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Thank you.

He's a retired history professor, using his gifted photographic eye to capture intimate images of the homeless population in the Olympia area.

His photograph are telling not just a story of a social problem, but also a story about the individual people he's built relationships with in his quest to document their plight.

Photo journalist JM Simpson is next on northwest now.

Music The era of open air encampments on city and state property seems to be coming to an end, as lawmakers and administrators respond to a growing majority of the population that has finally grown weary of dealing with the problem in the areas they frequent for recreation and business.

But with that said, it doesn't mean the problems are going away.

Substance abuse and mental illness are still rampant in the homeless population.

And all the great ideas to treat root causes and reduce the unhoused population at scale have fallen flat.

as Steve Kiggins shows us now, into that World walks JM Simpson, documenting the story of the homeless and forcing all of us to look at them right in the eye.

Photojournalist Jim Simpson tells me this all began on a walk a couple of years ago, when he came across two people suffering overdose.

They were nearly hypothermic.

Simpson tells me he covers the dangers facing those living on the streets and the complicity that perpetuates their suffering.

What is it about us as a as a culture, that we seem to not see these people standing directly in front of us?

Photojournalist John Simpson's photographs are published in black and white.

A decision he says aims to strip away distractions, forcing his audience to confront the injustice happening all around them.

Photography is a means of communication, and if the photograph doesn't talk to the viewer, it's not a good photograph.

My images speak to the viewer.

When Simpson invited northwest now for an interview, Olympia was drenched in cold December rain.

You spent hours in the elements with his unhoused neighbors.

He doesn't wait for better weather.

Simpson says he wants his photojournalism to expose his audience to the raw reality he sees through a lens.

I want you to see what they're living in, and then I want you to ask yourself the following question why aren't you helping?

When Simpson wasn't working with a history professor at his college, he was also a photojournalist embedded with Jblm Stryker brigade, including tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

And while Thurston County is a far cry from central and western Asia, he says sometimes the suffering feels familiar.

Sometimes some of the places we were in, or I've been in overseas have been pretty hard as far as the amount of destruction sometimes around here with the garbage and the and the and the sheer poverty of it.

Yeah, there's there's a comparison.

How do you feel looking at these images?

Do you get overcome sometimes?

You go two ways.

I go two ways.

Part of it is the empathy, which at times also turns into anger.

Simpson's work at the news organization won the 2024 Insight Award for Visual Journalism by the Institute for Nonprofit News Recognition.

There's no finish line, and as long as his neighbors continue suffering, Simpson says he'll record the neglect.

I want to do something that's that lasts more than I'm going to be alive.

I want to make a change.

And God damn it, I'm going to do it.

In Olympia, Steve Keegan's northwest now.

Jim Simpson, thanks so much for coming to northwest now.

Great to have you on this program.

I've been looking at your work for a while, and I thought this would be a great discussion.

Start us out with a little bit about your biography.

You're a history professor, city council person, wartime photographer, and lay that on us a little bit.

All right.

I taught for 28 years of Pierce College as a history instructor.

I had, I served for 21 years in the United States Air Force Reserve, and I had the pleasure of serving on the liquid city council for two terms.

We relocated to Lacey, Washington, about three years ago, and about two years ago I became interested in documenting, the homeless in Olympia.

Why?

Why?

I believe that I have a moral obligation to leave this life a little better than I found it.

I know that sounds a bit cliche ish, but that is what I think.

And I have been provided with the opportunities to be where I am in life today.

And this is my way of trying to using those opportunities.

Call it entitle to call it privileged to do something of value for those who have not had the opportunities, that I have had.

I don't think you have to apologize for having a mission.

I think that's okay.

All right.

Thank you.

I mean, you see this as a missional piece, obviously.

Yes, I do.

I am very determined in making a statement to, as I put it, the powers that be that this is a, in a sense, a slow, dripping problem in our society, that if we do not address it in a logical and coherent manner, it is only going to get worse.

Isn't it being addressed compassionately?

That's the argument.

I would respectfully disagree.

While one can say one is compassionate.

I, when reminded that the way to hell is paved with good intentions.

I believe that what we have and I'm not going to be clear here.

I'm not impugning the intentions of the folks who are already involved in helping the homeless, but I believe that our approach is scattered.

