Episode #131: The Intersectionality Of Drugs And Homelessness, Finding Your Purpose & The Struggles Of Starting A Charity, With Sean Cononie, CEO Of The Homeless Voice/COSAC Foundation

INTRODUCTION:

 Sean Cononie has been working with the homeless since 1984, operates shelters, food banks, outreach, COVID outreach, Monitor Hospitals for unsafe discharges, Hate Crimes on the Homeless, and NIMBY when it comes to communities that don't want shelters . Networks covered my work, CNN, FOX and Friends , CBS and many local networks.

I was feeding the homeless at a very young age just out of high school. I n 1997 I found this guy John McCormick a homeless man who needed help. I asked him to come with me and I took him to a hospital. We were not a shelter at the time. When I gave him housing the hospitals found out and they started to send me all their homeless. We became a shelter basically overnight without one ounce of planning. We became the biggest provider in the county. Years later the city sued us but we won the case to stay where we were.

INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): 

·      Battling With The Government To Help Homeless People

·      Ideas On Starting A Charity

·      How Homeless People Are Treated By Society & Healthcare Workers

·      Have You Found Your Purpose?

·      Are You Actively Seeking Your Purpose?

·      The Debacle That Is The State Of Florida

·      The Intersectionality Of Drugs And Homelessness

·      Why Kid’s Need Exposure

·      Dad Jokes!!! =)

 CONNECT WITH SEAN:

Website: https://homelessvoice.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sean.cononie

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@seancononie

IG: https://www.instagram.com/homelessvoice/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/homelessvoice/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karmenmsmith/

CONNECT WITH DE’VANNON:

Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.com

Website: https://www.DownUnderApparel.com   

Magic Classes: https://www.sexdrugsandjesus.com/magical-lessons/

Donate Via PayPal: https://shorturl.at/gq068

CashApp: $DeVannonSeraphino

Venmo: @DeVannonSeraphino 

Patreon: https://patreon.com/SDJPodcast

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesus

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCM

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannon

Transcript

Episode #131: The Intersectionality Of Drugs And Homelessness, Finding Your Purpose & The Struggles Of Starting A Charity, With Sean Cononie, CEO Of The Homeless Voice/COSAC Foundation

[00:00:00]

De'Vannon: You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.

De'Vannon: There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.

Sean Cononie: Hello. Hello. Hello. All of my delicious children out there. Welcome back to the sex, drugs, and Jesus podcast. My name is Devannan and I'm here with my good friend, Sean Canone. He's an entrepreneur leader in the homeless sector and field. He's done a lot to help people. Sean, how are you today?

Sean Cononie: Doing good. I'm doing good. Okay, before I get into your biography, I just want to thank [00:01:00] everyone for supporting the show on Patreon, Cash App, PayPal, and Venmo. Our website is sexdrugsandjesus. com. Also, my retail store, Dawn Under Apparel, YouTube, Sex, Drugs, and Jesus Podcast. So, let's talk about Sean. It says, Sean has been working with the homeless since 1984, y'all.

Sean Cononie: He operates shelters, food banks, outreach. COVID outreach, monitors hospitals for unsafe discharges, hate crimes on the homeless, and so much more. His work's been covered on networks like CNN, Fox Friends, CBS, and many local networks. How does it feel to wait a minute, wait a minute. I want to tell, his website is homeless, homelessvoice.

Sean Cononie: org, of homelessvoice. org. How does it feel to have Such an altruistic, philanthropic, humanitarian body of work. under you because this is not, you know, most people want [00:02:00] to brag about how much money they make or this or traveling here or flying there or who all they're dating and all that bullshit.

Sean Cononie: This here is actually helping somebody else. You know, I love and I respect this. How does this feel? Well, it started out at an early young age. I was feeding people in high school and I opened up the shelter actually at 15 to 16 years later. By accident. We have, I found this guy, John McCormick, great guy on the street.

Sean Cononie: And I said, dude, are you homeless? He barely could shuffle any words. And I said, come on, come in the car. I took him to the hospital. The hospital discharged him to the streets. And I'm like, what was the purpose of doing that? So I opened up the shelter right then and there. And that was the best feeling in the world to be able to give this guy a house.

Sean Cononie: And he had shoes on from, like, the 80s. And this is 1998. He had Converse that was [00:03:00] completely taped up, the camera shoes. And I tracked the shoes down to, like, 1980 something. So helping this man was, he looked just like Jesus. And his eyes were beautiful. And he became my best friend. And that's how we started.

Sean Cononie: And how do I feel? Every time I wanted to quit because of working seven days a week, 20 hours a day, and actually living at the shelter I would go down and look at John's face and I'd cry and I'd say, no, I can't stop doing what I'm doing. It was full time. I lived with the homeless, you know, and I, I was wealthy as a young kid.

Sean Cononie: I retired when I was 19.

Sean Cononie: Okay. So then, so is that how you were able to start this is when I was researching, you would seem like you took this guy home and then it's like the hospital just started sending people so that they know that you were financially able to handle it or like, why would they do that? I wasn't planning on the bill.

Sean Cononie: So I currently had, but yeah, they sent me [00:04:00] like 40 people in a matter of weeks and I just kept on writing units and finally it got to the point where I was putting out 20, 35, 000 a month. And I said, Oh, it's time to incorporate time to become an agency because. I can't give up my grandkids money, my nieces and nephews money when I die, I want to make sure, you know, they're taken care of.

