‘You see me’: Screening of ‘Beyond the Bridge’ takes a look at success combatting homelessness

More than 100 people came to the Rio Theatre on a frigid, rainy Thursday evening to view the documentary film “Beyond the Bridge: A Solution to Homelessness” and to listen to a panel discussion among the filmmakers, civic leaders and some who have exited homelessness themselves.

The film is the follow-up to filmmakers Don Sawyer and Tim Hashko’s 2015 film “Under the Bridge: The Criminalization of Homelessness,” which focused on an incident in which the City of Indianapolis broke up a homeless encampment and arrested its leader, displacing all of the people who had lived in the community.

In the opening minutes of “Beyond the Bridge,” Sawyer mentions that at each screening of their previous film, someone would inevitably ask what could be done to get people off the streets and into secure housing. They didn’t have the answer — so they made another film looking for solutions.

The result is an 84-minute documentary that focuses on Milwaukee and Houston and the Housing First model, which seeks to provide permanent supportive housing to people experiencing homelessness that allows them to pursue their personal goals and improve quality of life. The idea is that giving people basic necessities first is likely to make them more successful in improving their life from that point on. 

The film shows that the model works, as Milwaukee has the lowest homeless population per capita in the United States, and Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city, has a homeless population below 1,500. 

The documentary features interviews with politicians, local officials, service workers and people who have found success and permanent housing through the Housing First model. 

Prior to the film, about 15 homeless advocates held large black signs with white text outside the theater that read “Stop the sweeps,” “It’s not a crime to be homeless” and “Homes not jails.” The advocates highlighted the need for more extreme weather shelters and 24/7 walk-in shelters, and expressed concern that the situation can still worsen in the midst of the housing crisis and possibly aggressive policies from the Trump administration. 

The energy of the protest briefly spilled into the post-screening panel discussion, when a spectator yelled from the front row: “Stop the sweeps! If you don’t have housing, then stop destroying tents.”

The panel discussion, moderated by former Santa Cruz mayor and Housing Matters board member Don Lane, included the filmmakers, former Santa Cruz city councilmember Sandy Brown, who is now an analyst for District 3 County Supervisor Justin Cummings, Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, Housing for Health Manager Jessica Scheiner, and Mace Crowbear and Dan Field — both Housing Matters Speakers Bureau members who themselves were previously homeless in Santa Cruz.

Crowbear told the filmmakers how powerful it was to see her lived experience on screen.

“You see me. You know how long I was invisible, how long I fell through the cracks,” she said. She added that she thinks services have gotten much better in Santa Cruz since she was a homeless child and teenager, and that mental health services are one of the biggest parts of the solution. 

Field agreed, and said he thinks more substance-use disorder treatment centers are vital to the solution.

“There aren’t enough. I would encourage the county to invest more in those areas,” he said, adding that more safe parking areas and tiny homes are other simple solutions that can make a big difference. “What I’ve seen are some of the worst things and also some of the best things. Humanity exists. People really help each other out. There’s a lot of kindness, but there’s a lot of pressure as well.”

Sawyer said that Santa Cruz is not unique, and that success can be found in deep collaboration between the community and its government, and with the political will to change things up.

“The system is not set up for collaboration or to end homelessness. It’s a service industry. For a service industry to survive, it has to have customers and, brutally honestly, you need a supply of homeless folks to have that industry continue,” he said. “The communities that have success are the ones that sit back for a minute and take a long-enough moment to say that’s insane and it’s never going to succeed. You just have to intervene into it and make the system make sense. Change the mission outcome to actually ending homelessness.”

Kalantari-Johnson noted that deep collaboration appeared to be the driving factor of the model’s success, and that while she believes Santa Cruz County is collaborative, there is room for improvement.

“It often tends to be transactional collaboration, and in order for this model to work, we need to shift from transactional collaboration to transformational, synergistic collaboration,” she said. She pointed to the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program grant the county received in 2017 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as something that has helped improve collaboration. That grant awarded the county $2.2 million for projects that address youth homelessness including housing search assistance, personalized plans and case management, and connections to resources and education or employment. Partners of the Youth Homeless Demonstration Project Team include Encompass Community Services, Homeless Persons’ Health Project, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County and more.

Brown said that, with the federal government currently unreliable, engaging at the local level is as important as ever.

“Just the idea of bringing empathy and dignity and really meaning that when we engage with our community and not ‘other’ those folks because they may be different,” she said. “I do think we have a major resource challenge as the communities that you visited did, so we’ve got to get creative.”

Crowbear added that she is motivated to push for change, and that everyone can always do more.

“Nothing motivates someone more than sleeping outside. Tonight, I know someone’s going to be freezing to the point where they feel like there’s mold growing on their bones, because I’ve had that coldness,” she said. “Every time I drive by and see all the homeless, I know that we could be doing more than talking.”

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