'The shelters weren't open last night' — New album shares what it's like to be homeless in Springfield
Gregory J. Holman
For one homeless 30-year-old parent of two young children in Springfield, being unhoused in the Queen City can feel "particularly unkind" when others in the community "demonize" homeless people.
"Before there's even needs being met, (the community) fails to even meet the level of compassion for the people that are going without," said Coco. Coco also cited public libraries, Isabel's House children's crisis shelter and The Connecting Grounds church as local places of help and kindness.
Coco, unhoused "for most of my adult life" and currently living at a Springfield-based shelter with the kids, made the comments to the News-Leader in an interview a day after the release of a new music album intended to share what it feels like to be homeless in Missouri.
Homeless residents contribute lyrics to new album about their lives
"Forgotten Voices," a song cycle performed by 40 members of Springfield Chamber Chorus, is now available on digital streaming platforms including Spotify, iTunes, Facebook and YouTube. The six-track album is the fruit of a number of local talents, notably members of the Springfield Chamber Chorus and several local unhoused residents including Coco.
The song cycle album, as a part of the chamber chorus and its Springfield Street Choir project, was funded in part by a $12,500 grant awarded this year through A Community Thrives, a project of the USA TODAY Network's Gannett Foundation.
Composer Katie Kring with Springfield Chamber Chorus and Springfield Street Choir said this week that she got to working on "Forgotten Voices" after working on an artistic grant application. "There was a question on the application that was like, if you get this commission, how will the piece you write change the community and the world?"
Kring's first reaction? Be real: How does any piece of music really change anything? But, she said, she took the question seriously and began thinking about documentary styles of music-writing.
"People throw around the word 'life-changing,' I think far too freely," Kring told the News-Leader. "But this particular thing actually was life-changing, because once I sort of got the idea, that led to starting the Street Choir, which really led to my active involvement in homeless advocacy and all of these other things."
The premiere of "Forgotten Voices" was long delayed due to COVID-19, she and artistic director Chris Brammer acknowledged, but the delays allowed time for the song cycle to evolve and develop. Chorus leadership had originally planned to premiere the work with the Springfield Street Choir, not long after the street choir was founded in 2019, Brammer said.
Brammer said Thursday that "Forgotten Voices" was finally performed in public for the first time in July, for a convention of the Missouri Choral Directors Association that was held in Springfield for the first time in several decades. That first performance of "Forgotten Voices" caused the work to "take on a very powerful meaning to all of us," Brammer said.
Brammer said hearing the song cycle made the problem of homelessness real, bringing it out of the category of faraway social issues. He said listeners experience "really a meaningful conversation about being unhoused, and what that looks like, but also what that feels like...not just understanding the physical and monetary plight, but understanding that the emotions that run through these folks are the same that we all deal with on a daily basis."
More:Springfield Chamber Chorus and Street Choir hopes to reach new audiences
Kring's creative process combined natural recordings of streetscapes and spoken interviews with Springfield unsheltered residents along with original music, drawing from the "musique concrète" tradition of using raw ambient sound along with melody and harmony.
'I didn't think I'd wake up'
The technique shows itself in a haunting way with the very first track of "Forgotten Voices," a 4-minute song called "Last Night."
It begins with spoken words from a Facebook status Coco wrote after a tough period in the winter of early 2020: "The shelters weren't open last night, and I was afraid to go to sleep because I didn't think I'd wake up."
Coco, who identifies as gender nonbinary and uses "they" and "them" pronouns, said they were "struggling pretty hard" during that winter.
After losing access to more stable housing, Coco had been able to drop off their older son, Felix, now age 4, at crisis shelter Isabel's House — "I've never exposed my child to the elements" — but said temporary shelter wasn't available that night. Coco filled up a backpack, carried their long skateboard, and hit the streets.
They spent the night inside an abandoned silo near downtown Springfield. It was colder inside the building than outdoors, Coco told the News-Leader: "My fingers and toes were cold, and I was cold down to my very core, and there was just something in my mind that kept saying, 'don't go to sleep.'
Scared of hypothermia, Coco didn't go to sleep that night.
Coco said they hope that "Forgotten Voices" helps listeners, especially ones who live in safe homes, connect with realities of homelessness, and not just stereotypes: "A lot of people equate it with drug addiction. I'm not a drug addict. I've never had a problem with drugs. I was always very scared to try drugs because I didn't want to die. The DARE program super-worked on me. My problem was that I was born poor, and I stayed poor. I grew up in a broken home, and it never got better. I came into adulthood malformed and brand-new and without the normal things that people had, like structure."
Reach News-Leader reporter Gregory Holman by emailing gholman@gannett.com. Please consider subscribing to support vital local journalism.