Scales Of Success Podcast

#38 - The Hidden Heartbreak Behind Homelessness with Alan Graham

• Marcus Arredondo

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In today’s moving episode of Scales of Success, host Marcus Arredondo speaks with Alan Graham, founder of Community First! Village. Alan shares how his faith, real estate background, and personal hardships led him to build a 51-acre community for over 500 formerly homeless residents. Discover the real causes of homelessness and how purpose and belonging can change lives.

Alan Graham is the founder of Mobile Loaves & Fishes and a visionary behind Community First! Village. A former real estate developer turned social entrepreneur, his work combines faith, dignity, and innovation to serve those coming out of chronic homelessness.

Find out more about Alan Graham:
Website: https://mlf.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlfnow/

Episode highlights:
(2:15) What does home really mean?
(5:22) The root cause of homelessness
(10:08) Lessons from a mentally ill mother
(15:46) A life-changing spiritual retreat
(22:12) How the food truck idea started
(25:18) Living on the streets with intention
(33:00) From RV park to healing village
(38:46) Community opposition and redirection
(43:03) A place of permanent belonging
(45:58) How it’s being replicated nationally
(49:09) Redefining success and fatherhood
(52:13) Outro

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Note: The transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.

Alan Graham

(0:00) You know, and so we drive out to this ranch and there's a deer camp with an RV on that deer camp. (0:07) I jumped out of that truck and went over there and looked at that RV and said, you know, I could live in something like this. (0:17) Not this one, but something like it.(0:19) How much do you think something like this would cost? (0:21) And my buddy goes three to $5,000 all day long. (0:25) I go, get out of here.(0:27) Five grand. (0:28) We go get a guy up off the street. (0:30) He goes, yeah.

Marcus Arredondo

(0:31) Today's guest is Alan Graham, a real estate developer turned servant leader who built the $225 million mobile Lowe's and Fishers Community First Village, a 51 acre neighborhood for those emerging from chronic homelessness. (0:43) He shares the impacts of growing up with a mentally ill mother, living on the streets and dumpster diving with his son and the day city officials had to escort him out of a hostile neighborhood meeting. (0:53) From a single food truck to housing 550 otherwise homeless residents, Alan's journey proves that change starts with presence, not policy.(1:00) His story is a lesson in faith, grit, and building homes that heal beyond four walls. (1:04) Let's start the show. (1:06) Alan, thanks so much for coming on.(1:09) Welcome. (1:10) Yeah. (1:10) Great to be here.(1:11) Thanks. (1:12) So I stumbled on you through a prolonged interview you had with Joe Rogan, which I thought was fascinating. (1:18) I think you guys went into a bunch of different directions that are highly relevant, obviously to Austin, because you guys are Austinites, but I think it applies elsewhere.(1:27) I am in Los Angeles. (1:29) And so we've experienced our own massive challenges with homelessness abounding. (1:36) And I want to talk about some of your real estate past.(1:40) I want to talk about mobile Lowe's and Fishers, how that came about. (1:44) And then there's a couple of episodes, I think through your journey that I think really helped to articulate what your motivation is and what you're trying to do. (1:52) And also exemplifies, I think, your sustainability as it relates to finding a solution.(1:57) So there's a lot of exploration that I want to talk about with you, but I want to kick it off with you wrote a book called Welcome Home with homeless being struck out. (2:10) And I wondered if you could just start off telling us what your definition of home is.

Alan Graham

(2:15) Well, our definition of home, the way that we look at it, Marcus, comes out of a book that was first published in 2008 called Beyond Homelessness, Christian Faith and a Culture of Displacement. (2:29) And it talks about, there's a chapter in there called the phenomenology of home. (2:34) And within the context of home, there are eight characteristics.(2:40) And those characteristics I'm going to kind of blow through them is that home is a place of permanence. (2:46) Home is a dwelling place. (2:49) Home is a place of embodied inhabitation.(2:53) Home is a place of hospitality. (2:57) Home is a place of safety and refuge. (3:01) Home is a place of stories and memories.(3:06) Home is a place of orientation. (3:10) And then last and not least, home is a place of affiliation and belonging. (3:17) And so what we try to tell people is, notice that in all of those characteristics, there's nothing about four walls and a roof, even though those are important.(3:28) That if you really want to understand homelessness, you must first understand what home is. (3:35) And the embodiment of what home is.

Marcus Arredondo

(3:38) So there's a lot to unpack there. (3:40) And maybe I'm a little bit biased because it was a friend of mine, but you've been doing mobile Lowe's and Fish's for now 17, 18 years, right?

Alan Graham

(3:51) Yeah, 20, 27 years. (3:53) 1998 is when we founded.

