1 00:00:02,279 --> 00:00:05,119 Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with Bartune Day, a podcast 2 00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:08,400 Speaker 1: that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a legal status. 3 00:00:09,240 --> 00:00:11,639 Speaker 1: This season is all about tech and how it can 4 00:00:11,680 --> 00:00:15,960 Speaker 1: bring us together instead of tearing us apart. We're bringing 5 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:18,720 Speaker 1: you the people using technology for so much more than 6 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:23,000 Speaker 1: revenue and user growth. They're using it to help us citizen. 7 00:00:29,840 --> 00:00:32,960 Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with Barraitune Day, a podcast 8 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,879 Speaker 1: that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a legal status. 9 00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:41,320 Speaker 1: This is a bonus episode for season three, made possible 10 00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:45,040 Speaker 1: by mail Chimp. This season has been all about tech 11 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:47,840 Speaker 1: and how it can bring us together instead of tearing 12 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:51,760 Speaker 1: us apart. And I'm so excited to bring you one 13 00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:56,320 Speaker 1: more story of people using technology to help us citizen. 14 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:01,280 Speaker 1: I'm your host, Barraitune Day Thurston and on this episode, 15 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:06,240 Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about homelessness and how one organization is 16 00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:11,280 Speaker 1: using data to help communities across the US solve homelessness, 17 00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:16,080 Speaker 1: not just manage it. This is a lifelong and personal 18 00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:19,080 Speaker 1: topic for me. Every week from most of my grade 19 00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:22,440 Speaker 1: school years, I volunteered with my mother at a Washington, 20 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:26,240 Speaker 1: d c. Soup kitchen and meal van, mostly Martha's Table 21 00:01:26,240 --> 00:01:29,240 Speaker 1: and mckinna's wagon. For those who know d C. They're 22 00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:34,360 Speaker 1: both still in operation. Today, I observed, listened and talked 23 00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:36,600 Speaker 1: to my neighbors who didn't have enough money for food 24 00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:41,600 Speaker 1: and often housing. Sometimes it was exhilarating. I mean I 25 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:43,640 Speaker 1: got to ride around town in the back of a 26 00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:47,880 Speaker 1: van handing out donuts to smiling, grateful people. What kids 27 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:54,080 Speaker 1: wouldn't love that? Sometimes it was heartbreaking. Often I cried 28 00:01:54,160 --> 00:01:58,240 Speaker 1: myself to sleep in anger and sadness at the number 29 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:03,040 Speaker 1: of folks we let go hungry and unhoused, wondering what 30 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:07,200 Speaker 1: else we could do about this. Today, the housing crisis 31 00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:11,640 Speaker 1: feels more widespread and acute in many ways. Even if 32 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:16,920 Speaker 1: your own housing feels secured, you probably see encampments, read stories, 33 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:19,720 Speaker 1: or even struggle to pay your own rent and mortgage. 34 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:23,799 Speaker 1: Today I live in California, which by some measures has 35 00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:26,680 Speaker 1: the largest number of unhoused people of any state in 36 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:30,920 Speaker 1: the United States. That little kid in me, he's still 37 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:36,720 Speaker 1: there wondering what we can do about all this. Fortunately, 38 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:41,200 Speaker 1: this podcast episode is a step toward answering that question. 39 00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:45,840 Speaker 1: So check out my conversation with a. Rash Jason of 40 00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:50,840 Speaker 1: Community Solutions, where they use data well defined goals and 41 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:54,320 Speaker 1: a sense of collective ownership to help those at the 42 00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:59,200 Speaker 1: front lines of America's housing crisis solve homelessness by the 43 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,919 Speaker 1: end of this EPISOD. So here's my promise to you. 44 00:03:02,919 --> 00:03:07,000 Speaker 1: You'll feel empowered, You'll have some more optimism. You'll see 45 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:10,880 Speaker 1: how technology can help and how you can help take 46 00:03:10,960 --> 00:03:16,560 Speaker 1: responsibility for helping end homelessness where you live. Let's go. 47 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,240 Speaker 1: My name is I asked Jason. I work at Community Solutions, 48 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:25,280 Speaker 1: where I head up our data and technology team, supporting 49 00:03:25,320 --> 00:03:29,200 Speaker 1: communities to build and use technology and data stand homelessness. 50 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:31,840 Speaker 1: I'll give you a concrete example, and a lot of 51 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:34,160 Speaker 1: the communities that we work with, one of the first 52 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:36,800 Speaker 1: things we ask that they try and engage with is 53 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:39,280 Speaker 1: just getting their arms around the scope of the problem. 54 00:03:39,400 --> 00:03:42,320 Speaker 1: How many people are homeless today where you live in 55 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:46,880 Speaker 1: your community? And you'd be surprised how few communities baseline 56 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:49,680 Speaker 1: have the ability to meaningfully answer that question in a 57 00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:52,520 Speaker 1: way that passes the sniff test with the folks, the 58 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:54,920 Speaker 1: boots on the ground right, or the key stakeholders in 59 00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:56,960 Speaker 1: that community right. People will say that data is out 60 00:03:56,960 --> 00:03:59,560 Speaker 1: of date, it's not comprehensive, it's missing a bunch of folks. 61 00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:02,839 Speaker 1: It has all of these different problems. And so then 62 00:04:02,840 --> 00:04:06,240 Speaker 1: what we've got actually is a really basic what I 63 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:09,600 Speaker 1: think of as mixing bowl problem. A lot of different 64 00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:12,600 Speaker 1: people have data on who's experiencing homelessness, but it's not 65 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:15,400 Speaker 1: in one mixing bowl, right, So it's not a shiny app. 66 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:18,880 Speaker 1: It's just figuring out how can we get the data 67 00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:23,000 Speaker 1: from your database and your database and your database into 68 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:26,560 Speaker 1: our shared mixing bowl. And the work there then is 69 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:29,120 Speaker 1: not about creating a sexy app that does that. It's 70 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:32,680 Speaker 1: about like building relationships and trust, making sure we're honoring 71 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:35,880 Speaker 1: privacy and consent, getting folks on the bus, figuring out 72 00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:38,400 Speaker 1: the double data entry that's gonna need to happen, and 73 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:41,720 Speaker 1: who's going to volunteer to do that, all that good stuff, right, 74 00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:44,720 Speaker 1: And so that's less about the technology. The technology enables 75 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:47,720 Speaker 1: the ability for the partnership and collaboration to happen, but 76 00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:51,880 Speaker 1: actually the special sauces the partnership and the relationships um 77 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:53,920 Speaker 1: and so I think that that idea feels like such 78 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:56,760 Speaker 1: a through line that the tech is an enabling factor, 79 00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,960 Speaker 1: but it's not solving the problem. With the high level 80 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:05,000 Speaker 1: explanation of what community Solutions is doing to help us 81 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:08,600 Speaker 1: address this pretty broadly experienced and certainly at least witness 82 00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:13,320 Speaker 1: crisis of housing and lack of housing for people. So 83 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:17,760 Speaker 1: Community Solutions is powering a movement called Built for Zero, 84 00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:22,200 Speaker 1: and that is a constellation of over nineties cities and counties. 85 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:25,400 Speaker 1: We call them communities that are working to use data 86 00:05:25,920 --> 00:05:28,680 Speaker 1: and to tackle homelessness in a different way. And so 87 00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:31,159 Speaker 1: there are sort of four key elements to the approach 88 00:05:31,640 --> 00:05:33,960 Speaker 1: that we're sort of espoused and that we're working with 89 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:37,119 Speaker 1: communities to support. The first one is sort of having 90 00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: a collective accountability for ending homelessness using a particular definition 91 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:45,200 Speaker 1: of what it means and homelessness let's The second piece 92 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:49,400 Speaker 1: is having a shared aim, ideally making that a quantifiable 93 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:53,200 Speaker 1: aim where we can have objective conversations about whether we're 94 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:56,400 Speaker 1: making progress, what does good look like, what is better 95 00:05:56,480 --> 00:05:59,839 Speaker 1: look like? And what does ending homelessness mean? Right? Do 96 00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:02,400 Speaker 1: we have a shared definition of that across all the 97 00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:04,400 Speaker 1: different folks at the table. The third piece of the 98 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:07,680 Speaker 1: puzzle is establishing sort of what I was talking about earlier, 99 00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:11,440 Speaker 1: that mixing Bowler, that idea of quality real time data 100 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:14,599 Speaker 1: to inform decisions and also to tell us whether what 101 00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:16,680 Speaker 1: we're doing is working, which I think is often a 102 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:19,080 Speaker 1: missing ingredient that I hear about when I talk to 103 00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:22,919 Speaker 1: folks about efforts in their community about ending homelessness. They're like, 104 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:24,440 Speaker 1: we're doing all of these things, and I can tell 105 00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:26,600 Speaker 1: you about the activities, and then when we talk about 106 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:29,320 Speaker 1: the outcomes, it's a bit of a head scratcher, right. 107 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:32,800 Speaker 1: So I think having one shared sort of yardstick that 108 00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:35,440 Speaker 1: we're all using to use a sports metaphor, like we 109 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:38,520 Speaker 1: all agree with what yard line we're on, right, last piece, 110 00:06:38,560 --> 00:06:40,320 Speaker 1: And I think this is important as well in a 111 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:43,840 Speaker 1: lot of places that we're doing meaningful work is being 112 00:06:43,880 --> 00:06:48,840 Speaker 1: really intentional about targeted investments and tying those two reductions 113 00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:51,919 Speaker 1: in homelessness and so having to dig into any of 114 00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:54,560 Speaker 1: those four building blocks. But that's sort of our our playbook. 115 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:58,520 Speaker 1: But then beyond that, I think really the overarching thing 116 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:01,920 Speaker 1: we're doing is bringing folks together to learn from each 117 00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:04,680 Speaker 1: other in a lot of respects. Today, in America and 118 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:07,240 Speaker 1: across a lot of the world, homelessness is one of 119 00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:10,200 Speaker 1: those sort of lagging areas where whether you live in 120 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:12,680 Speaker 1: a big city or a small town or a more 121 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:17,760 Speaker 1: rural jurisdiction. There's something about the sort of status quo 122 00:07:17,800 --> 00:07:20,280 Speaker 1: in our country that isn't working, and it's visible and 123 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:22,760 Speaker 1: it's tangible in a lot of different communities. That's a 124 00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:25,960 Speaker 1: cult of action, yes, but it's also an opportunity because 125 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:28,480 Speaker 1: you're not the only one working on this issue where 126 00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:30,840 Speaker 1: you are, and it's hard to see that often when 127 00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:33,240 Speaker 1: you are boots on the ground, right you feel like 128 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:37,240 Speaker 1: I'm rolling this ball up the mountain and it's just 129 00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:40,240 Speaker 1: me and my team. And so that opportunity to create 130 00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:43,080 Speaker 1: the space where folks feel seen, they feel connected to 131 00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:45,760 Speaker 1: others doing the work. They don't have to start from scratch. 132 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:48,600 Speaker 1: There's a good chance of the problem you're facing somebody 133 00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:50,960 Speaker 1: else is facing two and they've thought about it. Maybe 134 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:53,440 Speaker 1: they even have a place to start, right. I think 135 00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:56,760 Speaker 1: there's so much value in that connective tissue. You're using 136 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:00,200 Speaker 1: so much language that isn't really about technology, you know, 137 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:05,000 Speaker 1: community connective tissue, not feeling alone, learning from each other. 138 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:09,720 Speaker 1: This sounds like, you know, trust exercises in summer camp 139 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:13,480 Speaker 1: and team building much more than about servers and a 140 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:18,680 Speaker 1: p I S and you know, other more technical features. Absolutely, 141 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:21,120 Speaker 1: as do start to think about the operational weeds of 142 00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:24,040 Speaker 1: what would it take for us in our city to 143 00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:28,080 Speaker 1: have a shared aim and accountability and progress towards that aim. 144 00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:30,440 Speaker 1: That's where you start to I think, think about, okay, 145 00:08:30,480 --> 00:08:32,800 Speaker 1: some of what we need, write people at the table, 146 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:37,680 Speaker 1: shared definitions, some wonky metric in the weeds stuff. But 147 00:08:37,679 --> 00:08:41,079 Speaker 1: then there's the enabling factors that I mentioned earlier, and 148 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:43,080 Speaker 1: I think tech has a big role to play here. Right. 149 00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:47,320 Speaker 1: It can either be a barrier if creating the linkages 150 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:51,920 Speaker 1: between these different systems requires fifteen steps and bending over backwards, 151 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,959 Speaker 1: then people aren't going to do it right. Or it 152 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:58,840 Speaker 1: can become an enabling factor, right, if it's really easy 153 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:02,640 Speaker 1: to sort of send all of you the relevant information 154 00:09:02,679 --> 00:09:04,640 Speaker 1: to the relevant people. I think we all actually have 155 00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:06,840 Speaker 1: a lived experience here. I think many of us do 156 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:10,520 Speaker 1: of navigating healthcare, right, and if you think about the 157 00:09:10,559 --> 00:09:13,560 Speaker 1: best experience that you've had, I think hopefully many of 158 00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:16,280 Speaker 1: us do have. Like that one time I didn't have 159 00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:19,400 Speaker 1: to refill all the forms from Scotch where like I 160 00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:22,840 Speaker 1: gotta referral and my information like just seamlessly they had 161 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,000 Speaker 1: it and they didn't meet. They just verified that I 162 00:09:25,120 --> 00:09:27,520 Speaker 1: was me, and then they had all the information that 163 00:09:27,559 --> 00:09:30,640 Speaker 1: they needed to allow them to meet my needs or 164 00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:33,240 Speaker 1: for us to talk about my physical therapy or whatever 165 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:37,400 Speaker 1: it is that dream scenario. What what what enables that 166 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:39,960 Speaker 1: to happen? And why doesn't it happen more often? And 167 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:42,120 Speaker 1: I think as you start to unpack that and get 168 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:45,360 Speaker 1: into the weeds the answers sometimes not always, but sometimes 169 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:48,200 Speaker 1: is tech working well or not working well? And so 170 00:09:48,240 --> 00:09:49,880 Speaker 1: I think that's really part of it for us, is 171 00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:51,800 Speaker 1: sort of figuring out what do we want to do? 172 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:55,240 Speaker 1: Asking that question first before assuming that tech is going 173 00:09:55,280 --> 00:09:57,120 Speaker 1: to have the solution. But I think sometimes it has 174 00:09:57,120 --> 00:09:59,200 Speaker 1: a role to play and what it does. I get excited, 175 00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:01,920 Speaker 1: as you can tell I do. I can pick up 176 00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:04,600 Speaker 1: on your excitement. I share some of it. And you 177 00:10:04,760 --> 00:10:08,079 Speaker 1: mentioned that you're operating in these nine communities, which means 178 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:10,760 Speaker 1: most places you aren't. Um I want to stay at 179 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:13,840 Speaker 1: the kind of the how this feels level for a 180 00:10:13,920 --> 00:10:17,560 Speaker 1: place that's working with you and your method that's different 181 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:20,520 Speaker 1: in these number of ways? How does that look and 182 00:10:20,559 --> 00:10:23,840 Speaker 1: feel differently from places that aren't. What? What's what are 183 00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:26,480 Speaker 1: the things that stand out? Really good question? And for 184 00:10:26,600 --> 00:10:30,800 Speaker 1: reference that communities that we work with, community is such 185 00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:33,560 Speaker 1: a squishy term, right, um, but really what I mean 186 00:10:33,559 --> 00:10:36,360 Speaker 1: by that is it's sort of folks who are self organized. 