Anticipating "The Soloist"

After I watched the 2006 movie, “Blood Diamond”, I walked out of the theater enraged. I passionately vowed to never accept a conflict diamond when I would hopefully be proposed to one sweet day; I joined common interest groups on facebook – “Blood Diamonds are for NEVER”; I even donated a whooping five dollars towards the cause through Amnesty International.

A week later, the burning flame I felt about this awful problem died. Conflict diamonds in Africa didn’t directly affect my semi-charmed life and I ditched all my efforts. So much for that.

On April 24th when “The Soloist” is released, I want to challenge the apathetic, such as myself, to overcome this bipolar-like tendency to activate – then spectate – when confronted with a social problem. A movie about the friendship between Los Angeles Times staff writer, Steve Lopez, and a homeless man named Nathaniel Ayers, who was once a prodigious cellist at Julliard but was displaced because of a mental illness, the film will unveil the issue of homelessness that lies merely five miles from my current residence near the swanky University of Southern California.

Though we may cringe when facing the ugly flaws that exist in our backyard, the numbers do not lie: homelessness in Los Angeles is becoming an epidemic. Known as the “Homeless Capitol of the United States”, Los Angeles was ironically the residence for nearly 142,000 homeless people, 80% of whom were living unsheltered – that is, in alleys, encampments, overpasses, or doorways in 2008. Our reputation is going strong, too. USA Today recently reported that the number of people using a winter shelter program in Los Angeles jumped from 330 families in the 2007-08 winter to 620 this year – an almost doubling of displaced men, women, and children during a few months in 2009 alone. These atrocities are all occurring in our very own City of Angels.

Lopez has done a great public service through this movie by shedding light on a local problem that has for too long needed national attention. But unfortunately, we are not alone in our woes. The same USA Today report said, for instance, that this year, Seattle has seen a 40 percent increase in homelessness in its suburbs; in Miami, evictions have quadrupled, and fifty-nine percent more people made calls to a homelessness prevention hotline in Chicago. The economy has proven to be non-discriminatory as it has kicked families to the streets all across the nation.

Homelessness is on the rise. It may be scary to admit, but had life dealt us different cards, our families very well could have found ourselves in the desperate and frightening situation that so many thousands are in today. So while it is understandably difficult during these tough economic times to try to care for others when we find it hard to support ourselves, let the statistics and “The Soloist” prove that though life may seem hard for us, it could be worse.

Jimmy Carter once said, “The measure of society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens,” a saying that could not be more fitting in a time like this. Particularly during this period of national hardship, we cannot afford for apathy to override our obligations to care for those that are hurting when our nation is trying to rebuild itself.

We can collectively attempt to appease the issue of homelessness by giving a few hours of our time to volunteer at local homeless shelters. They are over capacity and need more hands to help. If you have the funds, donate to permanent supportive housing initiatives, such as the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which offer a place to live with the necessary support services that might help someone get back on their feet. At the minimum, subscribe to PATH Partner’s “LA Homeless Blog” to keep yourself informed.

It is my hope that “The Soloist” will be the catalyst for social change that is direly needed in this nation today. But while the anticipated film has already received much publicity, I fear that the golden opportunity for activism that it possesses will be overlooked, as I have done before. What “The Soloist” needs to be not is just another tear-jerking movie, but a real-life mover. We cannot settle to be audience members, merely watching human suffering on the big screen, when we could really get the real experience for free if we hopped in our cars and drove to the “bad side” of Downtown Los Angeles.

When “The Soloist” is released, activate – don’t spectate. Let us seize the opportunity to become actors in our own rights by playing the part of engaged citizens in a time when our society needs us the most.