"Getting Help So You Can Help Yourself" - How SafeHouse Ministries Changes Peoples Lives for Good.

This episode teaches about on one of the biggest reasons for the success SafeHouse Ministries' clients are able to see.  Ultimately, every person has to take personal responsibility for their own life and take action to improve it, but this is extremely hard to do when you find yourself at rock bottom with absolutely nothing.  It is huge when SafeHouse is able to step in and provide all the basic necessities of life such shelter, food, clothing, etc. so that people can focus on following the program of getting sober, learning how to work and be dependable, and save up money to launch the next phase of their life.

There is so much to learn from this episode, including topics such as the role of government and welfare entitlements, and how government can play a positive role in helping people rather than strengthening a system that is holding people back.

Please give us a 5 star review on the podcast platform you listen on and leave some positive comments about what you learn!

Transcript

Phil Shuler 0:00

HellO, and welcome to Renew, Restore, Rejoice, the Safe House Ministries podcast, where we share stories of the power of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. Safe House Ministries is based out of Columbus, Georgia, and we are a ministry that exists to love and serve people who have been affected by addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. I'm your host, Phil Shuler, the Director of Development for Safe House Ministries here in Columbus, Georgia. Safe House serves people each month as they transition back into our community. Safe House provides an abundance of services

0:31

Including 184.

Phil Shuler 0:33

beds for homeless individuals and families, case management for obtaining job skills and long term employment. Over 300 hot meals every day, free clothing, and so much more. One of the most incredible services that Safe House provides is our free 9 12 month intensive outpatient substance abuse program, which is state licensed, CARF accredited, and has no wait list. Almost 100 percent of individuals staying in our shelters who follow our three phase program become fully employed within a few months. And 68 percent of individuals who stay at least one night with us End up finding work and moving into their own home. Thank you for being with us today and listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoy this week's episode.

John 1:13

This world teaches us the hunger after money, and that's not the answer. You know, I, I, I say this, I've always said, because I started out taking on debt. My, I told you my daddy tried to teach me to be a good saver and I never was. I was really good at taking on debt though, and it's really, I, I should say that. With a lot of reservation, it's dangerous.

Phil 1:34

Yeah. It's

John 1:35

debt is dangerous and you know, being, uh, financially poor does not mean you're not rich. And I, I see a lot of people who don't have a lot of money who are extremely rich.

Phil 1:49

Yeah.

John 1:50

And, uh, protecting that name, that God-given name and, and having that mindset to, to show up and, and build your brand

Phil 1:59

Yeah.

John 1:59

Of who you are around people. I, I just respect relationship and I think everybody can go to work and be respected and find their way and it takes time.

Phil 2:10

Yeah. You, uh, you talked a good bit about the idea of personal responsibility, and. The way that you kind of have a philosophy at Anker Pack is very similar to the philosophy at Safe House Ministries because people do need help. Sometimes they struggle, they need someone to reach out and give them a hand to kind of help lift them up. And Neil often kind of describes it as, you know, there's like this 800 pound bag that, that they gotta pick up and get moving to get their life back on track. And he and Neil says, we will carry almost all the weight, but you gotta hold onto a corner. And if you, if you drop your corner. We can't do anything for you, right?'cause'cause we can't, you have to do it yourself, right? We'll help you, we'll, we'll give you a take, care of your basic needs. Give you a place to, to have a, a bed to sleep in. And you don't have to be out in the weather. And we'll take care of your food. We'll, we'll give you everything that you need to survive. But you had gotta have the initiative to get, go through the program, change your mindset, get clean, start working, show up, build that consistency, grow yourself. And, um, you know, it, that's so fundamental. I mean, that's fundamental in the way that Safe House Ministries operates, but I think it's fundamental to success in life and in our whole society. I mean, and you see it, I think, um, just as you're kind of diving into the political world as a city counselor, and I mean, there is, there is a philosophy that. The government should just take care of me. Exactly. I mean, it, and it's, it's welfare for life, but that's not what it's designed and intended to do. You know? It's, and it's okay to, to need help for, for a time period. Oh, it's good.

