Don't Forget the Outcast Nation: Unseen LGBQTIA Unhoused

Longtime guest Caitlin Krenn returns to We the Unhoused to tell Theo about the upcoming documentary Outcast Nation: LGBTQIA. Homeless. Unseen. on PBS, along with collaborators and subjects Jen Liquori, Maddox Guerilla, and director Charlie Spickler.

Watch the documentary here starting December 6th or on your local PBS affiliate!

https://www.pbs.org/show/outcast-nation-lgbtqia-homeless-unseen-in-new-york-city/ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Whitian Housed.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Now it's time to get serious about tactics, about strategies,
and you've got to go to institutional knowledge on this.
You can't be learning on the fly when you're dealing
with people who are deep seated in hatred and will
do anything using our own federal resources against us. This
is no time to play. This is the time for

(00:26):
all hands on, Dick. That's why I said, it's great
that we're coming together in community, but there are people
we need.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
To have some conversations.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
There are too many people who are prejudiced against black
women in the first place and then want us to
jump into this game. So this is a complex situation,
but in the end, we're gonna have to figure out
a commonality.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Here.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
Welcome to Wittian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. We
have an exciting episode today featuring the creators of a
new PBS documentary.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
But first on House.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
News, our first story starts in Los Angeles. Mayor Karen
Bass has lifted the state of emergency declaration on the
Young House. Mayor Bas has stated the city now has
tools in place to continue urgent action. City officials are

(01:31):
moving to make Mayor Baths Executive Directive one, an ordnance
which expedites the approval process for building shelters and one
hundred percent affordable housing. Our next story texts us to
Orange County, where supervisors approve more hostile responses to the
young housed, which includes fines and jail time. Orange County

(01:56):
can now arrest and find the young house for camping
along flood controlled channels in county parks and other county
owned land. The vote was approved forward to one. Grant's
past ruling was instrumental in realizing this band, which will
criminalize the unhoused for sleeping in public spaces if no

(02:17):
adequate shelter bed was available. Supervisive Vincente Sarmiento was the
sole opposing vote, voicing concerns that the unhoused were sometimes
released in the middle of the night with no access
to transportation. Our next story is disturbing and really bizarre,

(02:39):
but it's.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Important for us to cover.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Last week, Gavin Weisenberg and Tanner Thomas of Texas were
charged with intent to stage a violent overthrow of the
Haitian island of Ganavi and intended to recruit unhoused people
in Washington, DC in order to do so, I'm going

(03:02):
to quote the indictment that was filed in the US
District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The co
conspirators conducted research, reconnaissance, recruiting, planning, and start training to
effectuate their plan. It was the goal of the conspiracy
to take military control of the island of Ganavi by

(03:26):
murdering all the men on the island and capturing all
the women.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
The story gets more bizarre from there.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
The two young men organize their plan over social media,
and one even enlisting in the Air Force at a
base near DC in the hopes that it would improve
chances of convincing unhouse people to join them. They've now
both been charged with conspiracy to kill or kidnap people
in a foreign country and also face the child pornography charge.

(03:58):
As of this recording, their faith has not been decided.
This story is a lot as you heard. I've said often,
if you can dehumanize people, you can criminalize them.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
But these men took.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
It a whole step further by trying to evolve and
implicate the unhoused community in committing a terrible crime. Regardless
of housing status. Who on Earth is going to agree
to cross country lines to commit murder for someone they
don't know. Their assumption that unhoused people would agree to
this is extremely telling. It's a clear cut example of

(04:40):
how we're condition to view unhoused people as violent criminals.
So it's not too bizarre that if the narrative is
pushed that unhoused people are criminals, people like Weisenberg and
Tanner would try to recruit people in aulnerable state.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Consider this.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
Both the President of the United States and California Governor
Gavin Newsom have issued anti unhoused executive orders in the
last few months.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Lancaster Mayor r.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
Rex Paris publicly stated that he wanted to give unhoused
people free fentannel to exterminate them. On national television, Fox
News hosts Brian Kilmeade called on the US to give
involuntary leadthal injections to unhoused people experiencing mental health issues.

(05:39):
If these are the dominant narratives and policies towards the
inn house, I guess recruiting them as soldiers to murder
innocent people and force women and children into sex slavery
isn't a bridge too far in the eyes of many.
Where will our society end up next if this continues
to be normalized and that's unhousted. When we come back,

(06:04):
I speak with the team behind a new documentary, out
Cash Nation, lgbt Q I A plus Homeless Unseen in
New York City.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Welcome back to Willian House. I'm THEO Henderson.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Today we have the pleasure of hearing from the team
behind a new documentary, Outcast Nation, lgb U T I
A plus Homeless Unseen in.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
New York City.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
Before we get into our conversation, let's listen to a
trailer of the film.

Speaker 5 (06:48):
If there's nothing else taken it away from this film,
the most important message is that these are not just numbers.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
These are people.

Speaker 5 (06:56):
These young people are young people first and on house
people second.

Speaker 6 (07:02):
And then the other thing are young people often die
of is medical causes that if you have access, should
not kill you. You know, you know, and it's just
a situation that's going to get worse if the current
administration gets its way because they're trying to take away
the little bit of access that people do have.

Speaker 7 (07:24):
Sometimes you do things for a bit, but when you're
sixteen seventeen and don't have a nice shower, and you smile.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Are they because you're roam in the streets? Sometimes sleeping
with somebody gets you a nice warmat first.

Speaker 8 (07:39):
Of all, where does the trauma take place?

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Is a trauma at the original home that causes somebody
to become homeless?

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Is it the trauma subsequent to becoming homeless?

Speaker 9 (07:50):
See, most people become homeless or around drugs because homeless
people do.

Speaker 8 (07:53):
It's it's a cycle from a long ago. You know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Homeless people are it's.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
The poor man for Mandy Dress.

