#4 - Amy Schwabenlender on Homelessness in Arizona - Phoenix Arizona [Executive Director @ Human Services Campus]

Homelessness in Arizona is something most of us see on the streets of our cities and communities everyday. Yes we see it, but very few of us actually understand it. 

Who are the homeless?
Everybody has a story. How do they end up on the street?
Is the challenge getting better or worse?
What resources and services do we have available in the City of Phoenix to assist?
Should you personally play a role in assisting the less fortunate while keeping your streets safe and clean?
What is that role and what are some ways you can assist in an empathetic and compassionate way?
Most importantly, IS THERE HOPE?

This week Amy Schwabenlender, Executive Director at the Human Services Campus (a robust campus with almost 2 dozen services and 15 partners to assist the homeless in getting back on their feet) in downtown Phoenix joins the show to answer these questions and to give us optimism that homelessness can be defeated here in Arizona with a little focus and attention from all of us.

Important Links discussed during the Podcast
Website:  https://hsc-az.org/
Make a donation:  https://hsc-az.org/donate/
Downloadable "You Matter" Card:  https://hsc-az.org/you-matter/

It's time to Podcast!

Transcript

Hey, welcome back, it is time to Podcast. Today, I have a really important topic that we're going to talk about we are going to talk about homelessness in downtown Phoenix, I am with the authority in terms of really understanding the homeless situation down here, but also kind of getting to some of the root causes. And so we're going to talk about a lot. I think it's a really important topic. So stay tuned for that. Before we get into that conversation, let me quickly introduce you to Phoenix homes and hotspots. This is my real estate YouTube channel. And Phoenix homes in hot spots is designed to give give the viewer an opportunity to actually see the communities and some of the local hotspots around the homes that they might find that they like online. So somebody coming from California as an example, may not know the community but finds a really cool home that they want to see online Phoenix homes and hotspots gives them that visual of the community but it also gives them a visual of again, some local restaurants, hiking golf or whatever that might be. So if you're listening on the audio version, you can go to youtube.com forward slash Phoenix homes and hotspots. If you're watching on YouTube, just click the link on the top right hand corner of the screen. With that, let me introduce my guest today. Amy, is the director in i Miss, I'm going to say your name I should have asked you Schwab and lender, exactly. Amy Schwab and lender. She is the executive director at the Human Services campus, which is the homeless campus down here in downtown Phoenix. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah, having me. So I think the best way to really give you a proper introduction is to talk about why I'm here how I actually ended up here, because I think it's a great story. And I think it really epitomizes like what this is all about. So I was about a month and a half ago. I was sitting in I was sitting at a sports bar watching football. And this gentleman sits down next to me. And he's big San Francisco 40 Niners fan. Yes, he is. So he was into his football. Oh, yes, somehow. So we didn't talk too much, you know, 1520 minutes. But anyway, somehow we end up in a conversation and he starts to tell me, I must have asked, I have no idea how to sound. And probably the last thing he wanted to do was have a 20 minute conversation about with me about what he does and how he ended up doing it. But that's what happened. Yeah. So Stacy is his name. Yeah. And so Stacy starts to tell me that he works down here at the Human Services campus. I had never heard of it. I had no idea it was down here. But he further goes on to tell me his story. And his story was really, really resonated with me, because I think a lot of times, we we have the stereotype of what homelessness is, and that stereotype tends to be, well go get a job. Right? And and I'm, look, I'm a really transparent person. So for me, I can relate to that. It's like, hey, you know, you have you looked like you're capable of going and get your job. And we tend to do that right? Or, you know, whatever that might look like or you think you're just going to go buy cigarettes with it definitely has run through my mind. And I think a lot of people listening to this and watching this can probably relate to that. And so hopefully, we can kind of end that a little bit today and give people a little bit better perspective, because Stacey is a man that comes from a background that that he had a hard upbringing, right. He was fought addiction, in and out of trouble with the law, and was homelessness for a period of time. And so he goes to, he goes on, he tells me a story. He tells me what he's doing here, which is helping homeless folks find permanent housing. And I just I after 20 minutes, I'm like, Okay, we need to sit down. I just started a local podcast. And this is exactly what we're doing. So we need to sit down. So so the story goes from there, he picks up his phone. And he says, Know who you need to talk to is not me, I need to talk to Amy. She runs the campus down there. So he picks up the phone, he texts you. And he and he says Amy, you know, I'm sitting next to whatever he says, right? And I think in their heads, he kind of was reading some of it to me. And you know, he's kind of verbalizing some of it. And he said, You know, I don't mean to bother you or something like that was text. Yeah. You had you immediately text back within 60 seconds, you text him back, said no bother at all. And I just so the reason I tell that story is number one, I want people to understand that homelessness, there are people that that get beyond it, right, they go on to have successful lives. And I think that's really important. But the other thing is, I think it really speaks to your leadership here as the executive director of such a huge campus and such a huge project. So anyway, so congratulations for that. With that, so I spent a lot of time talking and I have very little time with you. So now I'm gonna let you do most of the talking but I felt like you deserve that proper interaction. Thank

05:00

you.

05:01

So why don't we start with what is the human services campus for people that just have no idea? They haven't been down here? They haven't seen any of this. You know, they see homeless folks on the street here and there around the valley, but haven't seen what you do down here. What is the human services campus?

05:16

The Human Services campus is a place it's an ecosystem. It's also the name of our organization. And thank you for being interested because it always makes us a little sad when people say they don't know where the campuses are that the city of Phoenix and the County of Maricopa have a human services campus. Because so much amazing work happens here every day. The campus opened in 2005 and was owned by Maricopa County Maricopa County really took the lead on capital campaign to fundraise. A lot of community members had this idea about CO locating services. Before there was a campus there was a shelter operated by central Arizona shelter services or cast there was a health care for homeless clinic actually, in this building we're sitting in Maricopa County ran a health clinic right here for people experiencing homelessness. There was a St. Vincent DePaul dining room and an Andre house dining room and some of these services. And some of them walkable and some of them not walkable. And at that time, Phoenix really had less of a public transportation system than it does now. And community members, one of our founders, Mike McQuaid, they came together and said, What if we designed a place to co locate services for people experiencing homelessness, sort of like a retail shopping center where you can go get everything you need, right? You stop at one street corner and you can pick up everything you need, and you can go back home. This is for the place. This is a place for people who have no home. And it came to be it's changed a lot over the years in 2017. Maricopa county decided they no longer wanted to own the property, and they deeded it to our nonprofit. So our nonprofit is called the Human Services campus Inc. Yes. So our organization, the organization, Stacy and I and 50. Some other people work for is called the Human Services campus. And it's the name of this place. And it puts our organization in the role of landlord of we're a property owner, we're a property manager, we do all the janitorial landscaping, security guards, and we work with 15 other partner organizations to be here and provide their service. And it makes this really unique not only in Arizona, but in the entire country to serve people experiencing homelessness in this way with a very holistic approach. We're very client centered. We do only serve single adults, we do have families and youth show up on their own and our staff quickly connect them with our partner organizations that focus on those subpopulations so that this stays a place for single adults. For people listening who know downtown Phoenix at all. I think one reason why people don't know we're here is because we're just south of Jefferson, right south of Madison between Madison and the railroad track. And so you can be driving down to a sporting event and not even know there's a homeless issue in downtown Phoenix, and there's a place serving people experiencing homelessness absolutely true. You can. People are going back and forth to work to they were between the state capitol and City Hall, and the seat of the county government. And many people don't know that we're here. So I always appreciate when people want to talk about it to help, you know, make us less of a secret.

08:32

It's interesting. So you said the county deeded it to you, which is which is very, very fortunate. I mean, I just heard a story in Seattle, where they're now starting to talk about building high rise condos for the homeless, where they I think the cost of build a unit is $150,000. But they're selling them to the city for $550,000. And, you know, and how many people that houses or whatever, I don't know, but I mean, to have a campus like this that where it's deeded to you is pretty fortunate. Mm hmm. So,

09:05

yeah, it didn't, it came with, you know, challenges and issues. And when the county owned the property, the county didn't exactly run it. So there was a governance structure of some of the original member manager organizations of the campus. And in in with the gift of the deed comes deed restrictions in this, this 13 plus acres of property has a permanent deed restriction to provide homeless people services. So it's a it's limited into what can be done here. And you know, we can end homelessness, we can prevent a lot of homelessness, and there will probably always be some level of need for people in crisis. So having this place set aside really into perpetuity to say people are falling into homelessness. They have a crises there still always can be this place for people to come and get help.

