The Current
We're seeking inspiration toward deeper discipleship through conversations with people working toward justice, cultivating deep spiritual practices, forming community and connection in significant ways, and helping one another heal from trauma. As we follow Christ to the margins of society, to the wounded and grieving, and into the hard work of peacemaking, we find that we are not alone on this journey. Join us to resist despair, and to regain some hope in the world, in the church, and in Christ.
Most weeks, Pastor Chris Nafis is talking with scholars and practitioners who are inspiring and faithful, and some weeks Pastor Chris is engaging with the book of Acts. Each week, we find the Spirit calling us deeper into the death and resurrection of Jesus, into a life with God, and into loving one another well.
This is a ministry of Living Water Church of the Nazarene, which gathers in San Diego's East Village, the epicenter of homelessness in this city. We are committed to meaningful worship, community formation, and service. Join us sometime :)
The Current
Kevin Nye - Grace Can Lead Us Home
Grace can lead us home—but first, we need to dismantle the myths many believe about what keeps people on the streets. Kevin Nye, author and homeless services provider, takes us on a journey to the heart of a crisis that's widely misunderstood, especially within faith communities.
Nye begins by challenging what he calls "the central myth" of homelessness—that people somehow deserve their situation and are therefore less worthy of assistance. This perspective, often intertwined with Christian ministry approaches, creates barriers to effective solutions by focusing on personal transformation rather than addressing systemic housing issues. The conversation explores how scarcity mindset contradicts the abundance mentality demonstrated repeatedly throughout Scripture, especially in Jesus' ministry.
The most revealing segment comes when Nye breaks down the actual causes of homelessness through compelling data. Contrary to popular assumptions, homelessness isn't primarily caused by mental illness, substance use disorders, or even poverty—these factors show virtually no correlation with homelessness rates across different regions. What does correlate strongly is housing affordability and availability. As Nye explains, when we remove affordable housing from our communities, those with pre-existing vulnerabilities are inevitably left without homes.
For churches seeking meaningful engagement, Nye offers practical guidance on leveraging collective people power to advocate for housing policy change. Drawing from inspiring examples of faith communities who've successfully influenced local housing priorities, he demonstrates how congregations can move beyond emergency services toward addressing root causes.
The conversation closes with a profound reflection on maintaining hope amid challenging work. Nye's answer? Connect with people experiencing homelessness—their resilience, joy, and ability to create meaning despite extraordinarily difficult circumstances can restore our perspective and revitalize our commitment to housing justice.
Hey, welcome back to the Current. This is Chris Nafis, pastor of Living Water Church, and today we're very fortunate to have Kevin Nye joining us on the podcast. Kevin worked for a lot of years in homelessness services in Los Angeles, now in Minneapolis, and wrote a really wonderful book called Grace Can Lead Us Home a Christian call to end homelessness. We get to talk about some of the issues around homelessness, some of his work and background, and then what do we need to do to address this more fully. Super relevant for our context in East Village, san Diego.
Speaker 1:But I hope you will enjoy this conversation here. It is All right. Well, kevin, thank you so much for coming on here with me. I'm so grateful for everybody that's just lent their expertise and their wisdom and their faithfulness to us, just so we can have this chance to talk to you, and you know I really loved your book on homelessness. I even like the name Grace Can Lead Us Home, like what a perfect name for a book like that, and so really excited to share sort of your you with, with the people at Living Water and Beyond. So thank you for coming on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Could you start out by just telling us a little bit about, like, how you kind of began working on housing and homelessness and sort of in these areas, like what, what brought you to that work, and you know what did that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, so I grew up in the church, was raised in Arizona, in the Church of the Nazarene and I, you know, discerned, you know what I understood to be a call to ministry in like middle school, like very early, and I pursued that. I went to Southern Nazarene in Oklahoma City and then went to seminary at Fuller in Southern California, along the way, you know, just really expanding my, my theology, my understanding of of who God was and what God would have us do in this world, really connected strongly with, you know, the calls for for social justice, the, the prophets of the old Testament and, um, obviously, the work and life and teachings of Jesus, um. And so by the time that I was graduating seminary, you know I was still involved with the church but had really kind of felt this wider sense of what, you know, ministry was, um and certainly in terms of vocation, um I, I didn't have a strong sense that what I was supposed to do at that moment was talk to my district superintendent and ask for a church placement, right. That just wasn't really feeling, for a number of reasons, like that was in the cards, right, but I had started working at the place that I talk about in the book, called the Center in Hollywood, because I felt that I wanted my work regardless of whether it was temporary or long term to be about the things that I was about and the things that I believed God was about in terms of justice and equity and caring for people who are extremely vulnerable.