Sean Cononie: And that's basically how we became an agency. And we became the largest provider in a matter of months, maybe weeks. The counties were, it took the county like 7 to 8 years to try to open up a shop because there was so much resistance from the community. And their budgets were 3, 4 or 5 million a year and I was running on 250, 000, 300, 000.

Sean Cononie: We were the biggest and that was for an annual budget. So, but speaking of the the city when I was researching you, I saw like, that there was some sort of like a lawsuit from the city against you now, and you know, he's over like in Florida. So you mainly service for this, like the Florida area, right?

Sean Cononie: Okay. So, [00:05:00] yeah, we do hate crimes all over the country. And we report and research them. Florida has been known as one of the states that targets homeless people and incidentally states that target homeless people hate crimes in those areas on the homeless go way up because you try to open up a shelter and you hear a mayor say, well, we don't want these kind of people in our neighborhood.

Sean Cononie: Kids attack the homeless thinking it's a public service. And Florida became a leader and had more attacks on the homeless than any other state. And so the city liked us. They were utilizing us. The police cars were driving through like a Burger King drive thru, but we got so big that they said, whoa, you're illegally zoned.

Sean Cononie: And I said, no, I'm not. So after 2 3 years of civil litigation and going back and forth, I decided to buy a place, another place in the city that was legally allowed to be there. Well, we went there. And then the city continue with the lawsuit [00:06:00] and we won the case. The city lost. The judge said their their municipal code was vague and threw it out.

Sean Cononie: Basically, we won. And then years later, I realized we were too big. They were trying to develop federal highway for by the airport. That we needed to move because we were creating some impact on the community. So they bought our shelter system out. I think they gave us 5 million for all our poverty and for us not to...

Sean Cononie: They even bought my own home and made me sign a form that I could not even live in the city. Ever. For the last 30 years. So I was exhumated with no criminal offense. Florida, Florida is one of the shittiest states, like, ever. It's because of politics. I won't get into our beautiful governor because I never, he amazes me every day.

Sean Cononie: He's just crazy. So what is the COSAC Foundation? Because when I [00:07:00] was researching it says, like, the Homeless Voice website is a subsidiary of the COSAC Foundation. What's the difference? There's been many names. I own the communication company when I was young, which was Cossack Communications, which was a company of Sean Anthony Canone.

Sean Cononie: We always did charity work. So we just kept the name when I sold off the communications company and call it either charity of Sean Anthony Canone or a church of service in Oregon, a church of service and what was it? Oh, search of service and community was one of the names we used. The cops had their own names.

Sean Cononie: But that's basically what it is. The Coastal Explanation runs all the operations. It ran Helping People in America, Disaster Division. It ran our trip to Haiti when Haiti had an earthquake. We brought 70 doctors there in a jet. For amputation because I mean, the amputation is fast. So we got him in Colorado.

Sean Cononie: And it was [00:08:00] such a shocking thing because we were already in Haiti with orphanages. One of my interns opened up orphanages in Haiti. And South Com allowed us to be the first civilian aircraft to land in Haiti. To bring the 70 doctors and a bunch of antibiotics.

Sean Cononie: That's very good that you're doing that. So what is your, what would you say your call to action is to people? Is it to to establish something to help the homeless and whatever their local municipality is? Or you, do you want people to To donate to organizations like yourself that's already doing it.

Sean Cononie: What would you have the world do if I had a dream? I mean, the Powerball of mega, I would open up an agency called making the world a better place. And I would take young kids who had ideas, put them in a hotel, put them in a house and let them go expand their wings. Just my intern, who actually was 1 of the 1st CNN heroes here in Jackson for helping kids in Haiti.

Sean Cononie: He [00:09:00] actually lived in the shelter as well with me and had a job and he stayed there so he could stay for free and open up his first orphanage. So taking young kids and letting them expand on projects or just telling people, Hey, I am not a rocket scientist. I created a shelter overnight with not one ounce of planning.

Sean Cononie: Todd, Jesus, whatever you want to call it, gave me the knowledge because I didn't know what I was doing, but it works. And we were able to take the most So my goal would be to teach people they don't have to be Anybody special to open up a not for profit, whatever you like to do, take it, fine tune it, and help people.

Sean Cononie: And it will grow. It will grow, because we grow into many agencies. And with no funding from anybody. But do you, you already had you know, money, like you said, so what about if somebody does not have that? Can they get grants, or what do you, and it's gonna be different in [00:10:00] each municipality, but if somebody doesn't have money, should that be a reason why they don't go for this?

Sean Cononie: I should learn from their sister or Newark, you know, mom and pop shop organizations. I sponsor people all the time to want to start their own not for profit. I'll say, I'll pay your corporation fee. I'll do your 501c3 for you. I'll do your corporation documents. So you don't have to pay somebody to do that.

Sean Cononie: Sometimes I get a little startup catch. If they got a good idea. I'll help finance it. So if you have an idea, do it. It's not even very expensive to open up a charity and you don't even have to open up a legitimate charity at first. You can just do the work and it will develop into something good. You're doing good.

Sean Cononie: It will develop into something good. And we must share our ideas. We must take new charities and don't consider them competition. We should consider them a brother and a sister, and let's help them and don't worry about the competition. That's why I don't do grants. Provide an ambulance outreach and just go buy one, you know, and that's what donations for [00:11:00] the public gives us now.

Sean Cononie: Like, we needed to go to Haiti. I said, we partnered with an agency, we paid the bills, we got the doctor, and we were there, like, three days after the earthquake. For COVID, we could have got paid for shots, we didn't do, we didn't get paid, we did it on our own. I turned an RV into a vaccine center. We went out and hit the streets.

