Let’s face it, the homeless community is basically invisible to the public until the government announces it will allow 25,000 Syrians into the country. At least that was my observation.
The documentary Where Is Home shines a light on the homeless community that exists in every city as well as bringing understanding and not judgment to the situation.
Documentary filmmaker Dan Berdusco became compelled to embark on a quest to find answers to homelessness after participating in a city council election.
One of the candidates running for city council was Martin Heavyhead. Factoid – he is the first Aboriginal candidate running for election in the city of Lethbridge, Alberta.
Dan had been hired to set up a live stream of the elections. Throughout the process Dan became familiar with Martin and his mandate to remove the public blindfold of homelessness. Martin Heavyhead had created a blog on the issue after the elections were over. Dan was so moved by Martin’s blog that he wanted to use video to better tell a more impactful story. Once contacting Martin and revealing his idea, it was agreed that a documentary could benefit the cause.
Because Martin had already established a trusting relationship with the homeless community, he acted as liaison and middleman for Dan and his misunderstood neighbors.
Initially Dan had intended on creating a short documentary. After a couple days of interviews, he realized the issue of homelessness demanded much more attention and investigation.
(To be continued)
