Huntington Beach man using ‘homeless’ moment to spread awareness
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Huntington Beach artist Chapman Hamborg is still dealing with the circumstances around his viral Instagram reel in his own unique way.
A neighbor called the police on Hamborg as he went on a morning walk around the neighborhood with his infant daughter last month, trying to give his wife Hannah some time to relax.
His long hair was in a bun, his clothes were worn and one of his slippers had a hole in it.
The neighbor thought Hamborg was homeless. A police officer did come to his home near Sowers Middle School on that Good Friday morning to investigate.
“When he explained what happened, that someone had called the cops on me thinking I was a homeless person then had followed me back to my house, I was shocked,” Hamborg said. “I couldn’t believe it at first. I was trying to laugh it off, I guess, and then he asked for my ID. I came inside, and that’s when I started recording the video, when I was looking for my ID and telling my wife what was going on.”
Hamborg is still carrying the youngest of his four children in a baby sling in the video, which immediately exploded in popularity. As of Friday, it had nearly two million likes and more than 32,000 comments.
Hamborg, 32, is trying to turn the misunderstanding into a positive. He’s selling limited edition prints of his original painting, “Unseen Paths,” with 20% of the proceeds going to support Orange County United Way’s homelessness efforts. The prints are available at Hamborg’s website, chapmanhamborg.com.
The painting was made before the incident but depicts Hamborg similarly, with two of his children. He explained that the flowers in the background are actually invasive yellow mustard flowers.
“It looks like this beautiful scene, but there’s kind of this darker undertone to it, at least to me personally,” he said. “When this whole experience happened, I thought that painting and those aspects about it are even more true for unhoused families, which I was mistaken for being. The imagery and the meaning behind the painting already lined up, and I wanted to connect it to the story and the conversation that was already happening from the video around people experiencing homelessness.”
A mutual friend introduced Hamborg to Becks Heyhoe-Khalil, executive director of Orange County United Way’s United to End Homelessness initiative.
Hamborg and Heyhoe-Khalil will be guests at an Orange County Museum of Art “Conversations with Artists” event on June 4 at 4 p.m., hosted by Heidi Zuckerman, OCMA’s chief executive and director. No registration is needed.
They will also host a special livestream event titled “Art and Advocacy: A Studio Conversation with Chapman Hamborg,” on June 21 at 9 a.m., from his Hamborg Academy of Art studio in Huntington Beach.
“Chapman’s curiosity around homelessness has been something so wonderful to engage with,” Heyhoe-Khalil said. “Getting to know Chapman and just the beautiful heart that he has and the compassion that he has, the desire to use this for the greater good, it fit beautifully with the mission we have at United to End Homelessness at United Way. It’s been a really natural way to collaborate.”
According to a 2023 UCI-OC poll, 71% of O.C. residents see homelessness as a “serious problem,” with affordable housing close behind at 69%.
As of March, there were 410 families experiencing homelessness in Orange County registered with its family Coordinated Entry System, Heyhoe-Khalil said. That total included 715 children, with 244 of those under the age of 5.
“They’ve provided all of their documentation, they’ve done everything that the homelessness system has asked them to do to help them get connected to housing,” she said.
Things are not exactly getting easier for them. Emergency housing vouchers that have been available since 2021 are reportedly set to run out of funding next year. Additionally, President Trump has proposed cuts to federal rental assistance.
“One of the things I love about what Chapman is doing is helping open people’s eyes, ask questions and challenging assumptions,” Heyhoe-Khalil said. “Many of the people who have watched the video online have said, ‘You do look like you’re homeless.’ The flip side of that is that they’re walking past people, driving past people every day who don’t look like they’re experiencing homelessness but who are, and they have no idea.”
Hamborg realizes the circumstances around that April morning were complicated, not black and white. He said he thinks he knows the identity of his neighbor who called the police, but he’s not exactly sure. He wants to talk to her, not to scold her but partially to thank her for her vigilance.
“She’s a neighbor concerned for the safety of the baby and the neighborhood, but also, it’s crazy for people who are dealing with homelessness to have to deal with this kind of stuff,” he said. “What if it was a great parent who is trying to get their baby to sleep but they happen to be unhoused? Why should the cops be called on them? Just because they’re experiencing homelessness doesn’t mean that the baby is in danger, or that the mom is a bad mom or the dad is a bad dad.”
Hamborg said his father instilled in him compassion for the homeless. Now he’s using that compassion to try and spark a bigger conversation.
In his viral Instagram video, he asked, “If you saw me would you have thought I was homeless?” About two-thirds of the more than 500,000 poll respondents have voted, “No.”
Of course, his association with the video also has to be considered. A People Magazine article has also heightened his celebrity.
“I went to the grocery store [Monday] and got stopped a few times by people asking if I was the homeless guy,” Hamborg said. “They were very excited to meet me, which was interesting. It was funny. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s me.’
“I’m just glad that this whole conversation is taking place. It’s cool to see fruit come from it already, whether it’s me selling paintings and the business growing, and then people having conversations about this important topic.”
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