Hustle Her - Denise

You can’t solve a problem you refuse to name, and Bermuda has been trying to address homelessness without even having a legal definition for it. That’s why I invited Denise Carey, executive director of Home in Bermuda, to sit down with me after watching her take the room by storm at Disrupt HR. What she shares is clear, direct, and deeply human: homelessness isn’t a personality type, it’s an experience, and it can happen through far more pathways than most of us want to admit.

We get into what “homelessness” actually includes using the European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion: roofless and rough sleeping, emergency shelter, housing insecurity, inadequate housing, hidden homelessness, seniors on fixed incomes, people aging out of systems, domestic violence displacement, people leaving institutions, and working people priced out of rent. Denise explains how Bermuda’s housing pipeline gets bottlenecked when “temporary” shelter turns into decades, and why derelict buildings and vacant properties have to be part of any serious housing strategy.

We also talk about community safety and reentry housing for people leaving incarceration, including the uncomfortable truth that stability creates accountability. Housing, employment, and support reduce recidivism, lower public costs, and make all of us safer because we know where people are and how they’re being supported. Along the way, Denise shares the emotional toll of this work and the belief driving her forward: every person in our community has value, and none of us has the right to give up on them.

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Transcript

Welcome, Sponsors, Meet Denise

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm a hustle baby.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

It's time for Hustle Her Podcast. I'm your host, Deshay Keynes. Hustle Her is all about inspiring women through real life experiences that have helped to mold and develop not only me, but my guests into the entrepreneurs and leaders we are today. If you're an enterprising woman, determined to succeed, and looking for a bit of motivation, a bit of tough love, and some actionable takeaways to be the best you, girl, you are in the right place. Hey guys, and welcome back to Hustle Hub Podcast. Thank you for spending some time with me today. As always, we want to give a big shout out to our sponsors, Scootamart, and our longtime sponsors, Brown and Company and 59 Front. A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak at a speaker series called Distrupt HR, and my next guest literally took the room by storm. And I said to myself, she has to be on Hustle Hurt Podcast. So I'm delighted today to have Denise Carey with me. She is the executive director of Home here in Bermuda. Welcome, Denise. Hi, thank you very much for having me. Yes, I'm so excited to have you here today. So when you were decided asked to do Distrapt HR, this wasn't the first time you were asked to do it. No.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

I had spoken with them last year and made a commitment, completely forgot about a graduation that I had to attend. So I was happy to be able to invite Elmoadil to step in and he slayed it, but that meant I owed them one.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

There you go. Well, it was perfect and it worked out great because here we are right now. So I would have missed it last year. So I'm grateful for having

Rapid Fire And Relentless Mindset

SPEAKER_00 1:30

you here today. All right, so we're gonna jump in with some rapid fire questions and then we'll get into what we want to discuss here today. Okay. All right. So are you a night owl or are you a morning person? I'm a night owl. I will be up till three o'clock in the morning very easily. Yeah, me too. I feel like my zona genius is like not in the morning. When that sun goes down, that's when I come out with my best eye. Exactly. Or in the shower. Exactly. All right, what's the go-to comfort food? That's a good question. I like old dress chips. Oh, love a good old dress. Yes, for sure. All right, what would you say is your superpower in one word? I'll do it anyway. Okay. All right. And then what was your first job ever?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Working at Victoria Street Clinic. Yes. As a summer student.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Okay. Um, what's something that you would say instantly put you in a good mood? Other people's success, somebody's effort that really excites me when people try. Okay. And then what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I received a call from a senior who I only met a couple of weeks prior, and she called me to tell me that you're working for government. That means you have to serve the people, all of them, no matter what. And that has really stuck with me. Like, you need to put up, you need to do your best every single day and support people, whether you agree with them or not.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Um, dream vacation destination. I love Costa Rica. Uh Costa Rica's a dream. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, love Costa Rica. Um, okay, and what's one thing someone would be surprised to learn about you? Some secret talent or secret period.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

