{"id":369194,"date":"2026-06-21T15:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T15:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/369194\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T15:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T15:03:12","slug":"san-diego-homeless-choir-finds-its-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/369194\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Homeless Choir Finds Its Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 11 a.m. in the Bankers Hill neighborhood of San Diego, and St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral is jumping. Beneath the church\u2019s towering pipe organ, a 70-strong choir is powering through a soulful rendition of the Nina Simone classic \u201cTo Be Young, Gifted and Black<\/a>.\u201d The drummer drives the rhythm with propulsive fills and cymbal crashes; the pianist, playing on a Steinway grand, adds her own bluesy riffs. In Simone\u2019s version, the song is laid-back, deceptively simple, and full of bittersweet longing. But here, in God\u2019s house, sung by this big wall of voices, it becomes a joyful, thumping gospel hymn of praise.<\/p>\n

Leading the rehearsal is Steph Johnson<\/a>, a professional jazz singer and recording artist. This morning, she\u2019s dressed comfortably in gray sweatpants, sneakers, and a long brown coat, her hair a mane of dark brown curls. When the song ends, the choir erupts in whoops and applause. \u201cYes!\u201d Johnson shouts to the crowd. \u201cYes. Let\u2019s give it up for ourselves!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you all hear me?\u201d she asks in that cavernous place, and everybody can.<\/p>\n

This article appears in Issue 36 of Alta Journal.
SUBSCRIBE<\/a><\/p>\n

The group, Voices of Our City<\/a>, is a choir made up of San Diegans who have been affected by homelessness (there are around 100 members in all). It\u2019s one of the most well-known choirs of its kind in the country. Ten years ago, Johnson, now the group\u2019s CEO and creative director, was bringing oranges and clothes to local unhoused people, \u201cjust doing my own kind of outreach in the community,\u201d she says. She discovered that many of them, like her, loved music and loved to sing. \u201cWe just met as creatives,\u201d she says. Inspired by the connection, she cofounded the group in 2016 with Nina Leilani Deering<\/a>, a fellow musician who passed away in 2020.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in San Diego, Johnson was three when her folks divorced. After that, she divided her time between San Diego, a small town north of the city called Poway, and Arkansas, where her dad worked for a time as a chicken farmer. \u201cMy mother\u2019s disabled and struggled with mental health, and we lived below the poverty line,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In the choir\u2019s early days, Johnson looked for would-be members wherever they happened to be. \u201cWe\u2019d climb under freeways and go into shelters and safe-camp parking lots,\u201d she says. Before long, Johnson met a young pastor whose church gathered in a sheet metal\u2013roofed warehouse in the Low Bottoms area of San Diego\u2019s East Village. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of our skid row,\u201d Johnson says. The pastor asked if she\u2019d like to use the space, and Johnson said yes. Only a few singers showed up for those first rehearsals. Within months, the choir had more than 60 members.<\/p>\n

Voices of Our City has been featured on The Kelly Clarkson Show<\/a> and performed at the Wiltern, Los Angeles\u2019s famed theater; joined the San Diego Symphony to celebrate the grand reopening of the Jacobs Music Center; and sang at the Balboa Theatre\u2019s 100th-anniversary celebration. The choir\u2019s biggest milestone\u2014and audience\u2014came in 2020, when the group competed on the NBC show America\u2019s Got Talent.<\/p>\n

Johnson didn\u2019t see any of this coming. When she first floated the idea of creating a choir for the unhoused, she says, \u201cpeople were like, \u2018You\u2019re crazy.\u2019 I didn\u2019t get a lot of support right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the group\u2019s 10-year run, it has added staffers, new creative outlets for its members (like songwriting classes), and support services\u2014the Voices team provides meals, bus passes, and housing assistance to many participants in the choir. But what might stand out most is the atmosphere in the room. \u201cI have never seen a community, let alone a nonprofit serving people who are experiencing homelessness, where there was this kind of joy and laughter,\u201d says Lindsey Seegers, the choir\u2019s executive director. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know that was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"raven,Charlie Neuman<\/p>\n

Raven, a longtime San Diegan who joined the choir seven years ago.<\/p>\n

GOLDEN BUZZER<\/p>\n

When the group first started, it shared rehearsal space with a variety of organizations serving homeless and indigent people, from community food banks to local ministries. \u201cYou\u2019d have people banging on the windows as we were inside trying to sing,\u201d Seegers says. \u201cMembers had to physically step over people to come in the door for choir.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of the choir quickly spread, driven as much by its novelty as by its musical chops. In 2018, KPBS aired the documentary The Homeless Chorus Speaks<\/a>, which showcased the positive impacts that music was having on members\u2019 lives. The next year, producers from America\u2019s Got Talent came calling. The logistics of potentially transporting several dozen unhoused singers to Los Angeles for the final auditions\u2014feeding and housing them and managing possible medical issues\u2014were daunting. Johnson said no to the producers a few times, she says.<\/p>\n

AGT was miles away from what Johnson had originally envisioned for the choir. Growing up, she hadn\u2019t been far from where many of her future choir members were now. She simply wanted to do something positive with people she was meeting on the streets.<\/p>\n

But AGT? Network TV? In the end, the will of the choir members won out. A few months after the preliminary audition, they learned they had made the show. The experience was surreal: chartered buses to L.A., preshow interviews. It was a taste of Hollywood that few would otherwise have ever known. \u201cHeidi Klum told me, \u2018Oh, I like your hair!,\u2019\u200a\u201d says Raven, a longtime San Diego resident who joined the choir seven years ago. \u201cI just went, Miss Heidi Klum said something about my hair? I was like, Oh, I\u2019m done.\u201d<\/p>\n