It is fractured, and it needs to be, as I said a moment ago, coherent, clear, centralized and moving in one specific direction.

And that is to end homelessness in the United States.

Let's talk a little bit about your process.

You you talk about wanting to do long walks, talking before photography.

Working with permission as opposed to taking a picture more of a collaborative, permission based system.

No motor drives, no big set ups, no, Hollywood style setups here.

You're you keep it on the DL a little bit.

You're you you build this relationship.

Talk a little bit about that.

And what does it yield in terms of what you're able to get.

Process.

You are working I am working with fellow human beings.

And I believe that even though the courts have said that when you are in public, you have no expectation of privacy.

I do believe you have the expectation of being treated with respect, and so to further this, this, this idea of process, I work with one camera, one lens.

I will not steal a photograph.

Hence the idea of asking permission.

Just as you would expect to be treated with respect, I think the homeless have that, have that should have that expectation as well.

I do sit.

I will sit down, and talk with, these individuals.

I have found that many of them just want someone to listen to them.

And at some point when I think we have, in a sense, established a rapport, I will simply ask if I can take a photograph.

And I mean, not using motor drive, not lights, as you mentioned.

Not a big Hollywood thing.

Just simply ask, May I take a photograph or two?

I don't think I've ever taken more than 5 or 6 of any one particular person whom I have photographed.

Again, I think it's a matter of respect.

I think it's how you approach people.

And for the, for the most part, just my way has seems to work well for me.

I will say photos definitely tell a story and yours do pictures worth a thousand words.

Ever thought though about including and getting a little more into the text based piece of storytelling?

A little bit to tell to do provide those back stories to do provide some of what, some of what a picture can't capture.

Hope I'm making sense there.

You make sense.

But as you mentioned earlier, a picture is or can be worth a thousand words.

I prefer not.

It's not that your suggestion is bad in and some and I have written extended captions, but I prefer to let the photograph I prefer to let the subject in the photograph do the speaking.

For example, in the photographs you've seen.

Where are those individuals eyes?

They're looking right back at you.

And what I'm saying, or what I hope I'm saying through these photographs without using words.

Ignore these people.

Tell him or her why they are being ignored, why they can't get the services they need.

Why the services that are provided seem to be at odds with each other.

Tell them that.

And I think as you correctly pointed out, that's the story that I'm trying to communicate through and with these photographs.

One of the great critiques of documenting the homeless, is that it's what's called.

And you've heard this term, I'm sure, misery porn.

Yes.

So how do you, I think you've addressed it a lot in terms of what your processes in your mental, approaches to this.

But when it comes to voyeurism or objectification or even romanticization, hard word to say a little bit.

You have to be on guard against that, right?

I mean, even even with your process, you still have to be thinking, you know what that is?

I can't put it better than you just put it.

You are.

I will not romanticize this.

I don't, and I really do not like the words misery porn.

No, this is a human condition that we are not addressing in this society.

And if there are individuals in our society that wish to call it misery porn, then they are the poorer for it.

That's not the point.

And I think most people such as yourself, intelligent people, educated people, understand this is about a condition, as I've referred to it, a slow, dripping problem in our society that seems to be getting bigger.

So I, I guess I can't I don't think I could add anything more to that, although I will admit that those two words do anger me when people do that.

I'm going to put a quote up on the screen here from your article in Joel, and I'm going to read that quote.

It is fair to say that some of these homeless individuals are the authors of their own predicaments drug use, domestic violence, bad decisions, and bad luck situations.

Others are the victims of the actions of others foster care, child sexual abuse, and mental health issues.

finally as many have commented.

Some are just plain criminals who hide amongst the other homeless.

What I like about this quote is that you see the 360 degree picture.

You know, everybody wants the single answer.

Oh, they're all victims.

It's a homeless problem.

No, it's a drug problem.

No, they're all criminals.

No, a little bit of everything.

Correct.

Hard to tell that story, though, isn't it?

Very hard?

It's simple.

It's in many ways.

It's very much like trying to tell a story of just of housed people.

Is not our society comprised of the same three elements that we just described there?

The answer is yes.

In that regard, the homeless are no different.

There is a hierarchy.

If individuals spend time out on the street actually listening, talking with not two and not at, but with homeless individuals, they will learn this.

Some of them have hurt themselves.

