City on the Hill (2020)

Tech giant Google has pledged $1 billion to build more housing in the Bay Area. The plan includes 15,000 units on its own land, 5,000 additional affordable units over the next decade, and $50 million in grants to help non-profits who are combating homelessness and displacement. The Bay Area currently has the third largest homeless population in the U.S. at more than 28,000 people. In City On the Hill, Xavier Underwood and Adam Fleishman (Emmy®-winning Cinematographer 'Running with Horses') head west to San Francisco, California to examine the residual effects of the tech boom, what made San Francisco into the great city it is, and what can be done to save it's increasingly displaced population, interviewing civil rights leaders, politicians, Bay-Area natives, and small business owners. Directed and produced by Underwood, this perceptive film exposés of the realities of gentrification in San Francisco, CA, home to the highest housing costs in the country. Underwood interviews a variety of insiders, including: Secretary Benjamin S. Carson, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, long time civil rights activist and president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP; Miguel Bustos, Senior Director, Center for Social Justice - Glide Foundation; Nancy Conrad, wife of Legendary Astronaut Pete Conrad; Jessica Donig, Executive Director of San Francisco-based Miracle Messages; Bay-Area natives and small-business owners who progressively face harsh realities. City On the Hill is the second documentary by production house Howard Stirk Holdings, who made the 2015 primetime special A Breath of Fresh Air, which launched Dr. Ben Carson's 2016 Presidential Campaign. City On the Hill was directed and produced by Xavier Underwood: filmed and edited by Adam Fleishman; executive producer, Armstrong Williams.