Speaker 2:Being in Los Angeles homelessness that made a lot of sense, and my friend was working somewhere and told me about a job opening and I took it and then, um, as you know, my conversations with the church of the Nazarene kind of uh continued and reached sort of what ended up kind of being a breaking point. I uh ended up leaning into the work that I was already doing. I'm very grateful to have that and yeah, that and that sort of just became my, my vocation and my understanding of living out that call that I had had since, since middle school and I'd say about five years into. That is where I realized that I wanted to write a book, um, to really sit at that intersection of homelessness and faith. That is like a place that I occupied, um, but that I felt both sides of that were were not able to talk to each other in the ways that seemed helpful or accurate, and so the book was sort of meant to be a bridge between those two worlds that I.
Speaker 2:I walked in easily, right, I talk about the book a lot as like a form of translation between those two groups and that sort of catapulted. This whole other thing that I do, which is writing and speaking and doing workshops Typically two people of faith or two churches about the topic of homelessness and helping them understand it better and see how it's rooted in their, in their faith call, and so, yeah, now I do, I do kind of both of those things. I've moved to Minneapolis now where I do full-time work in the homeless services sector and then on top of that I do speaking, writing, teaching, and then on top of that, I do speaking, writing, teaching, yeah, and that translation work is so important.
Speaker 1:I feel like both in the general population and in the church maybe especially in the church, I don't know there's so many misunderstandings about homelessness, about the causes of homelessness, about people who end up, you know, on the street or in a car or couch surfing or in a shelter. There's just so many, there's so many misconceptions about it and you know your book does a really great job of kind of highlighting those things and fleshing them out. I guess I'm wondering, going back a little bit, do you feel like you were prepared for the work through, kind of your upbringing in the church and seminary, like you know, when, when you kind of because I feel like I had a big learning curve when I, when we started really engaging deeply in all this, even though I had done some of that work in college and stuff um, you know, how do you? How was that transition in like kind of diving in?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I think I think yes and no, right, because I think that there were aspects of my theological church upbringing that I had to undo and, um, let go of in order for me to to really embrace the work, and there were other aspects that were just like an absolutely like. This was setting me up for that, right. Right, and I think that that's everybody's experience, right, that different, different voices along the way, different streams of thought that you encounter, raised to you know really care deeply about my faith and to really hold on most tightly to the parts of it that call us to love and to care for one another. And so I think that that then going into like a theological education really primed me to to care about the things I wound up caring about. On the other hand, I was definitely raised, um, in a political environment.
Speaker 2:Um, that really um that really had a lot to say about what certain people deserve and what, and really just this kind of basic understanding that you know, people who who work hard end up doing well and people who don't work hard end up not doing well, and that the rest of it like that, that there's not a lot of gray area in there, and so I think part of part of the I guess political the way that politics was sort of enmeshed with theology was the, the part that I had to spend a lot of time untangling yeah, I mean that issue of like deserving and I feel like it comes up from a lot of different angles just in life in general, but especially around homelessness, of who deserves what, and I even even among people on the street.
Speaker 1:You know like we operate an inclement weather shelter and people call trying to get in and stuff, and you know people will be telling me why they deserve a spot over other people that are on the street and I think that that kind of permeates all of society, because I think people feel that, coming from just sort of like the rest of the community, just this, this sense of judgment like issues, problems, bad decisions that people make on the street. Of course, the a lot of the issues problems people make who are on the street are a lot easier to hide because they're, you know, behind a door. Um, there is this sense of like someone who ended up here deserved it for some reason, and you really kind of um disassemble that in a lot of ways in the book, Like where do you? Yeah, could you like say a little more about that? Like how does the church get this stuff wrong? And where is our, where's our teaching like intermingled with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I, honestly, I've come to believe that it is the central myth, right, and that actually all of the myths about homelessness have their roots in that. And I would define that central myth as the belief that people who are experiencing homelessness somehow have, somehow deserve it and therefore are less worthy of whatever level of help that we're not willing to give them. Right, and I think everybody might define that last part a little bit differently, right, right, because I think a lot of good Christian organizations would say it doesn't matter what you deserve, like, you're going to get a meal, right, you're going to get, you know, a warm bed at the shelter, right, where we, but then they might cut it off at, well, we're not. You're not going to get an apartment, right, until you do X, x, y and z to prove your worthiness, right, I think the myth that everyone on the streets is is mentally ill, or that everyone is out there doing drugs, like those are, those are that same myth, right, that is us creating, uh, creating or exaggerating a reality that then therefore says, because of that, we're not going to do this or this thing won't work, right, um, and I think the other, the other central piece to that, that, that that myth only has power if we really believe in scarcity right, like the only reason that we would evaluate who deserves what is.