I think I'm more shy than people realize that I am. That would be surprising. Yes. I'm really an introvert in many ways. Then I add my voice to a conversation, I'm more alien, but outside of that, I'm a very quiet person.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Okay. And then finally, what's one word that you would use to describe the season you're currently in? Relentless.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I'm gonna get it done, but no fuels me in ways that no one will understand. Yeah. We're running out of time. I'm out of time. What is out of time? Out of time. I really believe that every one of us has a special gift. And you need to pour it all out before that day comes. And in my mind, this year I turned 55. I have 10 years before I retire. And so I really feel like I'm on the last leg of this journey of my career. And so I want to get it done. I don't want to be talking about things that we were talking about when I first returned from Bermuda. You know, we need to get on with it. And I think we owe the next generation to set things up so that you all can be successful. Yeah. So we need to get on with it.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

No, I agree with that. I in my day job, I tell people all the time like we have to start focusing on succession planning. Like, continue, we shouldn't be having people breaking these glass ceilings every generation that comes into whatever the workforce is that you're going into. So we need to properly train and mentor the person who's going to take over when you're no longer in the position that you're in. Before I leave. Exactly. Before you go. That's the key. Before you go. Um, so no.

Childhood Turning Point And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 4:54

All right. So tell me a little bit about young Denise. Like, what was your childhood like growing up?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

I had a very active childhood. I rode horses, played tennis, uh, played net ball. I was a runner, ran 1500, 3,000, 5,000. Um, had a really good friend network. We girls did a lot together. Um, but it wasn't it wasn't an easy childhood, but we had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Got it. And are you an only child? Do you have siblings? I am an only child with my mother. Okay. So, what would you say is how you got into helping others, like from your childhood? Like, what made you want to start like naturally like investing in the community?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

When I was in primary school, I used to walk home with a group of other students. And on this one particular afternoon, um, I recall someone knocking on the door. It was the police. Um, one of the students who we had walked with that afternoon hadn't made it home. And from that, we would later learn that she had passed through a very violent incident. And naturally, my family moved me to another school to protect me. But that meant that I didn't have the support that the other students had, that the other teachers had, that that grieving process was almost like, all right, let's close on that door and let's let's start your life different. But that actually was very influential in what I do currently within my life. Um, when I went to boarding school, I had the opportunity to participate in a law class. And from that, I ended up going to Northeastern University to study criminal justice. And that for me was the start of this very intentional journey of how are we going to keep our community safe? And my personal responsibility that I am here to do this.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Absolutely. So I feel like after you know, looking through your bio and looking up some of the things that you've done, you've worked with so many vulnerable populations.

Homelessness As Full-Time Survival

SPEAKER_00 7:04

So from foster children to young offenders and now the homeless, or what we say now is in the unsheltered. Um, what would you say your journey has taught you about people and resilience?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Persons in particular that are homeless, they keep going. I don't think people understand that to be homeless is a full-time job. If you don't get up every day, you're not gonna get fed. When it rains, you have to move. Um, they're surviving every day with people saying no and telling them why they can't do it, and they keep coming back for more. I actually have a lot of respect for individuals who have had challenging childhoods, adulthoods, and they are choosing not to get into crime, not to sell drugs, not to get involved with gangs, but instead to isolate themselves, making a conscious decision that this is the safest place for me. I respect that.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of people don't look at it from that angle. Um, like, and we spoke about this pre-show a little bit, a lot of people don't understand the vast range of what we call homelessness in Bermuda. Shed some light um on what that looks like here.

