| Produced in collaboration with homeless people and shown
on PBS, this thought provoking homeless video is recommended by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The video is
widely considered to be the best and most broadly applicable case study available on the scope and diversity of
homelessness in America. |
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When West Side got involved with the homeless movie he was living along the rail road tracks in Minneapolis in a place
called the "Hole in the Wall." When we first asked him to participate in our video, he almost ran us out of his camp like
an ornery bear roused from his cave.
But in time, West Side agreed to be in the movie, while always insisting that he was not really homeless because he chose
to "live out." He had been "living out" for the most part since he had returned from Vietnam. He had seen all but two of
his friends killed in Vietnam during a very active tour of duty.
West Side drinks heavily and makes no attempt to disguise it. He camps out all year round, sleeping in four sleeping bags
during the coldest nights of the Winter.
Yet every weekday he gets up at 5:30 a.m. and goes to work as a volunteer at Catholic Charities, rain or shine. And in
the tradition of a true train tramp, West Side is proud to claim that he receives no welfare money and earns every penny
he drinks.
In the Spring, West Side and his tramp friends were evicted from the "Hole in the Wall" by the Minneapolis police. They
took it gracefully because "Shit Happens" and moved camp up river, where they now live.
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©copyright, 2005