A growing crisis unfolding quietly across America: the increasing number of seniors facing homelessness. Set in Portland | dG1fUnVOcW4yY1JoSmc
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Short filmTranscript
00:00All right, let's go.
00:05I was born in 52, so in 52 Jackson, Mississippi was not the kind of place that African Americans
00:11wanted to grow up in.
00:15Growing up in New York City was interesting.
00:18I grew up poor.
00:20I used to sit and watch the bridge and know that there was something over the bridge more.
00:27You know, values were an interesting thing.
00:30I didn't really have any imparted to me from my parents.
00:33I had to come up with my own.
00:36I kind of raised myself.
00:38I read a lot of books, so my childhood was different, I would say, than most people's.
00:52This is a country that should be judged by the conditions of its most vulnerable citizens.
00:59If that's how this society is being judged, we are not doing well.
01:03The ultimate expression of the housing crisis is the expanding number of older adults who
01:07are homeless.
01:08The idea that we are allowing people to age into homelessness is deeply distressing.
01:17It's gone from cutting back on all these other necessities to perhaps a substandard house
01:22to no house.
01:26It's overwhelming to try to find housing on your own.
01:31A lot of these places growing up, they cost too much to even afford to rent.
01:38Nobody wants to grow old, in general, definitely nobody wants to grow old homeless.
01:45They think we're out here just because we're stupid, or we're drug addicts, or whatever.
01:50There's a lot more to it than that.
01:55I have a back story, I am someone, you know, I'm someone's daughter, I'm someone's wife,
02:01I'm someone's mom, I'm someone's sister, you know?
02:07Just because I was homeless, you know, didn't erase any of that.
02:12Sorry.