187 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:40,719 Speaker 1: It often maps to a wonky federal jurisdiction. It's a 188 00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:44,840 Speaker 1: quarter of the country, right, that's the shorthand. So yeah, wow, okay, okay, 189 00:10:44,960 --> 00:10:47,760 Speaker 1: so it's not so rare. And what's what's different? I 190 00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:50,120 Speaker 1: think in terms of the experience, what would what what 191 00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:52,640 Speaker 1: would feel differently in one of those communities. I'll tell 192 00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:57,000 Speaker 1: you from the perspective of somebody working in homeless services 193 00:10:57,080 --> 00:10:59,480 Speaker 1: or homeless response, and then I'll tell you from the perspective, 194 00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:02,559 Speaker 1: hopefully of somebody who's experiencing a housing crisis. If your 195 00:11:02,640 --> 00:11:06,760 Speaker 1: job is case manager and street outreach worker, a city 196 00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:09,200 Speaker 1: official or county official who's in the Department of Housing 197 00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:13,520 Speaker 1: and Homelessness, for example. I think two things that we 198 00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:17,079 Speaker 1: really evangelize. For First, we view your homelessness as a 199 00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:19,920 Speaker 1: systems problem. And what that means is that it's not 200 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:23,520 Speaker 1: about the individual people and um issues that they're having 201 00:11:23,920 --> 00:11:26,360 Speaker 1: or challenges. Yes, we need to know those things so 202 00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:28,520 Speaker 1: that we can support those folks, but that we're pulling 203 00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:31,720 Speaker 1: up and thinking about some top line metrics and and 204 00:11:31,960 --> 00:11:35,240 Speaker 1: most importantly moving from a space of thinking about individual 205 00:11:35,280 --> 00:11:38,200 Speaker 1: programs and projects, So like Burton Day, are you running 206 00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:41,320 Speaker 1: a great homeless shelter? Awesome? What is the impact that's 207 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:45,720 Speaker 1: having on homelessness overall? In East l All the different 208 00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:48,840 Speaker 1: question starts to activate you and being like, well, you 209 00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:51,840 Speaker 1: alone cannot answer that question. You could tell me how 210 00:11:51,840 --> 00:11:54,600 Speaker 1: many of those beds are full, how long folks are staying, 211 00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:57,880 Speaker 1: whether their dignity is being met? All really important questions 212 00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,199 Speaker 1: to be answering. But I think the big paradigm shift here, 213 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:03,640 Speaker 1: and this isn't just specific to build for zero, I 214 00:12:03,640 --> 00:12:06,120 Speaker 1: think it's happening across the country is moving to a 215 00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:08,880 Speaker 1: space where we review homelessness as a problem we need 216 00:12:08,920 --> 00:12:11,360 Speaker 1: to solve and not manage. And so if you need 217 00:12:11,440 --> 00:12:15,240 Speaker 1: to solve homelessness and not just manage it, you've got 218 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:17,080 Speaker 1: to start asking a different set of questions. And so 219 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:18,840 Speaker 1: that brings me to the second thing that I think 220 00:12:18,920 --> 00:12:21,839 Speaker 1: is true in built for zero communities, which folks are 221 00:12:21,920 --> 00:12:25,720 Speaker 1: either working to build a real time person level data 222 00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:29,760 Speaker 1: system that could answer questions like are we making progress 223 00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:33,959 Speaker 1: on ending homelessness for veterans, for folks over fifty five, 224 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:36,719 Speaker 1: for LGBT youth, right lots of different ways you could 225 00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:38,800 Speaker 1: slice that data, but at the end of the day, 226 00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:42,600 Speaker 1: what is true. It's got to know who's experiencing homelessness 227 00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:45,560 Speaker 1: today or this month at least, right, And how is 228 00:12:45,559 --> 00:12:48,360 Speaker 1: that number trending over time? And what are some of 229 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:51,959 Speaker 1: the inflow and outflow criteria right? So, how many folks 230 00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:56,160 Speaker 1: are newly experiencing homelessness, how many folks move from homelessness 231 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:59,400 Speaker 1: into safe and stable housing last months? These kind of 232 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:02,040 Speaker 1: questions or to become your bread and butter if you're 233 00:13:02,080 --> 00:13:05,720 Speaker 1: in the business of asking are we solving homelessness? And 234 00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:08,079 Speaker 1: how would we know? Right? And so that idea of 235 00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:11,920 Speaker 1: shifting the scoreboard, looking at a different set of information 236 00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:14,439 Speaker 1: to give us meaning about progress that we're making. I 237 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:17,360 Speaker 1: think from the perspective of a person working on ending 238 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:20,960 Speaker 1: homelessness or working in homeless services, my hope is that's 239 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,800 Speaker 1: a big mindset shift. And even that idea of foregrounding 240 00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:29,079 Speaker 1: ending homelessness as the mission, even if my role day 241 00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:32,000 Speaker 1: to day is serving the fifteen people in front of 242 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:35,839 Speaker 1: my caseload as a case manager, yes, absolutely, let's make 243 00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:38,760 Speaker 1: sure that we're doing that in a way that is 244 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:42,840 Speaker 1: as sort of evidence informed and trauma informed and preserving 245 00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:46,199 Speaker 1: people's dignity and yes, all of that, and I've got 246 00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:48,840 Speaker 1: to see myself as part of a bigger project, right, 247 00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,800 Speaker 1: And I think that that's a big mindset shift. And 248 00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:54,240 Speaker 1: then the perspective of the person who is on the house, 249 00:13:54,240 --> 00:13:56,920 Speaker 1: who's experiencing homelessness, what is that like in in a 250 00:13:56,920 --> 00:14:00,640 Speaker 1: built for zero area? So I think the direction we 251 00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:03,040 Speaker 1: want to be moving is one where we are first 252 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:07,280 Speaker 1: and foremost making sure that homelessness is rare, brief and 253 00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:10,520 Speaker 1: non recurring or one time. That's sort of the and 254 00:14:10,559 --> 00:14:12,960 Speaker 1: that is a a a sort of through line that 255 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:15,120 Speaker 1: the you know, the federal government has said, like, that's 256 00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:18,360 Speaker 1: the goal, okay, but then in practice, what does that mean? 257 00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:22,800 Speaker 1: The hope is that folks first feel seen as a person. 258 00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:27,440 Speaker 1: We sometimes use this term about our idea of what 259 00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:29,480 Speaker 1: that data in the community might look like, and we 260 00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:31,760 Speaker 1: use a term called a by name list or by 261 00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:34,040 Speaker 1: name data. And that doesn't mean that we think you 262 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:39,040 Speaker 1: should ignore privacy and share people's personal information, you know, everywhere. No. 263 00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:42,480 Speaker 1: So the idea is, though, is that if I'm telling 264 00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:45,520 Speaker 1: you today in my community, this is how many people 265 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:48,040 Speaker 1: are experiencing homelessness, I sure had better be able to 266 00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:50,520 Speaker 1: tell you more about them. I had better be able 267 00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:53,600 Speaker 1: to know who they are, what their needs are, and 268 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:56,920 Speaker 1: so that I can start to right size my services 269 00:14:57,240 --> 00:15:01,040 Speaker 1: and my resources to the people who are actually speriencing homelessness, 270 00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:04,440 Speaker 1: because I think if you're doing planning and advocacy and 271 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:09,440 Speaker 1: resource creation without really having your arms around the problem, 272 00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:12,480 Speaker 1: you're missing half of the puzzle, so to speak. And 273 00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:15,160 Speaker 1: so then you know, you could start to measure things 274 00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:18,560 Speaker 1: like is the number of days on average that somebody 275 00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:23,280 Speaker 1: is experiencing homelessness from touching the system until being able 276 00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:27,000 Speaker 1: to move into their own apartment? What's the baseline and 277 00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:29,280 Speaker 1: what direction is that moving? And for that person who's 278 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:33,120 Speaker 1: experiencing homelessness, the hope would be that number is trending 279 00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:36,560 Speaker 1: in a fewer days, right, and that the deer experience 280 00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:40,120 Speaker 1: of the system is one that's responsive, and that they 281 00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:42,680 Speaker 1: have some line of sight into some of the top 282 00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:45,400 Speaker 1: line accountability measures, which I think is part of the 283 00:15:45,440 --> 00:15:49,960 Speaker 1: tricks here is often I think conversations about how is 284 00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:54,000 Speaker 1: our work to end homelessness going exclude the folks who 285 00:15:54,040 --> 00:15:56,600 Speaker 1: are closest to the problem, right, And so I know 286 00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:59,240 Speaker 1: that in some past conversations you've talked to folks about, 287 00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:02,120 Speaker 1: you know, sort human centered design or making sure that 288 00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:04,400 Speaker 1: we're not you know, I think about some of the 289 00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:07,200 Speaker 1: example that you gave in our recent podcast where you're 290 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:11,200 Speaker 1: talking about work in Detroit and sort of returning citizens 291 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:15,200 Speaker 1: and who's in the room informing decisions about system design. 292 00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:17,480 Speaker 1: I mean, that's a big thing. That's sort of a 293 00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:19,280 Speaker 1: core tenet of what we believe is you've got to 294 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:22,400 Speaker 1: start to engage the folks closest to the problems, whether 295 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:26,120 Speaker 1: that's frontline staff or folks formerly experiencing homelessness or even 296 00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:31,040 Speaker 1: currently experiencing homelessness, in reimagining how those systems are configured 297 00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:33,560 Speaker 1: so that you can reach that shared goal. So is 298 00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:36,520 Speaker 1: that the case with with community solutions? You've got people 299 00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:39,640 Speaker 1: on the front lines of service delivery and people who 300 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:44,280 Speaker 1: are experiencing homelessness helping you design this this new approach 301 00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:48,960 Speaker 1: of shared accountability and person level data and real time 302 00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,600 Speaker 1: tracking and feedback that that has been collaboratively developed or 303 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:54,600 Speaker 1: did you just whip this up, you know, on a 304 00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:57,760 Speaker 1: whiteboard by yourself. Such a good question. So I'll give 305 00:16:57,760 --> 00:17:01,600 Speaker 1: you a really concrete recent example. We are currently operating 306 00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:04,800 Speaker 1: in a world where there's no shared national definition in 307 00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:07,160 Speaker 1: the US for what it would mean for a community 308 00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:09,920 Speaker 1: to end all homelessness. How do we define that? Yeah, 309 00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:11,840 Speaker 1: what does success look like? What are we trying to 310 00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:15,280 Speaker 1: do here? What does success look like? Benga um And so, 311 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,080 Speaker 1: rather than us saying we're pretty smart, we've got some 312 00:17:18,080 --> 00:17:20,920 Speaker 1: folks who have been doing this work for decades. Let's 313 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:23,399 Speaker 1: just sit in a lab and figure that out, we 314 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:26,479 Speaker 1: did exactly what you described, which is, we engaged folks 315 00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:31,840 Speaker 1: across communities who are currently experiencing homelessness or formerly experiencing homelessness. 316 00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:35,120 Speaker 1: We made sure to engage folks who are frontline staff 317 00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:39,159 Speaker 1: working in homeless services. We engaged folks who are system 318 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:42,040 Speaker 1: leaders who are ultimately like sort of viewed as the 319 00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:45,400 Speaker 1: accountable authority for making sure homeless services are going smoothly 320 00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:47,480 Speaker 1: in those communities. And then we also engaged folks at 321 00:17:47,520 --> 00:17:50,080 Speaker 1: the federal level whose job is sort of policy setting 322 00:17:50,119 --> 00:17:54,080 Speaker 1: and resource management. Tried to synthesize all of those diverging 323 00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:57,080 Speaker 1: points of view to come up with how we should 324 00:17:57,119 --> 00:17:59,840 Speaker 1: define that shared end. And that, I think is is 325 00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:01,520 Speaker 1: the spirit of a lot of the work that we're 326 00:18:01,520 --> 00:18:05,280 Speaker 1: doing is saying yes, we have some of the answers, 327 00:18:05,359 --> 00:18:06,800 Speaker 1: or we have a hunch with some of the answers 328 00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:10,200 Speaker 1: might be. But we need to actually center some of 329 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:11,680 Speaker 1: the folks who are closer to the work. And that's 330 00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:14,080 Speaker 1: what's really powerful about getting to work at scale, right, 331 00:18:14,520 --> 00:18:17,199 Speaker 1: because if I'm working with folks across the quarter of 332 00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:20,040 Speaker 1: the country, there's a good chance that I can sort 333 00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:21,960 Speaker 1: of pull up and see the themes that are true 334 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,919 Speaker 1: across l A but also rural Ohio. Right, And so 335 00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:27,680 Speaker 1: then what is the through line? How do we start 336 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:31,080 Speaker 1: to create things that are working across context? You know, 337 00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:32,800 Speaker 1: that's part of what the fun of my job and 338 00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:37,440 Speaker 1: what our team considered. And this is the moment where 339 00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:41,680 Speaker 1: you heighten your attention to pay attention to our advertisers. 