(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Catherine Hoffman, and thanks for joining us for this month's edition of Kansas City Experience.

This month, we learn about a local non-profit that provides free organic food to cancer patients to aid in their recovery.

- With organic food, we strive to give them a highly nutritious food that doesn't have the pesticides and herbicides that conventional foods have because the body itself is already fighting off that chemo and we don't wanna add even more chemicals.

And with those nutrients, it's gonna help them heal faster, hopefully, that's the goal.

- We meet the filmmaker from Overland Park who's creating quite the buzz with the new thriller, "Spiral" after being handpicked by Chris Rock to direct the film.

- [Chris] Whoever did this has another motive, something personal.

- When was the last time you saw your father?

(suspenseful music) - Okay so, this was all Chris Rock's idea.

I researched this, that he wanted to do this and came to you.

What was the deal with that and working with Chris Rock?

- It was the most insane experience of my life.

I did Saw 2, 3, and 4 and I stepped away to do other things, and then, I see the godfather behind you when you think you're out they draw you back in.

That's exactly what happened.

I get a phone call one afternoon and they said, "Chris Rock wants to meet with you, he loves the Saw franchise."

And uh, yeah, I came back, it was crazy.

- And the Australian band, Middle Kids checks in from Sydney and performs the track "R U 4 Me?"

- We just heard, "R U 4 Me?"

Which is a song that we have played a lot on The Bridge.

That actually started in a way, at least partially inspired by a sign that you saw on the school wall.

- Oh yeah at university.

Um, I was like walking down the halls and there was this sign, there was like heaps of them.

And now like in big caps lock letters is like, "Be nice!"

And then underneath it says, like, "It's not that hard."

And I just felt like that tone wasn't very nice.

I was like, maybe it is hard.

I think you're finding it hard already, but yeah, I dunno.

I just, I think like, it makes me just feel like there was like strong messaging going around on the internet.

It's like pretty shouty, but it's like, kind of meant to be positive, but underneath it feels kind of angsty and intense.

- But we start this month by examining the Kansas City program that put the houseless in hotels and look at some of the challenges.

Although the program ended earlier this month, the search for more permanent solutions for the city's unhoused continues.

(upbeat music plays) - And you're sitting there and you're doing this massive press conference, the protest visually behind you, and you're giving this speech about how thing's are gonna be done a certain way.

And you're gonna grant access for 90 days in a hotel.

They moved the Union that night and then they move Camp Six the next day and then the third day, a pin drops, there's nothing.

(upbeat music) - There was a productive way to do hotel shelter.

And there was a really problematic way to do it.

We provided a limited number of hotel beds and connected everyone who was using that hotel that was ours to supportive services, The community engaged in a different hotel sheltering effort that didn't provide supportive services.

And that was uh, just it took anyone who showed up at the front door and it was really costly.

And it did attract people from around the region.

And then, because there was no supportive services, no intake, no data, and no other resources ported in, those folks were returned to the street.

And some of them have been stranded here in Lawrence and Douglas County and we don't know where they're from or where they need to go back to and they're not being served because our outreach team is really stretched.

The vast majority of people who are sheltered in hotels through January, through March, were exited to the street.

And so that's why we have so much camping.

We have a lot of rental assistance money but we lost that opportunity to connect with those people and move them into housing because we didn't value the role that social workers play and that service providers play.

And I think we did it as productively as possible.

And I think other people around the region, but also around the country have done it in a way where it was really a hastily thrown together, not well supported and not well thought out intervention.

And we have to do better for people who are homeless.

- It looks like 20 or so numbers.

Load it up.

- [Anton] I'll throw in a tough game.

- So this is like my normal gig.

We have, you know, deodorant, in little cases here.

So when they formed the, um, camp and the Midwest Homeless Collective made it so much easier to serve them.

And they were able to receive a lot of services right there.

So we were pretty scared when they decided that they wanted to move everybody.

Honestly, it's not like they had a choice.

- [Janessa] Right.

Like it was the buses like visually, the buses were right there.

There were cops, in that Westport intersection making sure that the buses had a space to go.