09:58

I want to I want people to understand Something that you just said. You just said we can end homelessness. Yes. So we're going to talk about that a little later in terms of some potential solutions. Yeah. But I think that's really important. Okay. i How many services, you mentioned that you have 15 partners here on campus, or right right here. 13 acres right here on 13 acres, 15. Partners, how many services approximately?

10:22

Probably over 20, because some organizations do more than one thing.

10:28

Yeah, I came out on tour this summer weeks ago. And it was it's impressive. I mean, just what you guys do so I mean, from the so the way that it works, and correct me if I'm wrong is the people come and they actually, I'm probably not using the right word. But they register essentially, they come in they, they go through a process, because it's all gated security. And so they go through a process to register. So you know, who's coming in and out they have credentials or whatever unit however you refer to that. Yeah. But but you know, who's coming in and out? And so yeah, really, really interesting operation really, obviously, well run and just, it's streamlined. It was it was really impressive.

11:07

Well, thank you. Right, and that one of the changes since 2005, is a single point of entry. And when the campus first opened, it wasn't fully gated, with the one point of entry, it was much more free flowing, people could come and go. And for a lot of reasons that changed over time. And, you know, right, right or wrong, a lot of what we do is driven by grants and contracts. And the Federal Housing Urban Development Department funds, a lot of the programs here on the campus, and was probably around 2012 or so, HUD said that communities in order to receive certain funding for housing and shelter, had to have a common assessment tool. And so right when people come here, they go through a common intake and assessment in our Brian Garcia Welcome Center. And to ensure that we were finding everyone and providing that intake, it really had to come to having one single point of entry. So there's a place, there's one gate for people to go to, we can start that conversation. Every client receives a campus ID so that it has their photo, it has a number on it that we use in a common county wide Homeless Management Information System. So there can be a lot of data sharing. And really, yes, from a security perspective, it's helpful to have that I mean, there's a lot of benefits to having one place where all of our clients come in through.

12:33

Yeah, I mean, you have it streamlined down to you have a mail center, like you have your own little post office right inside that facility. Yes. Which is crazy. Yeah.

12:42

It's it's one of the things people have to have a mailing address in order to end their homelessness. Yeah, for sure. We can't do a job application, we can't do a rental application, you can't buy a home, right? You can't fill out any application or piece of paper, really without a mailing address. Yeah, and you can't use a Pio box for a lot of social security state benefits, you have to have a mailing address. And it still remains unique, as far as we know, across the country to for us to have this kind of arrangement with US Postal Service, which means any of our clients can use our address on any of those types of applications and to receive their mail. And yeah, so before the gate, people can come and check their mail. They they walk up to a window, show that campus ID of staff and volunteers check to see if they have an email, give them their mouse over 5000 people a year use that service alone. Really cool.

13:35

Really cool. How so tell us about you. How do you? I mean, two questions, I guess how and why. Why the why this? I mean, usually people have a story like like Stacey right. Stacy has a story, how he ends up doing this. What is your background? How do you end up into this? And maybe part of that is it maybe the Y will get answered right inside of that?

13:59

Probably willing and my husband and I often asked me the same question. Why do you do you do this to yourself? It's you know, it can be very emotionally draining, exhausting work for everybody that works here. So my, my background really out of college started in sales and marketing. I worked for big fortune 500 companies, I did my own marketing consulting for a little while, and I never really felt fulfilled. You know, I saw my income going up, and the higher and moved up within an organization or the more sales you get more commission. I just never really felt good or that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. And I don't you know, for me graduating college, you know, in 1990 it was also interesting time for the economy and you sort of I think take a job where like, oh, I have to get a job. I have to start paying back my student loans. Yeah, like can't not work. And so I think for me, it was just you start doing things and all of a sudden that you end up in a career and kind of go, Well, how did I get? Why am I selling software? I don't care. You know, I didn't, it wasn't my passion to be selling software. So at that time, I was in a women's service group, and someone said, I was really going to quit my job and didn't know for sure what I was going to do. And she said, The Valley of the Sun United Way is looking for people for their annual campaign time. And they call those positions loaned executives, and you go work for United Way you get assigned a set of companies, you basically go ask people to give to the Valley of the Sun United Way, and so they can invest it back into the community. And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. I didn't really know what it was going to mean. And it ended up being really a transformational experience for me, because I didn't know about nonprofits or the community need. In doing that loan executive role and making presentations to all kinds of companies across the valley. It also included site visits to the nonprofit partners and learning their stories. And I did that in 2004, when the ground was breaking for this human services campus. And I was asked if they needed more people, they needed more volunteers to do a site visit forecasts for the shelter, which before there was a campus, there was a building just west of us, that was a two or three storey building that sheltered 400 people a night that Cass operated. And so I was like, Sure, I'll go on that that site visit and you know, went into what was cast and out the back window. And we got to see the jump the dental trailer when brighter way was in a trailer, okay, to dental chairs in a trailer, which by the way in the dirt,

17:00

crazy impressive. Yes. Operational. Right. Yeah.

17:04

So I was like, I consider myself fortunate. I was in the trailer once. Yeah. And it was this was dirt because they were breaking ground to build the campus. And that whole loan executive experience for me, which was about five months of work, I was like, oh, I should probably working for a nonprofit, I feel I feel good about this. And then I can make a difference. And again, being educated more on the level of community need, yeah, really drew me in. And I went to work at one small nonprofit for about six months, and then United Way opened up permanent position that I applied for. And I started working in the community impact department at United Way in fall of 2005. And ended up spending 13 years there, working on the the United Way agenda around ending hunger and homelessness and increasing financial stability, which morphed into this idea of breaking the cycle of poverty. And it. Yeah, I learned a lot and had a lot of experiences, I was able to do a lot of personal professional development to keep learning about the need and the community. And for some reason, the homeless piece. Always was just I don't it was really close to me for some Well, I can tell you story about how I think I figured out it was why it was why it was a close thing for me, that would make me more emotional at times. And so in 2006, through again, this HUD process, there's so much like HUD language, I don't want to get into a lot of jargon and acronyms, we have to have a continuum of care governance process for a big bucket of about $30 million that comes into the community. And through that continuum of care process. There's a board and a committee, and they wanted more people to really understand the experience the journey of someone experiencing homelessness and how they access services. And a couple of community members had gone through that process. Our Congressman Stanton who was mayor at the time, he might have been council person at the time he first time he did they call them immersion experiences. And he actually did that twice. And there were a couple other people that sign up and I was like, Oh, I'll do that. I'm gonna think I'm an experiential learner. I like to see and touch and ask questions. And you know, I love reading being in the, the environment I find helps me to learn about it. So I signed up. And so I did a what was called an immersion experience for 24 hours accessing services in Phoenix, as if I was someone experiencing homelessness, and I was paired up with a peer mentor through Native American Connections, who she knew the itinerary for our day. I had no idea what was happening and And I was told, you know, don't bring any money, don't wear any jewelry. I didn't put my contacts in that day, you know, no makeup, pair of jeans and a T shirt and baseball hat and that was about it. And they ended up giving me two bus passes. One bus passes were pieces of paper. If there's young people listening, their early work, didn't exist bus passes armies paper, and they gave me two bus passes and a sack lunch. And we went, you know, we rode the bus, we went to an outpatient center, we you can't really ride the bus all the way to the Human Services campus. So you can get off on Jefferson or Washington we walked over. Because I didn't have ID went through the process of visiting at that time, the ecumenical chaplaincy for the homeless, ran the ID program, today's homeless ID project went into their office, though, for me to talk to the chaplain about how would I get my ID back, I lost my ID. And I spent the night in a transitional living center with, with women who shared their stories. And it had its moments of being a little, a little fearful, because I didn't know what was happening or sleeping in a in a bed in a random room with a roommate that I didn't know, right. And, and so very,

21:35

very, very powerful. And what I, what I learned about, one thing I learned about myself was that what was really difficult for me to see, and when I talked to individuals experiencing homelessness was it made me think of my father. And my father was an alcoholic, he had cancer, he ended up passing away about two weeks after I did this immersion experience. And I kept thinking my own dad was just a step or half step away from falling into homelessness, if it wasn't for his second wife, his family that helped him, he could have easily been one of these people that I was interacting with, on the bus or on the street, or asking for ID and for some reason, it just really hit home for me that this is these are people are people and they're human beings. And that could have been my dad. Everybody has a story. Right? Everyone has a story? Yeah. And I think that I think that family connection. Yeah, it struck me so much. I was like, this is just like, I think it's wrong, that we don't have enough housing for people. I think it's unacceptable that in the United States, we have homelessness to the degree that we have it. And it really gave me the this drive to say we have to, we have to solve this, we have enough resources in the world. Yeah, to have enough housing for everyone. We shouldn't have homelessness, and it just really became that experience became just a push for me to want to work on this issue.