The Many Forms Of Homelessness

SPEAKER_01 8:11

We had to do a lot of research on homelessness, and the first thing that came up is in Bermuda, there's no legal definition for homeless. So if we don't know what we are talking about, how can we do things to prevent people from becoming homeless if we don't even know what it is? So we f we adopted the European typology on housing and housing exclusion, which speaks to persons being roofless, houseless, housing insecure, and then having inadequate housing, which kind of gives you a picture of, okay, I understand a little bit more, but then they went a little bit further and they broke it down into 13 operational categories. So that includes the rough sleepers, which people in Bermuda tend to think of, the guys down on Front Street, staying in the park, but there are persons living throughout the entire island who are rough sleeping behind bus shelters, at the ferry terminals, through the railway trails, they are everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. So then we have people who have moved into emergency housing. And we tend not to think of them because we think, okay, they have a roof over their heads, they're fine. But if you can imagine the worst period of your life, you moving into a space thinking I'll be here for a couple of months at the worst, and people end up there 10, 15, 20 years. And so we've completely forgotten about that population because we haven't introduced a pathway for them to move on. And so at the very start of the system, it's bottlenecked because now people who are off-sleeping have nowhere to move into. So then Bermuda Housing came on the scene and introduced social housing, and that was a fantastic idea. And the thought was that we will give people a fresh start, get everyone to the same starting line so that we all have the opportunity to succeed. And then tourism changed, our economy changed, prices started to go up, international business started to boom. So we have 700 plus people who are living in social housing, and there's nowhere for them to move out into because they cannot afford it. So persons in the emergency shelter have nowhere to move into. Then we have persons who are aging out of systems, turning 18, and they may or may not have a family who is supporting them. They may or may not live in a space that is healthy where they can attend Bermuda College or seek employment and be successful, and they need to move out. And some of them end up moving outside. We have seniors, persons turning 65 who are on fixed income, who do not know how to access pension, who do not know that there is non-contributory pension that they are eligible for. And we also have persons who've lived overseas for their entire adult life and return to Bermuda over 65, not realizing that you have to be on island for 365 days in order to be eligible for financial assistance. So they return with nothing. And of course, they don't want to be a burden to their family. So then we have persons who are victims of domestic violence, who need housing, or perpetrators of domestic violence. If you're expecting to remove someone from their home, where are we going to put them? We have persons who are leaving institutions, so persons who are moving into KEMH. We've been talking a lot about that in the community in the last couple of months at a cost of $1,000 per night per person. So one person's monthly bill at taxpayers' expense, maybe over $30,000. We have persons who are circling our city, who are dealing with mental health, who have no housing. And when they do agree to receive treatment and they are ready to be released, there's no housing for them because they're competing with us for one bedroom or studio. And then we have the population that are incarcerated. And there are guys who may be serving life sentences. So they don't have a history of banking, they don't have uh work references, they don't have housing references, and at that point of discharge, there's no housing that's established for them. We have the hidden homeless persons living with their friends and family, but that's not sustainable. We have persons living in cars, we have persons living in derelict buildings with no electricity, no running water, we have persons living in overcrowding situations, we have persons who are being evicted through the courts, and we have persons who are here through immigration who their employment contract may have ended and they never left.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Right. So, what why would you say so many people are unaware of these different types of homelessness in Bermuda?

Stigma And Dignity In Bermuda

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Homelessness competes with many other social issues in Bermuda. We have been talking about healthcare, we have talked about seniors, services for the youth, education, and uh addressing the housing issue hasn't become a priority because it doesn't or it hasn't touched us. We've always seen it as that's them, that it's someone who's unmotivated, somebody who's been lazy, somebody who may be an addict, and in some ways they may have deserved this situation that they're in. And I often hear that people want to be homeless. Nobody wants to be homeless. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

I think there's a misconception in Bermuda as well that are the outward homelessness that we see, as you said, on Front Street or in these places that people are seeing is because of mental illness and people are not realizing that there are a huge population, well, not a huge population, but there's a population of people in Bermuda who are actually working but unable to afford housing. And that's like, I think that's the part of it where most people are missing that connection to it. Is like someone you could be working with or is helping you in a particular situation, that person may not have anywhere to sleep tonight. And it's, I guess it's a huge stigma around that. But how do we make people a bit more aware of persons like that?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Education. Um, we have spent a considerable time working with the Royal Gazette, with the Daily Hour, and other um media outlets developing our social media presence so that we can really normalize discussions around homelessness. Um, we also are very cautious when we start addressing or talking about homelessness because it also comes across as an issue for the black population, and that is also not completely true. So, for example, when I was growing up, there was a World Vision commercial that used to run in Bermuda all the time, and it showed a young uh black child, very dusty, flies around them. And so when home started talking about, but what will community education look like, there was heavy emphasis. There is heavy emphasis on dignity, on hope, on not blaming people, whether it be persons who are experiencing homelessness or organizations who we think or feel should have done more. And we really want to place heavy emphasis on homelessness is an experience. It is not who I am. And in order for us to get past it, we have to work together.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So you mentioned uh earlier around vacant spaces and people not having like the flow process from you know being uh in different stages of uh where people are in homelessness,

