‘Pushback’: Documentary on homelessness in Peterborough stuns Trent students

The hour-and-a-half feature-length documentary, Pushback, takes audiences through the streets of Peterborough and showcases what it’s like living in poverty.

Chad Corley is one of five homeless people featured in the documentary.

“I used to be homeless, now I’m not, just battling everyday life,” said Corley. “I know I’m not the only one.

“There are other people that are out there that are often forgotten, so it’s you know, it’s an issue that we don’t want to accept that’s there but it’s there,” he adds.

The film was screened at Trent University on Thursday.

READ MORE: Trent students want peers to say ‘YES’ to end youth homelessness

The documentary profiles homelessness through the lens of the Warming Room, a homeless shelter in Peterborough that provides respite during the cold winter months.

“It follows five people that are connected with it, people who have stayed there in the past who are there now and a single staff member, and I just follow them kind of in the offseason, the spring, the summer, and the fall, between the opening, the closing of the Warming Room to see if they get housing, to see what happens that time when they don’t have the shelter to fall back on,” said director Matthew Hayes.

Hayes said that there is always hope that people find housing, but the reality shows otherwise.

“What I really wanted to do with the film, was knowing that a happy ending was probably not much of an option, I wanted to show the daily lives of some of these people to especially tackle that myth about individual responsibility, that idea that people are on the street because they make bad choices,” said Hayes.

READ MORE: 1.2 million Canadian children living in Poverty: census

Hayes said he wanted his film to depict the actual obstacles these people face on a daily basis, and how it’s nearly impossible to get out of the cycle.

“I’ve seen many documentaries on homelessness and this is very different and its aspect of bringing it out to our home community,” said Trent University student, Ayush Sachdev.

While Corley is still fighting an uphill battle, he’s optimistic about his future. He currently lives with a friend, and is looking for work.

A DVD of the documentary will be released in the spring, and later in the year, it will be available to watch online.