Humanities Truck Community Archive

Between 1996 and 2002, Daniel Kerr founded and directed the Cleveland Homeless Oral History Project. Throughout this period, nearly 200 unhoused men and women in Cleveland, Ohio participated in workshops, audio and video interviews, and research questionnaires. As part of the project Kerr initiated Frost Radio, a weekly show on WRUW FM Cleveland. Kerr addresses the project in his articles, “‘We Know What the Problem Is’: Using Oral History to Develop a Collaborative Analysis of Homelessness from the Bottom Up,” in the Oral History Review, "Countering Corporate Narratives from the Streets: The Cleveland Homeless Oral History Project," in Oral History and Public Memories, “Cracking the Temp Trap: Day Laborers’ Grievances and Strategies for Change in Cleveland, Ohio,” in the Labor Studies Journal, and “‘Almost Like I am in Jail’ Homelessness and the Sense of Immobility in Cleveland, Ohio,” Journal Cultural Studies. The themes generated in the workshops for the project gave structure to his book, Derelict Paradise: Homelessness and Urban Development in Cleveland, Ohio.