Derelict Homes And The Housing Pipeline

SPEAKER_00 15:45

right? Um, and so at Disrupt HR, you mentioned around derelict homes and vacancies on island. How does that play into the crisis that we're seeing now?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

There are over 200 derelict buildings across the island, private properties.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yes. Yes, and when we say derelict, we mean uninhabitable.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Yeah. So we are undergoing a number of exercises to identify properties, identify who may own those properties, and determine whether or not any of those properties are viable for social housing.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah. And why would what would we say? Because I think a lot of people put a lot of pressure on uh charities like home and the government to quote unquote fix this issue. Like, how do we make this an everyone issue that we are all aware of in like your perfect world of let's everyone be a bit more aware about this?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Homelessness is a we issue. It is absolutely not the government's uh sole responsibility. The community really needs to get around uh identifying the persons who are homeless and creating opportunities for people to transition. And that looks like providing job opportunities, uh, managing their health care, uh, developing their skills, especially in the trades, so that they learn how to repair, renovate buildings, build buildings, but then beyond that, that life skill of how do I become a good tenant? And in order for Bermuda to be successful and homelessness permanently, that's gonna mean that we're making a commitment at each one of those pillars. It's fantastic if Bermuda was to build 2,000 new units and move everybody in, but then what? If I don't know how to manage my apartment, I don't know how to do repairs, I don't know how to communicate with my landlord to do repairs, or if I'm having issues with my finances, if all of these things are not supported in real time, we're gonna end up right back outside, which is where we may have started.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, in the first place. So you you mentioned as well around people in the trades and knowing how to do some of these things. I think, and I've said this before on the podcast, and it's not very widely uh liked. However, we place such a huge focus in people going into international business or getting into law or accounting, all those different things. And I'm as someone who works in international business, I get it, right? But how can we shift the narrative around that is not the only option for employment in Bermuda and get back to things that you know you can make money off of trades here in Bermuda, which can enable people to be a bit more supported in some of the things you're speaking about?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Absolutely. Um, we have a number of populations who uh respectfully are sitting there waiting for their time to be completed where they should and they deserve the opportunity to transition into our community to employment. In the absence of giving people the opportunity to give back, in the absence of creating a space for every single member of our community, we're gonna continue to see that revolving door. Trades have not been celebrated as much as I feel like they should be. Um, it's great for me to have a degree, but what else? I need to be able to do other things. And I need to be able to do these things so that I can be self-sufficient. And by providing these opportunities, this means that persons are not relying on financial assistance. We're saving. If people are employed, that means they're contributing to social insurance. They're also contributing to their pension. So we are saving. If people have a space where they feel valued and they're able to thrive, that means I'm less likely to re-offand and go back into the Department of Corrections. That also means that Bermuda's reputation as a safe destination continues to increase. So it's a win across the board.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Absolutely. Especially because I there's this narrative now as well that people don't want to be in certain spaces in Bermuda from a tourist perspective because homelessness is that way. And what what I think we're starting to see as well is an increasing amount of younger, um, what we I think you called it rough homelessness, um, in the city of Hamilton as well. Like, what do you think is some of the contributing factors around? Because, you know, back in the day, and I kind of feel a little old saying that, but back in the day, like, you know, that we had our known people that were on the street, you know what I mean? And they were the rough homeless there. But now I think we're getting into more of this younger population of almost my mom's a career educator, and some of them are her previous students, less than five years out of you out of high school, right? So, how where how is this? Where do you see this coming from or this playing into where we are now?

