Discovering the Other Side of Christmas

This holiday season, while most Americans celebrate amid the pleasurable company of family and friends, delectable foods, gift giving and festive decorations, some will find the occasion void of all splendor.

For the homeless, this time of year is much like any other.

Their grim reality will penetrate into the cozy havens of cable-TV subscribers, however, when the Discovery Channel shows two documentaries made in Los Angeles, “Justiceville” and “Addressless.” They will have their first airing Sunday, 8 to 9 p.m., and then on Thursday and Dec. 26 and 27.

The programs will mark the first time the Discovery cable network (carried by more than 50 cable systems in Southern California) has aired programs dealing with America’s homeless.

“We chose them (the two documentaries) because they are nicely done. They highlight an important message and theme--especially important around the holidays,” said Clark Bunting, vice president of program acquisitions for the channel. “We’re not taking a position,” he added. “We’re simply putting it out there for our audience and letting them make their own conclusions.”

Gary Glaser, producer-director of the 30-minute “Justiceville,” is not so noncommittal. He said his documentary, narrated by Eileen Brennan, “is an important first step in humanizing homeless people. The video does show the homeless in a different light--being resourceful, articulate and personable. It deals with their empowerment.”

A rough-cut version of “Justiceville”--entitled “Trouble in Paradise . . . A Look at L.A.’s Homeless”--won an Emmy for best public access/local origination program for 1985.

Glaser said he became interested in the homeless several years ago, while driving to and from his job at KTLA Channel 5 in Hollywood. Each day during his commute, he noticed the variety of people who lingered along Sunset and Hollywood boulevards.

“I kept seeing the same people over and over again,” the 37-year-old producer recalled. “Slowly, I realized they were homeless.”

In March of 1985, on a vacant lot in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, a number of homeless men, women and children were beginning a rather unique community--Justiceville.

At the same time, Glaser found himself unemployed. Curious about the plight of the homeless and realizing that the opportunity to document the rise of Justiceville would be a fleeting one, he took an unorthodox tack. Without budget or crew, he simply went to Skid Row with his camera and started shooting.

He watched--and taped--as the group built makeshift shelters and, in the process, learned to live in a spirit of cooperation. “That sense of community was one of the best things they had going for them. To realize there’s someone else that cares about you--when you have nothing--those intangibles mean more than anything,” he said.

After three months, however, Justiceville was shut down. Citations were given for failure to conform to city health codes and city officials ordered the lot bulldozed. A dozen people were arrested; the rest dispersed.

Although the encampment was gone, the homeless were not.

“There are an awful lot of people down there (on Skid Row) who have skills that are not being exercised,” Glaser said. One homeless man he met was a former classical pianist; another used to be a TV writer. Working with the residents of Justiceville taught him “not to judge people by their looks,” he said.

“Addressless,” produced by Laura Scheerer and Andrew Millstein at the Center for Visual Anthropology at USC, takes a look at people who live in their motor vehicles.

What began in 1986 as a graduate research paper about the homeless in Venice turned into a film project that focused on the Rose Hill parking lot, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

In their studies, Scheerer said, she and Millstein came across a disproportionate number of homeless people who were physically handicapped. Many of them were Vietnam veterans. Among the people they met were Jon and Valerie Hilldale--the main subjects of “Addressless.”

“We didn’t set out to make a homeless film,” said the 28-year-old Scheerer, who now works as an anthropological research associate at USC. “We didn’t come from an advocacy perspective. As we got more involved, though, we became interested in (homeless) issues.”

Their film chronicles the day-to-day life style of the Hilldales. Suffering from Friedreich’s Ataxia, a degenerative neurological disease, Valerie is shockingly emaciated.

The film shows that without her husband Jon’s relentless devotion, she is helpless. He must carry her, bathe her and feed her. “I’m learning to become accustomed to whatever my circumstances are that I find myself in,” Jon says in “Addressless.” “Therein lies the root for real happiness.”

About life in his cluttered, weather-beaten van, he later adds, “I don’t have an address, but I do have a home.”

Confident that if others help, the homeless can “get back in the mainstream,” Glaser hopes Discovery viewers will respond to the National Coalition for the Homeless’ public service announcement, which will be broadcast with the two documentaries.

But for Valerie, it’s too late.

Four months following the completion of “Addressless,” she died. Jon was incarcerated for unpaid parking citations and his van was impounded, Scheerer said. He has been unable to recover it, and now lives on the beaches of Venice--homeless.