Home Safe [42nd St]

Home Safe comprises a pair of murals at the corner of 42nd and Brown Streets in the Belmont neighborhood in West Philadelphia. Part of the journey2home project, these murals are a statement on youth housing insecurity. There are many youth across the U.S and in Philly who experience not having a stable home every day.

The Home Safe murals were designed collaboratively between artists Shira Walinsky and Ernel Martinez. They are a reflection on a journey from homelessness to having a home. The designs were inspired by maps created by women at Gloria’s Place, in a class taught by Walinsky. Gloria’s Place provides temporary housing to women and their children until they find more stable housing. These maps described where these women began their journeys, where they currently lived, and the stops along the way, including information about who they lived with and their mindsets at each place. One woman labeled stops along the way as “an angry place,” and another as “build a new dream.”

The background of the mural is a map of the neighborhood abstracted so that it could be anywhere. The quotes in the mural are directly pulled from interviews with youth and the women from Gloria’s Place.

Walinsky and Martinez worked on designs for both walls. The color palate is bold and colorful. Despite many difficult situations, there was a great resilience among the youth and young women whose artwork and words inspired the designs. The murals were painted by youth who were involved in the first iteration of this project, A Place to Call Home.