Sean Cononie: So you got a plan. You do it. If you're whatever religion you are. For me, it's Christian. I'm a Christian Catholic or Catholic Christian, however you want to call it. But whatever religion or most religion teaches to take care of the poor and to help people, no matter what religion. I don't care if it's Muslim, Christianity or whatever.

Sean Cononie: They all talk about helping people. And that's the beauty where you can, you can interface with different agencies and get together. One's Jewish maybe, one's Catholic. But you can work together. That's the most important thing is to [00:12:00] help. I'm impressed that you you know, that you're willing to, to, to help all over the world.

Sean Cononie: And if somebody wants to start their own nonprofit, they can contact you and. Possibly discuss getting financial assistance. You know how rare it is to find somebody who like comes for money and is a customer that, that like still has a soul. Okay. Cause it's very easy for a person to lose themselves in options or having financial ability or really any ability.

Sean Cononie: So how, how, how come you're so like level headed? Even emotion and grounded that you come from some sort of traumatic history yourself or like, like, like, how are you able to balance having financial power and still having a big heart? Because you don't necessarily see that all the time. My mom always gave money to the poor box at the church.

Sean Cononie: It was a dollar she gave and I always remember her doing that and [00:13:00] helping people. I guess everybody has a gift. You can help a little lady cross the street or you can pray for somebody in your closet. Nobody has to know about it. Everybody has a gift. So you take those gifts and you act on them. So, you know, I talk about winning the Powerball.

Sean Cononie: First, there's a lot of things I'm going to do. I'm going to buy 10, 000 acres in the middle of Florida and I'm going to open up a big homeless county. You know, when I wanted to open up a homeless city, they wanted to put me on a rail because I was going to buy a small city. The county commissions and then we'll put them on the rail and get them out of here.

Sean Cononie: I mean, the public official stated that. So that would be like my goal is like, I'll buy 10, 000 acres and I'll tell all the homeless to come to my place. And we're going to teach people how to do it. Because, like California's example, it is utterly ridiculous the money they spend and they cannot make a debt, and I've reached out to the governor, oh God, I don't know how many times I said I'd work for [00:14:00] free.

Sean Cononie: Just give me a chance. You don't have to pay me. I'll show you what to do. They never get back to you. It's interesting. I mean, that doesn't surprise me. And I'm glad that you're the exception to the rule, you know, having been homeless before myself when I live in Houston, I hear what you're saying. Bad state to be homeless in right now.

Sean Cononie: It seems to me like damn near any Republican run state might not be a good state to be homeless in because Republicans and people who people who have never really truly struggled. In life, and a lot of them just haven't, you know, they don't know the first thing about what it's like to be on food stamps and what it's like to wonder where your next meal is going to come from walking into a place, a store, even doctors, offices, hospitals, and they look at you when you're homeless and they immediately just don't want you there.

Sean Cononie: Okay, even in emergency rooms and nurses [00:15:00] and doctors, some of them like don't mind dealing with homeless people. Some of them are just like. They're just like physically disgusted, even though, you know, their line of work clearly that is there for the money, not for the people. So I appreciate that you're creating a safe space in your local community.

Sean Cononie: You're reaching across the world and you're helping to plant seeds and other people to carry on this work. Like you said, once you depart this plane of existence, I mean, the life you're living, man, pretty much sums up. I think the message of Christ in. Or, I mean, if people don't want to believe in Christ, any, you know, great teacher that have, that has, that people believe in, you found your purpose, you're doing it.

Sean Cononie: You're grooming other people to do the same. I mean, I mean, you, you've got it, I love it. I love it. If you don't even believe in God, you can use the Bible with a different [00:16:00] secular act, basic instructions before leaving us. And if you follow the actions of Christ. With the, again, the acronym Bible, the world will be a better place.

Sean Cononie: Look how we treat veterans. And, and sometimes it's the Democrats too, not only the Republicans, but you try to open up a shelter, they'll come out and say, Oh my God, I don't want these homeless people by, by us. You'll say, but they're veterans. We want to help the veterans. Oh, all the time, but we don't want them anywhere near us.

Sean Cononie: How do you say you're for the military and the department of defense victims from these wars. But yet you don't want to live it in your neighborhood. That is the most pathetic thing in the world. 

Sean Cononie: Now, having been a homeless veteran, I'm a veteran to the United States Air Force, when I was in Shreveport, Louisiana in rehab, because, you know, you got to talk about homes, you got to talk about drugs [00:17:00] the homeless, like the halfway houses, the three quarter houses, the rehab houses, all the ones I've ever seen or been to are always in like the worst possible part of town where you have drug dealers living in the building or across the street.

Sean Cononie: And so it's like, people are set up to fail. So, you know, take somebody who's already broken enough in their mind to be homeless. Maybe they came back from the war with no mind left, or very little, or whatever the case may be, strung out on everything, and you literally put them right next to the crack house.

Sean Cononie: Because you don't want them in suburbia. That's the problem with zoning by city officials. They want to out zone the poor. They want to say they want to help. But then you put them right in the drug infested neighborhood. Makes no sense. But that's where they zone us to be. And you can play with zoning any day of the week if you know what you're doing.

Sean Cononie: But, like, for instance, you can't feed a great man by the name of Ronald Abbott. I think he fed people until he was [00:18:00] 93, 94. For a lot of that police department arrested him several times for feeding the homeless. He got more news than Justin Bieber. When he was being arrested for the last time, Trump was flying over.

