0:01

On the Bechdecast. The questions asked

0:03

if movies have women and them,

0:05

are all their discussions just boyfriends and

0:07

husbands or do they have individualism?

0:10

It's the patriarchy, Zephi beast

0:12

start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

0:16

Hello, Bechdel Cast listeners,

0:20

it's us. Oh,

0:22

I thought you were going to say your name? Hi

0:25

U.

0:25

Yeah, we welcome to the Bechdel Cast.

0:28

We're going to be doing something a little

0:30

bit different this week, in fact, extremely different,

0:33

in fact, something we've never done before.

0:35

Wow, and isn't that thrilling. My

0:38

name's Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin

0:40

Toronte, and this is normally a

0:43

podcast where we look at your favorite movies from

0:45

an intersectional feminist lens. It

0:47

was last week, it will be next week. However,

0:50

this week we wanted to.

0:52

Share a little bit of a new podcast,

0:55

or rather a newly revived

0:57

podcast that is coming to

1:00

to iHeartRadio called

1:02

We the Unhoused. Full disclosure

1:05

disclosure alert. I

1:07

am a producer on this show.

1:09

Amazing.

1:10

Yeah.

1:10

We want to sort of spread the word about

1:12

this show as much as possible. It's a

1:14

show that I first learned about in

1:17

twenty twenty although it started releasing

1:19

episodes.

1:19

In twenty nineteen.

1:21

It is created and hosted by

1:23

the incredible THEO Henderson, who

1:26

is an unhoused activist

1:29

and artist and reporter who lives

1:32

in Los Angeles. He

1:34

began with The Unhoused as a first

1:36

person account of the unhoused experience

1:39

in LA from the perspective

1:41

of the unhoused, and that is

1:43

what it will continue to be. So obviously, I

1:45

mean, it's something that we've talked about on the Bechdel

1:47

Cast in passing because we're a media criticism

1:50

podcast, but houselessness

1:53

and the treatment of unhoused

1:55

people as a monolith is something

1:58

that's very important to us and something

2:00

that this show I think uniquely addresses.

2:04

So we wanted to share a little bit with you

2:06

and would really encourage you to subscribe

2:09

to the show and also just follow

2:11

THEO Henderson's work in general.

2:14

It's invaluable, yeah,

2:17

and find ways

2:19

if you're able to support the

2:21

unhoused community in your

2:24

area, your unhoused neighbors.

2:27

In LA there are

2:30

over seventy five thousand unhoused people

2:33

living in this city and our

2:38

local government is doing very little to

2:40

support them, and so

2:42

many unhoused people rely on

2:45

mutual aid from individuals

2:48

and kind of small groups.

2:50

So yeah, we encourage

2:53

people to find ways they can

2:56

get involved in supporting their

2:58

unhoused neighbors.

3:00

And also just be armed with

3:03

knowledge. I mean, I've learned so

3:05

so much from wee then House over

3:07

the years about the many

3:10

complicated issues that face unhouse people

3:12

today and the many many perspectives

3:14

that unhause people come from. And

3:17

so with that, we're

3:19

going to kick it over to the amazing Theo

3:21

Henderson. This is the

3:24

first chunk of the

3:26

relaunch episode of We the un Housed.

3:28

We'll be linking to the feed

3:30

for the series in the description, and

3:33

if you want to hear the whole thing, which you

3:35

should, head over to the feed and

3:37

subscribe. We'll be releasing new episodes

3:40

every two weeks on

3:42

Tuesdays, So get your widy

3:45

on house on Tuesdays, becdelcast on

3:47

Thursdays.

3:48

Really pace out your week, beautiful.

3:50

All right, Here is the

3:53

first episode of the We the on House relaunch

3:55

with Leo Henderson.

4:00

It's a simple truth that we can't

4:02

escape. Houselessness

4:05

is everywhere. It

4:08

affects over half a million

4:10

people in the United States alone.

4:13

We try to make sense out of this tragedy,

4:16

but it is a senseless endeavor. What

4:19

I'm going to ask of you is

4:21

a very tall order. I

4:23

want you to take what you heard about houselessness

4:26

and I want you to forget it. Are

4:29

you still with me?

4:31

Good?

4:32

Let us have a conversation. My

4:37

name is Theo Henderson, hoston, creator

4:39

of Weeding in House, and I'm going to

4:41

take you on a journey in this crisis. Being

4:44

on house is a twenty four hour job, and

4:47

my lived experience in houslesness is extensive.