23:27

Very interesting. I want to let everybody know, cuz we've talked about several different things here on the campus. So I just wanted to let everybody know that if you're listening to the audio version, that if you go over to YouTube, the YouTube version from our tour the other day, and I think you guys want to send me some some just some still shots and some video of the campus itself. So you can actually see some of the things that we're talking about as opposed to just hearing it. So if you remember the YouTube beside interviews with Arizonans in the search bar, and you can find that is there's a lot of there's just a lot of crazy things happening in the world right now. And when I say the world, I mean, in our country in our state. Is this a problem? Is this a challenge? That's, that's getting worse. I mean, do you feel like we're starting to get a handle on it? Are you seeing that it's just something that continues to spiral downward? Where are we at with this?

24:21

Well, today's are interesting data, ask questions, I think. And I so I've been working really in this space now for 16 years. Yeah. 16 years. Wow. And there are things that go through cycles. And I think there have been moments when, when the economy moved out of the last recession, there had been a lot of effort around creating what we call permanent supportive housing for people who are chronically homeless who really may need help for the rest of their lives. Our community He came together and partners work together to create more housing. And then I don't know it is I have I wish I had more time to reflect and think about what what did we do really well, and what worked? And what do we maybe not make sustainable. And now I've been hearing this role just over three years. I started here at the campus in August of 2018. And so moving from sort of this funder community convener side to the direct service side, has also been a, you know, a huge benefit. I love it. Like I love the shift that I've made. And it just makes me it makes me think about when there's been moments of progress through these collaborations collective impact. I think it's that we didn't we didn't build things in sustainably or really change a system. And I think I'm answering your question, maybe not how you expect. But there's so much outside of, of people's control when it comes to being responsive to homelessness. There are things in Phoenix that have happened over the last at least 10 years population growth. Yeah, our infrastructure hasn't really grown to keep up with the population growth. So there isn't enough housing for everyone. You know, in many communities, we're looking at what's the water future for the communities that we already have? We don't have a public transportation system that's as built out as older cities and communities where they've had this high population. What might seem like forever, right, Phoenix is still new, in a way. Yeah. And we have all this phenomenal growth, yet, we don't have the infrastructure to actually support everyone. And so sometimes I think of it, it's like, it's like a version of The Hunger Games, because population goes up. The creation of affordable housing hasn't gone up. Incomes don't tend to go up to match the increase in the cost of living, so rents not exactly affordable for everyone. We have low vacancy rates in rental units. And so nothing really it those kind of those high level dynamics, they don't really help in efforts to end and prevent homelessness, right? And through COVID, you know, in in March of 2020, the national organizations were projecting increases of like 45% in homelessness, and we were all like, Oh my God, here we serve 800 people a day. Last year, we served over 12,000 unduplicated individuals, when we think about a potential 45% increase. It's like, we can't shelter everyone today that comes here, right? We, the meal programs can serve as many meals as people show up, but we can't shelter everyone, we can't quickly How's everyone and help them find permanent housing. So it's, it's really daunting to think about that kind of potential increase. I think one great benefit about this campus is the colocation of services and that we really coordinated differently over the last 18 months or so through the pandemic. We didn't see the rates of COVID that I think people expected we would, okay, which again, I think is a testament to everyone hears we've been disciplined about PPE and six feet apart. And yeah, reducing the number of people and buildings and sleeping next to each other.

28:43

The number of calls and emails about people facing eviction, I can say has gone up. Okay, because I get my names on a HUD website. I get phone calls, I get emails every day, all sorts of different household situation, everything you can imagine about one person, two people, families with children, moms having babies, grandparents taking care of grandkids, women in their 70s, who their spouse has died, they've never been alone. They don't know what to do anything you can imagine from a household situation. People are now concerned about their ability to keep the housing that they currently have. So I think what, like the bad news is, homelessness probably will increase because of all these factors. And just like the last recession, the rates of homelessness increased in a lagging way. The economy crashes. Homelessness doesn't just go up the next day. I think that's going to happen. Now. The good news is there's a lot more funding than we've ever had. Okay, we have the Cares Act money. We have American rescue plan money. We have the state of Arizona that has hundreds of millions of dollars and actually yesterday they announced awards of about 40 $5 million to housing and homeless service providers. So there's this good news, it is one time funding. It's a lot of money though, that if our community can't really rally around coordinated, sustainable efforts, we will have missed this once in a lifetime chance to I think really make big change when we think about ending and preventing homelessness.

30:27

So let's talk about that towards the end in terms of what you what what your vision I want, I want to hear your vision. Let's do that. Okay. Towards the end. Okay. I want to hear a little bit more of

30:36

because you talked a lot, and I, you got me talking. Yeah, that's

30:39

awesome. No, that's awesome. No, that's awesome. And, you know, when you talk about sustainability, right, I mean, what what, that's the whole key, like, what is sustainable, and housing is such a big part of it. And then there's other parts, we're going to talk about some break, breaking it down into, you know, people that are homeless and different challenges that they face, because there's so many different types of people in different situations. And like I said, they all have a story, right. So do you have a sense for? I've heard numbers kind of nationally. And I don't know if these numbers are accurate or not, but nationally, in terms of the homeless populations, like 600,000 in the US, as many as 150,000 in LA, I mean, I've heard all these crazy numbers. Do you have a sense like if we look at like Maricopa County and not looking for an exact number, because obviously it's kind of just a moving target? I'm sure, yeah. But do you have a sense for like, just a rough estimate of how many people we're really dealing with that are facing homelessness right now in the Phoenix Metro?

31:36

Yes, and no, it is hard to pinpoint. It's a very dynamic population, we homelessness isn't a static number. We, those of us in the space rely on lots of data points. And one, there's an annual Point in Time Count. That's done in the community. However, it wasn't, it wasn't done exactly the same way this year because of COVID as to prior year, so it's not a great comparison. On any given night in Maricopa County, the Point in Time Count would say there's over 7000 people, okay, single adults and people and families. Okay. I think all of us in this work would say that's an undercount. Because it relies on volunteers to go out and four hour shifts in the morning and find people and count them. And there's a report run from homeless shelters. So there's a number of people that were in shelters. So I mean, it. I don't know that it's double that, I would say that there's probably 10,000 plus people experiencing homelessness in Maricopa County right now, today.

32:41

Do you think that so if we compare that from four years ago, is that up significantly? Would that be? I mean, would it? And again, I know, yeah, your explanation earlier with the sustainability? I mean, is it again, I'm trying to sense like, is this? Is this something that's growing daily? And I get the lag measure and all of that stuff? But I mean, is this something that we're literally like on a daily basis? And clearly, we can see into the future where this could get a lot worse, depending on how the economy and housing and everything works out the lag measure? Yeah, but is it something that we're kind of seeing it, it's just kind of growing by the, by the day or by the week? Or is that? Is that a fair way to stay at it? It's at

33:19

least growing every month? Okay. And the, you know, one thing that we've seen over the last five years is the number of unsheltered people. So again, when we talk about how many people can we provide a shelter to every night? Our community has always had fewer shelter beds than the number of people experiencing homelessness. Yeah. And when we look at that annual point in time number, the difference between the sheltered and unsheltered number has gone up dramatically year over year so we have more unsheltered people, okay, because there haven't been an addition of shelter beds. Now through COVID lots of conversation we went through to your zoning case to ask to have more shelter beds here at the Human Services campus. There's been a lot more awareness, attention to the unsheltered numbers and again with this one time money. We have governmental entities the state the County, the City of Phoenix, for example, looking at how can they use this one time money to help invest in the creation of more shelters and shelters around the valley because part of you know when you if you come to the campus, you see the visible unsheltered population. We can't have everyone here at the Human Services campus. We do not want to have everyone experiencing homelessness in Maricopa County. Come here, right? We all prefer that services be provided where people are at. Yeah. So if you fall into homelessness in Buckeye, how can we have services and shelter and housing in Buckeye? Right so having a regional strategy and regional approach and there's been a lot of momentum in the last six to eight months. Again, as government's looking have this one time money? How can it be used to create more shelter? So we have an emergency a crisis response for the people who are falling into homelessness?