Speaker 8 (08:01):
I've never met anyone living outside who said when I
was little, I dreamed of growing up to become homeless.
Nobody wants to live outside.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
There's just nowhere else for people to go.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
The city doesn't have a lot of empathy.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
And when it lacks empathy, we don't put in place laws,
initiatives and resources to address the crisis in a way
that really looks to help the most vulnerable instead of
trying to warehouse and hide the problems that we have
in our city. Longtime guest Kaylin Kran produced the film,

(08:35):
which traces the lives of lgbt t I, a plus
youth navigating survival on the streets of New York. We're
also joined by project partners Maddox Gorilla, Jen Lacouri, and
the film's director Charlie Spickler. And now onto our conversation.

Speaker 10 (08:54):
Hey guys, Hello, are you all doing good game?

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Hey Haitln, how are you?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
And everyone else?

Speaker 5 (09:06):
Thank you so much for both of you being able
to join us.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Thank you guys.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Now that you movie stars, people are going to be
asking questions about what it's like, you know what, with
who you are as people, So that will probably be
where I'm going to be coming from. So my podcast started,
I had been on house for over eight years.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
When I was living on the.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Streets, people were so shocked that I sounded educated. I
sounded intelligent, and that didn't sound like I was suffering
from delusions or I wasn't on any substances. And I
informed them because I had a medical emergency. While I
was an educator, I was a teacher, and I wasn't married,
I didn't have a nest egg. And if anyone know

(09:49):
the teaching in public schools, you don't make the big bucks.
And it shows that all it takes is a medical emergency.
You don't have to be the stereotypes that people of
unhoused people. There could be a traumatic life event that
can happen to you. A person that I interviewed for
my show, him and his wife were living. They were supers.

(10:11):
His wife had terminal cancer fourth stage brain camps. And
ask people that love their parents or loved their spouses
and family, they do all they can to try to
keep them alive.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
And that was with him.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
He started dipping into their retirement trying to keep her alive.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
He was unsuccessful. She passed away.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
They depleted all their money, and he started living across
the street from the building that he used to live
and work at. So the part of the thing that
I started to see when I was living on the
street and started coming up with people that had jobs professional,
working class. It didn't matter that there was some crucial
life event that caused people to having to rely on

(10:53):
meager savings to grapples as much as they can to
survive when it's extinguished. And then they became evicted and
out on the street. And so there was people that
had to find solace in other ways like were example,
there was a gentleman that was in stage cancer and
could barely move His wife in order to cope use

(11:15):
substances in order to cope with the challenges of losing
her husband and having to survive on the street with
my other friend Butterfly, who was dealing with mental health
issues and had reached her end of a rope, had
taken her own existence into the different the different plane
of existence, and it was very difficult because in the end,

(11:36):
which was part of I guess was the genesis of
why I started to do this show, is she became
more frustrated as society beared down on her, judged her
because of her illness, and she would lamit by I
didn't ask to be mentally ill. It just has happened,
and I can't control the challenges that sometimes happens, and

(11:59):
it's so much of a And so that Burton took
her into another direction. So I felt that it was
important to create a place where people that were on
the streets, that were living displaced, and that were unhoused
for a myriad of reasons, to hear their voices done
humanly with dignity and respect. I got so tired of

(12:21):
seeing these stories. When people make the conversation about unhouse people,
they demonized people that were on substances and that were
mentally ill. I knew the background stories of many of them.
It is not one day someone just says I'm going
to just be mentally ill. It is not one day
what someone says, I'm just going to be an addict.
There is always a beginning, middle, and not hopefully a

(12:44):
positive end, but an end nonetheless that has to have
a story to be understood and told with the same dignity.
This year, we've lost three unhoused people so that I
knew personally. One was a person that finally became how
that passed away at home. Another one the most recent win.
I don't know if y'all seen on the news this gentleman.

(13:07):
I was there in the beginning, while I was living
on the street. I recorded the story of Benito Floris.
And Benito was an individual, elderly individual that was diabetic
and had other health issues that had occupied unoccupied houses
and demanded that the city and the government provide equitable
and dignified housing for them, and they went through a battle.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
They gave a two year reprieve.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
The reprieve was up and they were trying to event
Beranitas and Benitas I believe was in his late sixties
early seventies, he created a treehouse to make it very
difficult for authorities. Not too a few months ago, Benito
passed away at the place where he was trying to
make his last stand. Earlier, we had another person that
I knew. Her name was Queenie. We called a Queenee.

(13:54):
She was I don't know if you do. A few
years ago when Mitchell Farrells was a council person and
he had created a military occupied force to displace the
unhousing campments in Echo Park, and Queen he was the
one that spoke out about talked about her five children,
talked about the challenges of having an immigrant mother and

(14:16):
trying to survive being out on the streets. Queen he
passed away as well as well as Gustavo was another
unhoused person that was a part of Echo Park that
passed away. And so this year has been a very
trying year for a lot of people in the movement,
and I think it's important to remember them and their
stories this year as well as remember really the focus

(14:38):
of why I do this show to uplift their voices,
say their names in the most respectful, dictified manner. And
I was attracted by Professor Krin's visions of this movie
and understanding her advocacy work, and I wanted to bring
you on the show to continue that tradition, to show
the same kind of respect and put the floor up

(15:00):
for you guys to talk about what's going on.

Speaker 8 (15:03):
Thank you for that.

Speaker 10 (15:04):
You're honestly just talking about the reality that our community
to go through on the layers, especially the point you
said around what folks is the idea around homelessness, right,
Like homelessness people think is such a thing where you
did something wrong in society.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Right, it doesn't matter if you're a youth, if you're
an elder person.