340 00:18:55,359 --> 00:18:59,359 Speaker 1: I'm relatively new to Los Angeles still, and our municipal 341 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,960 Speaker 1: government set up it's very confusing to my my East 342 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:05,919 Speaker 1: Coast mind. You got the city and the county and 343 00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:10,240 Speaker 1: l A counties like eight individual municipalities, and it feels 344 00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:14,320 Speaker 1: like a game of you know, people pointing across the 345 00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:17,440 Speaker 1: table at each other in a in a hot potato 346 00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:21,439 Speaker 1: of not it, And so where does the buck stop? 347 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:26,920 Speaker 1: How do you interact with different levels of jurisdiction around 348 00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:30,800 Speaker 1: this problem. So something that's true across the country is 349 00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:35,880 Speaker 1: that majority of homeless services funding, maybe not a majority everywhere, 350 00:19:35,880 --> 00:19:37,760 Speaker 1: but a lot of it comes from the federal government. 351 00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:40,160 Speaker 1: And the way that the federal government pushes that money 352 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:44,120 Speaker 1: out is through uh sort of this big hut program 353 00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:47,480 Speaker 1: called the Continuum of Care Program c OC and and 354 00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:50,359 Speaker 1: these are these warm key jurisdictions. It's not quite a 355 00:19:50,359 --> 00:19:53,160 Speaker 1: county or a city. Often it's kind of a squiggly 356 00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:56,080 Speaker 1: line and it looks like a gerrymander, right, But every 357 00:19:56,119 --> 00:19:58,480 Speaker 1: part of the country is part of one of these 358 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:01,040 Speaker 1: continuums of care. And what that means is that there's 359 00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:05,399 Speaker 1: already some pre existing governance architecture. Now not saying it 360 00:20:05,440 --> 00:20:08,240 Speaker 1: works well, but there's something there. You're not starting with 361 00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:11,600 Speaker 1: a clean canvas that presents some challenges to right. So 362 00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:14,919 Speaker 1: for example, in Los Angeles, it's messy, right, there's the 363 00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:17,960 Speaker 1: city and the county, and there's sort of thinking about also, 364 00:20:18,200 --> 00:20:20,200 Speaker 1: you know, you've got all these municipalities, like you said, 365 00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:22,719 Speaker 1: you've got Long Beach, you've got Glendale. So in a 366 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:25,320 Speaker 1: lot of parts of the country that is true. You've 367 00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:29,280 Speaker 1: got these overlapping jurisdictions and bodies, and and ultimately, I 368 00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:32,480 Speaker 1: think a lot of our work is saying, let's get 369 00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:35,119 Speaker 1: the folks to the table, start with a broad, expansive 370 00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:37,800 Speaker 1: set of stakeholders, and see if we can't find that 371 00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,840 Speaker 1: shared accountability and shared in those first two building blocks. 372 00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:45,000 Speaker 1: What's really interesting to me at least in thinking about 373 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,000 Speaker 1: somebody who wants to be involved in local politics or 374 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:51,600 Speaker 1: or two to be attuned to like what's happening on 375 00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:54,280 Speaker 1: the ground in a city that you live in. And 376 00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:56,600 Speaker 1: so we did this this sort of recent support of 377 00:20:56,680 --> 00:20:59,639 Speaker 1: this Meninos survey of mayors, and so they went out 378 00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:01,679 Speaker 1: and they surveyed a bunch of mayors across the country, 379 00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:03,800 Speaker 1: big cities, small cities, and they sort of asked them 380 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,160 Speaker 1: about their attitudes a bunch of a bunch of different things. 381 00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:11,400 Speaker 1: Over of them said they didn't currently have any sort 382 00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:14,159 Speaker 1: of way to know if homelessness is turning in the 383 00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:17,080 Speaker 1: right direction in their city. They didn't tie success on 384 00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:20,359 Speaker 1: homelessness to reductions and homelessness. And so for me, that 385 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:22,960 Speaker 1: the alarm bells go off right. And again, I think 386 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:26,160 Speaker 1: what we hope will be different in taking this sort 387 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:29,480 Speaker 1: of different built for zero approach, and it's not just us. 388 00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:32,240 Speaker 1: Other folks are hopefully doing this too. Is to say, 389 00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:35,600 Speaker 1: if we are focusing on homelessness as a solvable problem. 390 00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:39,440 Speaker 1: Step one, let's define what that means ending homelessness. I've 391 00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:41,840 Speaker 1: got some ideas about that. Federal government has some ideas 392 00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:45,160 Speaker 1: about that. Great, let's get that shared aim. Step two, 393 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:48,520 Speaker 1: let's what's the scoreboard? Where do I go to see 394 00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:51,080 Speaker 1: how we are doing in l A on ending homelessness? 395 00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:52,719 Speaker 1: And I think we've all gotten in the last two 396 00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:55,520 Speaker 1: years a crash course in what this might look like 397 00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:59,679 Speaker 1: on COVID dashboards. Right, I know where I live now. 398 00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:01,720 Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but I know somewhere 399 00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:05,080 Speaker 1: I can go to understand the state of COVID cases 400 00:22:05,560 --> 00:22:09,960 Speaker 1: of hospital utilization rates. That's that's really great. That's a 401 00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:12,600 Speaker 1: really great because I've used those myself as I've traveled 402 00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:14,639 Speaker 1: and like I'm I going into a hot zone. You know, 403 00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:17,360 Speaker 1: can I afford to to twist an ankle? And then 404 00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,880 Speaker 1: this part of the country is now a bad time 405 00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:21,720 Speaker 1: to go hiking, you know, based on the icy U 406 00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:23,800 Speaker 1: capacity or will I will I will I be able 407 00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:26,520 Speaker 1: to get a bed pretty easily? Should something terrible happen, 408 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:29,199 Speaker 1: and it really depending on the wave of COVID we're in, 409 00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:31,919 Speaker 1: It's affected my choices, and I felt like I've been 410 00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:34,320 Speaker 1: able to make an informed choice. And I think what 411 00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:37,879 Speaker 1: you're describing with this idea of a dashboard and you know, 412 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:42,400 Speaker 1: shared aim and then shared progress reports is not just 413 00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:46,840 Speaker 1: useful for the service providers and government officials and those 414 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:51,080 Speaker 1: experiencing homelessness, but all of us to know how we're doing. 415 00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:56,000 Speaker 1: Because here's my dashboard. I see tense cities, right I have. 416 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,520 Speaker 1: I have an anecdotal visual dashboard. I see headlines as 417 00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:02,919 Speaker 1: I scroll through various feeds and news reports. I hear 418 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,119 Speaker 1: about police actions and things being closed down, and have 419 00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:10,480 Speaker 1: a general feeling that housing is harder to come by. 420 00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,639 Speaker 1: I have some personal stories, but mostly that are slightly 421 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,040 Speaker 1: distant removing. I just I could walk away from that 422 00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:19,080 Speaker 1: feeling like everything is just getting worse, you know, everywhere, 423 00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,080 Speaker 1: all the time, and that that might that might not 424 00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:24,280 Speaker 1: be the case. It probably isn't the case. So that 425 00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:27,720 Speaker 1: that dashboard, that shared progress report, it feels like that 426 00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:33,439 Speaker 1: can also help the public broadly understand how we're doing 427 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:38,040 Speaker 1: and vote accordingly and fun things accordingly or change how 428 00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:42,080 Speaker 1: they're voting and what they're funding because we know the outcomes. 429 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:44,919 Speaker 1: And so then something as simple as what you described, 430 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:48,320 Speaker 1: which is like bar chart of how many people are 431 00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:52,480 Speaker 1: holmemlest today and what direction that is trending over time, right, 432 00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,560 Speaker 1: which is not like a revelatory you know, it sounds 433 00:23:55,680 --> 00:24:00,119 Speaker 1: very simple or really complex algorithm, right, Like, really, what 434 00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,320 Speaker 1: we're talking about here is descriptive statistics, like just tell 435 00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,480 Speaker 1: me what is happening, show me, make it visible to me. 436 00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:11,440 Speaker 1: That's I think a little bit of my view of 437 00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,280 Speaker 1: where we start. And then you start to unpack it, right, 438 00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,199 Speaker 1: and to ask some more interesting and sophisticated questions. So 439 00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:19,479 Speaker 1: I'll just name I think a thing that you need 440 00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,159 Speaker 1: to do as soon as you build that dashboard is 441 00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:24,320 Speaker 1: to be able to start to stratify it by at 442 00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,359 Speaker 1: least race and ethnicity. And the reason why is that 443 00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,480 Speaker 1: we have national data that shows us that even when 444 00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:34,200 Speaker 1: you account for poverty rates, black and Native Americans are 445 00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,560 Speaker 1: massively open represented and homelessness. I think there's some working 446 00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:41,720 Speaker 1: theories of the why there. But again, you're solving homelessness, 447 00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:43,159 Speaker 1: how do we know that we're doing that in a 448 00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:46,720 Speaker 1: way that's equitable that's not leaving anyone behind. And you know, 449 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:48,159 Speaker 1: there's so many other ways that you might want to 450 00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:50,800 Speaker 1: look at that data, right by zip code or or 451 00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:52,600 Speaker 1: sort of neighborhood. You might want to look at that 452 00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:56,000 Speaker 1: data based on age or other demographic criteria. You might 453 00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,320 Speaker 1: want to look at where folks were before they experience homelessness. 454 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:05,080 Speaker 1: There's some thing very anonymous about, you know, our national 455 00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:08,200 Speaker 1: experience of homelessness. I can remember, as a New Yorker 456 00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:12,720 Speaker 1: for twelve years the annual homeless census that would happen, 457 00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:14,000 Speaker 1: and so I'm just like, Okay, I know what a 458 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,120 Speaker 1: census is. And they're they're sending people out with essentially 459 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:23,680 Speaker 1: clipboards to like count faces and shopping cards and head 460 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:29,240 Speaker 1: count as reported, it's very impersonal, almost dehumanizingly so where 461 00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:33,120 Speaker 1: it's just this anonymous pile of people with no personality 462 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,720 Speaker 1: to it. And you've used the phrase in your website, 463 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:41,000 Speaker 1: you know, repeats this person level data. Tell me how 464 00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:44,880 Speaker 1: you're what you're collecting in terms of personal data, why 465 00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:48,119 Speaker 1: you think it's valuable, and how it helps you approach 466 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,040 Speaker 1: the problem more effectively than what we've historically been doing 467 00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,760 Speaker 1: around data. Absolutely, so I think I have also participated 468 00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,240 Speaker 1: in that homeless census or point in time count. I 469 00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,280 Speaker 1: think it's when you think about halflow is there's a 470 00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,320 Speaker 1: no loaf. So if the data that we're using UM 471 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:07,159 Speaker 1: for apples to apples measure is that census, I'll take it. 472 00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,320 Speaker 1: If the alternative is not a But like you said, 473 00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,680 Speaker 1: it is dehumanizing, and I think that it also isn't actionable, 474 00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,560 Speaker 1: right because I don't necessarily have the information about those 475 00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:19,040 Speaker 1: folks to be able to understand their needs and so on. 476 00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,040 Speaker 1: So we are not sort of collecting that level of 477 00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,879 Speaker 1: data because we're not trying to be the national homeless 478 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,480 Speaker 1: database data warehouse. But what we are doing is supporting 479 00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:32,800 Speaker 1: local teams to make sure they have that integrated data 480 00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,400 Speaker 1: source at home and that they can push aggregated data 481 00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,800 Speaker 1: to us that's tied to that person level data, so 482 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,720 Speaker 1: that they could do the version of run me a 483 00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:47,359 Speaker 1: report that gets me that homeless census equivalent or at 484 00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,879 Speaker 1: least the way there on any given Tuesday. That's the 485 00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,879 Speaker 1: sort of test or goal that I sort of have 486 00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,280 Speaker 1: folks orient around. And so then you start to ask 487 00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,879 Speaker 1: who would need to be at the table for us 488 00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,440 Speaker 1: to feel confident that we knew all the people who 489 00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:04,800 Speaker 1: are service connected, and then crucially, how would we know 490 00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:07,959 Speaker 1: about the folks who aren't yet service connected? And often 491 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,040 Speaker 1: that means street outreach, that means setting up a two 492 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,480 Speaker 1: on one hotline. Depending on where you are, it looks different. 493 00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:19,280 Speaker 1: It's not going to be bulletproof. But again just saying like, 494 00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:21,680 Speaker 1: what is the direction that we can head into where 495 00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:26,359 Speaker 1: we're getting closer to comprehensive, real time person level data. 496 00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,640 Speaker 1: And then on the person level side, I think there's 497 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,440 Speaker 1: this question too of what information do you really need 498 00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,439 Speaker 1: about folks to be able to understand what their housing 499 00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,720 Speaker 1: needs are? Right? And I think depending on program eligibility 500 00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:42,040 Speaker 1: and design, those pieces of information vary. Some of it 501 00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,720 Speaker 1: is a sensitive information. And so then we do want 502 00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,960 Speaker 1: to design data systems that do retain sort of privacy 503 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:53,000 Speaker 1: controls and maintain people's right to anonymity. You know, we 504 00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:57,200 Speaker 1: know that there's overlap between you know, runaway homeless youth 505 00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,720 Speaker 1: for example, folks who are survivors of demandstic violence. So 506 00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,400 Speaker 1: I don't want to take lately the idea of privacy. 