John 3:59

Entitlements are good. We're a rich country. We can do a lot, but we shouldn't do all things for all people at all times. And it, it, it, I, I believe it's, it's not good to do all things for all people at all times. And I feel like there's a culture telling us to do that as politicians. Now, look, what you just said was, and Neil Richardson goes into that jail. That's kind where he got started.

Phil 4:22

Yeah.

John 4:23

Going into the jail. I toured our jail. So let's talk about Columbus, Georgia. This is where we are. I don't know how big your viewing audience is, or your listening audience, but our jail's real bad. We got a real problem. And it's bad. And it's real bad. And I walked through there and was, you know, kind of astonished. But I already, I already knew I've been. Yeah. But you, you, you sit there and you look at individuals. You look in a cell block and there's 26 guys in a cell block together, bored nowhere to sit. You know, there's bunks over there, there's a open stall over there. There's, it's not a pleasant place to be. And I know many of them actually, I was walking through Anker pack recently, and uh, I said, I said to this guy, Hey, you're back. He said, yeah, and he had an ankle bracelet on. He said, I saw you come through the jail the other day. I said, man, I forgot to look for you. He was in a cell. He said, I said, why didn't you yell at me? He said, you were already gone. I know all about his whole story. He's been a supervisor. And, uh, you know what, to me, I look at that and I said, man, that guy's got a, a wall to get over. I don't know if it's true or if it's not true. He'll have his day in court. But regardless it, those, all those people in that jail have a, a huge wall to get over and it's gonna take time, money. They're still backing up. They're still backing up.

Phil 5:44

Hmm.

John 5:45

So they really need somebody to stand with them. Beside them, whether they're guilty or not guilty, they're still real people who may have made really bad choices, most likely all of'em made bad choices, or they wouldn't have been put in jail. They could have made a better choice that kept'em from being there, even if they were not guilty.

Phil 6:04

Yeah.

John 6:04

Right.

Phil 6:05

Yeah.

John 6:05

And sometimes my wife will say, Hey, I, you know, when our kids were little, I don't want my daughter working there. And I said, that's okay. She can go to work with me. She'll be safe. Well, how do you know that you, you have that person working there that's on parole with an ankle brace? I said, yeah, we know about that guy. What we don't know is all the people who didn't get.

Phil 6:23

He said. Yeah.

John 6:24

But I think when we were just talking about what Safe House does and how you help people and you're pulling them along and they have the responsibility, you'll carry all the weight at Safe House, but they have the responsibility as an individual to carry their corner.

Phil 6:36

Yeah.

John 6:37

And we gotta remind people like this fellow who just got out and is back at work, he's safe. He's not hurting anybody. We know all about it. You're gonna have to keep showing up, being consistent, you know, be a, be a good person in an environment that you're in. It's gonna take you a while to get back over the, several weeks you spent in jail that you weren't making money. Alright? That's a big deal. You know? And how's he gonna pay his electric bill and his needs? He's got real needs. So I think Safe House and what you're doing in the jails and the drug rehabs and the homelessness you're touching, you, you know, Phil, a lot of yours and my friends don't experience dealing with the people that you're touching and serving and loving on. And I counted a blessing to, uh, be a guy who looks like me, who is perceived to be the owner of, you know, a rich man. Because I have the richness of relationship with people that are rich and they don't even know what they're carrying. And her name's Stephanie, you know, and his name's jt, you know, and these are real people that are making positive impacts on their own lives and hopefully can transform their kids' lives, and that's what they want. When I do life skills, one of the curriculums, it's at the end. You know, we, we talk about life, life ethics. We talk about work ethic, we talk about finances. I can't remember what the, the fourth curriculum is, but the fifth one is real critical. What's your dream? What do you dream about? I'll help you dream. Let me help you with the baby steps towards that blue ocean. Let me tow hold that corner for you. Lemme tow that line on that rope or that boat. Get you through the wave towards your dream. It's your journey. It's not mine. I can't carry it. You know, and, and, and this one young man jt, he said, John, my dream is to be a good father. It blew me away. It blew me away. You know, and I, I, I think you gotta get. F you gotta get the the right things first.