Speaker 10 (15:23):
It's just people have this connotation with it that it's
like you did something versus realizing that it's most of
the time a systemic issue, whether it is that folks
are not receiving the mental health support they need, substance
you support they need, or when it comes to their identity,
right when we think about LGBTQ folks being pushed to
the margins society and not being supported. So I just

(15:46):
it is just the reality of our peoples, right. I
don't think it's down. I think unfortunately people need to
become more comfortable with that idea of homelessness because a
lot of times people don't even want to talk about it.
It's funny because at work, I was thinking, we're thinking
about doing this campaign around like the issue of homelesses globally,
particularly around lgbtqu homlesses globally, and one of the folks

(16:08):
that I was working with is like, oh, like, how
do we frame this issue as a like either humanitarian
crisis or youth crisis because homelessness itself is a tablet topic,
Like people want to put it to the side or
act like it doesn't exist, right, But we need to
face it, and I think people don't want to face
it because people don't want to admit that it is

(16:30):
a systems failures thing. Right, It's not on the It's
not an individual crisis. It's a communal crisis that we
have going on.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
I've had guests on that we're part of the LGBQTI
plus community that we're used, particularly during the pandemic through
note fault of their own that parents throwing them out
of the house. But you have to be have to
be honest. Because one of the gentlemen that I interviewed
was sixteen years old. Parents found out he was gay,
and he threw them out of the house, no recourse,
no kind of support, And I just can't go back

(16:59):
to when I I was many eons ago, sixteen years old.
The thing about the insecurity and the uncertainty of trying
to just be thrust out into an adult world that
I had no experience in, and to be able to
navigate that. But to have such a autopathy against an
individual that you raised or was your flesh and blood,
and to throw them out because of who they are,

(17:20):
that strikes the core of more of a this state.
They were not mentally ill, they were not on substances.
They just with who they were, just like everyone else
going to school, going maybe juggling a crush, or maybe
just trying to figure out what they're going to college,
all of those things, even with people that are dealing
with like a butterfly.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
She didn't ask to be schizophrenic. It's just a medical condition.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
And in our society we don't have enough of the
stop gaps. Maybe when she was like twenty, someone had
came along and tried to help her to navigate that
she would still be here. I think the conversational framework
in order for it to be a humanitarian crisis is
everyone goes through a storm and how.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
We cope with it.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
We should be able to be empathetic and compassionate enough
to make sure that they get through the storm safely.

Speaker 7 (18:09):
Can I bounce off of what you guys were saying
when it comes to the mental health and just growing
up in general. So me growing up in the nineties
as a teenager, I was blaming myself for becoming homeless
because I put myself in the street. Now, unfortunately and
fortunately and this day and age, where I learned I

(18:30):
was in a very horrible.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Toxic, drug infested home.

Speaker 7 (18:35):
I had no choice but to be in the street
or what I want to be being with this abuse,
constant abuse, with the drugs and the physical and the verbal.
And in the nineties, we all know we didn't have
that many resources at Allah.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, yeah, I was.

Speaker 7 (18:54):
Fortunate to get a get coven in house and they
helped me with my documents and everything. But I want
to educate people as well to understand that sometimes you're
not doing it to yourself, You're just trying to get
away from something that's not helping you mentally, emotionally or
even at times physically. So there's a lot of education

(19:16):
that can be more out there on certain things, because
I'm still trying to accept I didn't put myself homeless.
I was literally beat out the door. I was literally
chose for drugs than my love. So there's so many
reasons on a person to live in the street and

(19:37):
weirdly feel safer than they're under their own rooms.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
And just wanted to bounce off for that.

Speaker 4 (19:42):
Thank you very much, Jain. That's a very excellent point,
and I think that's the beginning steps of talking about
how humanitarian and how to look beyond the stereotypes and
see the person, to see the human being, to see
when they uplift their voices. It's like, again, I have
interviewed many unhoused people and you know that had medical

(20:04):
emergencies like me, that had so many other things going on,
and I have yet to see any unhoused person say
I looked out on the street of my nice house
and decided the thing to do was leave all that
behind instead of start living on the street.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
I have never seen that.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
I have never seen someone want to just leave home,
you know, just outo on a lark and just go
out and just live and deal with the realities of
living on the street.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I haven't seen it.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
So there's always the human story and most often than not,
is not their fault. A ninety nine point nine percent
is never their fault. They have circumstances beyond their control,
or lack of resources, or like parents throwing them out,
or like For example, there was this gentleman I interviewed,
and he became a house and started living on the
street at eleven years old.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
His mother passed away.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
They had a very elderly grandmother that was not always
the kindest. That made life a little bit difficult for him,
and it got to the point where he had to
start running away. He ran away from home and they
were trying to put him in a foster home. The
foster home people start beating him, and he felt that
He became friends with people that were living under the bridge,

(21:11):
and he felt it was much more safer with people
that didn't beat him. At eleven years old, and started
living on the street from there, and this gentleman was
like in his thirties, from eleven years old to he
was like thirty two. I believe to think about that,
that's just parts of the stories that don't get told
as well.

Speaker 7 (21:30):
It's insane that some of us run to the street
for safety, and people don't realize that there's so many reasons.
There's sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, job laws, lay layoffs, COVID.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
People don't open.

Speaker 7 (21:47):
Their mind anymore to think, Damn, what did they go
through that they're in this situation?

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Why are they here?

Speaker 7 (21:54):
Not?

Speaker 3 (21:55):
Oh, they put themselves there, So let's just keep going.

Speaker 7 (21:57):
That's a big thing in the world that people are
not seeing people for people. And I think that's why
I'm speaking up now, because I'm finally being zen and
if I'm being seen, then other people can be seen
with my big mouth.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
So that's how I see it.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Peoples begin up.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
And so if I can just jump in there for
a quick second, just to name a couple of things
that we're talking about as well, is that we're identifying
how the problem is largely the fault of systemic and
institutional injustices right, And I think that systemic problems needs
systemic solutions, And there are alternate universes that exist where

(22:43):
if there were lower barriers or lower thresholds to access
universal things that make entire societies healthier, that maybe there
are worlds where these problems for individuals don't necessarily come
to bear, and so to you know, obviously, to talk
about THEO when you're talking about your circumstance, thinking about
what a different world it would be if we had

(23:04):
healthcare that was accessible to everybody, and we're talking about
these circumstances, whether we're talking about your friend Butterfly, or
whether we're talking about Jen, whether we're talking about your
caregivers when you were young, If there were lower thresholds
and barriers for mental health access for substance use supports,
if these weren't things that were so hard to access
and so stigmatized to access, and so many barriers and

(23:26):
thresholds that people have to go through, then perhaps there
is a world in which people get the support they
need and then these dominoes don't fall to the point
that they do. And I do this interesting exercise with
my students, my undergrad students, and I just ran a
workshop at the University of Warsaw in Poland and got
really interesting take on students there because they do have

(23:50):
universal health care systems things of this nature. All this said,
I do an activity where students have to propose a
simple policy solution that would ultimately lower the thresholder barrier
of challenges associated with the intersection of homelessness or housing
insecurity and health and mental health care. And then all

(24:11):
the students do present a different small intervention and then
we vote on who we would vote in to be
the mayor of our fictional town.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
And it was very.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
Interesting because the person who won in the most recent
time that I did this activity was somebody who proposed
if they were the mayor of the town, they would
make ambulance rides free. And they shared that their grandmother
had become homeless because she was already living paycheck to
paycheck if that, and was still dealing with insurmountable amounts
of debt medical debt that had been accrued over years

(24:44):
and years of her just simply becoming an elderly person,
you know. And what had happened was she cut her
finger while cooking, very small thing, needed two stitches, and
she couldn't get herself to the hospital. She didn't have
the support, so she did call the ambulance because she
didn't she was bleeding and she didn't feel comfortable being
on the subway herself.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
What have you, And that bill of what.

