The Advocates screening and Q&A with Director Remi Kessler

The Chamber of Hope presents The Advocates, an important film about homelessness in Los Angeles and the people who devote themsleves to help serve them. In every situation there is always more than meets the eye and the current homeless crisis is no different. This film offers an honest look at who's living on our streets, how they got there and what's being done to try and help them to get housed.

Tickets: We ask that all guests help cover the cost of this screening with a suggested donation of $15. All proceeds go to fund The Chamber of Hope, a 501(3)(c) non-profit based in Venice, CA that helps homeless reunite with their families and get off the street as well as providing rent relief to famiies during hard times so they dont miss rent or mortgage payments and fall into homelessness.

Program

7:00pm Beer & Wine Reception

7:45pm Screening

9:30pm Q&A With Director Remi Kessler and Cast

Film Synopsis

Over half a million people are homeless in the United States - 25% of whom are in California. Amid public outcry over the ballooning homeless population in Los Angeles--nearly 54,000 people on any given night--three advocates with three different organizations show what the lost ideal of “care in the community” looks like amid a changing policy landscape.

Intensely human and humanizing, The Advocates provides a sweeping look at the historic and current causes of L. A’s unprecedented crises, largely due to defunded affordable housing. It goes behind the headlines with pragmatic stories of the transformative work that is possible when the right resources, funding, and compassion are applied.

Featuring advocates Claudia Perez, Rudy Salinas, and Mel Tillekeratne, and the organizational work of LA on Cloud9, Housing Works, and Monday Night Mission with experts including: Celina Alvarez (Executive Director, Housing Works), Gary Blasi (UCLA, Professor of Law Emeritus), Jerry Jones (Inner City Law Center), Mary Kirchen (Founder, Housing Works), Steve Lopez (Columnist, LA Times), Alisa Orduna (Homeless Policy Director, Mayor Garcetti’s Office), Mark Ridley-Thomas (LA County Supervisor 2nd District), David Ryu (LA City Councilmember CD4), and Paul Tepper (Western Center on Law & Poverty).

Movie Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVaXLzU-TKQ

The Chamber of Hope

Chamber of Hope is a Venice, CA based 501(3)(c) founded in 2018 by Executive Director William Hawkins after serving as Chairman of the Venice Homeless Committee where he created a pilot reunification program that served the Neighborhood Council system of city of Los Angeles. With a small army of volunteers and through donations from the community they were able to reunite and house over 60 people in less than two years. William was inspired by the amount of people that were ready to get off the streets and just needed a safe place to go. With a lack of funding and scarcity of housing they were able to look to family and friends to take on the responsibility to help loved ones off the street. The Chamber of Hope has expanded that pilot program into a full-time effort and also added rent relief and elder care programs to help serve the most vulnerable who need assistance.

www.thechamberofhope.org