Speaker 2:If we believe that there's not enough to go around right, and that that becomes true in a setting right where you were talking about, where you have a warm weather, shelter, and the reason that people on the phone feel like they have to convince you that they deserve it is because they know there's only so many spots Right, and so they're not. They wouldn't, they wouldn't be trying to convince you that they deserve it. They didn't feel like they were in competition for a scarce resource, right. And so when we, when we believe that in scarcity, which says there actually isn't enough for everybody, there's not enough to go around, and so therefore, we have to choose how we're going to allocate what we have, that's when we start ranking people. Right, because even I will say, homeless services systems do this, right, they might just have a different ranking criteria, like we use a criteria that actually says the most vulnerable people get placed first, but that has other ramifications, right.
Speaker 2:But all of all of it is because of this belief in scarcity, and to me, that is not a Christian idea, right, I talk about this toward the end of the book, but I believe the Bible teaches abundance, that we have enough. We have everything we need to take care of each other, right? I think you could look across this country and look at the amount of wealth that we have, look at the amount of resources that we have and prove that that's true in a number sense. Right, we have enough. It's just that it's not getting all the way to where it needs. It's being hoarded by some and withheld from others, and so I mean you don't have to spend too long in a gospel to hear Jesus speaking against that or doing miracles. That suggests that where you say there's not enough, jesus says there's plenty, there's more than enough, so much that we have leftovers, right. And so I think the that central myth of deservedness has to get overcome, but so does this commitment that we have to scarcity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean so like I guess what comes to mind for me is the scarcity stuff in some ways becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of a thing, because you know, like it feels, like you know. I'll use an example of like bathrooms in san diego. So there's, there's like no bathrooms in san diego. No parks have bathrooms uh, very few of them do at least and there's there's very few public bathrooms and one of the things that becomes the issue is that, like, whenever there is a bathroom, it gets like completely inundated with people, because it's the only bathroom for like miles and there's thousands of people living on the street in that area. There's also people that are just other residents, that are there's tourists, there's all kinds of people that need to use the bathroom, and so when one bathroom is getting used by 5000 people a week, you know, if we were able to just say, well, why don't we open 10 bathrooms, then, like that, that scarcity of the one resource would like alleviate this like overwhelming need where we're like this one little low resource, low budget church that's kind of dipped into this overwhelming, you know, epicenter of homelessness in San Diego.
Speaker 1:You know we're basically like in San Diego's version of Skid Row is where our church is located and you know, it's like there are so many churches around, there is so much money around, there is so much, even just like wealth in our neighborhood around, there's so much, even just like wealth in our neighborhood around, but because so many of those doors are closed, then we end up with like true scarcity and I have to, you know, take these phone calls and say like I'm, you know, I'm sorry, like I can't send a car to pick you up from out of the neighborhood because we have 28 people who live on our block that are going to come in and use our 28 measly spots that we have available.
Speaker 1:I wish there was other churches that would open their doors, but because they're afraid of being overrun or they're afraid of you know what I mean and then it becomes like this like cycle of like well, now we don't actually have enough resources because everybody's kind of hoarding the resources out of a sense of scarcity, right, kind of hoarding the resources out of a sense of scarcity, right, um, yeah, it's a it's, it's a hard thing to overcome because like, how do you, how do we get, how do we get past that, like as a church and as a society. Maybe I don't know if that's a big question, but it's a big question.
Speaker 2:I will also just point out, because I looked up these numbers not too long ago, because I actually spoke in san diego like eight months ago. It was a while ago now um, and, and y'all's housing market is the exact same like your. Your housing market for low-income renters is your bathroom analogy. Yeah, right, um, right, it's your. Your numbers of available and affordable rental units per 100 low income renter households is the lowest in California. So y'all are kind of no offense. You are kind of the worst, the worst city and the worst state on housing availability. Yes, we are, um, and we feel you know, yeah, and, and that's how that's what happens.
Speaker 2:You know, that's how it trickles down to to what y'all are feeling, um, but to kind of answer your question, I guess and I don't have a great answer, right, um, cause you already suggested it that the answer is that more people need to get involved in the work.