Sean Cononie: Every news outlet in the world was there from like so many different countries. This guy got arrested for feeding the homeless. 97 years old. So cities are doing this now passing along. You can't feed the homeless. There's an answer to that. You buy a food truck and you give them, you charge them a penny for their dinner.

Sean Cononie: They cannot out zone you. You can play back in cities, it's got to be smart and do it just when they make the laws, you go around the laws and make it work. Right. And I've seen that, you know, here in Louisiana, where I'm recording from at the moment, there's signs that people have put up saying not to give money to homeless people claiming that it's for their safety.

Sean Cononie: I'm [00:19:00] like. I don't think it's for their safety. Like, I think that you just don't want them to be seen. People know how to not run out in front of a vehicle and get hit while they're asking for money. But I clocked that intention. I'm like, they lied. Like, they tried to act like it was for the greater good of the person.

Sean Cononie: No, it isn't. And

Sean Cononie: I don't them to don't feed the pigeons and don't feed the homeless. They'll always be there if you do. So, I mean, there's been signs crazy like, but again, we go to a society that talks, we want to help, but doesn't do the walk and that's your city government. And that's the voice, the voice for people in the city hall who come out to all the meetings, make it illegal to help.

Sean Cononie: And that's, when you start making it, well, look at Christ, crucified him for his action. Small [00:20:00] people always want to like, kick the little person, you know, while they're. down, okay? Because it helps them to feel better about themselves. That's the only reason why I can think why people in power would harbor such a disdain.

Sean Cononie: Either that or it's just, just pure hatred. And it feels like, kind of like how racism does when they just don't want, you know, I've gone places and I've been called a nigger or told to get out and they just didn't want me around because I'm either black or queer. It's like along those same lines, you know, They just don't, they don't understand the first thing about the lifestyle or what it means to be homeless, but they just don't want it around, and nor do they seek to understand.

Sean Cononie: It's hate fueled, it's insecurity fueled, it's fear fueled. Absolutely. Now, what do you think, Mike? There's no answer for people that are you're an extreme Christian. [00:21:00] They'll say, oh, you're going to hell for being gay. You know, my Jesus would probably be hanging out with gay He just didn't like sin, and he wanted to, you know, change the ways.

Sean Cononie: He would not turn his face to gay people. He would say, come to my church. You're on drugs. Come to my church. Oh, you're a prostitute? Come to my church. We need to go back to thinking like Christ a lot of the time, because none of us are perfect, including myself. Hey, I was injured when I was 18, 19 years old.

Sean Cononie: I took a lot of pain medication. Who wants? Luckily, I didn't like the feeling of being high, so I was able to control it. Most people probably would have died of an overdose, but people don't even understand that, like it's an addiction and they just can't stop because it changes your whole DNA in your brain.

Sean Cononie: When you're on opioids for a long time, [00:22:00] people don't wanna, they don't wake up in the morning and say, Hey, today I wanna be a transsexual. That's a great life to live. They don't wake up in the morning and say, say, I wanna be a drug addict. It's a horrible thing to be, but people think they do. People think people wanna become transsexual because they just wanna be weird and different.

Sean Cononie: Their mind is sex. Gay people are gay people because that's the way they were born. It's not, it's not to be condemned and the way we're teaching people these days, With the extreme right makes violence happen, as you say,

Sean Cononie: well, there's gonna be a lot of surprise the people, you know, on judgment day when we all stand before the Lord and you know, in the scripture that that always comes to my mind when we talk about things like this is how the Lord says there will be many people in that day speaking of judgment day who says, you know, Lord, Lord, we cast out devils in your name, you know, trying to bargain [00:23:00] with the Lord in order to make it in.

Sean Cononie: What they're saying is they live their life against people, okay? Because to cast out a devil, what they mean is that they, that they, that was the, was they worked against people. They cast out the queer people and the homeless people and the prostitutes and the addicts. And their warning is right there, but they cannot see it.

Sean Cononie: And the Lord said in the scripture, he's going to tell them, depart from me. I never knew you because nobody's purpose in this life is to try to straighten out somebody else. Or at least not to, to push against them or to cast them out. So that's everybody who refuses to make a cake for a queer couple, who refuses to photograph weddings, all of that is a form of quote unquote casting out a devil.

Sean Cononie: Because their interpretation of Christianity means to banish people. And the Lord's already told them, like you were saying, complete opposite. You were supposed to invite everyone in. And find the common ground and not hyperbolize whatever it is you perceive to be a [00:24:00]difference. I'm not a Bible scholar, but I know there's a part in the Bible that says if you, if you judge people harshly, you'll be judged the same by, by God or Jesus.

Sean Cononie: Anybody who remembers that? You know, you can't go around picking on people because you have power to do so, but as you, as you reap what you sow, as you sow you will reap. I had a, but for whatever reprieve it might be, I had a dream months ago. In this dream, it looks like I was seeing these Republicans, these white conservative people, and a certain song was being sung, you know, in this dream.

Sean Cononie: And it's like they were, their hearts had been pricked and they were, they had gotten convicted about the way that they had been treating and doing people. And in this dream, it's like they were trying to figure out what they can do better and how they can change. And so I just wanted to state that [00:25:00] again, because.

Sean Cononie: It's like, just back in, you know, in the slavery days, not every white person was pro slavery, okay? And not every conservative, not every Republican, not everybody on the Hill or down in the local municipalities likes what they see being done. It's harder for them to speak out against it, but I've just felt so much love in that dream because I saw, I saw like their hearts turning.

