Helping People Affected by Homelessness Through Creative Photography: An Interview with Paul Ryan

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Official government snapshot statistics in the UK have shown that in the fall of 2022 the number of people sleeping rough in England was on the rise for the first time since 2017 and went up by 74 percent since 2010.[1] In 2023, the Big Issue, a leading social enterprise in the UK, chose Paul Ryan and Michael Wong as two of their top 100 annual changemakers for their work as cofounders of Café Art, a nonprofit organization launched in 2012 as a way to foster exchanges for a greater understanding of people affected by homelessness. The name of the organization is based on the initial project that consisted in hanging on the walls of some cafés in London artwork created by homeless people. Out of Café Art emerged the MyLondon printed calendar project, through which homeless people have been able to not only reveal their vision of the city and connect with the public through photography but also appropriate urban spaces from which they are often excluded and where they are often unseen.