Speaker 2:Right, I spoke to somebody recently who said this really well about you know, congregations is like you, no one's asking every congregation to do everything, but each congregation has to find their, what their part of the work is and do it. Really well, you know, and some churches will have the ability to do more and some will have the ability to do less. But scarcity, you know your church by itself cannot resolve scarcity in San Diego. Right, and you're right that, because, because you can't, you do have to reinforce scarcity in the form of having boundaries. You know, because if you took in, if you started taking in more people, you wouldn't, you'd be able to, you wouldn't do as good of a job at serving the people that you do now. You would burn out staff, you'd burn out resources, you like. I think it is important to distinguish between like organizations putting in healthy boundaries and like participating in scarcity, which I would say like one of them has to exist because the other one exists.
Speaker 1:But it's not like I don't want any organization to feel shame around having boundaries, if that makes sense and I mean in some ways it's, we're in a nice position where we just don't have I mean literally like if we started trying to put up more than that many people, fire marshal would shut us down and we wouldn't be able to do anything, you know and so, like, having some resource limits is a nice way for us to have, like a boundary that's enforced upon us, that we don't have to feel guilty because we're literally doing all that we can.
Speaker 1:you know, and that's not true in every area of life, like but or every area of you know, we stretch ourselves pretty thin and there just are realities and boundaries that have to be maintained. But I think getting more, you know, every time the news comes and tries to cover Income and Weather Shelter that's what I try to say on there is like, hey, we need more churches to do this stuff Because, like, there's a lot more people we fill up every night, we fill up within 30 minutes every time we start taking reservations and there's like a lot of people that need a nice place to stay on a cold night and it's it's hard, but it's not that hard. Like you all can do it, you know. Um, yeah, yeah, have you seen, like, have you seen churches like picking this up? Like where have you seen some transformation and some eyes being opened, like any stories of inspiration for us of, like some churches that have kind of seen the light?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and you didn't do this on purpose, but you're setting me up to plug the book that I'm currently writing. So the book that I'm writing is majority storytelling of churches and faith groups that are engaging homelessness in meaningful ways. It's divided into a lot of different sort of subsections, like there's churches that build affordable housing on their property, right, there's churches that have actually did that once and ended up launching a foundation that ended up becoming the biggest provider of supportive housing in the state of Minnesota. There's also churches that I tell stories of them just sort of doing their small thing faithfully. A church in Skid Row you might be familiar with Central City. There was a church in the Nazarene that for 20 years did karaoke night on wednesday nights on the streets of skid row and how meaningful that was for that community.
Speaker 2:Right, the book is just full of stories like that, of churches, like, like I said before, who did, who found their part of the work and did it really well and specifically did it in ways that I think align with what I talk about in my first book, which is how to actually understand homelessness thoughtfully, correctly, and engage it in that way, because I think there are a lot of churches out there that come at this work from a very, you know, paternalistic or savioristic or, frankly, kind of thoughtless way and often can do a lot of harm. But I think that the ones who are doing it from a thoughtful angle are are more than we are aware of and and I've I've gotten the privilege of getting to know them because I wrote this first book that people email me and say, hey, we're read your book, we've been doing this thing for 20 years. Um, and we, we thought you would like it. Um, and I do so. I, I think there, there really are a lot out there who are doing this. But I think what's particularly exciting and inspiring is there's so many of them wanting to talk about this issue right now in a way that we haven't Now.
Speaker 2:Do I wish that we'd have been having this conversation 10 years ago? Sure, they're here now. It's like, like they say, the best time was yesterday, the second best time is right now, right, and just the number of churches that reach out to and this is just me, right, I don't represent the only people talking about homelessness and faith, right, but the number of churches reaching out to me to say, hey, can you come talk to us. Can you zoom into our Sunday school? Can you, you know, do this Because we we see homelessness around us. We recognize that as a church, we need to do something about it, but we don't know where to start. I get those almost daily.
Speaker 1:That's encouraging because, you know, I feel like a lot of times you get into the work, you feel really isolated in it because, in part, because you just get buried by the actual work itself, and then in part because I think the churches that not just churches, churches, people, organizations that are doing the best work are often not the best at self-promotion, and so you just don't. They don't tell the stories very often or very well, um, and so it's nice to hear, I don't know, it's just always inspiring to hear like, yeah, there are actually a lot of people around here doing this and doing it well. Um, you know, you just don't always. They don't always, uh, you know, make, make the headlines and they don't always have the the. You know the books written about them. So I appreciate you doing that work also.