Sean Cononie: And so I just wanted to just put that out there because even, even the most conservative, strict, used to hate people, people can change. So. You wonder how Governor Sanders can say the things he says. Or, or DeSanctimonious, if you want to call him what Trump called him. It's like, really? You're going to go against Mickey Mouse?

Sean Cononie: And now you're going to go, you know. And he went to the Paul Snipe Club, I believe, when all those gay [00:26:00] people were killed by the gunmen. I think he was there.

Sean Cononie: The things they, trans, transgender show, who hasn't been to a drag show? Straight, gay, bisexual, who hasn't? A lot of people go there, great singers, they're great, they put on good shows. Nobody takes their kids and says, hey, I want you to do that. This is what you want to be. It's going to be who the kid is, whether the parents like it or not.

Sean Cononie: And they ain't going to take a drag for the pain.

Sean Cononie: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we, we, And on that note, before we get on to the drugs I just always like to say that people are like a weak ass parent if they think that somebody outside of their home is going to have greater influence on their child than them. A drag queen, nobody on television can alter your children.

Sean Cononie: You know, and if anybody can, it's because you [00:27:00] failed as a parent and your kids don't like you. That's why they're listening to other people and not you.

Sean Cononie: So, when somebody is homeless... They typically use hella drugs from being homeless myself into dealing with homeless people. Since then, I personally have never met one homeless person who did not do drugs. And so have you? Yeah, they're out there. Maybe not current drug users, but if they become chronic, they will become an alcoholic or a drug user.

Sean Cononie: It's a hard life to be homeless. For those people who think that people want to be homeless, Maybe about 1. 5 to 2 percent of the homeless population wants to be homeless. They don't choose that life. So, if you're living on the street, chances are, you're going to become an addict. Some type of addict. Just to be able to sleep at night, you need a few beers, with [00:28:00] the traffic the noises, being scared.

Sean Cononie: So, if they're not an addict when they become homeless, they'll become an addict somewhere along the line. That's why it's very, very important to get to them and have enough beds available when someone becomes homeless. There has to be more preventative measures taken so someone doesn't become homeless.

Sean Cononie: It helps in the recovery aspect. Right. What are some of the most common drugs that you have come across that you've seen the homeless using there in Florida?

Sean Cononie: I'd say a lot of crack not so much meth in South Florida, more in the rural areas, the we'll say the Trump areas and Florida, there's a lot of meth methamphetamines, a lot of meth being done, not so much crack, pills are everywhere in the rural communities as well. I mean, a lot of pain, [00:29:00] pain medication being distributed, was being distributed now, of course, it's fentanyl all over Florida, I think 2021 beat California on fentanyl And they blame fentanyl.

Sean Cononie: Some people blame fentanyl on the, on the border and the issues of the border. And Florida doesn't have a border. And we have, and more people died than California. So this great state that we live in, and one that Governor DeSantis runs had more fentanyl deaths. They wanted to outlaw where you couldn't test a drug.

Sean Cononie: Because they put, they put fentanyl on weeds these days. So, you know, a little kid, 14, wants to smoke pot one time, they get fentanyl, well, they may die. So, you know, they were, a lot of people have fentanyl tests, they finally, I think, made it legal just recently, but they've fought it over time, just like the use of Narcan, I mean, many [00:30:00] states fought that.

Sean Cononie: Yeah, I've told people that they put fentanyl in weed and what I've been told is that it makes like a popping, clicking sound when you go to light it, that weed does not make, weed's not supposed to make any fucking sound at all, but if it has fentanyl in it, probably the heat interacting with that opioid like that, Yeah.

Sean Cononie: I hear it makes a clicking sound, is what I learned from somebody. I think cocaine too. Hmm. You know, I don't know. Drugs. People will stay addicted to drugs their entire life if there are not more treatments, right? So

Sean Cononie: what I love though, is that you have like weed stores Weed is getting more like decriminalized and legalized, you know across the country So people don't really have to go find like [00:31:00] somebody on the street to get weed from yeah more expensive if you go to the the shop, but it's See, and so you can go to websites like dansafe.

Sean Cononie: org to get fit and all test strips up in New York where I, you know, where I also live, there's like a website where you can just go just send the shit to you for free because New York is just very fucking organized. And, but there's options, y'all. So, weed can kill you. It is better for you to go to the damn store, and get some shit from the store, than to go to some homie from some damn where.

Sean Cononie: Because you got a lot of little wannabe drug dealers and shit who don't know what the fuck they're doing. I've been a drug dealer and supplier before and hung out with the people who cook and make the shit. These people don't know they asshole from a hole in the ground. And then they're also quite bitter, too.

Sean Cononie: Mm mm. Go to the store and save your life. Stop getting your drugs from weak ass people, or at least test it. [00:32:00] Yeah, I mean, finally, we got Narcan now, but for years, we were using Narcan at the shelter, and the police weren't very, or the medics weren't very happy and said, well, how did you get Narcan?

Sean Cononie: You have to be a doctor to have this. I'm like, well, because we have them prescribed to our non opiate people, and the names, their names on the bottle are the, are the needles. So we, we inject them. At that time, we were using needles because they didn't have the inhaler at the time. They didn't like the fact that we were, we were doing Narcan for our people.

Sean Cononie: Harm reduction models. Does not encourage drug use, harm reduction models, save people's lives, it saves people from contracting diseases, and all these diseases that people are getting ends up costing taxpayers more money because most of the time they're indigent, so it's Medicaid costs. People do not, politicians do not look at the long term effect.

