To honor World Homeless Day, 23 people came together at the Suitland Creative Center for the third film screening of ‘Have you Seen Teri?’ from the independent filmmaker and director K. Dené Chinn. Chinn’s film centered around her estranged Aunt Teri, her relative on her father’s side. Teri lost contact with the rest of her family over 20 years ago, as a result of their fragile relationship and her struggle with housing instability Chinn chose to host the third screening of this film to coincide with World Homeless Day, which began in 2010 to raise awareness about those experiencing homelessness. The panel discussion moderator, Shani McIlwain, spoke about the importance of community outreach in preventing death and other tragedies.
Black communities have been historically underserved compared to white counterparts. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, African Americans represent 13% of the U.S. population, but represent 37% of those experiencing homelessness and more than 50% of homeless families with children. These disparities only worsen with a global disease, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, 32% of Black adults lost their jobs compared to 24% of white adults, which is one factor why renters of color reported instability in their ability to pay rent, according to CAP 20.
“There is a saying when America catches a cold, Black people catch pneumonia,” McIlwain said. “When you talk about homelessness, when you talk about mental health, when you talk about anything that affects humans…our community is always more vastly hurt and affected negatively in those areas.”
The film begins with the mystery that no one in Chinn’s family has had contact with her Aunt Teri in over 20 years. Chinn takes on the emotional quest of finding her aunt and learning what happened to her, though she has little record or traces of where she could be.
Chinn’s nine aunts and uncles did not grow up together in the same household. Their birth mother, Cleo, only cared for one of her children, Derek. The family doesn’t know why Cleo didn’t care for the rest of her children, but Teri, Brenda, and Iris were raised by another family member, to whom Brenda refers as mommy.
Because the siblings grew up separately with different family members, Brenda says in the film the siblings had a lack of trust among them.
“I truly believe everything that all of us have gone through mentally, especially my sister Teri, stems from the mother,” Brenda said. “She [didn’t] give us her love, we never saw her.” Teri and Brenda only knew two of their other siblings, until Brenda was about 16. At that point, they met the other half of the family, and learned the woman raising Brenda and Teri was not their biological mother.
“She had all these children in the little city of D.C. and nobody knew each other,” said Brenda. “How awful is that? That is so awful, I don’t care what no one says, it stems from the parent.”
In the film, much of Teri’s upbringing is narrated by her sister Brenda, since they lived together, but Brenda says the two were not close growing up. Brenda recalls not interacting much with Teri as an adolescent, going separate ways as teenagers. However, Brenda believes that after their adoptive mother died, it took Teri to a dark place.
“I don’t know how she absorbed that or how she developed, but we as sisters didn’t talk. We didn’t have a sisterly bond,” she said.
As a result of the isolation the siblings grew up in, Brenda believes Teri struggled because there was no one left in whom Teri could confide.
“What’s going on? What’s gonna happen? Cause what do she do now? Who does she know? I think her world shattered,” Brenda said. After their mother died, Teri took steps to carve a life for herself. After graduating from Eastern High School in the early 1970s, she enrolled in the University of Maryland, according to the film, though she left after a year. As a young adult, Teri held many jobs, working as a contractor at the Naval Research Laboratory, and working at United Planning Organization, which helps fight poverty. To her siblings, she was living a seemingly successful life as a single woman. Teri always made an effort to dress well with name-brand clothing and accessories, her siblings said, but at home in her apartment she had nothing.
“I went to see her one time,” said her brother Kenneth. “I said I ain’t know Black people lived in this building cause it’s a very nice building, so when you go in there is no furniture, everything is on the floor.”
Brenda said Teri’s struggles started slowly. Teri’s transient lifestyle began with her living with siblings and other family members, but this was short-lived. Teri lived with Chinn’s family for a time, but she was so young she doesn’t remember it. At the point the film was made, Teri’s family suspected she had been homeless for about 30 years.
Employees with N Street Village, an organization that supports women experiencing homelessness, who were interviewed in the film said Teri’s story sounded unfortunately common, as many Black women who seek help from the organization have not been able to find support elsewhere. Teri’s family said they suspected that in addition to housing insecurity, Teri was dealing with mental health challenges.
“Homelessness itself is traumatic,” Kenyatta Brunson, the former CEO of N St Village, said in the film. “Systematic oppression plays a great deal in how Black women deal with stress and trauma.”
Two decades later, Chinn took on the quest to heal family wounds and bring closure to the family along with her father, Kenneth. Chinn contacted shelters and state hospitals and opened a police investigation. The last information the family had about Teri was that she had stayed in a shelter for some time in the 1990s. The last time her family had seen her was in the late 1990s.
Chinn and Kenneth went to shelters and service agencies around the area looking for Teri. Kenneth passed away in 2022 without finding his sister, but Chinn carried on the search.
Chinn found the apartment her aunt lived in and left a message to contact her. After Chinn spoke to Teri on the phone, the siblings said they felt a sense of closure. The call with Teri only lasted six minutes, and she hasn’t reached out since.
Reflecting on the emotional toll of making the film, Chinn credited her faith for enabling her to persevere. The name of Chinn’s production company, 6:33 Productions, is inspired by Matthew 6:33. Through the ups and downs of the creative process and personal situations, Chinn relied on her faith to finish the film.
“My faith kept me going because I was applying for grants to get this film done and there were a lot of no’s and that could be discouraging,” said Chinn. “I lost my father during the production of this film, that was a blow, but I also felt called to do the film.”
