SQUEEGEE follows a group of young people struggling to overcome poverty and the ingenuity they bring to making a living on the streets of Baltimore.

It is an unflinching portrait of the harsh realities of growing up in Baltimore, as seen through the eyes of four young people fighting for their futures as they squeegee to make a living in a city that sees them as disposable.

Year-round, young people in Baltimore “squeegee” to make ends meet, washing car windows on street corners and highway medians in exchange for tips. In Baltimore, squeegeeing is a way of life for kids struggling to survive in a city riddled with redlining, poverty, gun violence, segregation, school-to-prison pipeline, and police brutality. Yet, despite the odds stacked against them, these young people refuse to be beaten down by the system. Instead, they use their wits and street smarts to carve out a niche in the city's informal economy. 

SQUEEGEE follows four young people and the worlds they inhabit. Leroy, Ericka, Desmond, and Peanut take us on an emotional journey as they transition to adulthood.

The film documents the daily experiences of our characters and the ingenuity they bring to making a living while exploring how challenging circumstances shape their future. For black youth, hustling is so often criminalized or viewed as a nuisance, yet their work in the city’s informal economy represents perseverance. These are the young adults who slip through the cracks and go unseen, but have found a lifeline through the hustle of washing car windows.

our characters

  • Desmond, 18

    Desmond entered the foster care system as a kid, causing a split between his parents and siblings. He struggles to break generational patterns like gangs and selling drugs. He squeegees to provide for himself and his grandmother, as cousins and friends ask him to sell drugs on his old block.

    Desmond is one of the most impressive bikers in the city. He’s also dealing with the challenges of not graduating high school, homelessness, and his older brother recently getting out of prison. We chronicle his fearlessness and the challenges that weigh on him while he tries to stay away from the harsh realities of Baltimore.

  • Ericka, 18

    Ericka makes ends meet by squeegeeing while battling homelessness and drug addiction in another part of town. Despite her vibrant personality, she often feels invisible, explaining, "I'm very good at hiding; hiding, hiding my feelings." Ericka had a great job and a promising life, but one wrong choice to try drugs has led to her current struggles.

    She faces the daunting decision every day of whether to earn enough money to survive or feed her addiction, fueled by drugs readily available on the street corners where she works. However, after her brother dies tragically from a fentanyl overdose, she is forced to confront the reality of her mortality and make a change.

  • Peanut, 18

    Peanut, from Sandtown, where Freddie Gray lived and died, knows that life in this city is more about surviving than living. Squeegee stick and spray bottle in hand, he mutters "Care to support today"? Drivers nearly run him over, cuss at him, and yell that should be in school. They don't know that he was wrongfully imprisoned at the age of 17. After serving six months in an adult correctional facility, Peanut took a plea deal to secure his release.

    Peanut lives with his brother, mother, girlfriend, and a group of runaway teenagers in a partially boarded-up house. His single mom struggles to provide for them and is often absent, leaving them to live by their own rules. Despite this, Peanut finds triumph in life's simple pleasures like being in love for the first time, celebrating his birthday, spending time with his brother, and moving. Despite his trauma and lack of guidance, he must become his own man.

  • Leroy, 15

    Leroy is the youngest squeegee kid and maybe the most successful at hustling on the block. He and his best friend, Tae, have been bringing in more than a thousand dollars some weeks. Yet his true age frequently makes an appearance; his recklessness becomes apparent when, during his first driving lesson, he takes the car for a joyride after his mother steps out, grinning and laughing as his furious mother looks on.

    Contrastingly, Leroy playfully teases his friends, serving as a reminder that despite the societal perception of young black males as adults, they are still capable of experiencing youthful wonder, joy, and innocence. His loving mother's constant warnings are eventually proven right, shattering his naiveté.

artistic approach

Working collaboratively with our characters, the film interweaves verité footage shot by our team, along with lyrical, diaristic footage shot by our characters, giving us unparalleled, unfiltered access into their lives. The characters’ video recordings are integrated into the film, giving the characters agency to represent themselves on screen.


We intend for this material to give the film a multi-layered approach, in which the kids are always the driving force behind telling their own stories. Their life off the block comes alive through their self-captured footage, providing context for how the world views them without our presence as filmmakers. Intentionally breaking the fourth wall and the changing cameraperson, as well as cinematic editing techniques, allows us to obtain what we believe is a more accurate depiction of our characters’ truth.

the team

clarke lyons
co-director/producer

Clarke is a Baltimore-based writer, producer, and director, whose recent projects include Ballet After Dark, Arrabbers, and SAGE. Her work emphasizes the value of diverse perspectives and explores how human nature deals with trauma. Her films have screened in film festivals around the U.S. and been the recipient of multiple grants. Currently, she is a MediaMaker fellow with the Bay Area Video Coalition.

She received a Dual-Masters in Business & Writing for Film & Television from Johns Hopkins University’s Advanced Academic Program. She also has experience in digital content creation and marketing for publications including GL Magazine, Bay Area Video Coalition, and Baltimore Magazine. Lyons is currently Chief Content Officer for poweredbyCULTURE where she uses a variety of mediums to reveal compelling truths through the art of storytelling.

gabe dinsmoor
co-director/DP/producer

Gabe’s work focuses on social justice, grassroots movements, and the beauty and resilience of his hometown of Baltimore. He shot HBO’s Baltimore Rising, a feature documentary that follows community leaders, police officers, and gang affiliates who struggle to hold Baltimore together in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death.

In 2015, Dinsmoor co-directed and shot Pyne Poynt, a feature documentary about a little league team in Camden, NJ, coached by the formerly incarcerated. In 2019, Pyne Poynt had a national broadcast on the PBS series America Reframed. Dinsmoor’s work has been published by Netflix, A&E, The New York Times, The Guardian, PBS, and Entertainment Weekly, among other outlets.

jesse goldstein
editor/producer

A resident of Baltimore for over a decade, Jesse Goldstein’s editing work has been published by outlets such as PBS, Discovery+, The New York Times, and ESPN. In 2023, he was an associate editor for The Body Politic, a feature-length documentary which premiered at the Sheffield DocFest in International Competition. It will make its broadcast premiere on PBS in 2024. In 2020, he was the editor on HI, I’M RICHARD ANTOINE WHITE, a short documentary about a Baltimore youth who battled homelessness and successfully became a world-class symphony tubist. The film was featured in festivals nationally and is currently streaming on Discovery+ and Amazon Prime. In 2018, he edited the documentary short SAGE about the Baltimore Ceasefire movement, which won Best Short Film at the NYC Independent Film Festival.

While Jesse is no longer Baltimore-based, the city will always be his home, as he continues the work to tell honest and intimate stories about the city and its people.

support

SQUEEGEE is the recipient of grant funding and support from SFFILM’s Documentary Film Fund Grant, the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund, Film Independent Fast Track, and The Bay Area Video Coalition.