35:10

How many people are coming here? You kind of you mentioned some numbers earlier, but people and again, I don't know if I'm saying this in the terms that it's okay, registered, how many do you have in your database that are registered to come here? And then if you don't mind, just kind of going back? And just quickly? Yeah, I know, you already said, but just a rough idea of how many people are coming from meals, how many people you can shelter at night. And some of those things, we can run through some numbers.

35:36

For the last three years, the total number of unduplicated people served here every year has been just over 12,000. Okay. They're all registered. They've all, you know, been entered into our system. We call them a campus client, if you will. So there's about 800 ish people a day, who come here on a daily basis. So it's not the same 800 Obviously, right. I can't tell you how many only come here and eat meals. But I can tell you those, the current shelter situation is just over 400 beds and casts. And we've had this as again, where the county's been helpful with Cares Act money to create more COVID distance shelter. We use a dining room and St. Vincent DePaul is building and we use our day room in the lodestar de Resource Center to convert both of those spaces into overnight shelter for people. And right now we're sheltering 100 We can shelter up to 160 people in those two spaces. So think of it as we can shelter just over 600 people here every night. Okay. We do. We have an outreach team that works with all of the unsheltered people around us in the neighborhood, engaging them in conversation, doing the same assessment working with them on a housing plan. There's over 300 people who we can't shelter. Yeah, who are right here. Okay, seeking shelter. Okay, those 300 people and others can come on the campus, they can get their mat mail, they can eat meals, they can talk with the department of economic security, visit St. Joseph the worker visit community bridges, they can access all those other services during the day. And then we can't shelter them at night. Thus the pop up tents. Yes,

37:21

yeah. Okay. Who are who are these folks? Let's talk about, you know, we talked a little bit about kind of certain situations with housing and some of that, but maybe like, just starting from the top of what people think of the most when they think of homeless you think, like, I think that main two and maybe kind of just taking them one at a time. But I think a lot of times people think okay, addiction, and they think mental health, right? So maybe just starting at the top with addiction, can you talk a little bit about that population, and and then also, the services that you have to be able to assist with that population?

38:00

We do in that intake assessment, we ask lots of questions. It's also it's all self reported. I'll just sell this first. And it's not required. So so we operate from a harm reduction approach where services aren't required. We want people to come on and engage in the services that they want to that will help them so people can choose to not answer questions. So every data point I talk about now is probably under counted. Okay. For those reasons. Sure. We have about eight to 10% of people say that a substance abuse issue is a barrier to housing stability for them. Okay? So not necessarily a high number of 12,000 people in a year, however, God is probably underrepresented. Because when, when people come in, and they have that first interview with someone, it could be their first day homeless, they are in chronic stress, they're not feeling well, they're talking to a stranger who has a bunch of questions. And so those, I think that any of these numbers we're going to talk about are probably 25 50% less than reality. So that might be 16 to 25% of people who come here have some substance abuse issue.

39:25

Okay. What how are we able to, is that something here on the campus that we're able to assist them with? Yes. And how are you able to do that? I mean, what what services are and again, beyond obviously, we have food shelter, and we talked about beyond the basic service. I want to kind of get more details on this. So how are we able to help these

39:46

folks on campus, our partner community bridges, or CBI as we shorten everyone's names around? They work with people with general mental health and substance abuse issues. Answer mental illness. They're the go to though the starting point it. So if you've walked in today and you said I have a substance abuse issue and I want help with it right now, we would walk you over to community bridges, okay, and say these are the people that you need to talk to. Okay, and what community bridges can do is helped direct someone from here for inpatient services around the valley recovery treatment centers, they can set up outpatient services that someone can keep coming here. So we talk to CBI about substance abuse issues. They really are, though, our starting point for that. Trying to think if there's anything else specific to substance abuse that's here, but that's, that's the one and again, I would say they're the key to accessing all those other services that might not be on the campus. Okay.

40:55

men's mental health. Again, when we think of, and I think the general population when I say we like I think like the general population, yeah, night and I, I really want what we're doing relatable to people, because I think like we there's this perception, right? So what what percentage would use again, guesstimate in terms of like, have severe mental health issues? And then what services are here for those folks?

41:21

Not just severe mental health issues. But again, what people tell us the way we asked them, the question is 40% of people who come here self report, a mental health issue is a barrier to housing stability. Wow. Wow. And again, if that's under reported, because, again, you're sitting, you're meeting someone for the first time, you may not want to tell a stranger, everything about your history, or, you know, trauma, you might be undiagnosed and not know it. Yeah. So say it's half of people say it's 6000 people that come here a year that they're struggling with some level of a mental health issue. Again, our first go to is community bridges for general mental health, serious mental illness, and circle the city who's the Health Care Clinic and provider, they also do some integrated care, which is also I think, it's, it's a great benefit if people come here, because we can start to offer them options. If one route doesn't work, or and or if someone presents more with a physical health issue. And they get into the health clinic for an appointment. And that clinical person starts asking them a bunch of questions and understands like, oh, maybe there's something else happening with this individual. They have integrated care, they have behavioral health specialists so they can start to again from a holistic approach. Talk to our clients about Yeah, you have this going on physically. And, you know, is anyone ever I'm not a trained mental health practitioner. So yeah, I won't use the right words. If my colleagues are listening, I apologize. In often integrating that care is super important because people decompensate a physical health issue can be addressed by abusing a substance that can lead to a psychotic break if you're not taking medication. For one thing or the trauma of being unsheltered can lead to all sorts of things that people get unhealthier physically and mentally, the longer they experience homelessness, okay. And again, through both of those organizations, they're they're a bridge to other organizations in the community, and we can help find other places for people to go. One part I one partner did leave out that I could offer to is that in the Welcome Center, we would our HSC employees, we have the opportunity in that very first conversation two, to ask if we can help someone reunify with family, friends or support network, okay, or a recovery program. And we put this label on it diversion, meaning, if we can help someone today on their first day of homelessness, get connected with services, and not be here on the campus. Their chances of not falling into chronic homelessness increase exponentially. Again, the longer you're homeless. things add up pile up just the stress the mental health, it makes it harder and harder. So what we've what we've learned over the last few years is in that diversion category, we can also help people go to a recovery or a treatment program like on day one of their homelessness, if that's what they're ready for. That's great. And if that's what they come and we're working with people where they're at, and saying we can offer you all these things. Where are you ready to start?

45:00

Yeah, do you have? So my wife and I spent four years on cruise ships? Oh, wow, working on cruise ships. We used to go to this island off the coast of Honduras called row 10. And row tan is, you know, the, there's a little section, a little tourist section, and then but you don't have to go very far four or five blocks, and you start to get into some pretty extreme poverty. So we always like to ask the locals where to go to eat, you know, just for the really authentic local food. Yeah. So we used to go all the way down the street. And we went down this little alleyway and into this kind of dirty little dining in a dirty little restaurant, was what it was, right. But the food was amazing. And outside of that, across the street, there was a there was always two or three guys that just deformed arms, legs in wheelchairs couldn't really speak properly. I mean, just completely disabled to a point where there's no way. And one of the things we haven't spoken about yet, which I think is really important about your campus is the fact that you have an employment center here, right. But there are, which, which is amazing, because that's a great first step in terms of obviously getting people back on their feet income, it always starts there. So but these are people that regardless of what they do, clearly, so we used to walk out with meals and feed everybody every week. There. Yeah, because they're just literally, you know, they're just people are obviously couldn't do anything for themselves. Do you have a Do you see a lot of that? Is that something where and I'm talking about just people that just there's no way up from, from a physical standpoint, not so much a mental standpoint, but there's just no way that they can support themselves that are out here looking for any assistance they can get?