Phil 8:45

Yeah, yeah.

John 8:46

You gotta get first, you gotta get the right things right. You know, and, and then you gotta do this, then you gotta be consistent, you know? So we try to show'em a, a recipe for success to have a, a journey that, that's not gonna be without storms, without struggles, without the wind in your face, but you can achieve it one small baby step at a time. And that's the art of work. And that's how Safe House has helped Anker Pack with workforce. That's how Safe House has served our community. We gotta change the mindset of, uh, this victim mindset or entitlement mindset. Yes, people are victims and they need help. And, and yes, we need entitlements and we should help, but we need people to. Just hold the corner, we'll lift the heavy weight, but you gotta do your part. And if you're not willing to do that, we can't fix this. Now I'd love to talk about government and even especially local government.

Phil 9:43

Yeah. Um, I, I would love to, to hear your thoughts on that and particularly how, how government can help with that Right balance, right. The right balance of not just giving everybody everything, but giving them enough that they can stand up and get going through those waves towards something real and something beneficial. It's a, and it really, it does go back to the mindset shift. I mean, we've got people,

John 10:11

it really

Phil 10:11

does in Columbus. It does. There's people all across this country, including in Columbus. And we have a lot, a larger percentage in Columbus that I think than many places. But there's a mindset of growing up on welfare. And it's for life. And then your kids grow up and they get on it, and they stay on it for life. And it's this cycle of bondage that never leads anywhere. And

John 10:34

this is the biggest hidden monster over here in the corner. That's

Phil 10:38

huge.

John 10:38

It's so huge. We can't even talk about it. It's so huge.

Phil 10:42

And it, and it doesn't just affect them financially, it affects them, in so many ways. They, more of the kids end up in prisons more the, the girls become pregnant as teenagers, and there's just, there's so many things in, in ways that it affects their life and hurts them. Which are the bigger things that are more impactful than just money and finances?

John 11:06

Well, I don't know where we start with this. It's cultural, it's mindset, you know, and it's, it's also, look, I, I, I think the system is not working in the favor. The system is not working into the favor of the people that we're talking about.

Phil 11:22

It's not,

John 11:22

it's really not. And unfortunately, I don't know how to reach them mentally or intellectually because I'm not the smartest guy in the room. But I feel like if I, if I could help them understand the system just a little bit more, maybe they would be a little open more, more open-minded. Don't change your lifestyle, don't change your friends, don't change anything. Just have an open mind about what's helping you and what's hurting you. It's not about me. I'm not your problem. I'm not your problem. I'm here to help. I'm here to help tow the weight. I love what you said about Safe House. When people get out of out of jail, you'll help carry the weight, but they just gotta hold that corner. But it's hard to hold that corner when you're yelling at everybody else saying. What are you gonna do for me? And they're already toeing the weight. It's really hard. I don't even know if people, yeah. I don't know where to start on this. It's, I really don't, but I think it's the biggest thing. If we had a whole podcast just about the culture, the victimization, the hunger, the hopelessness, people have really lost hope because their hope is not in the rock. Jesus. You know, their, their hope is not in that they don't have hope that they can get there because they're hoping that they're gonna have it.

Phil 12:40

Yeah.

John 12:40

And they don't know what the journey looks like, and they don't even know how to leave the shore.