It was a very intimidating situation, but they also were walking around telling them they're going to have three meals per day, and that they're going to have chefs cooking the meals.

- So that's the great thing is we got like chefs making you guys meals, so once you're in the hotel, you get three meals a day, we'll get doctors, you need prescriptions you need COVID vaccines, whatever you need, we're on it.

- [Nellie] So they were excited and totally didn't have a whole lot of qualms about getting onto the bus to wherever they were going.

Obviously it didn't happen that way.

And it was the following day that our group got a phone call asking if we could provide breakfast.

And then breakfast turned into lunch, which turned into dinner, which turned into the whole weekend, which turned into till Tuesday, Tuesday, we realized the Calvary's not coming.

No one's actually providing meals.

And we're the only ones doing it.

- They drop it on individual organizations or volunteers that have a heart and compassion for the people.

Were on the ground probably like seven in the morning or eight in the morning probably till like nine at night.

(bright pop music plays) - I'm working a full-time job at Hy-Vee, or I was.

And as soon as I try to focus on my job and I let up on helping these people, because I was like, man, this is too much for me to do without any kind of compensation.

I mean, I'm neglecting my family.

As soon as that happened, people stopped eating.

And immediately we saw the consequences of that.

People destroying their rooms, overdosing, or dealing, or bringing people into their rooms to have sex in exchange for currency or food.

You're putting them at this disadvantage where they're going to look like they're wasting this opportunity because you never followed through on your commitment to provide them with resources for their basic needs.

I don't see you bringing them hygiene care, or feminine hygiene to these women.

I don't see you connecting any of these people to Swope Health or Care Beyond the Boulevard, or passing out flyers.

I don't see you doing any of that.

I see my friends doing it.

I see us picking up your pieces.

And the only reason you put them in these hotels in the first place was to get them off their front lawn.

So if they waste this opportunity and they're back on your front lawn, what are you going to do then?

Are you going to help them or are you going to say, oh, well, they wasted this opportunity.

You wasted this opportunity city of Kansas City, by not following through on your commitments and us, the organizers, the community, we are really angry at this point, because if we stop what we're doing, we are not the ones who pay the price.

The people who you made promises to are the ones who pay the price.

(somber music) - We were in Camp Six for three months, we was family there.

(group sings happy birthday) (cheering) A lot of us rather be in the streets cause we'd get taken care of better out there, living out in the streets then we do in this building because if we are all together, we work as a team, we get everything together.

We get food out here once a day, we have been parted everywhere.

- [Eric] We've been purposely like segregated and had the head cut off the snake.

It seemed like a good idea just to get off the street for a minute, you know what I mean?

Just to, get 500 people off the streets.

I mean, I've heard of a few people that have had caseworkers, but none of them have even heard from them yet.

Everybody is worried, as Ash was saying that, you know, they don't know where they're going to be at the end of this few months.

And I don't know either for real.

Kinda just feels like we're boxed in.

- The city has already taken their belongings.

So they have to reach there to start over from the ground up.

- They had people even more dispersed than what they are right now because they were just booking hotels online.

So there was like no strategic planning at that point of which hotels were participating, how many people per hotel, what those people need, where they were on the spectrum of houselessness, anything like that, they were just like, get on a bus and go.

It just became way too much, way too quickly.

- [Ashley] We're still here.

Just because you put us out in the middle of nowhere don't mean shit.

I want to get help.

I want us to get a job.

I want, I want help.

I want them to help me.

- [Nellie] I feel like so much time has been wasted just because we've been scrambling.

So we haven't really been able to give people the amount of, you know, assistance and service that they yeah, that they need and they deserve.

And they were promised.

- [Brian] The biggest hurdle for us is being able to triage and identify those challenges and quickly respond to the needs of all the people in this community.

The hotels are certainly one step in the direction.

We got a lot of people off the street and that in itself is a success, but this is not a long-term solution.

It's one step in the process.

- In some ways, you know, we haven't gotten all of this right.

We've made mistakes, but there are still mistakes that are made in collaboration and coalition with each other.

And I think there's a lot to be said for that.

We saw it Hertel Hall, that we struggled as a community to get people connected to resources quickly.

