Documentary: The Homestretch

This documentary follows three homeless teens in North Chicago as they fight to stay in school, graduate, and build a future. It’s already hard enough to be a teenager of privilege, so I can only imagine the struggle of adding dealing with homelessness at that young and vulnerable age. This film connects with larger issues of poverty, race, juvenile justice, immigration, foster care, and LGBTQ youth. It also deals with a drug and alcohol overdose that one of the teenagers experinces during the making of this film. This doc features The Night Ministry’s Crib, which is an emergency youth shelter that is one of the only resorts for the many LGBTQ homeless youths. The Crib is in desparate need for funding and at one point shuts down, but was able to be revived again throughout the film. One of the strongest forces keeping these teens working toward a brighter future is the Belfort House, which provides shelter, fully subsidized apartments, and programs and services. One of the programs is called Year Up, which educated the teens to learn useful skills to function in society and eventually get jobs to become financially stable. A quote from one the teens that stood out to me was, “Now that I’m 18, I have to figure out a far better place to be at than just being invisible.”

Click here to watch The Homestretch for free on YouTube.