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Families, uh, there are unspoken apologies. There is years of trauma that haven't been addressed, and so when persons do have the opportunity to leave spaces which may not be safe for them, they leave. That's one part. The other part, you had spoken about how people perceive the homelessness and certain areas. And so I do want to say I have never been in proximity, proximity with someone who's experienced in homelessness and felt unsafe ever. Um, we have opened Black Circle, which invites cohorts of up to eight to ten men to move in of various different backgrounds, ages, academic levels, and various levels of functionality. And they are perhaps some of the most sensitive, uh, thought-provoking, generous individuals that I have ever interfaced with. Um, when you have been criticized by a community, when you have been at your most vulnerable and everyday people walk right by you acting like you don't exist, then there is a security blanket that you create and you do become aggressive. And after years of living outside, you will pick up and you will start to drink because you have to figure out ways to survive. And so they've leaned on that and that. Is what the community sees, that's not who they are. They are very normal people, they laugh like we do, they have great senses of humor, but they've been through stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yeah. It's and I mean, unfortunately, it's unfortunate because everyone's been through something, right? Like, but most of us are able to kind of hide behind our closed doors in our homes and no one else knows about it. And they happen to just be outside, and it's something that we can actually see.

Safety For Black Men After Prison

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Now, you have this huge role, right? This big role, the executive director of home. How do you manage being the executive director of home with everything that we just talked about and like a personal family life, time for yourself? Like, I know we throw out this phrase work-life balance, but I'd love to know how you are able to balance, if at all, with what you have going on.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

I have very poor work-life balance. Everything for me is my work. I it's always been uh we want a mission. Uh, it is very critical that we deliver on that mission, and that is my priority. Uh, part of it is because I have one child, a son, and I see how our community treats, describes a young black man. And until I am comfortable that I do not have to say to my son, when he's walking out the door, be safe, watch around you. If you hear anything, just run. When I have when I can stop seeing that, then I can start having a personal life and start doing that balance that we're talking about. But every week that we continue to not house, not provide opportunities for these young black men, not invite them into spaces where they can be leaders, where we respect them and where they know that there's a seat at the table for them, until we stop calling man for child support only, stop calling man because they have to appear in court, stop providing opportunities relating to addiction or offending, and we have a fully inclusive community where everybody is welcome, then I will find that work-life balance.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

I I think you might be working for a really long time if that's the case. Unfortunately, the way that you know, and I say it all the time around black men in our community or black people in our community, depending on the different sectors that they're working in. Obviously, you know, the work that I do all the time in the inclusion space. But with black men in particular, I feel like they're almost like a forgotten subset in our culture here in Bermuda. And I see that you've taken a really active role in kind of making sure that they are almost looked after, even though people who work for you, and then also in the uh disrupt HR conversation, you spoke specifically about persons who are incarcerated. Like, give me a bit more, and obviously you do have a son, but give me a bit more of why you're so passionate around those things.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

So I became a probation officer in 1998. Okay, yeah. At that point in time, I had a caseless of over 30 offenders. We had no housing at all. That was how many years ago? Yeah, right? And yes, and so the every director that I have worked for, I've asked questions regarding why don't we have housing? And the number one response has been the community won't allow it. What does that mean then? What that means is that if I'm working hard and I have a job, why should you have an opportunity that I don't have? And I get that it's competing interests. However, in order for our community to be safe, that means that we know where people are, we know where they're housed, and we ensure that they stay busy. That means that we are finding employment that is suitable for them, and we are finding opportunity for them to give back to this community.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

So we spent some time talking about, you know, homelessness and your passion around black men, but tell me about your son and how how much you love being a mom. Oh my dear.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

I am so madly and passionately in love with that child. Jordan is the most creative person I have ever met. He came out and he was a vegetarian at a very early age, would only eat like lettuce. And he would cry at the table if I served chicken, and he'd be like, oh mom, why are you doing that? It was so funny. But he has been drawing and creating for as long as I can remember. I literally have huge containers and storage of all of his work. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. And so what does he do now? He is a designer and owner of Low Quad Shop, which recently opened in Bermuda in Washington Mall, next to Harbormaster. And he also has a Lokwat shop in Portland, Maine.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