Marcus Arredondo

(3:55) Yeah. (3:55) And I think it's just relevant in Austin because it took place in Austin in 2012, a buddy of mine who was at an advertising agency had sparked this initiative for South by Southwest. (4:08) It was called Homeless Hotspots.(4:11) I don't know if this rings a bell to you. (4:13) And there was a lot of backlash on it. (4:16) And I had a pretty extensive conversation with him who put it together.(4:19) He was working with the Homeless Foundation there in partnership. (4:24) And I don't mean to stress that particular initiative, but one thing that we talked about heavily as it relates to the genesis of homelessness and finding an on-ramp to becoming housed was community, was social bonds. (4:43) And I think in a timeframe where we got exacerbated by the pandemic and our isolation in a number of ways, I think that became more apparent.(4:54) Homelessness did definitely swell after that in Los Angeles. (4:58) I can only speak to that. (5:00) And I'm wondering, you spent a lot of time in being homeless with those you're trying to serve.(5:08) And I guess where I'm going with this is what have you been able to find out through that experience about how people become isolated, how they start to lose those social connections?

Alan Graham

(5:22) Well, everything begins with what we believe is the single greatest cause to homelessness, which is a profound catastrophic loss of family. (5:33) Because for you and the entire audience that will be listening to this podcast, everyone has within their family, a drug addict, an alcoholic, or somebody battling a mental health issue. (5:46) I have virtually never run into anybody that doesn't have that experience.(5:54) But somehow, you and I and our respective families, no matter how dysfunctional that situation may be, remain in the game, continue to come up underneath our family members, try to help them the best that we can, and really try to ensure that they never find themselves homeless on our street corners. (6:18) But for less than 1% of 1% of our population in the United States, that's 1% of 1%, there's been a profound breakdown of that family unit and the forged family that would normally come in and help out when there's catastrophe within the families, because there's always something going down. (6:43) Somebody gets killed, a divorce, lots of things happen in our family unit.(6:50) So that would be number one, and the big one, single greatest cause to homelessness being a profound catastrophic loss of family.

Marcus Arredondo

(6:58) And how do you suggest or what have you seen to be among the more pragmatic and sustaining methods to mitigate from that? (7:07) We can never know when a death is going to happen. (7:10) We're never going to be anticipating a catastrophic event like a loss of job or something to that effect.(7:17) How do you, knowing that sometimes families, those points of stress, really articulate, amplify the systems you have in place within a family, how we communicate. (7:29) If there's a lot of families I know who I'm close to, don't always have great systems to stay in touch and to stay around each other. (7:37) And I'm curious if you've seen ways to, not just within your family, I think I heard you say forged families.(7:44) And I'm curious what you mean by that, because that seems not just through marriage, but also probably friendships and other close relationships that you form through children or what have you. (7:56) But what do you see for those who are not unhoused? (7:59) How do you preemptively try and, because no one thinks this will happen to them.(8:07) And it does.

Alan Graham

(8:09) Well, it happens to every one of us. (8:11) All of us have that family member. (8:13) And my big advice is to stay in.(8:17) Don't attempt to abdicate the problems that you're experiencing within your family to a system that really and truly cannot humanly respond. (8:31) So the government doesn't have some type of a magic wand to fix these problems. (8:40) And when it involves humans, it requires a human to human, heart to heart response to that deal.(8:49) So I would say that the big thing that we need to face, and it's going to take us a couple of generations to overcome this, is the devastation that we have put family and community into in this country. (9:05) Now, David Brooks, the moderate to conservative New York Times writer, wrote an article in April of 2020, I believe, right when the pandemic was getting cranking, entitled The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake. (9:30) And it's a phenomenal article that really describes the power and the value of the forged family.(9:40) That this idea of the leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, if that makes any sense to any of our listeners here, family, it never was a reality. (9:52) And it was a manufactured Madison Avenue reality. (9:57) And, you know, the families in reality are like all of our families, man, there's dysfunction within our families, there's lack of perfection.(10:08) And, you know, I like to share with people that, you know, my mother was profoundly mentally ill, institutionalized many, many times over the course of her life. (10:20) But my mom never, ever spent a night homeless. (10:25) And she was a mess, and subjected to the most powerful psychotropic drugs, electric shock therapy.(10:35) And it was just, and trying to raise four boys as a single mom, very difficult proposition for her. (10:46) But she had a mom and dad that really loved her and cared for her and battled at her side as long as they were alive.

Marcus Arredondo

(10:54) How has that experience as a child to a mentally ill mother shaped how you view homelessness?

Alan Graham

(11:03) Well, clearly, it's had an impact. (11:07) I continue to unpack, I'm almost 70 years old here. (11:11) So I continue to unpack the impact of really that extraordinary gift of being raised by this woman, who was awesome.(11:21) I wish she was here today. (11:23) But I think it's instilled in me a level of compassion, that perhaps if I didn't have that experience, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have.