Speaker 5 (25:07):
It took for her to get the stitches and get
everything worked out was about five thousand dollars plus the
two thousand dollars ambulance ride, and it put her over
the edge home. Yeah, And so systemic problems are the
results of systemic injustices due to the need for real
systemic solutions.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
And so I apologize.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
I think that was a really roundabout way of kind
of summarizing a lot of what we're talking about here.
But I think it's remarkable to kind of think about
the pendulum that needs to swing back.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
And as much as it's.

Speaker 5 (25:41):
Great in New York City that we have things like
right to shelter, are these band aid solutions or these
real systemic interventions that are actually going to heal and house.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
Well, it's interesting too when New York has a conversely,
very different way of addressing that a house issues. In LA,
they do everything to criminalize being unhoused. There is a
policy we have here I call it the New Jim Crow.
It is against the law for unhoused people to sit, sleep,
or lie within the sign of five hundred feet near

(26:15):
any sign that they have chose as a special enforcement zone.
There's no human being that's going to be able to
walk for twenty four hours, You're going to sit somewhere,
you got to rest somewhere, and you're going to go
to sleep.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
That's just a human condition.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
And to have that kind of idea that you can
be able to use to enforce on unhoused people, to
put them in jail or cite them or continually harass
them is and the theme of who we should be
as a society. And it's also I've just saw just
the preview of you guys's clip to talk about one

(26:49):
of the things as well, always trying to be careful
that we don't invest in our own oppression. And I
have been fighting that with in particut here. I have
to say one of the things that opened my eyes
is that I had to be aware that they people
would use me as a mascot. And I'm not saying

(27:10):
I'm not brilliant. I'm not saying that I can say
that with not any false modesty. I think I have
a brain celler too. But I have to say I
became uneasy because you said, see this guy can do it,
why can't you? The reason why you are here is
because you don't do what he does. I have a
specific skills. I went to school, I did different things,

(27:32):
but that at the end of the day, when I
was out on the street, no one gave a damn
how many degrees I had. I was on the street,
I was susceptible to forty one, eighteen sixty three, forty
four any law that was out there. I could go
to jail with all of the accoutrements that I had.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
It doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
So I'm going to point out too that there was
there's always that in our communities to feel we're going
to get a sliver of a crumb if we castigate
people that may not have our life experience. I can't
speak to Gabriel's experience about his wife dying from brain cancer,
but that doesn't mean I'm going to vilify him and

(28:11):
say he needs to be in jail because he's out
here living on the street. I've seen butterfies struggles, but
I am not schizophrenic. But it doesn't mean I should
have her running like Donald Trump's executive order forcibly involuntarily
removed and locked into something that I can't be behind.
That's one of the conversational points that I feel that

(28:32):
you know we bring this up just as a centering point,
and any other insight that I've missed, you're more to
welcome to add to it.

Speaker 7 (28:40):
When it comes to the mental health. Mental health world
is hard enough as it is. I late in life
was diagnosed with PTSD. Back in the day, they diagnosed
me with bipolar.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Now there's a lot.

Speaker 7 (28:55):
Of misdiagnosis because people were going to go back to
me saying being seen, people are not lucky, people.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Are not seeing.

Speaker 7 (29:06):
I was so angry, so I cried all the time,
and that meant I was depressed. But they didn't realize
that anger I had behind everything from witnessing abuse and everything.
So mental health, I feel, does have a decent part
and people in homelessness because we feel like we're not understood,

(29:26):
and we keep running and keep running, and we don't
know when to stop because everybody's telling us the same thing.
Either go do this or take this pill, or do
this or not? How about sit down? Why are you
so angry? What is triggering you to keep running? I
never knew what it was to be stable, and it's

(29:48):
really true what they say. It takes a good about
four years with therapy and also wanting the help to
reprogram your brain, which my brain is still being repro
because I do always always will I say, I feel
I will always have that fear of living in the
street to get just because I've been there, so I

(30:10):
am much harder on myself.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
But I've never felt content.

Speaker 7 (30:15):
I guess I don't think a person like me can
ever say I am great because we've been there, so
we'll always have that fear. But it's always good to
really see and listen. We get scared of ourselves, so
we run and the streets are our only options sometimes unfortunately.

Speaker 10 (30:34):
Yeah, and hearing you say that doesn't make me think
about Like for me, I'm always like a missionary, so
I always just like to imagine, like will what would
the ideal situation look like?

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Right?

Speaker 10 (30:45):
The fact that so many folks feel rejected or not
even feel like are rejected from society, I feel like
the streets is the place to find comfort, it does
make me wonder what could.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
We have in place that will be better?

Speaker 10 (31:00):
Right, Like what would it look like at the society
if people were to show up and didn't make us
feel like we have to go out and live and
like be on the streets, you know, I always think
about like a lot of the LGBTQ homes, youth and
even my experience, like folks are willing to leave home.
This is not the experience for everyone, but for some people,
they're willing to leave home, leave having a roof over

(31:22):
their head, resources and support, just so that they could
be free. Right, because sometimes you might be able to
have a house, but you can be who you are,
and for some people that's not enough. So the fact
that some people are willing to leave everything material and
have nothing, but at least they have their dignity and

(31:42):
respect internally, that's worth more. And then hearing you say
like sometimes you're fel more comfortable in the streets, it's
just it's so unfortunate that society becomes that way. And
I think it's because there's no room for outcasts. There's
no room for people who are different, whether it's it
is because of mental health, because of their identity, not

(32:03):
having money. And it's ironic that the place that received
you is the streets versus you know, any any societal
any societal place.