Speaker 1:So you know your first book. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what does it mean to do it well? You know what does it? What does it look like for a church to engage in in? You know, and there's a big question, you could write a book on it probably. But you know, what does it mean to do it well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think starting mean to do it well. Yeah, well, I think, um, starting starting with how we see people right, because I think that there there's two mistakes at opposite ends of the spectrum that we often make when we talk about or encounter someone who's experiencing homo seps. Right on one end, it's the what kind of what we've already talked about. This is their own fault. They need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop being lazy. Get a job, get out of their homelessness. That is one error on one side, which is I'm the person who has my life together. I know what you need to do. Listen to me and my plan for your life, and if you don't, you're being ungrateful, right, right. And so I think the correct response in the middle of that is actually seeing people who experience homo sets as fully human, with choice and agency that should be respected, as the experts of their own story and their own experience, who don't need, don't need a bully and they don't need a savior, right, what they need is partnership, friendship, relationship. You may have skills that they need in order to accomplish their goals, but that doesn't make you better than them. That doesn't make you of a higher class or status than them. Right, right, the, the idea. The idea is to recognize that you have power that they don't and figure out how to give that power away.
Speaker 2:To me, that is how, as as Christians I mean it makes me think of the Christ hymn right. I mean it makes me think of the Christ hymn right that Christ did not see equality with God as something to be grasped, but came in the form of a servant right. That is how we act and function in the world, and so with that, I think there's also we need to do a better job of embracing what are best practices that are data driven, and what we've done for a really long time in faith communities, typically in the form of like a gospel rescue mission, is say hey, here's this big giant shelter that we made where you're going to get a very, extremely Christian experience very often, whether you like it or not, um, which we get to do because we're giving you food, shelter, clothes, you have to obey all of our rules to keep your bed every night, which include going to Bible study, listening to a sermon before you eat, all of these sort of high barrier expectations and if you prove yourself worthy by getting through our program with all of its expectations, then you've demonstrated to us that you are ready for housing. Right, that model doesn't work.
Speaker 2:It's not effective at ending homelessness, and actually what has proven to be true is that moving someone directly into housing and then surrounding them with the services that they need is what does work right. But people of faith are often very resistant to that because we've believed this idea that, in order for them to be successful in housing, they have to undergo some kind of life transformation, something about them has to change in order to integrate into society. Again, it all comes back to that central myth we talked about, right, that the reason that they're experiencing homelessness is because something is wrong with them, instead of there's something wrong with our systems, our society, that creates this problem. And so, in like, the Christian response to homelessness is very often uh, we need to fix you so that you can be a part of us, right, right, rather than we need to fix us to make space for you, right.
Speaker 1:Right that and that I think that patronizing attitude is not unique to Christians, but it is there for sure in a lot of Christian ministries. So I would say it goes as far as the structural things that you're talking about of like you have to fulfill these programs in order to maintain access to our space or in order to get access to our space or in order to get access to housing or whatever, and I think people get frustrated. The San Diego homeless service sector is a little more secular for the big ones and they also have people going through programming that is just like. I don't need this. It's a waste of my time and I have to go through, jump through all these extra hoops. They have curfews or chores. You know the the way that chores have, um, have hurt people in in some of the systems in San Diego, like you know, I've had people that I've had to decide between making it home to do their chores and keeping the job that they got, you know, and where they're going to lose housing because they didn't clean the bathroom and the organization's not willing to move the bathroom chore to accommodate a new job, and you know, and you just get put in these impossible situations. So in a systemic way, but then also just in the in the attitude way. So, like we have there's some visiting churches that come and serve coffee and snacks, and I think this is like an issue we work on with people to kind of learn.
Speaker 1:So many people in our church have experienced homelessness that we're all the same. You know we're all one body and we're pretty integrated in terms of like who's doing what. But people that often come from the outside just serve with this like really you know just not self-aware about the way that they sometimes can patronize people who come through the door even in. You know we'll sometimes pray before we open up and some of the ways that people will pray is just an indication of like I thank God that we're here because all these people desperately need us and you know it just be it's, you know, making like babies out of the people that are coming here through and not recognizing the wisdom and the skill and the ingenuity that walks through the door, um, as people come through, and the things that we have to learn from, from others who have a different life experience.