Marcus Arredondo

(11:33) Yeah. (11:34) Well, I want to talk a little bit about that compassion, how Mobile O's and Fish's came about. (11:38) Because as someone who is in real estate, and knowing that you had a vibrant, successful real estate career as a developer, an owner and operator, compassion isn't typically something an adjective I use or come across when I encounter other real estate people, for better or worse.(11:59) There's a little bit of a ruthlessness there. (12:01) There is an indifference to external factors. (12:06) There's just a matter of the subject at hand and resolving it and maximizing or optimizing that performance.(12:14) This is a broad question. (12:16) So I welcome you to sort of take it in whatever direction you want. (12:20) But where did that transition happen from being in that business world that is somewhat ruthless to having the motivation, intuition, incentive to do something that was, for lack of a better word, maybe a thankless endeavor, you didn't know that there would be success at the end of doing this.(12:46) And I want you to explore this further. (12:49) I have done some research on you. (12:51) So I know that you've, for example, spent many, many nights in homelessness environments, which is really putting rolling your sleeves up.(13:00) But there is, there's something bigger that must be required in order for you to do it once, let alone repeatedly for 25 plus years. (13:12) What did that transition, how did that transition come about?

Alan Graham

(13:16) Well, the transition was relatively slow. (13:22) It required my marriage to my wife and being married in the church. (13:29) We're Roman Catholic.(13:30) I could care less about that deal. (13:32) But if I was going to marry her, it was going to be in the church. (13:36) So I pretended.(13:39) And then we started having babies. (13:42) And she started taking the kids to church. (13:47) We have five kids.(13:51) And, you know, I'm doing my seven-day-a-week, you know, workaholic thing. (13:58) And then realized one Sunday morning that, you know, the door is opening. (14:03) She's going out the door with, I don't know, two or three of the kids and going to mass.(14:09) And I thought the train was leaving the station. (14:12) And I kind of had an uh-oh moment. (14:15) And so I started going back.(14:19) And if I was going to go back and hang out with them, I was going to put some effort into understanding why am I doing this? (14:27) And I developed a very intellectual relationship with Christ, just a head relationship. (14:35) And then in 1996, I got invited to go on a church retreat given by men for men at my parish.(14:42) And had I known, brother, that men were going to hold hands with each other, I would have never gone. (14:50) But it turned into that deal pretty fast and the bromance hugging it out. (14:56) But by the end of this 30-hour, two-day retreat, that head relationship that I had with Christ just dropped right into the depth of the cave of my heart.(15:10) And, you know, how do I become a better husband? (15:12) How do I become a better father? (15:14) How do I become a better member of my parish?(15:19) God, what do you want me to do? (15:22) And, you know, I was asking questions. (15:24) I had a, you know, a moderately successful real estate gig going on.(15:28) And, you know, I was, okay, I'll, you know, join the Knights of Columbus. (15:33) I'll cook barbecue on a Sunday. (15:35) I'll, you know, whatever those little things were that ultimately led to the founding of Mobile Oats and Fishes and the idea to go feed homeless people on the street.(15:46) And now that's turned into this crazy organization that we run now. (15:54) That's how it happened.

Marcus Arredondo

(15:55) Uh, I want to talk about that organization next, but before we leave, I can't overlook the intellectual relationship with God. (16:02) Share a little bit more about what that meant to you or, and maybe give us some examples of how that manifested itself as compared to when it dropped into...

Alan Graham

(16:11) Well, there are, you know, there are issues around our faith that are extraordinarily difficult to understand. (16:23) The idea that God sent an angel to a little Jewish girl and impregnated her through the power of the Holy Spirit and that she gave birth to the Savior of the world who was ultimately executed, buried, and rose from the dead and spent another 40 days hanging out with his bros and then ascended under his own power into heaven takes some faith. (17:02) And so at some point in time, you just got to kind of buy into it intellectually to go, okay, because, you know, other than all the anthropological proof and the written proof that's out there, people really want to see it visibly.(17:21) They want to be like doubting Thomas and be able to stick the finger in the wound of Christ. (17:26) And we're all that way, and I get it. (17:28) But short of that, you just got to have faith.(17:31) So that's where I talk about the intellectual relationship. (17:36) And then that heart experience, where I really felt the power of the Holy Spirit enter into my life, was really a game changer at that point.

Marcus Arredondo

(17:46) What do you think would provided the... (17:48) greased the wheels, so to speak, that allowed that to happen during that 30-hour retreat?

Alan Graham

(17:54) During that 30-hour retreat, 10 men that were members of the parish that had been preparing for this retreat, about 30 or 40 guys were preparing for the retreat, but 10 of them gave what we call witnesses throughout the 30-hour period of time. (18:13) And, you know, when us guys get together, historically, our relationships are pretty extremely shallow. (18:21) We're going to talk work, we'll talk sports, we'll talk hunting and fishing, and we'll talk women.(18:31) We don't go much deeper than that. (18:35) And so I get into this retreat, and one guy after another over this 30-hour period of time would get up in front of us and vomit out some of the most sinful, putrid stuff that you could imagine, the kind of stuff that I'd want to go up, pat him on the back and go, you know, bro, you ought to keep that stuff in the deepest, darkest recesses of your skeleton closet. (19:04) But then they would connect it to forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, and redemption.(19:12) And that was the game changer. (19:14) It moved my relationship with other men from the shallow relationship that I mentioned earlier, to a very deep human relationship with guys. (19:25) And you're not afraid to go, yeah, I'm one of those sinful people.(19:30) This is what I'm struggling with, etc.