And it looks a whole lot different in the hotels.

We've had a lot of folks step up and come to the table.

The service providers are at the table, And the house's taskforce is at the table.

It's just been a really good collaborative effort, I think.

And for me I feel really encouraged and it didn't feel that way before.

- Volunteers are going to show up when they care.

And they're always going to feel like they're being exploited for their time and their resources.

Like recently we've been backed up financially for this work.

It took like five or so weeks to get that support.

But we finally got it this week.

- What project does not have bumps in the road, what project doesn't gaps in the road?

We're filling them, and as we move along and fill them, guess what?

We're going to have a smooth system.

- So now we're finally getting through the process of, um, getting case managers in and filtering through and really seeing like who is very close to not staying in his hotel, because they actually already have a voucher and they need help putting a deposit down or help getting extra money to put aside or like, situations like that.

Some people are very close to that possible resource, which is awesome.

- And I commend Kansas City, I commend the mayor.

I commend Brian Platt for stepping up to the plate, for listening.

- But they could pay for a meal too, that'd be nice.

- Yep, say that part.

(laughs) - Where are they gonna go when it ends?

And so, you know that going into the hotel program, that you have a finite amount of resources.

And so you have to be willing to make an investment also in the solution for people.

The question for local governments and for funders is, are you willing to put the same kind of investment into housing people as you are, and to providing them with a temporary shelter solution.

When we run out of money for this program, we need to have a plan for everyone who's staying here and that plan can't be returning them to the streets or to their car.

(gentle music) - My name's Andrew Fitzgerald.

I am the President and Founder of Food for the Cure.

With organic food, we strive to give them highly nutritious food that doesn't have the pesticides and herbicides that conventional foods have because the body itself is already fighting off that chemo and we don't want to add even more chemicals.

And with that nutrients, it's going to help them heal faster, hopefully.

That's the goal.

My mother, unfortunately, was diagnosed in late 2014 with bile duct cancer.

I wanted her to eat organic food, but the reality was with all the expense of the medical and just buying regular foods, she unfortunately couldn't afford buying organic.

And unfortunately in 2016, she passed away, December of 2016.

That's why I started Food for the Cure so other people can have that chance to either beat the cancer with the help of organic food or try to help their extend their life.

Right now we have a 48 by 30 foot garden.

And last year we gave away 220 pounds of food, which is quite a bit but we want to double that.

As of right now, we have seven cancer patients that we give food.

Once we have something ready in the garden, I will personally call them or text an email and say, hey, I have lettuce ready to give out.

Do you want that?

And they'll say yes or no.

And if they say, yes, we'll make a list of who wants what, we'll pick it fresh from the garden.

And then me and my wife will go deliver it.

And what I like to do, especially with like the lettuce, I keep the roots on it, so they could put it in water and it lasts longer.

With us being so small, it's all word of mouth.

And we'd like to get cancer patients that way.

(gentle music) I think a lot of people really don't think about cancer because who wants to think about cancer?

And you got people that smoke, you got people that go to McDonald's every day.

They don't really correlate their food choices or their life choices to any kind of consequence.

So I think it's really the consequences of what you're choosing that people really don't take into aspect until it's too late unfortunately.

That's another reason why we really want to get organic food into the people that need it the most, which is the cancer patients.

So they can hopefully bounce back.

(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm John McGrath.

I'm a producer for Flat Land at Kansas City PBS.

And today Art House takes a look at "Spiral".

The new thriller starring Chris Rock, that guess what?

Is directed by Kansas City's own, Darren Lynn Bozeman, Art House talked to Bozeman about the film and what it was like to grow up in Kansas City.

(light rock music) - Whoever did this has another motive, something personal.

- When was the last time you saw your father?

- Okay, this was all Chris Rock's idea.

I researched this, that he came to, he wanted to do this and he came to you.

What was the deal with that and working with Chris Rock?

- It was the most insane experience in my life.

you know, I did Saw 2, 3, and 4 and I stepped away to do other things.

And then, you know, I see the godfather behind you.

When you think you're out, they throw you back in.

