Homeward Indy
Homeward Indy
Episode 28 - Every Sacred Life: Sara Nowlin and Niki Wattson on Coordinating the 2024 Point-In-Time Count
Each year, communities across the nation coordinate an annual, snapshot survey of citizens experiencing homelessness on a specific night in January. The Point-In-Time Count, or “PIT” Count provides communities with some information about who is experiencing homelessness, and also a unique challenge in how to go about finding those people.
We are joined by CHIP Program Manager Sara Nowlin, and Horizon House Outreach Manager and PBSPO (Professional Blended Street Outreach) Coordinator, Nikki Wattson. Together, in collaboration with people across the Continuum of Care, they coordinated the 2024 Indianapolis Count. This conversation cuts through the complexities of homelessness, revealing the meticulous orchestration behind this federally mandated count and the collaborative efforts required to make it happen.
Nikki takes us through the winding roads of street outreach. She shares the profound impact of being the first friendly face for those on the fringes, the art of building trust with those in encampments and the critical role of community involvement. Through her insights, we paint a vivid picture of what it means to see the stories and souls behind the statistics.
In a reflection that's both personal and profound, Sara discusses the relationship-building that was central to the organization of the PIT Count, and her own experiences in social services. This episode reiterates the need to center humanity in all aspects of our work and showcases the success of this approach.
I don't think that superior organization is what made this pit count a success.
Speaker 1:Sarah and I talked a lot about how do we build this in a way that is people-centered. Way that is people-centered, to be a voice for anybody that does not feel heard is so incredibly important to me, and the work that we do here in this community allows us to do that.
Speaker 2:I don't know, people experiencing homelessness don't feel like very other. To me it really feels like, well, this could easily be a friend or family member, because it has been.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Homeward Indie, a bi-weekly conversation where we meet the people working to end homelessness in Indianapolis and hear their stories.
Speaker 3:I'm Elliot Zanz and I'm Steve Barnhart, sarah and Nikki, so glad to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thanks for being a part of Homeward Indie. I've been excited to meet you guys for some time. Sarah with Chip and Nikki you're with Horizon House. Yes, and our main topic here today is the pit count point in time count. What is that all about? Either one of you can go first or jump in.
Speaker 2:Sure Well, the point in time count is a federally mandated count, sort of a census of everyone experiencing homelessness in a given area at a certain point in time. So it's sort of a snapshot of everyone experiencing homelessness, in our case, like in Marion County on a single night.
Speaker 3:And how often does that happen?
Speaker 2:It happens in our community every year.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:There are some communities that do their count every other year, but in Indianapolis we do it every year and although it is trying to assess who's experiencing homelessness on a given night, it actually occurs over the course of five days, so there is a part of the count that occurs at night and then the following four days volunteers are asking folks where did you stay on the night of this previous night?
Speaker 3:And I assume that's just because of logistics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think it's just so the count is as comprehensive as possible. I mean just kind of recognizing that to do it in like 24 hours I think would be really really challenging, you know, and to kind of count as many people as possible. They give you this five-day window in which you can count folks.
Speaker 3:So it stems from being federally mandated in order to get funding, I assume. But I assume it also serves a purpose for the local continuum of care. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Because when I say that it's a count, I think that that can give the impression that we're like one, two, three.
Speaker 1:That's not what it is.
Speaker 2:It's a survey and it's a brief survey, so a combination of volunteers and professional street outreach workers are asking folks a series of questions about where they stayed, some of the contributing factors to their experience of homelessness, some demographic information, and that gives us an idea of what's going on with the population of folks that we are serving.
Speaker 1:How things are changing.
Speaker 3:How things are changing.
Speaker 1:And what resources that?
Speaker 2:we're going to need and what resources we're going to need For planning. Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Before we get too far into talking about PIT count, I wanted to hear how did you guys get involved in this? I know you both are in organizations that are much broader than the point-in-time count. So, Nikki, you're with Horizon.
Speaker 1:House Correct. So I am the street outreach manager there at Horizon House. I'm also the PBSO coordinator, so PBSO stands for Professional Bl street outreach, and so I help coordinate all of the agencies that contribute to those professionals that, as as the name states, that blend together to do street outreach. There's only a handful of organizations that actually hire as full-time street outreach professionals, horizon House being one of those, and so we really count on the community and those collaborations and those partnerships to build PBSO so that we can cover all 452 square miles of Indianapolis Just briefly tell me about street outreach.
