How the arts help homeless youth heal and build

Malika Whitley is the founder of ChopArt, an organization for homeless teens focused on mentorship, dignity and opportunity through the arts. In this moving, personal talk, she shares her story of homelessness and finding her voice through arts -- and her mission to provide a creative outlet for others who have been pushed to the margins of society.

Don't you love a good nap?

(Laughter)

Just stealing away
that small block of time

to curl up on your couch
for that sweet moment of escape.

It's one of my favorite things,

but something I took for granted

before I began experiencing
homelessness as a teenager.

The ability to take a nap is only reserved
for stability and sureness,

something you can't find

when you're carrying
everything you own in your book bag

and carefully counting the amount of time
you're allowed to sit in any given place

before being asked to leave.

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia,

bouncing from house to house

with a loving, close-knit family

as we struggled to find stability

in our finances.

But when my mom temporarily
lost herself to mania

and when that mania chose me
as its primary scapegoat

through both emotional and physical abuse,

I fled for my safety.

I had come to the conclusion
that homelessness was safer for me

than being at home.

I was 16.

During my homelessness,
I joined Atlanta's 3,300 homeless youth

in feeling uncared for,

left out and invisible each night.

There wasn't and still is not any place

for a homeless minor
to walk off the street

to access a bed.

I realized that most people
thought of homelessness

as some kind of lazy, drug-induced
squalor and inconvenience,

but that didn't represent my book bag
full of clothes and schoolbooks,

or my A+ grade point average.

I would sit on my favorite bench downtown

and watch as the hours passed by

until I could sneak in
a few hours of sleep

on couches, in cars,

in buildings or in storage units.

I, like thousands of other homeless youth,
disappeared into the shadows of the city

while the whole world kept spinning

as if nothing at all
had gone terribly wrong.

The invisibility alone
almost completely broke my spirit.

But when I had nothing else,
I had the arts,

something that didn't demand

material wealth from me
in exchange for refuge.

A few hours of singing, writing poetry

or saving up enough money

to disappear into another world at a play

kept me going and jolting me back to life
when I felt at my lowest.

I would go to church services
on Wednesday evenings

and, desperate for the relief
the arts gave me,

I would go a few hours early,

slip downstairs

and into a part of the world
where the only thing that mattered

was whether or not I could hit
the right note in the song

I was perfecting that week.

I would sing for hours.

It gave me so much strength
to give myself permission

to just block it all out and sing.

Five years later,
I started my organization, ChopArt,

which is a multidisciplinary
arts organization for homeless minors.

ChopArt uses the arts
as a tool for trauma recovery

by taking what we know
about building community

and restoring dignity

and applying that to the creative process.

ChopArt is headquartered
in Atlanta, Georgia,

with additional programs
in Hyderabad, India, and Accra, Ghana,

and since our start in 2010,

we've served over 40,000 teens worldwide.

Our teens take refuge

in the transformative
elements of the arts,

and they depend on the safe space
ChopArt provides for them to do that.

An often invisible population
uses the arts to step into their light,

but that journey out of invisibility
is not an easy one.

We have a sibling pair, Jeremy and Kelly,

who have been with our program
for over three years.

They come to the ChopArt classes
every Wednesday evening.

But about a year ago,

Jeremy and Kelly witnessed their mom
seize and die right in front of them.

They watched as the paramedics
failed to revive her.

They cried as their father

signed over temporary custody
to their ChopArt mentor, Erin,

without even allowing them to take
an extra pair of clothes on their way out.

This series of events broke my heart,

but Jeremy and Kelly's faith
and resolve in ChopArt

is what keeps me grounded in this work.

Kelly calling Erin in her lowest moment,

knowing that Erin would do
whatever she could

to make them feel loved and cared for,

is proof to me that by using
the arts as the entry point,

we can heal and build
our homeless youth population.

And we continue to build.

We build with Devin,

who became homeless with his family

when his mom had to choose
between medical bills or the rent.

He discovered his love
of painting through ChopArt.

We build with Liz,

who has been on the streets
most of her teenage years

but turns to music to return to herself

when her traumas feel too heavy
for her young shoulders.

We build for Maria,

who uses poetry to heal

after her grandfather died in the van

she's living in
with the rest of her family.

And so to the youth out there
experiencing homelessness,

let me tell you,

you have the power to build within you.

You have a voice through the arts

that doesn't judge
what you've been through.

So never stop fighting
to stand in your light

because even in your darkest times,

we see you.

Thank you.

(Applause)