Support New Yorkers Experiencing Housing Insecurity

The Unframed Arts Collective is a group of students (now recent graduates) that witnessed firsthand the difficulties related to housing insecurity and came together to design a program devoted to serving New Yorkers experiencing financial hardships. The Unframed Arts Collective started at a soup kitchen with two tables devoted to delivering art therapy and conversation to our guests and have increased to a space with 6 tables devoted to providing a variety of resources and services to individuals in need.

Our guests are a population that undoubtedly remains underserved in our current social, political, and economic climate. They navigate their day-to-day feeling unheard by the world. Every Sunday, we make it our mission to ensure our guests feel heard, acknowledged, seen, and respected. The arts are meant to mitigate these inequalities by uplifting their expression and healing. In its various forms, the arts are a method of storytelling that demands the artist's story, heart, and soul be heard, known, and remembered.

The Unframed Arts Collective started with just two workshop tables centered through the arts designed to offer spaces of self-expression, conversation, and peace in a form of art therapy. We have had guests who shared that they have never picked up a paint brush and it has truly been an honor to encourage and witness the evolution of their artistic development. On the other hand, we have also had guests with visual arts and literary backgrounds and a strong vision for their work that we have the privilege to support.

From that point, our programs have grown as we’ve considered how else we can serve the community. We now offer a free book library, take-home art activities for kids, and school supplies for all ages. In progress is the addition of writing workshops, the creation of a community post board that can be a resource for our guests, schoolwork support, and a summer art gallery, as well as the opportunity for tabling for different community-based organizations that can use our space.

For our younger and immigrant guests, art becomes a medium that welcomes them to an ecosystem of inclusion. Art communicates happiness, but also grief and loss, becoming a long-term coping resource and support system. The Unframed Arts Collective's goal is to not only provide a space to foster community but also to platform an underserved community and raise awareness on the effects of the currently progressing homelessness crisis.