Sean Cononie: They only [00:33:00] look at What they see and what the people want to hear, like sex offenders. I warned cities for many years. You have these laws that out zone sex offenders. You're going to create homeless sex offenders where you have no level of control. They didn't listen. Right now in our county, I think we have like 65 homeless sex offenders living in front of a department store.

Sean Cononie: If they would only have zoning for them where they could live, you wouldn't have 65 in one area. Some of them are dangerous. The majority of them are not. There are crimes like peeing in public and stuff like that. Yeah, Florida's done that. A lot of states have done that, by the way. They ruined someone's life.

Sean Cononie: A lot of Romeo and Juliet cases where the guy may be 20 and the girl is 16 or 17. Now they changed the age group on Romeo and Juliet cases, where [00:34:00] one could be an adult, one could be a minor, but it has to be close in age but yeah. Your politicians have

Sean Cononie: lost themselves. That so much, if they ever were found or at home within themselves, all of that energy that they're putting into controlling humans, you know, that has nothing to do with, Righteousness, the Christians they claim to be, or let's see when, in order to try to control somebody else, you have to first be out of control yourself, because happy, healthy, whole people do not sit around thinking about what's fucked up with other people.

Sean Cononie: We don't. We're doing like what you're doing is trying to help people. Those people who are running your state sound so damn broken, like personally, within themselves, to be putting this much energy. A person can't pee in public. That's just ridiculous. It shouldn't be a crime. You can't pee in public because there's no [00:35:00] bathroom.

Sean Cononie: Right. I do it all the time, especially in New York, shit. You gotta get on some of them subways and everything, girl, child. We whippin it out. It's not like, it's not like other countries where you have bathrooms in every damn station, so. But if you say, I'm gonna pee in public in New York, New York wouldn't have that shit.

Sean Cononie: Uh uh. I'm not playing it. You know, when I decided to take sex offenders out of the shelter, I I took three of them. I said, Well, that's a good idea. At least a lot. I said, one of them was not violent at all. No, it was a Roman Joliet case. Two of them molested. I said, well, I said, and we take them here.

Sean Cononie: They're not going to be homeless. It'll be safer for the community safer for them. That's the right thing to do. I had a higher personal security for almost three years. I had so many death threats in the community. Like I was for sex. I'm like, No, I'm for your kids. I don't want your kids to be, you [00:36:00] know, approached by a homosex offender.

Sean Cononie: I'd rather be here with some level of control. But no, they don't seem that way. They thought I was a homosexual. Not like I had a passion for them. Oh, they projected their fear onto you. They projected their fear onto you. Because there's no way to prove that that's just what they thought in their head.

Sean Cononie: That's just called emotionalism. It's erratic, it's hyperbole, it's fear. And it's unfortunately what runs a lot of people's lives. There is no logic to the things that they say and do. So gosh, what do you think police are actually able to help with any of this in any sort of way? Are they more of the problem?

Sean Cononie: Like, well, you have some cities that hire or utilize cops to make it look like they're helping the homeless. Okay, it's a it's a fake and make issue. [00:37:00] Then you have some cities that get the right place officers. Who have a heart and try and go out of the way to help homeless people. So it's a two part approach, you got both.

Sean Cononie: I had, I hired detail police officers for like 7 to 10 years. And it really worked good, where they could actually see what we were dealing with. And how to do like critical incident training and how to handle certain situations. And it developed a rapport between our people that were homeless and the police.

Sean Cononie: So you have some good cops out there that want to help, but you can't take a cop and that doesn't want to be around homeless people but force them into it because you're getting complaints from the neighborhood. But Florida uses homeless outreach by police officers all the time and some of them couldn't, and again, a lot of it's fake and fake.

Sean Cononie: But it does help them in a lot of cases. I know some really good cops out there that want to help mankind. They became a cop [00:38:00] because they want to do what's right. They didn't become a cop. I want to drive 80 miles to their station to get a good pension and have no ties to the community. You gotta hire cops that live in the community where they have ties to the community because then they feel accountable.

Sean Cononie: What is the most, what's the most touching thing you've ever seen a police officer do for someone that's homeless?

Sean Cononie: I guess it would be phone calls. Hey Sean, you gotta come get this guy, he's in bad shape. He's gonna die out here if you don't come get him. I got a lot of those calls. I would ride around with cops a lot of times, and they would take the hardcore crime cases. The term protecting serve is not used like it was years ago. My ambition was to be a police officer. [00:39:00] I got injured and the cops I learned dogs. I was taught if you shot somebody, you give that victim who you shot A, because he has a mother and a father. Today, we see some law enforcement people shoot people.

Sean Cononie: That's a person way down on the street, like they're bleeding out, like you cut their nut. So, I was taught by a good number of the public.

Sean Cononie: It's a hard job. It's a stressful job and you want the cops to get home at night, but you don't want them shooting people because they didn't wait for their backup and decided to make a wrong call. So, cops, cops do help people and cops hurt people. You know, you got good and bad in every occupation.

Sean Cononie: There's something as simple as a phone [00:40:00] call, such a grand gesture, but it can save a life and, and change so many things. So I'm so happy to hear that because he made a decision not to take them, take them to jail because what good is that going to do? They're just going to go in there and eat and sleep, receive medical care and then get out and do the same thing.

Sean Cononie: It's impressive. Hey, the police academy asked me to come in to, speak to some cops who had complaints against them. And with the first 5 to 10 minutes of the class, I realized that these guys were not going to change. So, I, the 1st thing I said to them is, hey, look, I'm not here to change how you feel about homeless people or how you treat the public.

