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Speaker 1: Previously on Weedy and House.

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Speaker 2: There's a spectrum of what substance use really is that

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Speaker 2: goes from total abstinence all the way to problematic use.

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Speaker 2: And if there's no acknowledging those people in between, then

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Speaker 2: you can't serve those people.

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Speaker 3: When you provide these type of equipment to help with

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Speaker 3: harm reduction, you provide a safe space for people to

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Speaker 3: be actually able to talk to you about what's really

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Speaker 3: going on because they don't feel like they have to

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Speaker 3: hide who they are. And harm reduction, you meet the

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Speaker 3: person where they're at. I don't tell them what they need,

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Speaker 3: I don't tell them who they have to be. I

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Speaker 3: just show up and simply by showing them that I care,

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Speaker 3: they will start seeing how they deserve to be treated

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Speaker 3: by other people.

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Speaker 4: Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson.

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Speaker 4: This week we're concluding the ELM series Educate, Liberate, and

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Speaker 4: Motivate with a new guest, doctor becks Heyho Khalil, who's

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Speaker 4: going to discuss aspects of houselessness both locally and internationally.

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Speaker 4: But first on House News, Ignorance alive with power is

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Speaker 4: the most ferocious enemy justice can have. That quote is

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Speaker 4: taken from James Baldwin. As we continue to live in

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Speaker 4: these trying times, it's best to remember this. This connects

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Speaker 4: with our most recent news that LARSA, the Los Angeles

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Speaker 4: Homeless Services Authority, has been under fire for poor record

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Speaker 4: keeping and disappearances of funds. This kerfuffle has been used

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Speaker 4: as the whipping post by the Mayor and city council

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Speaker 4: leaders indignantly together, they are using the current news as

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Speaker 4: the reason why there is so much houselessness. They have

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Speaker 4: absolved themselves of the Crew Ordinances of forty nineteen as

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Speaker 4: the impetus for so much displacement in the unhoused community.

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Speaker 4: They have also neglected to mention the un house who

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Speaker 4: are languishing in CD motels and enduring Carcero living quarters.

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Speaker 4: Add to this, the Mayor remains obstrupperous in partnering with

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Speaker 4: the city's auditor, Kenneth Maheir, so much so that she

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Speaker 4: refused Judge Carter's prompting that they work together and inescapable.

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Speaker 4: Fact is that without the controller putting pressure on the

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Speaker 4: city's ham fisted way, they are a dressing houselessness. They

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Speaker 4: will be a vacius pr campaign that Mayor bass is

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Speaker 4: reducing houselessness which does not explain defenses where the un

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Speaker 4: house used to well. James Baldwood also said people can

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Speaker 4: cry much easier than they can change. Are we to

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Speaker 4: assume that the city is changing house business for the

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Speaker 4: better or can we rightly assume that the people losing

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Speaker 4: in this situation are the un housed community.

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Speaker 1: And that's on House News.

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Speaker 4: When we come back, we'll be speaking with doctor Beck's

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Speaker 4: hey Hol Khalil.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Weediean House. I'm THEO Henderson.

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Speaker 4: Our guest for this week is doctor Beck's hey Ho Khalil,

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Speaker 4: who is going to educate us on her experiences on

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Speaker 4: dealing with young house in two very different places without

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Speaker 4: for Redu.

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Speaker 1: Here's doctor hey Hold Khalil. Good afternoon. This is THEO

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Speaker 1: Henderson from WIEDI in House.

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Speaker 4: We have an exciting guest in our studios today that's

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Speaker 4: going to present another angle of houselessness and how they

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Speaker 4: are approaching the issue. On my show, we deal with

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Speaker 4: unhoused people that are currently in house that was recently

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Speaker 4: displaced and more importantly have experienced and lived experience on

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Speaker 4: being in house and advocates. We also have people that

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Speaker 4: have had people that are close to them that were

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Speaker 4: in house as well. Today in our studios we have

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Speaker 4: our guests Ms. Beck's, and I'm going to make sure

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Speaker 4: I get this correctly. Hey hol Khalil, she's the executive

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Speaker 4: director of United to End Homelessness. I will let her

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Speaker 4: get her introduction in and we will take the conversation

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Speaker 4: from there. Thank you for joining us today.

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Speaker 5: Well, thank you so much THEO. You nailed it with

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Speaker 5: the name Becks. Hey Ho Khalil. I'm delighted to be

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Speaker 5: able to talk with you today. I've been one of

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Speaker 5: the Orange County United Way for almost nine years and

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Speaker 5: I've had the privilege of growing with the organization. When

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Speaker 5: I first joined United And homelessness didn't exist in homelessness

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Speaker 5: with twenty five percent of the work I was doing.

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Speaker 5: And so over the last eight and a half nine years,

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Speaker 5: this organization's been on quite the journey in terms of

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Speaker 5: making shifts and strides for how we help our community

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Speaker 5: address homelessness here.

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Speaker 4: Well, one of my first questions from off the top

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Speaker 4: is how did you get involved in houselessness anyway? Because

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Speaker 4: you know, this is not a field that people just

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Speaker 4: run to rush through the hills.

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Speaker 1: Today we're going to really tackle this, This.

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Speaker 4: Has got to be some kind of enlightening moment or

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Speaker 4: aha moment, if you will, So please tell us how

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Speaker 4: she got started on the path.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, happy to do. So. I actually grew up in

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Speaker 5: the UK and Ireland, so my story sort of starts there.

