Angelo Anderson goes to work every day with one goal. 

“Today I’m going to help one person,” he says.

When he needed it most, others helped him get back on his feet as he recovered from drug addiction. Now, he’s the coordinator of resources for Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry’s Men’s Shelter at 2100 Lakeside.

Anderson’s story is one of several featured in Lydia Bailey’s Portraits of Strength gallery. The gallery features photos and stories of Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry (LMM) staff members who have overcome challenges and are now helping others facing similar hardships.

Since 2021, Portraits of Strength has been displayed in venues across Cuyahoga County, sharing the stories of 15 LMM employees with lived experience. The gallery will be on display again at the end of April, during Cuyahoga County’s Reentry Week, and through the early summer at venues in Columbus and Cleveland. 

Bailey wants people who see the gallery to understand the ripple effects of second chances. 

“There’s a racial element to both incarceration and homelessness,” she said. 

Fair hiring and fair housing are ways to address these inequities. An opportunity to reintegrate into their community after they’ve experienced homelessness or been incarcerated can change not just that person’s life, but their family and their community, she said. 

Bailey is the coordinator of volunteers at the shelter. She’s seen the effects of giving someone a second chance firsthand, as she works alongside several people who have rebuilt their lives after homelessness and incarceration. 

Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry has several programs that advocate for those who experience homelessness, substance use and who have been impacted by the criminal legal system. It also hires people with these lived experiences. 

‘These photographs… have a vitality and strength’

On a recent Monday morning, Bailey carefully pulled portraits off a sturdy velcro backdrop. The photos had been displayed at Case Western Reserve University’s law library for a week at the end of March. 

She admired the images as she talked about the gallery, frequently saying she holds the people featured with “such regard.” 

Near each portrait is a frame with an excerpt of the person’s story, a few paragraphs followed by a QR code asking viewers to read each person’s full story online. A book with the stories and portraits also hangs from a chain at the corner of the display backdrop.

Good photographs come through forming a relationship and connection with a person, Bailey said. 

“These photographs, you’ll find, have a vitality and strength coming across to the viewer,” she said. 

Bailey has been a freelance photographer and writer since high school. Working at the shelter since 2007, she often heard stories about people’s lives and what they’d overcome.

“I just kept saying, ‘Someone needs to hear this. Someone needs to see this’,” she said. 

Funding from the Community West Foundation helped turn Bailey’s idea into a reality. She spent a year interviewing people and transcribing their stories. Bailey learned “just how far down a person can go and still emerge from it,” she said. 

She saw dignity in people as they shared their stories with her. 

“Looking back on what they’ve been through, a few of the people just were amazed after they spoke with me so candidly. They had never done that before,” Bailey said. “And to see their own grit that they made it through all of that.”

‘There are people who care’

Anderson said sharing his story with Bailey allowed him to see how far he’s come. He wants the men at the shelter who see the gallery to feel hopeful that they too can overcome their challenges. Without hope, “the battle is lost,” he said. 

“I hope it brings for them a sense of ‘I’m not alone’,” Anderson said. “That there are people who understand me. There are people who care whether or not I can rise back up on my two feet.”

He said his experience helps him empathize with the men staying at the shelter. 

“It allows me to not be judgmental,” Anderson said. “You know, because I didn’t overcome my addiction the first, second, third, fourth time.”

‘This is not the end of the road’

Cynthia Johnson, first-shift supervisor at the shelter, worked at a halfway house before she was arrested in 2007. 

“Being on both sides of the counter got me to where I am now,” she told Bailey during her interview for Portraits of Strength. “I can cope, understand, have compassion – all the things that the people I’m dealing with need.”

Though she never experienced homelessness, she sometimes sees being unhoused as similar to being imprisoned. 

“Like I had no control over my life,” she told Signal Cleveland.

She reminds the shelter residents, “This is not the end of the road.” 

Johnson hopes people who see Portraits of Strength and read the stories do not look down on others. 

“Because it can happen to anybody,” she said. “Because I was living a perfectly normal life. Things changed. I ended up in prison.”

Bailey said her colleagues’ experiences allow them to better help the men at the shelter. The men observe the staff and over time learn from them. 

“All these people profiled, without saying a word, speak hope,” Bailey said. “They speak hope simply in who they are. That they were in a situation and now look at them. Now who they are is so beyond they’ve transcended where they came from.”