Speaker 1:So some of it is is kind of flipping that script right and learning how to um, just humanize people, which I mean it seems almost like ridiculous to have to say that, but you do have to say it. You know I. You know housing, the housing first stuff you know. Maybe I found really helpful Some of the things you talked about in your book, about just the stats around, like housing affordability and homelessness. Could you say a little bit about, like some of the, some of the um, the actual correlations and causes of of homelessness? Does that question make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so and and and the. Since I wrote the book, the data has only, you know, come out more explain that, ultimately, homelessness is fundamentally an issue of housing affordability and availability period. We talk a lot with homelessness, you know. We get very stuck on things like mental health, substance use, maybe disability. We like to blame these other Ailments and systems for homelessness, and I think a lot of it is. It's well intentioned, right, but but it misses the mark. And it's really important that we understand the relationship between those things. Right, because you know, chris I know because we've spent a lot of time working with people experiencing homelessness that like, yeah, substance use disorders are real, they're a big part of the experience, so is mental illness, so is disability, but those things don't cause homelessness. Or when we look at a systems level, right, and the really really fascinating parallel because this one blew my mind, right Is that poverty actually doesn't cause homelessness on a systems level, right, they're actually. So if someone is experiencing homelessness, they probably experience poverty on the way, right. So on an individual level, you can say, yes, poverty is a contributing factor to some of these homelessness. You can say the same thing about mental illness, substance use, right. But when you look across the United States, most cities experience those things to the same degree, right, but they don't experience homelessness to the same degree. And if you look at what are the poorest cities or states in the country, they have the lowest rates of homelessness, not the highest, right? If you look at the states that have, for whatever reason, higher rates of substance use disorders a state like ohio they have lower rates of homelessness than their neighbors, right same with mental illness. There actually is no correlation on a system level between any of those things and homelessness. The only thing that correlates is the price of housing and the vacancy of housing, right, and that's why you could actually make the argument that, rather than poverty being associated with homelessness, homelessness is actually more associated with affluence in a city. That actually, the richer the city, the more homelessness they have, because the richer your city is, the more expensive housing is, right. So it's this great analogy and I get most of that from a great book called Homelessness is a Housing Problem, which is a very like data ebook if you're into that kind of nerdy thing.
Speaker 2:But they use this great analogy of musical chairs, right? So imagine you're playing a game of musical chairs. There's 10 chairs, 10 people. The music starts, everyone's going around the chairs and one chair gets taken away. Right, that's how the game works. The music stops, everybody scrambles for a chair. One person gets left in the middle. You notice that person has a broken foot, right.
Speaker 2:There's one way to look at that that says, oh, greg didn't get a chair because his foot is broken. Right. You can be compassionate and say, oh, we should help greg, you know, we should give him crutches, or someone should try to help him get a chair. Or you can be uncompassionate and say, well, chris should have been more careful, chris should go to physical therapy if he wants to get a chair. But both of those, I think, misunderstand the problem.
Speaker 2:Right, the problem isn't that Greg's foot is broken.
Speaker 2:The problem is we took the chair away, right, right, and so that is how homelessness works, right? The problem is is we don't have enough housing that is affordable and available for the people whose incomes demand that they need an affordable rent. Right, we don't have enough units for them, and so the people who end up getting left out are the ones who already have some sort of vulnerability. Right, the person who can't get a chair in that system is the one with the broken foot and, unfortunately, the way that the numbers look across our country for how many available units there are for the people that need them. It's actually like we take six chairs away instead of one chair. The national average is that there's 37 units for every 100 people who qualify for them, and I think when I looked in San Diego, it's like 25, right, yeah. So that means if you are, even if you're working, but you make less than 30% of the area median income in San Diego, there is a 75% chance that you're not going to get a unit that you can afford.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean that when you that's those are mind blowing things, like you said, where you're like, oh, like this is, this is the cause of all of this. And it makes sense on, you know, because I think some especially more liberal folks actually, I think, tend to be confused, like why is there so much homelessness in West Coast cities that have more robust systems of support and are a little more compassionate and have better minimum wages and stuff? And the reason is because housing is so expensive here and there just isn't enough of it. Right, and in some ways it's as simple as that. And then once people fall into homelessness, then all the other issues come up, if they weren't there already.
Speaker 1:Then you get physically ill, then your mental health takes a dive. You're more likely to become addicted once you're on the streets, because if you haven't slept in weeks and you can you can't afford a house, a place to stay, but you can afford a little bit of heroin or fentanyl that's going to help you actually get a night's sleep. You know, eventually that becomes a temptation that's really difficult to overcome. And you know, like there's just the cause and effect of some of these issues is just not what people assume a lot of the time and you know we just we got to have more places for people to live and more opportunities for people to get into housing that they can afford, and it seems to only be getting getting worse, you know, as with inflation, and this is why so many people in our you know, some of our church folks are real love to talk about, you know, private equity and train the housing market and driving up prices and a lot of those issues. Because you know these are like hidden things that most people that aren't thinking seriously about housing and homelessness, like you, just don't think about this stuff because you just see someone on the street and you think they need some food or they need work or whatever.