Marcus Arredondo

(19:33) I really appreciate you sharing that. (19:34) I've had my own, I was raised Roman Catholic. (19:38) I am not any longer, but I consider myself a spiritual person.(19:42) I think that can be defined in a number of different ways. (19:44) But recently, I heard a podcast where I believe he was a theologian, had referenced the original translation of the Bible may have inaccurately translated a word into faith, which may more appropriately be translated into commitment. (20:05) And your description to me resonates because the idea of committing to the reconciliation, (20:16) the redemption, the forgiveness, all of that type of stuff, if we can, for me personally, (20:22) and I'm not suggesting anybody else do this, but if we can remove some of the ceremonial (20:26) aspects to this religion, and certainly some others, and focus on some of the pragmatic and (20:35) implementing behaviors you can participate in proactively, I think you can harness some of that (20:42) potential access to a God, however that may be. (20:48) But that commitment requires some faith that something will result from it, that redemption will arrive, which brings me to my next point, which is starting mobile loaves and fishes.(21:01) I want to talk to you about a specific incident that you had referenced back in 2008 at a neighborhood meeting imploding. (21:10) But if you could set the table for everybody who's listening, what was the initiation of this organization? (21:21) And how did it, because I believe it started from a food truck.(21:25) And so how did it grow from there into something different? (21:28) And what was the motivation of the food truck from the beginning?

Alan Graham

(21:31) Yeah, so my wife and I were having coffee with a girlfriend of ours one day in the spring of 1998, and she was telling us about a ministry in Corpus Christi, Texas, where on cold winter nights, multiple churches would come together and pool their resources to take out to the men and women that were on the streets of Corpus. (21:56) And at that moment, the image of a catering truck, a roach coach came out of my subconscious mind into my conscious mind as a distribution vehicle from those of us that have abundance to those that lack. (22:12) And I'm a serial entrepreneur.(22:14) I've been dreaming dreams all my life and going out and chasing them. (22:21) And so, you know, I've taken my wife up and down the entrepreneurial roller coaster. (22:27) And so it took me about a week or two before I actually went to her and said, hey, babe, I have another idea.(22:35) And she just looked at me and said, oh, my God, here we go again, because she knows that when I get on point, I'm on point and, you know, until it dies. (22:47) And and so I shared the idea with her and and then I shared it with a buddy. (22:53) And and I said, let's go buy a fifteen hundred dollar junker, man, and we'll put a little TLC into it and we'll go feed homeless people.(23:03) That's all we were trying to trying to do. (23:06) And but people just started throwing money at us and we were able to, you know, buy really a very nice truck and equip it with a brand new catering bed and that just blew. (23:22) It was unbelievable.(23:24) Awesome.

Marcus Arredondo

(23:25) And you just drive to certain communities that had a more prevalent homeless population or were there certain destinations in mind that you wanted to go serve that community in particular?

Alan Graham

(23:35) Well, we just started, you know, the it was founded out of St. John Newman Catholic Church. (23:41) St. John Newman sits in the middle of one of the highest income neighborhoods in Austin, Texas, where I raised my family. (23:50) And, you know, a lot of the billionaires of Austin live in that zip code.

Marcus Arredondo

(23:55) Yeah.

Alan Graham

(23:55) And I was not that we were on the poor end of that, but not poor. (24:00) And we would just go into town and, you know, find people on street corners, alleyways, under bridges, same place they are that you would go in L.A., man. (24:11) Then you don't have to drive far in L.A. to go find a homeless person.

Marcus Arredondo

(24:15) Yeah.

Alan Graham

(24:15) And same thing here in Austin, just not at the scale of an L.A. And that's what we started doing. (24:23) And we started connecting with these men and women on the streets and it became very profound. (24:29) And then in 2003, I started what we call the street retreats.(24:34) And I took a group of about 14 or 15 of us from church and we went out and spent 72 hours on the streets. (24:44) And that too was a game changer, man. (24:50) Relationships really began to turn intimate with our friends and neighbors on the streets.(24:57) And then in 2004, a buddy of mine called me and said, I'm looking at buying a ranch outside of Austin in Fredericksburg as a San Antonio. (25:09) You should know where Fredericksburg is, not that far. (25:13) And you want to go with me and look at it?(25:16) I go, yeah. (25:17) You know, and so we drive out to this ranch and there's a deer camp with an RV on that deer camp. (25:23) I jumped out of that truck and went over there and looked at that RV and said, you know, I could live in something like this.(25:33) Not this one, but something like it. (25:35) How much do you think something like this would cost? (25:38) And my buddy goes $3,000 to $5,000 all day long.(25:42) I go, get out of here. (25:44) Five grand, we go get a guy up off the street. (25:47) He goes, yeah.(25:48) Well, I went and bought an RV. (25:50) And in March of 2005, 20 years ago, we moved that guy who still lives with me here up off the streets into a privately owned RV park. (26:02) And that started another entrepreneurial dream of building an RV park dedicated to the homeless.

