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Homeless children tell their stories
'My Own Four Walls' documents young lives wanting a place to call home.
from the May 24, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
One woman's mission
As a former shelter director and school-liaison trainer in Illinois, Ms. Nilan tapped into a network of liaisons during her travels through Florida, Arkansas, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and a number of other states, always via back roads.
She tells her story in her 27-foot trailer parked in a campground south of Boston, her flushed cheeks hinting at her zeal. "I feel like I have 75 bosses! These kids are counting on me," she says, pulling out a poster with a colorful grid of faces. "I promised them: 'I will do everything I can to make your voices heard and your faces seen.' "
That's meant she hasn't had much time for campfires as she's worked 10- to 12-hour days. Whenever she started to wonder if she were crazy for voluntarily giving up her home to try to end homelessness, she'd glance up at a small photo of two young sisters she met at a shelter, and their smiles would keep her going. She's even happy to be stuck in traffic on occasion, because it gives people time to check out the huge posters promoting her cause on the back of her RV.
After six months of filming last year, Nilan teamed up with Laura Vazquez, a media production professor at Northern Illinois University, to put together the video. The pair is now planning a full-length documentary on families on the edge of homelessness.
Importance of school to homeless
The children in "My Own Four Walls" span the gamut of homelessness – one lost her home to a fire, one was "ditched" by his mother, others simply were evicted because their families couldn't afford the rent – but they all share one thing, Nilan says: "School is so huge to them." For many, it was the one source of stability and friendships.
"The older kids especially saw that getting a college education was so crucial to them avoiding being in situations of homelessness," Nilan says. "To hear these kids talk about what they would do to get through high school and into college, it was stunning.... These kids are going to squeeze every drop of good out of their public education."
Take Beatrice Martinez, interviewed in Las Cruces, N.M., as a high school senior. In the video, Beatrice talks about how she was ashamed of the time that she and her mom were homeless when she was younger. She realizes now, she says, that "it's not who I am, it's what happened to me," and she speaks of going to college, no matter what it takes. "I felt like the room was glowing with determination," Nilan says of her.
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