Man uses ‘Miracle Messages’ to reconnect homeless people with their families

One man from San Francisco is travelling across the U.S. with one goal in mind, reuniting 100 homeless people with their long-lost loved ones.

With his ‘Miracle Messages’ project, Kevin Adler records short videos with messages from homeless people to their missed loved ones and posts them on social media in the hopes of making a connection.

“I wanted to do something using a bit of tech to help my homeless neighbours be seen as human,” Alder writes on his web site.

Since starting the project in 2014, Alder managed to reunite four people with their families and there are still more in progress, he told the Huffington Post.

Among the four reunions shared on the web site was Jeffrey Gottshall’s re-connection with his sister, who he hasn’t seen in 20 years.

After Gottshall recorded a 30-second video to his sister, Alder posted the video on Facebook. Within an hour, Gottshall’s sister was tagged in the post and the two had their first phone conversation.

“That is enormous gratification, to have a homeless individual and their family sitting there together who otherwise hadn’t been in touch for 30 years, say thank you for giving us our family back,” Alder told CBS Boston.

Alder started the project to honour his uncle Mark, who suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless for 30 years.

He hopes to “dispel myths and to build understanding” surrounding homelessness.

“I think we all respect each other and treat each other differently if we see someone as someone’s son or daughter, brother, sister, mother or father,” Adler told CBS Boston.