Speaker 3:When you say street outreach, what's going on? What does a professional street outreach person do?
Speaker 1:um our main focus one is to stay person-centered um that's the primary focus of all of this um and to do a lot of case management um our you're out on the street, yeah, so we have not in a facility, not yeah, so everything that, um we actually do in-house at Horizon House as far as a daytime center for those experiencing homelessness, we try and take as much of that as possible outside in hopes to build those relationships, to start getting them directed into those community partnerships, whether it's Horizon House or Adult and Child, or Aspire or whatever it is Another agency. Yeah, to continue with eliminating whatever barriers are posing.
Speaker 1:And so we? Railroad tracks, abandoned buildings, sides of the street, downtown Indianapolis, encampments anywhere that is not a leased building. Okay, cars tents anywhere. Anything that is not a leased building. Cars tents anywhere. Anything that is outside.
Speaker 3:That activity goes on during the day, at night both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have teams out seven days a week and then in the downtown area on the weekends until 7 o'clock.
Speaker 3:That's your job. You work for Horizon House, you manage that team within Horizon House and also you help coordinate with other agencies that do the same. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So those agencies are able to. They agree to utilizing some of their 40 hour week, if you will. So, some are able to come once a week, some come once a month, but they have a regular schedule that they're they're blended with other agencies to start identifying areas that we already know of, and can't we get referrals from all over the place, passerby's OPH s I am PD mayor, action line anybody and and they'll send us information to let us know that we know of somebody, or it appears as if there might be, a camp over here and we go check it out.
Speaker 3:So you're almost like a first responder. Absolutely, and try to bring resources to those individuals and direct them to a facility, if possible yeah.
Speaker 1:So our goal is really just to start building that rapport, first and foremost, and then start engaging them and finding out what are identifying, what are those barriers and what is it that we can start doing to start eliminating those barriers, providing them options. You know we talk to the teams a lot about. We're not here to change anybody it's not our job to change Our job is to provide options, because in those options provides hope. And as long as people have hope, we have another step that we get to take.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's excellent. We could talk for days, I'm sure about that. But I want to get back to Sarah. You're with CHIP, correct? What's your role within CHIP?
Speaker 2:I'm a project manager, and so what does that entail?
Speaker 2:I mean, the point in time count is one of the projects that I work on, and then there are some others that, frankly, would be really complicated to explain but, but there's some other projects that I work on that really, um are are focused on helping the continuum of care work towards this uh racial equity goal that we have, which is to reduce black homelessness by 35 by 2025, and so a lot of my work is focused on that racial equity goal and then, additionally, I work on the put in time count which is really our unit of measurement, you know, to see if that goal has been achieved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they're related.
Speaker 2:Right, obviously yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Very good how long you been with CHIP.
Speaker 2:It has been almost a year and a half.
Speaker 3:Okay, for a little while. And Nikki, how about you with Horizon House?
Speaker 1:So I've been at Horizon House It'll be five years in May but in this role for about 13 months.
Speaker 3:Very good, we'll get back to more the personal side of this, because I know I'm interested and our listeners are always interested in hearing our guest's story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I want to allow time for that. But let's get back to the pit count. Sure, it has to be done. Sounds like it only has to be done once every other year, but Indianapolis chooses to do it every year. I assume because of the value of the information. Yeah yeah, when does it happen?
Speaker 2:It must occur within the last 10 days of January.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's part of the mandate.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 3:So it's in the middle of winter right right, I suppose. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Speaker 1:um, both um. I think the colder it just varies, I think I. I think sometimes the colder it, the more people could potentially be in their encampments during that time, so they're physically there Easier to find Correct. But it can also be the latter. People may actually decide to go ahead and go into shelter those that originally maybe aren't usually in shelter.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think it really just varies yeah yeah, and part of the point in time count too that I kind of failed to mention is that we do collect information from shelters about how many folks are staying, uh, at their shelter on that night, and so there is like the a part of the point in time count that counts how many people are, quote unquote, unsheltered and then people who are sheltered, and that those two numbers kind of combine to the total number of people experiencing homelessness in these, you know, somewhat different ways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't imagine if we all hear of the US Census where there's basically a count of everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But in this case you're counting a segment of population, that is, you can't mail something to their address.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's got to bring huge challenge.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, and that's got to bring huge challenge. Any means, you know the degree to which the count is an undercount. It's not like I could give some sort of exact percentage to which it is an undercount. I don't really know, but no, it's not everybody.
