From Homelessness to Home: The Hill-Smith Family

For the fourth installment of my Homeless to Home project, about families who have sought help from the Family Promise program and who now have their own home, I photographed Crystal and her two children. After losing her home, Crystal immediately called Family Promise on the recommendation of someone who told her about the organization. Thankfully, they happened to have exactly three spots open - perfect for her and the kids. At first she was scared about the limit of a 3-month stay. She wondered how she was going to make a turn-around in 3 months: find a job, become financially independent, and find a place for her and her kids to live. However, at the very end of her three months, someone called Family Promise and wanted to donate a trailer. Gloria, the Executive Director at Family Promise, knew she had the perfect family for the trailer. She wanted Crystal to go check it out first because the person donating it mentioned that it was in very bad shape. Luckily, someone offered to fix it up by replacing the flooring. Crystal and her kids moved into the fixed-up trailer but then the 2010 hail storm caused extensive damage. Just two months ago, Crystal and the kids were able to move out of the two bedroom trailer into their current three bedroom apartment.

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

©2011, Leslie McDaniel

So, which of the family portraits do you like best? I threw in the silly one because the kids wanted to do "funny" pictures and I think it shows that they have a lot of fun together. However, I'm more likely to use the first or third photographs as the one whole-family portrait. 

For the kids, I kept trying each of these in black and white for some reason, but then settled on the color versions. Of the three choices for Shanna, which do you prefer? And finally, which portrait of Zeke do you prefer?