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Speaker 5: My father is an episcopal priest. He's retired now, but

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Speaker 5: I grew up, you know, very much with the belief

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Speaker 5: and the teachings that everybody should be treated with dignity

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Speaker 5: and everybody is worthy of love and respect, and so

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Speaker 5: really that infusion of faith really helped me kind of

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Speaker 5: understand the world through that lens. That led to me

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Speaker 5: going to seminary in London, and so I actually studied theology.

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Speaker 5: So as I was going through seminary, realized I don't

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Speaker 5: want to work for a church in a sort of

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Speaker 5: traditional sense of the way, and realized that I wanted

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Speaker 5: to really work with people who felt misunderstood. And that

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Speaker 5: was through going through kind of my own journey of

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Speaker 5: feeling like I had been misunderstood, my own dealings with

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Speaker 5: trauma that I had experienced earlier in my life, and

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Speaker 5: kind of you know, working my way through that to

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Speaker 5: bring some healing and integration in myself. And I realized

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Speaker 5: that I didn't want others to feel excluded, left out,

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Speaker 5: and that they weren't worthy of being met with respect

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Speaker 5: and dignity, and that led me to once I got

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Speaker 5: my degree in theology, looking to see what opportunities there

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Speaker 5: could be, and a healthmaiate of mine back in London

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Speaker 5: worked for a nonprofit or charity as we would say

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Speaker 5: in the UK that was working with people who were houseless,

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Speaker 5: and so I started volunteering there. That turned into a

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Speaker 5: job that turned into me ending up sort of working

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Speaker 5: with Eastern European immigrants who would come to the UK

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Speaker 5: who found themselves without a roof over their head, and

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Speaker 5: also coming alongside a lot of the people we saw

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Speaker 5: who were struggling with mental health issues. So did that

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Speaker 5: for a few years before my next crazy adventure of

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Speaker 5: coming to America, which.

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Speaker 4: I was going to say it seemed like all of

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Speaker 4: this was going into UK and I have just the

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Speaker 4: quick side note. I have also learned that I've have

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Speaker 4: listeners from the UK that have teld me there are

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Speaker 4: stories of being on housing, which is really on inspiring

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Speaker 4: that they are listening to the show, but also the

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Speaker 4: fact that they're their own challenges and I wish in

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Speaker 4: my heart of hearts there is I could create a

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Speaker 4: satellite show there to highlight the stories there as well.

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Speaker 4: But we're going to jump to how did you get

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Speaker 4: into the helping the young house and houses here in America?

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Speaker 5: That's a great question. So I moved to America in

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Speaker 5: two thousand and nine to volunteer for a church in

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Speaker 5: a town called Coastamata in Orange County, so just south

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Speaker 5: of LA I came out to help the pastor and

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Speaker 5: his wife with some pieces that they were just struggling with.

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Speaker 5: I have my degree in theology, if that made sense.

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Speaker 5: And the other piece of that was that people who

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Speaker 5: are houseless were attending the church and they weren't. They

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Speaker 5: didn't really feel like they were equipped to know what

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Speaker 5: to do with that, and so I was like, oh,

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Speaker 5: these are things that I could help with. I had

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Speaker 5: known them through some friends i'd had and I visited

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Speaker 5: southern California on vacation. That's how i'd met them, and

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Speaker 5: so I reached out and said, Hey, I think maybe

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Speaker 5: I'm supposed to come and help you. What do you think?

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Speaker 5: And then fast forward nine months later, I had given

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Speaker 5: up my job with the charity. I was working for.

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Speaker 5: I sold pretty much everything that I owned and I

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Speaker 5: jumped on a plane with two suitcases.

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Speaker 1: So you became displaced yourself. Wow.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: So I landed at lax in two thousand and nine

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Speaker 5: and it has been quite the adventure ever since. So

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Speaker 5: I've done a lot of different things around addressing homelessness

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Speaker 5: and working with people who are houseless in our community.

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Speaker 5: That eventually led me to be in a part of

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Speaker 5: United Way.

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Speaker 4: What was your insights when you came to America and

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Speaker 4: dealing with young house crisis here?

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Speaker 1: What did you see?

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Speaker 4: Were there any similarities here conversely or were there contrast

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Speaker 4: with house listers here and in the UK.

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Speaker 5: I think some of the common pieces were some of

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Speaker 5: the myth perceptions people had around causes all bits, But

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Speaker 5: that was definitely something that I saw both in the

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Speaker 5: UK and in America. I think there were a couple

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Speaker 5: of things that were really jarring to me as I

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Speaker 5: started to get more involved in how homelessness was addressed,

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Speaker 5: in trying to wrap my mind around city, county, dates,

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Speaker 5: federal and trying to sort of understand how it all

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Speaker 5: worked together. And the first was the lack of a

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Speaker 5: social safety net for people the town that I worked

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Speaker 5: in in the UK was very similarly sized to the

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Speaker 5: town or the city I should say that I worked

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Speaker 5: in here in Orange County, but the number of people

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Speaker 5: who were sleeping outside every night was vastly different. The

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Speaker 5: lack of emergency shelter beds that I found when I

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Speaker 5: first arrived here in two thousand and nine, compared to

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Speaker 5: the provision of shelter, it seems like there was an

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Speaker 5: easier access to emergency shelter in the UK. Certainly at

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Speaker 5: that time I recognized things may not be the same now,

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Speaker 5: but that was my experience fifteen years ago. And that

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Speaker 5: other piece that was really shocking to me would around

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Speaker 5: children experiencing almostness. In the UK, there's just sort of

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Speaker 5: a very different approach to it. We have this thing

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Speaker 5: called a local area connection, and so I knew that

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Speaker 5: if somebody came to the day center that I worked at,

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Speaker 5: and if they had a child under eighteen with them,

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Speaker 5: I immediately needed to call the council or city Hall

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Speaker 5: if it would be here, and they needed to let

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Speaker 5: them know that this was the case, and it was

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Speaker 5: actually the council's responsibility to get that family into accommodation.