Speaker 3:And I guess you'd have you know that because I assume during the course of a year you come in contact with people who you realize were not part of the count.
Speaker 2:For sure, and there are people who choose not to be surveyed for instance Absolutely. Or you know there are people who are in situations where it might be really challenging to find them, like people who are staying in their cars, for instance, that it's just not necessarily apparent that they are experiencing homelessness. If you're kind of hanging out in your car in the Walmart parking lot, that isn't a very visible place on purpose, and so folks who are in that situation, for instance, may not be counted among many others. Nikki, you can speak to that.
Speaker 1:I was even going to say you know, we go by the HUD standards, which are shelter, car street or an abandoned building. So we're also not counting, if you will, those that are housing insecure, like, yeah, staying with a relative, or what we call couch surfing, right, because they're housing instable, it's just the instability, but the reality is that's another subgroup that is also in need of a lot of services, or those that are right on the cusp of eviction.
Speaker 1:You know trying to find resources to try and avoid. You know people getting out here or what have you so yeah? We're going by just the HUD standards because it's HUD. However, you know there is another large group that actually, you know, don't don't get into this count.
Speaker 3:I'm interested in a couple of things. There are a couple of things in particular that I think of. One is what are the questions you're asking folks, In other words, what information is helpful? But I'm also interested in and maybe let's do this one first how in the world do you go about planning this count? I mean, because this is covering many miles people in all kinds of situations. How do you do that logistically?
Speaker 2:yeah, how do you?
Speaker 1:so this was both of our first years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm actually doing a um and so we had a fresh uh canvas, if you will, and support from our both of our agencies and trust from both of our agencies to say, hey, you have the autonomy to make it, um, make it great and um make it work. And so, um, we met a. There was a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, a lot of text messages, a lot of collaboration. So, in the collaboration between Sarah and I, we also knew that we couldn't do it all, and so we even outsourced within our own agencies to find out who else could we bring in to help us make this the most efficient and most effective pit night, so you guys headed it up, but you grew the team we did Of people across different agencies.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so, for example, we used Abe at CHIP because their expertise when it came to the technology end of things, so they were able to put an electronic map together so that our teams, as we went out, put an electronic map together so that our teams, as we went out, we were able to go directly to these camps or known pins or known locations that we knew somebody had been there at some point in time so that we could try and catch up with them.
Speaker 1:We reached out to our development teams on both of our agencies to help with the coordination of actually that evening and leading up to that and just partnering with a lot of people to really pull all those pieces together. We had team captains this year and so every team that went out had somebody that they were able to call and check in with, because safety is a huge, huge, huge component for me and for our team and our system, and so that allowed um a lot of communication to ensure that teams are okay outside um to also make sure that, uh, if there was anything, you know we ran into um some pretty major crises while while teams were out. Um, but the the beauty of the collaboration was, you know, we had um medical providers on staff ready to go. We had mental health teams ready to go. We had medical providers on staff ready to go.
Speaker 1:We had mental health teams ready to go. We had Firefly available for a 13-year-old that was found outside that had ran away. We're doing our job, but at the same time we come across some other things.
Speaker 3:Things that you wouldn't run across on any other night.
Speaker 1:Right, or we do regularly, but in that moment you know we have a lot of people that aren't doing um pit or doing out street outreach all, all the time, every day so just coming across um situations that, you're right, just aren't an everyday thing, um, but that allowed for for our teams to feel comfortable um coming across almost anything, and we were able to utilize every, every resource we had. Yeah, we used like. Mcat was used, impd was used, firefly was used, a doctor was used for a couple camps, with some injuries that had happened when Nikki explaining all this, it sounds like wow.
Speaker 2:the reason that this pit count was a success this year is because you all were just super, super organized. We weren't organized, sure.
Speaker 3:That's a necessary ingredient.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I don't think that superior organization is what made this pit count a success.
Speaker 1:The people. The people 100% the people yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that Nikki would say again and again is that we have to keep our neighbors at the center of everything we do and we did.
Speaker 1:I think I mean we built the teams based around neighbors' needs. Yes, we built teams like that. We built um, the, the. The structure, yes, was 100 neighbor-centered and pbso at the front line of ensuring that they were safe, comfortable, informed, to ensure that the neighbors were taken care of yes so everything we did, we started with that yeah, and then built out and had ensured that we had buy-in from pbso as as the, as the membership, and built those relationships and really rebranded um what it is that we're trying to do out there and really built a foundation and I think that was was.
