The Invisible Citizens: Urban Life of the Homeless

The Invisible Citizens: Urban Life of the Homeless is a book that I, along with Aqua Tsang and Max Au (photographer), documented and analyzed to explore the homelessness situation and related civic actions. We based our work on a year of interviews with sixty-five homeless individuals and three social workers, as well as six months of community-based actions in Hong Kong. The book captures the stories of why some homeless individuals choose to live on the streets, the challenges they face, and the difficulties and limitations in securing housing. It concludes with observations of community actions and self-reflections.

The book combines photographs and written accounts to invite readers to uncover the less familiar image of this "Asia World City," a term David Harvey once described as a "perfect neoliberal society." Through this book, we aim to encourage readers to pay attention to and care for this marginalized group in society.

In addition, I led twenty-five community-based experiential learning sessions, bringing over six hundred students from three prominent universities, five high schools, and four non-profit organizations to homeless areas in Hong Kong. The book, along with these sessions, was recognized with the Seeds of Good Deeds award at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), acknowledging our effort to bridge the gap between readers, students in classrooms, and those living on the streets.