POV

-Next, on "POV Shorts," one city turns poverty into a prison sentence, another conducts a $4 million experiment. Two films about how cities give and take. "POV

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Money Rules." -Where's a fan? Good Lord. Yeah, you have to -- Can we get some -- Can we get some soft lighting for this, uh, glistening job? Can we just -- wish there's a soft lighting. No, I-I am getting ready to balance. Okay. I'm done.

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I often use humor to diffuse things that are uncomfortably, mentally, and this process is one of those. They were all the same. Driving without insurance. Um, each police officer never justified. When they -- When they would say, "Oh, we ran your plates. Your plates don't match the car." The question I've always asked, "What was the determining factor that you used to consider me a threat, for you to get behind me, to run my plates, to determine my plates didn't match the car?" And no matter what municipality I was in, no matter where I was, no matter how the problem came up, I wasn't speeding, I didn't run through a light, I didn't run a stop sign, I wasn't swerving. Okay, one time, I changed a lane without a blinker. Okay, yeah. -I'm 49 years old. I'll be 50 in May. My hopes for the future is just to get me a job that I'm comfortable with, maybe I can grow with and keep a roof over my head and spend time with my kids and grandbabies. I wanted to be a soldier. I always wanted to go to the Air Force. But then, when I turned 18, I got pregnant and that got put off. -Why did you want to go there? -Because I wanted to jump out of planes. I always wanted to be -- wanted to see how it'd feel to put on a parachute and jump out of a plane. Yeah, and I was just -- just, like, soldiers -- they styled. They just... Yeah. -Expired temporary tags. How do you plead? -Um, not guilty. I don't know. -Well, unfortunately, that's not a defense. But you'd think it would be, but it's not. $75 plus costs. Uh, Mr. Evans, you're charged by the city with high grass and weeds violation. How do you plead? -Do you have insurance, sir? -Um, no. -High grass and weeds, just $75 plus costs. -Okay. -Mrs. Thompson, how do you plead? -Guilty. I ran a stop sign. -Okay. That's just $100 plus costs. You're charged by the city with failure to register, no inspection, improper plates and failure to appear. How do you plead? -Not guilty. -Okay, we're gonna dismiss the failure to appear charge, okay? The other three are just equipment violations, which means you won't get any points or any conviction on your driving record. $375 plus costs. If you can't pay it today, they'll make arrangements for you to pay on a card, okay? -Let me just make it short. With the story of me stealing four steaks from Jennings, I was arrested 19 different times for that one incident. I did a total of 67 jail days. I went to court, went in front of the judge, and he s-- fined me $1,800, wanted to put me on a $100 payment plan. I was able to borrow the money for, like, approximately four months. When I got to the fifth month, I went to court. I didn't have the $100, so I asked him to give me till that next Tuesday, give me one week to pay -- come up with the $100. He said he can only give me three days and a warrant would be back out. And he re-issued a warrant, 'cause I didn't have the $100 in three days. -Small municipalities, they would rake the people in, have nowhere to keep them, and then decided -- they got together, like in a huddle, "Look, we got this new game we're gonna play. Here's the plan. Y'all rake 'em, we'll bake 'em. You give 'em the tickets, we'll house them over here, we'll split the money in half." So, then they decided, because we don't have any jail space, and all these little podunk municipalities, like Upland Park, Velda Village, Hillsdale, Pine Lawn, Bel-Nor, Bel-Ridge, Normandy, Upland Parks, that whole stretch -- Oh, I can keep going....Calverton Park. I could keep going, and turn the corner and go down to Edmonton. Once you get locked up, they run your name through every municipality within 100 miles of St. Louis. So, you would say, you owe Clayton $500. So, you'd pay that $500 and think you were going home, and they're going, "By the way, Pine Lawn needs to see you next." You go to Pine Lawn, then go, "Yeah, I'm done." "Oh, by the way, Normandy needs to see you next." You go, "Wait a minute. Who the hell else is on this list?" And they go, "Hold on. You're gonna have to go to, um, and drop off money at every one before you can go home. Oh, you don't have the money? Well, wherever you stop on this list, just stay there till you get the money, 'cause this is your -- this is your trip home. This -- This -- This is your yellow brick road. Go from Clayton to Normandy to St. Ann to Calverton Park then run back around to, uh -- to Florissant, then go to Ferguson, then we need you to stop by the city, 'cause you forgot you have a ticket down there. Then you stop by here, stop right here, and stop right here and stop right here." Even if you get all the way down to owing this one last payment, miss that payment, oh, your ass is going back. You're starting over. You get new fines, new court dates, and they want to keep you in the system. Nothin' says, "Hey, we see here you have five kids. We see your rent's due, we see your lights are off, we see you had to pay for daycare. Go ahead and skip this last payment, because you have a lift to live." It's like, "

