Ty Pennington Hopes for Bigger Impact on Bigger Screen

Ty Pennington knows a thing or two about helping families facing hardships get into a home that meets their extreme needs. 

As the former host of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” Pennington had the pleasure of making a positive difference in people’s lives. 

“What that show did on television is it gave people hope that if something horrible went wrong in your life, that some miracle would happen and we would pull up and we would change things, the whole community would come together, and we would make things better,” said the host of HGTV’s “Rock the Block. 

Now, Pennington is hopeful of a movie making a similar, perhaps even larger impact. 

Ty Pennington Welcomes Potential of Film to ‘Make a Difference’

On February 28, “No Address” opened in theaters nationwide. Produced by Robert Craig Films, it tells the story of five people from five different walks of life who become homeless, eventually forming a community to get through the many challenges including the apathetic, often hateful feelings of society. 

The film stars Isabella Ferreira, Ashanti, Xander Berkeley, Beverly D’Angelo, Lucas Jade Zumann, Kristanna Loken, William Baldwin, Patricia Velásquez, and Pennington, who hopes that everyone that watches the film might feel something different the next time they see a person down on his luck.  

“I love being part of projects that make a difference, and this is one of those projects,” Pennington said.” 

“I think in a lot of cases, people who end up homeless have given up in themselves in a major way, and it takes someone believing in them to turn their life around and want to make those changes to get back on their feet, and I think this movie is a chance for all of us to make a difference and see them for the first time.” 

Ashanti Touts ‘Powerful Message’ of Film Addressing Homelessness

The film not only shines a light on the issue of homelessness, it also makes a significant step towards finding solutions, as the producers will donate half of the film’s net profits to charities that assist in ending homelessness. That was part of the reason Ashanti was excited to get on board, as she explained to Today. 

“It’s such an amazing project,” Ashanti said. “It has such a powerful message, and I think people don’t realize how big this crisis is. Homelessness is like the crisis across the globe.” 

And it’s a crisis that can strike anyone at any time, which Pennington said is “the scary part.”

“You have to understand, with a home, it’s so important, because we forget sometimes that it’s more than just four walls. It’s security, it’s knowing that you have a place where your family, your loved ones, the things you care about most are safe and taken care of,” Pennington said. “When you lose all that, there’s an emptiness and a loss of identity and an understanding of who you are and what you were, and I think each day that you feel worse and worse about yourself, you get to a point that you literally do need a helping hand, but no one sees you, and I think that’s what this film is about is finally making all of us look, and I think if we can all, instead of look away, take a moment to look and realize, this could be us, this could be somebody in your own family.”