Music can be a powerful tool for rehabilitation and building resilience.
This article discusses Hallalu, a choir with a difference: its members are all
women experiencing homelessness.
Art and music are international languages. There is no need to understand the lyrics of a song to appreciate its melody; one does not need to be familiar with the exact painting materials used before falling in love with the painting that they created. From the beginning of time, art in its different forms has connected people and communities; it is a symbol of culture, cohesion, empowerment, and pride1. In this article, I will present a unique way of harnessing the power of art, a way powerful enough to rehabilitate people experiencing homelessness.
As development practitioners working according to the capacity approach2, we can use art to mediate between society and its excluded communities, bringing to the fore the voices and talents of people excluded, and in a way that presents them as they should be presented: as individuals with talents and capabilities, not as helpless or as a burden to society. Using art to rehabilitate and empower people experiencing homelessness is innovative because one of the hardest things that they must bear is their exclusion from society, and being made to feel transparent. This is why when development practitioners use art as a tool for rehabilitating this community, we ask society to first look at them as artists, and only then as individuals without a home. The uniqueness of art and music is that they enable the presentation of their talents and characters in a direct way.
Homelessness is a multidimensional phenomenon, and not just a matter of lack of shelter. It can incorporate deprivation across different dimensions: physiological, territorial, emotional, ontological (lack of rootedness), and spiritual (lack of hope or purpose). This is a very important understanding because homelessness cannot be resolved simply with bricks and cement: all the other dimensions must be addressed3. Another complexity is that whilst homelessness is experienced by individuals, it is also imagined: by policymakers, academics, and the general public. Thus, it holds a combination of low awareness and high stigma. It affects millions of people around the world and forces people into isolation, impacting their ability to share, communicate, and work with others4.
People experiencing homelessness must endure a sense of separation, from both the self and society. Coyne5 found that using music and lyrics to engage individuals without a home helps them in exploring their own life experiences, and from this become emotionally engaged with their own sense of self. Researchers have proposed that singing may have evolved as a tool for quickly bonding together a group of people who do not know each other, encouraging them to coordinate. Singing with others is cohesive; we can connect through being synchronized and temporally aligned6.
"This is why when development practitioners use art as a tool for rehabilitating this community, we ask society to first look at them as artists, and only then as individuals without a home."
Choir groups for people experiencing homelessness have started to spring up around the world. Researchers have found that while these singing groups cannot “fix” homelessness or the housing crisis, they do offer more than just an enjoyable distraction. Participating in choir activities enables the creation of a new musical role, one which challenges both the stigma associated with the “identity” of homelessness and public perceptions of the condition. The value of singing groups for this excluded community comes from improving life satisfaction by engaging in an activity that is worthwhile and has meaning. This can transmit social and well-being benefits, improving the quality of life of the singer; these positive outcomes can be transferred beyond the session7. Moreover, singing is a basic way for humans to connect, communicate, and present aspects of self, thus enabling wellbeing8. The act of singing is revealing, by presenting an aspect of your inner self. Thus, art and music stand in opposition to transparency from society. An artist or musician experiencing homelessness can say, proudly: I have talents that I can share, I have a role in a team, and my voice is heard when I sing with the choir9.
In 2019, the Israeli NGO Home-Base10 founded “Hallalu” (“those women” in Hebrew)—the only choir in Israel for women who are or who have experienced homelessness. The choir has eight members, who meet in Tel Aviv once a week to sing, play music, eat, and spend time together. The choir crew consists of five volunteers and a social worker, who also acts as the program manager. The volunteers create strong relationships with the participants, helping them articulate their rights and providing emotional support. One choir member says: “I feel we are all a family, we support one other.” In April 2021, the choir performed on the opening night of “A Room of One’s Own,” an exhibition of paintings and crafts made by women experiencing homelessness, some of whom were also members of the choir. The performance had a huge meaning for the choir members because it allowed them to feel that they are being seen and cared about by society11. A highlight of the performance was when a member of the choir took a Darbuka drum and started to play, encouraging all the choir members to dance, the audience dancing around them. It was a powerful moment, the energy of the performance flowing from the choir members to the audience and back. The choir members’ testimonies of the event describe how proud they felt when the audience clapped for them, and the joy of bowing at the end of the show, with all eyes on them—a rare moment that, sadly, rarely happens in everyday life. This explores how singers engage in reconstructing their identity through choir membership, and the positive impact of increased visibility through public performances.
References:
1. Dissanayake, Ellen. What is Art For?. University of Washington Press, 2015.
2. Lavergne, Réal, and John Saxby. "Capacity Development: Vision and Implications." Capacity Development Occasional Series 3 (2001): 1-11.
3. Somerville, Peter. "Understanding Homelessness." Housing, Theory and Society 30, no. 4 (2013): 384-415.
4. Crawford, Fiona, and Lee McGowan. "The Homeless World Cup: Tackling Homelessness, Playing Football and Telling Stories." The Writing Platform (2017).
5. Coyne, Michelle Annette. "'I am Someone, I am not Invisible': Exploring Choirs and Community Singing Groups for People who have Experienced Homelessness." Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh, (2019).
6. Pearce, Eiluned, Jacques Launay, and Robin IM Dunbar. "The Ice-breaker Effect: Singing Mediates Fast Social bonding." Royal Society Open Science 2, no. 10 (2015): 150221.
7. See 5
8. Ruud, Even. "Music and the Quality of Life." Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 6, no. 2 (1997): 86-97.
9. See 5
10. https://www.homebaseil.com/home-1
11. Pney-Gil, Dana. "'Voices of These Women'—Experiences of Homeless Women Participating in the ‘Hallalu’ Women's Choir." Master's Thesis, University of Haifa, (2021).
Ronnie-Lee Sneh
Certified social worker and Glocal alumni. She has worked in the humanitarian field in Uganda and Israel, where she gained insights into the unique challenges and acute burden of excluded communities. Her first-hand experience working with people experiencing homelessness in Israel, allowed her to identify a gap and act to fill it. She is the co-founder of the first of its kind program in Israel, “Street Medicine Israel” with Home-Base NGO. Together they provide medical care for people experiencing homelessness.