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your life. Pay us our money.

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your life." And they have

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too many lives in St. Louis. -To me, St. Louis, I feel, is like a war zone. That's what I describe it. War -- a lot of war and racism. -Why? How? -Well, it's, for us, like, uh, with authority, you know, we get harassed a lot, we get the most tickets, we get the most pull-overs, you know? It just feel like this war zone. -When you been locked up 15 times, and you not -- and you're not a criminal, it's not o-- those are not incidents that you want to keep in your mind as warm and happy thoughts. It's really not about the payout. It's about admitting you were wrong. -I'm thankful. I'm blessed to have what I did get. That I am. I wish it had've been more. I was hoping there had been enough to where I could just buy me a house. I feel that if I can just buy me a house, paid for, I won't ever have to worry about being homeless again. It would be mine's forever. But it wasn't enough to buy me a house, so I got the lease for another year, and go back to work. Hopefully, I can find me a job... that will hire a felon. But, usually, the jobs that hire felons be minimum wage, like fast food, you know? And then, with those jobs, you don't get to work full-time hours. So, you basically don't make enough to even pay for, or lease, a house from month to month, with what you get at a fast-food restaurant. So, it's -- it's -- it's a struggle. Yeah. It's a struggle. -Hi. I'm Todd Chandler. I am one of the directors of "A Debtors' Prison." -Hi. I'm Brett Story, and I'm the co-director of the film "A Debtors' Prison." Thank you for watching. -And thanks for watching "POV Shorts." Up next is "Public Money."

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-All right, one last question. Clap really loud if you are satisfied with the way funds are spent in city government these days.

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Okay, now, let's hear a clap if you think you could do a better job of making some of those decisions.

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Budgets are really the essence of what government does, right? So, we're kind of cutting out a lot of the talk and rhetoric around budgeting and allowing community members to make direct decisions about money in their community. You know, it's our taxpayer dollars, so why not allow us to have a greater say in how money gets spent in our community?

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-Here's -- Here's a map of our district. -

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-We're along the highway. I live, literally, on 57th and 3rd. When I get home at this hour of night, I'm literally with my ph-- my h-- my cellphone in my hands like this, clutching my bag, because it's dark. It's just, it's scary at night. -You want to do, like, the side streets, let's say, between -- I want to say between 45th all the way to 50-something. -That's a good idea. -Yeah? -Yeah, between like 3rd and 5th. -Yeah.

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-Where would you put those benches? -Around here. Right here, here, here, here, here and somewhere along here. -So, these are -- -Everything and what's already there -It's a bench that is missing. I bet you it was never installed. There's the platform and there's no bench, and nobody checked on that? -On the basketball courts, they got rid of all the benches... -Yes. -...that are in the courts, and they never replaced them. -But that's a good -- But that's a great project. That's a project, and it's very specific. It's like, "Benches on the ba-- at basketball courts, period." -We might want to do something. -How does that sound? So, what happens now? What's the next step? I guess I'm just going with the flow, because I've never done this before. I've never gotten -- -It's okay. -And, you know, I have no idea. -No, good question. -All right. -We choose... -We need more specifics. -...as a com-- As a community... -As a community? Well, I'm hoping that's what happens, but I don't -- -Right. -That's the ultimate goal, I think, in the P.B. process, it's about the community.