Speaker 7 (32:15):
Yeah, unfortunately, I'm going to tap into the technology and
that we run to the streets because I say this
proudly because for some reason I don't know, I feel
strongly about this.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
I'll run to the.

Speaker 7 (32:26):
Streets because there's no social media. I'll run to the
streets because there's no judging. I've run to the streets
because there's helping, there's caring, there's understanding.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
And this is from people that have nothing like zero zilch.

Speaker 7 (32:39):
And unfortunately social media has ruined so much of the
eye of carrying, generosity, genuineness.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Sorry, I had to intervene with that when I felt strong,
you're good and.

Speaker 5 (32:54):
It's an important point. And I think too, something that
is just occurring to me in real time, so forgive me.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
It's not a fully thought. But when I was talking.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
Before about barriers to access, barriers to acceptance, barriers to help,
something I'm realizing is that streets doesn't have that. It's
kind of this, it's kind of this open vacuum or
void that you know, anybody can go to theoretically and
try to seek community, try to seek help, try to

(33:22):
seek you know, wherever that street or path, if we're
going to use a metaphor whatever that might lead you to.
However long or short that journey is. And that's something
that's really interesting. And so to tie it back to
what THEO was talking about before, is that now that
space becoming increasingly policed and people going out to seek
their own avenues of support and whatever that might mean,

(33:47):
even if that means leading to community supports and nonprofit supports,
medical supports, you know what have you. But now your
journey to that if that includes one night where you
have to close your eyes because you quite simply don't
know where you're going, just quite yet that you could
open your eyes in prison, and how unjust is that?

Speaker 4 (34:08):
When we come back more on the new documentary Outcast Nation,
the LGBQTI plus Homeless Unseen in New York City.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Welcome back to Weedian Howes. I'm THEO Henderson.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
Let's get back into my conversation with Kaitlin Crann, Madith Gorilla,
Jen Lacori, and Charlie Spickler.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
To tie back to what Jen was saying before that
I think is remarkable is that we often talk about
mental health concerns as the cause of homelessness and being unhoused,
and we don't often talk as frequently about mental health
concerns being the symptom or the byproduct of being unhoused,
and how that is cyclical in nature, and for that matter,

(34:55):
I would even extend substance use supports as often that
being a content as well. Something that we learned through
this movie with one of our other lived experts and
learned more about was you know how a remarkable amount
of people who are unhoused start using substances once they
are unhoused. It's not the cause of them becoming homeless,

(35:16):
but once they are unhoused, they're either using substances to
cope with mental health concerns that they're really encountering, using
substances to stay warm if they are cold, to sleep
because they are so frightened and fearful that they can't
ever close their eyes and rest. You know, all different
kinds of rationale and reasons to stay, to stay awake,

(35:38):
to keep themselves safe. Thank you so much for that,
THEO and or not to care. Yeah, and then I
think so many reasons and so many rationale of how
a lot of concerns exponentiate upon themselves and they don't
necessarily always cause homelessness. Often more often, more often than not,
they are the symptoms of the systemic failure that makes

(35:59):
you homeless. In the first place, and I'll extend that
onto health as well. Something we know statistically speaking is
that being street homeless takes an average of twenty years
off of a person's life.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
For me, because I'm a diabetic, I have hard issues
and different things, and then I was violently stabbed, and
so there's some parts of my internal organs that are missing.
So I say all of us to say that in
order to cope with me, because I was out on
the street, I didn't do substances, and I put substances

(36:31):
in air quotes because I was a diabetic, but I
also stress apes and I couldn't keep the medication. I
couldn't regulate my medication out on the street. It is
freaking impossible. And it used to drive me nuts when
I would go back to the doctor when they would
pit prick on the blood and the blood fresh up,
and you got to go through and then I have to,

(36:52):
you know, go through being shamed and humbled because let's
just say, I didn't follow the most decent uphealth plans,
but I had to do what I had to do
in order to I don't wanst say survive, but to
survive because I didn't have refrigeration. I didn't have a
place where I could piecemeal eat a meal in order
to survive. So what I would call myself doing, which

(37:15):
was still I don't have eyes as healthwise, I would
double dip in order so I didn't have to worry
if my sugar would got low.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
And it's taken me a while to stop doing that.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
I don't have to do that now, and I'm in
a place inside I have to force myself to try
to eat to a reasonable point and just leave it.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
I don't have to eat the whole meal. I don't
have to eat the whole plolate because I'm worried.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
About having to go out and then my blood sugar
drops or I have another stroke or a heart attack
and I can't I can't regulate in time, and so
those I won't say street found type of remedies is
another thing, is why maybe I wasn't on substances, but
I was on substances in another form in order for
me to survive in those streets and gleat many if

(37:59):
you find out, uh, the worries about being diabetic, I
making sure you're checking for cuts.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
I still have to go through that.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
But there's still the fear that I bumped into something
and that the cuts heal, or like for example, when
I broke my leg it took so long. When I
was out in the pandemic, there was no hospitals. People
were freaking afraid of unhoused people here. They were putting
them on ships and putting them setting them out to sea. Conversely,
with people that were housed, they had them going to
the hospitals here, which is another untold story that doesn't

(38:29):
get told, not how unhoused people were treated during the
pandemic conversely then how house people were treated.

Speaker 9 (38:35):
We worked with the New Alternative Astrology P. Two and
Kate was telling us a number of their people who
died from illnesses that if you have access to healthcare,
you shouldn't die from. Right.

Speaker 8 (38:48):
There was a there was some diamese, there was a.

Speaker 9 (38:50):
Heart failure, there was somebody that died because they had
a mount infection that went septic. Things that if you
have any access to healthcare at all, you don't die from.
And that is something that they have witnessed a lot
with the people that they've been working with.

