After learning that nearly one in four homeless persons is a veteran, I wanted to go beyond the headlines and explore the root of what causes homelessness among veterans in a raw and non-biased, non-exploitive manner. Most veterans do well after their service; however, in order to better provide support for our returning troops, I sought to not only understand the contributing factors that lead to or increase to the risk of homelessness, but also understand who the people and organizations are providing support and what we can learn from them.

My philosophy as a director was to waste nothing, harking on the American Indian mentality of making resourceful use of everything laid upon the proverbial table, I wanted to not only share the stories and images selected for the documentary itself, but share the knowledge and insights we learned along the way.

To that end, the documentary anchors an awareness campaign that hosts a Digital Library with clips and sound-bites collected from interviews with officials, experts and service providers. Part of my personal journey has been to continue raising awareness post-production, and align it with my company’s Beyond the Wall Series, exploring the ramifications of post-combat issues in America to foster discussion of how our nation can best support our veterans.

My vision and goal is for Beyond the Wall: Homeless Zone, a social documentary to be utilized as a valuable resource in every classroom and library across America.

\ Alivia C. Tagliaferri