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I am asking you to tell the story of a forgotten person, a reviled person, an unwanted person, a “homeless” person. One on one, I will arrange for you to interview one of Los Angeles’s hardcore homeless and write his or her story. Did he play ball as a kid? Who was her mother? Did he serve in Vietnam? Can she read and write? Where are his kids now? What did it mean to be cool when she was 14? What does it take to live on the streets of LA? How do you see yourself as a person today?

Please join with me in putting a human face on “homelessness”. It will only take a day of your time and I will have arranged for you to meet with your subject either Saturday April 28 or Sunday April 29 at the Volunteers of America Drop-in Center, 628 South San Julian Street. You can conduct your interview at the Drop-in Center or, if you are willing, over lunch at a near-by restaurant (for which Big Sunday will reimburse you). The project contemplates an interview with a single subject that you will turn into an op-ed length biography (2500 to 4000 words). According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, roughly one-third of homeless adults have served in the armed forces. “On any given day, as many as 200,000 veterans (male and female) are living on the streets or in shelters, and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year:’ There are now more homeless Vietnam veterans than Vietnam dead. Compounding the scourge of addiction, disease, injury and mental illness, many of these homeless veterans suffer from post traumatic stress disorder which was, until recently, undiagnosed and untreated. You will tell their story: their youth, their fall from grace, their efforts to overcome their situation, the realities of their life on the streets. Your biography will be credited. I have arranged for a professional photograph of your subject. The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times and several internet publishers have expressed interest in publishing the biographies. Help make “the homeless” human.