Cops Explain the Reality of Homelessness, Mental Health, & Addiction. Ep. 6

What actually causes homelessness… and can it ever truly be solved?

In this episode of the Broken Perspective Podcast, Colby and Jeff dive into one of the most controversial and emotionally charged topics in America today: homelessness, addiction, mental health, government responsibility, and personal accountability. Drawing from years of real-world experience in law enforcement, they unpack what the public often misunderstands about homelessness, the hard truths behind addiction, why some people reject help, and whether society is approaching the issue the wrong way.

From stories of encounters on the street… to discussions about fentanyl, mental illness, enabling behavior, and the uncomfortable reality of human nature — this conversation challenges common narratives and asks difficult questions many people avoid. Whether you agree or disagree, this episode is designed to make you think deeper about compassion, responsibility, and what meaningful help actually looks like.

Topics include:

Addiction and mental health
Why some homeless individuals refuse help
Law enforcement’s role in the crisis
Government assistance and unintended consequences
Personal accountability vs systemic failure
Real stories from the street
The psychology behind enabling behavior
Why homelessness may never fully disappear

This episode isn’t about easy answers. It’s about honest conversation.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if we just made that an island of like misfits and you just like ship people over there?

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Are you talking about the island of misfit toys? Like kind of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Like what if we turned because how fitting would it be because it's so close to San Francisco already? What if you just turned Alcatraz into uh an island that you know you just ship everybody to and let them fit for themselves and you just let them live there.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

And at least the hunger games. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

And then we can do drone drops of like food packages, and you can put medication and stuff, and like if you think about it, what would be the outcome? Those who are meant to survive and have the will to like get better. They're gonna get better, they're gonna, they're gonna get those food packages, they're gonna fight for them, they're gonna sober up, and maybe one day they're gonna swim back to society. Welcome to Broken Perspective Podcast, where we challenge beliefs to learn from others and aim to be better people. My name is Colby.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

And I'm Jeff. Today we're gonna be talking about a topic that has a lot of different labels.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Bums, homeless people, unhoused individuals, transients, drifters, and vagrants, whatever your flavor is. Today we're discussing the topic of homelessness and mental health. But the bigger question is: is this a problem that can be solved? And should it? But before we do, what are we drinking?

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Today we will be drinking some uh Great White Lost Coast. Um, I think it's from Eureka.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Eureka, California.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Eureka, California. Nice, very tasty beer.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

As you can see, we've already cracked into it. We're not uh punishing you guys with listening to the poor this time. Yeah. Um messed that one up too many times. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, so today's episode, we are talking about something that you and I have unfortunately had experience in dealing with a lot of.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

In an abundance, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

In an abundance, you know. So Jeff and I have been in law enforcement for 15 plus years each, so what 30 years combined.

SPEAKER_06 2:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

And homelessness is something that unfortunately we have to deal with. It's one of the many problems that get dumped into the policing profession as something that we should be a part of solving. Not saying we shouldn't, but um, you know, regardless, we have a lot of experience in it, and that's kind of what we're gonna talk about today.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

Absolutely. So uh I guess to get started, uh, what do you think is kind of a major contributor to homelessness?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

You know, obviously there's there's your main contributors that you have. You know, you have drug addiction, alcohol addiction, you have some really poor decision making early on in life. Right. I think probably one of the big drivers, maybe more of an amplifier to some of those that I just mentioned is like just burning relationships.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

Like so uh mental health obviously plays a factor into that. Uh, when you say burning relationships, are you talking about like with um with like different family members or because I think people have resources and I think caring people will are willing to give some resources and share those resources, resources to the people that they're close to. Um yeah, but sometimes when those have been exhausted, um, I think the end result can be uh get out and figure it out yourself. Yeah, 100% homelessness.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, I I mean I don't think it's ever really a lack of resources when we really get into it. I think there's an abundance of resources in America for people who find themselves in these homeless positions. I think what typically happens is you know, you get involved with drug use or there's some sort of mental health component to it. And really to be honest, I think there's always like most of my experience in dealing with people in the homeless population, there's always a mental health component to it, and there's probably some self-medication and drug use that goes into it. But that is exacerbated by the fact that they really, for a lack of better term, tire out their family members and maybe people who used to be friends with them, and that you can only try to help people so much before they have to help themselves. And I think what happens is you know, you find people unfortunately getting addicted to different substances. And, you know, it what starts out probably early in life as a young adult, you know, couch surfing and just you know falling on hard times, right, you know, losing a job or something over your drug use or addiction turns into burning bridges with your friends who are maybe lending you a couch to sleep on, with the expectation that you're you're you're putting a plan in place to get out of your current situation.

SPEAKER_04 4:49

Right. You're gonna try to improve yourself, you're gonna remedy the situation somehow, some way.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah. Which is tough because it's like not to put not to say, I don't know, it's like when you're addicted to something for that subset of people who wind up being homeless, like I don't know, you're not in the right state of mind. Addiction is a really powerful thing. And you know, fortunately, I haven't had to deal with it myself. Like I've I don't think I have a very addictive personality, but for some people they do. Right.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

And maybe you're addicted to positive things. Maybe not a negative things like drugs or alcohol or whatever, gambling or however, whatever may affect people in in that way.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah, yeah, I try to be, you know, but like so many times have I responded to homes where someone is calling to do like a welfare check on a loved one. And initially my usual thought was always like, Why aren't you why aren't you checking on them? Like this is this is your relative or this is your friend.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

Right, and you're not you don't live far away.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Usually it's like, well, they do they really do genuinely care about this person that they want us to check on, but they have probably have some sort of hostile relationship now. And because they care about them so much, they're still gonna call the police and be like, hey, can you go check on this person or my friend or my brother? And you know, obviously we've had to respond to those calls and check on them and you know, find them in a variety of states that, you know, are really hard to get out of.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

Right. Because what's law enforcement's role in that? I mean, somebody can be uh under the influence, but that doesn't mean uh they're fit for incarceration or something like that. Somebody can be having uh mental health issues. That doesn't mean they should be placed on a on a like a 5150 hold or mental health hold because it's not illegal. Um it's not illegal to be crazy or have mental health issues, um, but they're struggling. Right. And you're like, okay, and then I think um where we'll probably get into more is uh how exhausting it is, and I imagine it's for the family members who care about them, how exhausting it is to offer them uh the resources, um, some opportunities to uh help them better themselves, and how often they're just unwilling to take that or take the initiative steps or the the initial steps to kind of remedy their own situation. And then it's like, well, how much is it our responsibility, government's responsibility, the parents' responsibility, family members' responsibility to take care of somebody who's unwilling to take care of themselves? Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yeah, there's a lot there, and that's why I think it's such a challenging problem to, you know, address in any sort of meaningful way.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

Right. And we're just, I mean, we're simply talking about the uh like in the beginning part of it, we're just talking about somebody maybe with an addiction problem, or but there's people that, you know, are part of the fires uh that happen all over throughout California who their homes burned down.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Right.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

And maybe they don't have a family member to to turn to, but they're homeless for a different reason, or like military vets who are definitely battling um maybe some PTSD or some some things like that. Um and I think they're all kind of in their own category that uh you know gets lumped into the same same structure, you know, homeless or some sort of derogatory version of homeless, but um I think there's a multitude of ways to get there and there's ways to get out, but some people uh aren't always equipped to do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, yeah. I think it's important to maybe acknowledge that there is a wide variety of reasons. I mean, I think we've already touched on it, on why people may find themselves to be homeless, but the majority of the homeless that we're talking about are the ones that are like habitually just not making any changes in their lives and they they remain homeless, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:50

And are otherwise capable, like they're capable of not being homeless. And that's I think the frustrating one for most of us in law enforcement is the people that have the ability to possibly do something if they could shake their addiction or take their medication that's given to them, uh, but they don't like the way it makes them feel. So they decide to continue on being schizophrenic or bipolar or and have these manic episodes that you can't maintain a job, you can't maintain uh healthy relationships or anything. I don't want to say anything, but most things that are positive because um they're unwilling to uh address the biggest obstacle that's in front of them.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah. Yeah. I I kind of wonder, I think I I looked up some of this, but like the majority of homeless people, the percentage that are I think it was like forty to fifty percent of homeless people have some sort of substance abuse problem or a mental health component. And that's just what's like in the literature, but I would I would venture to say it's probably higher.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

Absolutely, because usually I would say both are almost always present. Uh the question really for me um was always which one came first? Right. And it's it's tough because we don't always get an answer to that. Um but I think uh taking substances uh can often, you know, lead to some of the mental health disorders. As you back in the day when they used to crack the eggs into the frying pan, it's like this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs. Yeah, it can lead to um mental health issues that maybe can, maybe can't be remedied. Uh, but then a lot of times I think we see people that maybe um start having mental health issues and then they start self-diagnosing with different medications to try to, you know, get escape, I guess, kind of what they're going through, and then they become addicted. So which comes first? Chicken or the egg, pun intended.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

So we mention how some there is a subset of homeless people like that have been displaced in their homes by the fires and stuff like that. Do you think that is a smaller, a a pretty small percentage of like the homeless population though?

SPEAKER_04 11:09

I think it depends. I mean, obviously, time and place. Um, I think there's a lot of uh people that I think fit into that category who are living out of their cars um as well. And you know, we have contact with them repeatedly as well. Um, but it just depends on city, um what location you are in the United States and probably everywhere around the world. Um but fires being prevalent in California and we've had uh many larger populations displaced as a result of that. Um where do they where do they go? And it's not like it's always easy to just start over and just get a new house because the insurances and the different things that that go into that can cause temporary homelessness. But I think I think maybe where you're going with that is those people often get the resources and remedy their their situation very quickly so they don't have contacts with law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

They don't like they take the resources, appreciate the resources, and quickly remedy the situation uh enough to where they kind of stay off the stay off the yeah, which is which is the point I was kind of leading towards is like majority of the population, reasonable, clear, coherent thinking people, they can navigate struggles and life's, you know, issues that come up, like such as a fire or some other tragedy, or you know, you hear people getting sick, they get like severely ill and they lose their job. And I always think about it because people like to point out those examples of like, oh, like when it comes to helping the homeless and we need more resources and we need to do more. They always use the they always want to use those people as the example as if those people are the majority. Right.

SPEAKER_04 12:57

They take advantage of the resources quickly and you don't you don't hear about them anymore.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Right. But it but the reality is those people like they get on their feet pretty quickly. Right. Like this is something I wanted to talk about later, but you know, if you or I were to lose everything tomorrow, how likely is it do you how likely is it that we would find ourselves in a state of despair where we can't can't get out of it?

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Right. It would be I don't know if this is a a story worth sharing. Um probably doesn't paint me in the best light, but there was one time I was assigned to a hospital, worst gig ever. Um, and the hospital was was um basically trespassing this lady out. They were like, hey, she's been here for three days. There's nothing medically wrong with her. She needs to go, but she's refusing to go. So I go in there and I'm like, hey ma'am, the hospital's telling you gotta leave. Why don't you gather up your things? And she was like, No, I'm not going. I'm like, well, you are going, but it's just how you're gonna go. It's like either uh you're gonna walk out of here on your own or you're gonna be trespassed and I'm gonna take you to jail. Like you're leaving. Um so I she was just full of the I can't. Like she's like, How am I gonna get home? And I was like, Okay, why don't you call a friend? I don't have any friends. Okay, call a family member. I don't have any family members. Okay, well, do you have a home? Yeah, I have a home. Okay. Well, how far is it? Is it far? Like, no, it's like two miles. Like something like, anyways, it got to this long-winded thing where I was just like, I don't care where you go. You just need to leave. Um and then I'm walking her out, and she, you know, she's saying some unkind things to me. And finally she goes, like, like something to the effect of you're not better than me. And it hit a nerve with me, and I was like, Well, I didn't say I was in any way, shape, or form, but the fact that you have no friends, you have no family, you can't get two miles down the road, maybe maybe I am better than you. Like in every way, two human beings can be measured because I'm not getting kicked out of a hospital. Like it's weird, but she just was so full of the I can't and put this this thing out there, and it kind of speaks to your question is like I use the example as like if I lost all my money and I need I could get to New York faster than you could get to your house that's two miles away. Because I have a good reputation with the people I care about. They would lend me things, I have people that would pick me up, drive me to like I can do a lot of things um that you but my attitude is I think the biggest difference. And the way I've treated people throughout my life has led to where favors maybe can be granted. Um people would loan me money knowing that I would pay them back. Like those kind of things go a long way. So yeah, I think um to go along with your question, it's there are there are there are ways that I think we would become uh successful again. One of the questions that I would pose is um I've heard back in the back in my day is if they took all the nation's wealth and divvied it up evenly amongst all the people of the United States, how long do you think it would take to where it looks kind of like it does now?

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, not very long at all.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

Yeah. I think it I think it's like the projected be like five to ten years. Yeah. To where the people that are poor now would be poor again, and the people that are are successful, and I wouldn't just say wealthy, because some people do inherit wealth uh but aren't like equipped to make their own wealth, but generally the the makers would would continue making, and the people that don't have financial understanding and don't have a lot to offer would probably spend poorly, and they'd probably be back in their same position shortly.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

And it's a good point to make that gener, you know, giving more resources and money and throwing stuff at people is not necessarily the best way to get them out of their situation. And you know, in our experience, and even just as a citizen, like you see this all the time. You see so many people who I think they're mostly good intended, but they're the kind of people that will see a you know a bum on a median and they'll throw them five dollars in the middle of traffic, and it is of my belief, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, but I I generally feel like people who will just throw money at somebody it's takes a second to do on a street corner. I believe that people that do that are more doing it for the optics and almost like to make themselves feel good about doing something.

SPEAKER_05 18:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And I I've seen it so many times on social media where like people will post about like this good deed they did that day. And when I kind of read into it and see what it is, and it's like, oh, I gave someone, you know, five bucks, or I gave them a gator eight, or you know, it's like it just seems to me like the intent is not really to do good for that person and really do anything meaningful, right? While those are also the people who tend to preach the most about how more needs to be done and people should, you know, people should take action and solving world hunger and homelessness and all these things. And to me, I'm like, well, what is the most meaningful thing you've done to assist? And when it is like, well, I give money to guys on the street corner, to me, it's just like it just seems empty.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

I seem you know what I mean. Right. Maybe they're trying to start a pay. Well, look what I'm doing, maybe it will inspire somebody to do the same. But I think we're um we're probably in agreement is that money is not necessarily helpful. Like no, it's not, it's it's you know, that that you know, give a person a fish, you know, versus teach a person to fish. Like general analogy, you're like you're solving the problem for the minute. Um, but I also I've also kind of turned over a uh maybe a different leaf on this. I saw this video uh not too long ago, and it was it was pretty impactful. I'm sorry I can't give credit where credit's due. Um, but it was this guy, and he was talking about you know, walking down a city street and a person um asked him for like a dollar. And he had plenty of money, but he was like, No, I'm not gonna give you a dollar, you're gonna spend it, you're gonna use it for drugs, and you're gonna do all the your alcohol or something like that. And then in his presence, uh another homeless person went up and gave the guy like a dollar. And then it kind of affected him, and he was like, So this person that doesn't have as much as I do gifted somebody, gave somebody a gift that I was more capable of giving. And then where he goes with it, which I thought was impactful, is um okay, maybe he is gonna go. We're maybe we're just assuming maybe he is gonna go spend it on alcohol or spend it on drugs. How many got like God's blessed us, like you and I specifically, um, and gave us wealth? Like we've they've given he's given us the tool to to achieve wealth, and how many dumb things have we spent money on? And that's kind of where he goes with it. He's like, I've spent money on buying a car that I didn't need. I've went and spent money on this, but God continues to provide for me. So but I think it I think where the difference is for me when I analyze it, I'm like, well, you know, it's what you've earned, and it's like, okay, I can give what I've earned. Um but I think humbling and looking at like you know, maybe I was I was I was blessed in a way that maybe I could give more. Um but I'm also you know, with the experiences that you and I have both had, do you just give because you know, we we often see that it's not gonna be used for good. It's not gonna it's not gonna permanently fix the problem. It may be a short reprieve of the problem. And then there's organizations, and you're like, well, you know, learned more about organizations that you know the money doesn't go directly where you think it's gonna go, and then you're like, I don't want to give to that. So how do you effectively um help people in need? Um it it's more complicated, I think, for us because we do know more. Yeah. That it becomes harder to to give blindly because we've seen the results of that not always be positive, not often be positive.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, and that's why I think intent is so important. And I'm not saying there's never a Time where you know maybe somebody couldn't use a few dollars or something like that. But in general, the money being given is we just know it. I mean, if you do any sort of, you don't have to be on law enforcement and you don't have to be in like these social services roles to understand that these individuals, money is not the need that they are, it's not the thing they're lacking. There are adequate resources when it comes to like food stamps and vouchers and things that and you know, free medical coverage. I mean, some of the homeless people that we've encountered from you know arresting them and having to take them to jail, like this stuff is all covered. They are well fed. Right. I, in my experience, over the last 15 years, I have yet to come across a homeless person that is significantly skinnier than me, unless they're like maybe on methamphetamine or something. Right. Like I just don't see homelessness in America, or I don't see hunger being an issue in America. And so for a lot of people, when you ask them, like, well, why did you give them, you know, five, 10 bucks or whatever, usually their initial response is, well, they can get a bite to eat or whatnot.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

But again, if you just do a little bit of research, like they don't need food. And we know again from our experience, so our perspective is different, and that's why we're sharing it. But these the money goes straight to buying a 40, it goes straight to buying a little bit of weed, it goes straight to buying a little bit of cocaine or methamphetamine or heroin or whatever the addiction that they have, the fentanyl, that's what the cash goes to. And cash is probably the worst thing you can give because if they have food stamps, they can't go. I mean, I guess you do see some trading of food stamps every now and then, but now with the technology, usually it's on like a digital card or something, so they can't really give it to people for drugs. But cash, they can exchange that for drugs, so it's probably the worst thing you can give. And so when I see people giving money, to me, I'm like, if you really care, if you genuinely care, like when was the last time you maybe volunteered at a shelter, a homeless shelter where there are people you know they're reaching out for services because they're there and you helped out, or you go to a reputable organization and do some reach research and say, How can I be a part of this to make a difference for those who genuinely want it and are taking a proactive step to acquire resources? Right. Because that's the other thing is like the guys that are standing on the street corner on the median, like those guys, most of them are able-bodied. And how many I remember in Arizona, so we're very fortunate where we are now in the city that we live in that we don't have a real major homeless problem. We have them, but it's not significant. Where I lived in Arizona and I used to serve, we had a lot of young guys that were, you know, they were drug addicts and or they were just, you know, criminals or bad decision makers, but they would hang out on medians, they would almost get into beefs with each other about whose turf it is over the media.

SPEAKER_04 25:09

They'll fight over property dumpsters and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah, but we had one median that was like, when I say it was profitable, I mean it was extremely profitable. And we had a guy that would sit there and like it was kind of a it was kind of like uh I don't know, he would sell newspapers or whatever. Right. And that was like his reason to be there. But people would give him money, and so this guy, I used to pass him every morning, and it was at a really busy intersection, and I had arrested him a couple times for warrants and and what have you. And I remember one time I arrested him specifically, and this dude had like a thousand dollars cash in his pocket, and you know, you have to go through their stuff and book it into evidence. And I asked him, I'm like, bro, like a thousand dollars cash, you got more money in your pocket than I ever carry. And I asked him about it, and he was just like, he would tell me, he was like, he did the math in his head. He was like, if you think about it, this intersection between the hours of say 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., you know, busy morning traffic, how many cars do you think goes through this intersection in a matter of those like seven hours or three hours? Right, how many cars go through this in three hours? And he and I was like, I don't know, you sounds like you've probably done the math. And he was like, something like 10,000 cars. And he's like, if even just five to ten percent of people give me five bucks out of those 10,000 cars that go through this busy intersection, how much money is that? It's like it's a lot of money. And so I think that's what happens is like these people, I'm not saying they're all smart enough to game the system that way, but the fact of the matter is they know how to pick an intersection and work it like a business.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

And it was more profitable for him to do that than to try to try to go actually.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

This is a dude that like a year later, because he worked this thing for so long. A year later, I was watching him, and there was a Dodge Ram pickup parked around the street corner, and I saw him walk back to it and get in his Dodge Ram, and I'm like, I mean, in some ways, I'm like, good on you. You're working, you're working a system, right? But how many people are but you're not helping anybody? You're not helping anybody, you're not even providing a service, you're just saying, what can you give me? And how many people? I do think there's people that are just like, you know, ignorance is bliss, and they're just they're trying to be happy and give give money. So I'm not saying I'm really blaming people who do it sometimes, but like, how many people genuinely think they did something great by giving that guy 10 bucks, 20 bucks? In reality, this dude is an alcoholic that that's and that's why he I talked to him before, and like he was a severe alcoholic, so he could make it through the day. He knew those busy hours to sit there in the morning, he would make his 500 to a thousand bucks. He had food stamps, so he didn't need food. He had a voucher from the uh city of Tucson, so he did not need he did not need rent money, he had Section 8 housing. It was like he got this cash to buy some weed and buy some alcohol, right? And maybe go to the casino. You know, so there's these people that like for again from our experience, we know the money's not being used in a favorable way. Yet people are, you know, inclined to just give money.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Yeah. Um I remember even before I got into the profession, uh, I was approached one time at like a gas station and somebody was asking for money, their car broke down or whatever. And I was even at the time, I was unwilling to just gift money. But I was like, hey, I'll help you out if you provide a service. And so I was like, hey, can you just put check my tires, make sure there's air in my tires? Here's my my tire gauge, and um they acted like it was beneath them, and I was like, well, I have no problem not giving you money. Um if it would have taken less than five minutes of work, and I probably would have given them a 10 because I I did want to be helpful, but at the same time, it's like they just they act they acted so appalled that I would ask them to do something for the money, and I was happy that I did that.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Yeah, it's it's crazy. Like, again, going back to the able-bodied people thing. Like, I remember arresting guys that were like the same age as me because I got into law enforcement young. I was like 23 years old while I was already on the street. There was these young guys that were, you know, again, most of the time drug users or alcoholics, and they'd be on the street corner sweating. I'd see them there for hours in the summer heat. And eventually we would arrest them for either, you know, getting into a confrontation, a physical confrontation, either with somebody else that's trying to work that corner, or harassing somebody on the street or whatever. And I remember having conversations with those guys too, and being like, you know how you have like that conversation with some people on the way to jail sometimes, and they'll be like, you know, like how long have you been a cop? And like, do you like it? This and that. And I remember trying to ask and like dig a little bit, like, why, bro, like, why are you where you are today? And most of the time it was just like they just didn't have any drive to get out of their situation, or going back to what I said earlier, it was burning relationships. They were like, My parents won't let me back home. You know, I had some friends from high school and I no longer welcome there, you know, and so like this is just what I do.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

Well, I think it's yeah, absolutely. And I think um one of the things that probably be worth talking about is some of the common ways that uh people do get addicted. Um, from my experience, um, a lot of people get addicted to pain medications early on, like athletes, um, they have some injury that occurs in sports, um, and they start just start taking their prescribed pain medication. Um, but that prevents them from actually dealing with the injury. They're like, they're just blocking the pain, blocking the pain, blocking the pain. And then all of a sudden the doctors might go, like, hey, okay, your prescription's running out, like, we're trying to wean you off. Um, but because they've never dealt with the actual pain, they keep using this medication. When the medication runs out, then they start trying to get it from their friends, they start stealing it from their parents, um, up until the point where they used to get addicted to like heroin, like that's an extreme, but that very common they get addicted to it because they can't deal with the pain in any way, shape, or form. Um, and so they get addicted to heroin. Now fentanyl has become kind of the replacement for heroin. And so that's where we find a lot of the addictions, um, at least from the the heroin side, methamphetamine has its own little existence.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Heroin is, I mean, it it was originally derived as like a painkiller, right? You know? Um, yeah, I've I've seen so many stories like that where you know, I'm always interested. And even the guys that I've arrested, like I always ask, like, man, how'd you get? I was always interested. You know, like how'd you find yourself in this position? Like, what led you? Like, nobody wakes up that a lot. You hear that? Nobody wakes up one day and is like, I'm just gonna shoot heroin into my veins. Right. Like, how do you go from you know, uh innocent kid? You know, you you most of us have gotten the lessons in school, like don't do drugs, and like, you know, cigarettes are bad and weed is bad, but then you're just shooting heroin one day.

SPEAKER_07 32:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

And like you said, I think injuries is a big one. I think that's a failure of our uh medical system.

SPEAKER_07 32:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

And our over-reliance to just prescribe drugs for a quick fix. I think I blame doctors and the medical industry a ton for that. And I think we could probably do better as a society in regulating the use of prescription drugs and how easily they are obtained. Um, my wife, you know, Lauren, she had an experience like that with uh someone she went to high school with. Um, this guy was like an incredible athlete. He was like a six, I think he was six foot eleven or seven foot tally football player, got a full ride scholarship to Notre Dame. And long story short, he got injured, got prescribed pain meds, just like you said. Next thing you know, he lost his scholarship to a really great college that many people strive to play sports at.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

That's an elite college.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Right. And now it's almost kind of like it's sad because this dude's so big. And you I remember being a deputy sheriff in in Tucson, and I would see him riding his bike around Tucson, just looking really strung out. He's a big dude, so you can't miss him. Right. And I remember one day when I saw him, I was like, I saw him kind of on the side of town that we lived, and Lauren was like, Oh, that's I won't say his name, but that's him. And I'm like, Oh, that's the guy. And I'm like, I see him all the time. Like this dude's all strung out, and so sad to see that someone goes with all this potential, getting a full ride scholarship to an injury to their life going downhill so fast.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Right. So I guess the next thing that we can probably segue to is what do we do? Like, is it the government's role, police officers' role, mental health? Like what whose? I don't want to say I I think it's the individual's responsibility, but what services could be beneficial given some of the uh obstacles when people aren't kind of willing to help themselves?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah, I mean it's a tough question because I mean I would I would agree at the core level it's an individual's responsibility to you know make good choices and take care of themselves. However, living in the great uh country that we do, we have a system in place and we I think in general most people believe we should have, and I agree, we should have a social safety net for people who fall on hard times who um maybe struggle with severe mental health or addiction problems that are so bad that they need assistance. The problem is how can we regulate better the people who abuse the system and are not taking a step, you know, hand in hand and trying to like better themselves.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

And addiction, you know, adds a really complex layer to it because it's really think about it, like someone who's strongly addicted to something, like they're not thinking rationally like you and I are. It's easy for me to sit here and say, hey, just you know, take ownership and make a better decision, right? But when someone is under the influence and they're addicted, like they're in a really bad state. So do I think the government has a responsibility to help? Yes. But to what degree? You know, right, and how do we best accomplish that? And I think that's the question, right? That's the question. How can we better serve those people, you know, and what institutions are there? You know, from a law enforcement perspective, I think most of us would agree that we respond to way too many mental health calls that are we really have no need responding to. You know, really, I think our role should be responding to just strictly the violent ones. You know, when someone calls and they're like, hey, my son is schizophrenic and he's destroying the home and he's threatening to kill people, he thinks he's being chased by, you know, zombies or whatever, the government is out to get him, and we think he's gonna hurt himself or someone else, we should step in.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

100%, because who else would do that? Right. Right. And, you know, that's been my biggest experience is that's when we, you know, that's when we're appropriate.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

We have to take action to prevent him from harming other people.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

But the but that's probably, you know, 10 to 20 percent of the mental health calls that are generated. The rest of them are, you know, people kind of out their medications, feeling depressed, you know, maybe maybe feeling suicidal, but you know, they're not making any threats or anything.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Right. And then we're just trying to guide them to resources, which is like the local hospitals, which then become can become slightly overrun depending on where you uh where you're working. It's like it's not easy to get go into the hospital nowadays and get seen quickly.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Right.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

You see that we've dropped uh people off at the ER, we've uh you know taken them on 5150 to our mental health holds, and it feels like the uh the ER is filled with them.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Yeah, yeah, it's really tough. And I think I really feel like it's tough. Like I really feel for the people who have mental health problems, but you they genuinely want to be better, you know? And that's where I those are the ones that I think we should be striving to serve the best. That's where our focus and our resources should go too. The majority of the homeless population, if we're being honest, like 50% plus, they don't want they don't want our help.

SPEAKER_04 38:12

They don't want anything. Like, even I've met several, and I'm sure you have as well, that they're fine. They're just like I'm just living my life. I just don't want to be told what to do. Right. You know, you you offer them like there's places for them to stay and go and get shelter and take a shower and get food, and they're like, pass, hard pass, just don't want to be told what to do. And maybe that's why they're no longer living at home, that's why they can't have a job, but they're mentally and physically emotionally able to, they're just like, nah. Now, so then it becomes the question is have we allowed um homeless people to live too comfortably? Like, does that cause a part of the problem? Like, it's too too comfortable to be homeless. Back to your point where you said earlier um about like their build and skinny. I in all the years that I've been working, I've never even heard, never even heard of a person starving to death. We've never even heard of it. I've heard of all sorts of things, wild things, never even heard of a person starving to death. So because there was a lack of food or resources, right? Yeah, right. I've never encountered that scenario.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Right. Yeah, you hear people, advocates and humans right, human rights people say that people are starving. We'll say people are, you know, hunger is a problem. In the world, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

In America, hunger's not a problem.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

Never heard of one.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

And in general, I don't even think that homelessness like itself is, you know, the question, one of the questions we asked the beginning was, is it a problem that should be solved? And to me, I'm like, I don't think it should be, I don't think it can be solved, first of all. Yeah, I agree I think human nature, people are gonna do what they want to do, they're gonna make the choices they want to make. And really, who are we to say you should have the home and lifestyle that I have? Right. Like I've met, like you just said, I've met several tons of like homeless people that were actually seemingly pretty happy people. I know people with more wealth, more status, better, you know, better lifestyle at face value that are way more stressed and way more depressed.

SPEAKER_06 40:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Than some of the homeless people that I've encountered that have nothing, but they have no responsibility, they have no, you know, they have no job they have to go to that they hate. They are fed. I mean, think about where we live in Northern California. You can and we've seen it, there's guys that'll set up along a creek with a nice tent, a fishing pole, their food. If they just if they don't cause any problems, any crime, and they just they're just left alone. How bad could it really be to live peacefully by a creek in Northern California where the weather's great? Yeah, people pay to do that. People pay to camp. People will go pay 50 bucks to go get a camping spot for the weekend.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

Right. They just do that.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yet these guys, they choose to, and then there's advocates out there, there's like there's these um activists out there that will demand that we need to solve that person's problem.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

First of all, who said that person wanted your help? Right. You know, and we've encountered those people all the time. In fact, in my experience, and I think there's data to back this up. I think there was a study in San Francisco not too long ago where like a group of people went out and they they did this as a study, and they went out and offered resources to a ton of homeless people. And it was like 91%. I'll look it up later, I'll provide the the resource. But it was like 91% of the people they approached and offered resources declined. They absolutely refused all the time. And so maybe that's something we could talk about, or like what are the common objections that we get in our day-to-day or in your law enforcement career where you offered resources? Like, what are the common rejections they have? Why don't they accept the resources that are available?

SPEAKER_04 42:08

Well, I think it's every person obviously is uniquely different. I remember one of the ones that stood out to me. Um there was a lady and she was um experienced homelessness, and um like I I I genuinely felt bad for her. I was like, look, you you genuinely just need a place. I think it might have been she was kind of I don't want to say escaping like a domestic violence type situation, but it wasn't like active. Um but there was resources available for her, and I actually offered out of my own pocket to to like pay for her a hotel room for her. And the hotel wouldn't allow like dogs. And she had a dog and she had a sister that lived like like a mile away, and I was like, why don't you just let your sister take the dog so you can stay in the hotel? And she was like, No, I can't be without my dog. And I'm like, So you're gonna you're gonna be on the street, like you're gonna sleep outside with your dog versus letting your sister watch your dog for a night. Very weird. Uh, but that was just one that just popped in my head that always stood out as weird. It's like I can understand people with their fur babies and loving their animals. But you're talking about like a day, and it was just very odd to me. And it was like, you're gonna decline resources, or you know, a lot of the places require you to be sober. And they're like, you know, nope, absolutely uninterested in being sober. And you're like, okay, so you're gonna sleep on the street as a result of that? Yep. Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

And you're like, Well, yeah, that's that's a big one. That I would say that's probably the top of the list for. The reasons people, homeless people, deny or refuse services is like it's too many rules. I don't want to be sober. I can't go there with alcohol. I can't take my drugs. I can't take, you know.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

I just don't want to be told what to do. There's other people, they don't want to be away from people. Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Yeah. And I think some people are homeless because they don't want to be around people. Right. Which is funny. Like you said, people pay to do that. People pay to go live off the grid. You know, and here are some people that are just choosing that way. And uh but I do think the general public, they don't they don't know the amount of resources that are offered that are always refused. And I think it's you know it's good to have this discussion and share that our experience you know shows otherwise.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

Yeah, and I'll share it. Like I have a I don't want to say a unique insight to it, but uh my dad was homeless for a while. Um and I won't get into on this episode about how that transpired in our relationship, whatever, but um it was very unique. He was just living out of his car um and just found a parking lot to kind of go where people just stayed away from him and it was very unique from the person that he was, very successful for the majority of his life, um, but then just kind of lost his will to um be productive and just admittingly, now that we've kind of rekindled our relationship, was just very much a I just stopped caring. I just stopped caring about you speaking to me, stopped caring about you know his wife at the time, my step mom stopped caring. Just he's like I just ran out of fucks to give, and I just stopped caring. And so I just wanted to be left alone, and he'll he would go to the library and just grab a book and just read in his car and just eat whatever he could and then you know just continually did that for years, yeah, like years, and it was kind of at the time it w you know it was embarrassing. Um when I when I I want to say embarrassing, that's probably not the right word because I didn't necessarily know about it um when he was doing it. He just he was gone for many a year, and then I found out that that's kind of where he was.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

But yeah, but I think and maybe I don't know what your thoughts are on that after processing it, but like I think some people need to experience certain things in life, and maybe he had to go through that phase and he needed it, clearly. I mean, I I can empathize with that, like getting to the point of I don't know, that's someone who like tries to be a high achiever. Like I can I can envision getting to a point in your life where you're like you've done so much or worked so hard or so disciplined that you're just like for what? Right, and you maybe just it sounds extreme, but you take a break from life.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

It's it's way easier to not do things. Yeah, like he's just like, nah, I'm just I'm gonna stop doing things. Right. And it's way easier to not do things than to do things. He abandoned his job. He was just like, nah, not doing any of that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

I wonder if he's ever reflected and maybe you've spoken to him, but like I just wonder, like again, I relate it back to like people, maybe like monks or people who live extremely simple, just in their, you know, they're really in their spirit, not focusing on worldly things. I wonder if like he found peace or happiness like during that time. You know, it'd be such a stark contrast because like whatever his life looked like prior to that, probably one of you know, more dedication and responsibility and trying to always do the right thing to just being like, I don't give a fuck anymore.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

I'm gonna live in my car. I'm not gonna ask for anything, but I'm not gonna do anything either. I'm just gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Like, I wonder if he had any moments of reflection of like just feeling like this is fucking nice, like this is peaceful.

SPEAKER_04 48:06

Yeah, he was a super high achiever, and not to you know go into like the resume, but he was an airborne army ranger. Um, he was very successful in in business, and um he ran marathons, which sounds insane to me, but he ran like 20 something marathons, including Boston twice. Like he was in Sports Illustrate, like he was a very high level athlete, which always made um my family, my mom's side of the family, and everybody who knew him, like they're so they were so like astonished because they were like, dude, this like what a what an a stark negative contrast to what he always was. Um but yeah, again, it's like he got it he was always drank a lot and he became very much addicted to alcohol and um yeah, just kind of wanted to escape everything. I think a part of it's probably shame. I don't know. Um he's one of those people that he'll probably never I'll probably never get all of it out of him because he doesn't talk about himself very much.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

But yeah, it's hard with alcohol and any substance because it really does alter your brain chemistry and who you are and kind of just your decision making in general.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

So I guess to kind of shift um not topics, but when we talked about like the government, what do you think the church the church's role could potentially be in in some of these things? Because I I think they help they they help now. Um but I've kind of started believing that like maybe it shouldn't be the government's role to provide those services because there's entities involved that doesn't have maybe the person's best interest involved, but something more intimate like a church setting where they can offer the resources to the person and engage in the time in the dialogue that it takes versus just throwing money at, throwing money at it, throwing money at it, which I think the government tends to do so they can raise taxes and do all the things that especially California likes to do. Um but like a church, like they they receive money oftentimes, they get tax exemptions, so so to speak. But what are your thoughts about the church providing some of those services to create some maybe some long-term solutions for it? Because ultimately they're not just throwing money at it, but you can invest in a little bit of uh food, yeah, a place to shower, clean up, um, but also maybe the resources are um as a part of the church to help them out.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Yeah. I think churches can and do play a really important role in that sort of uh you know regard. In fact, over the course of my career I've sent and given rides to people in need. Most of the time I always went took them took them to a church first. Right. Because I felt like it was more instantaneous. There was less regulation and red tape to get through versus you know, we have in our local area, we have a shelter with the gathering in. Right. And I think they can't have time to do a really good job. They provide a service, you know, but it's really hit and miss, and like depending on who you get. And anything government operated, I feel like runs like shit. You know, it's not efficient, right? And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. You know, it's not your money, it's not, you know, for profit really. And it's like you get a lot of people pay getting paid like the minimum amount of money to give a shit, right? You know, and so there's a lot of inefficiencies in government run, you know, anything. So I think private funding, private, you know, organizations, nonprofits, I think those are all great ideas. And the church is obviously a wonderful one for people to reach out to if they need help. Again, they're limited though. There's only so much they can do. And but they do they do amazing. I know so many churches, you know, local and abroad, that will have groups of people go out and serve the community and do outreach and they put out information to promote like that they're there for as a resource. And again, it goes back to the thing though, is like they can only reach the people who want to be helped. Correct. And that's always the challenge is like, how do we reach those people? And how can we, you know, the the the worst thing that could happen, I think, is there being somebody who genuinely wants help and they're ready to receive it, but they don't know the resource locally to help them. Right. You know, that's the worst case scenario, which fortunately I think is pretty rare. It is. I think most of the time, like if you need help, like we talked about already, you're gonna find the resource, you're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Especially around this area. I mean, who knows what it's like in in other places.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Um yeah, but I think you know, and they probably do a better job. It's it's more efficient. Again, there's not a bunch of red tape. Like, I've never taken someone over to a local church, introduced them to any pastor there, and said, Hey, like, they just need a place for the night to figure it out that have turned them down to like a lot of these churches do a good job in connecting with local um, you know, hotels or places where they can provide that as a as a voucher or something. In fact, a couple years ago, we had a family that was we were getting a lot of calls. Uh, there were welfare check calls for this family because it she had two young kids in the car. And usually it was during the weekday that we like was like a Tuesday morning at like 10 a.m. Call would come in, like someone would say, Hey, this family's been sleeping in their car overnight. And can you go check on them? Like, I don't, they've been there for two days in the parking lot.

SPEAKER_06 53:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

You know, and this was a family I went and checked in on, and uh, you know, it was a single mom, fell on hard times, obviously. She just got let go from whatever I think she had like a dishwashing job or something somewhere. And to make matters worse, one of her kids had like autism. So he was really hard to deal with, you know. And so, you know, having grown up with a single mom myself, I understand like not having a partner is a challenge in itself. Now you have a kid that has autism. You don't have, you know, you just lost your job. She was struggling. And long story short, I took her over after a couple calls for service. I took her over to the local church and I physically walked in with her and I we met with a pastor and I was like, hey, here's what I know about her. I'm gonna bring her in. Can you guys help her? And uh instantly, like they got her help. You know, I didn't leave the parking lot. Fortunately, we didn't have a lot of calls here, so we're good. Like I stayed in the parking lot and she came out with the pastor and said, Hey, I got two nights to stay over here. And fortunately for her, she had another job interview lined up. And we ended up seeing her later, uh, a couple weeks later at a gas station. It was funny enough, and I was just like, Hey, how'd that job interview go? And uh, she said she got it and she was able to find like some an apartment complex in Sacramento that she was able to stay at. So we do get good stories in this profession as well.

SPEAKER_04 55:12

Absolutely, that's powerful. And but it also kind of maybe circles onto something that we didn't really talk about is like being a single mom with a couple of kids how and one of them special needs to some extent. How how do you how do you work? Like, you know, okay, so who are who's gonna take care of your your child with autism while you're while you're making money? And that uh I mean obviously that becomes super problematic, and that's another that's an obstacle that there are resources for. But man, those those are probably government resources and probably not ideal in every situation.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

Yeah, and that's why this topic is so complex, is there's no one size fits all for each person. You know, again, we can go to patterns and we could talk broadly on like most homeless people, they're addicted to things, they have mental health, blah, blah, blah. But again, that's why I think like our our time and effort should always go to the people who are it is the smaller minority. Like it's those, it's those families that are struggling living in a car. And I remember asking her, like, you know, why, because to me, I thought, like, why aren't your kids in school during the week? That's a free babysitting. Like they were, I think it was like um maybe a third grader and like a middle schooler. Right. It was the age between the two boys. And the problem is they they lived in Sacramento, and she had to come stay up here for she had like a friend that let her stay one night at a property or whatever, and the special needs kid, like he wasn't able to do the program that he was in, and so it's easier for her to take them out of school. And but yeah, it's a it's another layer of challenge that you have to navigate, you know, to but again, the resources were there, and like the pro the thing that I thought was weird was she wasn't when I first met her, she wasn't out there looking for anything, she was just complaining, right? You know, and not to not to be judgmental and say, like, well, maybe that's why she's where she is in life, but like it definitely it wasn't as smooth and easy as like, hey, have you just like thought about reaching out, getting resources or going to the church? It was like I I was we had an exhausting conversation first of like, right, why haven't you like how'd you get here? Why are you not having your kids in school? And right it took some digging to even get her to go to the church, which sounds crazy. And like people at home would think, like, oh, why would nobody accept services? But like it's weird. I don't know. People do weird things.

SPEAKER_04 57:44

Yeah, some people have pride, they're embarrassed, some people um have trust issues, like all sorts of things. Um, but I just wonder at what point that that has to be eliminated, and you're like, look, I'm I'm I'm drowning here. Like, I gotta I gotta try something.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Yeah, and we've had those too, of course. Like there's been so many times I've gotten vouchers or you know, went out to you know, homeless encampments where you knew of people from prior calls and you went back out to follow up and you're like, hey, just like here's some resources, or if you you know it's supposed to be really bad weather this weekend, like you open to me driving you to this shelter and maybe just staying for the weekend and them just flat out refusing, and you're like and then the I mean we've touched on some of that stuff, but then there's the gross component of that, that same exact scenario.

SPEAKER_04 58:33

You know, crime's gonna go up because they're like, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna basically go steal from this store. Or yeah, and then I'm gonna have, or I'm going to you know, make a claim that I'm gonna kill myself so that you have to take me to the hospital so that I can get food there and get shelter. It's like how many the uptick in uh crime uh committed by homeless people definitely increases as it's about to start raining.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Or the resource during the winter months, that's a real thing. Like, like I said, we had a much bigger homeless population in the county that I worked at in Arizona. And come winter time, you would see a lot of you know, property crime or disorderly conduct from homeless people to go to jail specifically. There was one guy I had one night, the story stands out, and we got a call for service in a parking lot, and he was just wandering around by this golf course and he was yelling. He was uh he wasn't quite, he wasn't completely inebriated yet. He was just yelling and just kind of being just being annoying. And it was earlier in the night, like 8 p.m. So it wasn't like super egregious. Went out, made contact with him, and he was like begging me to take him to jail, but I legitimately had no reason, I had no crime.

SPEAKER_04 59:48

Right, there's no crime.

SPEAKER_00 59:49

I had no crime at the time, and I was like, I had a conversation with him, and I was like, bro, just like just sleep it off, man. Like it's getting kind of late. You could probably just go to sleep and crash out, dude. And it was cold though, and he actually had a business down the street that was nice enough to say, hey, you can stay in our shed. So he had a place he could go, albeit still cold. This dude was like begging me to take him to gel, and I was just ultimately I was like, bro, I can't, but I'll give you a ride back to that shed and just be quiet, bro. Like just have a peaceful night, you know. If you really need something, we'll we'll find something out. Right. And unfortunately, where I was at, there was no place to take him to. Like I couldn't just take him to a shelter. There was none. Right. And so I leave, and 30 minutes later, I hear dispatch on the radio saying, Hey, we just got a call from the uh what was like a 7-Eleven gas station down the street. We think it's your guy. And I roll back over there and he's standing outside and he's waving at me all happy. I roll up. Well, this is what happened. He I roll up and like, bro, what are you doing? And like I because he walked like a half mile to this gas station to to cause problems to get me to show up. And he's like, take me to jail, take me to jail. And I think he had a few more drinks. And I'm like, bro, I can't, dude. Like, I can't take you to jail. He turns around, he walks straight in, he grabs a 40, he steals it, it comes outside, and the uh, you can see like the uh the uh gas station clerk like waving at me like this. He comes out, he starts chugging like this 40 ounce Mickey or whatever it was, and then he busts it on the ground. And I'm like, gosh damn it, dude. So I get out and like turn around, and like we took him for like disorderly conduct or whatever. And I'm like, dude, what an ass, man. He just like, but then I think about it, I'm like, the cost, because I had to go get him medically cleared because he was at that point, he was really inebriated. The jail didn't take him, right? So I had to leave the jail when I went to go book him, run him to the hospital. I spent two hours at the hospital because they were backed up, getting him cleared to go to jail. Right. Think about all the cost involved with uh you're paying me, my police officer's salary to sit, transport this guy. And in the county that I worked in, the jail was about a 40-minute drive from where I was. The hospital was 15 minutes from the jail. So nothing was close. So I had to transport this guy, go to the hospital, get him cleared, go to jail for him to go get a night for disorderly conduct where he'll be out the next day. Right. But to his point, he got to take a nice hot shower, get a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

You know, but it's like, man, so inefficient, which brings me to another point. When talking about how to cover like services for these people, when you really think about how much money is probably wasted in arresting homeless people and people that should uh have other help, the mentally ill, how much money goes into all that versus like putting it just into a resource that could help them?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:53

Which which is what? What's the resource that could help them? Like depending on you know, if it's an addiction problem or if it's right, like home like when you talk about homeless, it's people without a home. Right. But when they when you offer them, you're like, hey, here's more so the mental health component of it. Um but how many times you have somebody who's like paranoid schizophrenic or has uh you know is bipolar and they start wowing out and they hear that people are in their walls or living in their attics, and you're like, that's not even possible. You don't even have an attic, you're in an apartment. Um, and then you're like, Why aren't you taking your meds? And there's like, I don't like the way it makes me feel. And I'm like, well, but you like being chased by people in your head. I would think that'd be less cumbersome, but again, I've never dealt with anything like that. But at the same time, it's like I'm unwilling to do the things to help me. And you know, for those that are unaware, like you can take prescription meds and they they're not all gonna work because oftentimes they'll take it, but it takes you know a couple of weeks for it to kind of get everything more under control, but they want it instantaneous, the way our society is, they want things instantaneous. Um, but then they also it doesn't mix well with meth, doesn't mix well with alcohol or any other drugs, and then you have to be consistent with the way you take your medication, and they're part of the reasons why maybe they're in the position they are is because they're not the most consistent people. So um I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:32

Uh and so what are your thoughts on because obviously a lot of a lot of homeless people commit a pretty good portion of like the property crimes and stuff like that. Um when I when I say homeless, that's broad too, like a lot of people that live in their cars, right? Consider them homeless, and those are a lot of the ones that are going around because they have transportation that can go steal from neighborhoods and check door handles and burglarize homes and all that. But for many of these people that have the addictions and the mental health component, which is a significant amount of them, if jail isn't the best solution, because it's really not, you know, you know, for uh, you know, petty theft or or just arresting people for possession of but even if it I mean maybe, maybe not. But it's it's a band-aid though, because we know, especially in California, they're not gonna stay, they're not gonna stay locked up for very long.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:26

But maybe that's a part of the solution. Like maybe, I mean, getting them sobriety, even if it would took an extra their sentence instead of a citation release or release the next day, um, if their sentence was 30 days, where you get eyes on, maybe that could create long term solutions for the habitual problems. Because I think right now, the problem that we run into in this state is it's it's a citation you've got to do. It's a sign remote. Changing anything except for you're just allowing them to be more prolific criminals and the victims to have really no teeth, at least to have no teeth to remedy the issue. So I yeah, it's tough.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

And I used to think like I used to argue the same point. I would say, well, at least locking up someone who is an addict, at least it's giving them time to maybe sober up. But the problem is we don't have that in California anymore. And it's all about releasing them. But it but also most of the crimes that we're arresting them for, like petty theft or maybe stealing from a car or whatever, and or just possession alone. But like if if you so, what is the ability to sentence them longer to get genuinely sober? Do you raise the the punishment for all petty theft? Or like I kind of like some crimes in California, you have like an enhancement, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

If you're a uh if you're a uh you know drug addict in possession of a firearm, it's an enhancement.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

Well, why don't we have that for maybe like theft in those things?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:02

Like I that was my idea when they uh uh Prop 47 passed and it was like made all of those things misdemeanors, and they made the misdemeanors. Cities have an amazing way of trying to uh manipulate their crime stats, and that was kind of one of them. But um yeah, it's like okay, if you're in possession of let's say methamphetamine, okay, it's possession, misdemeanor used to be a felony, but now it's a misdemeanor, you give them a citation.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

But if they are committing a crime, they just stole a thousand dollars from the local or a bunch of TVs from Walmart and you stop them down the street in their car and they have possession of meth, or they're on probation for a drug charge.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

Right. And you're just like if you can tie into a like an enhancement of like, hey, this is a result of their addiction. Um they they need the time in jail to a sober up. And again, these are examples of what maybe could be possible solutions for it. Um, but I think right now the solutions aren't there. And so um I've heard some interesting solutions uh that um people have, and I love creative minds that come up with funny ideas. But like what would you uh what would you say some potential solutions are because and before I go into that or before you answer that, um maybe there's another question there, but like it I think welfare is kind of not too much, like the services that are being provided, um when unearned, uh create a lack of appreciation for it and a lack of respect for it. So um I think any solution that's gonna be successful has to deal with the person doing something to earn the opportunity. Otherwise, if you just give them stuff, force them to go through it, I think all of those um have a strong um strong likelihood of failure.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I relate, you know, we we asked earlier what is the government's role in solving this problem. And you know, what I'd mentioned was I do think there should be a basic safety net. But really that safety net, again, what happens is people get in that net and they make it a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:26

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:27

And as someone who grew up with a single mom who was on welfare, I understand the the process very well. And I'm maybe it's changed a little bit. I would be amazed if it's changed much. But I remember like from what I understand is they make it really easy to renew your government assistance, right? There's not many mechanisms in place to really incentivize people to get off of these government, this government assistance, which is a problem. And I think for like homeless people or even people who are on welfare, my idea of the government's role should be just to provide the bare minimum to give you a little bit of a boost. Right. You know, because let's face it, life is unfair and bad things happen in life and you can fall on hard times, but it should never be government's role to just take care of you.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:20

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:21

It should just be to provide you a boost. So, with that being said, I think like there's so much that can be done in terms of like regulating how much money is given out and to who.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:32

You know, for my mom, I remember like I remember going to her when I was young, like maybe like nine, ten years old, going to her, like, because they would do these annual reviews or whatever of your current financial situation, what you're going through. And when I say review, they were very, not very thorough. Right. It was kind of like a checkbox saying, like, oh, she has to come in. We have to do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:53

Did somebody be from person or was it like a letter?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

We would go, and I remember going, and they would ask her, like, my mom was always like, she wanted to get off government assistance, and the only reason she was ever on it was it's kind of a long story short, but like she had a really bad childhood. Um, she didn't get a great education. So she started really behind. She became a house cleaner, she worked her ass off to get to the point where she did get off government assistance because that was her goal.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:20

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:20

She accomplished it. But the government but they made it very hard for her to do that. She would go to these appointments and she would start talking. I remember she was so like, it's where I get my driven nature from. She was very like, My goal is to do XYZ, and like if I can get a couple more house clients or whatever, like I'll get off this. I remember the people would like almost dismiss when she would start talking about it. And they would just shut her down and they would they would go back to the check boxes, like, tell me this, this, and this, so they can just get through it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:50

And I think all it was was like you get a minimum wage employee whose their role is to like check these boxes with their people and get them out of the office. Because I remember there was a line of people at the welfare office like waiting for their appointment to renew. And it was like an assembly line. I think their goal is to just like get you in and out.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

My thought process was, and later speaking to my mom was like, how great would it be if, in order to get assistance, you had to sit down with like a goal-setting professional that was like, okay, tell us about your situation. Let's first of all see if you even qualify based upon what you're telling us. Right. How much autonomy do you have to like fix this for yourself now? And if you don't, okay, here's what we can do for you. But before we do that, here are some things that we're gonna put on paper that you need to be proactive in. If you have mental health problems, you have to make every one of your doctor's appointments we schedule you for. You have to stay on your medication. If you come off of it, you can't do it without a doctor's reason and a substitute or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:55

You have to meet this criteria. Maybe you're not, you don't have mental health. Maybe you're just like, you know, whatever, lost a job. Okay. You must come back to us with X amount of applications to show that you applied. We need to verify. We're gonna call and verify that you actually showed up to apply to those things. You know, you're gonna have to meet some criteria before we get to renew you in six months. Like, and in six months, if you don't if you don't accomplish the things we put on paper, no renewal.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

The problem is I don't think they have much of that there. I would be really surprised, and if anybody works in the welfare system and they have something similar to that, that's not just on paper, but that is actually like they're held accountable to, I would love to hear it.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:38

100%. And there's a lot of, you know, for lack of a better word, there's a lot of there's a lot of wasted money. There's a lot of wasted jobs, in my opinion. Um that that a job that actually is about helping people um achieve things and getting off assistance would be you know a worthwhile job to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Yeah, it's rewarding.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:06

Absolutely, or could be yeah, I have this um kind of reminded of this this story that I have. Uh so um one of my off-duty assignments, um I worked at uh this grocery store, and it was just security for it in a bad neighborhood. And they had their on-site security guy, and he was uh he was from Nigeria, and I'll shout him out because the story is so good with him. Uh his name was Mr. Valentine, and he always would be like, Mr. Jeff. And I loved him, he was awesome. And he came to me after maybe I worked there like a day or two, a couple of shifts, and he's like, Mr. Jeff, I don't understand this country. And I was like, Yeah, me and you both, man, what you got? And he's like, Mr. Jeff, I don't understand. These people, they know work and they they drive up in nice cars and they're fat. Mr. Mr. Jeff, in my country, you know work. You I was like, makes sense to me. And he's like, and then Mr. Jeff, I don't get it, man. These these guys steal and they rob and they do bad things and they go to jail, and they come out and they they look like gods. In my country, Mr. Jeff, you go to jail, you come out, you never everybody looks at you and they go, Don't be that guy. That's like don't yeah, they look like they're dead in the in the eyes. And it it it was it was funny how simple it was. Yeah, like to understand. It's like, dude, I agree with everything you're saying. Like, it doesn't make sense. Because they would be like they'd you'd have these these people, they'd show up in in Lexus's and Mercedes, and they'd go by like eight slabs of ribs and like stakes with their EBT cards. Dude, and they're obese, and you're like, this doesn't make any sense. And they'd and yeah, it was just one of those things, like, we're sometimes like, and maybe this is for another episode. There's so many things that I think just need a reset and be like, hey, let's go back to common sense. Right now, what we're doing doesn't make sense. People are manipulating the system. Let's figure it out, and you know how much money could be saved and how the money could be allocated differently.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:28

Well, we tried that recently with Doge.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:30

Yeah, and how much freaked out over it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

Like, you know what I thought was crazy about that is people are complaining that we're trying to save money.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:41

I'm called about money being spent poorly.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:45

Like, let's hold let's hold people accountable that are in positions that maybe we don't need, that maybe they're just wasted money, they're not really contributing to bettering society. Let's get mad at that.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:58

Yeah, crazy. It yeah, it was weird because it became a political thing, and I thought that would be something that everybody could get behind and just be like, wait, this much money is being spent or yeah, or uh being claimed to be spent on this, yeah, and for that to be appalling, not that it was being spent that way, but people were appalled that it was being called out and it was just very, very odd. And I don't I hate that it became a political issue because to me it just made all the sense in the world because I grew up thinking like, man, we mess waste a lot of money on the government. Like, wouldn't it be awesome if it was ran more like a business where it was like smart decisions are made? It'd be way better. Um, and then finally it it they did the most minuscule task of just not even cutting the program, just looking at it and going, hey, do we know that we're spending this much money on this thing? And people being like not mad at the money's that egregious amount of money is being spent on something that didn't actually exist, but that people are noticing it. It's weird. It's so weird because I mean that's one of the I think that's for California, that's a big component because for the last 20 years, so much money has been spent on the on the homeless, yeah, allegedly. And hasn't gotten any better, it has gotten significantly worse. And so you're like, wait, how can you have that much money? And there's a lot of you know answers of how this is being done, but there's just so much taxpayer money is being driven into solving the homelessness, and what's happening is the homelessness is you know, it's getting out of hand. It's getting significantly worse. Like, no, it's just getting more and more and more and more.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:03

Um Yeah, and people are getting upset and asking where their money's going, which they rightfully should. Right. You know, the voter base is like, okay, we've constantly been asked for more money, more money, higher taxes, yet the problem is getting worse and worse. Correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:18

And then you don't see any solutions to it. There's there's nothing on the forefront that's like remedying, there's no like outside the box thinking or anything that's going to it. Um, and there is a good video that I watched a couple of years ago. I think it's called like Seattle is dying. It's like an hour-long thing about uh the homeless population in Seattle. And it was very fascinating when somebody uh somebody asked me to watch it and they were like, How does this relate to where you work? And I was like, Exactly. And we talk about like families and the community or whatever, but um like how does it affect businesses? Like you work in a like you own a business, you're an entrepreneur, you want to have your business successful. Let's just make up that you're like, okay, you own a restaurant, but then there's homeless people basically camped out in front of your restaurant, and they would call the police and be like, hey, can you get these people out of here? You're not supposed to camp in the city, and then because the government doesn't support the law enforcement, law enforcement can't have them removed, and then this person's business goes out of business because customers don't want to try to go to the business with with that environment because they feel it's unsafe because it's proven to be unsafe. Like whether there's needles or or or human poop or or just hey, I want to go to jail because it's cold outside. Maybe he doesn't steal alcohol and drink it. Maybe he hits somebody and it's like, okay, you have to take me to jail now. It's like so many, so many issues that it it does affect a uh in a multitude of ways, um, that there's no there's no easy solution, but I think the solutions become harder because there's humans and feelings involved. And I think some of the solutions come with a little bit more tough love that you know a lot of people aren't willing to um take on.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

It is a hard thing. There's a one solution I know that doesn't work, so it's not a solution, is just spending more money. And I think it's funny that we do the same thing. It's like the definition of insanity, right? We do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Right. When is giving more money to the government ever created a better outcome?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:48

No. When I was a teacher, they always were like, hey, we're gonna get more. It's like I don't need more money.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:54

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:55

The facilities aren't the problem. There's accountability and a lack of desire from the students. Yeah. Like when the students want to learn, it's like I I I remember telling I remember telling my the principal, I was like, I could teach if there was students that wanted to learn, I could teach at a park and get them to retain the information. But the problem is, is there's not a desire because you know, hundred plus years ago, school was very desirable. But now we force everybody to go to school, and people don't look at it as like a privilege. They just like, oh, I'm it's like a daycare. It's like, oh, I have to be be there. So same thing, it's like with giving just giving money to programs, like the money itself isn't the solution because you're dealing with people, and without, like I said earlier, without a person that wants to get better or is invested in their own improvement, it's probably not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:56

So the people that are incapable of living in society, the ones that are so severe mental health-wise, to get back on the homeless and mental health.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:04

Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:06

What do we do with with those people? Because I think we can agree that someone who has such severe mental health problems, even if they're committing crimes, they probably lack the culpability to understand what they're doing. Right. They just don't know anything different and they're just they're just reacting almost like an animal. Like, what do we do with those people? Because jail probably isn't the place for them. They're not gonna they're not gonna learn anything, they're not gonna rehabilitate because their mental health is so severe. I'm talking you're like severe bipolar, severe schizophrenia, those people. They're a clear danger to themselves and other people. What are your thoughts on mental health institutions?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:44

Well, I'm I'm definitely for um places like if you're a danger to others, um that their mental health disability or their their mental health issues shouldn't affect anybody else in their family. Like I I just couldn't see a way of justifying that. Um you know, because ultimately, you know, sure, do I want ill on them? No, I don't. But let one of them attack my wife or my kid. Like, it's like I'll be damned if I give two shits about their their mental health ability. Like, fuck you, government, for allowing that to to go on. So I do think it's like with all of the egregious um things that we end up paying for that maybe don't have that we don't see much value on. I, you know, I think there's got to be a creative way or a constructive way where the the um the hospitals who get overrun with people with mental health issues going on, like how do they all chip in? And I know the premiums for us and the the insurance people, but that's why I think it's such a a multi-layer um issue because whether it's taxpayer money, um whether it's like the hospitals having to pay, like there should be places for people that which is very important that you said are that are a danger to other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:18

Yeah, and we see it. There's cities across the country where law enforcement always knows there's always those few people who we all know is a walking like time bomb.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:29

They may not be committing a crime today, but we know based on their mental health, they're going to hurt somebody.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:37

And we see these stories. There was one in New York, I think maybe a year or two ago, where the dude like pushed some lady on a in front of a subway. Um, we see the one where the oh, the one that was a few months back where the guy like uh slit the girl's throat. The uh was I don't know if she was Russian or where she was from, but um slit her throat. I guarantee police officers at work in those areas could have said, we knew those people were a danger. There's nothing we could have done though until they commit a crime. Like, wouldn't it be nice if we could be proactive and say, hey, we have a list of people, especially the bigger cities, like they have a list of people they know who are a severe risk. They just didn't commit a crime yet. Like, wouldn't it be nice if we had a proactive way of addressing those people so we don't have to have to wait until a murder happens or something really severe?

