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Street Roots • Jan. 1 -
P H O T O B Y M A R IO A N Z U O N I / R E U T E R S
Actor Paul Bettany, who’s appeared in film s such as “Avengers: Age ofU ltron”d n d “A B eautiful M ind,” made his directorial debut with “Shelter.”
BY PAUL BETTANY
In New York, homelessness has spiraled
out of control in the last 10 to 15 years.
Social housing - I need to say public housing
didn’t start off wanting to make a film
here because the word social gets
about homelessness. I wanted to direct a
everybody’s back up in America - has been
movie, and then thought I might rather
slashed by 32 percent. There are 60,000
like to make one about judgment. I have this
homeless people in the municipal shelter
worry that in a world full of increasing gray
system every night - and 24,000 of those
areas, we’re becoming more entrenched in
are children.
black and white positions.
Last year in New York, the first apartment
I live in New York, on
for $100 million was sold - yet thousands
the Hudson River. There
are in the municipal shelter system every
is a tiny triangular park on
night. That is untenable, but you’d be a fool
the corner of Canal and
Director and writer: Paul Bettany
and a communist to draw a line between
the West Side Highway
rising rents and the lack of rising wages.
Starring: Jennifer Connelly
where this homeless
Simply providing people with legal
(Bettany's wife) and Anthony Mackie
couple lived. I passed
representation would stop a crazy amount of
them every day on the ,
On Blu-ray and DVD Jan. 1 1
evictions. A homeless family is 80 percent
school run and would try
less likely to be evicted if the family has
to talk to them. My kids
counsel. Counsel costs the city $12,500,
would say good morning. But more and
while the average stay of a homeless family
more, I’m ashamed to say, I began not to be
in a shelter is $45,000. Morally it makes
able to see them. Somehow they became
sense, but it also makes sense politically.
part of the landscape of the city I live in.
The state of Utah has hugely reduced
Then Hurricane Sandy happened. There
homelessness by thinking outside the box.
was a mandatory evacuation of downtown
The local government worked out it was
riverside Manhattan. In the madness of
cheaper and more , effective to house
getting my three kids, dog and cat and wife
homeless people rather than keeping them
in the car, I didn’t stop to think where they
on the streets. That seems to be paying off.
- my neighbors - would weather the storm.
Of course, in a capitalist society, people are
I never saw them again. I couldn’t stop
screaming, “Nanny state!” and, “How can
thinking about them. I’m sure they were fine someone get something for nothing?”
and had moved on, but I imagined what their
The problem is, it worked. It’s difficult to
lives might have been and they became a
ignore that fact. The reasons for
template for a film about judgment.
homelessness are myriad: the loss of a job,
Why do we treat homelessness the way
loss of a family member, a breakdown, and
we do? I think it’s got something to do with
yes, drug or alcohol addiction. Everybody
fear, a terror that one might end up there,
has a story, Who am I to judge?
so an absolute, resolute, this-could-never-
My father died recently. He was a very
religious man. Whenever we passed a
happen-to-me attitude - you must have done
homeless person, he would always say, there
something yourself to bring yourself so low.
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R ITER
I
'Shelter'
but for the grace of God go I. And I love that
sentiment. It’s an admission of how close we
all are to slipping by the wayside.
When I was about 17 years old, I had a
family loss. I came down to London and
ended up outside the boarding house where
my sister was living. I used to throw a stone
at her window, and when the woman who
owned the rooms was asleep, she would let
me sneak in and sleep on the floor.
That was a huge period of time for me. I
was not in my best mind. I was grieving. I
was not well. There were times I didn’t get
into that room and slept on a park bench. I
never thought of myself as homeless, and I
wouldn’t want to overstate that, but it
absolutely felt that my safety and situation
were precarious,
I busked for two years, playing guitar and
singing. If I took sick, I wasn’t able to earn
my living or feed myself. It was really
frightening at that age. I Went from having a
house with parents who did everything for
me to suddenly having to work if I wanted to
e a t I was lucky enough to get one of the last
grants and ended up going to school to study
acting.
An agent of mine, who will remain
nameless, said you can’t make a romance
about homeless people because nobody
wants to see them kiss. I was so shocked by
the awfulness of the statement. What I heard
was how they were thinking of these people
as something other. That was what I wanted
to discuss and examine: To present two
people who on paper are unforgivable, then
make you love them because people are
lovable when you get to know their stories.
Courtesy o f IN SP News Service www.INSP.
ngo / The B ig Issue