TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — Paint pen in hand, Josefina Sanders etched name after name on a downtown Tampa wall Thursday morning.
"This is one of my favorite projects," she said.
That's because every name she writes is a chance to honor a life lost. A life that society sometimes tends to overlook.
"I think that we look at homeless people, but we don't realize like, they don't wake up one day, or they're born one day and say, I want to be a homeless person when I wake up. So it allows me to really add deeper meaning to the work I'm putting into, and it allows me to, even if for a second, just put a story into that name that I'm writing down," Sanders said.
The wall is at Portico. It's a downtown Tampa hub of sorts for people experiencing homelessness. Earlier this week, we showcased the group's weekly community breakfast.
According to them, 111 homeless people died last year. For the past 5 years, Sanders and Portico have updated the wall with the names of that year's deaths.
"One of the moments where it really hit me was when I had to write a one-day-old's name. And again, like people aren't born saying I want to be a homeless person. And this baby wasn't granted a future because, you know, she died on the streets, and her parents died on the streets," she added.
But Portico is there for people down on their luck. To Christine Long, it's the closest thing she has to home.
"They really care about the people because they're always bringing us food and clothes and toiletries," she said, adding the help in Tampa is unlike any other city she's been in.
While Long is grateful for the help, she still hopes to see stronger solutions.
"It would be nice if we all had somewhere to sleep inside just to have the security and safety, and we'd just be nice. We could all sleep inside at night. So like a dream," she said.
There's another piece of art at Portico. Out front is a statue known as 'Homeless Jesus.' Portico is hosting a memorial for the lives lost last year at the statue January 22 at 6 p.m.