Marcus Arredondo

(26:10) So there's a lot that I want to explore there, but I want to talk about the 72 hours, which you've done repeatedly since 2003. (26:17) Yeah. (26:18) I mean, I might be misspeaking or projecting, but I would imagine that there's some trepidation at first going into the streets.(26:28) Maybe there wasn't, but did you ever fear for your safety? (26:31) How did you integrate into that system? (26:34) Were you seen as a foreigner that was an interloper that was unwelcome?(26:39) Tell me a little bit more about that experience because that seems not just profound, but also challenging to actually muster up the willpower to do.

Alan Graham

(26:48) Yeah. (26:48) For me, on a personal level, there was no fear of doing that. (26:57) But for a lot of people, there is.(27:00) There's just the biases and stereotypes that we have all built around this population, mentally ill, criminals, drug addicts, all the thing. (27:14) And so several people on that retreat had to overcome that. (27:19) But normally, it takes somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds once you're dropped off the street to overcome that fear because you're standing in the middle of downtown, walking around on sidewalks in downtown, which you've done a thousand times, and you never even thought about fear.(27:38) And so that goes away pretty quick for most people.

Marcus Arredondo

(27:43) And how are you spending time? (27:45) Do you start shaking hands with people? (27:47) Do you wait for the next morning?(27:50) Just put me in a little bit of that real life scenario.

Alan Graham

(27:54) Well, we were dropped off at Woolridge Park, which is a park in the middle of downtown. (27:59) And it's a park where a lot of homeless people would gather, especially toward the evening. (28:07) And so we're standing out there.(28:08) And because of my notoriety with the food truck operation, I knew people. (28:17) But this one guy that I didn't know came up, my son, who at the time was 14 or 15, and a lawyer friend of mine. (28:25) We were standing there together and this guy comes up and he basically is looking at us.(28:31) We got the backpack, but we don't look. (28:33) Yeah. (28:34) And he goes, what are you assholes doing here?(28:37) And well, we're on a, you know, we're on a retreat and you know, blah, blah, blah. (28:43) And he goes, are you guys interested in going dumpster diving with me tonight? (28:51) And you know, when I think about dumpster diving, it's diving for food and it doesn't sound very appealing.(29:00) But before I could say no, my 14, 15 year old son said, hell yeah. (29:07) And next thing you know, we're pushing a grocery cart around Austin, an HEV grocery cart, buggy as they call them, and jumping in one construction dumpster after another in downtown and harvesting recyclables. (29:27) It was an amazing night where I learned the work ethic that people are willing to go through and just the entrepreneurial nature of who they are.(29:43) And then I've done so many of those retreats. (29:46) I've probably logged over 250 nights on the streets in that period of time.

Marcus Arredondo

(29:53) Yeah. (29:53) Not many people of your caliber would be willing to roll their sleeves up and get legitimately dirty like that. (30:00) Yeah.(30:01) What do you think is most misunderstood or do people get wrong about those who are homeless or unhoused?

Alan Graham

(30:11) Well, nobody ever, I've never met a human that would choose that lifestyle.

Marcus Arredondo

(30:18) Of course.

Alan Graham

(30:19) And everybody thinks that people make a choice to do that. (30:25) Number two, they are not lazy. (30:28) It's an absolute workout to be out there and to navigate for food, get clothes cleaned, to find a reasonably comfortable place to sleep.(30:44) Takes an extraordinary amount of effort. (30:48) There's a lot of mental health issues out on the streets, but all of that is fueled and manufactured by just being on the streets. (30:58) And the overwhelming vast majority of those mental health issues are manageable even on the streets.(31:07) The men and women that I've met come from a level of trauma that is difficult for most people to understand. (31:15) When you find a woman on the streets and typical demographics are about 25, 30% of the homeless population are female, to survive on the streets as a female, you're going to have to do drugs if you're there long term, chronically homeless. (31:39) To do all that, you're going to have to prostitute.(31:43) And you could almost ask every woman that's out there that's been there for any length of time, how many times have they been sexually assaulted throughout the course of their life? (31:55) And they can't answer the question. (31:58) They don't know how many times.(31:59) It's so many. (32:01) And most of it began with the most trusted people in their lives, which were their fathers or brothers or uncles.

Marcus Arredondo

(32:09) You said that these women would almost have to be using drugs. (32:15) What's the reasoning behind that?

Alan Graham

(32:17) Well, just to be able to, first of all, you can't afford a drug habit and have no income. (32:22) So you're going to prostitute. (32:23) Men and women are prostitutes out on the streets in order to afford a drug habit.(32:31) So that's just the culture down there of the street.

Marcus Arredondo

(32:36) So can you start telling us a little bit about Community First Village? (32:39) Is that where you are? (32:40) Yeah, that's where I'm at.(32:42) Yeah, I'm in my office. (32:43) And you live there, or is that just your office? (32:47) No, I live here.(32:48) Yeah. (32:48) And is this the ranch that your buddy introduced you to? (32:52) That's just the idea that you got it.(32:55) Okay. (32:55) So tell us how that strike of lightning in your head came to fruition.