Sean Cononie: I'm going to make it pure scientific research here. And I'm going to give you a clue. Don't you want to get your pension when you retire? I said, there's thousands of cameras out, you will be caught and you will lose your pension. So [00:41:00] run with that scene. I knew I could not change but maybe two of their hearts in that room.

Sean Cononie: I hope it works. They were some boozies. That's all you can do when you're dealing with villains. You know, and super wicked people, you have to spin it, do exactly what you did and spin it and give them a what's in it for them. Because they only see the world through. What's going to benefit them. They'll give a damn about people.

Sean Cononie: And so, but if it's personal loss, then they might shape up, but they ain't doing it for to help people. I think about, I'm gonna throw a little bit of shade at like Chick fil A. Okay. And their whole like anti queer rhetoric and donating to organizations that have done their fair share to cause people in my community to hurt themselves, or at the very least to dislike themselves, you know, they.

Sean Cononie: Chick fil a put out that statement where they were supposedly walking that back. Okay, I don't think they did it for [00:42:00] altruistic, big hearted reasons. I think they did it because certain places would stop allowing them to open store. Their money was getting fucked up. Okay, churches do the same thing. They were anti gay for the longest during COVID money started to go down during the rise of, you know, the queer movement people started to leave and all of a sudden some of these preachers are like trying to change in their tune on it.

Sean Cononie: Okay. It's not because their heart changes because the what's in it for them was starting to get fucked up. So I need people to pay attention to people's true intentions there. Yeah, I can imagine that for sure. But whether they, whether the cops got a wickedness in their heart or not, it's still going to result in somebody's life being saved, even if he's only saving it to save his money.

Sean Cononie: And I don't like abortion, but I understand it. And [00:43:00] I hear these arguments all the time. Democrats want to kill babies. The Democrats want to kill babies. Well, the Republicans want to kill babies, too, because they say, okay, you can have an abortion, but it has to be done within six weeks. So, if their heart was really for God's role or God's, what God wants, they would say, no abortions, period.

Sean Cononie: They picked a side, and they went with it, because otherwise, why would you say, okay 12 weeks, you're going to have an abortion? There's no right or wrong when it comes to that. I hate it, but I understand it. I would not call someone a murderer for having an abortion, and I would assist them either way.

Sean Cononie: If they wanted help, I'd give them help to keep the baby. If they wanted an abortion, I would make sure that was the decision, and I would support a mother. But this politics thing with right and left, and Democrats want to kill babies,[00:44:00]

Sean Cononie: and I have this topic quite a bit. In my humble opinion, especially not being a female, I don't have an opinion on abortion one way or the other. It's not my damn business. You know, what that woman does with her body, and when she stands before the Lord, God is not going to reach over and ask me about what she did with her body.

Sean Cononie: He's going to ask me what I did with mine. And for all what a woman might be doing with that kid, people do other things with their bodies to disrespect them with the way they fling themselves all over all around for sex and all kinds of different things like that. So the very people who want to judge her, the Lord would look at them and judge them, you know, as we've seen demonstrated, you know, throughout the Bible in various places in the world.

Sean Cononie: Hey, did you have an abortion? And she says, yes, I guarantee he's an ass pain. Could you eat a lot of Big Macs one day? You treat the body like a temple and soul. I'm a smoker. [00:45:00]I'm gonna say no, I didn't. I smoke cigarettes. A lot of them. So no difference in the crime, no difference in the sin. It is sin.

Sean Cononie: And sin is sin. And measured equally. If you're a Christian, you need to believe that. That's what scripture says. Gluttony, y'all. He's talking about gluttony. And so and I couldn't agree more because it's one of those cute thing, cute sins or cute Things that kind of go and, you know, when we say sin the best way I've ever heard of described it is how the Reverend Carmen Michael Smith said, and he said, it's something like sin is basically something that doesn't.

Sean Cononie: soul and it's not coming from like your highest good. And so when you're and it's not helping anyone else around you, he said it more succinctly than that. And and so, yeah, you know, people go to a buffet, eat their weight's worth in food, plus more and nobody says [00:46:00] anything. You have families. 100 pounds.

Sean Cononie: Well, if somebody's got the metabolism, then that's one thing, but if somebody is morbidly obese, okay, and you have people who are clearly overweight in families, and people in the same family want to talk about the girl getting the abortion, but then you have this person here who is way too heavy, and I have buried people who are young, who died because they were overweight.

Sean Cononie: Eventually that weight, it fucks with the internal body organs and then it's like, it could be, it can become too late to reverse it, even though they were healthy for a while. So that's why we cannot sit around just having extra weight on us. But while while they want to talk about her, you've got this obese dude over here.

Sean Cononie: You have obese people in politics who want to talk about the abortion girl. But I'm like, when are you going to get a gym membership, motherfucker? Yeah.[00:47:00]

Sean Cononie: 180 pounds when I had meningitis from steroids, and I could not get it off. And recently I was able to get over 100 pounds. I still got about 70 to go. But it can't be done. You know, there's different, it's all count calories, how many you put off and how many you eat. And every other diet thing to me is just not true.

Sean Cononie: It just counts calories and it works. But yeah, the portion, you know, if it's 10 and, you know, it may be in some cases. And every other person does the same. Everybody commits sin, but yet we're, some of them are judged so harshly. Makes no sense. In fact, there are part time Christians, like a great homeless advocate by the name of Michael Stoops once showed me a poster.

Sean Cononie: How do you worship a Sunday? How do you worship a homeless man on a Sunday, but ignore one on the rest of the week? Part time Christians there, you know, [00:48:00] and it's such a true state, you know, you'll have them on that Sunday, but the rest of the week, you forget about them. You forget about them every day, right?

