Homegoing is a photography project and book about Philadelphia’s abandoned housing crisis and the memories of those people who once called these dilapidated structures home.

There are over 40,000 abandoned houses scattered across the city as reported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2014. The photographs presented here were captured on film with a large-format view camera from 2005-2008 primarily in North and West Philadelphia.

The found photographs and hand written letters were discovered inside various abandoned houses scattered across the city. These precious artifacts document moments that were meant to be preserved. Yet here they sit, the memories they hold, threatened to be erased by the crumbling structures they occupy. The majority of the homes photographed have since been demolished while few remain standing.

The portraits are of those who stayed or moved in when others left.