Speaker 1:But when you kind of dig in and you actually begin to understand how things work, you know it all kind of clicks together and makes sense. How can churches be a part of the solution? I know for our church, like we're there, we don't even have a place ourself. You know we're renters paying too much rent in a downtown place. Um, there's no way that we're going to be building housing for people at this point. Or maybe, maybe in, you know, someone gives us a bunch of money or something, but you know how. How can churches or the church in general like help with this issue?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, you have people power, right. I think that churches really need to get serious about housing policy in their neighborhoods, in their cities and figure out what's changeable, right? Because I think we get so distracted and caught up with the type of protest which is like very easy slogans, um, and I wear them all the time, like end homelessness, house keys, not handcuffs like uh, you know, more affordable housing, like great, but there there are laws and statutes on the books that could change right? I had a really long conversation with a group that this is going to be in the book, a story about how there was an affordable trust fund that already existed in the city of Minneapolis. When it came time to actually approve who was going to get that funds, without even realizing it, 82 of the buildings that were funded were for 80 ami, which is like technically affordable housing, but just barely right. And nobody was doing that on purpose, it was just those were the easiest projects to greenlight because they could get built the fastest.
Speaker 2:And it was all these reasons that then when this organization which really it was the work of five congregations coming together and saying we're going to make a big deal about this brought it to the city council's attention and just said hey, did you notice this? Are you OK with that? Because the whole purpose of this fund Is to be for those at 30 percent AMI or less. But when it all comes out in the wash, that's not where the money goes, right? And so they they took that to city council and said are you good with this? And city council was like no, actually, this isn't what we want, what are we going to do about it? And so they actually sort of rewrote the mission statement for what that fund was for. And the next year it was 60% of the projects that got approved were 30% AMI and lower. So none of that would fit on a protest sign. Right Like change the mission statement of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in Minneapolis to prioritize 30%. Right Like. It's not sexy, right, but it's the work. Because of that, within one year, enough change was made that several projects got greenlit for the poorest of the poor in minneapolis that had that work not been done, that wouldn't have happened, right.
Speaker 2:So I and? And that only works if you have folks invested enough in understanding how housing works in your neighborhood what gets approved, what doesn't, why, what are the ways that you know affordable housing gets developed. What are the things that they run into that you could help advocate to smooth out? Help advocate to smooth out. I mean the state of California just last year approved a religious land use exemption right Making it easier for churches to build affordable housing on their property where before they were subject to zoning laws. I know an affordable housing developer in the Bay Area who had a project that was stuck in limbo for three years and she helped get that bill passed and it meant that that project that had been stuck got approved in three months.
Speaker 2:But that only happens when you dig in and I think churches have a unique opportunity to do that, because churches have, you know, longevity. They have communities that are together for a long time. That can, you know, spare resources like or allocate. Hey, you're the person who's going to zoom into city council every week because you're you're a stay at home mom, so you can. So you can't show up places, but you can zoom in right. Who's our person that's going to make phone calls? Who's our person that's going to show up for this right? I think, because churches already have existing recurring community, they have such an opportunity to plug in in that way and then, because they have a lot of people, you know when it comes time to show up, you can show up. When it comes time to put that pressure, you can put the pressure. And, like you said earlier, ideally you're not just one church doing it but you have relationships with other congregations and you know, ideally, some really rich congregations throwing their weight around Right To really get this thing done based on shared values.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And so maybe some of the work that needs to be done in the grassroots, at least in our context, is, you know, making some of those connections with the wider church community, doing some education and some information sharing, which needs to be done with thoughtfulness and intelligence. My wife has corrected me for, essentially, you know, I'll have a family member come to my kid's soccer game and ask me what's going on with homelessness soccer game, and ask me what's going on with homelessness, and then I'll end up just like berating them about private equity and the cost of housing. And you know all the. You know it's not. You know well, why don't they just move to the desert? Well, when you don't, when you're in poverty, like you know, you're not mobile like you are. If you're like in the upper middle class, you can just bounce wherever you need to go.
Speaker 1:You know, and you know I end up overwhelming people, I think, sometimes talking about this, but I think there's got to be some ways we can connect with the wider community, get people informed, call them to pay attention, which is hard right now with you know certain, you know Red people that are sucking all the air out of the room on every issue. But these are, these are the things that really matter locally and and maybe we can try to get some momentum to try to get people paying attention to this stuff so much I get so much to write a book or have a podcast episode on this or something. But yeah Well, you know I appreciate the time. I don't want to take too much of your time. No-transcript that you've learned. That's new information, any like what's the next, what's the next stage of of uh, of your? I don't know, maybe you've already answered this, but what's next in your work?
