'City Without A Home'

On a wet, blustery evening last February, UW sophomore Peter Dauenhauer shivered in wintry drizzle, relying on an expanse of tarp to keep him dry and a Styrofoam coffee cup to warm his hands. While other UW students feasted on warm dinners, Peter's stomach ached from hunger. And as other UW students stressed over upcoming papers or midterms, Peter wondered how he would stay dry through the night.

Peter was living in Tent City, a community of homeless people who travel and relocate together throughout Seattle.

Peter was not homeless, however. He was a part of the Honest Eye Productions team, which included UW graduate Lee Torres, cross-cultural expert Dee McDonald and FOX TV editor Allen Stirrett. For eight days, the crew lived on Beacon Hill with the Tent City community in order to film the first installment in a three-part documentary about homelessness.

A one-hour expose of the harsh reality of homelessness called City Without a Home was created. On Saturday, the crew showed their film to the public for the first time at Elliot Bay Book Company in Pioneer Square.

While filming in Tent City, the crew came to understand the plight of the homeless.

"It didn't take long before I stopped worrying about the camera angles or recharging the equipment and started to worry about food and warmth," said Peter.

During its assimilation into homelessness, the Honest Eye Productions helped the Tent City community move its camp from a Finney Hill Lutheran Church to Beacon Hill, ate in the make-shift soup kitchen, slept in one of the giant tents (from which the traveling communities derive their name) and witnessed first hand the governmental structure of the tiny community.

In addition to documenting events from the film crew's eight-day experience, the documentary profiles two Tent City residents, Dave and Pearl, as well as two couples from the shelter, Ray and Barb, and Jim and Dorthy.

Peter made connections with these people during the shoot.

"Dave was fun to be around," he remembered. "All this bad stuff would happen to him, and he kept his spirits up, saying 'I think it's just a game.'"

Midway through the film, Dave is permanently kicked out of Tent City for fighting with a resident.

In addition to telling Dave's story, the film follows Ray and Barb as they move from the streets into their first apartment together. Within nine months, the couple has split up, Barb is in jail and Ray has disappeared from Washington. Spending a good amount of time with Ray, Peter gained enormous respect for him.

"He could organize people. While other residents were always coming and going during our shoot, Ray was willing to stick around and open up to us. He was an important part of Tent City."

Nine months after the film was shot, Honest Eye Productions returned to Tent City to learn the fates of the film's six stars. All were struggling to get by, having left the Tent City in search of a better life. Only eight of the original 100 Tent City residents were still there. The film includes this information.

"It's not a pretty story, but this was our experience, and now we're ready to take the heat," said McDonald after the film's first public screening. The Honest Eye Productions team invited current Tent City residents and other Seattleites to a public forum after the show.

A woman in the audience opened the floodgates of response when she said, "I can tell why you are called Honest Eye Productions."

The film struck a rather controversial chord in the hearts of the audience. A faculty member at Seattle Central Community College asked to have the film shown at his school.

To some, the documentary's bold honesty was commendable. One Tent City resident acknowledged that, while there are many success stories within Tent City, the failure of many people to build better lives for themselves outside the shelter is a reality.

Others found the failure of the six people profiled to succeed in the world outside Tent City to be a misrepresentation of homeless people. Leo, a current Tent City resident, said, "Homeless people aren't all druggies and alcoholics. There are just as many Boeing and dot-commers who lost their jobs and are now living on the streets."

Once the heated forum died down and the last few audience members trickled out, the Honest Eye Productions team was left to assess the impact of its film.

"We used a cinema verte style of filming," said Peter. "Whatever unfolded in front of the camera was what we showed the public in our film. It is true that the six people we profiled were not success stories. But even if only 10 percent succeed in bettering their lives, that should be enough to justify the importance of a place like Tent City."

While the film does much to highlight the situation that many homeless face, it only tells part of the story the Honest Eye Productions team would like to explore. Plans are in motion to create two follow-up documentaries. One will outline the monetary and political boundaries that surround homelessness that make it difficult to overcome. The other film will provide solutions to better the lives of Seattle transients.

The team is looking for resources and information from people in the Seattle community to make these two films possible. It also hopes to show City Without a Home at the UW and enter the piece in the Seattle International Film Festival, which is from May 24 to June 18.