NYC Public Artwork by Alex Strada to Center Homelessness

Storefront for Art & Architecture, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC Department of Social Services and Department of Homeless Services, wil present Public Address, a multiborough, year-long socially engaged public artwork by artist Alex Strada that centers the lived experiences of housing insecurity. The project seeks to destigmatize homelessness by amplifying the voices of people living in city shelters and frontline shelter staff through platforming their handwritten and drawn reflections onto official city signage. Public Address will premiere in Lt. Petrosino Square on October 18, with an opening event, and will move across all five boroughs over the course of a year. Individual signs will be installed throughout Manhattan—extending the installation’s reach across the borough. Programming for the project will include an inaugural talk on October 25 with Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer Jennifer Egan and Deputy Director for Advocacy at Coalition for the Homeless, Will Watts.

“I make art to transform systems of power,” says artist Alex Strada. “Public Address emerges from years of sustained listening, working closely with people experiencing homelessness and frontline shelter staff across the boroughs. I heard many frustrations around how homelessness is ignored and misperceived. Through the ‘log-writing’ workshops and anonymous reflections now displayed through the subversion of city signage, those most impacted can safely speak directly to the public, something that otherwise might not be possible with the increased criminalization of homelessness and migration. Record-level homelessness demands new tools and calls on every New Yorker to engage.”

"Alex Strada's Public Address demonstrates the power of public art to open our eyes to new perspectives, foster empathy, and point the way toward creating a more inclusive city," said NYC Cultural Affairs Commissioner Laurie Cumbo. "As our Public Artist in Residence with the Department of Homeless Services, Strada collaborated with people living in shelters and frontline staff to illuminate their experiences. The resulting work de-stigmatizes homelessness and invites all New Yorkers to engage with the project, helping to bridge the distance that too often separates us from our neighbors."

"Art has the power to inspire change and amplify voices too often left unheard, especially those of people experiencing homelessness whom DHS serves every day, and Alex Strada's installation as DHS' Public Artist in Residence is a powerful testament to that," said Department of Homeless Services Administrator Joslyn Carter. "Through Public Address, Alex has brought together four city agencies in a collective effort to challenge harmful stereotypes about homelessness. I am hopeful this work sparks dialogue and fosters empathy, connection and understanding across our city and discredits the harmful stereotypes of those experiencing homelessness."

“Forty years after Storefront's Homeless at Home confronted New York's housing crisis, Alex Strada's Public Address carries its legacy forward, showing how collective artistic action can center the voices of those most impacted by housing insecurity, an issue that remains among the city's most urgent and unresolved concerns,” says Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa, Deputy Director and Curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture.

The city remains the only municipality in the United States to guarantee the right to shelter, a commitment established through decades of advocacy and litigation. Public Address allows those most impacted to speak directly to the public, emphasizing access to temporary shelter as a basic right while exposing the limits of such provision in addressing deeper crises of affordability, displacement, and care.

Strada has been the Public Artist in Residence with the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and Department of Homeless Services since 2022. Public Address builds on over three years of collaborative “log-writing” workshops Strada has developed and held in dozens of shelters across the city. Over 300 participants have contributed reflections exploring issues related to navigating the shelter system, housing advocacy, migration, the role of caregiving and other themes. The handwritten and drawn reflections by residents and frontline staff were printed onto upcycled aluminum street signs fabricated in the Department of Transportation's Sign Shop, the same outlet that makes all municipal signs for New York City. Transforming the bureaucratic tool of the logbook and the language of official city infrastructure into works of art, these signs will serve as forms of public testimony, amplifying voices that too often are not heard. Strada designed the installations to facilitate listening, dialogue, and respite in a city where public space is increasingly privatized.

Following the debut in Petrosino Square, Public Address will continue to grow and iterate across each borough every few months, with large-scale installations in NYC parks in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, as well as individual signs—one per community district—that will be affixed to lampposts, prompting passersby to pause and engage. As the project travels across the boroughs, Strada will continue to host “log-writing” sessions in shelters, continuously integrating new responses.

Using GIS mapping, Strada has identified disparities in where homeless shelters are placed throughout the city. Depending on the location, the signs will strategically challenge stereotypes and misperceptions around homelessness, migration, and NIMBYism. Through this ongoing work, Strada asks the NYC public to address homelessness as part of their civic responsibility. Most importantly, the project's public presence offers people experiencing homelessness and staff an unprecedented space for their voices to be heard. Bringing together disparate city agencies—Parks, Cultural Affairs, Homeless Services, Transportation, and NYC DOT Art—with Storefront for Art and Architecture, Public Address exemplifies how artistic practice can uniquely address complex issues like homelessness and confront the infrastructure and shifting terrain of civic life in the city.

Public Address is being realized through a partnership Strada established with Commonpoint Queens, allowing people in their construction job program, many of whom live in shelters, to be hired and paid to install and deinstall the work. As the project moves through the boroughs, it will be accompanied by transdisciplinary public programming focused on housing justice, migrant rights, the criminalization of homelessness, and community-driven systems such as mutual aid networks, tenants' unions, and community land trusts.

The project is the first in a series by Storefront for Art & Architecture, titled Public Works, of off-site commissions by artists Alex Strada, David L. Johnson, and Rose Salane, whose work each responds to the erosion—and reinvention—of civic infrastructures in New York City. These projects will examine how the vulnerability of public institutions and non-governmental organizations that have traditionally served as mediators in civic life can open a space for artists to engage and address, providing both critique and alternatives to systemic shortcomings.