Alan Graham

(33:00) Well, it was just the story I told earlier about the RV. (33:04) So the moment I got that RV, I thought it was a really inexpensive way of creating a home and housing, actually. (33:16) And so I started to fantasize about building an RV park.(33:21) And as a real estate developer, I went and hired a consultant in the RV industry to teach me everything they knew about developing and operating an RV park. (33:33) I paid them $15,000 and started planning an RV park. (33:40) And I mean, it's no longer an RV park.(33:42) It's a full-blown master plan community, but it morphed out of that simple idea.

Marcus Arredondo

(33:49) So talk to me a little bit about the challenges of getting that going, because it sounds like you've had in differing levels, some form of municipal community support, and that has also vanished at different times. (34:01) I mean, this again, goes back to my original statement that there's a lot of gristle that you need to have in order to pursue this and persevere and withstand the expected and unexpected headwinds you receive from community councils and neighbors who may be resistant. (34:20) Can you share with us any of those incidents that stand out to you that could potentially have been a make or break moment that you still maintained faith to keep doing this?

Alan Graham

(34:32) Well, my initial idea was, and look, I'm an entrepreneurial real estate developer. (34:42) I'm a promoter and a networker. (34:44) So we had bought an RV and put it into an RV park and set it up as a model home.(34:55) I had a video collateral put together and a fake site plan of what my vision was for this. (35:05) And I brought the mayor, the then mayor of Austin out, this is 2006 or seven. (35:12) And are you funding this all entirely out of your own pocket at this point?(35:15) Well, yeah, or out of the pocket of mobile loads and fishing. (35:21) But I would donate money because I'd get a tax write off for that. (35:28) And so I brought the mayor out there and I said, look, uh, the city owns thousands of acres of real estate.(35:36) If you would donate a piece of real estate anywhere in the city of Austin, I do not care where it is. (35:43) I only have two requirements. (35:46) One is that the property have the entitlements to do what we want to do, zoning, water, sewer, et cetera.(35:56) And secondly, it needed reasonable access to public transportation, not perfect, just reasonable. (36:04) If you'll do that, I'll go raise all the money to do all the infrastructure on that deal. (36:09) And the mayor jumped on that like a duck on a June bug, man.(36:13) He was all over it. (36:14) And in April of 2008, the city council voted unanimously to grant us a long-term ground lease on 17 acres that they own, not too far from where I am right now. (36:28) In July of 2008, the sponsoring city council member, another guy and myself went to a neighborhood meeting that just imploded, turned into Armageddon.(36:42) The police had to be called to come and escort us out of there for our safety. (36:48) They got very aggressive with us. (36:51) The next day, the sponsoring city council member called a press conference to postpone finalizing the negotiations on that lease agreement for 12 months, which killed the deal.(37:06) That was July of 2008. (37:09) And by about April or May of 2010, after pursuing other tracts of land that the city owned, going to other neighborhood meetings, and I could only go to those neighborhood meetings escorted by law enforcement.

Marcus Arredondo

(37:28) I was just going to want to ask, which is what is the main opposition? (37:31) Where's the vehemency coming from?

Alan Graham

(37:33) Two things that people make up in their brain. (37:36) Number one, you're going to bring an incredible amount of crime into my safe neighborhood. (37:42) And secondly, you're going to lower my property value on what I've been investing in.(37:48) Both of those are false. (37:50) There's no data, but it doesn't matter. (37:53) You can have all the data in the world and it doesn't matter.(37:58) And so by 2010, I went back into the mayor, different mayor at the time, another friend of mine, and I said, well, you have to understand about Texas, we brag a lot about Texas, but we have no zoning outside of the city limits in all counties in Texas. (38:22) And that is the only thing that the not my backyard people have to sink their teeth into is zoning. (38:30) That's the only thing that requires a public hearing.(38:33) It's not that way in California. (38:37) And there's almost no other state that has that type of law. (38:43) I told the mayor, I'm going to go just outside the city.(38:46) I'm going to buy a piece of property. (38:48) I'm going to take this off of your shoulders, your public hearing shoulders. (38:54) But I do want the city to be able to extend water and wastewater to the property.(39:05) And that's when I came out here and essentially bought the piece of property that we're on right now.

Marcus Arredondo

(39:12) And then you started placing RVs throughout?

Alan Graham

(39:15) Well, we started with RVs and micro homes. (39:19) But it's turned into something much different, much bigger than that. (39:24) We don't buy RVs anymore.(39:26) But it's evolved quite a bit.

Marcus Arredondo

(39:29) To what is it now?

Alan Graham

(39:30) Well, it's just a master plan community of tiny homes. (39:34) The largest home here is about 400 square feet. (39:38) Smallest ones are about 140 square feet.(39:41) But it's a beautiful place. (39:46) I live here. (39:47) We're under construction right now on 1400 more homes.(39:51) We have 550 homes right now. (39:54) We have a $225 million capital campaign. (39:57) We've raised about $170 million of it.(40:00) Pretty awesome.

Marcus Arredondo

(40:01) Are those contributions from individuals, institutions, grants?

