Albert Coya

This stark and unsettling press photograph documents a moment of urban homelessness in Miami in 1978, captured by Albert Coya, staff photographer for the Miami Herald. The image shows a man curled on the floor amid scattered newspapers, cardboard, and empty liquor bottles—an improvised shelter formed from what remains of daily life.

Taken during a period of deep economic transition in American cities, the photograph reflects a growing social crisis that had become increasingly visible by the late 1970s. Deindustrialization, rising housing costs, untreated mental illness, and substance dependency converged to push thousands into extreme poverty. Public spaces—doorways, basements, and abandoned interiors—became places of last refuge.

The verso bears period newsroom markings, including the handwritten word “Bum” and a “Date Used: Feb 26, 1978” stamp. Such language, common in mid-20th-century press culture, reveals as much about prevailing social attitudes as it does about the subject itself. Today, the photograph stands as a corrective—inviting reflection rather than judgment.

Coya’s image offers no spectacle, only proximity. The man’s face is obscured, his body turned inward, emphasizing anonymity and erasure. The discarded MD 20/20 liquor bottles and torn newsprint underscore cycles of addiction, neglect, and invisibility that defined life at the margins of prosperity.

This photograph is not merely a record of one individual, but a document of an era—

when homelessness moved from the shadows into the public conscience, demanding to be seen. A powerful example of late-20th-century American social documentary photography.

Albert Coya — Miami Herald Staff Photographer (1970s)

Coya’s journalism work chronicled social issues and everyday life in South Florida, contributing to the Herald’s visual documentation of urban America during a period of demographic change and economic challenges.