46:41

Yes, number wise. Well, you're number wise, there's probably 20 20% of people who come on campus have a documented disability. And I would say, a serious mental illness can be a documented disability, as well. So what we know from account last year, when we had we were using parking lots with Maricopa County as a safe outdoor space. So part of the COVID response for unsheltered people was to help them have the CDC said a 10 by 10 Square. There's potable water, porta potties hand washing stations, and we had over 200 people, essentially camping at Jefferson in Eighth Avenue. Okay. What we learned out of that population was 60% of that 200 people had a disability. Okay. Wow. What Yeah, wow. Because for me, it's like, oh, my gosh, we don't talk about this intersectionality between the number of people who fall into homelessness that have a physical disability. Yeah. And I think it gets forgotten. It gets overlooked. I was recently on a panel with people talking about diversity, equity inclusion with an advocate who said, don't forget, disability has to be included. When we talk about equity inclusion, it's it's race, it's disability. And I think that gets overlooked at times. And it again, like that's something that drives me to say we need to do something about this is unacceptable. Yeah. That people with a disability who are living on a fixed income, yeah, they've gone through the whole process, right? They've been approved. Social Security has said, you can collect social security disability income, and then they lose their home. It's very hard to help the the folks living on a fixed income, especially in today's market, find a place to live on that income, because their income doesn't go up again, to match any change in the cost of living. And they they may want to go back to work. I've talked to people in all sorts of situations who they had a career and whatever happened, right, they can't do that anymore. And they so desperately say they wish they could work. And I don't know that they will. Yeah, because of the, again, the disabling conditions. And again, if you're experiencing homelessness, that doesn't actually ease up on people, it can tend to get worse. So I would say, between 20 and 60% of people who come here have that level of a disability that it may be extremely difficult for them to ever work again, if they're working. It may be part time. They're not going to get the same level of benefits, right? They're not going to afford you can't afford rent on part time. Yeah, income, right.

49:49

How about you touched on this and we don't have to go into too deeper detail because you did you did speak on this, but And again, just kind of talking in numbers and I know that everything is an estimate. Then whatever, but just just people now that have just recently fell on hard times, whether it's whether it's increased cost of living across the board. Now, it's not just housing anymore. Everything is all this inflation and gas. I mean, we're talking about literally everything that's gone through the roof. And look, I mean, even gas I was thinking about this morning, I fill up my gas tank, I'm like, you know, I'm paying like an extra, you know, I was paying 40, before I paid 7075, or whatever that is, right? 70 bucks. Now, it's like, you multiply that out five times 150 bucks times two, and the two cars in the family 300 bucks. There are a lot of people that can't increase a cost of $300 a month. They can't do it. They're living paycheck to paycheck, and there's people just on gas alone, that I would imagine are going to lose, and then all of a sudden rent goes up and groceries are higher. And yeah. So anyway, on. Again, we've talked about it. So we don't have to go too deep here. But obviously, it's a problem that, that you're seeing growing, you're anticipating more as the economy kind of starts to do whatever it's doing. We know inflation's there so we know what the future of the economy, right? We know inflation is taking hold. Yeah. What are you seeing right now? Is it something you said, you know, the population is growing at least monthly, it doesn't sound like we're in like, Dire Straits right this minute. But we're certain but we're seeing it as a lot of them have a lot of that growth that you're seeing on a monthly basis that you talked about earlier? Is it directly related to is it kind of everything? Or is it directly related to people falling on hard times right now with COVID housing and all the other stuff?

51:41

Yeah, I would call it first time homeless. And so you know, most of it is yeah, from what? Yeah, hard times, right? Because it doesn't have if I'm the head of household, and I can't keep my job, but my spouse has ended up sick lost their job, you still got to get your kids to school, right? You're trying to keep it all together. And in with rents going up for really say no reason. That's a lot of our calls, we've had our own employees come to our HR office and say my landlords increasing the rent, and it's not increasing by $100, it's increasing by 300 $500. We can increase our salaries by that much. So it's happening to our own employees that when that rent goes up, and if you've had any other situation happening in your households, and costs are going up. That's why I think, you know, the, I think people thought maybe when the eviction moratorium expired, like the very next day evictions would go up. I think it's still gonna take a while for the whole effect. Yeah, to happen. And so yeah, I think you asked, I think my answer is yes, it's, it's this. It's those dynamics in your own household? And can you really keep it all together and afford everything? To keep your housing?

53:05

Yeah. And you know, when you think of COVID, right, it's like one of those things where it's like, you talk about shutdowns, and people were locked out of work. And then you have the fear of COVID where people don't want to go back to work. You need to work. You know, what, eventually that moratorium is going to end right up to have income, right. So obviously, you know, just crazy times in the last couple years, and then, you know, from a real estate standpoint, on my end, right, it's like, you know, prices are going I know why rents are going up, rents are going up because we have all these people that are leaving states like California because they're fed up over there, not just with prices, but with whatever they're dealing with in California and Oregon and Washington and Chicago. And, and but these people are people that the people that are leaving, have money, right? They've they've either sold their home and they have a lot of equity in their house. So they have money or they're just you know, they're just they have a higher income. Some of them are coming, they can keep their California income and Arizona affordability, which for us is Arizona's market doesn't seem that affordable anymore. for them. It seems really affordable. Exactly. So the reason I know why rents are going up, rents are going up because people are paying more and more for houses. They don't flinch now at two $3 million homes, right. I have clients now that don't flinch it that back back when our market was increasing and Oh 506 People are buying 250 to $300,000 homes as rentals and they were renting them. People are buying everything. Even the luxury markets. Great. Yeah. So anyway, with all that being said, it is it is a vicious cycle. Now, landlords are paying more for the home, so they have to charge more, but they're also going to keep up with other people's rents. So yeah, it's a tough Yeah, the housing one is a tough one. And so I'm sure we'll circle back at right at the end and talk a little bit about that. I've heard again, I've since I was introduced to you. This is the first time we've actually met face to face but it's very familiar with you.

54:59

Oh gosh.

55:00

And I've spent the last six weeks really thinking about all of this way more than I've ever had in the past. And again, I hope listeners spend some time thinking about this as well. I've heard 35 Roughly, again, nationwide 35% are veterans what? What are you seeing here on the ground in Phoenix as far as the veteran population?

55:19

Um, honestly, I haven't looked up the veteran number recently, it could be that high. Because again, a veteran resources in the great work really that HUD in the VA did many years ago to create what's called a Vash voucher that pairs rent and supportive services for veterans. Our community has tended to really manage those resources well, and so we see pretty low rates of veteran homelessness, especially chronic homelessness, when we talk about chronic homelessness, that's people who have long periods of homelessness, or multiple episodes in a short period of time and have a disability, and that the chronic veteran numbers here in Phoenix, used to be much higher, I don't remember the numbers. But our community has done a great job around coordinating and collaborating for our veterans to really keep that the amount of time a veteran experiences homelessness is I would say shorter than the amount of time a non veteran, okay, experiences homelessness.

56:22

Interesting. So I would think the veterans would be some of the some of the disabled we talked about earlier with PTSD and some of those things mental. So I would I'm surprised by I'm encouraged by what you just said. But I'm also surprised by because I would think that that population would be fairly large with some of the I'm sure mental anguish they go through being in war and all the other things if it's not physical, at least mental so that's that's encouraging to hear that it's not that at least it's the population is 10s, I think you said kind of tends to not be homeless as long,

56:56

right. And yet the local VA, you know, give giving credit, the local VA is really built in to our process. They have a community resource referral center for veterans, they have staff here five days a week for about half a day in the lodestar de Resource Center, so they're outreaching to veterans. We have a veteran's outreach center every day on the campus operated by Catholic Charities run by people who are veterans and formerly homeless themselves. And so that peer model is really, really helpful to connect people again, quickly to peers, they can talk to resources in the community that are specifically designed for veterans,

57:39

families and family units, children, whether it's just children, hopefully, it's not just children, but just the family structure. I know that that's not something and you mentioned it earlier, not something that you necessarily do here but you out, for lack of a better term, outsource it. You, partner. I'm in the business. I am in the business.

