Summary Of Raising The Roof

Raising the Roof has created a particular narrative to help raise awareness and find long-term solutions to homelessness by humanizing the story of homelessness and making it personal through emphasizing character. Characters are entities that have agency that are involved in action (Abbott, 2008, p.230). Flat characters are characters that do not exist outside a single dominant quality (Abbott, 2008, p.230). In contrast, round characters are characters that have more depth, as they are not predictable (Abbott, 2008, p. 230). Also, the narrator within a story often influences Character, as the story is often told from the perspective of the narrator (Abbott, 2008, p.116). In the case of Raising the Roof, their initiative to focus on
the characters behind the issue of homelessness, allows them to make a connection between real people and the issue. Through the emphasis on these individual characters, Raising the Roof is able to change the perspective on the story of homelessness. They provide the opportunity for people to hear the lesser-known story of homelessness. By allowing the story to be told by those experiencing homelessness, it gives agency to homeless individuals, and it therefore allows people to see themselves within these characters, and it allows for Raising the Roof to create a narrative about a issue that can potentially affect anyone. In January of 2009, Raising the Roof launched the “Humans for Humans” campaign, where they invited 10 individuals to share their stories of homelessness and respond to public judgments (Raising The Roof, 2015).
The videos showcased for this campaign that were featured on YouTube showed homeless individuals emotionally reading mean tweets about homeless people (Raising The Roof, 2015). Instead of talking about homelessness from an outside perspective, Raising the Roof put the emphasis on the real characters who are facing the challenge of homelessness everyday. There is a stigma around homeless people in society that forces homeless people to be seen as flat characters. People do not often see homeless people as anything other than homeless. This campaign allowed Raising the Roof to emphasize that these homeless people are in fact round characters. By allowing them to reveal true emotion by reading mean tweets, and sharing their stories, Raising the Roof revealed the true depth of these people, and showed the public why they need to care because the homeless too are just ‘everyday individuals’. Raising the Roof allowed for individuals experiencing homelessness to become the narrator of their organizations story. By humanizing the issue of homelessness, and giving agency back to homeless people by allowing them to share their own stories, Raising the Roof is able to advance their personal narratives by making people care about the issue of homelessness and overall sharing awareness about the importance of finding long-term
solutions.