To bring the stories of the homeless community and those who have been directly impacted by encampment sweeps to a larger audience, the grassroots organization POOR Magazine has been spreading the word about their first feature film through preview screenings held in different parts of Los Angeles.
“Crushing Wheelchairs,” created by and starring both current and former unhoused individuals, is based on the play by the same name by Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, and was filmed primarily within encampments and on the streets of Oakland and San Francisco. The stories and roles in the film are inspired by the real-life experiences of homeless individuals.
Adrian Diamond, an independent filmmaker who worked with POOR Magazine on this project, spoke with the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol about the making of the film, calling it a labor of love.
“I think it’s important that we tell stories that humanize homeless people … and that we see the forces that lead people to lose their homes, such as gentrification, which we document in the movie, and domestic violence,” Diamond said. “I think it’s important also to show how the forces of the state and police are very unkind to people facing homelessness.”
He added that what makes “Crushing Wheelchairs” so “revolutionary” is that it stars people who have lived through the very experiences that the movie portrays rather than traditional Hollywood actors who’ve never personally dealt with these issues.
One such example is Stephanie Grant, a formerly unhoused mother who is an actor in the film.
In “Crushing Wheelchairs,” Diamond said the killing of a homeless man – Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat, a Mexican immigrant of Mayan descent who was fatally shot by San Francisco police in 2016 – is included in the film. Grant not only knew him when they were both homeless, but she was a witness to the shooting.
“Stephanie drew upon the strength in herself to relive this moment for the sake of documenting it in the film,” Diamond said. “I think that just speaks to the power of Stephanie as a performer, as an actress, but also that she was willing to face this moment again in order to bring this reality to the audience and to humanize this man, Luis, who was killed by the police.”
But the movie doesn’t just focus on the pain and violence that unhoused people have endured. It also highlights the power of community – which Diamond said can be a lifeline to those experiencing homelessness.
“Community helps keep people alive,” Diamond said. “It helps hold people through whatever traumas that they’re experiencing. … A lot of people become addicted [to drugs] as a result of their traumas … and it’s only through a supportive community that they’re able to heal and move through this.
“All of those things, I think, are really important.”
Criticizing the System
In late September, POOR Magazine held several short screenings in different parts of LA, including at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore in Sylmar. They were joined by Aetna Street Solidarity, a community group that organizes against the criminalization of the poor.
People gathered at the bookstore to watch the trailer narrated by Gray-Garcia and to participate in a panel discussion with the cast and crew, with fellow unhoused activists who shared their own experiences being unhoused. They denounced the sweeps that have upended the lives of people just trying to survive.
Gray-Garcia criticized politicians who come up with “solutions” on how to address homelessness without ever connecting with unhoused people. She brought up the cabins that were built in Oakland to move people out of Wood Street, which once had the largest community of unhoused people in Northern California.
“So they moved them out, pretended they had housing and then, 11 months later [this July] … closed it,” said Gray-Garcia.
“[The city] didn’t take any accountability, and evicted everybody back, you guessed it, to the street. How can you do that?” Gray-Garcia asked and then answered her own question, “They have no accountability to us, because they did it about us, without us.”
The Van Nuys Compound
One panelist, a trans man named Paisley, said that he’s been living in an RV since December 2021 after he couldn’t afford to pay rent. Ironically, he feels he can live freer now than he did before, and he’s fortunate to have family, friends and a community to support him.
Paisley lamented the fate of “the Compound” – an encampment in Van Nuys that was the largest in the San Fernando Valley before it was cleared out in late July by LA Sanitation, city officials and law enforcement. Mayor Karen Bass had called the site “dangerous” and said the people there were “living in squalor,” but Paisley countered that the residents were able to build homes for themselves, and even a baby had been born there after they had been unable to get to the hospital in time.
“The compound was targeted, attacked and destroyed because we were living outside of the city’s control,” Paisley said. “We were building for ourselves, and the city does not want any of us to build for ourselves, because then you won’t go to work, and then you’re not going to pay your rent.”
When the sweep of the Van Nuys Compound occurred, people lost most of their possessions. The city brought in a bus to transport people to an indoor shelter, but those living at the Compound would learn there wasn’t enough housing available for everyone. As workers began to pull down and remove their makeshift housing, people who had called it home could be seen walking away with only what they could carry.
Carla Orendorff, an organizer for Aetna Street Solidarity, said that the images and stories shown in “Crushing Wheelchairs” don’t belong to just one person – and some stories are still being told as people have been separated from their families, particularly after the immigration raids. She added that it will take everyone committing to supporting each other and fighting to end a system of family separation.
“Our work is a call to action,” Orendorff said. “It’s a commitment, and it’s a dare to challenge the politics that are killing our people each and every day.”
“Crushing Wheelchairs” will premiere first in San Francisco on Nov. 9 at the Roxie Theater, then at The New Parkway Theater in Oakland on Dec. 6. Details for a premiere in LA are still being discussed, but Diamond said it will likely be in January.