Coordinating Efforts to Address Homelessness with Anna Ashie

Today we have Anna Ashie, the Housing Operations Manager for the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, joining us today.  

We have an incredible conversation about the details of persons being precariously housed: what contributes to the problem, what could be potential solutions and more!  

Jump in to discover exactly what we can do to partner with these powerful efforts that change lives! 

Transcript

Anna Ashie Podcast Audio

Intro/Outro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Practice Good. The podcast that empowers change makers to give good and live good. Here is your host, Shiloh Karshima, social entrepreneur, corporate trainer, and former pastor. Join us as we explore the intersection of social impact and soul care!

Shiloh: [00:00:00] Hey, Anna, welcome to the podcast. We're so happy to have you.

Anna: Hi, I am so excited to be here. I am just really, really excited to talk about my favorite topic, housing justice, and really honored that you asked me to be here today. 

Shiloh: I'm so excited. Not only are you a good friend of mine, but you are doing incredible work around our city.

And I know just even policy wise and stuff for our nation, you are a huge advocate for housing. So you're the housing operations manager for the Homelessness Services Network here in Orlando. Tell us a little bit more about that. 

Anna: Absolutely. So what our organization is, is we're acting as the lead agency or organization that is really like an umbrella over like 65 sub recipient agencies.

And we are the leader of the strategic plan and coordinated effort to address homelessness in our region, which is including [00:01:00] Orange, Osceola, Osceola. and Seminole County. And what that means as well is that we're like the liaison between us and HUD. And so we have brought in like 12 million into the region to address homelessness.

And most recently, and very excitingly, we got another 8. 4 million to combat youth homelessness in our region. And we are, I've heard it said we're kind of like herding cats, we're trying to bring together the state. The city, the county, local municipalities, we have, you know, dollars from all of those entities as well as private dollars, along with our monies from HUD, and we are trying to get everyone to get on the same page to have a coordinated effort to address homelessness, which is Complicated.

Shiloh: I can imagine coordinating all of those voices and agendas and funding and all of that is a lot. So how do you guys do that? How do you guys bring everybody together? Do you have forums? Do you have a regular meeting? What does it look like to [00:02:00] actually implement this type of work and get it moving and off the ground?

Anna: So what that looks like is not only are we applying for the federal grants on behalf of our region and then the sub recipient agencies that we have underneath us. So just imagine every agency in town and across those 3 counties that is working to address the issue of homelessness is coming to us to apply for those.

Monies, right? And then what we're doing, like my team specifically does, I have a team of eight that we're going out and we are recruiting landlords and we're working on retaining those landlords to be low barrier landlords for people experiencing homelessness. And our goal is to house as many people as possible.

And in the last year alone, we have served over 30, 000 people in some capacity, and we've housed 3, 400 people. And, you know, for me, that's, it's really fruitful work to hear, like, how much worse it would be if we weren't involved. [00:03:00] And I have to kind of say, you know, one of the things I know that we want to talk about today is being a woman in leadership in a nonprofit is to kind of toot the horn of the woman who made most of this possible is our CEO, Martha R, who is one of my inspirations and just leader.

Uh, heroes and she has been the driving engine to kind of bring all the pieces together to bring all of these different people who were in silos kind of duplicating work to say, hey, if we work together and you guys address chronic homelessness, which is very different than. Family homelessness and we have a coordinated entry where we are figuring out who everyone is and have a prioritization and we can assign people and we can actually use these dollars at their highest and best level.

We're going to have the most impact. And that's part of why. Our retention rates, our numbers are some of the highest in the country, and I'm really proud [00:04:00] to be a part of that work. 

Shiloh: That's so good. I mean, I've been in nonprofit work for so many years, and one of the biggest struggles that I see is there's so many groups doing the same thing, and nobody's talking.

Nobody's harmonizing, nobody's together, and it sounds like that's really a central focus for you guys, is getting everybody On the same like in the room, have a seat at the table. Let's have a conversation and let's make sure we're, we're working well together and making the best for the dollars that we have and the impact that we can give, which, which I really love and admire because there's very few people, very few organizations and entities that are really focusing on that level of work.

That's awesome. Let's backtrack a bit. How did you get into this work? Why are you passionate about it? Where does it come from? 

Anna: So I am someone who is a very passionate person in general. Um, my family has long been interested in real estate. My grandmother was a realtor. My mother loved real estate and just housing in general has always been something I was interested in.

