Documentarian and advocate show lives along Anaheim Street

David Freeman roams the Southland with a camera, documenting people living on the streets — and using those pictures to bring attention to the often harsh conditions they face.

And that’s how the 79-year-old former businessman has spent most of his retirement

But now, with help from 32-year-old videographer Grant White, Freeman has released a 27-minute YouTube documentary about those who are homeless and live along Long Beach’s Anaheim Street.

The video, titled “I Am Somebody,” features interviews with people living along Anaheim Street, including in MacArthur Park and the area below the Anaheim Street overpass.

Freeman and White drove up an down Anaheim with a man named Willie Beasley — who was formerly homeless, but now lives in senior housing — every weekend for four months before the coronavirus pandemic hit in March 2020. They interviewed the people they spotted. Then White and Freeman, 79, spent most of 2020 editing the video footage and adding some of latter’s still portraits.

Among the intended audience, Freeman said, are those whose jobs are to help the homeless population.

“Everyone who works for the city,” Freeman said, “should see this movie.”

In many of the interviews featured in the documentary, Freeman asks his subjects, “What is the city doing for the homeless?”

One man responded that he was going to the winter shelter. Most answered, “Nothing.”

Others said the city should spend more money helping those who are homeless and less on cleanups, which often lead to those on the streets getting

their possessions confiscated.

But Paul Duncan, the city’s Homeless Services officer, pushed back on those criticisms.

Long Beach, he said, spends millions of dollars on services for those without permanent shelter and to help reduce the homeless crisis.

Long Beach did not conduct its annual survey of the local homeless population this year because of the ongoing pandemic. But last year’s point-in-time count — which took place in January, two months before the first stay-at-home orders went into effect — revealed 2,034 people who were homeless. That was a 7% increase from the previous year.

The city also saw a 27% decline in the number of homeless staying in shelters, but a 24% spike in the unsheltered population in 2020. But Long Beach officials, in a statement in June when they released the homeless count data, said the decrease in the sheltered population happened because of limited funds that support motel vouchers.

And, with the coronavirus providing further urgency to solve the homeless crisis, city officials spent last year rolling out various housing options for those without shelter.

Long Beach, for example, has added 199 units of permanent housing in the last year, Duncan said. The city also opened a 125bed year-round shelter and purchased a 100-room hotel for temporary housing. Outreach has also increased and nonprofits under contract with the city provide various homeless services, Duncan said.

And while cleanups do take place for public health and access reasons, Duncan said, they occur alongside outreach efforts.

“The goal of the city throughout this process is to link people to services that will get them off the street,” he said.

Freeman, meanwhile, has long used his photography skills to accurately portray the lives of those living on the streets. He has mounted exhibits of his photography and his work has been used at multiple events.

The goal of both the photographs and this documentary, Freeman said, is to show that people who are homeless are still humans and still matter — deserving of both respect and help.

Allison Kripp, a member of the city’s Homeless Services Advisory Commission, lauded the documentary.

“This film needs to be seen,” Kripp said. “The message is so real, on point more than ever as the numbers falling into homelessness continues to increase. We can do better.”

In an attempt to find a wider audience, Freeman said, he has reached out to Amazon and has submitted the documentary to several film festivals.

“We don’t really care about the money,” he said. “I just want to make people care.”