Alan Graham

(40:08) Almost primarily individuals.

Marcus Arredondo

(40:11) Yeah. (40:11) So I can't imagine as you integrate more and more homeless people into the community that it's been entirely smooth sailing.

Alan Graham

(40:22) No. (40:24) Neither is your family.

Marcus Arredondo

(40:26) Exactly. (40:26) So what have you encountered?

Alan Graham

(40:28) Yeah. (40:30) Look, right now there's about 475 people that live in the village. (40:35) 15 or 20 people give you a run for the money.(40:39) That's what you're dealing with everywhere, no matter what. (40:43) And we know how to deal with the 15 or the 20.

Marcus Arredondo

(40:47) Well, I would imagine those 15 or 20 are probably having some petty theft, maybe, causing disturbances, maybe dealing drugs on site, that type of thing.

Alan Graham

(40:57) Exactly. (40:58) You could look at almost all of the incidences that we have out here, and most are related to dope and alcohol.

Marcus Arredondo

(41:09) And how do you address that?

Alan Graham

(41:11) And how do you prevent it from- Look, if you're not able to modify your behavior to live civilly in community, you're not going to be able to live here. (41:22) And we will evict you. (41:24) That's what will happen.(41:28) If there's any legitimate threats, 911 is our best friend out here. (41:35) And so we have a great relationship with local law enforcement. (41:39) They're our good friends.(41:40) They're out here frequently. (41:43) They're in every neighborhood frequently. (41:45) And we got a great relationship with them.(41:50) Yeah. (41:50) So that kind of stuff happens.

Marcus Arredondo

(41:52) And what other... (41:54) Are you providing services beyond just the houses?

Alan Graham

(41:58) Yeah. (41:58) We've got a number of partners that are on the property. (42:03) We have mental health care partners, elder care partners, restorative justice people, physical health care partners, clinics.(42:14) We got all kinds of things going on here.

Marcus Arredondo

(42:17) You provide food?

Alan Graham

(42:18) We have a farm, and all the food that we grow here is free to the neighbors weekly. (42:26) We also have a great relationship with the local area food bank. (42:31) They're out here often.(42:33) I don't know what their schedule is, and they bring food out as well. (42:39) And then most people are going to be on food stamps, and they're going to go to the grocery store and buy groceries, just like you and I.

Marcus Arredondo

(42:47) And what's your objective? (42:50) I mean, do you hope that they do... (42:52) Is it that they get housed at some point within X number of months or years, or is it to maintain an ongoing residence for as long as they need it?

Alan Graham

(43:03) Well, remember in the eight characteristics of home, the first one was home is a place of permanence. (43:08) So we hope people never move out of here. (43:14) And about 25 to 30 will die here this year.(43:18) And if you give us the rights to your body, we will cremate you at our expense and turn your ashes into a granite inscribed columbarium.

Marcus Arredondo

(43:29) Wow. (43:29) And do you see... (43:32) what has been the response to...(43:34) Well, first of all, have the residents, have you seen an improvement within their well-being and their general disposition? (43:41) I mean, I would imagine just by virtue of having your necessities taken care of, it changes your perspective.

Alan Graham

(43:48) Yeah. (43:48) You're going to see a response that runs the gamut. (43:56) But I would say that 80 to 85 percent of the folks have an extraordinary improvement in their well-being and their life.

Marcus Arredondo

(44:10) And what about... (44:11) have you seen their families start to visit? (44:14) I mean, I'm just curious how this starts to integrate into their general lifestyle.

Alan Graham

(44:18) That can happen. (44:20) That's actually pretty rare. (44:24) Oftentimes the families have been obliterated so much that they don't even exist anymore.(44:31) And the ones that exist, sometimes they don't want to have anything to do with you ever again. (44:38) But every now and then we get a little miracle and we'll see some reconnection.

Marcus Arredondo

(44:43) Sure. (44:44) What do you... (44:45) I'm going to try and take this experiment that you've successfully grown for multiple decades and try and bridge a more macro application in that.(44:58) What do you think... (44:59) I mean, this is an immense undertaking and it really requires a visionary of your caliber who has a network, who has connectivity to make something like this happen. (45:10) But I'm curious if you think there's availability for this being replicated in any other way.(45:17) I am thinking about Los Angeles. (45:19) I'm thinking about elsewhere in the US, not just for the businesses and communities that have unwanted guests on the street and create a layer of... (45:30) or the perception of reduced safety, but also for the wellbeing of those people to actually identify a pathway back into a productive member of society without...(45:44) with hope again, I guess, is... (45:47) do you see... (45:48) how do you see that playing out?(45:51) Is there a way to take this and apply it in other locations?

Alan Graham

(45:58) Yeah. (45:58) So we have a replication operation here. (46:01) We have three or four full-time staff members that work on that.(46:06) We have about 45 or 50 replicators around the country, including a few in California. (46:14) We have a facility in Tulare, Goshen actually, but Tulare County, Central Valley there, and they're open and operating. (46:26) They opened about a 50-unit village and they're starting to sprout up all over the country.