507 00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:04,920 Speaker 1: And I think we all live right now at a 508 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:08,080 Speaker 1: time where we know so much of our personal data 509 00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,440 Speaker 1: is made accessible right um, so we want to safeguard 510 00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:13,359 Speaker 1: some of that and at the same time we can't 511 00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:15,200 Speaker 1: be paralyzed. I think our team has a point of 512 00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,119 Speaker 1: view on how you can coach or support a team 513 00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,840 Speaker 1: to not have to start from scratch and to start 514 00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:21,520 Speaker 1: to do some of those things like all right, what's 515 00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:23,280 Speaker 1: the structured exercise do you do to figure out who 516 00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,480 Speaker 1: needs to be at the table? How would we print 517 00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:27,199 Speaker 1: out or use a sort of r G I S 518 00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,800 Speaker 1: map to look at our continuous care or our community's 519 00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:33,920 Speaker 1: footprint and talk about where are we doing street outreach? 520 00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:36,280 Speaker 1: I gotta pause you. You threw out a term and 521 00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,760 Speaker 1: some letters next to each other that I am confident 522 00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,320 Speaker 1: most people don't understand, and arc G I S map 523 00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,880 Speaker 1: break that down for me? Happy to just a virtual 524 00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,120 Speaker 1: geospatial maps. So basically think about Google Maps as a 525 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,520 Speaker 1: really helpful touch point, right, but Google Maps with sort 526 00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:56,360 Speaker 1: of a boundary around our community and then the ability 527 00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:58,960 Speaker 1: to sort of drill down and talk about, all right, 528 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,440 Speaker 1: do we have some foe to go and actually canvas 529 00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:05,120 Speaker 1: walk the blocks right to see who's experiencing homelessness, to 530 00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,080 Speaker 1: talk to them, not just to sort of count their 531 00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:10,080 Speaker 1: faces like you were saying but to actually build some relationships, 532 00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:12,880 Speaker 1: understand people's needs and so on. And I think especially 533 00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,520 Speaker 1: in places, um where it's a mix of urban and 534 00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,360 Speaker 1: sort of more suburban or rural together, what you'll often 535 00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,360 Speaker 1: find is folks are really attuned to walk in the 536 00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:27,040 Speaker 1: downtown blocks and nobody's going over there to that residential 537 00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:31,320 Speaker 1: neighborhood that's mostly people of color or lower income folks, right, um, 538 00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,840 Speaker 1: and so what about the folks camping over there? How 539 00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:36,600 Speaker 1: will they get service connected? Right? How will how will 540 00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,440 Speaker 1: we know them by name so to speak, or allow 541 00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,920 Speaker 1: the system to feel on the hook for resolving their 542 00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,360 Speaker 1: experience of homelessness. Because again I think if we've if 543 00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,800 Speaker 1: we're creating this beautiful dashboard or a place that you 544 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,000 Speaker 1: and I are going to know, how are we doing 545 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,600 Speaker 1: on homelessness? A big risk is that if you're missing 546 00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:55,959 Speaker 1: a slice of the pie, we start to pat ourselves 547 00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,640 Speaker 1: on the back for making gains that don't benefit South lay, 548 00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,480 Speaker 1: that don't benefit you know, folks on the other side 549 00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:05,440 Speaker 1: of the river in d C. So to speak, Like, 550 00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,720 Speaker 1: those things I think for me really stand out as 551 00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,240 Speaker 1: so earlier you can start to think about those things 552 00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:14,760 Speaker 1: and make sure folks from those neighborhoods and communities are 553 00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,400 Speaker 1: at the table. The more reliable the data is going 554 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,440 Speaker 1: to be, the more confidence we can have in that 555 00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:23,120 Speaker 1: as our understanding of our shared score board towards Saurday. 556 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,720 Speaker 1: There's a lot of money in trying to solve some 557 00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,280 Speaker 1: of these big societal problems, like you know, unhoused folks, 558 00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,560 Speaker 1: and in every arena where there is a lot of money, 559 00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,520 Speaker 1: there can be a lot of competition, even in including 560 00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,920 Speaker 1: the nonprofit sector, and that can lead people to not 561 00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:45,600 Speaker 1: play well with others, to want to keep things proprietary, 562 00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:50,479 Speaker 1: to hoard information or resources or connections their rolodecks. Do 563 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:56,160 Speaker 1: you encounter that level of isolationism competition as you work 564 00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,960 Speaker 1: across so many existing silos. There's some, but I think 565 00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:01,959 Speaker 1: it it sort of depends on how you frame it 566 00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,240 Speaker 1: and how you activate folks. For a long time, I 567 00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:08,800 Speaker 1: think the status quo in the homeless response sector was 568 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:13,560 Speaker 1: that we thought about program and project level metrics. Right, So, 569 00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:16,640 Speaker 1: how is bartun Day's homeless shelter doing. Let's make a 570 00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:20,560 Speaker 1: dashboard that shows their outputs and outcomes um and then 571 00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,760 Speaker 1: make sure that they're getting the important funding they need 572 00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,440 Speaker 1: from federal partners and elsewhere. In the last ten years, 573 00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:28,760 Speaker 1: there's been an exceed change, and not just because of 574 00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:30,800 Speaker 1: our work, but lots of other good folks doing work 575 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:32,640 Speaker 1: out in the field to say, actually, what we need 576 00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:37,400 Speaker 1: our coordinated systems that start to look beyond program project 577 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:41,320 Speaker 1: to talk about system or community language. And I think 578 00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,680 Speaker 1: that's part of the challenge, honestly, is to create the 579 00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:48,480 Speaker 1: space for people working in homeless response or homeless services 580 00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,960 Speaker 1: to see how their work rolls up to that big 581 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:54,360 Speaker 1: picture aim. Because I think if we don't do that, 582 00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,320 Speaker 1: you're totally right, which is what We'll have one dashboard 583 00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,360 Speaker 1: that the mayor and that you and I are looking at, 584 00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,080 Speaker 1: and the other one that's meaningful for the boots on 585 00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:04,560 Speaker 1: the ground, and we got to sink those things up. 586 00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,520 Speaker 1: There has to be some way in which I see 587 00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:11,640 Speaker 1: how my contributions on the front line roll up to 588 00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,200 Speaker 1: that COVID dashboard number, right, And I think that again, 589 00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,160 Speaker 1: what's awesome is that we have this accessible, I think 590 00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,560 Speaker 1: for all of us today, for better and worse, involuntarily. 591 00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:25,880 Speaker 1: So but yeah, we're all way too familiar with infection 592 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,400 Speaker 1: rates and are not and hospitalization rates, and I see 593 00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:33,200 Speaker 1: you capacity and how you as a citizen in your 594 00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,800 Speaker 1: community or somebody working in a hospital. What is your 595 00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,600 Speaker 1: role to play in that data? You have one right 596 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,680 Speaker 1: and we've really like tried to public health message with 597 00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,800 Speaker 1: mixed results where am as socially distance you have a 598 00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,600 Speaker 1: role to play. Then the curve right, and so what 599 00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,840 Speaker 1: is the analog here for homelessness in housing? I think 600 00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,240 Speaker 1: there there is one or there is a role for 601 00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,080 Speaker 1: us to play. And especially if you work in the 602 00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,280 Speaker 1: space right like, it's crucial that you see the work 603 00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,920 Speaker 1: you're doing, whether as a policymaker or a frontline staffer, 604 00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,920 Speaker 1: or somebody working in a healthcare system or another adjacent system. 605 00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,440 Speaker 1: What's your role on the work to end homelessness where 606 00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:12,480 Speaker 1: you live? And how do we make it easier for 607 00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,320 Speaker 1: people to ask and answer that question. I mean a 608 00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,440 Speaker 1: lot of the tools you're using sound like the way 609 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:23,400 Speaker 1: many of his experience. You know, any digital service at 610 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,760 Speaker 1: this point right there trying to know their customers. They've 611 00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:30,040 Speaker 1: got dashboards, whether it's like a ride share company or 612 00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:34,360 Speaker 1: an e commerce company, auto business, there is much more 613 00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:37,280 Speaker 1: real time. You know, you don't take a snapshot once 614 00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,000 Speaker 1: a year and use that to guide your decision making, 615 00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,120 Speaker 1: and you don't exist for years on end without actually 616 00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,760 Speaker 1: understanding who you're serving, you know, and and getting user 617 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,680 Speaker 1: feedback and observing folks. So you're you're applying some of 618 00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:56,200 Speaker 1: the things from tech and business in part to this 619 00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:58,680 Speaker 1: this place that could really use a boost and really 620 00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,040 Speaker 1: use some innovation. But I'm I'm also hearing it's not 621 00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,440 Speaker 1: just throwing machines, and there's a lot of soft skills 622 00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:09,840 Speaker 1: going on here, some local politics, some cajol ing and 623 00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:14,240 Speaker 1: enticing maybe, and and literal meetings. You know, it probably 624 00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,759 Speaker 1: moves a little slower than than a server would then 625 00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:20,960 Speaker 1: some code would compile, because you gotta get somebody to 626 00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,879 Speaker 1: that meeting and make them see Glendale. You gotta sit 627 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,000 Speaker 1: next to burd Bank and we're cool and we're not 628 00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,520 Speaker 1: trying to fight each other over this, and you gotta listen. 629 00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:31,560 Speaker 1: It sounds like you do a lot of listening rather 630 00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:35,680 Speaker 1: than kind of swooping in with your preferred solution to 631 00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,600 Speaker 1: the problem. And my categorizing this balance pretty well or 632 00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:41,120 Speaker 1: is there a piece that I might be missing it. 633 00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:43,839 Speaker 1: I think you're categorizing it well. And what I'll say is, 634 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,840 Speaker 1: I think part of working at scale forces you to 635 00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,280 Speaker 1: view the forest, and what I mean by that is sure, 636 00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,320 Speaker 1: I could try and create the perfect bespoke tech solution 637 00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:02,160 Speaker 1: that really fits today's workflows in my one community. And 638 00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,400 Speaker 1: the reality is, what we've seen is that the portability 639 00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,600 Speaker 1: of those awesome solutions. Right. I've been part of multiple 640 00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:14,120 Speaker 1: hackathons that involved large fortune tech companies bringing top engineering 641 00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:16,839 Speaker 1: talent to bear on trying to create something that's going 642 00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,160 Speaker 1: to meaningfully contribute to ending homelessness where they are and 643 00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,000 Speaker 1: I laud those efforts and I think that there's value 644 00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,600 Speaker 1: in them. And what makes the transportability of those solutions 645 00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:30,600 Speaker 1: hard is that today, at least a lot of the 646 00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:35,799 Speaker 1: plumbing the foundational work nationally isn't there. I think this 647 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,120 Speaker 1: is not just true in homelessness, right. Um, you know, 648 00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,000 Speaker 1: I think a year or two ago, a lot of 649 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,560 Speaker 1: the country started to pay attention to police data and 650 00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,360 Speaker 1: police incident data, right, police involved shooting data, if we 651 00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:50,520 Speaker 1: want to use that language, and again it's apples to oranges. 