When Sarah turned 21, her life was flipped upside down when her mother was diagnosed with a mental health condition. But what does it mean to be mentally ill? Nobody in her family would discuss it. Overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty for her mother’s future and frustrated by the silence surrounding mental illness, Sarah couldn’t find answers anywhere. This is when she started to ask herself the question she feared most, the thing she had always felt but was too alarmed to say out loud: Why did homeless people remind her of her mother? 

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Determined to find answers, Sarah embarked on a transformative journey into the heart of the homeless community. What began as a three-month college internship, writing for a nonprofit street paper, evolved into nearly two years of deep personal exploration. As she immersed herself in the lives of those without homes, Sarah listened to their stories and witnessed their struggles, uncovering a disquieting reflection of her own.