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Alexander Boesch, a 12th grader at Menlo School in Atherton, and his brother Oliver Boesch, an 11th grader Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, won an honorable mention for C-SPAN’s 20th annual StudentCam competition. Their 5-minute documentary, “NIMBYism: Why Affordable Housing is so Difficult in California,” explores how local governments manage the state’s requirement to increase affordable housing — specifically diving into Atherton’s housing plans.
The video project features clips from city council meetings, explainers of the Atherton housing element and the concept of NIMBYism, which stands for Not In My Backyard, referring to the opposition to locating something considered undesirable in one’s neighborhood, such as multi-family housing.
Alexander remembers having an interest in housing and homelessness from a young age. During his freshman year of high school at Menlo School, he participated in a summer program called Community Action Summer Experience, which allows students to research issues relevant to the community, create a call to action and to present the project to the community — Alexander chose homelessness.
“After that experience I was very interested in the issue and I really understood that I needed to learn a lot more about it,” said Alexander.
He started working on his video documentary at the end of his junior year, during another Menlo School project called MTerm, where students take the last two weeks of the school year to explore issues in ecology, culture, innovation and social change.
Alexander took this opportunity to dig deeper into the issue of homelessness, with the help of his brother Oliver.
“I feel like there’s this disconnect between people in the community and people who are unhoused,” explained Alexander. “What I’ve learned from exploring this issue is that each person’s story is unique and there are so many different layers to it, so much complexity.”
His short documentary is not the first notable project that he’s pursued on the topic. Since his freshman year, Alexander has been working on an online project he calls, Homeless Horizons. His website showcases over 10 video interviews with homeless individuals, policymakers, non-governmental organization leaders and academics.
Alexander and Oliver’s submission for the StudentCam competition was only a five-minute clip of a 45-minute documentary titled, “Crisis on the Streets: Homelessness in San Francisco Bay Area,” that explores the housing crisis beyond Atherton. This project took over a year to complete and includes over 15 interviews.
Alexander finds that information is easier to digest through videos and when it comes to creating documentaries, he appreciates the creative process of building a story.
He finds inspiration from investigative videos made by the media organization, Vox and YouTuber and journalist Johnny Harris. He admires Harris’ ability to tell unbiased stories and Vox’s way of guiding viewers through explanations.
As a soon to be graduate of Menlo School, Alexander hopes to pursue the topic of housing from a more academic perspective while in college.
“I hope to do research on homelessness and affordable housing and really get into the academic side of it,” said Alexander. “Not just talking to individuals but also doing research data analysis on housing affordability and homelessness.”
Alexander and Oliver’s documentary is one out of 150 winning videos out of over 1,600 entries from 42 states and Washington, D.C. The theme of this year’s competition was “Looking Forward while Considering the Past.”