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Speaker 5: The onus was on them to provide albeit a temporary roof,

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Speaker 5: but to provide that for that family they had a

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Speaker 5: child with them. So it was really shocking to me

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Speaker 5: to come to America to realize that that children could

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Speaker 5: be you know, sleeping outside, children could be sleeping you know,

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Speaker 5: and cars as that just wasn't something that you really

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Speaker 5: ran across in the UK. That was one of those

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Speaker 5: pieces around children. And then the local area connection that

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Speaker 5: I was mentioning, it was set across the board, so

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Speaker 5: every borough, every region had the theme criteria for local connection.

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Speaker 5: You know, you'd been there for a certain period of time,

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Speaker 5: you had family there, or you had worked there. You know,

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Speaker 5: it was the set criteria across the board. So the

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Speaker 5: idea was that somebody could gain their local connection if

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Speaker 5: they've been there long enough, and that nobody would fall

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Speaker 5: through the cracks and coming here realizing that there wasn't

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Speaker 5: that place where people were connected to and they're realizing

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Speaker 5: that cities and counties didn't have that same sort of

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Speaker 5: I would say, like accountability to providing care for people

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Speaker 5: who belonged to their community. And so that was something

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Speaker 5: that I think I've seen over the years sort of

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Speaker 5: finger pointing of well, this is not our responsibility to

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Speaker 5: come here from somewhere else. Will only provide for our residents.

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Speaker 5: But everybody gets to say what being a resident of

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Speaker 5: their community is. And so that was another piece that

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Speaker 5: was pretty surprising to me when I got here.

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Speaker 4: You know, I wanted to interject rifle here too, because

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Speaker 4: that is also surprising, and you're correct about the explosion

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Speaker 4: of on how children that are out here. And also

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Speaker 4: one of the other things that is really rarely talked about,

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Speaker 4: and I try to bring it up on the show,

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Speaker 4: is the explosion. Like I had received a call about

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Speaker 4: a year ago from another advocate and she was honestly

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Speaker 4: alarmed because she was dealing her primary focus was she

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Speaker 4: was dealing with newly immigrants from Eastern Europe and things

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Speaker 4: like that, getting them situated. But what she was noticing

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Speaker 4: in the little course of her work was this explosion

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Speaker 4: of elderly people that were on house and she didn't know.

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Speaker 4: She asked, well, is it any aren't saying anything about this?

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Speaker 4: Anybody noticing that this is going on? Because I think

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Speaker 4: it's very difficult when you're feeling hearing the propaganda or

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Speaker 4: the wave of discontent or disdain for unhoused people, it

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Speaker 4: is always prefaced with their own substances. They're mentally ill,

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Speaker 4: they don't want help, and you're not getting the layers

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Speaker 4: or pulling the onion, the peels of the onion and

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Speaker 4: understanding that's just not true. You know, eighty ninety year

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Speaker 4: old people, you can't just tell them just to get

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Speaker 4: a job and you know they're just lazy, they don't

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Speaker 4: want to work. Or you can't tell a five or

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Speaker 4: six year old kid to get out there, despite what

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Speaker 4: the Republican Senatory was saying, you expect five or six

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Speaker 4: year old to ket a job to be able to

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Speaker 4: sustain themselves.

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Speaker 1: I think that's ridiculous.

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Speaker 4: But the point of it is, it's that kind of narratives,

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Speaker 4: is those kinds of statements permeate the conversation of houselessness,

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Speaker 4: and it's very hard to dig to that quagmar. Do

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Speaker 4: you see since that or am I just off base here?

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Speaker 5: No? And I think this is something really important to

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Speaker 5: talk about. People have a lot of misperceptions around what

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Speaker 5: causes company to find themselves without a home, and there's

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Speaker 5: just a ton of misinformation around there around that, like

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Speaker 5: you're saying, and people have this sort of preconceived idea

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Speaker 5: that they know what homelessness looks like, and they's sort

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Speaker 5: of the hidden faiths of homelessness that I think the

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Speaker 5: general public is not exposed to very much. People like

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Speaker 5: what you were describing elderly people. You know, we know

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Speaker 5: that seniors are one of the highest groups of people

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Speaker 5: falling into homelessness across the country, and certainly corn is

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Speaker 5: not immune to that. Orange County is not immune to that.

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Speaker 5: We've seen our numbers of seniors increase year over year

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Speaker 5: in our point in time count, and we're not equipped

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Speaker 5: as a community to be able to address this a

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Speaker 5: way that are most effective. It feels like, as a country,

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Speaker 5: we're trying to figure this out. How do you older

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Speaker 5: adults who are experiencing almlessness.

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Speaker 4: Well, one of the questions that I was giving, and

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Speaker 4: I think it's apropos to this moment, is how important

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Speaker 4: it is to invest in houseless prevention. I have been

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Speaker 4: on a series. My previous episode has been the ELM series.

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Speaker 4: They Educate, Liberate, and Motivate. In order for people to

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Speaker 4: understand the issues, they need to be educated correctly or

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Speaker 4: accurately on the reality of the situation and disabuse themselves

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Speaker 4: of the preconceived notions that they have about houselessness.