Speaker 7 (39:08):
Unfortunately, homeless people don't have things that a normal human
being will need. A routine. When you're on the streets,
you don't have a list, the check off list. For instance,
you don't have the time to give you your insolent
because you don't know the time, you don't know where
you're walking to to feel safe to pull out a

(39:30):
needle without looking like an attic, because in your eyes,
I'm shooting heroin.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
In my health, I'm trying to take my insulin.

Speaker 7 (39:38):
So routine is such a big aspect in a person's life,
and once you don't have that, it can fall apart.
It's very scary out there, and it's just horrible. And
you would think, because we're in twenty twenty five and
we've been working on this from god knows how long
we would be somewhere like.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
Covenant House has been open since nineteen seventy two.

Speaker 7 (40:00):
Yes, you'd think that we're raising so much money and
fun getting funding, But what about the payroll? What about
the food that this supplied for the homeless? What about
the electricity, the water, the heat, the beds they got
to buy.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
All those little things add up. So four hundred, five
hundred thousand may seem a lot to like another person,
but five hundred dollars could probably only keep the heat
on in a shelter for at least a year or two,
or supply a certain amount of beds. People don't understand.

Speaker 5 (40:33):
And so one of the really remarkable things, because I
know THEO we were talking about kind of passively, the
differences between how LA, for example, addresses homelessness versus how New.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
York City does.

Speaker 5 (40:44):
And yes, we might have right to shelter laws, and
it really does serve as a misguided solution to a
misunderstood public health problem. That's what right to shelter is,
a misguided solution to a misunderstood public health problem that
serves as a kind of permanent band aid or bandage

(41:05):
to keep people in their press state. There are so
many extensive cost benefit analyzes that have happened dating back
to the eighties and the work that's been done in
housing verse that shows us that it costs us more
money to uphold the system as it is than to
actually just provide people with housing. So when Jen is

(41:26):
talking about, you know, these multi million dollar nonprofit systems
that ultimately, of course, Covenant has a wonderful place. I'm
on the associate board there proudly, and we shouldn't have
to be raising all this money to spin all of
this nonprofit industrial complex solutions because it is ultimately that's

(41:47):
what it is. It is a complex that serves to
keep people in their oppressed state. Not any one institution
or one organization, but the system writ large that refuses
to do what the research shows us is evidence based
to solve the problem, and that's to invest in just
making sure that people have access to housing, that everyone
who needs access to housing has it.

Speaker 7 (42:09):
And I don't ever want people to think that I'm
saying other like I appreciate we all appreciate it, but
I just don't want people looking at a number and
not understanding where it goes to and how it works.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
And may I mentioned this is.

Speaker 7 (42:24):
Coming from a person who's forty two, who's looked on
the streets and granted, yes I have my ged, but
in reality I don't have that serious book background. I'm
more streets smart than anything. So people just see numbers
instead of oh, how much is that.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Food a year going to cost? Fifty dollars?

Speaker 7 (42:45):
No way in hell to supply so many foods, diapers,
just supplies for somebody is insane. Did you guys know,
for a person to live comfortable in New York City
a year what they.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Would have to make Are you guys ready for this?
One hundred and seventy nine, one hundred thousand dollars? How
the how am I to make that money?

Speaker 9 (43:09):
I can tell you that my eldest two friends know
where we talked about, and their partner who lived with us,
both work.

Speaker 8 (43:18):
They both work in theater. And my actually my.

Speaker 9 (43:22):
Other has two jobs in state manager and he works
in an escape room. And seeing our guy does a
lot of theater, they're looking to get a place. In
the last week my wife, who has a real job
and makes a decent amount of money, so I can be.

Speaker 8 (43:38):
A let about.

Speaker 9 (43:39):
They asked these two kids for a guarantee of eighty
times the rent mm hm in not a great part
of Brooklyn, not not Parkslow not not you know, Brooklyn
Heights Sunset Park, which is you know, it's lowerman eighty

(44:01):
times through rent guarantee that what makes the world go
to part from us the papers who have been funny,
it was like just no, and in that neighborhood, the
people who make that aren't going to move into that apartment.
And it was two thousand dollars a month not including utility. Yeah,
this is one I don't understand.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Bedroom.

Speaker 8 (44:24):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (44:25):
How people are expected to live out of high school.
Some of us still get very blessed. I've been very
blessed to get apartment. But again that's me living check
to check to check to check. I'm not complaining. Again,
I feel rich. I may not be rich, but I
will always feel rich because I never had anything that.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
I have now. But am I tired? Yes, because every
week I have two penny pinch.

Speaker 7 (44:53):
How is a person coming off the streets learning new
things gonna survive with the rent so high?

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Train three dollars one way, it's a lot.

Speaker 7 (45:05):
I don't get how everything keeps going higher and higher
and higher.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
We're supposed to be getting better and better and better.

Speaker 8 (45:11):
That was something that the borough president told us when
we talked to him about you know, how does somebody
who you know goes to the door, you know, gets
all these resources and stuff and where they're gonna go,
wherever they're going to find a place to live. You know,
there are people who are from here.

Speaker 9 (45:29):
We one kid tell us that basically, you know, people
are He actually got a job as a a PA
had very big law from him one of our one
of our men on the street people and told us that,
you know, he's in this place where there's all this
wealth and everything. We told you about how actual New
Yorkers are moving out of New York because they can't
afford to live in New York anymore. We spoke to

(45:49):
a bus driver from an MTNA who basically lives in
New Jersey and comes in from New Jersey to drive
a bus in New York City because he can't afford
to live here in any of the five borough.

Speaker 10 (46:00):
Yeah, that's the conversation that makes me think about how
you know, unfortunately back to like another systemic issues or
symptom is gentrification, right, because that's also what happens a
lot of the time. You see the cost of rent
going up, and people who've grown up in these communities
for their whole lives no longer could afford it, and
you see folks being kicked out. You know, I always

(46:22):
think about how the cost of living is rising, but
people's salaries and wages are not rising.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (46:32):
Well, one of the things that I that I thought
was very interesting when I used to actually do these
shelter inspections and a lot of people. And this is
an adult shelter system. A lot of people were working
people in New York City who had more than two
jobs and still and you know, again, because of the
cost of rent, had to live in shelter. And when

(46:53):
I was a youth advocate, when I was experiencing with
my system, I was youth advocate, and I was sitting
at the tables with the people who are making all
these decisions around programs of homelessness and whatnot. I always
used to think and sit to myself, you know, because
everybody loves to say we're working to end you homelessness,
but I will always be like, we'll, no, we're not.
We're actually funding a year after year, we're literally funding

(47:15):
the homelessness.

