The Forgotten

Initially when I watched the documentary, I became aware of just how big this problem was. Almost every weekend I go clubbing in Downtown and I see all of the homeless people lining the streets. I see them begging for money and to be perfectly honest, most of the time I see them as a nuisance. This leads me to think that his intended audience are younger individuals like myself, that he hopes to inspire to make change in the upcoming years. But i do have to give it to him: his effective use of pathos throughout the documentary definitely pulled at my "heart-strings" and overwhelmed me with sympathy. His uses of images of Homeless people begging for food or just wandering around in hysteria drew me in but in my opinion failed to get more in depth. He even uses images of homeless people standing in line at soup kitchens or many of them grouped around to show us just how many of them are out there and how out-of-control this problem is becoming. As i initially stated in the beginning, I've been exposed to plenty homeless people before and this hasn't even been the first documentary I've seen and what i hoped this one would've fulfilled would've been my need to know WHY? Why are people homeless? How does that happen? How do you go from having a life to becoming part of a forgotten civilization? I would've like it if additionally to proposing a solution for those who are already homeless, if he posed a solution for preventing homelessness. In addition, i thought one of his most ineffective points was when he introduced the gentleman who had hit rock bottom and was formerly homeless. How was he able to rise from that? The gentleman proclaimed to have once been homeless, yet there he stood fresh and clean in a clean pair of clothes. Maybe this is the solution. If he did it then so could others! Yet we wouldn't know because there was never any elaboration on what he did to bounce back. Though this documentary succeeded at making me feel sad for all the countless homeless people out there, how many people out there are going to rise up in support of a cause they know nothing about except that it makes them sad?