652 00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:53,160 Speaker 1: I could build something awesome that works for one city 653 00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,000 Speaker 1: and then the ability for another police department to piggyback 654 00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:57,960 Speaker 1: and say, let me just download that from the app 655 00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,680 Speaker 1: store and start using it, right, And so what is it? 656 00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:03,520 Speaker 1: And you know, we started to dig into some of 657 00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,160 Speaker 1: these foundational questions just in the last year or two, honestly, 658 00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:09,920 Speaker 1: to think about what would enable the space to be 659 00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:11,640 Speaker 1: more like that. I I brought up the example of 660 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:14,000 Speaker 1: healthcare earlier, and top of mind for me these days 661 00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:18,000 Speaker 1: is if you are somebody who's experiencing has in crisis 662 00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:23,560 Speaker 1: or homelessness, you can today almost anywhere download your own 663 00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:27,520 Speaker 1: profile so that you have tangible ownership of that data 664 00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,000 Speaker 1: so that you can just forward it onto your next 665 00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,680 Speaker 1: case manager or choose to disclose or not disclose. Right, 666 00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:35,799 Speaker 1: So that feeling of what does it feel like to 667 00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:41,120 Speaker 1: be on the receiving end of this service machinery? Right, 668 00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,080 Speaker 1: all really well intentioned. But again I think there's this 669 00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:47,560 Speaker 1: quote that we often talk about. Every system is perfectly 670 00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:51,000 Speaker 1: designed to achieve the results that it gets, right. It's 671 00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,280 Speaker 1: it's sort of credited to outward DEMI is like the 672 00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,200 Speaker 1: father of quality improvement science. But but to me, what 673 00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:59,440 Speaker 1: that means is not malintention. It's just the thing that 674 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:03,879 Speaker 1: we've chosen to prioritize. Right. For a long time has 675 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:08,240 Speaker 1: been are we spending money? Well, that has been the question, 676 00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,879 Speaker 1: and more narrowly than that, are we running effective programs 677 00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:14,960 Speaker 1: and projects to manage homelessness. And so we've got a 678 00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,360 Speaker 1: ton of machinery and a ton of infrastructure designed to 679 00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,480 Speaker 1: answer that question, and folks are trying to bend that 680 00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:24,439 Speaker 1: machinery to answer a different set of questions. And that's 681 00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:26,200 Speaker 1: what a lot of our work is is designed to 682 00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,520 Speaker 1: help people pivot those systems that are designed to answer 683 00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,560 Speaker 1: one set of questions to try and solve homelessness and 684 00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:36,000 Speaker 1: asking answer the questions needed to do that. There's ah, 685 00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,120 Speaker 1: that's this is good. Now we're now we're GM and 686 00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:40,279 Speaker 1: not that we were before. But I'm really feeling this 687 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:46,760 Speaker 1: because so much of our experience with technology as users 688 00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:52,680 Speaker 1: sometimes victims is uh, we're engaging with a system designed 689 00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:56,560 Speaker 1: to answer a question we're not aware of. No, we 690 00:37:56,680 --> 00:38:01,359 Speaker 1: think by way of of loose and slop. Example, we 691 00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:05,399 Speaker 1: think that you know, Facebook is answering the question how 692 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:07,760 Speaker 1: can I stay in touch with my friends and family? 693 00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:11,520 Speaker 1: And the question they're trying to answer is how can 694 00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:15,560 Speaker 1: we monetize our knowledge of your behavior by selling it 695 00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:18,799 Speaker 1: to brands and agencies? Right, That's that's probably a higher 696 00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,239 Speaker 1: priority question. There are is answering many questions, but their 697 00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:25,799 Speaker 1: system is designed to optimize outcome for monetization of user 698 00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:29,040 Speaker 1: behavior and data, not necessarily the quality of your relationships 699 00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,840 Speaker 1: with your friends and family, much less the fabric of 700 00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:35,480 Speaker 1: our democracy and the sustainability thereof. So if we were 701 00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,120 Speaker 1: designing a system that was like, how do we build 702 00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,799 Speaker 1: healthy communities where people feel seen and can interact even 703 00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,240 Speaker 1: across difference, we probably wouldn't build this version of Facebook. 704 00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:46,920 Speaker 1: But that's not what the VCS funded. That's not the 705 00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,160 Speaker 1: question they were asking, and they were in charge of 706 00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,359 Speaker 1: how that tool got deployed ultimately, So this is really 707 00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,919 Speaker 1: good around homeless services as an example, are we trying 708 00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,800 Speaker 1: to manage are we trying to optimize program output, or 709 00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,600 Speaker 1: are we actually trying to in homelessness and achieve this 710 00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:06,040 Speaker 1: thing that that your organization calls functional zero in terms 711 00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,360 Speaker 1: of the experience and the quantification of homelessness in any 712 00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,239 Speaker 1: given community. So my question to you, what is the 713 00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,160 Speaker 1: community look and feel like when it achieves functional zero 714 00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,840 Speaker 1: when you actually end homelessness overall or at least for 715 00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,640 Speaker 1: major categories that you're tracking, because your data is so 716 00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:28,360 Speaker 1: much more personalized. So I think it looks two ays. Uh. First, 717 00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,479 Speaker 1: for the person who's experiencing a house in crisis, it's rare. 718 00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:36,680 Speaker 1: That's one one important piece. It's a brief. Right. So 719 00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:38,719 Speaker 1: the amount of time you spend in the waiting room, 720 00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,239 Speaker 1: so to speak, right, if we want to use the 721 00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,879 Speaker 1: analogy of a hospital, is relatively little. The waiting room 722 00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,480 Speaker 1: of available housing. That exactly right. How long is somebody 723 00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,560 Speaker 1: in a homeless shelter or sleeping outside? Right? How long 724 00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,879 Speaker 1: are they experiencing homelessness but connected to services before they're 725 00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,359 Speaker 1: able to get some support? Right? That ultimately is sort 726 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:00,839 Speaker 1: of so let me, let me, let me I want 727 00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:03,120 Speaker 1: to Actually, I'm gonna split this into two different questions. 728 00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:08,080 Speaker 1: So first, what is your definition of ending homelessness or 729 00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:12,279 Speaker 1: or what are some examples of definitions your team has 730 00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,160 Speaker 1: seen from the various places in which you're operating. Sure, 731 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:19,160 Speaker 1: so we have a shared definition that we use nationally 732 00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:23,319 Speaker 1: that you mentioned called functional zero. The shorthand version of 733 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,480 Speaker 1: it is that very few people are experiencing homelessness at 734 00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,440 Speaker 1: any given time. And then when you double click on that, 735 00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:32,520 Speaker 1: what needs to be true is that few people enter homelessness, 736 00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,600 Speaker 1: you're able to support the folks who are experiencing homelessness 737 00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,719 Speaker 1: pretty quickly, and that when folks leave homelessness, they don't 738 00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,440 Speaker 1: cycle back, right. So again just at a conceptual level, 739 00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,680 Speaker 1: pretty straightforward, and we sometimes you sort of the analogy 740 00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:47,719 Speaker 1: of what would it look like if you started to 741 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,080 Speaker 1: think about an empty bathtub. Well, I want to make 742 00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,080 Speaker 1: sure that the rate of which water is draining out 743 00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,040 Speaker 1: of the bathtub is pretty high, and I want to 744 00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:59,880 Speaker 1: turn the faucet off, right, and so both of those things. 745 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:01,560 Speaker 1: And then when you start to get into the weeds, 746 00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,280 Speaker 1: well we got to figure out where are people coming 747 00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:09,360 Speaker 1: into homelessness from, what is the precipitating events or what 748 00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:13,319 Speaker 1: what is happening in people's homeless histories. And unsurprisingly, what 749 00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:16,400 Speaker 1: you look at across the country, I think is that 750 00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:18,600 Speaker 1: we don't know a ton because our data hasn't been 751 00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:20,880 Speaker 1: that strong. But what we do know is that it 752 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,080 Speaker 1: maps largely to network poverty. In other words, you can't 753 00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,000 Speaker 1: make rents and nobody can fill the gap for you. 754 00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,560 Speaker 1: And you know, I think we know which groups historically 755 00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:35,320 Speaker 1: in America are have been most likely to experience network 756 00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:39,640 Speaker 1: poverty and the deep structural racist roots of that truth, right, 757 00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,960 Speaker 1: Black Native Americans. I mentioned it earlier. The other thing 758 00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:46,880 Speaker 1: that I think is true is that there's this moment 759 00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:52,399 Speaker 1: of you know, I mentioned your conversation about returning citizens, right, 760 00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:54,279 Speaker 1: And there was a line in there that I think 761 00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,920 Speaker 1: Shaka said where he said something along the lines of 762 00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:00,920 Speaker 1: I'm having trouble getting an apartment or I didn't know 763 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:05,080 Speaker 1: what it would be like to try and meet eligibility 764 00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:07,600 Speaker 1: criteria or get screened out of being able to rent 765 00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:13,360 Speaker 1: an apartment. Right. Is that we've got all of these folks, 766 00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:18,000 Speaker 1: whether they returning citizens, folks discharging out of foster care systems. Um, 767 00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:22,359 Speaker 1: we talk about adjacent or upstream systems. Right. So the 768 00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:27,040 Speaker 1: idea of what parts of the social safety net shabby 769 00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:30,480 Speaker 1: though it might be in America or other systems, are 770 00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,720 Speaker 1: people touching before they experience a housing crisis or before 771 00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:37,080 Speaker 1: they become homeless? Right? And the answer is often one 772 00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,399 Speaker 1: or more systems? Right? And so what would it look 773 00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,360 Speaker 1: like for those systems to start to view their responsibility 774 00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,839 Speaker 1: as Hey, I've got a metric of nobody leaves our 775 00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:50,279 Speaker 1: system and enters homelessness, right, and can we even track that? 776 00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:52,440 Speaker 1: And what would that look like? What would it take? 777 00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:54,480 Speaker 1: And and we're doing some cool work right now. I 778 00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:56,279 Speaker 1: don't think we've got it figured out, but there's cool 779 00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,839 Speaker 1: work with some some big not even public just like 780 00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:03,000 Speaker 1: private healthcare entities, to just say like, hey, you've got 781 00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,680 Speaker 1: this huge footprint, you have all these emergency rooms. It 782 00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:09,240 Speaker 1: actually benefits your bottom line to have fewer people homeless 783 00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:11,640 Speaker 1: because we know that those folks can cycle in and 784 00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,839 Speaker 1: out of emergency rooms and have adverse health outcomes. So 785 00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:16,239 Speaker 1: it's not just the right thing to do, but it 786 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,480 Speaker 1: also sort of aligns with your profit motive. Great, awesome, 787 00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:22,440 Speaker 1: Let's figure out what it looks like for you to 788 00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,400 Speaker 1: have a goal of nobody leaves your hospital and enters 789 00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,640 Speaker 1: homelessness over a window of time, or start to activate 790 00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:31,520 Speaker 1: you as feeling part of solving the problem. And I 791 00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,680 Speaker 1: think that's the thing is more than anything, what is 792 00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,279 Speaker 1: true in communities that have ended functional zero is more 793 00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:39,200 Speaker 1: and more people feel like they have a role to 794 00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:42,960 Speaker 1: play in making sure homelessness has ended in their community. 795 00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,680 Speaker 1: It's not something somebody else is doing, it's something we 796 00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,920 Speaker 1: are doing collectively. And I think that feels really powerful. 797 00:43:51,640 --> 00:44:06,840 Speaker 1: After a short break, we'll be right back the connection. 798 00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:11,719 Speaker 1: It's something that we've lost in so many parts of 799 00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,120 Speaker 1: our society and even in our own bodies. But you 800 00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,520 Speaker 1: made me think of like a bodily injury metaphor where 801 00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:22,200 Speaker 1: you know, I've had issues with a knee, and you know, 802 00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,040 Speaker 1: if I can work on that issue by just focusing 803 00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:26,640 Speaker 1: on the knee, I can get X rays of the knee, 804 00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:29,000 Speaker 1: I can inject steroids into the knee. But I can 805 00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,640 Speaker 1: also work on the muscles around the knee right. I 806 00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,800 Speaker 1: can give massage therapy. I can do strengthening exercises for 807 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,200 Speaker 1: the hamstring and the quads and the calves and the 808 00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:41,400 Speaker 1: shin muscles, and that can provide extra support so that 809 00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,800 Speaker 1: a weak quad isn't exacerbating my knee pain and my 810 00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:48,040 Speaker 1: knee problem. And so as you move upstream and maybe 811 00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:50,560 Speaker 1: down to know where people coming from, where they're entering 812 00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:55,160 Speaker 1: the crisis point from where you're seeing knee pain, Um, 813 00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:57,600 Speaker 1: there may be a quad issue going on higher in 814 00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,480 Speaker 1: the leg. And where are they going to you know, 815 00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:05,560 Speaker 1: after this brief, increasingly brief period of not having housing, 816 00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,239 Speaker 1: do you have somewhere for people to go? You know, 817 00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:13,120 Speaker 1: and what role do you play in creating a resilient 818 00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:17,040 Speaker 1: kind of network and shared responsibility about reducing the flow 819 00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,600 Speaker 1: into that tub and also you know, draining it quickly 820 00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:23,520 Speaker 1: when people find themselves in there to begin with. So, 821 00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,960 Speaker 1: so where do people go in these functional zero communities 822 00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,839 Speaker 1: when things were hmming along. I'm working much better than 823 00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:32,960 Speaker 1: a lot of us have seen from the outside. Yes, 824 00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:36,880 Speaker 1: so I think um to use that healthcare hospital analogy. 825 00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,560 Speaker 1: Something that we've seen as a missing link in a 826 00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:41,640 Speaker 1: lot of communities is that even when they start to 827 00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:45,160 Speaker 1: think of themselves as a system with that shared aim, 828 00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:48,560 Speaker 1: the triage function. So the first thing that happens when 829 00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:50,719 Speaker 1: I go to an emergency room is they asked me 830 00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,239 Speaker 1: a couple of questions and they figure out if I 831 00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,600 Speaker 1: can chill for a couple of hours or if they 832 00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:59,120 Speaker 1: need to get me into a bad space ap right, 833 00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:01,759 Speaker 1: And that I yeah, I think you know it's it's 834 00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:03,640 Speaker 1: not new, And I think a lot of communities over 835 00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:06,000 Speaker 1: the last couple of years they've been trying to build 836 00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:10,760 Speaker 1: that muscle of sort of leveraging data and process and systems, 837 00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:15,160 Speaker 1: thinking to figure out how to match individual people with 838 00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:17,799 Speaker 1: a level of support. But I think the challenge here 839 00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,640 Speaker 1: is that for a long time, the tools that we 840 00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,440 Speaker 1: were using for that process were a little bit opaque, 841 00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,640 Speaker 1: and like you were saying earlier about Facebook and your 842 00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:31,360 Speaker 1: Facebook is operating with one North star aim and you 843 00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:33,960 Speaker 1: are operating with a different one. It's not to say 844 00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:37,280 Speaker 1: these weren't aligned, but I think that the people closest 845 00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,880 Speaker 1: to the problem weren't at the table for designing how 846 00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,400 Speaker 1: that triage process would work. What was important to people, 847 00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:47,520 Speaker 1: Like a really interesting experience that I had just in 848 00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:49,759 Speaker 1: the last couple of years is we started to think 849 00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:52,640 Speaker 1: about how could we support communities to measure the equity 850 00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,040 Speaker 1: of their systems right. So you can imagine a world 851 00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:58,560 Speaker 1: where community they're hitting all these quantitative stats, very few 852 00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,480 Speaker 1: people are homeless. The system is is churning along and moving, 853 00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,560 Speaker 1: and they're not serving everybody equally, or somebody is getting 854 00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:09,319 Speaker 1: left out. And what we realized is that when you 855 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:12,239 Speaker 1: engage folks, it's not just the quantitative side. They also 856 00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:15,279 Speaker 1: want to know how did it feel? And so so 857 00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:17,440 Speaker 1: to bring it back to your question about, you know, 858 00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,839 Speaker 1: the outflow or the moving into permanent housing in these 859 00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,719 Speaker 1: communities that have achieved functional zero or that are doing 860 00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,880 Speaker 1: something right or different, I think what is true is 861 00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:32,520 Speaker 1: that the experience of receiving support preserves people's dignity, and 862 00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:36,120 Speaker 1: more than that, they feel like the system was responsive 863 00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,279 Speaker 1: to them. And for me, I'll admit this was a 864 00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:42,160 Speaker 1: blind spot. Right. It's not just how many days somebody 865 00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:45,520 Speaker 1: was experiencing homelessness, But there's this more subjective piece of it, 866 00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:50,040 Speaker 1: which is like what quality like the quality of those days? Right? Uh? 867 00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:52,040 Speaker 1: You know? And again like I have been in a 868 00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:54,239 Speaker 1: hospital bed where you press the button and a nurse 869 00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:57,440 Speaker 1: doesn't come for like an hour, versus you press the 870 00:47:57,480 --> 00:47:59,840 Speaker 1: button and they show up, and the two days in 871 00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:03,640 Speaker 1: the hospital bed feel very differently depending on the responsiveness 872 00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:06,440 Speaker 1: of that push button feeling right, And so there are 873 00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,480 Speaker 1: so many things we know, right like that about the 874 00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,840 Speaker 1: quality of care. And again, because we've been used to 875 00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:16,399 Speaker 1: this resource scarcity and trying to optimize resources, which yes, 876 00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,280 Speaker 1: I get it and I understand, but that scarcity mindset 877 00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:24,520 Speaker 1: activates in you efficiency over everything, and the reality of 878 00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:27,080 Speaker 1: being on the receiving end of an efficient system can 879 00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:29,920 Speaker 1: sometimes be pretty decumanizing. And so how do you threat 880 00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:32,279 Speaker 1: the needle there? It's hard, right, I'm gonna admit, I mean, 881 00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:33,880 Speaker 1: part of it is how do we get out of 882 00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:36,480 Speaker 1: scarcity so that we don't have to do that? And 883 00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:38,880 Speaker 1: you know, in the last couple of years, there's been 884 00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:41,640 Speaker 1: an influx of resources that means that in more and 885 00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:45,480 Speaker 1: more places, we might not have to choose between equality 886 00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:47,720 Speaker 1: of care and an efficiency standard, which is a false 887 00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,520 Speaker 1: economy anyway. But I think we're getting to a place 888 00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:53,760 Speaker 1: where people are asking those questions more often. The health 889 00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:57,920 Speaker 1: care metaphor is really appropriate because it's also it's life 890 00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:02,680 Speaker 1: and death is it's really a high impact sector versus 891 00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,200 Speaker 1: like the retail shoe experience some of us have, right 892 00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:08,040 Speaker 1: it's just less critical, you know, to our daily lives 893 00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,239 Speaker 1: as important as sneakers are. Too many people listening to 894 00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,000 Speaker 1: us right now. No offense to my sneaker heads. But 895 00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:17,320 Speaker 1: a dashboard could show a hospitals having great success in 896 00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:19,600 Speaker 1: their surgeries. The patient can tell you a different story 897 00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,959 Speaker 1: about how they were ignored or disrespected or treated without 898 00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:27,440 Speaker 1: any sense of ownership or agencies. I've been in that situation, 899 00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:31,800 Speaker 1: family members have been in that situation, and you feel used, abused, ignored, 900 00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,440 Speaker 1: and you realize I'm not a doctor or a lawyer, 901 00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:35,920 Speaker 1: and I need to be both those things to get 902 00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,040 Speaker 1: my needs met here effectively. And so if you're going 903 00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:42,480 Speaker 1: through a not a health crisis but a housing crisis, yeah, 904 00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:44,200 Speaker 1: the idea that you don't have control of your own 905 00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:46,840 Speaker 1: profile and you're just kind of being passed around and 906 00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,080 Speaker 1: somebody else's database and they're telling you things about you 907 00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,600 Speaker 1: that aren't even true or not even asking um and 908 00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:56,880 Speaker 1: the quality of your time and what's up. Well, I 909 00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:58,480 Speaker 1: was just gonna say, I think I think not just 910 00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:00,840 Speaker 1: telling you things that are not true, but maybe asking 911 00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:04,080 Speaker 1: you to relive something super traumatic over and over and 912 00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:06,799 Speaker 1: over again because their data systems can't talk to each other. 913 00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:09,200 Speaker 1: So I've got to ask you about the domestic violence 914 00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:13,239 Speaker 1: that precipitated you experiencing homelessness, and maybe you're not really 915 00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,520 Speaker 1: trying to talk about that this morning. And then does 916 00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,840 Speaker 1: that inhibit you from being eligible for this rental assistance program? 917 00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:21,040 Speaker 1: Because I don't know the thing that's gonna unlock the 918 00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:24,920 Speaker 1: door because finger right, Like again, what we've surfaced is 919 00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,360 Speaker 1: a way in which the system is not designed with 920 00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:31,080 Speaker 1: that user initially in mind. And a lot of folks 921 00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,040 Speaker 1: have done really meaningful work to start to try and 922 00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:36,480 Speaker 1: transform these systems, but I think we've still got work 923 00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:40,560 Speaker 1: to do as a country on it. You're so, should 924 00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:43,799 Speaker 1: we just put like community solutions in charge of the 925 00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:48,680 Speaker 1: remaining of of this sort of homelessness response in the 926 00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:51,600 Speaker 1: United States? No, and I'll even correct you and say 927 00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:55,040 Speaker 1: we're not responsible for either. But I do think we 928 00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:57,799 Speaker 1: should do, though, is try and get more and more 929 00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:01,480 Speaker 1: of the country feeling like they're of a movement of 930 00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,160 Speaker 1: ending homelessness. I think there's something really powerful in that. 931 00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:06,960 Speaker 1: And what I see is that when folks start to 932 00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:11,640 Speaker 1: expect or understand that things can be better, they start 933 00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:13,759 Speaker 1: to show up in a different way, right, whether they're 934 00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:16,600 Speaker 1: working in the system, whether they're an informed citizen in 935 00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,960 Speaker 1: their community. I think starting to do this mindset shift 936 00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,520 Speaker 1: work to say, you know, I expect there to be 937 00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:27,120 Speaker 1: accountability for results. I don't think this is a problem 938 00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:31,239 Speaker 1: that's intractable. Obviously, we've got a housing crisis at a 939 00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:35,560 Speaker 1: national level, yes, and even within that context, there are 940 00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:38,439 Speaker 1: shades of doing better and worse right with the hand 941 00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:41,240 Speaker 1: that you're dealt. And so not to say we shouldn't 942 00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:45,040 Speaker 1: push on the structural barriers that exist, Yes, absolutely we should. 943 00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:48,200 Speaker 1: And you and I both know that in a community 944 00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:50,680 Speaker 1: like Los Angeles, there's just been a big influx of 945 00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:53,920 Speaker 1: resources from the state from a local ballot measure, multiple 946 00:51:53,960 --> 00:51:58,000 Speaker 1: local ballot measures, right, And so how are we thinking 947 00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:02,799 Speaker 1: about the impact that that has on people's experience of 948 00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:06,440 Speaker 1: housing instability and crisis on our experience of living in neighborhoods, 949 00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,640 Speaker 1: and you know, starting to get curious about how we 950 00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,319 Speaker 1: would know if we were making progress towards and then 951 00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:15,399 Speaker 1: homelessness where you live. I think it is a good 952 00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:19,200 Speaker 1: first step. This is a good segue because I'm I'm 953 00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:21,319 Speaker 1: hearing you as a listener, not just as the host 954 00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,160 Speaker 1: of this show. And I want to be a part 955 00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:29,600 Speaker 1: of this community solution. To use your organization's name. I have, 956 00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:35,480 Speaker 1: you know, been saddened by and frustrated by and feeling 957 00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:40,640 Speaker 1: impotent about this perceived an actual level of increased you know, 958 00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:44,000 Speaker 1: housing crisis and the failures of our society in so 959 00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:46,319 Speaker 1: many ways to have people living on the streets as 960 00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:51,520 Speaker 1: one example, What are some ways that I can get 961 00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,319 Speaker 1: more involved, that I can bring to bear, that I 962 00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:56,640 Speaker 1: can plug in in some way I want to help 963 00:52:56,719 --> 00:53:00,000 Speaker 1: share some of this responsibility that you talked about, shared accountability, 964 00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:02,680 Speaker 1: these shared goals. Where can I be a part of that? 965 00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:07,200 Speaker 1: Such a good question. So I think three things come 966 00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:09,680 Speaker 1: to mind. The first is just to start to understand 967 00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:13,920 Speaker 1: homelessness as a solvable problem that's about systems and not 968 00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,359 Speaker 1: about the failing of individual people. I think a lot 969 00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:22,160 Speaker 1: of us don't know anybody firsthand who is currently experiencing 970 00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,760 Speaker 1: homelessness or has experienced homelessness recently, and so it becomes 971 00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:30,719 Speaker 1: a dehumanizing story. Right that person who is almost over there. 972 00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:33,319 Speaker 1: I don't know anything about them. They may not look 973 00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,399 Speaker 1: like me. It's hard for me to see myself in them, 974 00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:39,200 Speaker 1: and so I start to view the matter a move 975 00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,880 Speaker 1: right or to center them in the narrative about homelessness 976 00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,479 Speaker 1: in my community. Oh, those people and their substance use, 977 00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:49,600 Speaker 1: or they're out of town or nature or whatever. Right 978 00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:53,919 Speaker 1: there are neighbors, and I think that there's something really 979 00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:57,719 Speaker 1: powerful in leaning into that discomfort, though may make you 980 00:53:57,719 --> 00:54:00,440 Speaker 1: feel impotent, as you were saying, of viewing those as 981 00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:04,080 Speaker 1: people deserving of a home, not about fixing the people, 982 00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:07,680 Speaker 1: about fixing the system. So that mindset you have feels crucial. First, 983 00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:11,160 Speaker 1: The second thing for me is I mentioned those continuums 984 00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:13,960 Speaker 1: of care won key term CEO c S. Type in 985 00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:17,760 Speaker 1: your your community name and CEOC into a web browser. 986 00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:22,320 Speaker 1: You'll figure out some information about local folks doing the work. 987 00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:25,240 Speaker 1: And I think I would encourage for people to get 988 00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:27,960 Speaker 1: connected to those entities. It's a little bit of a 989 00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:30,640 Speaker 1: learning curve, I know, but you know, you can sort 990 00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:33,920 Speaker 1: of choose how you want to approach it and get connected. 