Speaker 8 (47:16):
And dustrial complex.

Speaker 10 (47:17):
And the reason why we're funding it is because we're
not putting the money into the right places in New
York City. For a youth to be in a shelter bed,
it costs a little bit under ninety thousand dollars sixty
to ninety thousand dollars a year, So that's just for
one year.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
For a year, that's a lot as it is right there.

Speaker 10 (47:34):
In the shelterbed exactly, and it's like, but imagine if
if we were to give somebody that money or half.
Like you know, we did a pilot program in New
York City called the Direct Cash Transfer Program, which was
giving young people unconditional cash, and we gave them a thousand,
one hundred dollars a month for over two more month,
which ended up being a little bit under thirty thousand

(47:55):
dollars a year for two years.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Excuse me.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
And so you think.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
About what one shelter that costs for youth.

Speaker 10 (48:02):
We could fund three youth direct cash transfers and most
youth out of that pilot were able to actually get housing.
And that was the point of the pilot was for
folks to get housing. And oftentimes the cities don't want
to invest in this thing because they have a preconceived
notion that people are going to spend the money on
drugs and alcohol, which the data has shown that less

(48:23):
than four percent of people who receive guarantee income or
direct cash transfer the money goes to that right like
people are actually using the money to pay the rent.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
Why it works out that way.

Speaker 7 (48:35):
I've been holding this statement in for the longest because
homeless people are resilient and grateful and appreciate, and once
they get that home stability and just that home comfort
and love, they're going to want to keep it. And
unlike somebody else who was just handing it off and like, oh,

(48:56):
they don't care about they're over here building that empire
from that eleven hundred a month that you supplied us,
because we never had somebody say, wait, I got you,
let me.

Speaker 8 (49:06):
Help you exactly.

Speaker 10 (49:07):
And you know, that was actually one of the things
that we always used to tell people was when people
feel like they're being respected and it's like restoring their dignity,
people actually make impactful choices that benefit their life.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
It's just counter to the narrative that people believe.

Speaker 10 (49:21):
It's just so wild because when I think about what
our alternative systems and what our actual root cause interventions
to Kaylin's point, right, and not just band aid effects.
These are things that we could be investing in and
also prevention. So many people, like like you were saying, Jen,
like you know, living paycheck to paycheck. So many people

(49:41):
are one paycheck away. So what would it look like
if we invested in prevention and gave people, you know,
suppported people, we paid the rent, you know, right before
they're about to be evicted. We gave people some cash, right,
things will look totally different. I worked on a prevention
report once, and it was so interesting that a lot
of provider thought that shelter was prevention, and I was

(50:02):
just so baffled by that point, because I'm like, when
you're in a shelter, like you are literally like you're
very homeless, you know, like, we're not preventing. Yeah, we're
preventing people from making street homeless. You know, but you're
already after the facts, you're already homeless. You know, Whether
true prevention means how do we get people before they
have to enter the system, before they have.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
To answer the shelter system.

Speaker 6 (50:21):
Right.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
So it's just these.

Speaker 10 (50:23):
Are, in my ideal world, these are the bucket areas
we could really invest in it. We can invest in
prevention and invest in interventions that are people centered and
policies that are people centered. It's just there's just so much,
so much disconnect, and there's just so much history of
people who make policies their realities are disconnected and don't
actually align with what people need on the ground.

Speaker 8 (50:46):
I think part of the reason why we made this
movie was exactly that. To highlight and shine a light
on what is really going on. Most people have no idea.

Speaker 9 (50:58):
I told people when I started making this movie, before
I found the wonderful tegue, that I'm going to make
this movie and I already had the numbers. I'd already
done that you died, and I had the numbers. And
I told some people They're like, that can't be. Well,
I said, well it can be. And it is people
who are like just you know, average New Yorker who
goes about their lives and doesn't have no idea, have

(51:19):
no concept about what our homeless youth go through and
the numbers that the sheer numbers. And we walked around
up people on the street and talking to them and
asking them how many homeless youth things thought they it
foggled their mind when we were talking about six figures.

Speaker 8 (51:35):
They just couldn't even get their heads.

Speaker 9 (51:37):
Around those numbers. We met one woman in Union Square
who almost cried. He was having an emotional moment because
they just don't know. So hopefully, you know, we're making
make this film and actually it's quite good, I think,
and I think we made the point and all of
our our news here journ and Max said our others

(51:57):
who told their stories.

Speaker 8 (51:59):
I looked for one the other day.

Speaker 9 (52:00):
He just cried for like an hour and a half
basically because she was blown away by you guys.

Speaker 8 (52:07):
Totally, totally, yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Thank you. I appreciate you.

Speaker 9 (52:12):
But Jane, you were so open with us and telling you,
I'm emotional.

Speaker 7 (52:18):
I haven't been seeing you guys. See me, you guys,
allow me to feel what I went through. Instead of saying,
all right, bucker up, soldier, it's time to keep it
on moving. That's what I'm used to, so it was no,
it's time for you. It's time to open up and
let it go.

Speaker 8 (52:37):
And you did, and really really did.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 7 (52:41):
I just hope that this movie opens up eyes to
so many reasons behind homelessness, not just look at us
and be like, oh, rebellious. She got so many tattoos
on her Hair's crazy.

Speaker 8 (52:54):
Your tattoos are great.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (52:56):
No, But I'm just saying on how the world can
look at somebody, and I to use myself as an example,
because I am a person that people look at and
judge and then when I open my mouth they're like really,
like wow.

Speaker 5 (53:10):
That is really a big focus of the movie and
of this work. In general, is really partnering with and
elevating the voices of lived experts because Tumatics's earlier point,
the people that are often sitting at these tables making
these policy decisions, or the people that are sitting at
these tables making these decisions about you know, shelter services

(53:32):
and how they will be executed on or what have you.
The people that are making the decisions about funding allocation
for homeless services, for.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
We sutting down section eight in housing.