Some of them are homeless by choice, others have been hurt by the system, and others are just plain bad.

Have this conversation with Caleb Banta Green, who's one of the major researchers at the Drug and Alcohol Abuse Institute at Washington University of Washington, is a pretty regular guest on this program.

Okay, came up last time.

I said, you know, one of the big things about the homeless and the drug addict is we're angry at them.

There is a piece in a lot of people, and I get it too, where they see that personal responsibility piece, they see the failures, and we're mad at them.

Yes.

We we don't want them living under bridges.

There's a compassionate piece, but there's anger to address that a little bit.

Do you sense that in some people who see your work and how do we, you know, give us a little therapy when it comes to the anger piece?

I think I'll sidestep the therapy.

Okay.

But, yeah, I can understand why some people might feel angry, but have they ever considered that perhaps some the homeless feel angry toward them, that they feel that society, educational systems, social services systems, religious systems have let them down?

It's I you ask a very good question in the sense that I don't think there's a complete answer to the question other than to say that it's a two way street, that many of the homeless aren't.

They didn't wake up one morning thinking they wanted to be homeless.

They, through a series of circumstances, whether of their own choosing or outside of themselves, they are where they are.

And the point of my photography is this is a problem, and I think I have an obligation to point this out that we need to address in this country, let alone globally, because the United States isn't the only country that is experiencing a homeless situation.

Another quote from you.

Transparency is a myth when it comes to action by government in Olympia.

Lots of virtual, virtue signaling out there.

All the great things we should be doing.

And, and yet I always tell people to focus on the results.

Tune out the noise, whatever the issue is, and let's see the results.

So how does virtue signaling and how did the virtue signaling and the comments that are being made and the and the speech and the rhetoric compare with the results.

What's your take on that?

They couldn't be farther apart.

And this is again, I'll come back to what I said earlier.

I think individuals on both the county and the city level are well intentioned.

There is there's no question there how they go about the job and the competition for either federal dollars or state dollars or other agencies dollars and how they go about it.

I sometimes think that the homeless get lost in this.

There have been studies done talking about the industry that has built up around the homeless.

I have the feeling at times that municipalities and counties such as Thurston and Olympia have done the same thing, and nonprofit.

Oh as well.

The term you may be searching for is the homeless industrial complex.

It's been called.

Okay, I know that.

I wasn't aware of it.

Okay.

I've just heard of the homelessness industry.

But either way, I think that there needs to be a putting aside of the virtue signaling, the nice talk about being a social justice warrior and perhaps getting to work addressing the problem in a bipartisan, let's build a consensus approach rather than what we have now, which we have is a rising number of homeless in the aforementioned city and county.

So what you're saying is this problem can't be solved on Twitter.

No.

That reminds me, because I remember in one of my The Jolt Journal of Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater articles, I invite did county and city officials to come with me?

None.

Did that also, that invitation was to the individuals who work with the homeless in Olympia.

No one showed up.

So again, I'm I'm I'm a little disappointed, to put it mildly, at the reaction of those individuals who have either been elected or hired to help.

And yet I'll have a homeless woman tell me, why can't I find a bathroom for me, for women and the issues I have?

Why can't I find that out here on the street?

Yeah.

Well, I wonder the same thing.

Yeah.

Want to swing back into photography here a little bit?

You know, if I were to critique your work, I would say one of the possible critiques of it is that it's beautiful.

Now, that sounds like a weird critique.

It's an awful situation with people who are in pain and who are in trouble and don't have homes.

But your photographs are beautiful.

Ever think about that?

Is that a conflict?

I have thought about that, and I wish I wasn't making such beautiful photographs of something that we should not be photographing in this country.

I have had that discussion with myself on numerous times.

Yeah, it's a tough one.

It is.

There is always a moral sort of an ambiguity or paradox here that on one hand.

Yes, I know when I make a good photograph that I'm not kidding myself at all.

On the other hand, I wish I didn't have to.

Not of this.

You don't have to name names here, but I want to talk about the editorial process a little deeper here and other media.

Bad editorial decision making, things like.

No names, no faces.

They're portrayed as kind of generic problems.

And and I can, you know, speak from experience on this.

A lot of times, if you're talking about drug addiction and the problems of the homeless and victimization and crime, I am deliberately not showing faces.

