{"id":39507,"date":"2025-09-25T10:17:59","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=39507"},"modified":"2025-11-03T10:49:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T15:49:46","slug":"furman-students-research-tells-the-stories-behind-being-unhoused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-students-research-tells-the-stories-behind-being-unhoused\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman student\u2019s research tells the stories behind being unhoused"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since coming to Furman University, Jason Levitt \u201926 has aspired to be a primary care physician and make a difference in his community. A faculty-facilitated research opportunity with United Ministries<\/a> of Greenville, South Carolina provided just that.<\/p>\n

Levitt, a public health major<\/a> from Spartanburg, South Carolina, wanted to go beyond data and textbook knowledge and get involved with his community, learning directly from people experiencing homelessness about how they\u2019re affected by the challenges they face.<\/p>\n

\"A

Public health major Jason Levitt \u201926 had a guiding hand in a summer research project he conducted with Cass. Photo by Jeremy Fleming.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBehind every statistic is a person,\u201d Levitt said. \u201cWhen Dr. Anna Cass<\/a> (associate professor of health sciences at) came to me with an opportunity to conduct research with United Ministries, I knew this was the opportunity I wanted and needed to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n

By combining a summer internship at Place of Hope Day Shelter<\/a> in Greenville, South Carolina and a research project working with willing participants who were unhoused, Levitt could get a variety of experiences and perspectives on working with people experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the photovoice method comes in. This qualitative research method has participants take photographs and share narratives about their experiences, all of which provide insights into social, political and health-related issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this method, advocacy is part of what you\u2019re doing,\u201d Cass said. \u201cI\u2019ve been doing research for 25 years and when I came home after the first day working with our participants I said, \u2018I just had the best research day of my career.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A

Rodriquez Norris, one of the participants in a photovoice research project conducted by Cass and Levitt \u201926, looks at one of the photos Norris took for the project during an exhibition of the work on Sept. 19 at A Place of Hope in Greenville, South Carolina. Photo by Damian Dominguez, Furman University.<\/p><\/div>\n

After two months of Levitt\u2019s internship working with and alongside the people receiving services at Place of Hope, he helped design and order the prompts provided to their research participants. He and Cass separately worked with participants individually, listening to the stories they shared with each photo and documenting their insights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who are actually living these circumstances we want to understand \u2013 like homelessness \u2013 must have a voice in shaping that understanding,\u201d Levitt said. \u201cTheir perspectives, shared through their own words and images, can pair with data to make advocacy more impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cass and Levitt will continue to work with the narratives collected through their research and find ways to make a difference with the participants\u2019 insights. But on Sept. 19, Cass attended a private exhibition at A Place of Hope, where the participants and their guests had the chance to see a selection of their photos framed, with excerpts of their comments printed underneath. As some of the participants excitedly pointed out photos they had taken Cass chatted with them like old friends, catching up on their new jobs and how their friends have been doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through an internship and undergraduate research project, public health major Jason Levitt \u201926 gave voice to guests at Greenville, South Carolina day shelter Place of Hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":39482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3498,58,94,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation-lab","category-internships","category-public-health","category-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39509,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39507\/revisions\/39509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}