SPEAKER_04 1:26:29

Yes and no, because I I doubt in any of those stories, and again, I don't I haven't done the research on, I seriously doubt that those were like their first offenses. No, they definitely weren't. My guess is there was a battery, and it just continued to escalate here and there, and the the the police do what they can. They take them, they arrest them, they take them to jail, and the jail releases them immediately, and then all of a sudden they're out committing more, and it probably gets habitually worse and worse and worse. And you're like, and you have that probably the officers are like your deputies are like, dude, this person's gonna kill somebody, like they're insane, they don't care, they'll just release them back into society. And it's like, when does society hold them accountable? Like hold the courts and hold the judges and whatever, um, or the system for allowing that to happen because maybe maybe jail is the right thing. It's like we had uh uh my mom had a homeless person, I'd probably know three, four years ago, try to break into her house in the middle of the night. She gets up, her dog's barking, and she goes to just check on the dog, and there's a guy at her at her back door, like trying to get in. Wow. And you know, I won't say how she handled it, wasn't impressed. But um he didn't end up getting in or whatever. And so the next day, she or she calls the sheriff's department, the sheriff's department come over. Look, don't find him. Um, the next day she goes into her backyard, and right over right behind her um back fence, there's a guy sleeping. Probably the same guy. Well, she calls the sheriff's department, they go contact him. He's on probation times like four. He's on four counts of poor probation. I'm pretty sure when you get released on probation, the first thing is shall not commit any more crimes. Like you shouldn't commit any more crimes. Probation for those that are unaware is you're supposed to be in jail, but they're saying, hey, you get to be out of jail so long as you adhere to these terms. You don't have Fourth Amendment rights, which means you can be searched. Police and probation can go into your house, search your car anytime they stop you. Um, you're agreeing to these terms in order to not spend your sentence in jail.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:55

It's in lieu of.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:56

Right. So this person has been arrested and convicted, convicted four separate times for four separate crimes. Who knows how many he didn't get convicted for or how many times he committed crimes and just didn't get caught. But yet four times, and then all of a sudden, like they issued him a citation and and let him go. And it was like, and you're like, that's crazy. But what if the next time he did get into her house? Like, my mom has to have that memory, like she's a victim of that guy because now anytime she walks from her back room and looks out of the back door, she could be a guy there. Like, so I think a lot of times the government or the people that make the laws, they they they they've gone so far to thinking about the suspect and the criminals and the people with mental health that they're they lose sight of the people that they're affecting who are doing all the right things in life, um, you know, paying their taxes, working their jobs, doing all the things that get constantly bombarded and victimized by people that aren't getting the consequences. And so that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:06

Yeah, I think that's part of the problem is there's such a big gap between the people who write policy and laws versus the people who go and execute and implement them. You know, these policy and lawmakers, they have these great ideas on paper, right? But they're not with the police officers, the probation officers, the social workers who are dealing with the shit on a daily basis and getting the feedback that it's not working.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:31

You know, because a lot of things look great on paper. It's the same thing with academics, right? Like these professors and these people that write these books and teach you, or these psychologists or mental health experts, they can tell you on paper, oh, if you have this person with this diagnosis, this is probably the best approach to communicate with them. What they don't realize is when you're in a room with that person and you're doing that and they throw shit in your face. You know what I mean? Or they start like cutting themselves or eating their arm.

unknown 1:31:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:01

Like, what do you do then? That's not written in the book anywhere. Like, I remember going to a call where we walk in a room, and this guy who's schizophrenic is literally eating the flesh off his arm, like in big chunks. Like he looked like a straight up zombie. Right. His room was dark, there was like black lights in there, and he's eating his flesh. And his mom was freaking the fuck out as I would be.

unknown 1:31:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:24

And like I remember we walk in the room and like we pulled our guns out because it scared the shit out of us. We're like, the fuck is this? And the dude's just bleeding profusely from his forearms as he's eating his flesh and chewing on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:37

Right. And I'm like staring at right at you.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:39

And I'm like, okay, that's something I haven't seen before. What do I do with that? There's not something written in the psychology book for that exact scenario. Right. But again, if you were to critique that situation from an academic standpoint down the road, they'd be like, oh, you know, this is the process. But like, as a human, like, that shit's surprising.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:59

And you're like, what do I do with that?

SPEAKER_02 1:32:01

Right. What's the solution?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:02

He wasn't committing a crime, he's fucking eating himself.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:05

Right. Like, what would I do? Obviously, you don't want him to keep eating himself. Like, you're like, you you know he's suffering from a mental health issue, so you want a remedy, but it's like, then it's like, okay, what do you do? Taze him?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:17

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:18

Yeah. And then you're like using a force, but he's not committing a crime.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:22

Unfortunately for this scenario, he didn't have a weapon. It was literally just eating himself with his own teeth. So we both just rushed up and grabbed him. But like, let's say that's a risk right there. Let's say he had like a big pair of scissors or uh, you know, uh a knife or a kitchen knife or something next to him. And we walk in that scenario, and the parents are freaked the fuck out. And this he was like not even a kid, he was like in his early 20s. But he's sitting there on drugs and schizophrenic, eating himself, and like, okay, now how do we approach it? We can't leave him there. He's obviously a danger to himself, he's gotta go, right? But he's also got a weapon next to him. Like, this significantly elevates the thought process and the potential for lethality that we have to address that no mental health expert, I don't care how much education you have, like until you are faced with that scenario and you have to respond to it, like good luck.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:17

Right. And to be fair, it's like you can't write a book with all the scenarios.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:21

No, you can't.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:22

You know, try to plan it, but you're like, okay, that's all that's gonna be a really long book with a lot of chapters. Right. You're like, how long of a chapter do I have to write a person eating themselves? Yeah. Nah. It's like, we'll just save that too. Severe, severe, uh, severe crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:37

But yeah, so it's it's an interesting uh thought process on like, you know, how can we solve some of and again? I don't think we can ever solve it. I think we just have to manage it, right? The homeless situation, and can we do better to a degree? I think, like you said, give getting government out of it a little bit can be helpful. Although that that was a big issue with like getting rid of mental health institutions when that happened was like people saw it as this is not a government role. We should be this should be something, this should be community caretaking. And I and I understand the approach, the mindset was like when they used to have mental health hospitals that people were committed to, it was like they were concerned with abuse, they were concerned with it becoming like a for-profit thing where, well, if there's no incentive to get people better and get them out of your hospital, right? Well, that's a scary thought because you can be drugging these people and doing things to them to keep them in a in a you know a poor state so they can't leave because that takes away money from you. So I get all that, but the problem was the funding wasn't there once they dismantled all of that, you know. And so, you know, I always contemplate like, would it be a good idea? And I'm curious to know people's thoughts on it. Is what do you guys think about bringing back mental health hospitals and committing people in larger numbers versus sending them to jail? I always thought maybe it would be good to have more of an integrated thing, like where maybe build onto the jails that are already there, like a mental health hospital, like in the complex, right? Where people go, because it's a fine line between criminal and crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:19

Right, but it's not true. So maybe they need to go back and forth, but just because you're crazy doesn't allow you to commit crimes, right? So there's a very there's a distinction between totally.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:29

But again, some people like the traditional jail or prison system is not they're not as sophisticated to handle someone with severe schizophrenia and paranoia and all these things. Like honestly, they're the ones who cause a lot of problems in the prisons because they're hard to deal with and they take away your effort and energy from like maybe rehabilitating the criminals that are at least coherent enough to listen to you, right? But your time is getting eaten up dealing with the crazies that maybe they should be in a totally different institution. I just don't know what that would look like in terms of making it different than what it was before. Because you still have the risk of like it becoming a private for-profit thing. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:10

Yeah. What are your thoughts on like an idea that I've heard tossed around? It's like what's the pros and cons of like getting a huge unused piece of land and then allowing like little individual building little individual houses or something like that where it's almost like a compound, but like something like that. I know I have my own thoughts on it, but what are your th what are your thoughts on it?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:41

To provide uh a place for like homeless?

SPEAKER_04 1:36:44

Right. Like so we talk about individuals in society, we talk about businesses. Um I think we all have an opinion um on homeless people, whether whatever side of the political spectrum you you believe in. Um but I think people want solutions or want um I don't think people for the most part genuinely like enjoy going and seeing a bunch of homeless people walking around and setting up tents on the on the sidewalk. Um some people may think that's egregiously wrong and some people might just feel bad. But either way, people don't like it. So what would be um the thought of like, hey, we give them a big or we have, I don't know, government or some entity, like, hey, you can go here or you put them there, um and now what? Like now they're there.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:43

I think it the idea is great, and I think it could work if it was regulated properly, because again, you're still having to come up with rules and regulations, and who do we allow to be here?

SPEAKER_04 1:37:53

Right. And but if it what if it was like that was their version of of jail, not like a jail where not like a jail as like the criminals, but you're like, okay. I hate using this term, but it'll like, you know, something like a old POW camp or something like that. You're like, hey, you're going here, you're living in barracks, and you're not allowed this, you're not allowed to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:15

So they create a zip code that we just send all the uh I don't know what you would even call them, the dysfunctional people of society, where you just send them and you're like, this is your town that you live in, do with it what you will.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:25

Kind of. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:27

I it's probably a terrible idea, but like outside the like Yeah, I mean, it would almost be better served if we had an island that we can just ship all these people to.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:36

Oh, Honolulu has their uh their issues with homeless.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:39

Like, Brie, what if we like Alcatraz? It's only used for like tours now. What if we just made that an island of like misfits and you just like ship people over there?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:50

Are you talking about the island of misfit toys? Like kind of. Yeah. Like the whole car.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:55

Like, what if we turned because how fitting would it be because it's so close to San Francisco already? What if you just turned Alcatraz into uh an island that you know you just ship everybody to and let them fend for themselves and you just let them live there? And at least like a little hunger games on the Yeah, and then we could do drone drops of like food packages, and you could put medication and stuff, and like if you think about it, what would be the outcome? Those who are meant to survive and have the will to like get better, they're gonna get better, they're gonna they're gonna get those food packages, they're gonna fight for them, they're gonna sober up, and maybe one day they're gonna swim back to society.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:35

What about the what if the winner just gets a house?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:38

That could be good too.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:40

Like, here's the thing. You're just doing like hunger games droops to 24. Here's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:45

If we could we can do it, we could put satellite cameras on Alcatraz to watch this.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:50

The funds from that go to help support mental health issues. Funds could go to support it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:55

Here's the thing the NBA, the NFL, the MLB, Major League Soccer, these are multi-billion dollar industries for pure entertainment.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:05

What if you take these guys that are have severe, you know, issues, maybe not even all the mental health ones, because I I I feel bad for some of the guys that like, but the ones that are choosing to make poor choices, they're like the you know, they're the culpable criminals that know what they're doing, and they're just they're not contributing to society. Jail's not for you. You've already violated probation and parole multiple times.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:29

Next step is we need a cool island there. Just call it the island. You're going to the island.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:36