4:50

I was one of over

4:52

seventy five thousand people experiencing

4:54

houselessness on a given night in Los

4:57

Angeles. Now, contrary

4:59

to ill of people, I did

5:01

not grow up and say, gee, I

5:04

can't wait to live on the streets to encounter

5:06

societal rejection and violence.

5:10

I don't fit the stereotypes of what news

5:12

media, movies, and many house people

5:14

think of an unhoused person. Most

5:17

on house people don't. Being

5:20

on house is so often made out to seem

5:23

like an individual's fault,

5:26

not the hundreds of thousands

5:28

of systematic failures that

5:30

have to take place to put someone

5:33

in that position in the first place. Needless

5:37

to say, the un housed are not a monolith.

5:40

My history as an activist

5:42

has been difficult but unnecessary

5:45

journey. I drew inspiration

5:47

on my role as an activist from this

5:49

quote from Shirley Chisholm.

5:52

Activism is my rent for living

5:54

on this planning, which is kind

5:56

of ironic. Isn't it paying

5:59

with activism to fight for dignity and

6:01

empathy in an indifferent world?

6:04

However, the bill must be paid to foster a

6:07

better world than I found it. My

6:09

family has ties in activism,

6:12

fighting in the Civil Rights era and the

6:15

reelection of the first black mayor

6:17

in Chicago, mayor Washington, where

6:19

I was born and raised. Living

6:22

in Chicago taught me a lot, and

6:24

Los Angeles has been an entirely new

6:27

kind of teacher after I moved here. As

6:30

I made Los Angeles my home, the motivation

6:32

to speak out against housing and justice became

6:35

too great, particularly

6:37

when I became unhoused myself in

6:43

twenty nineteen. The house

6:45

world was in complete obliviousness

6:51

cows. People were concerned with the

6:53

humdrum issues of their lives, that

6:55

pumpkin spice lattes, and

6:57

most importantly, making sure that they don't

7:00

see the unhoused person sitting in their neighborhood.

7:03

But for the unhoused people, hell was

7:06

being unleashed with the new ordnance

7:09

that was voted in called forty

7:11

one eighteen. A

7:14

word about forty one eighteen is

7:16

touted as the new Jim Crow

7:19

of Los Angeles. As you have

7:21

known that from the history, majority of unhoused

7:23

people are black and brown community

7:25

members. And what this does It

7:28

makes it illegal for unhoused

7:30

or people to sit, sleep,

7:33

and lie within five hundred

7:35

feet of a postage sign that

7:38

has been posted all over the city by

7:40

city council members, neighborhood councils,

7:43

and business improved District owners.