Speaker 2:of your. I don't know, maybe you've already answered this, but what's next in your work? Yeah, I mean, I'm always learning, Um, I think you know, and part of it's just because I'm I'm always growing on the professional side of this, you know. Um, I think that, even more than when I wrote that book, I'm paying attention to housing, I'm learning about affordable housing. Um, I'm paying attention to housing, I'm learning about affordable housing. I imagine the book after the book I'm currently writing is going to be more just, singularly focused on housing, and homelessness will be more of an adjacent rather than vice versa. And then I'm I'm always, you know, because it does come up a lot in our work, but also because I think there is such a strong faith entanglement with it.
Speaker 2:I'm always interested in learning and talking more about substance use and substance use disorders, or what we commonly say addiction. Right, um, I think there's so much to be said and understood about that by the christian community that really gets lost, um, but I'm I'm not at a place to speak as an expert on that. So, um, that's where I think a lot of the next few years of my attention is is going to be um, so I think, if I could fault my first book on anything which actually I have a bunch right, because you write it and then you're like, oh, I don't want to take, want to redo it. Um, I think I there's a couple chapters that I do on substance use and addiction and I would stand by 90 of it, but there's, that's that 10% where I was like, ooh, I said I said that a little too strongly or I leaned too hard into this methodology that now I don't necessarily agree with, because it came from less informed of a place, as I wish it would have, if that makes sense if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I feel like that's an area I'm learning a lot into. Coming more from an angle, I've been diving deep into issues of trauma lately and I think that that the roots of that are all around issues of addiction, substance abuse, disorders and, um, and learning. Maybe we can learn some of that together over the years here.
Speaker 1:Um, my last question for you probably uh, how do you keep from getting like jaded? You know, like, how do you keep the energy and the hope? Cause you seem you just always have like very hopeful posture. I'd say, you know, for those who don't know how to follow Kevin on Twitter for a long time, until you know, twitter basically stopped being fun and interesting to be on and and just always, like in your writing and in your work, you always seem to be able to challenge, but there's always this like underlying grace and hope. That's that's there. And I know, for those of us who are in the work, like it's hard to maintain that because there's just so much negative from every direction all the time and the issues that we're dealing with are so entrenched and so complex. Like, how do you, how do you maintain that yourself? Like, where is your hope and your and your joy and the grace you do your work with come from.
Speaker 2:I mean it comes from the people who are experiencing this right Like I've. I've never met a group more hopeful and joyful and resilient than people who experience homelessness and still wake up every day and show up, you know, and, and, and and demand in their own way a better life. You, um, or or, who find a way to make beauty and life happen, still without so much of where we think life and happiness come from. You know, um, and so, at the end of the day, when I find myself despairing which is often right, and it seems to be increasing Um, I, I've sort of built in this mechanism within myself.
Speaker 2:That sort of like reminds me that. Like, oh, I'm probably spending too much time away from real people. Then I need to get back to that. At my old job, it just meant, oh, I need to stop doom scrolling and go have a cup of coffee with what's his name or what's her name out on the patio right here. In my new job, it's like you know what I need to go sit in the drop-in center with the chess board because I need to get away from the scarcity, I need to get away from the despair and and borrow some hope from from somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's. That's awesome, Perfect answer. I love that. Um any any final thoughts? Things that you want to say that we haven't talked about, you know, at this point, Um, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:I'm really grateful to have come on here and um, I need to get back out to San Diego.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, come on, come on and say hello and, you know, let us know if you want to come and talk to a tiny little church of people that are struggling their way through it and we'll be happy to host you. Or, just, you know, welcome you to the city down here. Sounds like my kind of people. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, yeah, again, I feel like I could get asking questions for another hour, but I really appreciate the time and, um, really really deeply appreciate the work and just the camaraderie you know.
Speaker 1:Again, in some ways, you know you're saying you're on when we're online too much. You just got to go like touch grass, you know, as they say, you got to go see some people face to face, but then then there also is there has been at in CES. I feel like it's missing right now partly because of the downfall of Twitter, but, um, there there has been this camaraderie with people that are in the work that does happen online and that's, you know, just kind of being in touch with you has been an important part of that for me over the last several years. So thank you for your work me over the last several years. So thank you for your work, uh, keep it up, and um, blessings to you as you uh head out for another day out there, and I've heard it's been sunny in minneapolis this week. Is that, yeah, finally turned?
Speaker 2:around. Yeah, it's like 40 degrees right now and we're just we're ready to like put on our swimsuits and jump in the lake 40 degrees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you should come to san diego. Yeah, all right. Well, thanks, kevin, I'm going to um end the recording here, but thank you so much and um, yeah, hopefully we'll stay in touch and keep on, keep on keeping on together, thank you.