Phil 12:44

There's so many things that factor into the equation, and it's, it's so massive and so in many ways, complex. But it's a, it is, it's almost. I would think to describe it like a toilet bowl cycle where it's just swirling around, going down and down and down. Because the political, the politician,

John 13:03

okay,

Phil 13:03

they have the mindset of getting more votes so I can stay in power. That's it. And if I give people more handouts and take care of them and like I buy their votes, this essentially,

John 13:14

we're gonna touch, we're gonna touch on this.'cause you know, I, I, I, I'm a small business. I'm a manufacturer. I got very involved in state politics as the smallest chair of an old organization, a lobbyist group called Georgia Association Manufacturers. We'd go up state capital and we'd lobby for, electricity rates to stay fair. We'd lobby for workers' comp rates and how, how we can change laws and tort. And, you know, we'd lobby for environmental and things that help manufacturers stay and not leave like it did back in nafta. That was the big sucking sound. This was an old group from 1901 that founded in Columbus, Georgia with uh, Gumby Jordan. In 1901 as a textile person, and then the NAFTA killed it. Now it became open to all manufacturers. So I got involved. Then I went to the feds and I started working with a group that was Democrats and Republicans, and they were vying for good agricultural policy, good manufacturing policy, and good policy for good jobs. So ag manufacturing and jobs. And I said, you know what? None of this stuff is affecting Columbus, Georgia. I'm gonna go get involved in city politics. And that's when I did five years ago. And look, I, somebody said it really good the other day, he said, we, we not only have to get new economy and new revenue to our city government, we need to lower our expenses. We need to streamline what we're doing to give the citizens good value. But let's look at it from the terms of, uh, our poverty, our our, uh. We can look at it in two sides of town. We can look at, everybody wants money for everything all the time. And, and I'm sitting in a council position, hearing it, seeing it, and we're blowing it and, and we're not effective at it enough. Now, some people would say, yeah, John, you're right, you're not effective enough'cause you're not giving me enough and we need more of this to solve this problem. And money ain't gonna solve it. Yeah. Money is not gonna solve it. I don't know what's gonna happen. Because another thing that's really, this is the, the most important part of this, the thing that's killing our people and the, the great people like JT that I talked about, or Amanda or Stephanie or Walter or any, or you and me too, is inflation. Inflation is killing everybody. They don't even see it. And inflation is a hidden tax. It's built into the system. They don't know how the system works and they're not gonna learn it. Not from me. They don't have enough time. I don't mean to say they're not going to, but that, you know, if you're gonna put your hope in the money, you're starting out possibly in the wrong angle on your journey to leave the beach and go towards blue oceans.

Phil 15:54

Yeah.

John 15:55

You know, if you're chasing money. You're going towards the wrong direction.

Phil 15:59

Yeah. And I would I would say not possibly, but definitely, definitely. I mean, there, there's so many examples in illustrations. When I was in high school, I read an article about a, uh, a teacher in, uh, the poorest of counties dealing with kids in the, the slums who had nothing. Then she had no money.

John 16:19

Yeah.

Phil 16:20

But she put together a structure, a teaching program, and invested in those kids and got them to the place where they scored better on tests. They did better academically than the kids in the surrounding areas that had all the money they could ever want in the school systems. Right. So it, it's, you're right. It's, I mean, money does matter.

John 16:39

Yeah.

Phil 16:40

It is not the thing that matters most.

John 16:42

It is not. And the more money we give away, the worse we're hurting our citizenry. And the way that happens is if, if the school's budget continues to swell to$800 million a year, and the city's budget continues to swell to$450 million a year, and our revenues are not going at the same rate, you know, we're gonna raise our taxes. And when the taxes go up, the apartment rent goes up, everything goes up. So you have to raise your revenues and you have to lower your expenses. Lowering your expenses means making hard cuts. We need Safe House Ministries doing more per, per per capita of dollar spent. And y'all are doing it. Y'all are doing it. Unfortunately.'cause you don't have enough money.

Phil 17:27

Yeah. For by necessity.

