For our class project centered around teaching a broader audience about the challenges and hardships facing those who are homeless in our society today, I chose to hold a film screening with a discussion to follow. The film I decided to show is called “Dark Days” and is a documentary film that was made in the year 2000. This film follows the lives of 11 people living underneath Penn Station in New York City, and exposes the causes, both structural and personal, that led them to be living in the tunnels below the city. The film itself won several awards at different film festivals, including the Independent Spirit Awards and SXSW, and made a huge impact on many people, because it was one of the first of its kind. A true documentary, the film relies almost exclusively on the voices and stories of the people it follows. Little to no background information is provided throughout the film, and the viewer is given a firsthand look into the lives of those living under Penn Station. I chose this film because I thought that it had all of the elements of what we have learned so far in our class, especially the first hand account of what it’s like to be homeless, and it was interesting enough to hold the attention of people who may have little interest in the subject matter. I presented the film to a group of women in my sorority, and after the film was finished we had an open discussion about the causes behind the conditions that brought these people to that situation. Since there was a lack of information about broader causes of homelessness throughout the film, I prepared a quick synopsis of some facts and figures about homelessness to share with my friends after the film had finished. This proved to be a helpful technique because many of them had only a little knowledge of the structural causes and real facts about homelessness.

One thing we talked about for a long time during the discussion time after the film was the negative stereotypes almost always associated with homeless people, especially panhandlers. Nearly everyone there shared a story that had to do with the guilt and confusion that came with denying a homeless person money or food when they were asked. Many of my sisters talked about how they’d been taught by their parents as little girls not to give money to homeless people because “they were just going to use it for drugs”, and that placed in them a deep seeded mistrust for people asking for money on the street. One girl in particular told a story about a woman she sees nearly every day outside of a coffee shop where she works. This woman almost always comes up to my friend asking for money so that she can buy breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Sometimes my friend gives her money or offers to buy her a coffee or food, but the more she sees her the angrier she gets by her presence. My friend talked about how she couldn’t understand why this woman couldn’t just “get a job” or go somewhere else in order to make ends meet. Obviously, I didn’t have an answer for her, but we talked about the things we can do to help this woman, the main thing being that we should have compassion for everyone we meet, and that we have to change our gut reactions to homeless people. The discussion turned into a really intense talk about how we treat the people we encounter, and how we need to be truly aware of those around us, and to abide by the golden rule, to treat others how you would want to be treated.