How do you kind of express to him the work that you do? Like how how involved is he in that process?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Jordan has been by my side since day one. So whenever I have even considered uh applying for a job, it's always been a family meeting. Always. This is what I want to do. What do you think? And how did those go? What's his feedback? I left court services as a probation officer at his request. Really? Why? He was really worried about me. Um, Bermuda is a very unique environment to work with the uh criminal justice. You don't have any privacy at all, whether it be going to court and your grandmother's girlfriend's son is being charged, or you are interviewing a client and you're leaving and going to the grocery store and bumping into them. I even have had scenarios where persons that I'm supervising's children are in the same class as my son. Yeah. And so we created sort of a little code language so that he knew to be safe. Uh in Bermuda, we do a lot of meet uncle so-and-so and aunt so-and-so. We never did that in my home. Yeah. Uh, if someone walks up to me and says hello, Miss Carrie, he knows immediately they're not a friend of the family. They may be cool, but and so if someone calls me Denise, he knows that there's a different relationship with that person. And I taught him that very early because when I'm not with you, he still needs to be able to be safe.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Absolutely. No, I mean, those who feel it know it. You know, my dad is an identical twin who was his identical twin was a prosecutor for years, you know what I mean? And we didn't always understand why we couldn't do sleepovers growing up, and not everybody can come over, and not everyone can spend the night, but that level of exposure that you have, and it might not even be your dad, I just they just happened to share a face, you know. People don't know the difference, you know what I mean? And I remember being growing up and being so upset I couldn't go to a sleepover of a friend, right? And it was crazy because my cousin Maxanne had the same experience when she was younger too, and uh, and I didn't know why. And I remember like years later, my dad being like, because he was in court for molesting his sister, right? And I know, and you just don't know these things at the time, your parents can't share those things with you. But hindsight is always 20-20 with that, and I'm sure Jordan's experiencing that now as he's gotten older, but you appreciate that protection too when your parent is exposed in that way, for sure. Yeah, and so I I totally understand what he what what that's like, but so when you transitioned into home, what was that family meeting like?

SPEAKER_01 29:34

So it was a huge surprise for me, I think. This was coming on to the end of COVID, and my myself having a very uh in-depth conversation with Michelle White, talking about where I was in my career, uh, where the fire is within me, and just knowing that I have a lot left as it relates to breaking down barriers. Yeah. And she really kind of held me accountable to that. And she was like, you need to go and find it. Like, if that's who you are, do it. And then literally within weeks, I met the now founder and chair of home, that being Arthur Whiteman. And we had, I want to say a two-hour discussion online, and I went home that night and I said, I'm quitting my job. Wow. And he was like, What? I'm quitting my job. Uh, you're out of college. Uh, I have no responsibilities other than to me. And I was like, this next phase is gonna be about community, and we are going to end homelessness. And uh, it's been my life since then.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yeah. No, and I I love that as well because at the beginning you said relentless was the word you would do use to describe this phase as well. And you have to be relentless to wake up one day and be like, I'm gonna quit my job and dedicate the next phase of my career to ending homelessness in Bermuda, where there's no real definition in a country of what that actually looks like, and taking on an always not so very positive community towards certain things that we've become accustomed to, what that looks like, right? So, one kudos to you for that. But two, in this phase of where you are, you know, doing all the research and things like that, we talked about um your current, I wouldn't say passion, but focus around offenders and coming back into the community and when it when we're talking about homelessness, like walk me through what that looks like.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