58:00

We care about everyone. Yes, we care about everything. Yeah. So

58:03

I didn't know the term I just knew my mind. Yeah, moment, but refer it right. Yeah. You partner in euro for it to the proper resource. Are you seeing are you seeing a lot of that right now? I mean, that that's that that to me is just heartbreaking. Were saying. It's like when you see kids out on the street is that's yeah, I don't think there's anything more heartbreaking

58:24

No, we're we're seeing more an increase in family homelessness. We you Mom New Day centers, which is just down Van Buren, we partner really closely. We're seeing more family homelessness, we do have young families show up here in our Welcome Center, our team quickly works to connect them with you mom, or other sources, if it's a youth on their own. And when we think of homeless youth, some of the definitions really center around that meaning under the age of 25. Yeah. So we'll serve people between 18 and 25 years old. We also know that can be a really fragile time people are still growing, they may have been traumatized. So a lot of youth have come out of the foster care system. And so again, for 18 to 25 year olds, we work with nonprofit partners that really have specialty programs and services only for that population. So if they can, again, refer or outsource Yeah, you have to go to a different program that's that's better suited for them because we were all we're all really working to reduce the length of time that people are homeless. And we're all working to reduce returns to homelessness. So it's in all of our best interest to find the best service interventions to help people move to housing so that housing ends up sticking for them right if we if we get it wrong. We end up seeing people return to homelessness again

59:50

yeah. I again just kind of my ear more to the ground you know, start to research something all sudden you just things yes, the world All starts to more information. Yes, but I've heard that you mom. In fact, I think I just heard this last week that you Mom used to have a small waitlist, like a handful of people. And now it's like 250 families or something like that. That was something I heard on the news. Yeah.

1:00:13

It could be unless the number has gone up. Yeah. And, and they just opened new affordable housing this week, too. So congratulations to you, mom for opening more affordable housing for families. Yeah. And yeah, again, the the kids having to be home from school, so parents figuring out how do we do that? I'm just I don't have small kids. And I'm really like, my husband, I talk like, through the pandemic, so glad we didn't have that extra would feel to me, like, how do I do all of this? It's a four. Yeah. So I don't know how you how you keep it all together, and you keep it moving. And again, if if something happens, uh, one of the parents loses their employment if you've been a single parent, and then all of a sudden, all these things really start to add up and people are in these situations where, again, in the rental market specifically, I think we're seeing less of that of people being foreclosed right now. Anyway, today. Yeah. It's not really a foreclosure problem. I would say it's more of this eviction if you're a renter.

1:01:23

Because Because mortgages don't typically go up. Right? Still, right? Yeah. How about minorities, black and Hispanic, from from a per capita? Obviously, you know, Phoenix is a city that's predominantly white and Hispanic is from a population standpoint. But how about per capita, when we talk about minorities, and we talk about black and Hispanic, primarily, per capita? Do you see that there's a much larger homeless percentage in like percentage of homelessness then? Then, like Caucasian? Yes. Yeah,

1:01:57

absolutely for, for, again, for the single population that comes here through the campus and our system. And I'm really glad you asked, because we we spend a lot of time our team talking about it, our region and partners talking about it. In Phoenix, Maricopa County, blacks make up about six to 8%, depending on whose data you use of the population. Yeah, here at the Human Services campus, over 30% of the people we serve are black. Well, Native Americans, while it doesn't sound huge, it's still more than double the percent of the population in the urban area. At the Hispanic, Hispanic households, it's not as disproportionate compared to the population. And that's what you know, when when I first started talking, what really drives me to keep doing this work is how do we make the systems change? So those disparities don't continue forever? Yeah. So really asking ourselves, why? What happens? What, what systems can we look at to change it so that we're we don't? We don't have that huge disparity in the black indigenous populations of

1:03:24

black and indigenous is where you're seeing the majority of just disproportionate, yeah, homelessness. Okay. sensitive topic, but important to Arizona and not not to get into the sensitive side. But clearly, if you have millions of people coming across the border all at once, is that is that something that you have to plan for the way that you would plan for COVID or rising rents? Is that is that population? I mean, we're talking like over a million people the estimate, or is that something that that you have to plan for on this end? No, no,

1:03:57

we don't see. We don't see. We're not seeing effects. We don't see that population. Coming here.

1:04:05

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Because you would think like, you know, a lot of those people, and you know, they don't, a lot of these people don't have a lot of means they're not coming with a lot. Right. So you would think that it would filter into the homeless population somehow. But it's interesting that it doesn't seem to affect it. Okay.

1:04:23

No, very interesting. Yeah, I don't I don't know why. Yeah. offer any no explanation.

1:04:30

It's interesting that it doesn't watch. Yeah, very cool.

1:04:33

Yeah.

1:04:36

How about how about from a job standpoint is that does that population tend to impact your folks that are homeless in terms of the job, the job opportunities they see, does it impacted in that regard?

1:04:49

No. And I think if you were to talk to St. Joseph, the worker, they would say there are so many jobs right now. And a lot of the reason why I, you know, more of our clients can't get jobs. A lot of it goes back to if you don't have a place to live, you don't have a place to sleep every night. Yeah. It's very hard to show up to work and absolutely clean clothes and you've showered. And it there's different beer. And again, that rate of mental health issues, it can be challenging to gain and maintain employment. Yeah. And right now, though, I think St. Joseph, the worker, if they were here, they'd say, we have so many businesses that want to hire people. If I tried to quote the executive director, Brent, I'd probably get it wrong. But he measures. He talks about, you know, telling people like, really, you just need to have a pulse and show up. That's all employers want right now. Yeah. Yeah, everyone's we're looking across our campus partners, we're looking to hire about 100 people right now. Interesting. With that many open positions just here at this place.

1:05:58

Are you able to fill some holes? Kind of like Stacy, are you able to fill some of those positions with people here that come through your campus? I mean, is that,

1:06:06

um, sometimes or we do, I would say, half of my staff probably has some lived experience, whether it's homelessness, it's the correction system, it's mental illness addiction. And, you know, we do I think, one people with that experience like Stacy, who then want to be part of helping other people seek out these jobs. Yeah. And we definitely want to hire people with lived experience, because again, from a peer perspective, like, I've never experienced homelessness myself, if I talk to people out on the street, some of them will talk to me, but I don't, I can't relate at a level of this, someone who's been in their literal shoes and had the same experience. So it's always I think, more effective to have people doing the work that have the lived experience. Yeah. Hiring people, like direct from the campus today into roles is challenging for a lot of reasons. There have been organizations have started and experimented with let's employ clients. And there's tends to be conflicts, because then you have kind of client serving clients. And it just, it doesn't usually lead to very good outcomes on Yeah, on both sides. Yeah. People, though, who receive help here, they go on. They may go do work somewhere else, and then they come back, or they may work for a partner organization, just not exactly at this location. Again, people don't have that lip. This lived experience, I think, in my humble opinion, are better employees to help people truly end their homelessness.

1:07:48

Services. We talked, we've talked about a bunch of them, I want to make sure that we kind of hit most of them. So I mean, we've talked about everything, obviously, the basic needs, right. Food, shelter, clothing, we've talked about mailroom

1:08:02

are up there.

1:08:04

Yeah. So 15 different organizations. We've talked about the mailroom, we've talked about the dental facility, there's a medical facility, correct? Yes. There's, I mean, is there anything else? There's a garden, farm and farm, urban farm?

1:08:22

Words matter? And

1:08:26

anything else like this? I'm trying to remember everything that I saw when I was here, but I mean, is there anything else that's from a services standpoint that we missed?

