It was in Immokalee, a little agricultural community in Florida, that I stayed for the first time in a shelter for the homeless. I wanted to document a side of the life of migrant workers other than the one I photographed in the fields (see the report ‘‘Migrant Workers and Industrial Agriculture’’). Here I learned that as well as migrant workers whom the shelter habitually supports, the facility accepts an additional 25% occupancy by Americans in economic difficulty (home foreclosure, unemployment) and that it was operating now at 120% of its capacity. I attempted to document as much as I could of the life in the shelters.

The US residents of the shelter told me that there was another shelter in Naples (a nearby city and very close, according to rankings, to some of the richest subdivisions in the USA), and that ‘‘if I want to understand what is going on currently in the country with the economy, I ought to go there’’.

Belonging to the same network as the shelter in Immokalee, major differences are that the food is better here, its capacity is larger, and the migrant workers are absent. The shelter usually accommodates a majority of people who have problems with addiction to alcohol and drugs. But like Immokalee, it has had to face since the beginning of the year an additional 26% of people confronted with economic problems (home foreclosure, unemployment...) making it overstretch its capacity. It took me several days to be in a position to photograph freely around the shelter.

Reading the local newspaper (naplesnews.com) I learned that in a new report by Manpower, the region ranks as the second or third weakest in the nation for employment during the past quarter of the year.

Unfortunately, a little pressed for time, I spent few days in Port Charlotte in another shelter where I had heard that there were many homeless people living in tents in a nearby woods.
Most of the images in this series were taken around the Naples-Fort Myers region in May and June 2009. President Obama chose this site for his first public address on the economy in February 2009.

It was in Immokalee, a little agricultural community in Florida, that I stayed for the first time in a shelter for the homeless. I wanted to document a side of the life of migrant workers other than the one I photographed in the fields (see the report ‘‘Migrant Workers and Industrial Agriculture’’). Here I learned that as well as migrant workers whom the shelter habitually supports, the facility accepts an additional 25% occupancy by Americans in economic difficulty (home foreclosure, unemployment) and that it was operating now at 120% of its capacity. I attempted to document as much as I could of the life in the shelters.

The US residents of the shelter told me that there was another shelter in Naples (a nearby city and very close, according to rankings, to some of the richest subdivisions in the USA), and that ‘‘if I want to understand what is going on currently in the country with the economy, I ought to go there’’.

Belonging to the same network as the shelter in Immokalee, major differences are that the food is better here, its capacity is larger, and the migrant workers are absent. The shelter usually accommodates a majority of people who have problems with addiction to alcohol and drugs. But like Immokalee, it has had to face since the beginning of the year an additional 26% of people confronted with economic problems (home foreclosure, unemployment...) making it overstretch its capacity. It took me several days to be in a position to photograph freely around the shelter.