It is very intimidating once you have committed an offense in Bermuda and you're trying to uh regain acceptance within a community. If you have a strong family, if you have a business that's already established, then that transition out looks completely different than an individual who is coming out of corrections that has nothing. No one is advocating for them. Uh, the general view is like this is a consequence of what you did. However, with that, in the absence of housing, in the absence of employment, if they do then turn around and use and then reaffan, our immediate response is, I knew it. You never changed. You're gonna keep going back. It is our responsibility to not invest $110,000 per year into someone's incarceration, but to take those funds to ensure that when someone comes out, that that is sustainable. And that means we must find space for them. We are safest, especially when sex offenders are being released. Yes, we want to know where they're living. We want them to live somewhere so that they're not sleeping outside where we don't know where they are, right? We want them to be employed so that we know where they are, so that they are receiving funds, they're getting paid, so that they don't have to do other things to generate revenue, right? And then by pouring into them, that means that recidivism goes down, that mental health is being managed, and whatever their offense is is also being addressed. That does not mean they will never offend again, right? But it does mean that they have a better shot at success. And I, as a woman, am safest when I know where they are.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yeah, absolutely. And why do you think, and do you think that plays a part into why we see so many uh offenders re-offending is not having that stability when they come out, when they are released from uh Westgate.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yes, not the stability, but also the accountability. Because if you come out and you don't have a job and you don't have housing, you have no accountability at all. We have to teach people to do things different, and that means that we as a community, we have to do things different.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Should they be consequenced? Absolutely, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

But they also should have a right to housing. Absolutely. So, I mean, we've talked about a lot here around homelessness and you know what you like to do and things like that.

Accountability And Hope For Everyone

SPEAKER_00 34:00

But what do you think is the emotional toll for you that this work has had on your life? Um, it's been a struggle.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

It's been a struggle. Uh, one example would be there was one property that we had moved into and there was no electricity, no running water. And I went next door to say, hey, would you mind if I use your ladies' room? Because we only have man next door. No, what do you mean? No. This is a government property. I'm a taxpayer, it's a community space that would not let me use the bathroom. I was the only female. Oh no, you know, it's gotta be safer uh in case we have another COVID outbreak. I've I did my immunization. You still can't use the bathroom. Go down to suck and so you want me to go to a bar just to use a bathroom? Yeah. Um, but that was an important moment for me because that has helped me better understand how persons who are in this space how they are received. Yeah. And yeah, go ahead, sorry. So things like that really fuel me. Um, for us to do better.

unknown 35:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

No, absolutely. I think the average person doesn't realize that toll that those types of small things have on people who are in this unhoused or unroofed situation where we don't really we see it, but we don't really know. And like, what would you communicate if you could back to that person that wouldn't let you use the rushroom there and you're gainfully employed, you know, you are a taxpayer, all the things that you said. What would you say to them to share them to kind of change that perspective a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Every person in our community has value, tremendous value. I have no right, you have no right to give up on any of them. It is our collective responsibility to make space to ensure that all of your sons, all of your daughters have the opportunity to thrive in Bermuda. We need to take that personal.

unknown 36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

What do you say to people who are like, look, that's my family, like we've done everything we could to support this person and they're still in that particular situation. Like, what do we say to them? They could be absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Accountability is not just apply to service providers, to families who have resources. Accountability also rests with the persons who are experiencing homelessness. Yeah, you have to do things different. We want our community to change its perception about the homeless. Persons who are experiencing homelessness must help us change the community's perception about them.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Yeah, absolutely. So when we think of Denise Carey and when, and obviously, knock on wood, a very long time from now, right? When you're no longer here and someone says, Oh yeah, I know Denise Carey, what do you want to be remembered for in those moments?

SPEAKER_01 37:01

The fact that people said no a million times and she kept going until she got that yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

I love it. Well, Denise, thank you so much for spending some time with me today and being on Hostel Heart Podcast. I really appreciate one, you being very vulnerable about you, but two, giving us an education around homelessness in Bermuda that I don't think a lot of people were aware of. So I really appreciate you being here today.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the community's commitment to learn more that speaks volumes about Bermuda.

How To Support Home Bermuda

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Love it. Alright, guys, so we had the amazing Denise Carey, the executive director for Home here in Bermuda. If you want to find out more information about home, make sure you head over to the website where you can find out more information about how you may be able to take part, as well as how you can get a bit more informed about what home is this looks like in Bermuda and all the different ways I'm up to here. As always, thank you to our sponsors, 1059 from it. As always, thank you today.