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Speaker 1: Then once you have bad, then you liberate, and then you.

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Speaker 4: Reach out to people that may have had those erroneous ideas.

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Speaker 4: Then you start to educate and reinforce what you've learned

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Speaker 4: and also created an ally in to order to help

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Speaker 4: liberate someone else. But also after you use the liberation

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Speaker 4: that you motivate your community in order for creating the

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Speaker 4: mutual aid kind of programs or responses that the city

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Speaker 4: has fallen way short on in order for it to

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Speaker 4: be able to reach from community. And once you did

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Speaker 4: your community, and you go to another work too with

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Speaker 4: another community that does mutual aid in order to make

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Speaker 4: it more of a global kind of effort in educate, liberating,

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Speaker 4: and motivating. And once we have that underpinning done or

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Speaker 4: I won't say it would never be done, but on

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Speaker 4: lock it would be easier when there is passing legislation

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Speaker 4: because once you have legislation and policies to discuss, we've

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Speaker 4: already did the groundwork. You have people understanding what's going on. Conversely,

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Speaker 4: Gendine just spouting off half truths or myths about houselessness

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Speaker 4: and creating more at which we have in our city

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Speaker 4: right now, criminalization ordnances or ways of demonizing vulnerable people.

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Speaker 4: And I think that maybe it's going to probably take

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Speaker 4: more of like ten to fifteen years, But I do

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Speaker 4: think that maybe that kind of planning and effort would

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Speaker 4: be in my eyes, a way of helping prevent that.

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Speaker 1: But what is your what's your thoughts on that?

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Speaker 5: I couldn't agree more. Part of the work that we've

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Speaker 5: been doing at United States Homelessness recall it changing hearts

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Speaker 5: and minds, which is a complicated science and art. And

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Speaker 5: part of what we do is we provide a tremendous

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Speaker 5: amount of education. So we've educated thousands of people. We

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Speaker 5: have a course called Homelessness one O one. It's not

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Speaker 5: a very exciting name, but it speaks to what we do,

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Speaker 5: and we use that to be able to provide accurate data,

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Speaker 5: real information, to really help people understand how homelessness is

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Speaker 5: addressed in our community, to give them some common language

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Speaker 5: that they might hear being used in this sector, to

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Speaker 5: break down those misperceptions, buffed the myth, and equip people

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Speaker 5: with knowledge to make informed decisions. And so our hope

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Speaker 5: is that those people who are connected to us, you know,

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Speaker 5: are able to learn and have those conversations with their friends.

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Speaker 5: When they hear something, you know, around the Thanksgiving table,

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Speaker 5: it's not quite accurate. They can say, actually, did you know?

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Speaker 5: Or I recently learned this, And so it's so important,

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Speaker 5: you know, when I think about where my mind has

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Speaker 5: been changed, it's not necessarily from you know, being sort

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Speaker 5: of bombarded with information, but it's from somebody I trust

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Speaker 5: filling me in on what they learned, what they recently,

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Speaker 5: you know, being exposed to. And so part of our

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Speaker 5: work here with United and Homelessness is to really help

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Speaker 5: create public awareness. So we've done some interesting things. We

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Speaker 5: have a mural that we have on the property of

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Speaker 5: a church that's a really cool place. You know. It

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Speaker 5: says on the side of this that you can it's

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Speaker 5: most visible from the whatsold homelessness, And so that's to

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Speaker 5: pull people in and that they walk around the side

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Speaker 5: of the mural. It's a home, so it's a snapshot

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Speaker 5: into a home. When the artists did a little couch

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Speaker 5: so people can sit on the couch and be in

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Speaker 5: the painting of the living room and take their photo.

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Speaker 5: And that's a way to get people talking. And so

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Speaker 5: we try to get creative about how we invite people

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Speaker 5: into conversation. We host community meetups, conversations around we try

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Speaker 5: to take advantage of hunger and homelessness, So where to

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Speaker 5: speak each year because it's in those places and spaces

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Speaker 5: that we are able to have those both heartfelt but

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Speaker 5: also data driven and reality based conversations.

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Speaker 4: We'll be right back after a quick break, and we're back.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 4: One of the things that when I what inspired me

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Speaker 4: to create this type of understanding and solutions as myself

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Speaker 4: is when I was in House. I've been in House

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Speaker 4: for over eight years, and I remember what the part

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Speaker 4: of the disinformation or the education campaign that had against

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Speaker 4: the houselesness where I was staying at there was a

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Speaker 4: picture of where they have posted where the store owner

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Speaker 4: literally has to post it saying do not give change

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Speaker 4: to unhoused people, give it to norn profits. Unhouse people

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Speaker 4: will use it for drugs, and that was their educational policy.

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Speaker 4: And the second thing that I also noticed was the

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Speaker 4: fact of how the information from city leaders and law

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Speaker 4: enforcement carried on that propaganda and targeting unhoused people, removing them,

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Speaker 4: sweeping them, and keeping that conversation. Like for example, there

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Speaker 4: was during the height of the forty one to eighteen

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Speaker 4: eracial mission that they had. They had police officers going

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Speaker 4: into schools saying, if you see an that housed person,

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Speaker 4: called the police. And so this is why it's so

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Speaker 4: pernicious in ways that people make houselessness so accessible to dehumanize.

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Speaker 4: I always say, if you can dehumanize the individual, then

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Speaker 4: you can criminalize them, and these efforts to do that.

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Speaker 4: It's reassuring to see the counterweight. It also motivated me

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Speaker 4: to create Waiting your House, Living on the Street to

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Speaker 4: talk about it because I was getting tired of these

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Speaker 4: kind of harsh.

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Speaker 1: Or horrible takes about houselessness.

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Speaker 4: But it's also very important to have a counterweight against

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Speaker 4: the education or misinformation that that's being spread as well,

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Speaker 4: because it's very pernicious. Most recently, I don't know if

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Speaker 4: you ever saw this, but I grew up on Er

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Speaker 4: the show R and one of the things that bothered

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Speaker 4: me when I was in the house and I was

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Speaker 4: looking at some of the reruns. One episode had Frank Form,

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Speaker 4: a retired cop, run out of unhoused person that was

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Speaker 4: sleeping in the hospital because it was cold, and then

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Speaker 4: he was trying to stay warm, so he takes the

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Speaker 4: stick and it threatens the un the house throws him

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Speaker 4: out and tells them he does to come back or

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Speaker 4: he's going to get jacked up. The other thing is

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Speaker 4: like they had reached and found the under house person

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Speaker 4: that was a frozen They called them a bumstickle, And

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Speaker 4: I sell how it permeates through the conversations and and

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Speaker 4: also in the media that we ingest that without even

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Speaker 4: challenging it or without even thinking about it. If they

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Speaker 4: had said the inward or something like that, or some

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Speaker 4: obvious offensive slur, we would have probably picked up on

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Speaker 4: it and been pushing back or writing to the producer

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Speaker 4: say don't say that, or we don't approve of that,

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Speaker 4: or whatever it is. But if you escape the radar

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Speaker 4: or people's pushback is using those kind of statements, which

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Speaker 4: also fortified my efforts in understanding like we need to

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Speaker 4: really do the education, the liberation and motivation kind of campaign.

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Speaker 4: But you know, anything to add on that conversational point.

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Speaker 5: As you were talking there, I was just reminded of

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Speaker 5: there had been some efforts around having people who are

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Speaker 5: house recognize but that being a part of hate crimes

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Speaker 5: and being a group that could be protected, and I

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Speaker 5: know that that's been a conversation. I know that that's

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Speaker 5: not something that's moving forward, but I think as you

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Speaker 5: were sharing, that's where my mind was going to. And

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Speaker 5: also with that, anytime I think about that, I think

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Speaker 5: about the fact that people who are without a home

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Speaker 5: are much more likely to be a victim of our

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Speaker 5: crimes than they are to perpetrate a crime. And that's

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Speaker 5: a classic example of misinformation that is out and fear

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Speaker 5: that is unfortunately, you know, allow to evolve and corrode

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Speaker 5: and adds to those misperceptions. And so I think, yeah,

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Speaker 5: you're of right, we don't have the language or we

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Speaker 5: don't have the mechanisms in place in an organized way

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Speaker 5: to be able to call those things.

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Speaker 4: Out, which also kind of puts to my next point,

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Speaker 4: and one of the questions is how it permeates not

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Speaker 4: only through the media, not only through our teach talk shows,

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Speaker 4: not only through our movies that we love, but it

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Speaker 4: also jumps toward the legalization of how we can dehumanize

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Speaker 4: and criminalize human beings, which is why I'm going to

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Speaker 4: access what is your view on the Grants past ruling?

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Speaker 5: Oh, I mean, we cannot arrest our way out of homelessness,

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Speaker 5: you know, I've worked alongside many people and law enforcement

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Speaker 5: in my different positions that I've held both in the

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Speaker 5: UK and here, and I haven't met a single law

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Speaker 5: enforcement offer so that believes that arresting people experiencing homelessness

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Speaker 5: is going to solve problem.

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Speaker 4: Which is kind of hard to because you know, for me,

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Speaker 4: I've been on house and I've dealt with the police officers,

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Speaker 4: even the nicest police officers, going to arrest you, and

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Speaker 4: which I have a harder time grasping because if they

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Speaker 4: believe that, then why are they so held bent on

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Speaker 4: doing it or going into schools and telling kids that

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Speaker 4: are on house here in Los Angeles and about their parents,

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Speaker 4: making them feel like they have they are criminals to be,

437
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 4: you know, like for example, what's going on with the

438
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 4: Trump's situation with them going up the schools and hospitals

439
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 4: displacing people and even though they may not agree with it,

440
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:39,159
Speaker 4: but they're okay well disenfranchising whole scales of people. And

441
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 4: it's the same with unhoused people. So I don't know

442
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 4: what to say about it, because if they were so

443
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 4: against it, why don't they speak out against it? Just

444
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 4: because you know, we've had a historical president where if

445
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 4: some people were saying they were just doing following orders

446
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 4: and that following orders were genocidal and it was very

447
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 4: harmful to whole group of people that just was trying

448
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 4: to exist, from the disabled, from the LGBTTI, from if

449
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 4: you were Jewish, I mean, or African American. It's like

450
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 4: we've had the historical lessons. Why do we keep repeating

451
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 4: the same thing. But that's I'm getting above it. So

452
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 4: Grant's past ruling for those that are just listening in,

453
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 4: is a ruling that was the counterpoint against the ruling

454
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 4: from Martin versus Bois. Martin versus Boise was a circuit

455
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 4: court ruling to rule that it was cruel and unusual

456
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 4: punishment to penalize a human being for existing because they

457
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 4: don't have a home. What's the Supreme Court Grant's past ruling,

458
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 4: which was in Grants past Oregon, was the impetus for

459
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court justices to say that it is not

460
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,919
Speaker 4: cruel or unusual for the police and law enforcement and

461
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 4: city officials to hunt down on house people, criminalize them,

462
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 4: forced them into solutions that will not aid them in

463
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 4: any ways whatsoever, but will create an atmosphere environment to

464
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 4: demonize unhoused people, create the same propaganda that has been

465
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 4: pernicious in our society that unhoused people don't want help,

466
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:15,400
Speaker 4: or they are mentally ill, or they are drug addicted,

467
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 4: and they deserve whatever they get from the city and

468
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 4: from the law enforcement. This is put into practice most recently.

469
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 4: If you look aground the country, Let's say, for example, Fremont, California,

470
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 4: they have now an ordnance which you aiding and abetting

471
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 4: unhoused people. If you feed them or give them shelter,

472
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 4: or give them clothing or things, you can be seen

473
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 4: as a criminal and could be you know, penalized and

474
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 4: criminalized for it. It's also like for Santa Monica, now

475
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 4: they have passed. Unhoused person could not have a pillow

476
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,679
Speaker 4: or blanket to stay out here to survive, or you

477
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 4: have like in Tennessee, it is a felony for unhoused

478
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 4: people to be lodging in state facilities. And so it

479
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 4: goes on and on, and most recently, before I came

480
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 4: into the studio, I was reading from one of the

481
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 4: people that were dealing with the promonent on housed community

482
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 4: where a cop was gleefully saying Trump is coming after you.

483
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: Guys, and I can't wait to get rid of you guys.

484
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 4: So this is the reality that when you hear people

485
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 4: talk about unhoused people, they don't mention these conversations. They

486
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 4: always mentioned on the negative of the unhoused community, but

487
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,440
Speaker 4: they do not talk about what was the underpinnings of

488
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 4: what's behind the curtain. Like in The Wizard of Oz,

489
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 4: the wizard is pretty evil, but and they're not really

490
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 4: showing that.

491
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, we are in very challenging times right now. And

492
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 5: I was going to use the word from twenty twenty

493
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 5: unprecedented time. Yes, right now. And you know, we know

494
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 5: that criminalizing homelessness doesn't solve anything. It kicks the can

495
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 5: down the road. It will only increase in poma. It

496
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 5: will only result in resources being years ineffectively. And I think,

497
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 5: you know, there's so much research, there's so much proof

498
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 5: around what solves homelessness, which is a home in case

499
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 5: anybody who is listening is unsure a home in what

500
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 5: will go homelessness, And we know how to do that,

501
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 5: but the system hasn't been adequately resourced to be able

502
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 5: to do that for the amount of people who are

503
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 5: in need of that. And you know, as you were talking.

504
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 5: It reminded me there was a couple of different threads

505
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 5: going off in my mind. One coming back to the

506
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 5: importance of homelessness prevention. You know, our I think our

507
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 5: our system at one time had a lot of focus

508
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 5: on prevention, and then we sort of shifted and put

509
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 5: a lot of focus on you know, housing opportunities, and

510
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 5: we need both. So we need to we need to

511
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 5: be able to help people who are currently unhealthed, and

512
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 5: we need to help keep people who are risk of

513
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 5: losing their home housed. Those are two pieces. And then

514
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 5: and just coming back to unfortunately, it feels like a

515
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 5: lot of people want they want the quick fix, and

516
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 5: so that sense of if I can't see it, then

517
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 5: it's if I can't see the thing that I perceive

518
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 5: as a problem, if it's out of my line of sight,

519
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 5: then it's gone. It's dealt with because I don't have

520
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 5: to personally deal with it anymore. And that's just not true.

521
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 5: You know, we need to work together to have real solutions.

522
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 5: I'm pushing people who don't have anywhere else to go

523
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 5: from one jurisdiction to another jurisdiction, ticketing people for sleeping

524
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 5: outside when there isn't anywhere else for them to be

525
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 5: or punishing people because somebody perceived that they didn't accept

526
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 5: services without asking the question, well, what were the services

527
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 5: that were being offered where their services actually appropriate to

528
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 5: the situation, where their service is actually going to lead

529
00:30:56,560 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 5: to permanent resolutions helping them get a roof over their

530
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 5: head to restart our life. There were so many threads

531
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 5: in what you were saying, they are well.

532
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 4: I was going to also point out to one of

533
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 4: the threats that I was thinking when you were saying,

534
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 4: also the evaporation, the quick short term empathy. I would say,

535
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 4: if there is a valve, it shuts off. La had

536
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 4: unprecedented fires most recently, and to that end, there was

537
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 4: such an outpouring of support and donations for a recently

538
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 4: displaced At the same time, the mayor of the city

539
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 4: was implementing sweeps on displays on house people that were

540
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 4: not affected by the fire. They were still sweeping on

541
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 4: house people still sendings a message to Nimbi's and everyone

542
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 4: else that your houselessness, your state of displacement is punitive

543
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 4: and it is erroneous, and he should stay on the

544
00:31:55,320 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 4: course of criminalization and basically erasing you of your human Conversely,

545
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 4: when the recently displaced unhoused, they were giving out this

546
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 4: outpoint of support. But there was conversations with other mutual

547
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 4: aid groups when they were finding out that people were

548
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 4: not being magnomenous of allowing some of the resources that

549
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 4: may not because this fire victims were getting it that

550
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 4: they could also share with unhoused people that are on

551
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 4: the street as well. They took their their donations, their

552
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 4: blankets or whatever way once they heard that they were