That's exactly what happened.

I get a phone call one afternoon and they said, Chris Rock wants to meet with you.

He loves the Saw franchise.

And yeah, I came back.

It was crazy.

- Talk about, well, this is going away, but you grew up in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City.

- Yeah.

- And went to Shawnee Mission North.

So growing up in Kansas City, what was that like?

And growing up, how did that influence you as a filmmaker here today?

- You know, I think in Kansas City, I got really involved into acting.

I was huge in the theater, I went to Shawnee Mission North.

I was very big in the theater department there.

And I realized I was doing a show in high school where I was an actor and I looked at it and I was like, you know what, I love the feeling, but it wasn't that I was in acting that I love the feeling, I love the idea that I could create a world.

I was watching the director create this world, she placed lights, she placed the actors, she placed the set design.

And I said, that's what I want to do.

I want to do that, I want to create worlds.

And I think here I am now, 30 years later and I'm creating worlds.

And that to me, there's no better feeling than that.

And it's crazy when you first got out there, you had this script that was so Saw-like, people were telling you, wait, this is way too violent.

And then I don't know, somehow that got connected to you directing the first Saw movie, tell people about that, how you had this kind of spec script and how that turned into you directing Saw 2.

- Yeah.

I wrote a script called The Desperate, and The Desperate was about me and my life and how I was desperate to basically be noticed.

And I wrote a very vicious, violent script and I sent it around and it ended up getting picked up by this company called Twisted Pictures.

And Twisted Pictures were going to make, was going to make The Desperate as its own movie was going to be called The Desperate and I was going to direct it and at that same time Saw comes out and is a huge success and they said, we need to make a sequel right away.

And then they asked me, can you take your script and adapt it and turn it into Saw 2?

And so I literally was shown the Saw movie and I had about a month to take my script, The Desperate and make it into Saw 2.

Next thing I know I'm on a plane, I'm going to Toronto and I'm making Saw 2.

- That is a great story.

I moved out to LA, I was out there for a couple years living in Los Feliz.

So that's a tough town and that is just a great break when you hear those kinds of stories, getting that lucky break was awesome, Darren.

We're so proud of you're back in Kansas City.

Okay, so this is not Saw 9, Darren, this is kind of a different thing.

I mean, you did some homages to the Saw movies, But tell people how this is in fact, Chris Rock told you his two favorite movies were 48 Hours and Se7en, and he wanted to kind of combine those.

So tell people how this is kind of a procedural cop film and not so much just a Saw movie.

- Yeah.

Well, you said it better than I could.

It is not Saw 9, it exists in the Saw universe.

It is the ninth installment of the Saw universe.

- What is that?

- Play me.

- And what this is, is that we wanted to do a movie that basically you did not have to watch one through eight.

It's a reset button, where it's new characters, a new storyline.

And like Mandalorian is a great example.

Mandalorian exists in the Star Wars universe, but you don't need to have seen all the other movies.

This is much more a police procedural.

It's a thriller movie that has moments of ultra violence.

It's not a horror film.

And I think that what Chris really wanted to do was, he wanted to give the tone a little something different than we've had in previous Saw films.

- [Unknown Speaker] Hello, Detective Banks, I'm here to help reform the Metro Police.

- This movie is dark.

It's bleak, but it's also funny.

It's got some real humor in it, which we've never done an a Saw movie before.

- I think she's cool, man, she's different.

You know my wife.

- You give a woman, 600 Tuesdays, it ain't worth three Saturday nights.

- [Darren] So it's its own unique story that you need to know nothing going into it.

But if you're a fan of the Saw franchise, if you've seen one through eight, you will 100% get it right away.

There's a hundred Easter eggs in there for you.

It's DNA of Saw, but it is not a Saw film.

- [Unknown Speaker] Hello, Detective Banks.

Do you know where your officers are?

- Yeah, you know, I'm a huge Saw fan, I'm a horror freak.

I've made like 12 horror shorts, working on my feature.

What's interesting is it seemed like after, like the Saw's kind of started losing it, they got a little discombobulated and what'd you think about that as being one of the sole creators of starting this?