But after college, I did something called Mission Year, um, in Atlanta, where I was one of, uh, Six teams like I was on a team of six girls, but there were five other teams and our city and then there were more all over the country and they placed us in intentionally low income areas and within the teams in Atlanta, we were put in what I would say was the most quality housing.

It was run by Columbia management and I had the opportunity to kind of Mhm. Mhm. See the difference in the quality of life and my neighbors who [00:05:00] had a newer bill tax credit property and the other teams that were living and dilapidated properties. And so I started to think, huh, like, there's something here like this.

Matters a lot. And I was like, I think that housing is really critical to living a good life. And so now when I think about it, for me, housing is the intersection of every social justice issue I can think of. It determines your educational access your economic access. It determines your health care and health impacts the environmental realities that as far as even climate change.

It has to do with your access to social capital and your quality of life. And so for me, it was like, well, like by addressing people's. basic need to have safe, adequate housing, we are addressing so much more. And I have never departed from that [00:06:00] feeling. And so I was committed to learning how to do housing, um, to the best of my ability.

I went on to, uh, get into for profit leasing. And then, you know, over 10 years ago, I got into the realm of working with people experiencing homelessness and getting them into housing. And I've never really looked back. I'm now a realtor. And, um, I am just really committed to the idea that if we can address people's basic right, basic need to get into safe and adequate housing, we are impacting future generations, because every family that we put into housing is a family that their future generations are going to benefit from that.

And so that's part of why I feel, well, it is the reason why I feel so passionate. 

Shiloh: I love that. And one of the things I noticed that you said, you know, when you're explaining all this is, I think so central, at least for me personally, is like how you communicate about people experiencing homelessness. You said [00:07:00] people experiencing homelessness, you don't call them homeless people.

We tend to do this in all different kinds of fields in the nonprofit world. We'll say we do orphan care rather than saying we are working with children experiencing You know, or going through parentless nights or whatever it may be, right? Where we create things that define people and give them identity.

I love that you really separated that from the person. Why is that? Why do you do that? Why is it important to do as leaders in the nonprofit world?

Anna: I mean, just like you said, like, you know, homelessness is not an identity. It's something you're experiencing. And this is a really great segue into something I wanted to touch on, is that a lot of people have a misconception of what causes homelessness and who homeless people are when they say homeless people.

To say people are experiencing homelessness obviously puts their personhood first, it restores their [00:08:00] dignity, but it also gives the opportunity to say, okay, what is causing people to experience homelessness? A lot of people would say mental health. Substance abuse poverty, right? Those do impact the likelihood of someone experiencing homelessness, but something that I've been mulling over even more recently, um, I read this book, uh, it just came out called Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Greg Colburn and Clayton Aldern, and my mind was blown by this, that The reality is is even when you control for factors like mental health, like substance abuse, like poverty, the areas that see the highest concentrated rates of homelessness are not impoverished areas.

Consider Detroit, their poverty rate is 42%. And they have the lowest one of the lowest homelessness rates in the country, whereas LA. New York, [00:09:00] San Francisco, San Diego, high median income areas, but also high cost of living, high housing cost areas have the. Well above and beyond the largest homelessness populations.

And so it is, it is really for me that person centered language also calls back to this is a solvable issue. It's something that we need to Have created. It is something that we can address, and it's not a symptom of someone's character. It's not a symptom of a choice necessarily that has been made.

Sometimes there are no good choices to pick from, but for affordable housing is. really the biggest driving factor behind it. And that has nothing to do with someone's integrity. Last I checked, no one's doing drug tests to sign on their mortgage. Like I've never had to do [00:10:00] a psyche valve to sign a lease.

There are way more people who are experiencing substance abuse issues and mental health issues that are in housing that are not. And so for me, it's just, it's kind of a segue to. Open that door to have that conversation with people to like, Hey, people first. This is not a symptom of bad character.

Shiloh: So what is the problem? What is, why are we having affordable housing issues? I mean, specifically in central Florida, it's huge, but like really around the nation. What, why are we going in circles with this? What is going wrong?

Anna: I am Shiloh. I've been waiting my whole life to answer this. So. Um, right now in Central Florida, we are experiencing a really unique crisis.

 As of last year, I think we were second most unaffordable in the country. And in the examples I previously gave of all these, like, really, um, high income areas that have really big homelessness populations, Central Florida is unique because while [00:11:00] our rents have gone up, in some neighborhoods as much as, 60%, on average, 486 per month.

Our wages have not. We are still one of the lowest wage paying economies in the country, and people aren't making more money. In fact, they're making less because of inflation. And so we now know, some data just came out that my organization actually put out through what's called the point in time count.

