Canadian documentary filmmakers seek Flint resident for film this summer

I lived in Flint for most of my life. I lived there until I was eighteen years old, I left long enough to graduate from EMU. After graduation I ended up back in Flint for a year and a half before I found a job in my field and moved successfully to New Haven. That year and a half was the hardest, most depressing, trying, exhausting and terrifying period of my life. Our house flooded with Flint sewage when they started Changing the pipes on the east side. The pressure changes caused a lot of houses to flood with lead and legionnaire laced sewage, ruined most of the few possessions we had. The landlord took one look at the mess and said he would have someone out that night. He never contacted us about it again. We didn't see him until two months later, when he came asking for rent. Meanwhile we are stuck with the mess. My girlfriend worked at McDonald's and Walmart. You have to work multiple jobs because they all starve you for hours. We didn't have the money to pay a plumber. We had nowhere to go. Her parents are dead and mine live with friends and don't have places to offer. Not to mention we have a three year old daughter. We ended up using multiple sub pumps and a shop vac to pump it out of our basement and started looking for a place to move to. Both me and my girlfriend have bad credit, her from funeral costs for her first daughter, and mine from student loans. If the place we were trying to rent required a credit check, we weren't going to be able to rent it. We were limited to the east side slumlords that don't give a shit about your credit as long as you have rent on the first of the month. We found a house on Saginaw street, next to an abandoned lot. The abandoned lot was used as an extension of a nightclub and hundreds of people would party there every night. The cops broke it up a couple of times. After a while the cops stopped caring and the partiers were angry we called the cops on them in the first place so they started terrorizing us. They used our backyard as a bathroom, they used the lot as a drug forum. They parked on our front lawn. On the sidewalk. Blocking in our car. They got more direct with their aggressive behavior. They smashed bottles on our vehicles , they left bullets on our porch and they yelled threats through the windows. Luckily I found a job in my field. We packed our things and lived in a hotel for six months. Six agonizing months. We paid weekly for the room. I get paid weekly. About half my check was going to the hotel. We spent as much as we needed to eat and nothing else. The boredom almost. Killed us. Our daughter will probably never forgive us for that part of her life. Her and her mother waited at the hotel while I worked seven days a week, about 60 hours a week for six months. Six months until we saved enough money for a place. Then we had to find a place that wouldn't run a credit check or require an application by mail or proof of address as we were technically homeless. We found an apartment in a triplex in New Haven. 20 minutes from my work. No credit check. We met the landlord and he asked when we wanted to move in. We said today. He said okay. We got the fucking place! We moved in three days before Christmas. At any point during that six months, if we had been pulled over by the cops, broken down a few more times than we did (no car no iob, better fix that shit before tomorrow morning), which we did plenty, any slight mishap would have derailed everything and we would have ended up homeless with no income at all. But miraculously we made it. Please let me know you read this and I didn't type this for nothing. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Alex

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