John 17:29

Yeah, by necessity, you're hitting a need that's at the top of the list. And we ought to all be mindful of that. In order to, to give Safe House Ministries more money, we're gonna have to lower our taxes for property owners to have more money left over so they can give Safe House more and the government ain't gonna fix it. Well now we, I know Safe House gets some money through different programs, but I would argue on behalf of a lot of programs that, that, uh, we're wasting money on, that's not touching the citizens more directly. And, uh, that's the difference. See, see, I, I am a conservative, I don't run from that. Everybody knows it. But I, I, I hold a political position that's nonpartisan and that means I, I, I serve. All citizens, poor, rich, Democrat, Republican, it doesn't matter. And I believe that that the things that, that I believe in and the policies and the ways I want to implement legis legislation in our local government has a better positive impact on the people, all people all, and I don't know how to get the word out there. We don't have, you know, podcasts are important. We're missing real dialogue like this and people engaging in what affects them because our attention spans are too short. We're not showing up, we're not consistent, and we're not getting enough of this message. And it's hurting the poor more than anybody.

Phil 18:55

Yeah.

John 18:56

It's hurting the poor more than anybody.

Phil 18:58

It

John 18:58

absolutely is. And they, and, and, and unfortunately, I feel like that they hate me more than ever. But it's not hurting me. I know how the system works and it's hurting them, and I'm trying to change it. And I, I didn't mean to use the word hate, but I'm on the receiving end of a lot of, uh, criticism for what I believe. And, uh, they're good people, uh, might not want to hear from'em all, but they have good intentions.

Phil 19:22

Yeah.

John 19:22

And my intentions, and I, and I'll give you one example. When I went before, I was not on council back now, but uh, I went before the city council and it was the, the day of, of vote of council to raise the millage. That means raise the property tax again in order to, to have more money to go expend more money. And, and see that's a backwards incentive. And I was, I was accompanied by a lot of business owners behind me and apartment owners. And those, uh, and I, and, and council was gonna vote yes to raise the millage. And I, I said, guys, you shouldn't do this. And uh, Toya Tucker, I've heard you talk about wanting to help control the rent increases and keep rents low. I've heard you say that New York did it in California, did it? Why can't we do it? And Toya, I just wanna say that I can help you with that. Lower the millage.'cause some of these people behind me are apartment owners. And you raise the millage, you raise that property tax, it's a trickle down effect. They don't have a choice. Your tenants are gonna pay more money in rent. That's what inflation does. That's what raising taxes does. That's what Not having control of your expenses.

Phil 20:30

Yeah.

John 20:31

And not having enough income. You, you keep raising income expenses, keep going up. You don't have any margin in it, who's gonna pay for it?

Phil 20:39

Yeah. Did you win the day with that argument?

John 20:41

We won. It was the first time in the history of Columbus, Georgia. It's ever been lowered. Wow. People don't recognize, they say, oh no, John, I lowered your taxes last year. Our superintendent of schools. He said, I did it last year. I said, no, Mr. Dr. Lewis. I said, that was a rollback. That was a rollback. We smile at each other. I love our superintendent of schools. That's a tough job.

Phil 21:00

Yeah.

John 21:00

He's got a very difficult job and, and I do think he does a tremendously good job in a lot of areas, but I, I asked the board of the school board lower the millage, just out of principle. Just, just to say, you did it. No, John, we might not get those grants. I said, you can go back up. Just do it outta principle. We need more revenue and less expenses and then I, you know, we need to serve the citizens like you're serving better and teach'em the art of work and lift this community up and help them pursue their dreams.

Speaker 5 21:33

And that is the end of part three with John Anchor. Next week will be the conclusion and you will not want to miss it. God bless you. Thanks for being with us this week, and we look forward to being with you again next week.

06-21-23 SAFEHOUSE-CH2 21:46

We look forward to being with you again next week as we share another testimony about the power and the goodness of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. if you are someone listening to this podcast that loves to hear these stories of the great things that God is doing in changing people's lives for the better, and if you would like to be a part of that work, please reach out to us You can reach us at

Speaker 22:09

7,200 Manor Road.

06-21-23 SAFEHOUSE-CH2 22:11

Columbus, Georgia, You can call us at seven oh six three two two. 3 7, 7 3, or you can email us at info@safehouse-ministries.com.

Speaker 4 22:22

Thank you so much for being with us this week for the renew restore and rejoice podcast of safe house ministries, we pray that God will bless you this week. And we look forward to having you back with us again next week for a new episode.