Homeless blogger wants California's gubernatorial candidates to "bridge that gap between humanity and homelessness"
A homeless blogger living in Los Angeles County is hoping that her own quest to document the struggles that come with homelessness will help shine a light on the crisis as California closes in on the gubernatorial election.
Hannah Hartman graduated from college in 2018, loves going to the beach and is on an eternal search for joy. After a series of mental health breakdowns and a dangerous situation with a roommate in 2024, Hartman lost her job and housing, despite help from family and friends.
"Until you've gone through it, you can't actually know what it is," Hartman said. "Someone asked me one time if I could sum up homelessness in one word, what would it be? And it would be isolation."
Hartman has been living in her second women's shelter in the last two years, with just a tiny shelf of her belongings in the cubicle that she shares in a converted Studio City warehouse that houses 90 women.
She says that as her symptoms have continued to worsen over the years, she's no longer able to work. As such, she began to document her journey on social media. Her Instagram account, @homelessshackwithhan, has more than 15,000 followers and continues to grow.
"I look a lot more like people would expect humanity to look like, so I want my page to start making people sort of question their internal bias and be like, 'Wait a minute,' and bridge that gap between humanity and homeless again."
As she continues working to spread awareness, she hasn't missed the headlines and plans from California's candidates in the race for governor. After watching a part of the CBS California Governor's Debate, she had a lot to say.
"The main thing that stood out to me is that none of these people have ever had to try to get into a shelter, because you cannot walk into a shelter and say, 'I'm homeless, I need a bed,' and then get a bed," Hartman said. "It's usually, I wanna say, a six to eight week wait for you to get into the shelter."
She said that there's a laundry list of things she's worried about for the homeless community, especially things that the candidates and other Californians don't understand.
"Federal disability takes years. I'm on the third step and I believe applied in 2023," she said. "You cannot make more than, I believe, $2,000 a month and still get federal disability. So, I'm kind of walking this fine line of 'I need finances, but I can't have too many finances.'"
For all the ideas about how to fix homelessness, Hartman wonders if the solution can't be found somewhere simpler, like learning about what it's really like to be homeless from someone living it.
"It is not a them problem, or like a somebody else problem, even if you are currently housed, it can be a you problem at any second," Hartman said.
She says that if any of the gubernatorial candidates would like to further delve into her thoughts and the reality of being homeless in California she would be willing to sit down to talk.