Director Zack Russell’s documentary Someone Lives Here chronicles the advocacy and struggles of one person striving to help serve Toronto’s growing and underserved homeless community.
During the height of the pandemic, homelessness in Toronto surged to never before seen heights. With shelter systems pushed beyond their limits and respite centres in short supply, encampments began popping up in public parks. Carpenter Khaleel Seivwright quit his carpentry job framing houses and started making portable “tiny shelters” to offer those living outdoors a safer, more stable form of housing. Khaleel garnered a lot of media attention and support for his efforts, and eventually the city of Toronto came calling about a potential partnership. One week after a promising meeting, the city pulled an about face and demanded Khaleel stop what he’s doing immediately or he would face legal action.
Seivwright is a low key, inspiring figure to build a documentary around; a person who once experienced homelessness and is now trying to improve the lives of those the city has seemingly forgot. Watching his process and frustration is quite meaningful, and it’s quite telling that city officials never appear to give on-the-record interviews, and instead are only heard from the soundbites they give in public forums and meetings. Seivwright’s work shows that sometimes civil disobedience is necessary to make up for governmental inaction, and his impact can be seen in interviews within the homeless community. His solution might not be the best, and it’s all rather temporary in the grand scheme of things, but no one else is stepping up to do anything better.
To some degree, Someone Lives Here leaves a lot on the table. In latter stages, Russell shifts from covering Khaleel’s efforts to the city’s overbudgeted and high profile clearing of encampments in the summer of 2021. The issues are unquestionably linked, but in terms of showing precisely why people would choose to live in a park instead of becoming part of the system or going into a shelter, Someone Lives Here comes up short. The advocacy is on point, but to wake people up to what’s really going on, there has to be a light shone on the less desirable alternatives no one gets to see firsthand. But all in all, Someone Lives Here should hopefully reignite discussion on a topic city officials would like to leave in their rearview.
Saturday, April 29, 2023 – 5:30 pm – Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
Thursday, May 4, 2023 – 4:15 pm – TIFF Bell Lightbox 1
Someone Lives Here will be available to stream across Canada via Hot Docs from May 5th to 9th.
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