991 00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:37,800 Speaker 1: For folks who want to feel more involved in direct, 992 00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,719 Speaker 1: tangible material support, tons of opportunities, I think, especially as 993 00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,160 Speaker 1: fingers crossed the pandemic starts to wane wherever you live, 994 00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,200 Speaker 1: for folks to show up and start to get face time, 995 00:54:48,239 --> 00:54:51,440 Speaker 1: to humanize some of the folks experiencing housing crisis in 996 00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:54,719 Speaker 1: their neighborhood with their community. And then for people who 997 00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:56,359 Speaker 1: are maybe looking for a little bit more of that 998 00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,759 Speaker 1: system angle or orientation, I'd invite you to to start 999 00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:03,319 Speaker 1: to get some of those committees or decision making groups right, So, 1000 00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:06,279 Speaker 1: how are we deciding policies on how the money gets 1001 00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,480 Speaker 1: spent or how we're measuring success. A lot of those 1002 00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:13,040 Speaker 1: have participatory processes where they're really excited to have people 1003 00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:15,520 Speaker 1: show up. And just like so much of participatory democracy, 1004 00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:18,439 Speaker 1: the people who tend to show up often I think 1005 00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:21,480 Speaker 1: aren't maybe are the listeners of your program, And so 1006 00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:23,680 Speaker 1: I'd encourage more people to start to get involved and 1007 00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:26,160 Speaker 1: tap in. And then maybe the third thing that I'll 1008 00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:27,960 Speaker 1: say is that you know, I mentioned these themes of 1009 00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:32,320 Speaker 1: data and accountability and shared aim. You know, I mentioned 1010 00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:37,040 Speaker 1: that Menino mayor survey and how few mayors across the 1011 00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:41,040 Speaker 1: country said they view success on homelessness as tied to 1012 00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:45,239 Speaker 1: reductions and homelessness, which is bananas. Right. If I ask 1013 00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:49,680 Speaker 1: anybody you know, or my parents or whoever, how should 1014 00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:52,839 Speaker 1: we think about if we're doing better on homelessness? One 1015 00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:54,840 Speaker 1: of the first things people say is we should have 1016 00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:58,399 Speaker 1: fewer people who are homeless. How is that arrow trending? Right? 1017 00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:00,160 Speaker 1: And we've got to be able to see that more 1018 00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:02,120 Speaker 1: than just annually, and we have to be able to 1019 00:56:02,120 --> 00:56:04,680 Speaker 1: see that in a way that passes the sniff test 1020 00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:07,040 Speaker 1: for the people doing the work on the ground across 1021 00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:10,840 Speaker 1: a variety of communities, right, And so start to ask 1022 00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:13,600 Speaker 1: for that accountability for that line of state into the 1023 00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:15,640 Speaker 1: data where you live. I think we should start to 1024 00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:17,960 Speaker 1: feel in the same way that if I if tomorrow 1025 00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:19,839 Speaker 1: they started to tell me we can't tell you how 1026 00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:22,520 Speaker 1: many COVID cases there are you know a county, I'd 1027 00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:24,040 Speaker 1: be like, what do you mean? I mean, who do 1028 00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:27,600 Speaker 1: I call? Right? We should start to expect that, right, like, 1029 00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,920 Speaker 1: let us raise the bar on what we expect um 1030 00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:34,919 Speaker 1: and again not just seeing the data, but understanding which 1031 00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:38,080 Speaker 1: way is headed and why um and start to unpack 1032 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:42,759 Speaker 1: and have those conversations. There's always a set of elections 1033 00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:45,719 Speaker 1: going on, and mayor is a very important one. And 1034 00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:49,200 Speaker 1: so just to have in mind a question to ask 1035 00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:51,520 Speaker 1: your mayor or the people who want to who want 1036 00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:55,160 Speaker 1: that job, you know, what's your definition of success? How 1037 00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:58,120 Speaker 1: will you know if your plan to you know, reduce 1038 00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:01,320 Speaker 1: homelessness is working and if they are, I don't know. 1039 00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:05,080 Speaker 1: And let me tell you another red flag too, right, 1040 00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:08,319 Speaker 1: which is if you live in California, or in Washington State, 1041 00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:11,799 Speaker 1: or in somewhere where of homelessness is visible. I think 1042 00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:14,880 Speaker 1: a real risk to us having a scoreboard that's about 1043 00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:17,880 Speaker 1: how visible homelessness is is that we create a big 1044 00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,360 Speaker 1: old set a warehouses and we shove people into that. 1045 00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:24,520 Speaker 1: Not because that's the ultimate end state goal, but if 1046 00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:27,280 Speaker 1: we create a set of incentives, if we say to 1047 00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:30,200 Speaker 1: our mayor, the measure of your success on homelessness is 1048 00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:32,760 Speaker 1: the number of tents on my block. Think about the 1049 00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:35,120 Speaker 1: easiest way to shrink the number of tents on my block. 1050 00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:39,040 Speaker 1: It's a lot easier to move people out of sight 1051 00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:42,360 Speaker 1: and out of mind than it is to solve some 1052 00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:45,600 Speaker 1: of the underlying structural challenges that we face in our 1053 00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:48,760 Speaker 1: communities that are leading to the homelessness crisis. And so 1054 00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:51,640 Speaker 1: I think, more than anything, I think I want to 1055 00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:54,120 Speaker 1: also say, if you're going to engage with elected folks, 1056 00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:58,800 Speaker 1: be sure to ask not just what's the plan for 1057 00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:01,160 Speaker 1: the encampments or of folks sleeping on my block? Not 1058 00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,480 Speaker 1: to say that isn't important. I know for a lot 1059 00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:06,960 Speaker 1: of different reasons that matters to people. But that second 1060 00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:11,240 Speaker 1: question of how will I know that the data is 1061 00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:14,760 Speaker 1: showing those folks are in safe and stable, permanent housing 1062 00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:17,520 Speaker 1: and not just in a homeless shelter that we've built 1063 00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:20,880 Speaker 1: last week down the street, because that's not really success. 1064 00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:23,880 Speaker 1: That's a step in the direction, for sure, and especially 1065 00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:28,120 Speaker 1: if that homeless shelter is high quality and is a 1066 00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:32,000 Speaker 1: tune to people's needs and experiences. Sure, by all means right, 1067 00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:34,440 Speaker 1: but I think we have examples of major cities on 1068 00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:37,880 Speaker 1: the East Coast or and other leather places where they've 1069 00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:42,960 Speaker 1: invested really heavily in a really big and expensive shelter system, 1070 00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:46,640 Speaker 1: and while it definitely meets some of people's immediate humanitarian needs, 1071 00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:50,160 Speaker 1: it's a bit of a band aid, right, And and 1072 00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:53,120 Speaker 1: so how do we avoid creating a set of incentives 1073 00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:55,920 Speaker 1: that push people to invest more and more in just 1074 00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:59,160 Speaker 1: bigger band aids, right, because that makes them look good. 1075 00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:01,480 Speaker 1: So I think that's important catch forty to to stay 1076 00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:05,040 Speaker 1: on top of. I'm glad you pointed that out. Thank you. 1077 00:59:05,560 --> 00:59:08,880 Speaker 1: We call this show How to Citizen. We consider citizen 1078 00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:12,840 Speaker 1: as a verb, not a legal status, and you know 1079 00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:16,120 Speaker 1: it means all kinds of things to Our definition of 1080 00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:19,800 Speaker 1: citizen is like premised on these four basic blocks. But 1081 00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:23,240 Speaker 1: you got your four blocks, right, your four elements of 1082 00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:25,560 Speaker 1: built for zero. We have ours for How to Citizen, 1083 00:59:26,040 --> 00:59:29,280 Speaker 1: which involved number one showing up and participating. Number two, 1084 00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:33,240 Speaker 1: you know, investing in relationships with yourself, with others and 1085 00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,880 Speaker 1: with the planet around you. Number three understanding power. That 1086 00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:39,280 Speaker 1: is something we all have and it shows up in 1087 00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:41,200 Speaker 1: more than just votes and dollars. There's a lot of 1088 00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:45,160 Speaker 1: different ways to exercise it and generate it. And number 1089 00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:47,800 Speaker 1: four that we use all these to benefit our collective selves, 1090 00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:52,560 Speaker 1: not just our individual cells. So as you hear that overview, 1091 00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:55,120 Speaker 1: and you've you know, done some homework, I hear too. 1092 00:59:55,160 --> 00:59:57,920 Speaker 1: I appreciate that you know what the show is about 1093 00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:01,000 Speaker 1: what does in the context of you're doing for work, 1094 01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:03,880 Speaker 1: what does it mean to citizen? What does citizen as 1095 01:00:03,880 --> 01:00:07,760 Speaker 1: a verb mean to you? I love those four building 1096 01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:11,280 Speaker 1: blocks that you have. What resonates most with me is 1097 01:00:12,080 --> 01:00:16,160 Speaker 1: the citizen is to feel responsible for the circumstances of 1098 01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:19,080 Speaker 1: your community. Right. So it's a bit of a blend 1099 01:00:19,120 --> 01:00:23,560 Speaker 1: of showing up and investing, but also benefiting the collective 1100 01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:26,360 Speaker 1: as you've had in there. And to me, I think 1101 01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:29,640 Speaker 1: when we bring it to the issue of homelessness, viewing 1102 01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:35,760 Speaker 1: yourself as playing a role in your community beyond just 1103 01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:38,800 Speaker 1: like are you nice to people? Are you humanizing? Do 1104 01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:42,080 Speaker 1: you smile? Yes? Does matter? But more broadly, at the 1105 01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:46,360 Speaker 1: system level, are you starting to think about showing up 1106 01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:49,760 Speaker 1: in that space as having a role to play, um 1107 01:00:49,800 --> 01:00:53,400 Speaker 1: as feeling part of the collective ownership? Right? I think 1108 01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:57,120 Speaker 1: more than anything, one of the things that happens when 1109 01:00:57,120 --> 01:01:00,160 Speaker 1: you start to humanize people, to make eye contact, to 1110 01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:02,520 Speaker 1: not look away, to ask people their names, to see 1111 01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:05,240 Speaker 1: how they're doing, to view them as your neighbors, is 1112 01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:09,600 Speaker 1: it unlocks a sense of responsibility, right, um, And and 1113 01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:15,280 Speaker 1: I think that we are we are accepting of the 1114 01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:18,280 Speaker 1: conditions in our communities. Right to me, how the citizen 1115 01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:21,960 Speaker 1: also means to feel responsible for the status quo where 1116 01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:25,120 Speaker 1: you live and to feel responsible for making it better. Right, 1117 01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:27,440 Speaker 1: And like you said, that might be about exercising your 1118 01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:30,880 Speaker 1: power in terms of elections or money. It might be 1119 01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:34,760 Speaker 1: about exercising other things. Right, Um, I don't know. But 1120 01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:37,800 Speaker 1: what I do know is that if I accept, If 1121 01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:41,080 Speaker 1: if I walk through skid row in Los Angeles and 1122 01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:43,560 Speaker 1: I accept that it is what it is, and I 1123 01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:44,960 Speaker 1: don't know what to do about it, it's out of 1124 01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:49,640 Speaker 1: my hands or it's untractable, it can't be solved. It's 1125 01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:51,440 Speaker 1: the easiest way. Don't let myself off the hook. And 1126 01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:53,440 Speaker 1: I think more than anything else, I asked people not 1127 01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:56,040 Speaker 1: to do that. Right, almost this is solvable. Look around. 1128 01:01:56,480 --> 01:01:59,920 Speaker 1: If your community is not ending homelessness, try and figure 1129 01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:02,680 Speaker 1: out what you can do to change that. And so, 1130 01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:04,400 Speaker 1: like I said, I think folks can go to our 1131 01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:06,760 Speaker 1: website and figure out how to get involved. See if 1132 01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:09,080 Speaker 1: their community is part of Built for Zero And if not, 1133 01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:12,800 Speaker 1: what's the website? What's the website? Say at Community dot Solutions, 1134 01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:14,400 Speaker 1: how did you get that? How did you get that 1135 01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:17,240 Speaker 1: cool domain name? That's a domain name? I'm the tech 1136 01:02:17,240 --> 01:02:21,640 Speaker 1: and data guy. Man, that's what we do. Very cool. 1137 01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:25,920 Speaker 1: Speaking of you being a tech and data guy, you've 1138 01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:29,280 Speaker 1: shared a lot about the programs and about your approach 1139 01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:31,120 Speaker 1: and some of the victories and some of the challenges. 1140 01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:34,600 Speaker 1: Why are you working here? What what's led you to 1141 01:02:34,680 --> 01:02:38,480 Speaker 1: spend you know, your full time work efforts in this 1142 01:02:38,600 --> 01:02:43,600 Speaker 1: organization working on this problem and these solutions More importantly, Yeah, 1143 01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:46,680 Speaker 1: I appreciate that reframe. So I started at Community Solutions 1144 01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:50,080 Speaker 1: a little over seven years ago, which is wild. Um. 1145 01:02:50,080 --> 01:02:52,640 Speaker 1: It was one of the first handful of jobs I 1146 01:02:52,680 --> 01:02:57,880 Speaker 1: had out of college. My academic background is in international development, 1147 01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:00,360 Speaker 1: and then I went back to school there in my 1148 01:03:00,400 --> 01:03:03,080 Speaker 1: career and double down on statistics. And the reason I 1149 01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:05,720 Speaker 1: did that, and the reason I stick around at Community 1150 01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:10,280 Speaker 1: Solutions is because what I learned in those first handful 1151 01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:13,840 Speaker 1: years in my job was that we've gotten pretty good, 1152 01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:17,200 Speaker 1: especially around issues like housing and homelessness, at helping one 1153 01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:21,880 Speaker 1: person or one family, Right, something really compelling about homelessness 1154 01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:24,600 Speaker 1: as an issue area. So there's there's a really obvious 1155 01:03:24,720 --> 01:03:26,480 Speaker 1: we don't need to go to the lab and come 1156 01:03:26,520 --> 01:03:29,480 Speaker 1: up with the cure for homelessness, right, It's not like, 1157 01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:33,480 Speaker 1: you know, biomedical research is needed here, right. The cure 1158 01:03:33,520 --> 01:03:37,320 Speaker 1: for homelessness is housing, period And what we know is 1159 01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:41,520 Speaker 1: that we have a really robust set of evidence informed 1160 01:03:41,560 --> 01:03:46,360 Speaker 1: social work practices, housing models, and housing stability and support 1161 01:03:46,360 --> 01:03:49,560 Speaker 1: models that say, and for folks who don't know that, 1162 01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:52,720 Speaker 1: there's this great term called housing first, and there's a 1163 01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:58,240 Speaker 1: whole bunch of associated research and models for how you 1164 01:03:58,280 --> 01:04:02,480 Speaker 1: successfully implement housing first to help one household, one family, 1165 01:04:02,640 --> 01:04:05,160 Speaker 1: run one excellent program. So okay, we know how to 1166 01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:09,520 Speaker 1: help one person, one family, one run one excellent program, 1167 01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:13,360 Speaker 1: and yet the sum total of all of that activity 1168 01:04:13,440 --> 01:04:16,120 Speaker 1: isn't resulting in the outcome we care about. And that 1169 01:04:16,240 --> 01:04:19,360 Speaker 1: is a really interesting and thorny puzzle. It's what drives 1170 01:04:19,400 --> 01:04:21,360 Speaker 1: me out of bad every morning is to say, how 1171 01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:25,120 Speaker 1: can I help contribute to us unlocking that thorny puzzle. 