Following the 2008 economic crisis, San Francisco-based photographer Brittany M. Powell had trouble finding full-time work. To stay afloat, she started teaching surf lessons, moved to a basement room that cost $500 a month, and bought her groceries with food stamps. But after continuing to tread water for a few years and racking up more than $36,000 in debt, she finally decided to file for bankruptcy in 2012. “I was afraid it would become a badge of failure that I would always wear,” Powell told Hyperallergic regarding the private ordeal she has since chosen to make public.

The photographer’s experience inspired The Debt Project, a series of 99 portraits that together paint a collective image of what soaring debt in America looks like. This year alone, the average household in the United States has $201,288 in combined credit card, mortgage, and student loan debt. Compare that to under $2,000 total personal debt per household in the early 1950s. And the problem isn’t confined to individuals. Since 2010, eight American cities have filed for bankruptcy, including Detroit in Michigan and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. The US national debt is almost $18 trillion.

A lot of people may be in debt, but who actually wants to admit it? Powell first tapped her friends and relatives, but the project grew beyond her immediate circle after she posted an ad on Craigslist. She said people who contacted her found it cathartic to sit and talk about their debt-related shame. To date, she has photographed 32 individuals in San Francisco, New York, Portland and Detroit — many of them surprisingly young. “I think debt is a really prevalent part of life for most Americans in my generation and less so for people my parents’ age,” she said. Her hunch was recently confirmed by new research showing a third of Americans aged 24 to 28 have debt that exceeds the value of anything they own.

Powell is currently raising $11,000 on Kickstarter to finish the project. The money raised will let her photograph in five different cities, frame the images for exhibition, and also create a short film comprised of interviews taped with her subjects. “I’m interested in creating a platform to discuss how stigmatized debt is in our culture,” she explained. “It’s my hope that it will encourage the viewer and participants to question and reframe our perception of debt and how we contribute to its power and role in our social structure.”

h/t Feature Shoot