1:08:34

We've kind of mentioned IDs. So today homeless ID project, probably 90% of people who come here need help with state identification or a vital record. So homeless ID project is critical. You know, we have shower programs. So if you're not in a shelter, you don't have a place to shower. In the mornings. We have a shower program for unsheltered people really like starting at the very basic needs level, and then helping people move up from there. We have housing providers that are either on campus or going to take our referrals. So like in Stacy's role as a housing navigator, he's helping people get connected, really, we're hoping everyone finds a permanent, affordable, accessible home. Yeah. And so we have lots of housing provider partners a nuleaf is on the campus with one of their housing programs. The Maricopa County Superior Court, holds homeless court it's been virtual for the last year and a half was what I meant to mention that we hope they come back on campus soon they help people go through that process to know how many community service hours they can do to adjudicate fines. They can quash warrants because you know another huge barrier can be you've had all these misdemeanor you get traffic tickets, you get a ticket for public urination, all of a sudden you owe cities $10,000 Yeah, yeah, they're never going to just get $10,000 You know, to eliminate those those fines. So The the court program is really important. Critical I meant

1:10:04

to mention as well, yeah, let's talk. So let's move on to kind of the final phase then solutions. And so let me I want I want to give you just kind of an opportunity to talk in a broad, like in a very, not broad, but like a very kind of broad, but specifically, I don't know what it is. But before I do that I have so I have a question in terms of what's the most empathetic way for the average person to assist a homeless person? So So I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. If you drive through the city of Scottsdale, you see signs that say, Please don't give money to I think it's I think that science is panhandler in the words mad. I don't know if that's the right term for that. That's I think that's what the science says yes. But it does encourage people to give to organizations such as yours, so that they can seek help and assistance. It seems like a reasonable way to approach it. I mean, it seems to me and again, this is me being completely naive to all of this, and a lot of the listeners probably be in right where I'm at, right? It seems like a logical way to say, look, take the money. Now, of course that has to happen. So if you're thinking about $10, on the side of the street, then that needs to go somewhere, right? Right when you still need to make the money goes to school. But it seems like a logical way to do that, from a standpoint of people aren't going to get help, and they're not going to get out of homelessness, if their money comes from the street corner, if that makes sense. That's that, like, that's my logical mind thinking, right? What's the most empathetic and maybe the right way for somebody that's listening that says, hey, you know, I want to be part of the solution here. Is it a hybrid, keep giving the money on the side of the street, give to the organization or take the money? Give it to organization? What What would your advice, what is the most empathetic and maybe the right way in your mind to to do that?

1:11:51

Well, in some ways, I think it depends. And there are a lot of individuals that, you know, I see along freeways at street corners holding up signs that I, you know, I know if I've offered them help, or say, Hey, if you heard about the campus, they may be professional panhandlers, right. There's, you know, I've heard stories from from neighborhoods, you know, they watch a person, they hold up their son, they collect some money, and they ride their bike back to a house. Yeah. So I think it's up to each individual. And for me, it's like, trust your gut, if you're talking to someone, if you you know, if you're going to hand over money, also have no expectation of what happens to it, right? Because if you're going to give someone 10 or $20, you don't really know what they're gonna do with it. So think of it as a gift.

1:12:38

Yeah. And it's interesting that you said that, because I actually had that experience. A couple weeks ago, there was a lady on the side of the road, she said, you know, sign unemployed or whatever, pretty close to my neighborhood. And I rolled down the window, and I said, look, the she was in kind of in the northeast, I was up, I live up in the north central Phoenix area. And I said, and I didn't have the cards. One of you guys here again, one of the cards by how you guys Yeah, yeah. Which, by the way, is probably an interesting thing for people to know as well, as you matter cars. I don't know how they get their hands on them. But maybe you can talk about that in a minute. But I rolled down the window, and I said, Hey, this, there's a human services campus in downtown Phoenix that can help with unemployment. And she kind of did the brush off wave. And she Yeah, yeah, I know about it, you walk away all disappointed I wasn't holding money out for. And, you know, those are the things I think that frustrate people when they you know, it's like, I think people have an expectation. And I'm kind of this way, like, I'm like, you know, I'm all for helping, but you have to do your part to help yourself to a certain extent. And that was kind of the experience, I think, that you just talked about, which was like, Oh, does this lady really need help? Or, you know, what is the real situation there? Right. But I do like the cards and I and maybe, maybe you can talk about that. I mean, can get their hands on those where they can actually refer them down here? Because yes, because from here, once they get here, if they're not a fit, or if you don't have room, the good thing is let's not use the word outsource again. But you can refer them so we can get yes with the right people. So how does that how does that correlate? What is it? What

1:14:08

is that on our website HSC hyphen az.org We have a printable PDF of the you matter cards so they are two sided. Anyone though, can download that print it you can you know if you buy your Avery, we'll put a link we'll put a product or you can tear them you can cut them. Yeah, those cards, the sheets there to be downloaded so that anyone can print them hand them out. You know, beyond that, I for me personally, it's if I talk to someone and if I offer them you know, if they ask for money, and I really don't I honestly don't carry cash usually because I don't we don't need to these days, right So someone asked for money. I don't carry cash. If I'm going into a store though I'll just ask them Do you need something to drink? Can I buy you a sandwich? When's the last time you ate To meal. And you, for me, I think you can decide pretty quickly if they're sincere about telling you what they really need or not. And if they do walk away, I don't I don't try to make assumptions about people. I just feel like okay, I'm, I'd like to help you in this way. Yeah. And I've gone in and bought sandwiches for people or, you know, one, one person got really excited when did they hadn't had a Coca Cola and, you know, a long time, and it was like the best gift ever to give them a cold Coca Cola. And that's not going to end their homelessness that day. Yeah. After working here, though, for three years, I can tell you that human connection and talking to someone and asking them their name, can change their attitude their day, their emotional state of being. So I would say, We never know when that one interaction is going to be the thing that gives someone hope or optimism or they're like, Oh, I was just seeing Yeah, I was I was just seeing and yeah, you're right. I haven't gone to that place yet. Because you talked to me, though. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a step today. And we don't we don't know what engagement is really going to be the thing. Sure, that can cause someone to connect differently. And they make that decision. I'm ready now to get help.

1:16:29

Couple things that you said there. First of all, you know, I've done that too, where you know, you hand somebody a bottle of water or something like, that's like, why you handed me that? Right? So asking them first but building that rapport, right? Like, that's what we do as human beings. We talk to each other, we build Yes, but we look at a homeless person or like, and sometimes you go, Oh, yeah, that person doesn't look super stable. And so you're concerned with your safety or with your kids. But that's not everybody know, right. And there are a lot of times where you could just make somebody's day by having a quick conversation and bringing them out a sandwich, or even a bottle of water or whatever that looks like. So yeah, that's really, really, really great advice. Let's talk. So now what's your we started out? We said, Hey, we can end homelessness. But really, what is that? What? If you could wave a magic wand? If I were the mayor right now you came to me? Or if you were the mayor, and you came up with a solution for this, what is the solution look like? And in kind of twofold. Number one, what can we do as from a city municipality standpoint, but also like the people listening? How can they get involved to help? So I want to kind of talk about broad How can and then we'll talk more specifically how people can donate here to help share, you know, the campuses stuff. So what is your vision for actually ending? Or, you know, coming as close as you can and homelessness, right to a huge impact? Yeah,

1:17:58

thank you. So there's, I think of it as short term and long term solutions. And there's this this direct day to day interaction with individuals. And then there's this big systems change, which tends to fall out fall in the long term solutions piece. If we're faced with, you know, in the valley, 12,000 people experiencing homelessness today, or 10,000, whatever the number is, things that our community could do today is to look for creative ways to offer people shelter. The studies of housing interventions programs show that by bringing someone into emergency shelter overnight, makes it more likely that they will follow a housing plan and end their homelessness. It's not impossible for us to, you know, work with the man across the street who's been unsheltered and move them into housing. It's just, it doesn't happen as often. And it's not as likely to work in the long run. So provide and it's more humane. Yeah, to bring people indoors, whether it's hot outside and offer them AC. It's not cooling off yet dramatically here yet in Phoenix, but it will, right we'll have freeze warnings, right? It's not humane to have people outside. So you know, there's lots of models where churches come together in this model called I help to have people sleep indoors overnight, offer them a meal. There's which may sound simple to some and not so simple to other people. But looking creatively at how do we create more shelter space so that everyone could access a safe place to sleep every night? Right? That's a really short term, immediate thing that can help people. I've also been on this, you know, platform for a pretty long time. We have to figure out how to keep people housed. And how do we keep people who are living on a fixed income especially how do we help them stay in the housing they already have? Because these numbers, the rates of homelessness will keep going up. if people keep getting evicted, right, and especially our senior population, elderly population living on a fixed income, how do we help them stay house be when someone a woman in her 70s shows up here, never been homeless before, never had to ask for help before. They don't immediately qualify for some of the housing programs, because they're not in that chronic category. It's their first day homeless. And then when you ask about how much money they collect in Social Security, it's generally not enough to afford rent today. So I would, you know, that's a lot of people can advocate. So I find myself advocating whether it's elected official, or whomever to say we again, we have all this one time money coming into Arizona. Yeah, how do we help people stay housed? And then is there policy change that can be made to make it so that if you're on a fixed income, you can't get evicted? Right, so there's that we're How about really all over the place? And not answering in a very linear way? Yeah. Well, and you know, not a linear problem. Well,

1:21:08

and and, and so even beyond that, it's, in my mind, it's hard to say can't be evicted, because then the landlord is going to have a hardship. Right. And so now you're creating another hardship out of a hardship

1:21:19

unless they're further subsidized. Yeah, yeah.