- You know, it's such a weird reaction every time I would see a Saw movie, it started that I got jealous and then I got angry because, it's like you birth the kid and then you send them off to college and then I'm watching him make bad choices.

I'm not saying all the Saw movies are bad choices, but I'm like, why did you do that?

You should have done this.

And that was another reason that I wanted to come back is that I felt, I feel such a connection to the Saw franchise, doing Saw 2, 3 and 4 I feel like I was able to help birth it.

And so now it's my chance to come in and do a little course correction as a fan that I wanted to see.

So that's the best thing about my job is I'm a horror fan and I get to make horror movies.

(intense creepy music) - Art House is a process movie.

We talk to filmmakers about the processes of filmmaking.

So what's your process of filmmaking?

So do you storyboard?

Do you work with the script a lot?

As a director, what's your kind of process of directing?

- So it's changes on every movie.

Sometimes I write the movies, sometimes I don't.

Like this one, I did not write.

So we will take any scene that has action in it, any scene that has violence in it, and we will storyboard those, 100%.

If you were to look at my storyboards on the finale of this movie, they're almost shot by shot accurate to what we actually film.

I shot list everything.

And you know what I actually do, which I've started doing, which I really like, is I make a program that I send the AD and all the crew members.

And it's got the script pages that are annotated with my notes within my shot list and the storyboard, so you can actually click on the script and it brings out my shot list and the storyboards for it.

Because again, advice to filmmakers, movies are not made on set, they're made in pre-production.

You go to, and there's a great, you've mentioned Hitchcock.

There's a great Hitchcock story about that Hitchcock would sit some days in his chair and get drunk and he would pass out, but they knew his shots so well because he had everything meticulously done that all they had to do is pick it up and say, here we go.

And I don't get drunk on set, but I do have everything shot listed out and story boarded out because you're just there on set to execute your plan that you've made in prep.

- Yeah, you make a movie three times, right?

You write it, you shoot it and edit it.

- Edit it, exactly.

- Derek, thank you so much for talking to us here in Kansas City.

We love you back here and wish you so much luck.

Thanks for talking to me.

- Thank you, I really appreciate it.

(dramatic music) - All right, this we'll play "R U 4 Me?"

(guitar strums) - Uh, one, two.

Uh, one, two, one, two, three, four.

♪ Daylight ♪ ♪ Eat a piece of cake to start the day right ♪ ♪ Join in my crusade shoutin' at everyone "Be nice" ♪ ♪ When I'm not even nice myself ♪ ♪ No, I don't even like myself ♪ ♪ Shoutin' at everyone ♪ ♪ I shout at every person ♪ ♪ Do not ignore me ♪ ♪ Are you for me or against me?

♪ ♪ Hold yourself against me ♪ ♪ Can anyone hear this?

♪ ♪ I feel so far from the people ♪ ♪ Who are nearest ♪ ♪ If you see somethin', please call this number ♪ ♪ I don't drink the water ♪ ♪ I just wish that everything would be right ♪ ♪ When I don't even know what's right ♪ ♪ No, I don't know what that'd be like ♪ ♪ My friends and family ♪ ♪ We're all in therapy sayin' ♪ ♪ Do not ignore me ♪ ♪ Are you for me or against me?

♪ ♪ Hold yourself against me ♪ ♪ Can anyone hear this?

♪ ♪ I feel so far from the people ♪ ♪ Who are nearest ♪ ♪ Do not ignore me ♪ ♪ Are you for me or against me?

♪ ♪ Hold yourself against me ♪ ♪ Can anyone hear this?

♪ ♪ I feel so far from the people ♪ ♪ Who are nearest ♪ ♪ Do not ignore me ♪ ♪ Are you for me or against me?

♪ ♪ Hold yourself against me ♪ ♪ Can anyone hear this?

♪ ♪ I feel so far from the people ♪ ♪ Who are nearest ♪ ♪ Do not ignore me ♪ ♪ Are you for me or against me?

♪ ♪ Hold yourself against me ♪ ♪ Can anyone hear this?

♪ ♪ I feel so far from the people ♪ ♪ Who are nearest ♪