I recently had the honor to receive Rotimi Rainwater’s bio and view the trailer to his authentic documentary, Lost in America coming out soon. I am compelled to endorse, cheer-lead, broadcast, emphasize, SHOUT OUT at the top of my lungs the importance of creating an awareness of the growing number of youth who are living on the streets. Taking a preventative stand while we put in perspective our population in future generations with the climbing number of children who are forced out of their homes due to unbearable conditions can remedy a larger rectification for the greater good of our nation.
I am choosing to repost the dialogue originally published for the introduction of YouTube trailers on April 17th and August 13th of this year as I feel the team’s words will be most effective in the engagement to do the necessary to live above reproach in the movement to keep today’s and generations to come youth off the street.
Published on Apr 17, 2014 as an introduction to the promotional trailer on YouTube
Shot over the course of several weeks, this promotional trailer tells the tale of 7 of the film’s young subjects. Want to follow us as we make this film? Click here to subscribe to this channel.
A Los Angeles based film crew travels the United States with the goal of telling the story of America’s homeless youth issue. Through interviews with homeless youth, youth advocacy and service organizations, and local and national politicians, the team aims to dig deep, with the goal of getting to the root of the issue. Fact: Over 1.2 million youth in America will go homeless and hungry in 2014. Fact: 5,000 homeless American children will die in 2014 without a home, without a bed, and without a plate of food. There are only 50,000 shelter beds for America’s homeless youth. Currently, only $114 million has been allotted to solve this issue by congress. America either doesn’t know that the issue is this big, or doesn’t care. Lost In America seeks to change that.
Published on Aug 13, 2014 as an introduction to the teaser on Youtube
The teaser for the upcoming documentary feature film, Lost in America. The film follows the journey of director Rotimi Rainwater and his team as they travel the country finding stories of the over 1 million homeless youth who live on the streets every year.
Lost in America is a documentary that will shed light on the state of youth homelessness in America. For the past 9 months, Rotimi Rainwater, Steve Vasquez, Jorge Rivera, Chris Dowske, and Brandon Bennet have travelled the country gathering the stories of homeless youth. We’ve interviewed members of the House of Representatives, the US Senate, and leaders of local and national organizations dedicated to changing the lives for homeless youth.
It is estimated that there are between 1.3 and 2.8 million homeless youth on the streets.
5,000 homeless youth die on the streets every year as a result of assault, illness, or suicide.
40% of America’s homeless youth identify as LGBT – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender.
There are only 5,000 beds available nationwide for homeless people who classify as “youth.”
Over 50% of homeless youth in shelters and on the streets report that they were told to leave home by their parents or their parents knew they were leaving and didn’t care.
The average age a youth becomes homeless is 14.7 years old.
Why do these youth take to the streets? There are three main reasons youth end up homeless:
1. A home for them, simply doesn’t exist. Either through a parent or guardian’s death or as a circumstance of poverty, they have no home to go to.
2. Home isn’t safe due to either sexual, physical, or emotional abuse.
3. The people at home, don’t want them. 40% of all homeless youth identify as LGBT, many of them find themselves on the street as a result of being thrown out of the home after coming out to their families.
This film is a very personal journey for all of the team, particularly for Rotimi.
So why are we back? Well we need more help. We’re very close to being finished with production and at this point we can’t stop. Why can’t we stop, well because these youth are still on the streets; struggling and dying every single day. So we’ve come back to ask you, humbly and from the bottom of our hearts, for more help.
The DETAILS:
The entire budget we need to finish production is $35,000. But we are not asking for that much, well kind of. What we’re asking for, right now, is to shoot the next leg of production which will cost $18,000. We’re asking for this because we can’t wait for Hollywood to discover what we’re doing, and because quite honestly the youth we’re talking to are still on the streets, still trying to survive, and they need people like you, to stand up for them and make people realize that they need help. So we’re making this film piece by piece.
Our journey will take us all over the country. First,we’ll go back to San Francisco where we will be with a couple, Makayla & Connor who struggle to make it in a city where it’s becoming more and more difficult to find safe places to stay. Then we’re going to Oregon to hop a freight train with Cecil to truly experience life on the road. We’re going back to Salt Lake City to spend more time with sex trafficking victims as well as going to Denver where we’ll meet up with Calub a 17 year forced to live under a bridge because she’s not allowed to go home. Then we’re going to Florida or Chicago to tell more stories of these amazing youth who struggle to make it in a country that has forgotten about them.
A Los Angeles based film crew travels the United States with the goal of telling the story of America’s homeless youth issue. Through interviews with homeless youth, youth advocacy and service organizations, and local and national politicians, the team aims to dig deep, with the goal of getting to the root of the issue. Fact: Over 1.2 million youth in America will go homeless and hungry in 2014. Fact: 5,000 homeless American children will die in 2014 without a home, without a bed, and without a plate of food. There are only 50,000 shelter beds for America’s homeless youth. Currently, only $114 million has been allotted to solve this issue by congress. America either doesn’t know that the issue is this big, or doesn’t care. Lost In America seeks to change that.
Follow this journey on Facebook as well.
