An estimated 15,482 homeless people eke out an often-solitary existence on town and city streets across Massachusetts. About 20 percent of them are veterans. One of them is a former army soldier named Bruce Stuart.
Three years ago,WGBH’s Phillip Martin stopped into a cafe in Cambridge and struck up a conversation with a man sitting alone on a bench. It was Bruce, and he was making drawings of the world around him -- or at least the world as he saw it. That conversation led to more like it, and to the revelation of a complex human story.
Bruce’s story is not only about homelessness. It is also about a man who has lived a life of both privilege and deprivation. It is a story about unheralded artistry. And it is about the acknowledgement of individuals who have grown accustomed to being invisible and unknown.