Sean Cononie: Or force those babies to be born and then initiate programs like this to work against them. Once they get here, originally, you know, we had. Girls at 12, 13, 14 bleeding out on street corners because they were going to illegal abortion clinics. This was designed to save their lives and to help them by regulating in some way.

Sean Cononie: If a girl wants to get rid of her baby, she'll get rid of it, whether it's an abortion or she'll run into a wall, you know, baby first. It's not our place to judge, but every generation is going to have people who need help and people who stand in the way, and it's been that way since the dawn of time. So what we can do, I'm going to give my advice here.

Sean Cononie: I'm going to let you have the last word to close us out. I'm going to ask you a couple of dad jokes as well just to help lighten the mood. What we can do. Y'all, when we have [00:49:00]children, snatch them damn iPads and phones out of their hands and take their asses down to a homeless shelter, some place like my boy here runs, whatever it is you have.

Sean Cononie: And show them what poverty looks like. Show them how a broken and fallen person must survive. Take them and take your children and volunteer with them. Don't just have fun with them and feed them and clothe them and let them run around and do whatever they want. Take them and show them that other side of life so they can have proper balance and perspective.

Sean Cononie: Okay, take them out on the streets. Don't just walk by homeless people. Let your kid talk to that homeless person. Have a conversation. Engage. Don't try to shield your child from the ugly parts of this world because they are in this world because of you, okay? They didn't have themselves, okay? And so, Expose your [00:50:00] children to everything so that they are well balanced. Now, they still might grow up and be a fuckhead, but at least you can know that you did everything and you weren't overly protective or living in a state of denial when it comes to your child. I agree. I mean, I love it when I take my grandkids out.

Sean Cononie: Like, on cold weather night, we go buy blankets and we buy jackets and sweatpants, and they go out and go pass them out with us. And they learn, you know, I had a lot of kids who used to come in, like, yam food when they were 10 or 12 years old and they brought it to the shelter. I'm still friends with some of these people who are now 30 years old and have their own kids.

Sean Cononie: In fact, I got my school teacher to come back and visit me. I loved it. Just to see the way they, you know, they were, they were nurturing and how they're taking their kids to see the same exact thing they saw.

Sean Cononie: That, see, that, that's, that's smart shit right there. [00:51:00] That's smart shit, like, exposure. Transparency saves lives. Secrecy kills people. Trying to shield your kid from the truth of the world. We'll ruin them, you know, and possibly kill them one day because they're going to face it somehow, eventually, so you can either prepare them or let them get their asses kicked by life.

Sean Cononie: And so hopefully that exposure will stop people from growing up and being in the assholes too. So there's the ones that are going to get devoured by these problems and the ones that are not just not going to empathize with it. So, but all we can do. Hmm. It'd be part of their life skills, right? So go ahead and give us your last words of encouragement advice.

Sean Cononie: And then I'll ask you your dad jokes. And I remind people of how to contact you. I wouldn't say if you have a want to do something, not [00:52:00] even so much in the charity world, maybe you have a want to be an entrepreneur in the business world. I'm going to, by the way, I'm going to hit up shark tank and see if they'll do a show for charity and see if they'll invest money into charities when people have good ideas.

Sean Cononie: If you are going to the private sector, you will make money and you can help people. If you want to go into the non profit world, start no matter what and don't let nobody interfere with you. Start off small and do projects. And as you grow, it will grow and you can teach everybody the same thing. Just spread the word.

Sean Cononie: The more people that love, the better the world is. Love is not just love your girlfriend or boyfriend. Love is Helping a stranger. Helping someone

Sean Cononie: in need. Right. How did the Lord said, the Lord said it like this, greater love has no man than to lay down his life [00:53:00] for his friend. That, that's beyond romance, love, that's beyond loving your children, loving your parents, to lay down your life for someone means to physically die for someone, but also to live a life of self deprecation, you know, in the service of others, which is like what you're doing in a way, you know, you've laid down your life.

Sean Cononie: To help other people because your entire everything is about the enhancement of somebody else That's still a form of laying down your life. And so yeah, it's all about love man So, all right

Sean Cononie: Good old dad joke. We try not to think too hard about these. It's the light and the mood. So, these come from today, to us today from countryliving. com. Good old country living. So, how does the moon cut his hair?

Sean Cononie: Got me on that one. [00:54:00] He clips it.

Sean Cononie: I really, really wanted that one as we're getting ready to get into eclipse season coming up here in October. What, what place has more letters than the alphabet?

Sean Cononie: Bingo. Really? Oh, cool. Got one. Hells yeah. Okay. 

Sean Cononie: So Okay.

Sean Cononie: So again, y'all the website is homelessvoice. org. Sean is on Facebook. I see Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, good old Tiki Taki, which I am growing, growing more and more fond of. So thank you so much for your time, Sean. I look forward to editing and releasing this [00:55:00] episode and to continue the good work to help all the less fortunate out there.

Sean Cononie: I appreciate what you're doing. Spread the light, people. It's so important to have the, the the social media, internet podcast, all these different ways, have more venues where people can learn from different people. And it's really exciting to see all this. Absolutely. Let's stay connected, man. 

De'Vannon: Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the sex, drugs, and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at sex, drugs, and Jesus. com, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at Devannon at sexdrugsandjesus.

De'Vannon: com and on Twitter and Facebook as well. My name is Devannon and it's been wonderful being your host today. And just remember that everything is going to [00:56:00] be all right.

De'Vannon: