Shared Ground

Episode 11: Quick Hits - Being Inspired By and With Lori Gay

• Sean Knierim & Allan Marks

Share episode

Send us a text

What happens when you've spent years helping communities increase home ownership only to see everything burn down? Beyond the ashes of wildfire devastation, communities face the dual challenge of rebuilding structures while preserving their human spirit.

Sean had the chance to connect with Lori Gay, CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of LA County during a 2-day working session focused on recovery and rebuilding in LA.  

She offers a profound perspective on recovery that challenges our very understanding of resilience. "In many communities of color, they do not want to be defined as resilient," she explains, "because the thinking is why do I have to appear as though I'm bouncing back?" This powerful reframing shifts our focus away from expecting communities to demonstrate superhuman recovery.  Rather, how might we create genuinely sustainable futures where people don't lose themselves in the process of finding their way back home.

The conversation reveals the emotional weight carried by those supporting disaster-affected communities. Gay shares her personal approach to sustainability: "If I need to cry every day, let it happen. Just keep pushing forward, but not forgetting that I need to walk or swim or sit and be quiet." This balance of action and reflection forms the foundation for effective long-term recovery work.

Most remarkably, the discussion uncovers unexpected wellsprings of hope emerging from disaster's aftermath. From a 90-year-old determined to rebuild to strangers donating cars to pastors who've lost everything, these "goodness stories" represent our collective hunger for connection after years of pandemic isolation. "Post-COVID, people are ready," Gay observes about this extraordinary outpouring of support, suggesting that within horrific circumstances, we might also discover our renewed capacity for compassion.

Subscribe to hear more conversations exploring how communities rebuild with resilience while honoring both their structures and souls. Share your own stories of unexpected goodness emerging from difficult circumstances in the comments below.

Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.

For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.

Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).

Sean Knierim:

Thanks so much for agreeing to talk and to be part of this last day of talking about resilient rebuilding. Could you introduce yourself and share what you're up to these days?

Lori Gay:

Sure, I'm Lori Gay. I'm currently the CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of LA County and we're up to helping families figure out how to rebuild from the wildfires, as well as doing our day-to-day work of buy, fix, keep, sell housing.

Sean Knierim:

So you're working through these communities in the last five, six months here in Los Angeles, but then for a career you've been around a lot of resilience. Can you talk to it? How would you define or explain resilience, that concept, well?

Lori Gay:

I go in and out of whether I use it as a word because people, it impacts people differently. In many communities of color. They do not want to be defined as resilient, because the thinking is why do I have to appear as though I'm bouncing back? There are a number of other folks, of color and not, who say, well, we're survivors, don't describe me as a victim, right of color and not who say, well, we're survivors, don't describe me as a victim, right. And so I think the word resilience in a lot of circles can weave through like a thread, hopefully a hopeful one, that helps people figure out where their North Star is. And if resilience looks like a light down this tunnel and I feel like that tunnel can lead me to a better space, some pasture that I need, then that's who I am and that's what I'm doing and it keeps me going.

Lori Gay:

I don't know if I want it to define me as a person, but I definitely can see it as an outcome driven space, and so we hear that all the time in our work lots of financial counseling, case management, work before we ever make a loan or before we ever build a house at NHS, and so I think all these terms come into play when we're dealing with disaster and, in the end, all we care about at NHS is that families feel they're in a sustainable future. That's how we would talk about it, and we assume upon their bounce back, we assume upon their capacity and that people join the journey and jump off the journey. At all different points, what we have in common is that everything burned down. So how do we deal with that right in our human condition, while we also think about the property condition and I think that is the tough space we're at right now, five plus months in is that people are trying not to lose themselves as they deal with finding their way back home.

Sean Knierim:

So, laurie, here's a question we've been exploring with a lot of people in these conversations, like in these tough times when you're dealing with these conditions that we didn't expect right, we didn't anticipate this. How do you take care of yourself in these moments? Like I know, you live a life of caring for others. How are you taking care of yourself as you're moving through these?

Lori Gay:

Well, truth is that I'm a person of faith, so I start the day in the day with prayer If I'm doing what that little voice tells me I'm supposed to do. I work on an eight to eight schedule, six days a week. For me, that's less than I normally work when I'm serving throughout the Los Angeles region, so that's been a hard mental adjustment, and I think that for myself, I really am focusing my mind and my body on sustainable outcomes, and so trying to walk every day if possible, swim something that's physical, as they say, get the endorphins going, and then keeping my mind focused sharply on the outcomes that matter and not losing the people we're serving all along the way. And so what that means for a person like me is I got to feel it.

Sean Knierim:

Yeah.

Lori Gay:

And taking the weight on of others is significant. It's not a small thing, but I can't get stuck. If I'm carrying people or they need to drag me for a bit and carry me, just let it happen. If I need to cry every day, let it happen. Right, and just keep pushing forward, but not forgetting that I need to walk or I need to swim or I need to sit and be quiet.

Sean Knierim:

Thanks for sharing that. I also try and start every morning with a prayer of gratitude. Just the opportunity to have another day to wake up next to my wife, with whom we just celebrated 24 years of marriage, to be on this journey with folks like you. So, as you look out at all these threads that are starting to emerge and get woven into something that we can't quite see yet, where are you seeing hope?

Lori Gay:

I still find hope in people like Roosevelt, who I talked about earlier today, who's 90 and wants to rebuild. I still find hope in the families who I cried with at our Legacy Summit over the weekend. They're unsure of their journey right now, but I can find hope in knowing I give them some light right. I can find hope in knowing that, whether they're a person of faith or not, they'll accept a prayer and that I get to be giving more than I'm taking, and so I think the hope that I'm seeing is I won't go into the deep story, but with a person I met last week, pastor Debbie, who was given a car, all kinds of clothing and other items and then a $500 Costco gift card by a couple she didn't know from Northern California, because they had somehow heard Pastor Debbie needed a car. Those kinds of goodness stories do it for me. I'm that person. I still need goodness. I need to see it every day. I need to know it for me. I'm that person. I still need goodness, I need to see it every day.

Sean Knierim:

I need to know what's happening, and I can assure you that it is more than I've ever seen it and really why we started this whole effort that brought us here talking today is having seen this extraordinary outpouring, and many times without any expectation of reciprocity. People are just giving their beef to their brothers. No, they're just doing it.

Lori Gay:

And I think post-COVID they're ready.

Sean Knierim:

Yeah.

Lori Gay:

I don't know how else to say it. It sounds so awful, but we had just death in our space as the place we were grieving. For what? Three to four years, yeah. So people are ready to do something else and in that, doing something else, god help us that. We've had wildfires, but it gives them opportunity.

Sean Knierim:

And it's interesting it's similar in COVID that you come through these disasters and there's gifts that emerge, gifts of meeting new people, getting to work with new folks, learn from new folks, and I'm glad you're one of those gifts that we got through this. So thanks for being here with me.

Lori Gay:

I'm humbled and I'm grateful.