That's how all across the country they count. It's, you know, not perfect, but it's an idea of how many people experiencing homelessness there are. And we now know that prior to the pandemic to now, 75% more people are experiencing homelessness. That's an astonishing number. And in the last year alone, it's 38% more people are experiencing homelessness right here in the streets of Central Florida.

And part of what's driving that, there's so many factors. And I just want to take a minute, if I can, to break down what some of those are. because I, I think a lot of people don't [00:12:00] consider. How housing is impacted by so many other facets of, you know, communal life. And so, um, one of the biggest factors is that even before the pandemic, we had one of the worst, um, affordable housing availability, rates in the country.

And that has not changed. In fact, it's gotten. worse. And in the next three years, we are slated to lose 11, 000 units that are tax credit properties. The majority of those are for seniors. This month, right now in florida, a million people are rolling off of Medicaid because our state chose not to accept the expansion.

And so think of all those people that are now going to have to prioritize health care costs over housing. This comes at the same time that our state chose to cut back food stamps, which is the month before summer, when most families are relying on schools to provide food for their Children. And in June, there is a [00:13:00] 40% property insurance hike that can happen for Most properties throughout Florida.

That's really going to also impact housing. And then there's some other recent legislation regarding condos that after Surfside, the unfortunate collapse of the condominium building down in Miami, where a lot of people died, the state of Florida did act. But

in doing so much that some people are getting affordable housing. slammed with 100, 000 assessments. And if you're a retiree that moved down here on a fixed income to live the good life on the coast, You are now in foreclosure and being pushed up and in to central Florida, where we also have a lot of people moving into Florida, , during the pandemic no property taxes, not property, but income tax and the weather.

And so more people competing for less. And so we're in this like perfect storm. Uh, you know, scenarios that are [00:14:00] really building up and at the same time, our state has recently passed some affordable housing legislation to incentivize more affordable housing development, but unfortunately, they buried within that, um, the elimination of all tenant right protections and source of income protections that municipalities had Fought really hard to get and basically made it so that they're no longer able to enforce those.

Even right here in Orange County, well above and beyond the majority voted democratically to put in place tenant right protections and come July 1st, those are removed. And we also have an unprecedented eviction crisis that's happening because of this. And one of our agency directors blew my mind in this stat.

He said, if we keep up this pace in Orange County. We will have evicted 4% of Orange County by the end of this year and. For those of you who don't know, once you get an eviction, it's [00:15:00] almost impossible to find housing again. It doesn't come off your record for seven years. So, imagine competing in this already overvalued, very impossible market to get into with a recent eviction.

 It's a perfect storm of conditions here in Central Florida that it's truly, it's overwhelming to think about. It really is. 

Shiloh: Does this... affect any specific group more than another based on race or age or immigration status or gender? Where are we predominantly seeing some of these kind of effects in our community?

Anna: Absolutely. So as you know, like this country has a long history of institutionalized racism, segregation, and we see that living out in the populations that we're serving. And an example that I like to use as to how, we are being impacted today by even just in our generation is consider my grandfather.

He was a World War [00:16:00] II vet. He came home and Would have been able to buy a home with a VA loan, probably did but his black counterparts could not. And one of the primary ways we pass wealth down in this country, is through home ownership. And at the same time, we know that black people, even now, especially then are being paid less than white people are redlining was a big way to box people out black people out from being able to purchase homes.

And even today, we see that appraisers are basically assessing homes in black neighborhoods or perceived to be owned by black people at far less value. And so, as a result of all of these institutionalized factors, over half of the people that we serve in my organization, Are black. And as you know, nationally, black people only represent about 12 to 13% of the population.

And here locally, it's about 24%. But it's still a [00:17:00] huge overrepresentation because you have people who are obviously connected to people who don't have as much access to wealth, resources, property, interventions that a lot of white people do have at a higher rate. And so it is, Not only impacting the Black community, but LGBTQ youth specifically, we see them really over represented in those that we serve.

Teens that are running away, that are being rejected by their families, that don't have a safe place to be. We see older single women, it's like, it is genuinely when we look at the most vulnerable in society. That's where they're showing up in our systems because they are the most vulnerable.

So it's not surprising but it is. Heartbreaking and it is just indicative of the system that we built here. 

Shiloh: I was [00:18:00] reading an article about a family who is actually suing appraisers. They're a black family and they had their home appraised and then they just felt like it was not. Something was off about it.

And so they called another appraiser and they took out all the pictures or anything in their house that would indicate they're black and their house went up in value over 100, 000. There's so many hard parts to this, but one of the hard parts is that is that, that family knew to advocate for themselves. That family knew to go and do the due diligence and ask again. But so many families just trust whatever happens. And I look back even in our family, my husband is black, he's African immigrant. And I look at some of the situations we've encountered.

We've been through a lot of hard things in our, in our marriage. And I started writing about it the other day and realizing that What if some of this wasn't just happenstance? I, we just keep making reasons and [00:19:00] excuses and reasonable doubt and believing the best in people, but what if there were actually things where, would people have treated us the same if he were white?

And we started thinking, probably not in this situation, probably not in that situation, probably not in that, and we realized, wow, a lot of the things that We've experienced as a family, or I've watched him experience, could possibly have been affected by this, you know, the racist air we've been breathing for centuries in America.

 I know that you have, your family has some personal experience with this as well. talk to me. You're a white mom. You have biracial babies. They're not babies anymore. They're big boys.

Anna: I know. 

Shiloh: I know. Your husband is also, he's a black American African man as well. Talk to us a little bit about what, how this has affected your family.

As well as potentially, I know it's easy. We're both white women. We've got biracial babies. It's easy to have. inter or transracial families, [00:20:00] basically, but still not fully understand the experiences of your spouse. How can people be allies for their friends, their family, their spouses? What does it look like, for you guys?

And, you know, I know that's kind of a shift in topic, but I love having you here. And I think that's such an important thing for us to talk about. And it's so unique to your story and my story as well. 

Anna: So, ironically, to circle back, to what you were saying, our family has actually experienced two separate appraisals that were deeply undervalued, and it didn't, it did financially impact our family because we weren't able to go get a second appraisal, the bank refused to do that, and that's happened to us on two separate occasions, and Part of that is because we are a mixed race family.

My husband immigrated here from Ghana at the age of 11. We have chosen to live in a historically black neighborhood. And so we believe that obviously has a lot to do with, the appraisal value that came back. , I think something [00:21:00] that a lot of people don't consider is that, , for our husbands, like your husband, too, is that they have a different experience than even Black Americans do when it comes to, experiencing racism for the first time later in life.

So consider that, our husbands grew up with presidents that look like them, teachers, lawyers, principals, friends, neighbors, I mean, you name it. Everybody looked like them and to arrive here later in life, my husband is, you know, 12, and to experience not just the culture shock of moving from Ghana to the Americas because he went to Canada first, was also having to realize, well, like, there are people who think that I am less.

Based on how I look and to have to go through that as an adolescent is really, really isolating and a really lonely experience because not only was he not really accepted and masked by white Americans, but not by black [00:22:00] Americans either. But yeah, we are raising three boys. who are going to have a fundamentally different experience than their father, who is Black, had.

And so it's a conversation that, goes on in our house all the time, and it impacts everything that we do, including the work, because by our choice to live where we live, We also live in the neighborhood where I primarily work and serve because our neighborhood has most of the social services for the region.

And we have the highest rate of unsheltered people living on our sidewalks. So our kids have grown up knowing, what homelessness is, they have grown up seeing, what a lot of People in America can kind of drive away from when they're at a red light. And so it is absolutely something that, informs and shapes every part of our lives.

And, you're right. If you think about things that you've gone through in marriage, if you think about things that you go through [00:23:00] in life, there's no way to divorce, our racial identities from that. Whether we are white or black, either we are shielded from the truth of how other people live.

And so in response to your question of like, how can we as white people be allies, it starts with just believing people when they tell you their experience. And not diminishing it with defensiveness, not dismissing it with denial, and with believing people when they tell you what they have experienced.

And I think about a quote that Dr. Yaba Blay said, and I'm gonna butcher it, but it was basically to the effect of, when people ask, like, how can I be an ally, she's like, it sometimes feels like you're asking, how can I learn to care about you? And she's like, Just do what you would do if this was happening to you and that's kind of [00:24:00] what I've been carrying with me is like I am in a different position than many white women and where what's happening is happening to my children and to my husband, but I think educate yourself, read what has actually taken place in this country and don't rely on, you know, The media don't rely on going to your one Black friend and ask them to do the emotional labor of explaining everything to you.

I think it is on us to, when people of color in our lives do share their experiences with us, we believe it, and then we take the time to educate ourselves, and then we turn around and we have the hard conversations with our white friends and our white family members, because I think that's our work. Also when it comes to this issue that we're talking about today, which is housing justice, which we've already talked about impacts so much else, use your vote, vote for pro housing [00:25:00] policies when your neighbors are showing up being NIMBYs, which is not in my backyard because there's an affordable housing development coming to your suburb.

