homelessness

A Shelter in Our Car
$16.95
I heard the author of this book read the story at a Children's Book event and I was really stunned by it. I realized that my almost 5 year old son had no idea that there are people who don't have homes, and I felt rather chagrined about that fact. This story of a girl and her mother who are living in their car as the mother tries to find work and save enough money to rent an apartment was so beautifully done I had tears in my eyes for hours afterwards, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I think it is incredibly important for parents to make our children aware that there are lots of problems in our communities that deserve our attention and that we need to be aware of how others are faring, and not focus solely on the welfare of our families alone. This book does not pull any punches, but it is very tender and focused on the primacy of love between a parent and a child. The illustrations convey the emotional intensity of the story in a unique and eye-catching way. I think this book is a great starting point for any parent who wants help in trying to develop a compassionate child who is aware of the shortcomings and strengths of his or her community.

Children Underground
$24.95
I haven't written a review for a very, very long time; there simply hasn't been one worth writing. And after noting the lack of reviews, or seemingly brief reviews, for "Children Underground," I was compelled to do so. I now understand why the majority of reviews merely repeat what we're already told about the documentary, or simply state the pertinence of viewing this. I'm not going to tell you what you've already read here, for the basic plot summary and details cannot prepare you for the viewing experience. There's simply no way I could've been prepared for "Children Underground," despite my extensive collection of documentaries, many of which I thought to be deeply disturbing.

This is something you must see to believe; it takes us on an intimate journey to the darkest depths of a reality we've never even fathomed, let alone believed could exist. These children, this footage, the way in which it's filmed, the lack of narration, lack of any pre-text besides the initial text at the beginning of the documentary (which I noticed several viewers critiqued), all make this one of the most riveting, engrossing, heartbreaking, and simultaneously unbearable documentaries of all time. You are literally transported into the world of these children, the "aurolac kids."

Through director/producer Edet Belzberg's intimate, shockingly raw, unadultered filming, which is a seemingly impossible feat in and of itself, the viewer is guided through the every day lives of these "children." These are not children we, as a generalized society, imagine encountering, let alone imagine passing by "apathetically" with no way to truly aid them on a daily basis. (I hesitate to use the term "apathetically," as I am not from Bucharest, let alone a third-world country, and therefore in no way wish to judge those whose lives I have never lived, cannot fathom living.)

These are child adults; they speak in tongues normally reserved for those far superior in age, curse profusely, huff aurolac, a highly addictive and inevitably lethal industrial paint, steal, smoke cigarettes, fight with a hardened sense of brutality, and seem to grasp the reality of the hardship and unchangeability of their lives more gracefully than most adults do. Yet through all this, Belzberg is able to capture bits and pieces of the surviving innocence these children possess, humanizing them, revealing to the viewer that these are indeed still children, a notion that becomes progressively more blurred by the footage as the documentary unravels. Footage of a heavy crying spell of Ana, the questionably mentally ill 10-year-old runaway, a fleeting glimpse of the children playing and laughing with childlike innocence in the park, and a harrowing clip of Ana's 8-year-old brother, Marian, clinging on to Ana with a vehemence typically reserved for one's own mother while attempting to safely sleep in the dingy Bucharest subway that had become his home, meld together to maintain a sense these children's actual age.

Meanwhile, by capturing the dismal attempts of social workers to contact the parents, who, hardened by poverty and depression, simply cannot afford to provide for their children; or worse, have induced such fear into their children through alleged, but never acknowledged, severe beatings so as to cause boys like Mihai, a highly intelligent 11-year-old, to run away, Belzberg enables the viewer to see that these children are not simply left ignored by their own country, their own population. They are not products of mere domestic abuse, parental neglect, or mental illness; they are the results of a nation gone awry, a system collapsed.

And while perhaps Belzberg does not delve into the circumstances leading up to the footage captured, it's seemingly irrelevant to the film. At the time of the filming, this was the present, this was the raw, unexposed reality that was occurring at that moment. What led up to it, what circumstances brought these children together, what the entire picture was at that moment, second, year in Bucharest did not matter. Belzberg captured something unique, a reality that if not captured would have been forgotten, laid to rest complacently amongst the other past and present realities we, as generalized humans, could not, do not, would not have the opportunity to even conceive of. This is not a documentary produced for the sake of moralizing, creating order out of chaos, critiquing a country and political system, or anything of the sort. "Children Underground," is an unpretentious, objective view into a haunting, nearly unbearably startling, reality we have never seen, let alone will soon forget.

The Visible Poor: Homelessness in the United States
$34.99
This is a very good source for somebody new to this interest because it offers a lot of facts in one place. It's also good for somebody more experienced in this area because it offers some interesting and unique perspectives. This is a good basic expanded book for anybody interested in the issues of homelessness.

Down and Out in America: The Origins of Homelessness
$25.00
Are you tired of reading the same old zhit about "The Homeless"? Then check out "SURVIVING ON THE STREET" by me, Ace Backwords, which is actually written by an actual homeless person. Check out the site on amazon.com for what the readers are saying about it.