‘Americans With No Address’ premiere: Billy Baldwin headlines panel on homeless crisis as documentary launches Oscar campaign
Robert Craig Films held the red carpet premiere for its documentary “Americans With No Address” at Harmony Gold in Los Angeles on October 3. Narrated by William “Billy” Baldwin, the film investigates the homeless crisis in America and captures the untold stories of those experiencing homelessness while at the same time trying to find answers to the problem.
Following the special screening attended by filmmakers, press and invited guests, Baldwin headlined a panel to discuss the homeless crisis with the movie’s director, Julia Verdin, and actors Xander Berkeley and Ty Pennington, who appear in both the documentary and the scripted film due out next year titled “No Address.” The panel was moderated by Mark S. Allen, who launched right into Oscar campaign mode, stating, “Manifest right now. The Academy Award for Best Documentary goes to…!”
“We learned a lot, but for everything we learned we’re about to teach a lot of people,” Baldwin told the crowd. “We have to start reframing this discussion. We don’t have a homeless problem, we have a mental health crisis. We have a crisis of poverty in this country. Many of the programs were well-intended 15 years ago and they haven’t worked out the way they had hoped for. There’s a phrase that I learned when I was in one of the missions. ‘Compassion without accountability is enablement.’ We have a very interesting opportunity because the problem has been compounded through COVID and fentanyl. Homelessness has gone from 52,000 to 76,000 in Los Angeles County. In Sacramento they have a seven-mile continuous homeless encampment.”
“They say people choose to do these drugs,” the actor continued. “No, no. People can’t see a psychiatrist. They can’t get medication for anxiety, depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, and they’re self-medicating on the street with alcohol, weed and fentanyl. Fentanyl is a one-dollar high. We saw people flatline and die. What we need is comprehensive, 360-degree care. The cost of not giving that comprehensive care right now is far greater [than what we are doing]. It’s going to cost us more in the long run to continue doing what we’re doing.”
Baldwin also addressed the need for bi-partisan collaboration on this issue. “We don’t agree on a lot, but we agree on this topic quite a bit. At the Washington Policy Center, a major conservative think tank, they were so thrilled that in this era of division and finger-pointing, we’re having a conversation and we’re working together to try and come up with some solutions.”
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Berkeley chimed in, “The blame is on both sides of the political spectrum. There’s a strange interface. On the left, the issues of personal freedom. Then on the right, the issues of ‘Don’t enable through welfare programs.’ The strange and unfortunate bedfellows they created. When Reagan came into office, I was disturbed by the shift. Suddenly, mental health hospitals were dumping people on the street corners in New York and LA. I had never seen anything like it. There were people off their medications, in the streets overnight. The left wanting personal freedom, and the right wanting more accountability for social programs didn’t ‘trickle down.’ It is a political crisis. One side tried to make the other side look bad to all of our disservice. Because the polarity is so extreme right now, we have to hold our elected officials accountable to work together and bring about the change, which involves both social programs and accountability.”
When Verdin and the crew from Robert Craig Films boarded a tour bus to travel the country, they weren’t originally setting out to film a documentary. “It was a really eye-opening and humbling experience,” she shared with the audience. “The big thing that I learned is that it’s so important that we don’t judge. As a society in general, we have this temptation to look at someone or something and make a judgment. There’s always so much more to everything if you start to look underneath. I had written the script [for the feature film], so I had done a fair amount of research on this crisis before I went on this trip, but the big takeaway that I got from it was that what was really working was what was being done by the private sector and the organizations where they were running shelters, giving healthcare treatments, medical treatments, job training, drug addiction programs, and also having everybody be accountable and taking part in the upkeep of the place. Those were the things that were working.”
Pennington noted, “Everyone should really witness it. I think that’s what this movie is all about. When it’s in your face you’re like, ‘My God, this is really happening?’ It’s not just numbers and stats, it’s real human beings who have real stories. They’ve lost so much and they’re just trying to get a leg up. I love the detail of this movie and that it shows the steps. Just to not have a drivers license, and how difficult it is. It keeps cascading and cascading. I lived in Venice for 15 years, so I’ve seen homeless. What was in Sacramento, I’d never seen anything like that. Entire families. It looked like a grim future. We’ve got to find a way to turn that around. This movie is hope and that’s what is needed.”
About 40 minutes into the panel a man in the audience waved his hand in the air and asked to speak. The moderator obliged, approaching the man who introduced himself as “The Mayor of Skid Row.” His name is Kevin Call, an advocate for change in LA. There was a brief moment of discomfort as the panelists braced to see what he would actually say. In his impassioned speech, Call ended up praising the film, stating, “This was a beautiful movie. It made me look at things even bigger than I looked at things before. I’m in Skid Row every day working with unhoused people. I’m in federal court fighting for the peoples rights to come off the street. I had to earn my trust with those people. I didn’t just become the mayor, the people voted for me to stand up for them and represent them. I want to thank these people here for putting this movie together. It was a powerful movie!” Watch the video to see the full panel, including Call’s complete speech, above.
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