Episode 8: Beyond the Shelter Door: A Conversation with Shannon Isom (Part 1)

In this episode of So, Let’s Talk Columbus, Michael talks with Shannon Isom, President and CEO of Community Shelter Board. Shannon Isom brings a powerful mix of candor, compassion and deep expertise to a conversation that cuts to the heart of what Columbus is facing. Shannon helps Michael unpack the real drivers behind homelessness, the strain on our shelter system, and why this issue is about more than individual circumstances. It’s about housing, systems and the kind of community we choose to build. Join Michael and Shannon for part one of a thoughtful, eye-opening discussion that will challenge assumptions and deepen your understanding of what it will take to move forward.

Stay tuned for part two of this conversation on June 16. 

Transcript

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So I had a dream last night, and you were in it. Yes. And you were running a laundromat, and I was at the laundromat doing my clothing, but I couldn't remember what machine I put my clothes in, and I kept walking around and around and around. And there were these old, it was like some of the machines were like from the Soviet era. They were old and chanky, and some of them were like um dishwashers and some were washing machines. But I was also working on a presentation, and you were helping me with the presentation. You were like giving me information, but then I kept losing my computer. And then the computer broke, and somehow it was an old enough computer that I had a floppy disk. And when I took the floppy disk out of the computer, I realized what the problem was because my dog had chewed the floppy disk and it was partially destroyed. Exactly by the better story. So then, as I was trying to figure out how to save my presentation, which all the work had been lost, and you had told me I just needed to go start all over again from the beginning, that someone had a poster of Greek mythology on the wall at the laundromat, and they were using a long pointer stick, and they kept pointing at different combinations of Greek mythology. And I kept saying, Well, how is that going to fix my computer? Because that's just a piece of paper on a wall. You ran a laundromat. So I'm still running something. You were running something. Why don't you put me on the box? You were still in charge. Welcome back to So Let's Talk Columbus. I'm Michael Wilkes, Vice President of Community Engagement at United Wave, Central Ohio. If you've lived in Columbus for any amount of time, you've probably noticed something that's become impossible to ignore. More people sleeping outside, more families struggling to stay housed, and more questions about how a growing city takes care of people being left behind. And here's the hard part. Housing costs are rising, shelters are overwhelmed, mental health and addiction challenges are colliding with economic realities. At the same time, Columbus is growing faster than any other metro in the Midwest. So what actually happens when all those forces collide? Today's guest is someone who lives in that reality every single day. Shannon Isom is president and CEO of Community Shelter Board, the organization coordinating homelessness response efforts across Franklin County. She spent years working at the intersection of housing, systems, public policy, and human dignity, helping lead conversations that are often emotional, political, and deeply personal. But what makes Shannon especially interesting is that she refuses to reduce people to statistics. She understands the data, the systems, and the human stories behind every headline. Today we're talking about homelessness in Columbus, what's really happening, what people misunderstand, where the system is strained, and what it's going to take for the city to move forward. So let's talk Columbus and welcome Shannon. Thank you. So tell me a little bit about your journey. What's motivated you to be in this space? I think overall the motivation, which I committed to some time ago, is that uh wherever there is an intersectionality of systems, that's um marginalizing, um, maybe even demoralizing the human condition is where I'll be. Um you know what was really compelling about coming to Columbus uh to focus specifically on this issue was that um there were folks that were recruiting me questioned if we were revolutionary enough. And and using the words revolutionary, um, I came a running. So you came from Dayton, and I've heard you describe Dayton as a little scrappy. It's a little scrappy, a little gritty. And uh grew up in Cleveland. I grew up in Cleveland. So what's a little gritty to you? What's your take on on Columbus relative to growing up in Cleveland and life in Dayton? Um, you know, for for those of us like you who've grown up in Ohio, let's say that first, we understand very quickly the personalities and the archetypes of each of the of the per you know of the of the cities in which uh um kind of border the state. And so uh growing up here uh definitely, I came here in 78, the blizzard of I guess 77 is 78. So growing up here uh definitely in the 80s uh and and parts of the 90s, you you knew the the Cincinnati, Cleveland, and then you know, maybe Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and then the other areas, kind of how how the state was positioned. I hear you talk about Columbus as a younger city. What's what what are both the positive and what's some of the negatives about us being a younger city? Yeah, I think I think Columbus then, as I looked at it, was really at the time a city you passed through and didn't think much about uh Ohio State was there, you know, we always knew that, but it was a way just to get to Cincinnati, is how I positioned to me in Cleveland and New