With a black camera bag slung over his shoulder, Jimmy Heath leaves the air-conditioned confines of the Peaslee Neighborhood Center and steps out into the hot August afternoon.

        For the next few hours, Mr. Heath will scour the streets and alleys of Over-the-Rhine in search of flowers. His mission: Capture the beauty not usually associated with one of Cincinnati's poorest neighborhoods.

Jimmy Heath photographs a wildflower in an empty lot in Over-the-Rhine (Brandi Stafford photos) | ZOOM |

        Mr. Heath sees Over-the-Rhine from many perspectives: photographer, volunteer, activist and homeless alcoholic. Now sober, employed and full of purpose, Mr. Heath works to show the rest of Cincinnati what he sees, a community filled with beauty.

        “I really like to challenge stereotypes and show people that this is a really beautiful place,” he says. “It isn't all about crime. It isn't all about drugs. It isn't all about the drama that we see all the time. It's just a really beautiful place.”

        After growing up in Cincinnati, Mr. Heath, 46, left for Florida when he was 17. He stayed there for about 10 years before coming back to Cincinnati, where in 1986 he got hired at a company, writing and producing industrial videos. The job landed him in Connecticut for six years, but his years of drinking were taking their physical toll. In 1994, before the company could fire him, Mr. Heath resigned, returned to Cincinnati and drank away his savings.

        Homeless and with mounting medical problems from alcoholism, he found his way to the Drop Inn Center in June 1995 and completed its six-month drug and alcohol treatment program. He has lived and worked in Over-the-Rhine ever since.

Mr. Heath climbs stairs on Spring Street looking for more photographs. | ZOOM |

        This hot afternoon, he snakes under a faded red railing and squats to look through his camera's viewfinder.

        A slim coneflower rises in a sea of mulch chips. Pinkish-purplish petals circle the orange center. In the background is the rest of Mr. Heath's world: old cars parked along the road, a fenced parking lot, the colorful children's mural on the side of Peaslee.

        He has found his first picture.
       

Finding a voice
       

        Mr. Heath turns down an alley in search of another flower, his comfortable gait reflecting the repose he has achieved during his six years in the Over-the-Rhine.

        “Hey, Jimmy!” shouts a tall, slender man. He is one of about 30 homeless or low-income people who sell the monthly newspaper, Streetvibes, around the city. Published by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, Streetvibes reports on issues of homelessness, poverty and social justice, with the articles often written by the homeless.

        Mr. Heath was once in this man's shoes. While trying to get back on his feet, Mr. Heath would buy the paper from the coalition and sell it on the street, getting to keep the profit. Now Mr. Heath is the editor of Streetvibes, a job he held once before in the late '90s.

        The day before, Mr. Heath held the monthly meeting of Streetvibes vendors and distributed bundles of the latest issue.

        In the worn-in office of the homeless coalition, cluttered with boxes, furniture and people, Mr. Heath in his soft voice asked the group of about 10 men and women how he could get them to write more.

        He offered to type their stories for them. He asked what they thought of the layout and if the look of the paper made it easy to sell.

        Mr. Heath feels strongly about the mission of Streetvibes because it gives a voice to those who otherwise might not have one.

        “It's a place where we can gripe about the city or really anything else we want to gripe about,” he says. “You wouldn't necessarily find things like these in a mainstream publication.”

JIMMY HEATH

Born: Oct. 8, 1954, Cincinnati     High school: Western Hills     Residence: Republic Street, Over-the-Rhine     Interests: Photography, movies, baseball     Favorites: Photographer Garry Winogrand, the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans (Houghton Mifflin; $30)     To book his Over-the-Rhine Orientation: 564-9856

        He flips through an issue, pointing out headlines: “Protecting the Rights of the Homeless” and “Dreaming About the End of Homelessness.”

        “But the primary thing is that it is an empowerment program for homeless people,” Mr. Heath says.
       

A broader perspective
       

        Two years ago, during his first run as Streetvibes editor, Mr. Heath had the chance to look at homelessness and poverty beyond his own community when he won a fellowship through the Congressional Hunger Center. He spent time in St. Louis working in a food bank and in Washington, D.C., working at the National Coalition for the Homeless.

        “It was a really good way for me to get out of Over-the-Rhine for a while and get a broader perspective and new knowledge of what was going on with poverty,” Mr. Heath says. “I learned that a lot of cities are having the exact same problems.”

        People who have worked with Mr. Heath say he can help make others understand these problems because they can easily relate to his story.

        “People like Jimmy can come in here (the Drop Inn Center), see what's going on and relay it,” says Tom Lee, an outreach worker at the center. “Everybody's got this idea that homeless people are just pitiful people who don't want to do anything, don't want to work.

