Mayor Mike Seminary announced today that the City of Bismarck is participating in a national project to raise awareness about homelessness in our community.

The City of Bismarck is taking part in the Capital Cities’ Mayors Homelessness Awareness Installation campaign, an initiative started in Charleston, South Carolina as part of a national campaign to raise public awareness about the plight of those experiencing homelessness. Through the installation of public art plywood figures displaying a homeless symbol in a prominent location of a capital city building – capital cities hope to raise public awareness about those experiencing homelessness in their community. The plywood art figure homeless symbol is located at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library and will be on display throughout the month of October. The library is one of the most visited city buildings with 350,000 visitors annually.

A Point in Time Survey that counts sheltered and unsheltered people on a single day, showed 179 chronic homeless individuals in Region 7 (central North Dakota). One hundred forty-three people were housed in emergency shelters and 36 were unsheltered (26 adults, and 10 children). The count was conducted by the North Dakota Coalition for Homeless People in January 2016.

“The exhibit illustrates how homeless people are often not seen by our community and encourages people to discover the existing organizations in our city that serve and assist the homeless,” said Mayor Mike Seminary. “We are fortunate to have a community that is full of talented service providers, faith-based groups, businesses and individuals who work on solutions to end homelessness and help to ensure that housing and other basic human needs are met.”

Look for more coming soon to the display. A collection of wet plate photography prints will soon be added to the homeless symbol display, provided courtesy of Shane Balkowitsch, wet plate photographer.