Film

A Better Way

A New Film Examines the Condition of the Homeless

by Kevin Vanderhoef

Kevin Vanderhoef is 34 years old and currently living at Tent City 3. He is also a member of StreetWrites, a writing workshop for homeless and low-income writers. His e-mail address is kaht_9@lycos.com.

THE HOMELESS are well presented in the film Dark Days. With a film crew consisting of himself and 20 homeless New Yorkers--all of whom were living in "the Colony," a homeless camp in the Manhattan tunnels owned by Amtrak-- director Marc Singer documents the ups and downs of the homeless condition, showing such details as where the homeless take showers, where they get their food, how they collect bottles and cans for money, and how they deal with rats.

A lot of this is relevant to me. I "landed" on the streets of Seattle in 1995. Since then I've had all of my clothes stolen twice, and I have woken up with rats less than a foot from my face. As a homeless person in Seattle, I find this documentary to be fairly accurate.

Presented like portraits, Dark Days gives us a series of "silent" interviews with the various denizens of the New York Colony. All the members of the cast explain their methods, from keeping their possessions secure, to keeping clean, to dealing with the rats and other vermin. The director has worked closely with them to present their stories in a way that will grab your attention.

Follow along and listen to the cast as they tell their stories. Stories of how they got to be homeless. Tales of how they earn their money. Explanations of how they survive from day to day. One scene shows a man cooking what he states is "good stuff," while his friend looks on and wonders how he can eat stuff gotten from a garbage pile. In another scene, we listen to a woman tell of losing her two children in a fire. This is after having her "hut" burned to the ground in the previous scene. We later see her smoking a crack pipe to escape her pain.

The story leads to the Coalition for the Homeless working with Amtrak to move these people out of the tunnel and into housing. Amtrak was originally going to have the New York police force the residents of the Colony out of the tunnel--which was used by high-speed trains--but the Coalition was willing to sue for violations of civil rights. Eventually the Coalition and Amtrak agreed to get everyone out of the tunnel and move them into federally supported Section-Eight housing.

Now, as a member of a homeless camp here in Seattle, I can relate very well to a lot of the things that were shown in Dark Days. Many of the problems presented in this movie are problems I have also had to deal with myself. Problems such as over-full shelters, most of which have people sleeping on floors, with the next resident less than half a foot away. Problems like finding dry places to sleep at night, usually under overhangs and overpasses, often exposed to the wind. Problems like the difficulty of keeping clean while on the streets, or of having to deal with addicts, most of whom are afraid of or refuse to go to shelters or get treatment. Even getting good food that will not make one sick can be a problem.

So far I've been fortunate while living on Seattle's streets. I have yet to shower under a drainpipe, although I have taken a sponge bath in a public restroom. I still tend to "dumpster dive," not so much for food, but for beverage cans and writing materials. I gained about 40 pounds from eating day-old pastries that were given to me by closing personnel of the various coffee shops around town, and I've suffered from food poisoning several times.

The worst thing I've had to do out here has been to call an ambulance for an overdose case (who was not homeless at the time), while a couple of my friends were performing CPR. Being homeless is definitely not a glamorous lifestyle.

However, as in Dark Days, there are also some good things that happen. People work together to keep themselves fed. We find people whom we can trust to watch our belongings. We even promote a level of acceptance despite people's color, habits, or previous lifestyle. As stated in Dark Days, "When we watch out and care for each other, we become like a family."

A movie like Dark Days, which presents these problems so well, is a big step forward toward finding and providing solutions. I would recommend this movie to people who do not have any idea what a person living on the streets goes through just to survive. I hope that as people watch this film, they will find that those of us on the streets are not just "worthless bums," but are in fact people. In spite of the many blocks that are put in our way, we are finding ways to be comfortable, and we will always be looking for a better way.

I feel that encampments should be seen as an indication of the economic health of a city--they will really only go away when there is enough housing so that these people begin to feel like human beings, and not like social vermin. Who has fallen furthest? The homeless people who are struggling day by day just to survive? Or those that pretend not to see our problems?