the forefront in the field of street dwellers in Israel.

She wants to cooperate with welfare, with anyone who can help, to move it forward.

she says,

."

A family of another street tenant found him only thanks to the exposure, for more than two years they searched for him, and lo and behold.

"It's hard for me to catch it myself," she tells me.

Suddenly he has someone else to take care of.

Most family in Ukraine, but the cousin is here.

After the contact was made, she came to meet him and also Moore, who told her about his condition.

Here the project meets reality in the clearest way.

Here are the things that are on the net affecting reality, here is a person without a family, getting at least one more person, who cares about him.

"Let them blacken me as much as they want"

Alongside all this, she gets quite a bit of criticism.

Some surfers claim that this is a type of exploitation, that the residents of the street are not aware of what is happening on the network.

It seems that the social workers are also not "enthusiastic" about Shaal's intervention in the matter.

There are a lot of people who criticize you, that it's on Instagram, that it's shallow, that you do it for self-interest.

Here, at the end I'm talking to you now, you're getting attention.

"Let them say, great. It still serves my purpose. I want to turn them from darkness into light, and how do I do that? In networks. The network gives me the power to expose them and present their stories. The very fact that people react badly or harshly, they will do the It's, it's viral. They will blacken me as much as they want. A discourse is created not only from good responses, a discourse is created when there is a dilemma. People called me in horrible words, and I took it very hard. Then I said to myself? What do you prefer? "To produce something big here and absorb it? So they will curse, they will say what they want, the main thing is that the issue itself is in the discourse."

The occupants of the street easily agreed to upload them to the network?

"Very easily. Somewhere they were waiting for it. They told me, very well you do it. They say 'I want them to see and hear what I have to say. Do not get to my situation, do not get to drugs, we do not want more people to join where we are at him'". 

There will be those who will say that it is impossible to rehabilitate such people ... What will you tell them?

"One of the street dwellers we finally managed to get out of together told me the first time I met him: 'I'm going to commit suicide in two days.' I told him, 'Give me a year out of your life. This year, I'm going to do anything to get you out of this situation.' I uploaded his video and he went insanely crazy. I asked him if he wanted to be talked to. A crazy amount of people came to visit him on his regular bench in Florence. They came to him with cameras to return to his hobby, with clothes, with food, all the neighbors went downstairs. "On a daily basis to see what he needs. From day to day he got stronger, got a shower, a haircut, new clothes. Today he is somewhere else - he has a job, he has a place to sleep, he is no longer on the street. So it can be done." 

Can everyone get out of the street?

"I do not have the tools to do it with thousands of people. But everyone can go out. Without a doubt. Right now this project is much bigger than I can give, and I try as hard as I can for more bigger factors to come into the picture."

In the most difficult alleys

And this is exactly what she wants, for this phenomenon to disappear.

As in the period of closure, even now when winter comes, when the rain knocks on the window and washes the streets, the phenomenon of homelessness becomes more shocking.

People who have nowhere to hide, who have no warm clothes, who have no place to lay their heads.

A tour with her in the difficult alleys of Tel Aviv, some of which are meters from a bourgeois cafe, only illustrates the phenomenon.

She walks around their sons, like the "queen" of the street.

Many of them already know her.

Despite all that has been said, there can still be a lot of cynicism here.

Why would anyone want to hang out with such people?

Everyone has an interest as they say, so what does she gain from it ?, and it is indeed something that quite a few "get into" it.

After going out for a walk with her, after seeing the sights - the cynicism disappears.

There is no such thing anymore.

Can not be.

The tour of Tough Alley takes it down completely.

With a sad reality it is impossible to argue.

No one chooses to reach the darkest alleys, even in daylight, alone, and burden himself mentally on such a level, just for material interest.

There must be a mental interest in it, and she also fully admits it.

She brings them something to drink and eat.

But she mostly gives them her time.

"I looked at them and felt like I was looking in the mirror. I connect with them more than 'normative' people. I talk to them for hours. The way they look at reality is different. They look at you just the way you are."

And maybe that's exactly what Save was looking for.

Someone who would see her as just Moore.

No more and no less.

She talks quite a bit about dealing with coming out of the closet, about the problematic girl she was.

"When you are with them - you are not the daughter of, you are not the employee of, you are not the mother of, you are just a person who talks to him because you are a person. There is no ego, no games, no philosophies," she tells me.

what are you talking about?

"All the questions I asked, these are questions I ask myself. Do you believe in God? What is good for you? How do you sleep at night? Where are your aspirations? Why do you do good drugs? Why are you addicted? Do you want a relationship? Are you in love ?.

In one of the tenants I literally saw myself.

A creamy boy, an artist, who failed and found himself on the street - that's my biggest fear.

The way he articulated with him, so eloquently, in the form of my college lecturers, talks about art and photographers, and he's on the street.

He told me - "I stopped believing in this life".

A lot of times these are sentences I say - all the time.

Why do you exist?

What meaning do you have?

What are you getting up for in the morning?

To work at work from 9 to 18?

And you are a lesbian in addition to all. "

So anyone can be like that?

"Everyone. If I did not have friends and family, I could have been on the street a long time ago. Most people are not really whole with themselves. But they put it aside. They run according to a certain robotics - because you have to learn, get married, reproduce, survive So repressive. But there is no escape, in the end you will get it the other way around. And I was in this situation, on robotics, for too long, and I could not anymore. And when the project came, I suddenly said to myself - here! This is the meaning! This is the essence! On a daily basis with the hardest sights, but at the same time see potential. I have to fix something here (she points to the heart), myself. Every person I meet on the street, I see in him something that is not fixed in me. My correction is to take care of my soul. "

How much do you feel you are influencing?

"A lot of people write to me about how I changed their look. They also write to me, 'Today I passed by Homeless in Jerusalem, I stopped and went to buy him something to eat.' A lot of people write these things to me. The thing that makes me happiest is the change in Israel. Many tell me that they are opening a project for street dwellers, series that deal with it. "

So how can change be made?

"If every street tenant had about three or four people who knew he existed there, who would check on him, go with him for coffee, go with him to the sea, improve his mood. Remind him how beautiful life is. First of all a human connection. After that, you can start. "A process. When government ministries take part, then you can start talking about a rehabilitative place, a place that will allow them to learn things, to develop. To slowly arrange work for them, to accompany them."

In the end, she says, "This phenomenon called street dwellers, we should all be ashamed of it. Street dwellers are the most powerful sight humanity has today, because they come to give like a wake-up call to the world - look where we are, what we are dealing with, in essence we have forgotten the most It's important in the world to be human. " 

For donations to the project: https://giveback.co.il/project/58297