Speaker 1:Sarah and I talked a lot about how do we build this in a way that is people-centered at all costs At all costs Not just neighbors, but our PBSO and our community.
Speaker 2:It's about the people, yeah and our community and it's about the people. Yeah, yeah, because I I guess I think a lot of people saw this year's pit count and thought, wow, this went really really well, and I don't want anyone to attribute that to like I bet you guys are great at microsoft, excel and emails, because that was not what it was.
Speaker 2:I think the thing that Nikki and I excelled at is knowing that every human life is sacred Absolutely, and trying to put that at the center of the pit count, that the people who we are serving, that their lives are really sacred and that every single one of them is really important and that the people who provide services to them are really, really important and wise and deserve respect and care and love, and that we had to act out of that, um, and I mean, I just think that's that's why it worked, not, I don't know, not because we kind of a risk in trying to orient ourselves that way. It's like we kind of had to trust that if we put people at the center of what we did, that somehow this would work out. Because, frankly, when we started working together and organizing the pit count.
Speaker 1:When was that?
Speaker 2:Well. A couple months before it started 13 months ago, it was like well, it was when you first became the street outreach manager and that was in February.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there were some March, a year March almost, yeah, but the pit count was in January, so we had. Yeah, I was like hi in January so we had yeah. I was like hi, how are you? Hello?
Speaker 2:We must work together. Ready set go Now.
Speaker 3:Did you guys know each other?
Speaker 2:No, oh wow, oh no, we did not know each other, but there had been some damaged relationships and some challenging trust stuff that had occurred maybe between organizations, and there were just some challenges related to the point-in-time count before we started and we met each other, knowing we were going to have to work really closely together and had never met before, and we sort of met in the middle of these discussions Because the other pick count had just happened.
Speaker 3:Right, it was still fresh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was yeah, but we used that as a. We really used it as a blessing in disguise. Yeah, we were just like cool. So we get to build relationships which we both really enjoy doing, and so we use that as our platform. And started doing that within our own organizations between organizations and really understanding that we are inextricably intertwined. And so in order to do this, let's build these relationships, because that's what we're doing outside, so let's, let's do that with within our community.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And and just really rebuild and build that foundation, because then everything else will make sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we've kept people first, right, right, because I mean we're not going to project, manage our way out of homelessness.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not.
Speaker 2:But we might relationship build our way out. You know, Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was people centered and you referred to neighbors? It also sounds like. Was people centered in referring to those who were conducting the count? Also?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And just making sure they had incredible support. Yes, to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was super important to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, to keep them first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and heard.
Speaker 1:you know, we, just we, just again. It's just about this listening and hearing, um, people's why and understanding people's why, um, because that's that's what keeps us going every single day. And when we have that, that common why, even though it's your own variation of that, but when we have that common why, even though it's your own variation of that, but when we have that common why, and that commonality and just that foundation of communication and collaboration and respect and dignity and integrity, that's what we wanted the night to be built off of, and future nights and partnerships going forward.
Speaker 3:How many people are involved in the count. How many people actually did surveys. Okay, people who did surveys, probably about maybe 160 people, 160 people and how does that in general break down between those who are professional street outreach folks and volunteers?
Speaker 2:how many folks from PBSO? Was it 60 or 70?
Speaker 1:yeah, we're probably at 60 or 70.
Speaker 3:That night that went out and then like 90 or 100 volunteers one of the things we like to do with this podcast is let people know how they might contribute in some way, and the pit count sounds like that could be yeah something so how would they a person who's listening to this say maybe next year I could help in some way? What? What would be the next step?
Speaker 2:um, I would say that. Um, if you are interested in volunteering for the point in time, count um, you could. You could just email me now s s nowlin s n o w l I n N at chip indieorg, and uh you know, I'll kind of keep you on the list to make sure that you receive emails about the volunteer training for next year.
Speaker 2:Um, all of the volunteers receive a training. I mean it's a, it's a mandatory training. Actually that's about two hours before they um are able to sign up for any volunteer shifts and that just includes some information about homelessness nationally, locally, maybe dispelling some myths about homelessness, maybe dispelling some myths about homelessness. Nikki kind of did some soft skills training for administering the survey and interacting with folks. Also part of the training is learning how to administer nasal Narcan, which we offer anyone who completes the survey free nasal Narcan, just you know, in case, and we don't really anticipate that our volunteers would probably need to administer nasal Narcan while they're out, but you know, if they're going to give it out, it's good to know how to administer it and really just having more people in the community knowing how to administer that is just an important thing and just for those who may not be familiar, that has to do with coming across someone who's overdosing.
