Pop-Up Warming Centers
Have you ever wondered what a police sweep of a homeless camp looks like from the inside out? The first five minutes of this documentary will show you, while laying the groundwork for why we need more community-based homeless warming centers with low-barrier shelter beds.
And have you ever wondered where the chronically homeless population of our city goes when winter sets in and there aren’t enough low-barrier shelter beds available? They have three basic choices: they can camp, they can try to find a dry place under a bridge, or they can look for a privately sponsored and operated low-barrier warming center.
To answer these questions (and more) we filmed this documentary at Westminster Congregational Church in Spokane, Washington during the week of October 26 thru November 1, 2020 (7 days). It records the story of a temporary or “pop-up” warming center that was operated by a local non-profit that serves the homeless, and hosted by a local church when early snow and bitterly cold weather threatened to ravage the local homeless community due to a lack of low-barrier bed space. This is the story of “who, why, and how.”
KREM2 Story About Homeless Camps Documentary
KREM 2 (the local CBS affiliate) contacted me about the documentary short on Homeless Camps (which you'll find on this page) and asked for an interview.
Fig Tree Article On “The Dignity of A Shower”
I honestly didn't see this one coming. I got an email saying, "Here's the link to your story." It's a story about "The Dignity of A Shower," our documentary short on the need for showers in the homeless community. My thanks to Mary Stamp (Editor) and the staff at The Fig Tree Newspaper for following our documentaries on homelessness in Spokane.
It’s Always Nice To Get Noticed!
Shawn Vestal and The Spokesman-Review paid us a visit as we were filming "Give Me Shelter." We genuinely appreciated the very positive exposure they gave us for what we're trying to accomplish, showing a better optic, telling a better story, and setting a better tone. Click to read the whole article.
Our Thanks to SpIFF For Selecting Our Film!
We were approached in late 2019 by the directors of the Spokane International Film Festival (SpIFF) and asked if we had a version of "The Hidden Homeless" that we could submit to the Festival. Their board had decided that they wanted to do something relevant to the issue of homelessness and had heard about our work. We agreed and Nathan Slabaugh (Slabaugh Media) worked to chop down our Director's Cut to a shorter film festival version which we submitted to great reviews. Many thanks!