During its final audition, the choir won one of the contest\u2019s coveted Golden Buzzers, when the host or a judge hits a button that sends an act straight to the live shows. Once there, Johnson says, \u201cthe audience was insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey gave us three or four standing ovations while we were performing,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople were crying, falling off risers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appearance boosted visibility and helped attract donors and partnerships. In 2022, the choir brought on Seegers as its first executive director. A social worker, Seegers had spent more than a decade in the nonprofit sector, working in food banks and helping former inmates re-enter the workforce. She took over the administrative tasks Johnson had been juggling alongside music duties. \u201cThe first thing I did was bring the choir to St. Paul\u2019s,\u201d Seegers says, \u201cbecause rats had been eating our songbooks at our last location.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"voicesCharlie Neuman<\/p>\n

Voices of Our City not only offers unhoused people the chance to sing together but also provides vital support services for members.<\/p>\n

IN HARMONY<\/p>\n

Even with all of its successes, Voices still contends with its own unique set of challenges. For most singing groups, the biggest worries are personality clashes and landing the next gig. For the members of Voices, daily worries range from food insecurity and physical disability to mental health crises. When the choir gets a gig, a top priority is ensuring that singers are fed. If they\u2019re performing at a gala, nobody drinks so that those in recovery won\u2019t be led astray.<\/p>\n

This morning, before the rehearsal at St. Paul\u2019s, several men were pulling double duty in the church\u2019s courtyard as hosts and de facto bouncers. \u201cDennis and his team are at the front door to greet people, but they\u2019re also assessing if someone seems like they\u2019re not in the right headspace to be here,\u201d says Seegers.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the high mortality rate among unhoused people, a statistical fact that has shaped the choir in ways Johnson never anticipated. \u201cHomelessness does age folks,\u201d she says. Around the age of 60 or 65, she has observed, is when many begin to pass away.<\/p>\n

Steven Reid was 64 when Voices performed \u201cSounds of the Sidewalk,\u201d an original composition, on AGT. Reid, one of the choir members who helped write the song, was unable to go to L.A. and be on the show because he was in the final stages of cancer. \u201cAfter we got the Golden Buzzer, all of the choir called him and said, \u2018Steven, your words live on,\u2019\u200a\u201d Johnson says. Reid died soon after.<\/p>\n

When she started the group, Johnson didn\u2019t realize she\u2019d be building something that would offer a space in which some people would be \u201criding out the end days of their lives,\u201d she says. \u201cJust being with people as they take their last breaths, or to have celebrations of life for them, is such a healing thing for the families. But it\u2019s also healing for the choir, just knowing that they won\u2019t die alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of singers have gone through the choir over the past decade, Johnson estimates, and the organization is looking ahead. The group\u2019s podcast, Sounds of the Sidewalk<\/a>, is now in its third season, and later this year, funds willing, the choir plans to release its first album, featuring songs\u2014many written in collaboration with members\u2014recorded live at St. Paul\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The organization is expanding its outreach by helping connect members to much-needed mental health services. Seegers recalls seeing would-be choir members linger in the back of rehearsal week after week, wanting to join but worried about fitting in after long periods spent living alone on the streets. \u201cIt\u2019s really something to see them move from struggling with that to fully socializing, being known by name by their peers,\u201d she says. \u201cJust to be able to say hello to people and say, \u2018I\u2019m hearing voices today, but I\u2019m really happy to be here.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n

The choir has also changed how audiences see unhoused people\u2014something that Johnson says was always part of the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to hear a choir member who just turned 80 say, \u2018I\u2019ve been living in my truck with my cat for two years, and now I\u2019m in an apartment where I have my own little refrigerator,\u2019\u200a\u201d she says. \u201cBut it\u2019s different when you\u2019re inviting an audience into a space of joy and funk, and it\u2019s just this uplifting thing that gets you moving. And then you hear a person sing, and you\u2019re like, That\u2019s a grandma. And that grandma\u2019s homeless? It really has inspired people to think about homelessness in a different way, to think about who it affects in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back at the rehearsal, Johnson is putting each choir section through its paces. Her singing voice, familiar from her albums and concert tours, is a smoky alto that critics have compared to Cassandra Wilson\u2019s and Diana Krall\u2019s. When she\u2019s directing the choir, though, it carries easily across the cathedral.<\/p>\n

She shows the altos how to handle a tricky interval, then sings the bass line for the men herself\u2014\u201cIn the whole world, you know, there\u2019s a million boys and girls\u201d\u2014laughing as she drops down for those low, low notes. She\u2019s encouraging, but a stickler. The timing in one passage is off, so she sings the phrase again, striking each syllable so everyone knows exactly where the accents fall.<\/p>\n

The altos try again. This time, it\u2019s perfect.<\/p>\n

Johnson beams. \u201cBeautiful!\u201d she says. \u201cBeautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looks out at the gathered faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, shall we put it all together?\u201d\u2022<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Robert Ito is a journalist based in Los Angeles. He writes about film, television, and theater for the New York Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s 11 a.m. in the Bankers Hill neighborhood of San Diego, and St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral is jumping. Beneath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[149694,149692,74,76,149690,75,149695,149693,149691],"class_list":["post-369194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-community-healing","tag-homelessness-and-music-therapy","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-homeless-choir","tag-san-diego-news","tag-social-support-through-music","tag-unhoused-people-in-california","tag-voices-of-our-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}