Studentcam winners in cspans video documentary competition for middle and high school students. This year, students told us that most urgent issue for the new president and congress. Our first prize High School Winner is an 11th grader from washington, d. C. Matthew gannon is a student Gonzaga College high school. He believes homelessness is an urgent issue in his documentary, invisible. Take a look. The mission of the center is to work with men who struggle with homelessness to provide basic Human Services and support their growth towards stability, productivity, and meaning in life. Homeless people are not a lot different from everyone else. They have just fallen to circumstances that eventually got out of their control. I actually got involved with people that was counterfeiting money. I ended up going to prison for that. I just got here from North Carolina in february. And so, when i got here i was homeless then as well, and thats how im in the shelter now. I became homeless because i got incarcerated. I did my time, and when they released me, they released me right on the streets with no assistance. Pretty much said, hey, fend for yourself. Thats what ive been doing. Im 33, excon, just trying to get my life together. For about 1213 months, i stayed in a homeless shelter in washington, d. C. Northeast. I never thought i would be homeless. Most people in the country right now are living paycheck to paycheck. I was. There are four or five root causes of homelessness. Among them are Mental Health, that is the biggest one. But you also have addiction, drug and alcohol addiction. A third is unemployment. Some of these guys truly are unemployed. The fourth cause is incarceration. The fifth major cause of homelessness that we encounter here is dissolution of family. Mental illness is huge here. There are about 60 of guys who come in for services who have some form of Mental Illness. Issues of depression, bipolar, these things can exacerbate homelessness. I was basically dysfunctional from a child, as a child, and even as a man today. Again, it is prevalent in this environment because we dont really understand how deep a Mental Illness is. Ive seen guys deteriorate because they are homeless. Ive seen the depression of being homeless being too much for some guys. They crumble under it. A year or two after being homeless, they can be severely mentally ill. I have seen many become homeless because they are mentally ill. Mental health care is the number one resource needed by the homeless. The Affordable Care act, for all of its troubles and problems, has afforded men at the bottom of the barrel the opportunity to get the Mental Health care they need. They cant afford going to a psychiatrist or psychologist. They cant afford the medication. The Affordable Care act is beneficial, is absolutely beneficial to people that are homeless. There is no question in my mind. Its essential. If it stops, then we would be devastated. Its disgraceful to be in the most powerful country in the world, yet have all these people displaced. It just doesnt make sense. We know having people live outofdoors is wrong. There are might be something very wrong with society as a consequence, but we dont want to deal with that. We cannot blink our eyes or put an app on our phone to make it go away. It is going to be here. It is not a big topic in congress. In my lifetime, anything this country has purposed itself to do, its done. That tells me this country has not yet, from top to bottom, has not purposed itself to end homelessness. Just give us a chance. How are we supposed to change our lives if we are always degraded and pushed away . I would say to congress, whats the hold up . We in a country where people of all race and creed, whatever they rich or poor, it needs to be addressed. Im blessed everyday to wake up. The rest of its just to survive. Just treat me like a person. One of the struggles for the homeless is that they become invisible. When we ignore them, we are disrespecting them. They are still human beings. If we can treat them as humans beings, it is a whole step forward. To watch all of the documentaries in this years studentcam competition, visiting studentcam. Org. An sec meeting in washington dc, the chair of the Commission Said he favors a free there is and that Common Ground to be found with all stakeholders on net neutrality. Since becoming chair in january, he is been working to roll back that neutrality rules set under the obama administration. Colonies like facebook, google and twitter have resized those efforts. Hello, everybody