1172 01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:27,480 Speaker 1: But what also gives me a lot of hope is 1173 01:04:27,520 --> 01:04:29,280 Speaker 1: because we know how to help those one family and 1174 01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:33,560 Speaker 1: one person how to run one excellent program project. These 1175 01:04:33,880 --> 01:04:37,680 Speaker 1: feels like an easy place for us, easy air quotes, 1176 01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:39,400 Speaker 1: place for us to start to take a stand on 1177 01:04:39,560 --> 01:04:43,280 Speaker 1: raising the floor on what we are willing to accept 1178 01:04:43,280 --> 01:04:46,640 Speaker 1: as a society and a culture in terms of poverty 1179 01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:50,240 Speaker 1: and minimum standards of quality of life in our communities. 1180 01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:52,840 Speaker 1: I think about the fact that we have collectively decided 1181 01:04:53,080 --> 01:04:55,040 Speaker 1: that if you get hit by a bus and you 1182 01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:59,040 Speaker 1: don't have insurance, we give you healthcare. And we've decided 1183 01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:02,760 Speaker 1: collectively that if you can't afford something to eat, you 1184 01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:05,120 Speaker 1: can qualify for a foods type and or about of it. 1185 01:05:05,200 --> 01:05:07,480 Speaker 1: These are human rights. And when you look at that, 1186 01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:09,680 Speaker 1: you know some of your listeners may be sort of 1187 01:05:09,720 --> 01:05:12,480 Speaker 1: familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a long y term 1188 01:05:12,520 --> 01:05:14,280 Speaker 1: for what's the bread and butter stuff you need to 1189 01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:18,000 Speaker 1: stay alive as a human being? Right? Housing is on 1190 01:05:18,080 --> 01:05:20,880 Speaker 1: that bottom level. It's the base of the pyramid. It 1191 01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:23,240 Speaker 1: is a thing that we know people need, and yet 1192 01:05:23,280 --> 01:05:25,880 Speaker 1: somehow along the way we are not yet out of 1193 01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:30,520 Speaker 1: place where all the people eligible for housing assistants get 1194 01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:33,440 Speaker 1: it right. And so there's a resource constrained angle, but 1195 01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:38,000 Speaker 1: there's also a set of system decisions and designs, and 1196 01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:41,240 Speaker 1: I'm excited to get to work on those things. Where 1197 01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:44,360 Speaker 1: did you grow up? So I am the child of refugees, 1198 01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:48,280 Speaker 1: I'm an immigrant. I grew up across Toronto, Washington, d C. 1199 01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:54,720 Speaker 1: And then throughout my childhood increasingly more upscale suburbs of Washington, 1200 01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:57,320 Speaker 1: d C. So we started out in Congress Heights. Back 1201 01:05:57,360 --> 01:05:59,320 Speaker 1: when I was a little kid, we lived in public housing. 1202 01:05:59,680 --> 01:06:03,560 Speaker 1: We had the opportunity to sort of move up that 1203 01:06:03,600 --> 01:06:06,000 Speaker 1: socioeconomic ladder. I got to see it firsthand. I spent 1204 01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:11,840 Speaker 1: a lot of my childhood formative years either living in 1205 01:06:11,920 --> 01:06:15,760 Speaker 1: subsidized housing benefiting from some of these public programs, or 1206 01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:19,560 Speaker 1: turning around and having folks live with us. Uh So 1207 01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:23,080 Speaker 1: sort of that chain migration story of having relatives or 1208 01:06:23,120 --> 01:06:26,960 Speaker 1: even community members who am not related to sharing space 1209 01:06:27,000 --> 01:06:28,680 Speaker 1: in our home. And so what feels true to me 1210 01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:32,880 Speaker 1: is that there's a really crucial linkage here in terms 1211 01:06:32,960 --> 01:06:38,440 Speaker 1: of housing and opportunity, right, those things are linked, and 1212 01:06:38,440 --> 01:06:40,720 Speaker 1: I think sometimes we missed that. And so as we're 1213 01:06:40,720 --> 01:06:42,760 Speaker 1: having these conversations about what kind of country you want 1214 01:06:42,760 --> 01:06:45,120 Speaker 1: to be or what kind of person I want to 1215 01:06:45,120 --> 01:06:47,960 Speaker 1: be in my community, I think this issue area I 1216 01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:50,960 Speaker 1: really feels like it hits close to home and it 1217 01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:53,600 Speaker 1: moves me. And then in terms of the data and 1218 01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:56,120 Speaker 1: tech side of things, I think, after having worked in 1219 01:06:56,120 --> 01:06:57,880 Speaker 1: this space for a couple of years, what felt true 1220 01:06:58,720 --> 01:07:02,000 Speaker 1: is that people were in the field, we're experiencing data 1221 01:07:02,040 --> 01:07:04,360 Speaker 1: and tech as a barrier to their work and not 1222 01:07:04,480 --> 01:07:08,160 Speaker 1: as a catalyst. And that felt bananas, right, And I 1223 01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:10,560 Speaker 1: have this this quote actually that it sits on a 1224 01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:13,240 Speaker 1: sticky note on my monitor. I'd love to to share 1225 01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:15,320 Speaker 1: it with you, which is from somebody who's a frontline worker, 1226 01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:19,400 Speaker 1: and they said, I've seen how our data and tech 1227 01:07:19,480 --> 01:07:23,400 Speaker 1: systems contribute to people spending time on the streets and 1228 01:07:23,480 --> 01:07:27,600 Speaker 1: being more likely to die on the streets, and it's unacceptable. 1229 01:07:28,400 --> 01:07:31,000 Speaker 1: And we know we have data that says if you're 1230 01:07:31,000 --> 01:07:37,440 Speaker 1: experiencing homelessness, you're life expectancy decreases by about seventeen years 1231 01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:41,280 Speaker 1: on average. And that's not. That's real, right, that's real harm. 1232 01:07:41,360 --> 01:07:45,000 Speaker 1: It's not I'm having fun sleeping on the beach stuff, right. 1233 01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:47,080 Speaker 1: And so once you start to see that and you 1234 01:07:47,120 --> 01:07:48,520 Speaker 1: think about, you know, what does it mean to be 1235 01:07:48,560 --> 01:07:51,080 Speaker 1: doing international development work? But then you come home and 1236 01:07:51,120 --> 01:07:53,760 Speaker 1: there's an encampment on your block. Who's got that ball? 1237 01:07:54,600 --> 01:07:57,480 Speaker 1: Who's doing domestic development work? And lots of people are 1238 01:07:57,480 --> 01:07:59,120 Speaker 1: doing it. But I think we have an opportunity to 1239 01:07:59,160 --> 01:08:02,720 Speaker 1: shift what that looks like. Thank you for letting me 1240 01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:05,760 Speaker 1: in there. That it you make sense doing what you're 1241 01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:09,840 Speaker 1: doing to me who just met you, and you snuck 1242 01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:12,000 Speaker 1: a pun in there bringing it all home. I caught 1243 01:08:12,040 --> 01:08:14,960 Speaker 1: that that was good, And I think you know, it's 1244 01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:18,439 Speaker 1: something you started off with a while ago about seeing 1245 01:08:19,160 --> 01:08:22,040 Speaker 1: folks in a housing crisis, seeing people who are unhoused 1246 01:08:22,040 --> 01:08:26,280 Speaker 1: as people and as our neighbors, and and it feels 1247 01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:29,519 Speaker 1: like you know something that you got to experience and 1248 01:08:29,560 --> 01:08:31,840 Speaker 1: be a part of as a child yourself. You're taking 1249 01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:35,360 Speaker 1: people in, You're being taken into something like we're all connected, 1250 01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:38,560 Speaker 1: we're all family here to some degree, and take an ownership, 1251 01:08:39,200 --> 01:08:41,640 Speaker 1: you know, for our communities. It's it's our responsibility the 1252 01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:45,439 Speaker 1: way things are, and it's also our responsibility to change 1253 01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:47,800 Speaker 1: the way things are. And if we can, you know, 1254 01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:50,839 Speaker 1: say we more on both sides of those as opposed 1255 01:08:50,880 --> 01:08:55,120 Speaker 1: to they or you or just anybody but me. That 1256 01:08:55,240 --> 01:08:58,679 Speaker 1: sense the ownership, I hope, is more empowering. You've left 1257 01:08:58,680 --> 01:09:02,720 Speaker 1: me feeling more empowered. I'm going to be contemplating, you know, 1258 01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:05,840 Speaker 1: housing as a is a human right and as that 1259 01:09:05,920 --> 01:09:10,960 Speaker 1: base level of Maslow's hierarchy, as well as my unhoused 1260 01:09:11,120 --> 01:09:13,559 Speaker 1: you know, neighbors as neighbors, and I definitely have some 1261 01:09:13,640 --> 01:09:15,840 Speaker 1: questions for these people trying to represent us in the 1262 01:09:15,920 --> 01:09:19,800 Speaker 1: various halls of a form of political power. Because you've 1263 01:09:19,920 --> 01:09:22,120 Speaker 1: raised the floor, I think on what we should expect 1264 01:09:22,200 --> 01:09:25,240 Speaker 1: from ourselves, and for that, I thank you for citizening 1265 01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:29,439 Speaker 1: so much. Thank you wonderful to be in conversation with you, 1266 01:09:29,479 --> 01:09:31,599 Speaker 1: and I feel excited for us to continue to build 1267 01:09:31,640 --> 01:09:34,720 Speaker 1: the movement across the country that believes some lessness is solvable. 1268 01:09:35,760 --> 01:09:41,040 Speaker 1: We're doing it, yo. That was That was a dope conversation. 1269 01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:46,639 Speaker 1: Like Ura said, homelessness is solvable, and we're doing it, 1270 01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:51,280 Speaker 1: so true to form for our podcast. Here, here's some 1271 01:09:51,320 --> 01:09:53,639 Speaker 1: actions you can take to be part of the solution. 1272 01:09:54,439 --> 01:10:00,599 Speaker 1: As always, we offer this in three levels. First, try 1273 01:10:00,720 --> 01:10:03,320 Speaker 1: these personal reflections. This is something you can do all 1274 01:10:03,400 --> 01:10:06,080 Speaker 1: by yourself. I prefer if you try to do this 1275 01:10:06,160 --> 01:10:10,320 Speaker 1: out loud though. These are inspired by Ross's recommendations, and 1276 01:10:10,360 --> 01:10:14,519 Speaker 1: I just want you to repeat after me. I believe 1277 01:10:15,000 --> 01:10:20,840 Speaker 1: that homelessness is solvable. I understand that we must fix systems, 1278 01:10:21,800 --> 01:10:29,080 Speaker 1: not people. I consider people experiencing homelessness in my community 1279 01:10:29,400 --> 01:10:33,320 Speaker 1: to be my neighbors. Guys. It play it back. If 1280 01:10:33,360 --> 01:10:37,080 Speaker 1: you need to look at yourself in the mirror, think 1281 01:10:37,120 --> 01:10:39,720 Speaker 1: it out loud inside your head, but really I want 1282 01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:43,240 Speaker 1: you to try to say those things and believe them, 1283 01:10:43,240 --> 01:10:47,559 Speaker 1: because so often we behave as if we think the 1284 01:10:47,600 --> 01:10:51,080 Speaker 1: opposite is true. And I think if we start saying 1285 01:10:51,160 --> 01:10:54,640 Speaker 1: something different to ourselves, we might show up differently in 1286 01:10:54,680 --> 01:10:59,439 Speaker 1: the world. All right, here's the next level. Let's get 1287 01:10:59,439 --> 01:11:02,320 Speaker 1: more in full formed in a way that continues to 1288 01:11:02,439 --> 01:11:07,840 Speaker 1: humanize these neighbors of ours. There's a really cool website 1289 01:11:07,840 --> 01:11:11,640 Speaker 1: an organization called Invisible People. You can find them at 1290 01:11:11,720 --> 01:11:16,840 Speaker 1: Invisible people dot tv, and they use storytelling, education, news 1291 01:11:16,880 --> 01:11:22,440 Speaker 1: and activism to change the narrative on homelessness. These videos 1292 01:11:22,520 --> 01:11:27,080 Speaker 1: are really well done, really compelling, and they tell a 1293 01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:30,160 Speaker 1: whole story most of us don't see if we just 1294 01:11:30,240 --> 01:11:33,519 Speaker 1: rely on the news and social media. From their site, 1295 01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:36,679 Speaker 1: you can find links to their Facebook, their Instagram, their Twitter, 1296 01:11:37,160 --> 01:11:40,000 Speaker 1: and their YouTube, so there's no excuse not to find 1297 01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,679 Speaker 1: them because they're they're everywhere. After watching two videos myself, 1298 01:11:44,240 --> 01:11:47,719 Speaker 1: I became a supporter on their Patreon. It's that good. 1299 01:11:48,320 --> 01:11:53,920 Speaker 1: So check that out and just adjust the information sources 1300 01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:57,320 Speaker 1: you rely on to tell you the story of a 1301 01:11:57,479 --> 01:12:00,200 Speaker 1: house people, and this is one that put to that 1302 01:12:00,280 --> 01:12:04,479 Speaker 1: narrative in the hands of folks much closer to that experience. Finally, 1303 01:12:04,520 --> 01:12:10,680 Speaker 1: our level three publicly participate. What single action have we 1304 01:12:10,760 --> 01:12:12,840 Speaker 1: come up with feed to do on this one? Well, 1305 01:12:12,960 --> 01:12:18,320 Speaker 1: in this case, we're outsourcing. We're leveraging existing efforts through 1306 01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:23,520 Speaker 1: arosis organization Community Solutions. They set up a whole page 1307 01:12:23,720 --> 01:12:27,200 Speaker 1: literally devoted to citizen action. Like I'm not kidding. You 1308 01:12:27,240 --> 01:12:29,720 Speaker 1: go to this page and there's a big old icon 1309 01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:33,280 Speaker 1: that says for citizens. And they don't mean people with documentation, 1310 01:12:33,360 --> 01:12:37,200 Speaker 1: they mean people like you if you're listening to this podcast. 1311 01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:40,200 Speaker 1: They built a whole page for you. We're partners and 1312 01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:43,519 Speaker 1: didn't even know it. So here's the website, Community dot 1313 01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:50,360 Speaker 1: Solutions slash take dash as an hyphen action, Community dot 1314 01:12:50,439 --> 01:12:55,640 Speaker 1: Solutions slash take dash Action. It's a whole playbook to 1315 01:12:55,760 --> 01:12:59,840 Speaker 1: learn more, to connect locally to those continuums of k 1316 01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:02,679 Speaker 1: are that we're all a part of, and to hold 1317 01:13:02,680 --> 01:13:09,160 Speaker 1: our communities and our elected officials accountable for hending ending homelessness. Now, look, 1318 01:13:09,160 --> 01:13:11,679 Speaker 1: we got links to all this and more as usual 1319 01:13:12,200 --> 01:13:15,120 Speaker 1: at how to citizen dot com and in the episode 1320 01:13:15,120 --> 01:13:19,400 Speaker 1: show notes of whatever software you're using to listen to 1321 01:13:19,439 --> 01:13:22,960 Speaker 1: this podcast. Right now. Follow us on Instagram at how 1322 01:13:23,000 --> 01:13:25,960 Speaker 1: the Citizen. Tag us in your posts, use the hashtag 1323 01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:28,479 Speaker 1: how the Citizen. And here's a special ask because I 1324 01:13:28,479 --> 01:13:30,000 Speaker 1: didn't know I was going to get a chance to 1325 01:13:30,080 --> 01:13:34,240 Speaker 1: talk to you again before we dropped another full season 1326 01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:37,679 Speaker 1: on you. Season four. We're thinking about it, we're figuring 1327 01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:40,240 Speaker 1: it out, and I want your thoughts. So if you're 1328 01:13:40,280 --> 01:13:42,720 Speaker 1: if you're on the Instagram, you d m U, s 1329 01:13:43,200 --> 01:13:46,599 Speaker 1: apt message tag, whatever the lingo. It's always changing, get 1330 01:13:46,640 --> 01:13:49,799 Speaker 1: at us on Instagram, or if you want a more thorough, 1331 01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:54,120 Speaker 1: direct and less public line, email comments at how to 1332 01:13:54,200 --> 01:13:57,400 Speaker 1: citizen dot com. We still have that channel open, and 1333 01:13:57,439 --> 01:14:02,120 Speaker 1: I would particularly be interested to know who you want 1334 01:14:02,200 --> 01:14:04,799 Speaker 1: us to bring on the show, what types of topics 1335 01:14:04,840 --> 01:14:06,880 Speaker 1: do you want us to engage in, and how else 1336 01:14:06,960 --> 01:14:10,519 Speaker 1: might you want to connect with each other and with 1337 01:14:10,600 --> 01:14:13,840 Speaker 1: the show, Because I gotta be real, I missed making 1338 01:14:13,880 --> 01:14:16,360 Speaker 1: this show which on Zoom like we did in the 1339 01:14:16,400 --> 01:14:19,519 Speaker 1: first season. It was a little lower tech in some ways, 1340 01:14:19,560 --> 01:14:22,880 Speaker 1: a little lower sound design, but it was nice to 1341 01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:24,439 Speaker 1: be there within the room with you in some ways. 1342 01:14:24,479 --> 01:14:27,600 Speaker 1: So whether it's you know, live during recordings or with 1343 01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:30,559 Speaker 1: some kind of online forum, let me know how you 1344 01:14:30,640 --> 01:14:33,880 Speaker 1: might want to connect with me, with the show and 1345 01:14:33,920 --> 01:14:36,559 Speaker 1: with each other more as we figure out what to 1346 01:14:36,600 --> 01:14:40,000 Speaker 1: do for season four. Look at that poet. Didn't even 1347 01:14:40,040 --> 01:14:45,120 Speaker 1: know it alright, Chell How the Citizen with Barrett Tune 1348 01:14:45,160 --> 01:14:48,160 Speaker 1: Day is a production of I Heart Radio podcast. Our 1349 01:14:48,160 --> 01:14:51,960 Speaker 1: executive producers are Me Barrattum Day Thurston, and Elizabeth Stewart. 1350 01:14:52,479 --> 01:14:55,920 Speaker 1: Original music by Andrew Eapen, with additional original music for 1351 01:14:55,960 --> 01:14:59,800 Speaker 1: season three from Andrew Clauses. This episode was produced and 1352 01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:03,400 Speaker 1: edited by Max Williams and special thanks to Joel Smith 1353 01:15:03,800 --> 01:15:08,760 Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, Mischa Yusuf and Samika Adams from Dusklike Productions. 1354 01:15:09,439 --> 01:15:25,400 Speaker 1: Thanks y'all, m m HM