Marcus Arredondo

(46:34) Are the majority of those being at least the initial investment? (46:39) Are those provided by individuals? (46:41) Are you seeing more cooperation from the local governments?

Alan Graham

(46:45) No. (46:46) Primarily privately funded is what we're seeing with some government funding. (46:51) There's some funding that came out of the American Rescue Plan COVID thing, but that was printed, fake money actually, but a lot of people, we benefited from that.(47:06) And yeah, so there's some of that going on, but mostly it's going to be privately funded. (47:14) Government's not that keen on providing capital. (47:22) They provide potentially tax credits for certain projects, and these types of projects would not qualify for that.(47:31) And then the other side of it would be rent subsidies, and we're really trying to get the federal government to open up the door to more flexibility around what we call housing choice vouchers.

Marcus Arredondo

(47:49) Well, what do you have in store for the future? (47:52) Is this your full-time gig? (47:54) Do you still have entrepreneurial wishes in other capacities?(48:00) What's your state now?

Alan Graham

(48:01) Well, no, this is my full-time gig. (48:03) It has been for essentially since 2003. (48:11) And we're under construction on 127 acres right now.(48:15) Our hands are full. (48:19) I'm also, I'll turn 70 this year, so retirement's not in my future, but it's imminent. (48:29) It's a lot closer than birth, I'll tell you that.(48:35) Yeah, we'll just see what the future has. (48:41) New ideas are always coming. (48:43) I'm always working on some crazy something or another regarding this ministry, and we'll continue to do that as long as my brain is active.

Marcus Arredondo

(48:52) Are you involved in the private sector anymore?

Alan Graham

(48:54) No, I have not been.

Marcus Arredondo

(48:56) Well, a question I have asked on several occasions is how you're coming to define success in your world. (49:09) What is a measure? (49:11) How do you measure that now?

Alan Graham

(49:13) Well, I mean, I don't know how to measure it. (49:17) I'm not even sure it's something to measure. (49:21) I can tell you it's not measured by wealth and how much money or how many toys you have.(49:32) I tell people all the time, God, if I drop dead with a pulmonary embolism today, I've lived an extraordinary life. (49:42) Don't feel bad for me.

Marcus Arredondo

(49:43) Yeah. (49:44) Yeah.

Alan Graham

(49:46) I have a phenomenal family. (49:49) I've been able to be a part of this phenomenal organization. (49:55) I said in one video that if they had the Fortune 500 of the happiest people in the world, I should be number one.(50:03) I feel great about what we've accomplished. (50:10) We have more to do.

Marcus Arredondo

(50:11) Yeah. (50:12) How has this shaped your perspective, this work you're doing? (50:16) How has this shaped your perspective as a father?

Alan Graham

(50:18) Well, that retreat had a giant impact on my life. (50:28) I'm happy to say that all five of my kids and grandkids all are within 15 minutes of where I'm sitting right now. (50:37) We travel together.(50:41) You know, fortunately, I came to Jesus, metaphorically, in time to shift my focus to the value of family, and I ended up having spent an enormous time with my children over the course of their lives, their young lives and continuing today. (51:05) Whereas my father didn't have that capability. (51:09) He left my mother when I was four years old, and you'd see him every other weekend, and then a couple of weeks during the summer, and that's what you got.(51:19) Just wasn't there. (51:21) I decided early on that I wasn't going to be that guy.

Marcus Arredondo

(51:25) Yeah. (51:26) Well, Alan, I think what you're doing is super special. (51:31) I hope the projects, the replication projects in particular, continue to be successful and that they spread more because of the sustainability of its value to the people in the community, and I really appreciate you coming on and just being so open.(51:48) I think there's a lot to learn from your journey and what you're doing now. (51:53) I'm curious, is there anything you think I might have missed or any closing thoughts you have?

Alan Graham

(51:59) Man, if people are interested in what we're doing, come on down to Austin, Texas and check us out. (52:04) If you still have family, Marcus, in San Antonio, if you're down, come on. (52:08) Love to share this with you.

Marcus Arredondo

(52:11) I would love to, and we'll be sure to include your website and means of communication in the show notes so that everybody can follow up. (52:20) Thank you again, Alan. (52:21) It's been terrific meeting you.(52:22) I appreciate it. (52:23) Thank you, Marcus. (52:27) Thanks for listening.(52:28) For a detailed list of episodes and show notes, visit scalesofsuccesspodcast.com. (52:33) If you found this conversation engaging, consider signing up for our newsletter, where we go even deeper on a weekly basis, sharing exclusive insights and actionable strategies that can help you in your own journey. (52:42) We'd also appreciate if you subscribed, rated, or shared today's episode.(52:46) It helps us to attract more illuminating guests, adding to the list of enlightening conversations we've had with New York Times bestsellers, producers, founders, CEOs, congressmen, and other independent thinkers who are challenging the status quo. (52:58) You can also follow us for updates, extra content, and more insights from our guests. (53:03) We hope to have you back again next week for another episode of Scales of Success.(53:07) Scales of Success is an Edgewest Capital Production.