TORONTO — When tents started popping up on the lawn in front of a sprawling provincial property in Cobourg, Ont., television producer Linda Schuyler wondered who the people living in the encampment were.
“I started to go in and get to know them,” said Schuyler, a filmmaker and producer who is best known as the co-creator of the “Degrassi” television series.
“As Torontonians, we have been very aware of the homeless crisis for a long period of time. And I always felt kind of helpless about it. It seemed like such a big problem. I didn’t know what I could do to help,” said Schuyler, who splits her time between Toronto and a community near the southern Ontario lakeside town.
She teamed up with filmmaker Will Bowes to explore the inner workings of the encampment and the complex individual circumstances of its residents.
The result is a new documentary, titled “Home,” set to premiere on TVO on Saturday, coinciding with World Homeless Day.
The film introduces audiences to several unhoused people who settled at Brookside, a vacant property owned by the province that had previously been home to Cobourg’s elite and later became a youth detention centre. It details the myriad reasons how someone can end up without a home, from executives and business owners losing their livelihoods, to those who faced abusive partners, the death of loved ones and the challenges of addiction and mental health.
The filmmakers said they first entered without filming equipment and simply listened to people’s stories. Once they formed relationships, the filmmakers asked if people were comfortable speaking on camera. If they did, they’d receive a Tim Hortons gift card to acknowledge their time.
Schuyler said they’d also ask people if they would give them a tour of their tents or structures.
“And without a doubt, they would all say, ‘Oh, just a minute. Let me tidy up a bit,” she said.
“They really took pride in building little gardens and little pathways to get to their homes,” Bowes added. “It was remarkable what they were able to accomplish.”
Along with highlighting the people inside the encampment, the film, which collected around 60 hours of footage over about a year, also shared the perspectives of people in the local community. That included the town’s mayor as well as social workers, community advocates and concerned citizens who had reservations about the proximity of the encampment to local schools.
“Even though we wanted to get to know the people in the encampment, we did want to be fair to the community and give some of the local people an opportunity to talk about it from their perspective,” Schuyler said.
The documentary does not, however, include any narration, a deliberate choice because “narration can be leading and it can be judgmental,” Schuyler said.
“It’s a principle that we had way back in ‘Degrassi.’ We really wanted to give our young people an authentic voice and we really wanted to look at whatever issue we were dealing with from multiple sides. And that approach spilled over into this documentary,” Schuyler said.
“Without getting too political about it, we wanted to just show that it’s a multi-faceted story,” she said.
Bowes said the experience of making the documentary forced him to acknowledge the biases he had formed around homeless people.
“I also felt like if you end up in an encampment, that is a result of years, if not decades of bad decisions (and) definite substance abuse,” Bowes said. “But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Many people are there because they had a really terrible time during COVID.”
Making this film also showed him how the journey of homelessness is not linear. For example, at one point, the documentary follows a few people who moved into a motel after the encampment was dismantled following the sale of Brookside. However, their motel stay was temporary and soon after they arrived, they had to leave.
“Sometimes you’re getting ahead and then the rug gets pulled out from under you, and that was really frustrating for us obviously as filmmakers, who are trying to put together a narrative, and you want the narrative to progress and get better and see someone start thriving or at least start taking the steps to,” Bowes said.
“But unfortunately that just wasn’t possible,” he said.
The filmmakers said the goal isn’t for the documentary to provide a clearcut answer for how to solve the issue but rather for audiences to walk away having to mull it over for themselves.
“We are so rich with resources, both land and otherwise, I find it embarrassing as a Canadian that we cannot treat our unhoused better,” Schuyler said. “I hope that that sentiment somehow will arouse in people who watch the documentary.”
Bowes said he also hopes the film leads to more empathy for homeless people.
“A little bit more understanding for the human being that you might have otherwise walked past or put a label on,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2026.
Kaitlyn McGrath, The Canadian Press
