Homeless choir performs at USD

Joint performance of USD students and members of San Diego homeless population delights audience

Ian Lewenhaupt / Contributor / The USD Vista

Just down the street from Petco Park, it’s not unusual to see dozens of unsheltered people lining the streets with shopping carts, tents, and sleeping bags. According to KPBS, San Diego has the fourth-largest homeless population of any city in the United States, and yet this reality of many San Diegans is one that is often unaddressed and even unknown. Despite this, the Voices of Our City Choir is determined to give hope to the homeless and combat the effects of homelessness.

The Voices of Our City, a choral organization made up largely of members of the homeless population in downtown San Diego, is both literally and figuratively giving the homeless of San Diego a voice to speak their truth. 

Voices extends beyond just the homeless community. Stephen Jordan, a former USD Student and Assistant Artistic Director for Voices, described his journey with music which eventually led him to Voices. 

“I was bipolar, manic, and suicidal, checking in and out of psych wards,” Jordan said. “But the one thing I always had was music. At first it was an iPod with a bunch of random songs, then it became a radio that somehow never ran out of batteries. These things were my therapeutic escape.” 

After much work and a breakthrough in his mental health, Jordan was determined to share the healing power of music. Jordan found this opportunity through working with Voices. 

“There is power in live music that is intended for healing,” Jordan said. “Music saved my life.”

The choral component of the organization is about the communal sharing of music that is inherent in human nature and belongs to each of us. 

Professor of Music and Director of the Choral Scholars Emilie Amrein, Ph.D., explained the idea of community music and its presence in events put on by Voices.

“The idea of community music is now a sub-discipline talking about music outside of traditional performance spaces,” Amrein said. “This is music that can be found anywhere and is often improvised and spontaneous; this is the music that lives in all of us. Exactly that is the spirit of Voices of Our City.”

This empowering expression of art was showcased at USD on Feb. 25 in a joint concert of Voices and the USD Choral Scholars in Shiley Theater. This collaboration, the first of its kind for the choral scholars, was put on in the spirit of changemaking.

“We want to build sustainable reciprocal relationships that allow for the university to serve as an anchor in the surrounding community,” Amrein said. 

Sophomore Annie Flati, a member of USD’s Choral Scholars, experienced such a connection during the performance.

“Music brings people together because of the vulnerability it welcomes,” Flati said. “It is so hard in our day-to-day lives to make room for our emotional health, but music and all art welcomes it. It’s human to be emotional.”

One of the main goals of the advocacy aspect of voices is to bring people to confront the uncomfortable reality of homelessness. 

“Voices is putting a face and sound to what is happening in the streets,” Jordan said. “When we perform our songs about the struggles of poverty right before the mayor gives his speech, it becomes hard for him to avoid talking about the issue. A singing choir is much more effective than waving an angry fist.”

Music has been the catalyst for the organization to gain momentum and expand its platform, which makes the living status of not only its members, but also of the broader homeless community of San Diego, harder and harder to ignore.