Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Orange County, California is known for both wealth and political conservatism. In fact, the most recent American Community Survey reports that the largely Caucasian locale boasts a median household income of $81,260.

But as filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi’s latest documentary, Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County, demonstrates, more than ten percent of OC residents live below the poverty line. Some sleep on the streets while others find shelter in rundown hotels, where single rooms rent for between $800 and $900 a month. Ironically, Disneyland is a short distance from the county’s seediest areas, but for impoverished motel residents, Disney is no more accessible than Saturn.

Pelosi’s camera gives viewers an inside peak into the desperation of those living in cramped and often bedbug-infested quarters, places rife with drug dealing, prostitution, and police surveillance. That kids grow up in this environment—sharing one tiny room with siblings, parents, and pets—is sobering and should be an indictment of U.S. housing policies. Sadly, it falls short.

One of the problems is that Pelosi interviews too many people, and it’s hard to remember who’s who. In addition, she never moves beyond the personal, and fails to inject needed political analysis into the discussion. For example, why is housing so expensive? Do motel residents have access to social service programs, job training, or counseling? And most importantly, why has the government refused to build new public housing for those unable to pay market rates?

Despite these flaws, the film is not without its poignant moments. One woman, a married mom of two, proudly touts her family’s survival. Although she admits that she hated living on the streets, she champions the things she learned there. “We know how to bathe in eight ounces of water,” she begins. “We know how to do pooh-pooh in a bag.”

Like all of the “motel kids,” her daughters attend Perfect Hope School, a public program exclusively for those without permanent housing. The sixty-seven pupils stay at Hope as long as they remain in the OC, meaning their education is not interrupted if they leave the motel. Teacher Judy explains one of the school’s advantages: “No one makes fun of you if you wear the same clothes for thirty days.” Plus, she continues, two meals a day—albeit heavy on sugar and fat—are provided.

Predictably, many of the kids have deep problems. One boy, eleven-year-old Zack, is already on probation for robbery. “Some of us kids want what other people have,” he says, “so we just take it.” He later expresses surprising self-awareness. “Sometimes I do it for attention,” he admits. “My mom is too busy.”

Profiling Zack’s family in greater depth would have made the film more insightful and would have given viewers a better understanding of how easily life can fray for the working poor. After all, Zack’s mother and twenty-one-year-old sister both work full-time, but simply don’t earn enough to save the thousands of dollars they’d need to get into an apartment.

Despite these faults, Pelosi deserves recognition for bringing attention to a population that too-often falls through the cracks. What’s more, Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County prods lawmakers to do something about the country’s worsening affordable housing crisis. Since approximately two percent of U.S. children are presently undomiciled, the film is a stark, if understated, wake-up call. Let’s hope Pelosi’s mom—yes, Alexandra is Nancy’s daughter—and her colleagues will watch it and once-and-for-all do something about this shameful reality.

Premieres on HBO tonight at 9p.m. EST

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, July 26th 2010

A Community Organizer's Tale: People and Power in San Francisco

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Mike Miller

Heyday Books

A Community Organizer’s Tale: People and Power in San Francisco is a radical history with a heap of theory folded in and a touch of imagery. It would be fascinating and informative to anyone interested in community organizing, housing issues, ethnic and labor struggles, civil rights, the history of San Francisco, or community-friendly city planning. The author, a San Francisco native, has been deeply involved in community organizing in the area for most of seventy-two years. He has a long resume of primary and supportive positions with communities, many central to famous movements and connected to famous organizers in San Francisco and other cities. He touches on details of his experience during the '60s in significant famous events in the civil rights and labor movements and the climates that developed into one another consecutively.

Major connections are revisited several times, which was helpful for me since I am a reader without a lot of previous understanding of the timing or significance of all the events, as well as terms like urban renewal and model cities. Strategies of urban renewal and model cities, for example, have had different outcomes for each city, depending on how the greater number of individuals and cohesive organizations in the communities responded. If you are wondering what Miller’s opinion of those strategies is, it’s not all good, at least not historically. He presents the simple, logical, and real reasons why.

In addition to describing what was going on nationally and how the top organizers worked, Miller tells of his experience as an organizer, emphasizing his various organizations goals and what political and economic decisions meant for middle class workers, minorities, unemployed, and homeowners and tenants in various communities. If you live in or are familiar with San Francisco, you might be tickled or heartbroken by truths revealed about causes of change in particular neighborhoods. Individual churches, blocks, restaurants, and business people are painted in a favorable light. One of my favorite lines depicting neighborhood politics is where he states, “We were regulars there, so the owner didn’t mind his cook taking breaks to be a community leader.” My other favorite line is a quote before the introduction, a former New York Governor on community organizing: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer... I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

This would be a great educational piece for interested students, or workers in the field. That is, anyone wanting to get up to speed on what has happened in community organizing in San Francisco, Chicago, and nationally. I recommend it to anyone wanting to be part of the future of this movement, because history really does inspire greatness.

Written by: Heather Irvine, December 23rd 2009