Some of our community’s most influential people have come together to shed more light on how to protect those most vulnerable.
A free screening of the film “Beyond the Bridge: A Solution to Homelessness” will be presented at 6 p.m. Sept. 25 at Crimi Auditorium on Aurora University’s campus in Aurora.
The purpose of this event, which is a collaboration between the Kane County Health Department, Waubonsee Community College, Hesed House, Association for Individual Development (AID) and the city of Aurora, is to foster a community conversation about homelessness and its root causes in Aurora.
For more than a year, the city has been meeting with dozens of community members, including those who do street outreach, as part of an ongoing initiative to address this challenge, said Lizette Mendoza, project assistant with the Aurora Community Services Department.
“We hope this will be a safe place to discuss what we can do as a community,” she said.
Filmmakers Tim Hashko and Don Sawyer of A Bigger Vision Films will be at the event, and following the screening of their documentary, a panel of experts will lead a discussion. Those include Ryan Dowd, former executive director and now director of Mission and Strategy for Homelessness Training at Hesed House; Lore Baker, CEO of AID; Aurora Chief of Staff Shannon Cameron; and Christine Haley, chief homelessness officer of the Illinois Office to Prevent and End Homelessness.
The screening in Aurora is one of several stops for this film company that is traveling over 40,000 miles around the country to start conversations about finding solutions and as a call to action on homelessness.
“The general public does not know what to do in order to affect change,” said Lore Baker, executive director of AID, which has a street outreach, mobile crisis response team and works closely with Hesed House and The Neighbor Project.
“It is overwhelming so they don’t do anything,” Baker said.
Viewing this film, she said, will “dispel many of the myths about homelessness – that it is a character flaw … that people who are homeless don’t want to work,” said Baker, when “the fact is, the vast majority of people do work – often multiple jobs – yet can’t afford to pay rent.”
According to a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, in Kane County, which has only a 1% vacancy rate for affordable units, a resident must make nearly $34 an hour to be able to pay fair market value on a two-bedroom apartment, said Baker, adding that “many landlords are charging way more than fair market value.”
Hesed House Executive Director Joe Jackson agrees that attending this screening can go a long way in helping people understand just how complex and misunderstood this issue is.
“Right now, locally and nationally, we are living in a world of assumptions. And that is dangerous,” he said. “The study that has gone into this screening is factual, scientific-based knowledge of what the drivers of homelessness are and what the solutions are.
“Put aside your biases. Seek to understand as opposed to jumping to conclusions,” he said.
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Baker says her hope is that local residents attend this screening “to better understand” those who are struggling.
“They are not people being bused in but your friends and neighbors, your family,” she insisted. “Come learn something about what it really takes to live in a world for those that have a limited ability to earn a high wage.
“I think people will be surprised.”