7:46

In twenty nineteen, most people never heard

7:48

of a show that was going to be made by an

7:50

unhoused person for unhoused

7:53

people. Sure they hear the occasion

7:56

of New York Times, NPR or god forbid

7:58

Fox News broadcast, but

8:00

even the good coverage was always presented

8:03

by house people for house people about

8:05

unhoused people. I tried to make

8:07

an SOLS symbol with this podcast, hoping

8:10

to find a knowing year and build

8:12

alleyship between unhoused

8:14

people and house people. The

8:17

disinformation campaign about the Inn House is

8:19

threatening our will to be compassionate

8:22

and empathetic to each other. We in

8:24

House is constantly up against

8:26

a pernicious belief that houselessness

8:29

is a moral individual

8:32

failure. Case

8:34

in point, I have a friend a friend who

8:36

is adamant that the unhoused community

8:38

likes being out there. There's

8:40

no critical thinking required, just quit

8:43

uninformed sound bites that is being reinforced

8:46

by mainstream media. I

8:48

have always believed that if you can demonize

8:51

a person, then you can criminalize in I

8:55

wanted to show how individuals are affected by houselessness

8:57

and weed in House does that. Took

9:00

a figurative and literal breath and

9:02

created this from scratch. Living

9:05

outside, I had to utilize

9:07

the twos I had available. I

9:09

used the cheap phone, I edited

9:12

and released episodes with the help

9:14

of a couple of friends. I would

9:16

speak with people about their stories, how

9:18

city hall policies affected them,

9:21

how the police disrespected and abused them,

9:24

and how the young house were mistreated throughout

9:26

the pandemic. It was all from

9:28

the expert opinion by the people who are

9:30

affected. Initially,

9:33

I expected the show to hit local needs

9:35

audiences. Imagine my

9:37

surprise at people reaching out to me

9:39

from out of state and out of the country

9:42

who were displaced and unhoused and

9:44

wished that Weedyan House was a

9:46

part of their experience in their

9:49

place of origin. This

9:51

podcast became the lightning rod for

9:54

the world's moral consciousness. All

9:56

of a sudden, the mainstream media

9:58

outlets that had been treating the unhoused as

10:00

a monolift for all those years

10:03

we're talking about my show, one

10:05

that finally centered the community

10:07

they've been misrepresenting for so long. My

10:11

medium became a diverse attempt

10:13

to get the message across. The podcast

10:16

was always just the beginning, as

10:18

I moved in these circles

10:20

of people wanting to hear about the unhoused

10:22

community and their struggles. I

10:25

was installed as activist and Residents

10:27

in UCLA in twenty twenty two as

10:30

a way to awaken the sympathy

10:32

and empathy that was so sorely

10:34

lacking in housed and very

10:36

affluent communities. Then creating

10:39

a newspaper that highlighted the struggles

10:41

of unhoused people and being read

10:43

by unhoused people in twenty twenty

10:46

two as well, and currently in twenty

10:48

twenty three, my newsletter, which

10:50

highlights the struggles that are beleaguering

10:53

our communities. We

10:55

in House as a one man production was an important

10:57

job, but an exhausting and really heavy

11:00

lived. More polished shows did not have to

11:02

continue with the obstacles that I endured.

11:04

But I pressevered and now we're

11:06

relaunching the show with a little more polished

11:09

But the mission of the show is still the same. So

11:12

why would lost the show now? Housesness

11:14

did not go away when I stopped doing with You in the House,

11:17

and in September of twenty twenty two,

11:19

it has continued and now has escalated.

11:22

We have a lot to talk about, we have a lot to explore,

11:25

and we have a lot to do to change

11:27

the narrative about houselessness and how

11:30

we look at our fellow human beings.

11:34

If I told you that anyone that's in

11:36

a medical emergency is in risk

11:39

of being thrown from their home, would you believe

11:41

it? If I told you that there are over sixty

11:44

eight thousand unhoused

11:46

children and the Los Angeles Unified School

11:48

District, would you be empathetic

11:51

or dismissive? If

11:53

I told you that the people who

11:55

picked the fruits and vegetables in your

11:57

refrigerator are un housed

12:00

even though they are employed. Would

12:02

you be motivated to speak out against

12:04

this and justice. This

12:08

is the truxt of my show, getting

12:10

you informed so we can do something

12:12

about it. The show

12:15

deals with all aspects of houselessness,

12:18

not just the obvious unhoused encampments.

12:21

Weed the in House will break down terms

12:23

such as agency and laguage

12:25

such as nimbies in what they mean

12:28

to our community, and

12:30

in every episode will spotlight unhoused

12:32

news which is crucial to the unhoused

12:35

community. My goal

12:37

is to consolidate all things in house here,

12:40

educate the community who would be

12:42

unaware of the nuances of

12:45

houselessness, and motivate people

12:47

to do something about this humanitarian crisis.

12:50

Before we delve deep into this topic,

12:52

I want you to get to doving my

12:55

story, my dessentant

12:57

to houselessness and how I navigated

12:59

it, through it and out of it. So

13:02

we're bringing in a good friend of mine at podcaster

13:05

and her own right be Honey, and

13:08

that's what's up next on weedia House.

13:14

Once again, that was the first chunk

13:17

of this episode of We the Unhoused.

13:19

We encourage you to subscribe

13:22

to the show listen to it as

13:24

it comes out.

13:25

Yeah, we have a lot of amazing episodes

13:28

coming up. The next one is going to be about

13:31

the Unhoused Day of Remembrance, which

13:33

happens every year shortly

13:35

before the Christmas holiday in

13:38

LA. It's a day where the unhoused community

13:40

memorializes people in the community

13:43

that have been lost in

13:45

the past year. So THEO will be covering

13:47

not just the event, but the history

13:50

of the event and speaking with and

13:53

memorializing those we've lost

13:55

this year. So a

13:57

lot to look forward to listen to.

13:59

We the end House, and thank

14:01

you for listening to this unconventional

14:04

episode of the Bechtel Cast.

14:06

Yes, indeed, we will be back

14:08

next week with our regularly scheduled

14:11

programming, but we appreciate

14:13

you giving this a listen. And yeah,

14:17

we'll be back next week for

14:19

a live episode on It's

14:22

a Wonderful Life?

14:24

But is it?

14:24

But is it?

14:25

Tune in next week.

14:28

Bye bye bye,