America has long been the ultimate disposable society...that which we no longer have a use for, we simply throw away. So it is with the homeless.

Our country faces a disturbing and sobering choice: do we recognize and deal with this growing problem or continue doing our collective best to ignore it.

In choosing the topic of their next project, Stan Wald and Jerry Misner, producer and director of the acclaimed feature film “Southern Exposure” selected the broad issue of homelessness in America coupled with the more narrow plight of homeless veterans.

There are more than 1.6 million homeless citizens in the U.S. Of that number as many as 200,000 homeless vets are sleeping in alleys and under bridges. On any given day, a third of the people in homeless shelters are members of households with children, which represents an increase of 9% over the previous year, with casualties of the foreclosure crisis pushing numbers even higher.

The economic situation of most Americans is increasingly fragile. In one of our early interviews for the film, a Tucson Police Officer put it succinctly: “We're all just one bad decision away from being right where they are, and if you think you're not, you're a pious SOB.”

While many believe that homelessness is simply a temporary condition that can be cured with money and care, others think it is what it is and the problem will always be with us. “Discarded” investigates the complexities and ambiguities of this socially polarizing issue.