York. And then when I came here, I actually came here first in uh '93 after I graduated from undergrad. I came here to the Ohio State University for post-baccalaureate program in medicine. And uh and then ended up working here uh at the YWCA of Columbus. And it was uh coming from an all-girls school, uh, college, and coming here into an organization that focused on all women. At the time, I just could not believe how amazingly beautiful Columbus was, and not in topography, but in people. And how this very young or this very young, it felt like a young city. But what I loved about it, feeling young, is that you knew where some of the, you knew where the where the elders were too. Oh, and so it felt also young and wise at the same time. It felt really like growing and disruptive, but kind of centered and grounded. And there was just something really amazing about that in my early 20s. And that in response to that, I was really early in my 20s, and I again graduated from uh Spelman and then came straight here. And I had, you know, even today, and I can see see who those people were, but that I was surrounded by women, especially because I was at the YW. But I was especially surrounded by black women, which I was really sensitive to coming from Spelman. It just felt really interesting. Then I left, 25 years, went to Dayton, uh, grew up, adulted, raised my children, and now I'm back. I often talk about the growth of the city. It's an exciting time to be in Columbus, but you know, you spend all of your time uh working with people where the prosperity and growth of the city is not serving them well. So let's uh shift and uh talk about um uh homelessness. Uh for people who feel like homelessness has become dramatically more visible in Columbus over the last few years, are they imagining that or has something fundamentally changed in our community? Yeah, I it's fundamentally changed. They're not imagining it. Um I came, I came in response to um what I believe at least some people knew was um a crisis. I don't think that people understood why we were having this crisis, this very visible, um, very visible increase in unsheltered homelessness. Um, but they knew something was wrong, something was amiss. Uh maybe, maybe what at the time was questioned, and this again was 2023, was that we didn't have the right response system anymore, that maybe the response system that we relied on for years uh was either no longer contemporary or progressive or just even appropriate, or were there gaps that we just didn't know? Was that safety net wholly broken? And and it was being questioned. And I love that I walked in. I I say it was a gift, although it was difficult. It was a gift to have a walk into a space that needed answers, wanted answers, everyone was looking for answers, and because it was questioned, I think it also allowed parts of the community that uh would not have noted it. It it it allowed them to pause and say, two, also, what's going on? And at the end of that, in 2024, which was a two-year look, what was noted is that uh the the system the system is really great, uh, but there's not enough money in it for a growing economic community. There's not enough sustainability in it, meaning there needs to be multi-year, uh, scalable resourcing for a community that is, and I've heard it over and over, Michael, as I've come into this community, it's not a small town. It's talked about so often. Oh, Columbus is a small town. I think that is a misnomer and it keeps folks in Columbus from stepping back. Uh, you know, that lean in, what we all were taught to do, leaning in, leaning out and looking and seeing that this community is no longer made up of your circle of people that you know you know, but instead it's made up of concentric circles of people that you may not know, may not touch, but are still tapping in and giving to the resources of this community. This is a big city, not a small town, not even a small town in a big city. This is a big city in a big town. And it's dimensional and it's it's gaining dimensionality. And because of that, our systems no longer, which are great, but are no longer with readiness can respond to it. And because of that, we are seeing increases year after year after year, over and above what we've seen the year prior, increases in unsheltered homelessness. And so the question is why unsheltered homelessness? And the reason why we see more and more in sheltered homelessness is because the beds are not being rotated in our shelter. Well, why are the beds not being rotated in our shelter? Is because we don't have enough housing. Just don't have enough housing. And so we can have this very, very yawning, boring conversation of what people need to do to get educated and to figure out how to do more programs of budgeting, to figure out how to get more jobs that pay more. But in essence, what it boils down to is that this community, this Midwest city that was forgotten even by this by the Midwest cities of the state, um, just has not grown with how amazing this city has grown. And it really, I think, should be not only supported by other cities within this state, but really looked at as a model of economic growth. But our sector is to make sure that every community member who is in this growing community is also growing with it. So a lot of times people view those experiencing homelessness as people who've made bad decisions, or they think that one of the reasons that's the driver behind uh increase in homelessness is mental health or it's addiction or it's domestic violence. But for you, it's really a systems issue that it's the lack of housing. Let's go a little bit deeper into what has changed in this community and why you think there is such a lack of housing options for people that you serve. Well, you