553
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 4: trying to help everybody instead of just a select accepted

554
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 4: portion of houselessness. Because one of the things that I

555
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 4: have faced and I've hear even sometimes with unhoused people,

556
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 4: which really sometimes aggravates me because of the fact that

557
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 4: this worthy or unworthy unhoused. I was like, you know,

558
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 4: houselessness effects us all. We all going to face the cold,

559
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 4: we also go face verbalization. And there is no good

560
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 4: person that deserves help conversing. They're not a bad person

561
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 4: that don't deserve helping, they deserve to be mistreated. And

562
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 4: I think that's a very big metaphor, and it's a

563
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 4: snapshot of how our elections voting cycle of people voting

564
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 4: against their own interests or investing in their own which

565
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 4: I call investment in their own oppression. They were okay

566
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 4: with people hurting other people, but when they started hurting them,

567
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 4: then it becomes a shock, or it becomes you know,

568
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 4: they rail against the system and they want to think

569
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 4: a Kumbaya's situation should be applicable, but not understanding that,

570
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 4: you know, without everyone getting the services and getting the help,

571
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 4: we are hurting ourselves. You know, the arc of the

572
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 4: moral university is long, but it bends to a justice.

573
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 4: Doctor King would say, but he also says that we

574
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 4: are inexplicably linked by our destiny with our injustice. We

575
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 4: cannot state, you know, we we need help, and then

576
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 4: we said the hell with everybody else. You know that

577
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 4: that just doesn't work. But what is your insights on that?

578
00:33:55,920 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 5: The divide or the line that cats strong between who

579
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 5: is worthy of help and who is unworthy of help,

580
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 5: as you say, is not necessary. I'm struggling to find

581
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 5: exactly the right words you know, to.

582
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 4: Say about that I gave a powerful It's unnecessary, it's harmful,

583
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 4: and it's divisive.

584
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 5: You know, it doesn't unite us towards solutions where everybody

585
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 5: is treated with dignity, where everybody's humanity is valued. And

586
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:29,800
Speaker 5: I think that's probably some of the philosophical differences that

587
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 5: we see and approaches to addressing any sort of societal problem,

588
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 5: And we definitely see it when it comes to helplessness,

589
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 5: but it's not it's not helping us move forward. When

590
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 5: I think about, you know, how you sort of convince people,

591
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:50,360
Speaker 5: or you know, how you help people be part of

592
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 5: bringing about proven solutions for homelessness. Some will respond to

593
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 5: the heartfelt messages. Some will respond to that recognition of, oh,

594
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:03,760
Speaker 5: like what happened up at LA, that realization that actually

595
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 5: any of us could find ourselves without a home at

596
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 5: any moment in time through no fault of our own

597
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 5: at all, and people can quickly forget that. You know,

598
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 5: some people that will stay with them. Others will struggle

599
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 5: because it's easier to put blame and say that somebody

600
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 5: is without a home because of things that they did,

601
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 5: and then that means that they can distance themselves from

602
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 5: having to be involved in creating solutions. Now, when you

603
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 5: start to dig deeper into that, we uncover systemic issues.

604
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 5: We uncover, you know, issues around gentrification, we uncover issues

605
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 5: around systemic racism, We uncover all kinds of things that

606
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 5: are system problems that are complicated to address, and I

607
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:57,399
Speaker 5: think a lot of people get either they don't want

608
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,080
Speaker 5: to know, because if they know, then they should be

609
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,320
Speaker 5: a part of solutions. So if they can plead ignorance,

610
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 5: it feels a little bit safer. And then sometimes I

611
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 5: wonder if THEO if people are too afraid to realize

612
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 5: how close to homelessness many of us are. We did

613
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 5: a pole with UCI here in Orange County and we

614
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:22,439
Speaker 5: found fifty five percent of people who were pulled knew

615
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,879
Speaker 5: somebody who was currently experiencing homelessness or someone who had

616
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:30,240
Speaker 5: experienced homelessness. That's over half the people in Orange County

617
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 5: are actually have a personal connection to somebody who was houseless.

618
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 5: But I think that's still it tells me there's something

619
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 5: to tap in through there. But how we tap into that,

620
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 5: I think we need to be careful because people are

621
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 5: afraid of well, if it happened to somebody, I know

622
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 5: it could happen to me, and that fear can cause

623
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:55,720
Speaker 5: people to retreat.

624
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 4: When I speak at UCLA and I speak about issues

625
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,439
Speaker 4: that are houselessness, and I speak about you know, people

626
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:05,719
Speaker 4: being in the house. There was a student raised his

627
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 4: hand and the class was shocked. It says, well, I'm

628
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 4: going to school and I'm in house. I'm sleeping in

629
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 4: my car out here on the parking lot. So it

630
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 4: is not that far fetch, just not that far. And

631
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 4: I think sometimes that is so important for people to realize.

632
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 4: For example, when you go and get your fruits and vegetables,

633
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:26,959
Speaker 4: there are people that are picking that that are living

634
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:29,800
Speaker 4: out on the streets because they can't afford the housing

635
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,839
Speaker 4: out there in Oxnart. They're literally unhoused, but they are

636
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 4: picking our fruits and vegetables. And it doesn't mean that

637
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:37,919
Speaker 4: there always are documented, but they are. Also that means

638
00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 4: that people are literally can't afford the rents that's going on.

639
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 1: So when you're eating your.

