In 1991, Susan Madden Lankford rented the old Seaport Village Jail to photograph a fashion piece because “she liked the light.” Her project soon attracted the curiosity of homeless people who broke into the former jail to sleep at night. Her curiosity evolved into an 18-year journey to capture the lives of San Diego’s street people in photos and interviews, which she gradually unravels in her latest book, “Downtown U.S.A: A Personal Journey with the Homeless.” Lankford uses her camera, shooting in black-and-white, to zero in on the expression, emotion and character of the homeless she interviews and, more often than not, befriends. Lankford does not stray from the personal lives and daily happenings of the people in her book to preach about their plight or lament their ills. Instead, she introduces the reader to the oft ignored and feared homeless person who has a narrative far greater than simply about resting her head on a sidewalk, shelter bed or parkland at night. Everyone has a story to tell whether he is homeless or not; people who live on the street are no different in this regard, said Michael, whom the book spotlights through two decades of struggling with drugs and sleeping on the street. Lankford first pursued Michael to interview after seeing him hurry past her Fifth Avenue work studio pushing a cart of stolen copper. Michael began handing Lankford writings about his life for a small payment. “Michael continued to intrigue me,” Lankford wrote. “He didn’t seem to have a real reason to be on the streets, other than the drugs. He wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t stupid. He was actually pretty damn smart. I’d always feel surprised when I got back to the loft and opened up the crumpled pieces of paper he’d shoved in my direction.” Michael spoke at a Dec. 1 consortium of downtown stakeholders – politicians, business people, residents, experts – to discuss issues surrounding the homeless. Lankford sponsored the discussion through her social project, Humane Exposures. “It’s a good thing to bring things to light so we can deal with them,” said Michael, who has now held a steady job for the past 10 years. Spending time with the homeless led Lankford on a journey to portray the lives of mothers in the San Diego women’s detention center in Lankford’s first book, “Maggots in My Sweet Potatoes.” Lankford is now working on another exposure about incarcerated juveniles.
