The Person You Walk Past

Most people don’t realize how many lives they pass in a single day. Not just bodies, not just faces, but entire histories — whole worlds — moving quietly beside them. In Asheville, it’s easy to walk down Patton Avenue or Biltmore and see someone standing on a corner with a sign, or sitting on a bench with a backpack, or resting in the shade behind a building. It’s easy to glance for half a second and keep moving. But behind every one of those moments is a story most people never hear, a truth most people never stop long enough to imagine.
This is a story about the person you walk past.
It begins long before the sidewalk, long before the sign, long before the moment when someone becomes “visible” in the way society labels visibility. It begins with a childhood, a family, a job, a heartbreak, a diagnosis, a loss, a trauma, a moment that changed everything — or a thousand small moments that slowly stacked up until the weight became too much to carry. No one wakes up one morning and decides to lose everything. It happens slowly, then suddenly, and by the time the world notices, the person inside the story has already been fighting for far longer than anyone realizes.
When you walk past someone holding a sign, you’re not seeing the years they spent trying to hold their life together. You’re not seeing the nights they slept in their car until the car broke down. You’re not seeing the eviction notice that came after a medical bill they couldn’t pay. You’re not seeing the job they lost when they couldn’t find childcare, or the partner they lost to addiction, or the parent they lost to illness. You’re not seeing the trauma that rewired their nervous system, or the depression that made it impossible to get out of bed, or the anxiety that made every phone call feel like a threat.
You’re seeing the moment after the storm — not the storm itself.
And yet, even in that moment, there is a kind of courage most people never recognize. It takes courage to stand on a corner while cars pass by, pretending not to see you. It takes courage to ask for help in a world that has taught you to feel ashamed for needing it. It takes courage to keep going when every day is a negotiation between survival and dignity. It takes courage to be visible when the world has already decided you don’t belong in its line of sight.
The truth is, the person you walk past is not asking for pity. They’re asking to be seen. They’re asking to be acknowledged as a human being with a story, not a stereotype. They’re asking for the same thing everyone else wants: safety, connection, stability, a chance to breathe without fear.
But here’s the part most people never think about:
Being unseen is its own kind of violence.
When someone walks past you without looking, it chips away at your sense of worth. When people avoid eye contact, it reinforces the idea that you are something to be avoided. When people assume the worst about you without knowing anything about your life, it becomes harder to believe in your own future. Over time, invisibility becomes a shadow that follows you everywhere — heavier than the backpack you carry, colder than the nights you sleep outside.
And yet, even in that invisibility, there is resilience. There is humor. There is intelligence. There is creativity. There is hope. There are people who share food with each other, who protect each other, who check on each other when the temperature drops or when someone hasn’t been seen in a few days. There are people who dream of getting back into housing, of reconnecting with family, of finding work, of healing from trauma, of rebuilding their lives piece by piece.
The person you walk past is not broken. They are surviving.
They are navigating a system that was never built for them, a housing market that has priced them out, a healthcare system that treats symptoms instead of stories, and a public narrative that blames individuals for structural failures. They are doing the best they can with what they have, and often with far less than anyone should ever have to endure.
This is why visibility matters.
This is why storytelling matters.
This is why PeerSeed exists.
Because when we slow down long enough to see the person behind the sign, the person behind the stigma, the person behind the assumptions, something shifts. Compassion becomes possible. Understanding becomes possible. Change becomes possible. When we see someone’s humanity, we can no longer accept the systems that dehumanize them.
Flying Signs of Hope was born from this truth — the idea that visibility can be a bridge, not a barrier. That when housed neighbors stand in solidarity, holding signs that reflect the reality of homelessness, it forces the community to confront what it usually walks past. It creates a moment where the invisible becomes visible, where the overlooked becomes undeniable, where the person you walk past becomes the person you finally see.
And once you see someone, truly see them, you can’t unsee them.
You start to notice the small details: the way someone’s hands shake from cold, the way they smile when someone acknowledges them, the way they carry their entire life in a single bag, the way they still say “thank you” even when they have nothing left to give. You start to understand that homelessness is not a moral failing — it’s a community failing. And community failures require community solutions.
The person you walk past is not a stranger.
They are your neighbor.
They are part of your city.
They are part of your story.
And their story matters.
Because when one person is invisible, we all lose something.
But when one person is seen, we all gain something — clarity, compassion, connection, and the possibility of a different future.
This is the heart of PeerSeed.
This is the work.
This is why we tell stories that matter.