“Out of The Box: A Community Action Forum to End Homelessness in Greater Boston,” the first of a series of such forums to be held throughout the country, will take place Feb. 7 at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
As a researcher for the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, John McGah has come in close contact with homeless people.
McGah, who collects data and statistics on homelessness for public policy, has met directors and staff of homeless shelters and talked with homeless men, women and children. Those meetings helped dispel any misconceptions he had about the homeless – that most of them were mentally ill, lazy and addicted to drugs or alcohol, or that many of them have chosen to be homeless.
Those were all myths of homelessness, he said, that he had come to believe.
“What gets overlooked in those conversations … are the real structure issues around homelessness – most importantly, poverty and the real lack of affordable housing,” he said.
McGah’s experiences spurred him to begin a film project that challenges those perceptions and connects viewers to the issue so they can come up with solutions.
So far, McGah and a production team have created a nine-minute trailer for a documentary in the making titled “Give Us Your Poor: Homelessness and the United States.”
The trailer, which features a group of homeless adolescents and teen-agers from Illinois who travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with the House speaker only to be “brushed off,” has been shown throughout the country. “I think it’s pretty dramatic – the youngest, most vulnerable kids in the country going to see the most powerful people in the country.”
The trailer, set to music donated by rock legend Bruce Springsteen, was recently highlighted at the National Coalition for the Homeless’ national conference and has been used in Washington by the United Way as part of its volunteer drive.
McGah and his team are currently in the process of contacting corporations and foundations to raise more money to complete the film. They’ve already collected about $290,000 and need another $668,000 to complete the 90-minute documentary, which they hope will air on national public television and be distributed for educational purposes.
The film is being produced by Detroit-based OneArts and Academy Award-wining documentary producer Pamela Conn. Well-known musicians like Springsteen, Sting, Arlo Guthrie, Ron Sunshine and John McDermott have agreed to donate songs to the film project, according to the project’s Web site, www.giveusyourpoor.org. In addition, UMass alumnus Mark Governor, a Hollywood film producer and composer, is producing a companion compact disc with support from the Berklee College of Music.
The CD will include 12 to 14 tracks by celebrity and homeless artists. According to McGah, some studios and artists already have agreed to participate, and soon there will be an appeal to homeless artists to provide demos.
Three Components
The film is only one of three components of a larger awareness project, according to McGah. In addition to the film, there is a companion curriculum for middle and high schools, and McGah is helping to organize community action forums throughout the country that bring together people from different professions to work on ending homelessness.
“The forums are designed to bring non-traditional partners in the fight against homelessness together with those individuals and organizations who are on the front lines of the fight every day,” according to the project Web site.
The first forum, “Out of The Box: A Community Action Forum to End Homelessness in Greater Boston,” will take place Feb. 7 in the UMass Boston faculty lounge.
The forum, which is being organized by a committee of 15 individuals with various professional backgrounds – architects, academics, psychologists, service providers – will be led by renowned workshop leader Gil Steil and his associates. Former and current homeless people will participate.
Boston architect Mike McHugh, who is the cochairman of the Boston Society of Architects’ Task Force to End Homelessness, is a member of the committee that is organizing the forum. McHugh had heard about the film project and invited McGah to speak and show the film trailer at the BSA’s Build Boston conference and expo last November. The trailer was also shown.
In turn, McGah invited McHugh to be part of the committee that has been organizing the Boston forum since last year. McHugh hopes the unique format of the community action forum will get participants to think differently about the problem so that new ideas will emerge about ending homelessness.
“The [homelessness] problem is so big and everybody has stereotypes of what the homeless person is,” said McHugh.
Those who are interested in registering for the forum may contact Julie McLucas at julielynn@charter.net or visit www.giveusyourpoor.org for more information about the film and forums.
Aglaia Pikounis may be reached at apikounis@thewarrengroup.com.
