KJZZ: Circle the City Choir gives people experiencing homelessness a way to be heard

Homelessness is a chronic problem across the Valley. One of the many challenges in confronting it is providing health care for people who can’t afford it. The Show’s Sam Dingman recently spent some time with Circle the City, an organization whose motto is “meet people where they are.”

Circle the City have medical centers where unhoused people can come get treatment, as well as respite centers where they can recover if they need major surgery. But they also offer a less traditional service: singing.

In a conference room at the Arizona Grand Resort, the Circle the City Choir is rehearsing a song called “This Is Me.”

[SINGING] I’m not a stranger to the dark …

Hide away, they say, ‘cuz we don’t want your broken parts.

I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars …

Run away, they say, no one will love you as you are …

Many of the choir members are standing up to sing, but some of them can’t. They balance their lyric sheets on the arms of their walkers, or cradle them in their laps and keep time by drumming their fingers against their wheelchairs. Between songs, I meet Deb Pina, who tends to close her eyes and sway when she sings.

“It’s really weird. I was a … not … strange kid?” Pina said. “But I wanted to be, like, a opera singer, when I was, like, a little girl. I just found I had big lungs!” [LAUGHING]

Pina has always known she has Yaqui tribal heritage. But one day her daughter encouraged her to take a DNA test. And when the results came back, Pina discovered she also had ancestors from the Chemehuevi people.