Jerald Cribbs once saved his friend’s life.
One day Cribbs found his friend passed out on the ground, and he performed CPR. Eventually Cribbs was able to resuscitate his friend. This, Cribbs said, was just one of the stories he might tell when talking about what makes up his life. But he said there was also a time when his stories were dismissed.
“No one really wanted to hear my story,” he said. “I was just a homeless guy.”
This changed when Cribbs was approached to tell his story on screen. Gudaitis Productions worked with the Shalom Community Center, IU student writers and Crawford Homes — a program providing housing for formerly homeless people — to produce a film about the stories of Crawford Homes residents.
The film was called “Like You, I Have a Story to Tell,” and was screened Tuesday in Trinity Episcopal Church Bloomington.
Filmmaker Alan Backler said telling the stories is integral to building comprehensive and accurate perceptions of homeless people.
“There’s too many people who dismiss homeless people because of very narrow preconceptions of who they are,” he said. “They can see from this that they have stories and lives just as rich as anyone else, and it’s important to listen to them.”
However, Cribbs said he often felt silenced and invisible before being in the film and Crawford Homes. As a result, he said, finally having his stories told felt strange.
“I never expected this many people would want to see me and my story,” he said. “We kind of get overlooked by people, so it was so surprising to see so many people come just to see us and our stories.”
Cribbs said the perceived invisibility can be especially pronounced in interactions with IU students. He said this may be due to misconceptions students have about homeless people.
Though some students might see the homeless population as dangerous or involved in drugs, Cribbs said, the homeless are people with lives and dreams, too.
Cribbs said he recalls walking up to a group of IU students one day to ask them what time it was, only for them to pretend not to see him.
“It did kind of hurt,” he said. “I’m not dangerous or this bad guy. I just wanted the time.”
Danielle Sorden, organizer of the project and program manager at Crawford Homes, said Cribbs’s experience is an example of a common interaction between IU students and homeless people.
Students fearing homeless people due to negative perceptions can lead to the homeless fearing students in equal measure, Sorden said.
As a result she said the film was a good opportunity for IU student-writers and homeless people to interact, form friendships and gain a better understanding of one another.
Cribbs said the students he interacted with really were able to bridge that gap.
“I made a lot of friends through this,” Cribbs said. “These students, they were just great people. They listened to me, and we learned a lot from each other, I think.”
