The Reel World: No place to call home
What if your home was a single room? What if your piece of the American Dream was a mobile home? What if your community was destroyed by investors? America’s affordable housing crisis affects more than home buyers. These documentaries spotlight the challenges that renters face in their search for quality affordable housing.
How do you build your whole life in a single room? wonders Sylvester, a painter of vibrant portraits and murals. How do you raise a child in a single room? wonders Christina, a Chinese immigrant and mom to a little girl. How does your life have dignity in a single room? wonders Sunbear as he points out the roaches and bedbugs infesting his room.
For Sunbear, Christina, Sylvester and other tenants featured in the documentary Home is a Hotel, “home” is a room in one of San Francisco’s Single Occupancy hotels. These residential hotels offer a housing solution for very low-income adults. Residents of SROs share bathrooms and kitchens and then pay hundreds of dollars a month for the privilege of sleeping and living in tiny rooms.
The SROs keep people off the streets and out of shelters. However, as the cameras follow Sylvester, Christina and the others, it’s clear that these rooms offer a refuge but not a true home. Cramped and lacking privacy, the residents dream of one day living in a house.
Welcome to Golfview Mobile Home Park in North Liberty, Iowa. Be prepared to fall in love with this idyllic neighborhood of tidy trailers, neat lawns and vibrant flower gardens. Then be outraged when an out-of-state private equity firm buys the park and raises the lot rent 60 percent. Unfortunately, like other mobile homeowners, they own their home but not the land.
Now travel to Denver Meadows Mobile Park in Aurora, Colorado. This trailer park is home to longtime residents thrilled they were finally able to afford their small piece of the American Dream. Something worse than a rent increase is coming their way: the owner is shutting down the park with the intention of rezoning the land and selling it.
Mobile homes offer affordable and achievable housing for many families who take pride in their home ownership. In A Decent Home Sara Terry exposes how predatory private equity firms purchase the parks and squeeze out every penny of profit. What could be part of the solution to affordable housing is now becoming out of reach.
A documentary about mobile home parks might not be on your radar as compelling viewing, but A Decent Home offers an engrossing narrative with unlikely activists, unlikable villains and a heartfelt plea for decent housing.
The apartments at Liberty Square have seen better days. The charming white picket fences and cheerful yellow and blue pastel paint can’t disguise the crumbling interiors. But there’s laughter at Liberty Square. And gossip. And neighbors looking out for neighbors. There’s a proud history, a distinct culture and a vibrant community at Liberty Square that’s about to be destroyed.
Why? Because the land doesn’t flood. Suddenly this undesirable property has become very desirable in flood-prone Miami. In 2017 the city of Miami decided to redevelop Liberty Square from public housing into mixed income housing with plans to raze all but one building.
Razing Liberty Square chronicles the progress of the housing development and gives voice to both the proponents of the project and those against it. This documentary addresses important issues such as gentrification, climate change and climate justice.