Speaker 2:Who's overdosing on opioids? On opioids, yes, that's right, yeah, yeah. And then there's some training just about the logistics of like. And then there's some training just about the logistics of like when do you come up to CHIP to pick up your supplies and signing in, and et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3:So you're not like just going out in your car and driving wherever.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no yeah that we have pre-identified as places where we know that folks experiencing homelessness might be like some different libraries around the community, some different food distribution sites, for instance, and, like I spoke to all those locations beforehand to say, hey, is it okay if we send some volunteers so they're what yeah expected to be there?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely. And do they go by themselves or with others or um, always with someone else, okay, yeah, so if you volunteer, you're going to be with someone else. Yeah, where you're going, they're going to expect you there, that kind of thing yeah and you're going to have specific questions.
Speaker 1:Yes, however, that does not include the overnight count. That is specific to PBSO members who have been trained and are part of PBSO. So there's other volunteer opportunities, either through Horizon House or other agencies, but it will not include the actual pit night.
Speaker 3:That goes only for those that the trained professionals that actually go out and do this on a regular basis and are that are trained to to deal with those um challenges and or situations and encampments so a volunteer would not be expected to do that or or able to, yeah, it's just able or expected, yeah, and the big, the biggest reason, um, we do that is for to preserve the integrity and the confidentiality of ours, of our neighbors.
Speaker 1:We don't, we don't want to exploit them at all strangers showing up yes, and so just imagine a group of people showing up at your door unexpected right, and you don't know them from Adam and they want to ask you a bunch of questions.
Speaker 1:Guess who's not gonna do that me right, and so we want to, that that is their home and so we want to be as respectful and as hospitable and as dignified as we can and all service deliveries, and part of that is ensuring that those that actually go out into the camps overnight in the middle of the night are the trained professionals for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I applaud you guys. I mean, it sounds like, as you guys were talking about the count and your approach to it and this is what I've heard from others just informally you do and that is, you serve people, so you actually may turn the count into, rather than an extra that needed to be done, into part of what you do, which is wonderful. So I really applaud you guys glad to hear that thanks yeah before we wrap up, I want to hear a little bit about your stories and how you got involved in what you're doing, why you're doing it?
Speaker 3:I know both your quote. Jobs are, in a way, more than a job and are challenging. Tell me just a little bit about your background. Nikki, you can go first.
Speaker 1:I've been in social work formally by education as well, so I have my master's degree. I have worked in multiple entities, anywhere from corrections to school based therapy and mentoring emergency room and all of those and mentoring emergency room and all of those were kindly orchestrated by God to put me here, okay.
Speaker 1:Because there's not one of those career paths that I don't use almost daily in what I do now, and so I'm able to um go back to my, you know, er knowledge. I'm able to use my resources that in the partnerships that I've built in those um to really help me best serve um those experiencing homelessness. Um I'm able to see through a lens that I've never looked through before um in this manner. I've always seen people for who they are and taking them for how they choose to be seen and ensure that they're seen and heard um. But this has really been an aha moment for me, in the event that, or in the sense that this community and Chelsea has said it at one of the memorials a couple years ago, and she said they're the most seen, unseen individuals in our community, and that really resonated for me and so from that moment I I saw it even from another lens and so to be able to serve those.
Speaker 1:I've always been very honored to be in in careers that I I am able to serve the most vulnerable. So the kids that I served were the ones in the EH classrooms, like all the ones that people didn't want to be a part of right, or in the community hospitals where it's, you know, no insurance, you know all those kind of things.
Speaker 1:No family there to help out the underdogs have always been very excited to be a part of those, so to be a part of this community to me is just an honor to be able to be a voice, to use any platform, any table, any conversation, that I can dispel myths, that I can provide hope for those to do anything that I can do. To be a voice for anybody that does not feel heard is so incredibly important to me, and the work that we do here in this community allows us to do that.
Speaker 3:Well put. I appreciate what you're saying. I think that for those of us who have not experienced homelessness, we probably have, in some really small way in comparison, experienced being present somewhere but being invisible and feeling that invisibility. It makes me think of the junior high dance and you go and nobody talks to you. That's just small in comparison, but that's kind of what came to mind. Yeah, sarah, how'd you get to chip?