And you are wanting to protest that, step back and be a YIMBY. Yes, in my backyard. Why wouldn't we want to give more people the opportunity to have safe and adequate housing? And how much more would our property values be impacted if homelessness continues to rise? And I would say this, that if you have people in your lives who, even after all of this, insist that there's some sense of entitlement or insist that even though it's the basic human right, you know, the cost to have someone on the street is 30, 000 per person per year to taxpayers.

The cost to house someone with services is less than 15, 000 per person per year. So even economically, financially for taxpayers, [00:26:00] it makes more sense to do the right thing, the dignified thing, and support pro housing policies and support things that move our society and our community forward and better.

I'm a person of faith. And for me, my faith informs everything that I do in this work and this belief to love others as you love yourself. And that others is literally everyone. Everyone. Yeah. 

Shiloh: Yeah, I love that. Anna, you are a woman in non profit leadership, you're advocating for things, you're a real estate agent

you're all these things to all these people and you're an incredible mama to three young boys and wife. Do you have resources, advice, wisdom to other Maybe they're coming along that pathway as well. Maybe they want to change the world. They want to make a difference. They want to see positive impact.

What kind of, whether it's mantras [00:27:00] or books or TED talks, like what kind of things got you through this journey? And what would you end this podcast by just telling people to look to themselves for encouragement? 

Anna: Oh, gosh, there's so many books that have shaped me. I love to read.

There's so many resources. I wish that I could just, write out a whole list. But when it comes to housing, specifically, the book that I mentioned earlier, homelessness is a housing problem, Evicted, is a really compelling, wonderful read. If you want to learn more about how racism has shaped housing and just, segregation in this country, the color of law is great.

Arbitrary Lines is another great housing book. When it comes to, the housing first response, which is The model that our region is using to have a coordinated response. The book on ending homelessness is kind of the Bible of that movement. And that's why Ian Dejong, as far as [00:28:00] just the work in general and things that, I listened to or mantras that I taught myself, Brene Brown is, influence in my life.

I know she is yours as well. And she is someone that I definitely look up to. But as mantras and, things like that, that I tell myself to get out of bed every day to do this work, even though it feels like bailing water out of a sinking ship sometimes is why not me? And if I don't do this, And I really, really stand by that, that I feel very much that I am in my lane doing what I need to be doing and that it is My job to keep hoping, and by hoping, acting on that hope, believing that things will change, even if it seems counter to that, and not giving up hope, because we can't [00:29:00] afford to do that.

I think of, People that I follow on Instagram that give me hope there's Sharon says so she talks a lot about legislation from a very, objective viewpoint that I really value. And I think about just, I don't know there's so many leaders like I mentioned Dr. Yaba Blay earlier.

And. The leaders of the Me Too movement and the Black Lives Matter movement inspire me with their willingness to show up and keep doing hard work and holding on to hope when it feels like we're going backwards. Especially right now. And so that's that's what I can think of for for the time being and I am just really thankful for the opportunity to be here today.

Shiloh: I think you hit on something that's so powerful and I think a great way to end this episode is just that we can't afford to give up, we can't afford [00:30:00] to give up. My husband was calling someone the other day. He's like, okay, build up for fundraising for our nonprofit. He's like, I hate asking for money.

And I said, you don't have the luxury to not ask. We have 63 people that depend on this income for their families tomorrow. And if we don't get it, like they're on the streets in Nigeria. So that Not asking is a luxury, and I interviewed someone, Alex Counts, he was the founder of the Grameen Foundation with Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance in India, and he said when you're in this industry of non profit work, you have to learn to make the big, arduous, crazy ask, or else none of it will get done.

You have to be the risk taker, you have to be the one that says, I can't afford to give up, I can't afford to let go, and I think that is like, The pinnacle of all of this. Anna, thank you for joining us. I had such a lovely time connecting with you again, and I know learned a lot in the process, and I'm [00:31:00]hoping all of our listeners and subscribers will take some of those books that you mentioned, take some of those ideas and really move forward with how can we be a part of change with those experiencing homelessness in our community and in our nation.

So thank you so much for your vulnerability and your honesty and your generosity with your time today. 

Intro/Outro: Thank you for tuning in.

We hope this episode has given you some valuable insights and inspiration for your social impact journey. If you enjoyed the show, let us know, follow and leave a review, [00:27:00] and don't forget to share the fun with your friends and followers. Now go out there and create some positive change!