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30, but it's very good, the conversation.

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See you next week? -Next Thursday. -Next Thursday. -If you do it in Spanish, you might be able to put it English on one side, Spanish on the back side. -Right. -Put the letters on the end. -This is a project to help fix the basketball court that we need fixed. -This one. -That's it. So, we're gonna try to fix this nice. -We have so many, uh, crimes lately. Last six months or so, we have lot of women got raped,

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00, 1:00 in the morning, and also got robbed. -Spanish people, same thing. -No, no, no. -Chinese people, same thing. -I'm gonna put a clock out here. -So, they want something like a camera right on the street. So, we making, uh, poster for uh, uh, security camera. "Come keep community safe." -

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-Trees over here. And they want to put lights so, at night, you can cross when it's dark. -Where are there cameras now? I mean, there's got to be some cameras. It is dark. That's -- -So far, these projects have been vetted by the Department of Parks and Rec, and they said these are viable locations. -I'd much rather this than a charging table for laptop users at the Sunset Park Library. -Well... -I mean, some of these things shouldn't even be on here, like, uh, "pedestrian safety sidewalk extensions." I mean, that should just be -- I mean, that should be done. -Part of the city budget? -Yeah. Well, that's the thing, too. If you vote for things, and there are other items on here that a lot of people came out and showed support for, Carlos Menchaca, just like, and other districts, those council members can say, "Hey, this didn't get all the votes..." -Yeah. -"...but it's such a good idea, I love it. I'm gonna take some of my other funding and make it happen." -It's not about me being innovative. It's about him bringing me to the community so we can jointly work on issues with capital funding, eligibility, and making sure that this program grows. And if I could just do a political thing... Can I do a political thing?

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-Did you guys already vote today? There are $2 million for the members of the community to vote on where to put the money. So, I-I work for the council member, so I-I am -- this is real. I just want to say that. -No, no, no.

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-I mean, I can't tell you what numbers, but there's community garden, basketball courts, fitness center... -Air conditioning. -I don't -- well -- -You don't want -- -There you go. -Thank you so much. -All right, thank you. -Can I get your signature for the new basketball court and stuff? -Over here, over here, over here. Where's your mother? -Home, probably. -Oh, okay. You want to look at the ballot? Here. -Went over there and voted. -Did everybody sign it? -Yes, I went over there and voted on everything. -I told -- I told you. I told you. Next one, you're gonna have to have you an assembly so you can tell us what you want on the ballot. -

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-Oh, hey, Jamie! -Hey! -Hi. -It was a great turnout. -I think we killed it.

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-Nearly a third of P.B. voters were born outside the U.S. Two-thirds of voters were women. And that's a larger share of women than voted in the local election. 22% of people who came out to vote said they had a barrier to voting in traditional elections. And almost half of voters had incomes below $50,000. 14% of people said that they weren't eligible to vote because they were non-citizens. And, in District 38, more than two-thirds of ballots were cast in a language other than English.

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-Okay, are we ready? Okay. Ahh. The number-six project -- the Red Hook Library community garden.

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-Whoo! -Here we go.

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The community room at the Sunset Park Library.

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Go ahead and turn it around, Brittany.

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Now, the next and the final vote... -Oh! -How many voted? -1,890 votes were cast for this particular project. Are you ready? -Yes!

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-Security cameras in Sunset Park.

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-Si se puede! Si se puede!

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Thank you! -Whoo. -Oh, yeah. Hey, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, you're -- -You're saving my butt. -When -- When will that money start funneling through?

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I was thinking about one of the things -- -The natural way. -Absolutely. -When are they gonna cut the check? -Right.

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-Hi. I'm Jay Sterrenberg. -And I'm Zara Serabian-Arthur. -We're the filmmakers behind "Public Money." We really hope that you enjoyed the film. -Thanks for watching this episode of "POV Shorts."