Righteous Dopefiend

City life is interesting: just across the block or around the corner from your safe neighborhood, everything can change. In just a few steps the bright lights and bustling sounds are dimmed by the harsh realities of addiction, homelessness, destitution. Dr. Phillipe Bourgois of the University of Pennsylvania has dedicated more than 30 years to researching these forbidden and often overlooked locations in cities across America.

Bourgois and research partner Jeff Schonberg recently spent more than 12 years studying a group of homeless heroin and crack addicts who created a community just beyond society in San Francisco. The group lived underneath an interstate overpass where Bourgois and Schonberg dedicated their time to observing the daily lives of those cast off by society. Their findings have recently been published in Righteous Dopefiend, and are currently on exhibition at the Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.

Was it easy to walk into a group of homeless addicts and get them to let you into their lives? As a matter of fact, says Dr. Bourgois, it was. When Bourgois and a student of his first visited the encampment, Bourgois explained to a group there that his purpose was to learn about their lives. With that, a man called Carter pulled up a milk crate, brushed it off and said, “Have a seat professor.” From then on Bourgois and Schonberg were welcomed by the community that lived under the interstate and were often proudly introduced as “my professor” and “my photographer.”

“It takes very specific patterns, a specific culture to create these types of communities,” said Bourgois, but they do exist throughout America. There is a generation of heroin addicts that are now prematurely aging. This generation fell victim to the drug in the 1970s and many of the individuals studied by Bourgois have more or less been addicted since. ociety so quickly casts off addicts, you would think they would shut themselves off from any outsiders, but instead, they were all willing to open up about their lives. “I’ll let you know why I’m like this. Let me tell you my story.”

The Righteous Dopefiend exhibit gives a glimpse of what Bourgois and Schonberg discovered. Gripping photographs are highlighted with actual field notes and quotes. Audio will soon be added to supplement the experience. Its greatness comes in the form of reality. Success sits alongside complacency, alongside failure. Copies of Righteous Dopefiend are available to look through for those who complete the exhibit and still want more of Bourgois and Schonberg’s experience.

Righteous Dopefiend doesn’t just open up the world of addiction and homelessness, it’s an effort to stop the phenomenon. The exhibit also includes kiosks which detail several programs within the Philadelphia area that provide housing opportunities, drug treatments and AIDS/HIV care.

“There is a direct relationship between the cost of housing and people living on the street,” said Bourgois, and unfortunately, “low income housing is shriveling up throughout most large cities.” Fortunately, Philadelphia housing prices are relatively low. “Philly is blessed with low rents,” which keeps people off the streets and leaves the city with a comparatively low homeless rate. Unfortunately Philadelphia has the highest per capita under the poverty line; it’s the poorest big city in the U.S.

But Philly is far from destitution, it has several programs working towards prosperity for all. In addition to those listed above, Bourgois explained that Philly was an early adapter of Housing First, “a pragmatic model of housing which gets the homeless into housing and then bombards them with on-site services.” These programs do not have zero tolerance policies, eliminating any prospect of federal funding, but it is these very programs that are experiencing good success. It’s fitting that the city of brotherly love provides so much for those in need.

It is through Righteous Dopefiend and its exhibit that society can start down the long road of changing the way homelessness, poverty and drug addictions are handled. This active exhibit will also play host to several public programs throughout the next few months.

• A Conversation on Urban Poverty in Philadelphia and the United States
A round table discussion with audience participation
Wednesday, March 17, 6 – 8pm
Participants: Philippe Bourgois, Elijah Anderson, Eric Schneider, Michael Katz

• Play Reading: Corner Wars
Monday, March 22, 6pm
Corner Wars, a two act play, is the story of a day in the life of a group of young drug dealers working a street corner in North Philadelphia. Philadelphia playwright Timothy Dowlin, who studied theater at the High School for Creative and Performing Arts, wrote the play, which was awarded Newsday’s George Oppenheimer award. Omar Evans directs the reading; Mr. Dowlin joins for a question and answer period following the reading.

• Poverty and Homelessness Coalition: Addiction and Recovery
Tuesday, April 6, 6 – 8pm
Round table discussion with audience participation. A discussion among practitioners and survivors working on the front lines in Philadelphia and at the national level, finding solutions to problems of addiction, homelessness, and poverty.

• Public Health and Law Enforcement
Tuesday, May 4, 6 – 8pm
Round table discussion with audience participation. Panel participants, to be announced, re-examine the stalemate of the war on drugs, asking the question: can the traditional contradictions between laws and law enforcement and public health needs and services be mediated productively?

Visit www.penn.museum for more information on the exhibit as well as a video hosted by Bourgois himself.