Speaker 2:oh gosh, how did I get to chip? Well, um, like nikki, I have a master's in social work too, and I have, for gosh, 11 years now, I think. Um, but I've, I have worked in social worky jobs for, oh, probably 20 years and, oh, I've worked in um transitional housing and kids camps and for DCS and at a low income health clinic and in inpatient uh treatment for people with eating disorders.
Speaker 2:Um other places I'm forgetting okay, sure and um, most recently, I owned my own therapy practice and, um, I loved that and that was great and the best, and I don't know, I think I just felt ready to do something different. Um, I think I probably needed a break. Service, honestly, um, I think that, like part of well, I mean you, you, you mentioned this earlier. It's like I think lots of people who work in direct service do so because they have experienced some sort of injustice in their own lives, and so they know what that feels like. And it might not be, for instance, that they have experienced literal homelessness although many folks who work with folks experiencing homelessness have, um, but that they have been through some sort of challenge that gives them that supernatural empathy that empowers them to want to walk alongside others, and I think that that means that when you're doing that, you're kind of keeping some of your own stuff, including your own pain, at bay all the time when you're doing that work.
Speaker 2:And for me, I needed a little break from that. I did, I don't know how else to put it Um, yeah and so, and so I just thought, you know, I think that I want to work on more of a systems level, and I had not. Well, I, you know, I think I'd worked in some different social work jobs where sometimes working with folks who were experiencing homelessness was part of my job, but not like exclusively um. But there are some um people who have been very close to me including um a very, very, very good friend of mine who passed away while she was experiencing homelessness um, just people who have had that experience um, so it's just something that matters a lot to me, um, and I think that I don't know people experiencing homelessness don't feel like very other to me. It really feels like, well, this could easily be a friend or family member, because it has been Um and know working at chip specifically wasn't random at all, yeah, um yeah, and I can't say I really knew what I was getting into.
Speaker 2:But I feel really lucky that what I got into was like working with nik. What a blessing. I know right, I know, yeah, that's good stuff. Yeah, yeah, but I think that I've probably brought all my social workiness into all this way. So we work together. Yeah, you do have to, you have to yeah.
Speaker 1:Because even at a systems level, if you don't have the people-centered mentality I mean, I think that's that's what's wrong. I don't say wrong, that's our deficit as a, as a country. To me, if we want to go super macro, right we're not people-centered, so we got real people-centered during covid yeah we valued life right. We valued relationships. We Some pretty amazing things happened.
Speaker 1:Exactly. But then it cleared out and people were like, oh, we're right back to what we were before and you forgot the why. Yeah, and I think if we lose that in our day-to-day life and we don't keep people at the center of all that you do in your personal life, your professional life, whatever that is if you don't keep people at the center, we fail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I know, during the pit count, the thing that I thought about a lot because I was really focused on this point in time count is going to respect and value providers. I was like it will, it must. Something that I thought about is something that I said earlier is that a really good friend of mine, oh, she developed a really serious mental illness as an adult and she lived outside related to that. You know, she had opportunities to live with I mean me, among other people, and that was something that she chose not to do and she actually passed away while she was experiencing homelessness. Chose not to do and she actually passed away while she was experiencing homelessness.
Speaker 2:And, um, I thought about who would I have wanted to encounter her in the last year of her life? Not because I think that anybody probably could have, you know, quote unquote saved her, but who would I have wanted to interact with her, just to show her kindness at a time that she was experiencing so much pain? I would have wanted people who were loved and valued and paid well and shown that their work really, really mattered and just given all the resources that they need. I would have wanted those folks to encounter her, not people who were devalued, stressed to the max, had way too many folks on their caseload. You know, in this churn and burn cycle in their organizations where people are quitting all the time and then you're just hiring new folks because nobody can stay, because the job isn't sustainable, that's not who I would have wanted to show her love.
Speaker 2:I would have wanted people who were able to be regulated themselves because they worked in a loving and respectful environment to show her kindness in her last year of life. I can't control the systems under which we all operate, but I know that I can try individually to do my best to show those folks who care for people experiencing homelessness the most amount of love and respect that I possibly can. And if the way that I could do that was to provide them with the most resources possible during the point-in-time count, I was like that is what I'm going to do, because I just feel like if the people who are taking care of folks experiencing homelessness are well taking care of themselves, that's going to show in the service that they provide.
Speaker 3:Sarah and Nikki. I'm not qualified to do this, but I'll do my best to say from a community perspective, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:As a community, we're very privileged to have you guys serving.
Speaker 2:Appreciate you guys. Yeah, thanks.