What’s Home? Creative Listening Across Differences is an exploration of our housing crisis in Santa Cruz County viewed through the lens of film and art. Artists can bring joy, empathy and mutual understanding right to the spots where hopelessness and division fester in the midst of our housing crisis.

The project began with ten artists each conversing with with a housed person and an unhoused person separately. Next, the artists each brought their two people together to explore questions like: What is home to you? What’s your story of home? How has our housing crisis affected you? What do you care about most for yourself and all people? These processes inspired a range of new visual and performance artwork. And all of these art making conversations were captured on video.

Then we connected Santa Cruz with Watsonville by inviting painters, Josefina Rocha and Carmen Leon to the project. They conversed and made art with an unhoused person, Jessie who is supported by Barrios Unidos and another unhoused person, Liz and her baby Luna who was supported by Pajaro Valley Shelter Services. This resulted in three new paintings and a rough cut documentary.

With this funding, we will pay for videography, editing and stipends for the participants, as well as adding Spanish subtitles to this final part of the film with Jessie, Liz and Luna as they meet with the artists and view these remarkable paintings that were inspired by their conversations.