Nearly 3.5 million people experience homelessness in the U.S. in the course of a year –– 1.35 million of them are children. Sadly, as homelessness in America has worsened, attention has waned.

As a nation, we have addressed the symptoms with more and more emergency shelters, but the root causes of homelessness—complex and difficult—remain fixed.

Give us Your Poor: Homelessness & the United States, developed by OneArts, Inc. in conjunction with The University of Massachusetts Boston, will draw and enlighten an audience that might not otherwise tune in by featuring the music of Bruce Springsteen and including on-camera performances by a wide-range of nationally recognized entertainers who identify with the issue of homelessness.

Give us Your Poor will begin on Ellis Island with the promise of the Statue of Liberty –– "Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift up my lamp beside the golden door"–– and then stretch out across the breadth of America to discover whether that promise lives today for the homeless in the United States.

Give us Your Poor will ask: "Is there an American community?" and if so, "Are all members of that community diminished when the whole is so fractured by estrangement?"

Give us Your Poor, a feature-length, super-16mm documentary film, will be edited for release on national Public Television and distributed to educational institutions . It will be accompanied by a broad-based Educational Outreach package.