You're going to the island, and good luck. Because it's like wild animals there. Like it's like wild tribes, whatever. It'd be a great experiment to see what happens. And again, we'll provide care packages and stuff and watch people fight over it. But like, here's the thing: you asked about like a prize, like a house or something. But if someone could like change their circumstances enough to survive and swim back to shore from that island, which is very difficult. Like, I think there would be no shortage of people being like, let's bravo, like, let's give this guy some money, let's give him a home, let's give them whatever they need.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:16

You'd have people that aren't even crazy. They're just like, they're just that's their goal. Like, they'd be in high school just training jujitsu and training all the sorts of things. Like the people from like people from District One on uh in Hunger Games, and they're like, they're professional island, they're professionals on the island, they just go there and try to mollywap people.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:40

Yeah, but you couldn't you couldn't game it though, because you have to have an actual criminal record and like you have to apply.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:46

Everybody will game people will game everything. I mean, if you're if you if you if there's if there's some sort of prestige from being out there and they're like, I'm gonna do it. Like there's so many people that are just no names that are just searching for their 15 minutes, and like there's so many psychopaths that'll be like, if those people are gonna take the time to commit to winning at something in life, is that a bad thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:13

You know, I think it'd be a crazy good experiment. I don't know. Anybody agree at home? Should we have like an island where we send all these misfits for society and they just have to fend for they have to fight their way back to society? It's kind of like you're earning your way back to society, right? Right. We're not gonna sit there and govern people complain about the jails and they're inhumane and like you know, they're just they're too structured and all this stuff. Okay, we're not gonna do anything for you, we'll let you do it yourself. Right. You're gonna go to this island. It's up to you to rehabilitate, right? It's up to you to survive. Or maybe they who knows? Wouldn't it be crazy if like they all actually like turned it into a really thriving community?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:53

I don't know. I've I've actually sadly never been to Al Alcatraz. I don't know how I don't know how big it is. Maybe a bigger island that has some resources that'sn't like we gotta test it first, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:43:05

But I do know that it was like it's hard to escape. I mean, there's books about it, movies about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:10

So The Rock.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:12

It might be a great trial.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:15

Yeah, I mean, the idea is very entertaining. And I was watching uh I saw a clip on Max Kellerman where he's talking about he was asking these people what their favorite sports are, and then one was like football, one was baseball, one was hockey or whatever basketball. And then he was like, one person said fighting. He was like, fighting is everyone's favorite sport, and they're like, nah, and he's like, if you came out of an event and there was a group of people playing football over here, a group of people playing basketball over here, a group of playing people playing baseball over here, and a fight going on over there, where are your eyes? It's like everybody's eyes would be on the fight.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:56

Really good point.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:57

Totally, it's like everybody's eyes are gonna be on the fight because the other things are un the other things are organized, they're predictable. Fights are not right.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:08

Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:09

That's like a savage nature. So creating the vision of the hunger games up on a on an island, like the running man. I think wasn't that the premise of the running man?

SPEAKER_00 1:44:20

Yeah, we just watched that movie just randomly, like a few months ago.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:23

Most people don't know that's a Stephen King book. I think I read that off the chat. I think he went under the alias like Richard Backman or something like that during that time. But yeah, it's Stephen King book. Yeah, it was a great book. Way more savage book.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:35

Although it was sad because Arnold was like, he was innocent and he shouldn't have been there to begin with.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:39

Yeah, he got in that thing with the device around his neck where if he ran, his head exploded. But then he goes on to that. That was at the very beginning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:49

And then So we need to bring that movie to modern day real life, though. But on an island. That could be so cool, that could be so entertaining too. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:00

I think the humane, it's not the humane thing to do, but I bet you, you know, well, here's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:05

We don't choose what happens on the island once they get there. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:08

Maybe it's peace, love, and happiness there.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:11

Here's the thing. If we put them on this island, we provide care packages, we drop them off. So, like, we're not it's almost like we're really hands off. Like, we're gonna provide you your own. It's almost like we're providing you freedom. We're providing you freedom to choose. Do you want to rehabilitate? Do you want to get along with the people that are on the island with you? Because here's the say who's to say they even have to fight, right? We're not gonna make the rules. The options are whatever you make it.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:38

Isn't that what England did to Australia? Like, didn't they send their criminals to Australia?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:42

I think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:43

Yeah, and they created Australia.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:46

Yeah, they're thriving. Yeah, crushing it, thriving down under.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:49

They gave them to they took them to the places with all the deadliest things.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:53

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:53

Yeah, that's true. I could imagine living there. Spiders and everything is wants to hurt you. Everything's the most dangerous thing. Yeah, that'd be that'd be a wild idea.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:02

Yeah. I I don't know. Let us know what you guys think. Let us know if you have any crazier ideas. Love to hear it. So um, let's see, anything else we want to touch on? Um This is an interesting one. We won't go too long into it, but like do people have the right to self-destruct in public?

SPEAKER_04 1:46:24

No. I don't think so. But then again, um maybe I answered that too quickly. I mean, the right to is w is yeah, they have the right to, but I think there should be consequences to that, right? I give this analogy when speaking about, you know, maybe some of my disagreements on the way our current society is. Um and maybe this makes sense, maybe it doesn't, but it it goes along with homeless people. So say you and I are at a restaurant, we're eating, we're having a just dinner, we're doing all the things right, and a homeless person walks in and he's inebriated, he's whatever, and he starts just causing a scene and nobody wants to do anything. Everybody's kind of uncomfortable with it. He starts going and engaging with people, making people uncomfortable. Um, say he then he comes over to our table and then he like grabs like food off our plate. Well, we're not gonna allow that to stand where people of action or people do, and we'll get up there and we'll address it, probably not in a way that the restaurant would appreciate. But ultimately we're not gonna be victimized by somebody. But the point is, is I think a lot of people um in our society would look at us let's say he did something egregious, like flipped our table or whatever, and I got up and you got up, or whatever, we got up and punched him in the face, and we're like, nope, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:52

People would look at us like we're wrong. It's like, wait a minute, we're doing exactly what we're supposed to do. If this guy doesn't come in, all things are good. This guy chose to come in and do all the wrong and victimize all the people. No, he's like, our actions aren't the ones that need to be uh looked at. It's this person's. So you've seen videos of, and especially like if you haven't, um that that video Seattle is dying. It's like you have people walking around, they're so zombied out with drugs or whatever, their pants are down, they're defecating on the street, they're screaming and yelling like right in front of the business. It's like, do you have the right to do that? I say no. I think it's a disruption to society. Um and you can do that, but you know, keep that shit to yourself or go go elsewhere. How what the limit or what rules I would put in place of that, I would say um, I don't have that answer right now. But I mean, we've had people that go to our park and then the you know, the area of which set up a tent and and fish, and he'd scream in the middle of the night. He'd just scream, scream, scream, and we'd always get calls from the neighbors like, hey, guy's screaming again. You know, it's two in the morning screaming. It's like, is he allowed to do that?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:20

Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:21

So it's like like what regulations do you put on that, but at the same time, fuck him. Like, why is he uh why can I not sleep just because that dude has issues.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:31

Right. So it's not that they're I guess we gotta be more specific, and I uh I agree with you. And it's it's a weird one to discuss coming from someone who tends to be more conservative in nature and believe like government should not intrude on your inherent rights. Right. And I believe, you know, it's kind of like the whole drug um punishing people for using drugs. And this could be a whole different topic that we discussed one day of like, should we criminalize Those for just using drugs. Right. Should we criminalize and punish those who choose to self-destruct? And on one hand, you have the thought of like, well, my conservative side is like, well, no, like they're not hurting anybody else until they do. Right. You know what I mean? So I've gone back and forth with that. And like I definitely lean towards like if it was just pla if it was just as plain and simple as like someone harming themselves. No, no, we shouldn't punish that. However, the problem is, and we've talked about this before, like the whole broken window thing. It's like the problem is people that are self-destructing and using drugs, they're not keeping it in their own home. Correct. They're bringing it into society, they're committing crimes, they're causing a lot of um disruptions to society, like you just said. Like I've had people, even here locally, that are, you know, self-destructing or whatever you want to call it, walk into restaurants and cause a disturbance, or harass people, or sexually assault people, or run around naked in the park with a bunch of children. Like these are the people that are using drugs, self-destructing, not harming anybody, but they are I say that they are, yeah. Yeah, facetiously. I say that like because people are like, Well, you shouldn't punish someone just for using drugs. And it's like, I would totally agree if they were isolated using drugs in a closet somewhere. We would never know. We would never know.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:22

Like as law enforcement, we would never know. If somebody's in their house or their apartment in a tent, somewhere just doing drugs, we would never know. Like we don't we wouldn't go and seek them out. Like we're like, all right, but that kind of goes to where the maybe the enhancement is it's like, okay, you're doing drugs. I don't care. Like you don't care. Like, right. I d I mean there's obviously it affects their health, which then they don't have resources, they go to the hospital, and then then they need all the things cost society more money, cost society more money. But at the same time, sometimes they're just like, and again, is there a waiver? Be like, hey, I'm gonna do drugs, so I'm not gonna take any medical assistance on this one. But then it's like, what's the humane thing? And I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:12

Yeah, I mean I like this topic though. I think this could be actually a really great discussion, and I would love to get input from people maybe in the future. But the topic of should we decriminalize the use of drugs? And if so, how could that be regulated? I like the idea that you just said, and I think there is there is the ability to do it and make it work. I do think that okay, using the drug itself is not a crime. However, if you commit any crime, any crime at all, while under the influence or while in possession of drugs, there is a very, very significant enhancement. I think that would be more than fair. And I think it'd be a way to combat it. Like, because that you know, one of the thought processes I've had in talking about this issue was well, you can't punish people for the thing they haven't done yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:01

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:01

Because a lot of times when I ask people, like, well, I brought this up before in discussions, like, okay, well, the problem is drug users are the ones who commit, you know, they go steal and they go, you know, burglarize homes and they go do all these things. Well, people would be like, Well, we're not arguing against arresting them when they do that. We're just saying you shouldn't be arresting people just for possession. And I'm like, I I guess I that's a good point. I kind of agree with that. However, because we already know from this experiment of life, those are the people that are going to commit most of those crimes. Right. Would you guys agree to having a very significant enhancement if they commit those crimes while under the influence or using drugs? I think it'd be a great topic for the next one. Right. Great chat. Uh, would love to hear your perspective on homeless mental health. What is your experience? Do you work in a do you work in a role in uh the public sector that deals with this kind of stuff on a regular basis? And if you have input, please share it wherever you're seeing this, whether it's on YouTube, Instagram, or just listening in on the audio version. But uh, for those of you who are still here listening to the episode, we appreciate you for your time and making it all the way through. And uh, we'll catch you on the next one.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:12

Yeah, click that subscribe. See ya. Peace.