In 1994 the BC Provincial Government created the Underage Safe House program in Vancouver as part of a community action plan to help sexually-exploited kids ages 12-15. For ten years street-involved kids in Vancouver had a sanctuary where they could get out of survival mode; the safe houses provided nutritious food, a clean bed, medical care, good company and guidance to the kids to get them back on track with their lives.
But in 2004, with only two weeks notice, the Government closed all of the safe houses. This forced the kids back into survival mode and some returned to the street. The safe houses and their allies mobilized and created the Vancouver Youth Visions Coalition (VYVC) and protested the closures. There were promising initial results from the City of Vancouver, but the Province of BC did not respond and the safe houses remained closed.
In 2009, the VYVC, a handful of street-involved youth and a university research team, wrote and mounted a play about street life and the safe house closures. Surviving In The Cracks, the theatre production, was an eight month project that came to an end in June 2009. This documentary film follows the motley crew through the ups and downs of the last gasp effort to raise awareness of the safe houses.
The short version of Surviving In The Cracks (15 minutes) was director Greg Masuda's debut film and premiered at the Vancouver Short Film Festival in October 2009. The project won a grant from the National Film Board of Canada in 2010 that helped to complete the long version (48 minutes) that is now for sale on this website.