Roam around the streets of downtown and one may notice the scurrying pedestrian rushing into the office, shopping bags being shuffled around at Circle Centre Mall and a group of old friends enjoying a drink inside a local café. If one zooms in on the streets of Indy, one thing is present – there are an abundance of homeless people on those same streets.
“UNCHARTED: THE TRUTH BEHIND HOMELESSNESS” was inspired by a 17-year-old senior at Lawrence Central High School who was curious about the state of homelessness in the city and approached his friends with video equipment to expose the truth about homelessness. The documentary, created by a team of five known as A Bigger Vision LLC, visits homeless camps, interviews city officials and tells the story of homeless life.
Don Sawyer, one of the producers said the production is a documentary, but unfolds like a movie.
“Usually when you see a film about homelessness, it shows homeless individuals and the life they live, striking up the maximum amount of sympathy that it can,” said Sawyer. “It presents the homeless as victims of circumstance, but rarely focuses on who or what is creating those circumstances. Our film does both. Our film follows us from the naïve beginnings of our journey all the way to the mayor’s office.”
The film addresses how the homeless community is approached and handled by the city administration and how there are many misperceptions of homeless individuals.
“There’s politics involved,” he said. “There has been such an effort to keep the citizens of Indianapolis ignorant to the truth about homelessness in this town, that the film threatens to inspire those they depend on being apathetic to ask questions. Questions are the enemy of the administrators of the homeless intervention and prevention system of Indianapolis.”
The team doesn’t believe the film should be controversial, however they said actions have shown otherwise.
“At least 90 percent of what is said in the film is coming from those we interviewed,” said Sawyer. “However, at our first showing, the mayor’s administration, CHIP, the homeless service provider community and law enforcement, did not attend. Most of the people from those agencies who are actually in the film also did not attend.
He said it was clearly a coordinated no-show and many have expressed to him that hopefully ignoring the production will help it disappear.
According to the film, Indianapolis doesn’t have a city or state-run homeless shelter like other top 15 cities in the U.S. (Indianapolis is the 13th largest city in the United States by population) and the city doesn’t allocate funds directly for underfunded homeless service providers.
“We want the takeaway to be that things are not OK. That there are some basic, fundamental, deeply flawed philosophies of thought held by key administers of the homeless intervention and prevention system of Indianapolis, and it has to change,” he said. “But not only that, we want people to see that no matter where one stands on this issue, a change of approach would serve their agenda.”
A free screening of “UNCHARTED: THE TRUTH BEHIND HOMELESSNESS” will take place Aug. 30 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art Toby Theater at both 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. A panel discussion with the filmmakers will follow each showing.
The trailer for the documentary can be found on Youtube.com.
For free tickets, visit uncharteddoc.eventbrite.com.
For additional screening times and locations, visit indianapolisrecorder.com.