1:21:23

Or, or another way to do that would be, you know, we talked a lot about raising the minimum wage, the challenges that gets passed on to the consumer. Right. So that's where inflation comes from. So it's always it always gets past us. But you know, I think another solution potential solution, and I don't know exactly, just, but you know, people that aren't earning a quote, unquote, living wage are people that qualify for additional welfare to make sure that they're they all their bills are paid. And so, and these are people that are working, and these aren't, these aren't the again,

1:21:56

there's our working poor level in our community

1:21:59

working and working to me is the key, right? Yeah. Again, I'm one of those people that I advocate for people that help themselves, I don't think you should be sitting and taking advantage of welfare says I'm not working. But I think people that are honestly like working and earning a living wage, instead of just creating another problem out of a problem, why not just say, Hey, these are the people that you know, we need to let let's sit down, let's, let's look at the budget. Let's say you're earning this much, your expenses are this much, there's nothing unreasonable about your expenses, their living expenses, these are the people that qualify for additional welfare and make sure that that's covered. So there's got to be a way to do that. I agree with you. And there's probably a lot of different things that could be discussed. And I just, I just think, like, if you say, Okay, you can't be evicted, now we're creating. Now we have to stop now, we still have to take the same money. And now we have to, you know, we have to go okay, now,

1:22:48

I'm talking about people living on a fixed income. Yeah, their Social Security is not going to increase to match any increase of inflation in any cost of living. Right. So yeah, I like in my head, I see categories of people. And some of the long term systems change, too, which is really about advocating to at the federal level, to the federal departments and our congressional representatives is West Coast states. The formulas for say housing vouchers, if people hear the word section eight, which is housing vouchers, subsidizes the rent, the formulas for any of those types of programs have not been updated since the 1970s. There has been one time right, like, here's a whole bunch of money one time, right. And when I talk about the population change in Phoenix, in those formulas for things like housing subsidy, have not increased to match our population. Yeah, we're already at a disadvantage as a community. Right. And that has to change at the federal level. So if you know for people who like to lobby and advocate, there's an Arizona Housing Coalition that does that kind of advocacy, there's national organizations, the National Income Housing Coalition, in you know, in their last year's report, just for kind of a for another number. in Maricopa County, only 26 households seeking affordable housing out of 100 can access it. Okay. Wow. And though like that, yep. Get telling people work more work harder, right. Like that? Doesn't that doesn't solve that problem. So how do we really look at also then housing development, and I'm not saying that developers shouldn't make a profit, right. However, there are communities there are some housing developments where you have more mixed income within one development right or you create a multi use kind of space that has commercial and you find it, it becomes a It's not like it's not my, my core strength to do that. But smart people who do development can create spaces that allow one piece of their property to generate enough cash flow that it can help for the other pieces that people may be on the subsidized rent. Yeah. And I, you know, I just in Phoenix is going to continue to grow. Most likely. So how, you know, it's really, I often think there's got to be some comparison when, when the smart people decades ago planned for water and develop the canal system. That's an that's a level of infrastructure. Yeah. And I guess like one of my wishes or, you know, big solution things was how does our community have a housing infrastructure plan? So that people who who decide to live here have everything they need to be stable in their home environment? And we've done that around water? Yeah. Can we do that around housing? Right,

1:25:50

right. What have we not? I wanted to mention earlier, I'm going to put a link in, in the description on all the platforms for the card that you talked about, okay, where people can download that card. Yeah. And then we'll put some other links where, you know, people want to give whatever. So we'll put some other links in the descriptions. What have we not talked about this important to you that you want that you think that people should know? And we're going to end and we're going to talk in a minute about how people can actually get involved here with you with human resource? I always want to play the Human Resources campus. I don't know why. Because you have so many resources. Yeah. But if the Human Services campus, but outside of just that, which we'll talk about it in a minute. Is there anything else that you think is really important for people to know, just some kind of some parting advice or just information that we haven't discussed?

1:26:38

Um, I get I just set this humanity level, I guess. Yeah. I'm glad you asked about like, what do you do? How can you be empathetic? I believe most people have good intentions. And they they want to help. I think starting with us asking people organizations, what do you need? How can I help you? Yeah. And really just looking at, at people not necessarily as unhoused or homeless, just looking at them as another human being? Yeah. And really saying, like, what happened? What happened in this person's life that led them to this place?

1:27:20

It goes back to the story, right? Everybody has a story. Everyone has a story, one of the things that one of the ways that I've thought about this, again, just in recent weeks, since this, I knew that this was coming down the pipeline was like, it's one thing to see it. It's another thing to understand it. And hopefully, you've helped give people a much better understanding today of like, what, how they can help what it looks like, and just the human human side of what's going on. And hopefully we keep striving for solutions when it comes to housing and all the other stuff. If somebody wants to, you know, donate if they want, I don't know, volunteer, how do they get involved with you? Can they just go on to the website, what's the best way to get more information about you to donate to volunteer time, or whatever that looks like?

1:28:10

The best way really is the website HSC hyphen, az.org, there's a there's a quick donate button if you know people want to support financially, that's always appreciated. There's a section and we have an Amazon wishlist of items. Some people like to collect items or go to Amazon and you can order and buy things that just get delivered. Here we go through toiletries to no end. With shower programs and emergency showers, soap shampoo towels, were you know, we have clothing closets and three different places on the campus. Again, the we didn't really talk about the demographic profile per se, it's it's a higher percentage of men that come here about 80% 20% women so and I I think I now have it, you know, I could write a study that women buy more clothing, shoes and accessories and so women we tend to have more to donate all the time. And then

1:29:10

my closet like we have closets Yeah. Closer, they're not too far.

1:29:15

So we know it's we're women are generous and donate things but really about 80% of our population is men and so we're always looking for belts and new underwear and socks and shoes and you know, it is probably going to get colder here as we move to winter maybe hats and gloves and scarves and, and jackets. And so like the literal things some people really I know like to call again, do drives and collect things and we can help people through that. Again, through the website, there's contact information. There's also there's a listing of the services here. And so every one of the organizations that we've talked about if we missed anyone, there's their name, their logo, the what they do here, you can click on their logo to go to that organization's website because everyone here needs help. Whether it's financially it's volunteering, it's in kind items. Yes. Really the the Human Services Campus website, I would say is the best place to start.

1:30:17

Okay, good. Let's shift let's let's kind of end on I would like to promote local, so I would like to promote some. Yeah. Have you and your husband have favorite restaurants? Oh, gosh. A local restaurant that you like.

1:30:33

We? Yeah, we love spin autos for pizza. We love via Luna or Makarios or Mexican food. Yeah, those are those are three of our, our top favorite places. I'm a coffee, coffee addict, so any Fairtrade cafe, the refuge on Seventh Avenue. Small, small coffee shops are my jam, I guess.

1:31:04

Cool. Last thing I wanted to ask you also, do you have any? Do you do fundraisers and events throughout the year? Do you have anything coming up that you want to promote that people should know about and get involved in

1:31:15

Sure. We've our organization is really focused on one event a year it's the I am home breakfast. And it's it's named after our founder Mike McQuaid. He did he passed away last July due to COVID. So we're still all still struggling with that a little bit. But the mike McQuaid I am home breakfasts will be Friday, December 17. Coming up good 7:30am at the Biltmore and there's still sponsorship opportunities available. That's all clickable through our websites. It also be streaming online. So we'll have fewer people in person this year than past years. And we'll have that option to view it online.

1:31:53

Good. So again, every all that information will be in the descriptions below whether you're on YouTube or on one of the audio platforms, we'll have that downloadable and then we'll give you a link. I think hopefully, we can link directly to that where they can just download that maybe carry it around in the car. Yeah, and link to the website. And it's where you can find and maybe we can find even a direct link just right to the event where they can get more. Yes. Whatever we can link to salutely. Thank you so much.

1:32:20

Thank you. Thanks for the conversation. I

1:32:23

took you over a little bit on time, but I think I could spend like a half a day with you and we

1:32:27

never get to the questions and probably

1:32:32

did a pretty good job. Yeah, getting to it. So thank you.

1:32:35

Thank you. Thank you.

1:32:38

Alright, thanks for everybody for listening.