I am deliberately shooting their hands and their feet and over their shoulders and things because I don't want to.

I'm very careful about not ascribing some of those characteristics to any particular person, who I have no idea whether they're a criminal or a drug.

So I got to be careful.

So how do you balance what gentrifying generic offering them and personifying them?

That's tough to.

That's a darn good question.

I would I would start my answer by saying, that is the reason why I want and I want eye contact.

I do ask and receive first names.

I don't think we start to move the needle on solving this of working through this problem by photographing feet or over the shoulders.

Look these fellow human beings in the eye and then ask yourself what can I do.

What can we do as collectively as a society to help, to solve or at least start to take steps to solve this problem?

That is that's probably the best answer, Tom, that I can, I can, I can offer I ask this question not that long ago, sadly, to the now late Matt Driscoll columnist.

Yeah, yeah.

For the News Tribune.

And I'll ask this question to you as well.

Can journalism or photojournalism or column writing solve these problems?

Does journalism still have the power, the scale and the gravitas to do it?

Never read, the Greek story about sex pushing a rock up the hill.

At times I feel like that.

That aside, my answer to you is yes.

I do think journalism and I do think photojournalism or in my case, documentary photography, can and should work continue to work toward moving the needle on issues of importance to our society.

Yeah, I do think so.

Have you seen any evidence of it working?

Have, have have you ever had any results or any feedback or any.

Hey man, I saw these things and I'm going to do this and I'm going to volunteer.

Talk about some of your success stories if you've been able to.

Yeah I yeah I and again I'll preface that by saying I wish I didn't have these success stories.

I've been working with a, philosophy professor at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

His name is Paul Scofield.

He has spent three days with me in Olympia back in October interviewing the homeless.

And he did a wonderful job.

I mean, this man knows what he's doing.

We have I received an email today about perhaps the New York Times is interested in an article with photographs.

Seattle met, did a story on me and my photography.

So, yes, there have been success stories, but that's not the point.

The success comes when I see numbers of homeless begin to decrease when I don't see women on the street, in misery.

Any of your subjects made it out?

You know, you shot a, with Bob, and now you.

Turns out Bob is working at Lowe's and has an apartment.

I know that some of them have made it to way a little and a home, and I'm one of the little villages.

I know that a couple of them have made their way out and have a part time job, but the vast majority, some of these individuals I have seen ever since I started this project 19 months ago, they're still there.

And unfortunately there are some folks they simply will not use a shelter.

They will not, they will, they want to live on the streets.

And I think that's the hardest is when you're out there in 14 degree weather and they're out there too.

What's your general impression of the people.

And I know I'm asking you to paint with an awfully broad brush here.

Are they kind of happy or are they mostly miserable?

Do they want out?

And I know there are outliers, you know, if we draw that curve.

But if I'm asking you to look at the me to the curb curve, who are they?

What do they want and how are they feeling?

I think what has struck me the most is the sheer crushing boredom of being out on the street, and nothing to look forward or to work toward.

Boredom is one the other thought that has crossed my mind on occasion is the it's almost a sense of stoicism.

They know they're cold.

They know they're hungry.

They know that that they're going to be, in a sense, ignored, but they don't complain about it.

And I'll tell you something else that I've noticed I have.

I ask every person if I can take their photograph, and sometimes I get told no.

Sometimes in fairly colorful language, I get told no.

But you know what always catches me off guard?

The thank you.

And I have thought to myself, I hear more thank yous from homeless people than I do from some housed people in our society.

And that reminds me that don't ever take for granted what you have, because I know some folks out here on the streets in Olympia who did, and here they are.

And I think that thank you means too.

You've seen me.

Thank you.

Yes.

You've seen it.

Fair point.

Fair point.

I think everyone, like I said earlier, deserves to be treated with respect.

Jim, I appreciate you coming in and having this conversation.

I think it was just great.

And I really appreciate your, your perspective on all this.

And I wish you the.

I wish you the best in the future.

It was a pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

Can great photojournalism solve the homeless problem?

The bottom line?

No it can't.

Not by itself.

But it can serve to keep the problem front and center and help us all remember that what we see as a group of homeless people are individuals.

They are people's children, parents and siblings.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web at KBTC dot org.

Stream it through the PBS app or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest.

Now, until next time, I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

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