        “But who really wants to live on a $100 welfare check? Who really wants to be in the Drop Inn Center? Jimmy's been one of the guys who's been able to get visible and has gotten the chance to spread the news to a different audience.”
       

Self searching
       

        Still hunting for flowers, Mr. Heath stops for a break at the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. Inside, fans futilely try to circulate the stifling air. He bends to refill his water bottle at the water cooler. Back outside in the relentless heat, he wipes the sweat from his face.

        “Whooooo ... It's cooler out here. Crazy, isn't it?”

        A couple of blocks down from where Mr. Heath stands on Elm Street is what Mr. Lee considers to be the “greatest door in the city,” the front door of the Drop Inn Center.

        In June 1995, Mr. Heath passed through that door, barely able to bear the weight heaped upon him from his alcoholism: a broken engagement, about a year of homelessness. For nine days just before Mr. Heath came to the center, he had been in a coma with liver failure and pancreatitis.

        “I didn't have the nerve to kill myself,” Mr. Heath says. “But I wouldn't have been unhappy if I would have just fallen asleep and not woken up.'

        He doesn't know how, but he found his way to the Drop Inn Center, looking for just shelter. The initial reaction of Mr. Lee, then director of the recovery program, was not encouraging.

        “I wanted to throw him to the mental health workers,” Mr. Lee says. “I thought he was crazy. He looked like he came out of the mountains. I was shocked when I found out that he had gone to college because I was looking at Grizzly Adams.”

        Drop Inn staff convinced Mr. Heath to enter the center's six-month drug and alcohol treatment program. Mr. Heath says they convinced him by showing him they cared.

        Six months later, Mr. Heath walked out of the “greatest door in the city,” stronger than he had been in a long time.
       

Selective focus
       

        His black boots come to a halt at a corner. He looks to the left and right. Then takes a drink of water.

        “Just looking for a single flower poking up through the concrete,” he says, and starts walking again. “Just a single flower.”

        Through his photography, Mr. Heath hopes to share with others the beauty he sees in Over-the-Rhine. It was through photography that Mr. Heath was able to find meaning in what he was doing.

        When he started in photography in his early 20s, Mr. Heath didn't find fulfillment in what he was shooting. But while at the Drop Inn Center, the late Buddy Gray, founder and director of the center, saw him as a photographer and sent him out to “document” the protests, marches, meetings, riots and rehabbing of buildings taking place in the community. Then it clicked for Mr. Heath.

        “The kind of photography around the work I was doing was really feeding my soul,” he says. “It was really like there was a circle, and it was all complete. The work, the photography, the pictures I was making, it was all perfect. And it has been ever since.”

        But the images Mr. Heath shoots aren't always picture perfect. He knows they aren't the kind of photographs people want to “buy and hang in their living room.”

        “He just shoots reality,” his sister Jennifer Heath says. “It's not like he just shoots homelessness because he has feelings about it. He's much more of a historical person than he is emotional. And his work, it's history; it's reality. He's a very involved and caring person, but when he's shooting, he's very indifferent. He doesn't make judgments about anything.”
       

Sharing what he sees
       

        Now Mr. Heath tries to share what he has seen with others.

        He presents his “Orientation to Over-the-Rhine” — a combination of photos and discussion — to church, school and civic groups.

        He remembers one woman who approached him with tears in her eyes after one of his presentations. She told him the story of how her mother had lived in Over-the-Rhine and how her family had never understood why she wanted to live in that “horrible place.” Now she understood. She thanked Mr. Heath for what he had given her, what he was giving other people.

        Mr. Heath also gets to share photography as director of the Center for Community Photography, which opened in June, at Peaslee Neighborhood Center, 215 E. 14th St.

        Through the center, Mr. Heath recently passed out disposable cameras to a group of 26 kids ages 8 to 12 and gave them a lesson on how to take pictures. Then he turned the children loose and later had the pictures developed.

        “Some of the pictures that came back were really cool,” he says. “But the kids' reactions were even better. "There's my mom! There's my sister!' That was really cool to see. The aesthetics of it were lacking a little bit, but who cares? It's not about that. It's about giving kids what they need, giving them the space to feel safe in.”

        For Mr. Heath, Over-the-Rhine is the place that feeds him. It's a place he wants to share the beauty of with others. It's the place he's finally come home to.

        “My whole life has been a real wild ride, but finally I think I'm getting some relief from all that,” he says. “I know that this is where I need to be. This community is like a resort for my tortured, tired soul.”

        Almost 2 1/2 hours after he began, Mr. Heath stands back in the parking lot outside Peaslee Neighborhood Center. The slim coneflower still rises in a sea of mulch chips.

        In the background is still the rest of Mr. Heath's world.
       

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