know, you've been the expert of this. You've you've you've um before I put a big toe into this city, I was told about Michael Wilkes. So you know this really, really well that the number of housing uh per person has gone down pretty dramatically. And based on even uh your statistics uh by 2030, that that is even going to be a more dramatic um um decline. Um where we sit within the uh sh the homeless space, um, and we do bifurcate that where we're seeing an increase in unsheltered homelessness and where we're also looking at sheltered homelessness, that we know by 2028, uh this predictive modeling with the growth of the economic, the population growth of this community, we're going to see a 68% increase in unsheltered homelessness. And we know that because as we look at our own predictive modeling, there's just not enough houses. We know that. Um, you've noted it that there's not enough houses even being developed, so we won't have a way to catch up. Uh but but second, that but thirdly, we have some a couple of specific things that we've noted within our own space. Um, our population, as all populations in this community, depend on deeply affordable housing. That deeply affordable housing is housing where people are making about $46,000 and under. And that deeply affordable housing space, we don't have developers anymore in this community. That shifted about eight years ago. Across this country, the number one housing developer of deeply affordable housing, people that are that that need it deeply. That means from Z, they were making zero dollars all the way up to making, at least now in this community, uh, about $45,000. But anywhere in between, we used to have the federal government doing that type of housing across the country, not here, but across the country. And we called that housing projects. All of us did. Well, about eight years ago, they got out of that housing. And within that time, in this community, what has fundamentally shifted is I think you saw it yesterday, we have lost Sawyer Tower. Uh that was about 850 units that started off as a housing development that the federal government brought dollars into this community and built out an infrastructure for those in need of deeply affordable housing. I was told yesterday that Will Hagood grew up in those housing. Wow. Author. Author, right? Journalist author. Uh that that secondly, um, and then in that deeply affordable housing space, Colonial Village, which also served those folks at uh maybe even $30,000 and below. We lost all those units to 10 months later. That was another uh 800 plus housing. So within a 10-month time period, we've lost anywhere between 1,450, 1,600 units. Um and uh really tough for that to be put back online at the same level. So a few minutes ago you mentioned there's unsheltered homelessness and there's sheltered homelessness. I don't know that all of our audience members kind of understand what it means to be a sheltered homeless individual. Could you talk about the different categories of work? Um we have nine emergency shelters that run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And those nine emergency shelters, uh, soon to be 10 with choices, domestic violence bets coming online under us as well. That those shelters um allow anyone at any time to walk in the door. Those that's our sheltered population. At any point in time, we have um during the summer of 1400 and about 50 people, beds that are always utilized. We have about 300 people on a waiting list for those beds any given night. Um, and then we have people that don't bother with the shelter or being on the waiting list and say, I I can't walk into those spaces. They feel uh too dangerous, they give me panic, they give me anxiety, so I will choose to then find a space. Uh sometimes that could be with a friend and uh with a family member and we were doubling up or we're couch serving. But in many times in this community, because uh we've lost the rotation of those shelter beds, meaning people are once they have a bed, they keep it longer. And because we've lost in a lot of ways in this community the deeply affordable housing that also allows those extra couches and that extra bedroom if someone is in need, those have been taken offline. That's what you find is that people then find spaces outside through a tent or under a bridge or maybe even in their car in the Kroger parking lot. Um we're seeing more and more and more of that, and we call those particular people unsheltered. And HUD, HUD or our federal government, expects us to count them differently. Because what we they do know is uh the the more that that number increases of people being outside uh and homeless, the more and more it indicates to this community, to the federal government that we have a problem. So every year uh there's the point in time count. Yes. Uh it's done in January. Yes. Uh congratulations that this year you had the largest number of volunteers you've ever had, over 300 people registered to have participated in that. Tell us about what the point in time count accomplishes and what did we learn. I just, you know, yeah, just released those numbers a couple weeks ago. Yeah, we did. The point in time count, just to give it people uh a little definition of what that is, is that every county in the entire country does the point in time count. Every county in the entire country does the point in time count. And we we do it in January. Why? Because that's what the government says that we need to do it. And why does the government dictate that? Uh, we know we have different climates across this entire uh country, but what we do know it is it is really, really cold in some parts of the country in January, the coldest months. So they ask you to count uh homeless during that time because if you are counting those within your shelter system and you are counting those outside when it's really, really cold in the coldest months, potentially on the coldest days, then it gives them an idea of not only the demographics of those that are in your homeless system, but it also more particularly allows us to organize the allocation of those dollars for people that choose to be outside versus inside, but also which populations are choosing to be outside. So, for instance, we all remember this that we had a big push that we will have no veteran homelessness, and that was uh from the national, the federal government down. We want zero, zero veterans homeless. That came out of the point in time counting is a good statistic data where you get to see trends. You get to organize your data so that then you organize strategy and then resources, and that's done across the country. So this is uh uh not just Columbus or Franklin County doing this. We are doing this in concert with the entire United States. Um I think that what uh and thank you for congratulating us on having the most volunteers, but I think that what that really is is a reflection of this community. Um, and how what we have done, which is hold it strongly, that if we better know the both the quantitative data point and also the qualitative data point, what we get to do as a collective, which is what the federal government expects all communities to do, is to then have a strategy that reflects that for our community, to customize it, to curate it, to decipher it, and then in accountability next year get to say uh what the data uh tells us. Were we successful? Were we not successful? Uh did we miss someone? Is there an emerging community? Is there an emerging population that is coming up that safety nets have dropped for? And that so this data has told us this some things this year. So, how close are we to zero homelessness for veterans in this community? Not close. Yeah. We didn't get there. Other communities, I came from a community, I came from Dayton, uh uh Montgomery County that did get to functional zero for veterans. So I was surprised we didn't get there when we had all the resources to do it. We came close, but we didn't quite get there, and I I think that was a miss for us. So as you can imagine, as a population grows, so does all parts of that population grow. We love to think, oh gosh, we're gonna have economic growth here within Franklin County and within Dayton. Well, with economic growth, when people come, so do all people come. Right. So uh as you can imagine, as we're growing, we are moving further away from that functional zero for veterans. What about other demographic groups? Where are we seeing success and where are we seeing increases around families, youth, new Americans? I love I love talking about this question because I think it really gets to again that the homelessness condition is certainly around benevolence and it is, but what it is more importantly about is is talking about how this community organizes resources for economic prosperity. So, what it has told us is is one thing for certain, uh, which was told us in the predictive modeling, this community has dedicated itself not to have family homelessness. So, what does that mean? That unlike other communities, unlike other counties, you will never see a child on the street. Never, ever here. Because this community has made a commitment that if a child in homelessness, meaning in a family, comes in any level of street homelessness, what happens immediately is we flex our system. That means that family either goes into some level of overflow or goes straight into a hotel. You will never see a child in homelessness in Franklin Kyle. Other counties cannot say that. Wow. They just can't say that. So that's first. So we were wonderfully happy to see that yet again, two years in a row, our family homelessness has decreased. We believe that is because of just the pure commitment that we get to build on, which is that there will be no families and children in homelessness, unsheltered homelessness. And then we add it to that intentional prevention dollars. So if a family calls us on the hotline, we immediately figure out how to facilitate housing. Diversion, diversion, a little different than prevention, and we're preventing you from walking into our shelter. We want to keep you in your housing. Diversion means that you've walked into our shelter or we've uh we've had a call that you are in active homelessness, and we divert you as quickly as we can to a family member, a church member, a friend that will take you in. And we uh spend all of our resources trying to figure out quickly how do we get you there versus settling you into a shelter bed. So diversion, prevention. And then we use um uh rent, um any type of rent assistance. Uh we're gonna catch you up on your utilities, we're going to uh give you um any dollars and resources that stabilizes you so that ultimately you don't slide into homelessness. And lastly, which we've put um um uh out off of a pilot that was super successful is direct cash assistance. So we are offering every family that is in our shelter. If we give you $1,500, uh, would it allow you to leave shelter? And what we have found 91% is that not only does it allow them to leave shelter, here we are a year, we're looking at a year now, but two years later when we did our pilot, they don't come back. And so because of that, we're seeing decrease in family homelessness, and we're we are um, you know, we're we're excited about that. Let's talk about length of shelter stay. That has increased dramatically over the last number of years in our community. What's the average length of stay? If someone doesn't go through diversion, they end up in a congregate shelter. What's what does that look like? What's the average length of stay? Um 114 days, which has changed in the last 10 years from 14 days to 114 days average. That's amazing. Yeah. And it's so amazing that that means, Michael, that I literally have families and individuals in my shelter, children then in my shelter, well over a year. And what medical studies show us is that if any children are in any type of this this kind of kind of uh congregate setting that charges the uh adrenaline system, that after six months it it is almost impossible for it to reverse. We are seeing within our shelter system uh second and third generations of homelessness. When the shelter stays are that long that it teaches children that it's an option as an adult. You know, I when I worked in this space um in Dayton, uh more specifically um in the domestic violence shelter, we would see this repeat pattern. Um and and what you what we find is that the brain organizes information, and that that you may be doing this overtly, but your brain allows things that you've already uh seen to be normalized and it becomes. So it is imperative, especially for family, especially for youth, which we haven't talked about, but especially for those more fragile um members of our community, that that becomes disrupted so quickly that a child doesn't even remember. They only remember that I was with my mom and I think we were in a hotel for a week or so. I mean, literally, because it needs to be that fleeting. Not that we have children showing up every day for a year to a shelter bed with 700 plus other people, which is what's happening in this community. We have the largest shelter in the entire country. And that's the case. Yeah, I was gonna say you're saying that, but you're not proud of it. That's not good. Yeah, it's not good. The largest shelter that we have been able um uh to note, and this was with the third party who came in and audited us, was a shelter in various major cities, like us, but anywhere between 240 and 270 beds. We run a 455-bed shelter in the summer, Van Buren, and in the winter it goes up to 840. Wow. And that should never, ever, ever be okay in Columbus, Ohio, Franklin County. So, as you know, United Way is solely focused on success by third grade, and the research is very clear that kids have to be on track by third grade because the curriculum shifts from you learn how to read by third grade and then you read to learn after. Let's talk about what education looks like for a family experiencing homelessness and what efforts go into making sure that children who are experiencing family homelessness uh are staying in school. Yeah. A couple of different things. We have the law on our side. McKinney Vento is codified within the federal government to say that if there's any child that is in shelter and any type of shelter, uh, that resources will wrap around that child and they will not be disrupted because their housing is disrupted, they won't be disrupted from their community schooling. So that means that buses and mills and teachers and administration is supposed to ensure, as well as shelter providers, are supposed to ensure that that child not only uh receives an uninterrupted education in where they're at, but or and that as they enter into the shelter system, that that becomes continuous and contiguous. Um, and I would tell you that because we have in one shelter, for instance, Van Buren, well over 250 kids on any given night. Wow, 250 school-age kids? Um, half or under a five usually, and the other half or above. Wow. That you can imagine that the strain on that and the resourcing of that has been left behind. That is not to even include that in the winter that becomes worse. So I would tell you that just like any other system, whether it's education or healthcare, whether it's workforce or the judicial system, it becomes worse when you're marginalized and it becomes more marginalized in the fragility of those community members within the system that's already marginalized. So our kids feel by far the impact of the intersectionality of education and homelessness. One thing I appreciate about your leadership is that you don't avoid difficult conversations. Um, how do you balance compassion with accountability? Um I think um compassion and accountability are um first cousins. So the balance of it is the uh probably overall um what's called for at the moment. I I don't think those two things are are separate. I think that um being accountable is the most compassionate thing that you could do. I think that telling the truth is love. Um and so um the balance of it is is um I I assume that um because those two things are so intricately linked that I'm balancing it in being. So when I answer, um, you know, I I um I believe that that the transparency, the can being candid, being truthful, um then, and and then also being able to withstand whatever consequence comes from from that um um is you know is is what's compassionate for the community. So I don't think about it uh more than anything. I I prepare for it and trying to make sure that I am as expert as I can be. And then to always make sure, which I make sure I check in with myself that I'm centering along the margins. See, because if we center on the margins, then everyone's okay. So that's probably the biggest work is today is the first of a two-part session with President and CEO Shannon Isman of the Community Shelter Board. We had such an amazing and robust conversation. We decided to break up So Let's Talk Columbus into a two-part series. So please stay tuned for part two. And thanks to all of you for listening to So Let's Talk Columbus. If this conversation made you think, share it. If it challenged you, good. If it made you proud, even better. Until next time, remember there's not a problem Columbus can't fix.