Speaker 5 (53:42):
And worse right, these are not people who often even
understand or are aware of the problems of the numbers,
of the of the nature of such, and then that
is why often the band aid solution or even the
attempts at systemic interventions end up being like I said earlier,

(54:05):
you know, misguided solutions to misunderstood public health problems and
systemic injustices. And so that's what we're really trying to
do with this film is center the voices of lived experts,
elevate those voices, and do some meaningful what I've come
to call homelessness narrative work. We can't solve a problem
as a society that we don't understand, and that is

(54:28):
what we need to do. We need to make sure
that we as a broader society and then therefore as
a body politic, are understanding this problem so we can
address it, so we can vote in people into positions
of power, making these funding allocations and decisions that actually
address the problems and don't just serve to uphold states
of oppression. And in the perfect world, even elevating these

(54:51):
voices so high that they are the electeds right, that
they have lived experts, who are the people getting voted
into office and making these decisions on behalf of entire
communities that not only feel seen by them, but that
they directly see. And that's part of our goal here
is really making sure that we are flipping the script

(55:14):
and making sure that the script is being written by
the right folks.

Speaker 9 (55:18):
Getting the Broken Borough president in the movie, who was
just a major advocate for youth homelessness and getting things
done and really had no problem shredding the current administration
with their lack of just doing anything positive and a
lot of what what he call performative actions. We believe
they're doing something, but not really addressing issues like housing first,

(55:42):
and which he talked about a lot actually which we
all know, and Debra talked about that he actually folks
about in the movie how much more cost for somebody
to be on the screen to go to the hospital,
to be arrested. All these things that actually he housed
for housing first numbers are real and I'm hoping that
you know, we're presenting it in the movie in a

(56:03):
way that people will understand.

Speaker 7 (56:06):
I just want to go back to the ambulance ride.
I don't think people understand that an ambulance ride can
run anywhere from three thousand to nine thousand just to
the hospital in five minutes. I'm sorry, that could be
like six months of my rent. I'm just saying that
could feed so many children that don't have nothing.

Speaker 9 (56:23):
I was in the ant a long time ago, working
for one of the prival ambulance companies, and I can
tell you what they charge.

Speaker 8 (56:31):
They charge for the oxygen.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
The private one a little above higher.

Speaker 9 (56:36):
I think at the bandages, the oxygen breathing inside the ambulance.

Speaker 8 (56:43):
I mean the thing that you can be charged for,
it is charged.

Speaker 9 (56:47):
And when you are an ant in that place, you
actually have to write down each thing as a separate
line item, and if you don't, they yell at you,
which is why I didn't work for them very long
because I was nauseated by what I had to do.
But yes, that's why ambulance riots are so expensive, the
Nickel and don because they can you have no choice.

Speaker 8 (57:08):
You're in an ambulance and you're sort of captured. You
can't sick. My arm is falling off. You know, I'm
not going to drive myself to the hospital. So yeah,
that is it's a stamp. It's a huge stamp.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
Well, we are closing in on the time to end
this excellent, wonderful conversation. So tell us what's the name
of the movie? When is it coming, Eric, and where
we can find.

Speaker 5 (57:33):
This Charlie, I'll yield to you to give the most
recent update.

Speaker 8 (57:38):
So what's very cool? And I'll just talk sometime a
little bit.

Speaker 9 (57:43):
I've been doing it so long, and this is my
accan station, is my gift documentary and my entire life
of being a documentary filmmaker. I want the micilm on PBS. Well,
yesterday it came up on the PBS dot org website.
It's there with the little PBS guy in the corner.
You can't cook on it yet because it's gonna go

(58:03):
live December sixth.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
December sixth, okay local time.

Speaker 9 (58:07):
I always cried after it, now do you miss your We
don't care about oscars, we don't care about amys.

Speaker 8 (58:12):
We can about seeing that PBS thing by our by
our movies. That's what we live for. So it was
a little tear. But you can actually go on the
PBS dot org website.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
Do it now.

Speaker 5 (58:25):
So the movie is outcast nation and the air date
is December sixth on PBS dot org. But you can
go on now and view it to get the anticipation.
You can share it, and please share far and wide,
because it's extremely important that we flip the script and
rewrite the narrative on what homelessness is in this country

(58:45):
and what needs to be done to solve it.

Speaker 7 (58:47):
And if you want to see vulnerability, it is all there.
Come and check us out.

Speaker 9 (58:53):
Outstanding, totally truly, you guys, You guys were great. You
made the movie quite frankly. You know, going in, I
was like, you know, this is the story I want
to tell. Am I going to get people in this
movie who are going to tell their story.

Speaker 8 (59:09):
And you know, going in, you know you never know,
you really never know what the movie is gonna be
when you start.

Speaker 9 (59:14):
And then Kate jumped in and we had like a
thing and now we're like, you know, like partners like this,
and we got the kids.

Speaker 8 (59:22):
You're not kids anymore, but you know, to meet your kids.
I'm old.

Speaker 9 (59:26):
And they told their stories and we have a movie
because of that, and so everybody should watch this thing.
I think it's going to make a lot of people
think twice about their ideas about homelessness.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
Well, I can't wait to see it myself, and I
thank you all for stopping in and taking the time
and patience to tell me about your experiences and the
insights that you've gleaned over through your own lift experiences.
And I hope our audiences have listened. Thank you very.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
Much, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
Thanks so much to the entire team for at time
and work. The documentary airs on PBS this weekend December sixth,
twenty twenty five. You can learn more about it and
watch it for yourselves at the link in the description. Finally,
thank you for listening in. If you have a story
you'd like to share that needs to be highlighted, please

(01:00:20):
reach out to me at Widian House at gmail dot
com or Widianhouse on Instagram. Until then, may we again
meet in the light of understanding. Whedian House is a
production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted, and created by
me Theo Henderson, our producers Jamie Loftus, Hailey Fager, Katie Fischer,

(01:00:43):
and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Wand, our engineer
is Joel Jerome, and our local art is also by
Katie Fisher. Thank you for listening.