640
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 4: Salads, you don't realize you have a direct link with

641
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 4: someone that's been picking it, that's been living out in

642
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 4: the elements, or out in the rain or out in

643
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 4: the heat wave giving you those foods, or the other

644
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 4: facet of there are you going in for your pumpkin

645
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 4: spice latte. I had one of my guests on my

646
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 4: earlier shows during the early years that was housed working

647
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 4: at Starbucks that you don't know and because when you

648
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 4: don't know, it's easier to make the snap justice, it's

649
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 4: easier to put the distance. But sometimes we do need

650
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,240
Speaker 4: that uncomfortable moment used as a biblical term, the Jonah

651
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 4: in the well environment or the road to Damascus.

652
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 1: We need those things.

653
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 4: It may be uncomfortable, but we need to be confronted

654
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 4: with a reality sometimes and it does may cause paralyzation,

655
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 4: but it also may also cause enlightenment, which is very

656
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 4: important for the education process to happen. As an educator myself,

657
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:39,919
Speaker 4: I understand the light of comprehension.

658
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:42,720
Speaker 1: It shows a lot of things.

659
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 4: It shows empowerment, It also shows fear, it shows confidence,

660
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 4: and it also shows nervousness to step out from ignorance

661
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 4: because ignorance creates a delusion or illusion of security, of safety.

662
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 4: It's safe to be ignorant. I don't have to be

663
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 4: held accountable because I'm ignorant.

664
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: I'm safe.

665
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 4: I don't need to say anything that's going to be

666
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 4: empathetic because I don't know all the issues. That's why

667
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 4: when you hear people I don't get into politics. But

668
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 4: this whole world is political in many respects that you

669
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 4: are ingesting or you're involved in Just because you choose

670
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 4: not to turn the lighter comprehension or understanding and enlightenment

671
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 4: on doesn't mean the world is in complete darkness. It's

672
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 4: still going on. I'll get off of my soapbox, but

673
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 4: that's my point. So we'll finish this conversation after the break.

674
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 4: Welcome back. This is Steele Henderson with Weedy and House.

675
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 4: Here is the rest of my conversation with doctor Hejo Khalil.

676
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 5: Before I joined United Way, I used to work for

677
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 5: a church, as as I mentioned earlier, and I used

678
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 5: to do a lot of teaching around around homelessness. And

679
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 5: one of the things that I would always say is

680
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 5: the homelessness could happen to anybody, Yes, And I found

681
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 5: that myself a few years later. I actually had to

682
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 5: leave an unsafe marriage and I found myself with my

683
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 5: dog and my suitcase standing in the middle of the street,

684
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 5: not knowing where I was going to go. And you know,

685
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 5: to go from homeless advocate, church employing to I have

686
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 5: no idea. I don't know what is going to be next.

687
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 5: And when I interviewed for United Way, I was living

688
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 5: in a friend's spare room. I was very fortunate that,

689
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 5: you know, I had a friend who had a guest

690
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 5: room who took me and my dog in. But you know,

691
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 5: I spent probably about nine months after I had to

692
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 5: leave that situation really uncertain about what the future held

693
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 5: for me. And as I was interfering for the position,

694
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 5: you know, really coming well, I guess it wasn't the position.

695
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 5: I've had a lot of different tradition the original position

696
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:07,959
Speaker 5: I didn't have, you know, a permanent address that was mine.

697
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 5: And that experience drives my passion to address this because

698
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 5: in an instant, everything that you thought was safe, secure

699
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 5: or stable can be taken away from here.

700
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 4: And also one of the things I will tell you,

701
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 4: when I had encountered my sustained issue of house justness,

702
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 4: I was an educated and I had a medical emergency.

703
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 4: Nowhere had anyone had told me that I would be

704
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 4: engaged in a long stent of housessness or have what

705
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,240
Speaker 4: created about it. I would have like, what, You're crazy,

706
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 4: There's no way this would have happened, And it happened

707
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 4: to me. It was like when the first time, first

708
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 4: night that I was literally on the street, I had

709
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 4: no more money to stay at any fleabag hotels, and

710
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 4: I didn't want to overstay my welcome friends.

711
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: I just basically walked the.

712
00:41:55,120 --> 00:42:01,479
Speaker 4: Streets in a state of disbelief, fear, and exhaustion because

713
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 4: I didn't know where to rest because it's like it

714
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 4: takes everything out of you. For me, I didn't just

715
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 4: want to just break down and never coming back. And

716
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 4: that was for me, like in my mind and my

717
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 4: body because it was like so much was going swirling

718
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 4: in my head. And when I went to the hospital,

719
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 4: they just sit down in the waiting room, which is

720
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 4: why that episode resonated with me. When I seen that

721
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 4: guy on the show was talking about homeless helpers that

722
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 4: you know, they didn't they don't understand the world that

723
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,320
Speaker 4: you have to navigate or the world how it is

724
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 4: because of the misconceptions or the misinformation that has been

725
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:41,479
Speaker 4: said about on House People.

726
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: And it really humbled me, and it definitely.

727
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 4: Scared the hell out of me because like damn, I

728
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 4: you know, I'm literally these people that are talking about

729
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 4: I'm literally these people that I believe that was not

730
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 4: worthy of the time, the empathy and the attention that

731
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 4: was giving. And then really that was my turning point

732
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 4: to try the really understand, Okay, if this can happen

733
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 4: to me, and I'm a college educated person, and I

734
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 4: have work experience, a sustained employment, and I've lived in

735
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 4: the places from places to place. This can happen to anybody.

736
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:15,800
Speaker 4: You don't have to be such a good person. You

737
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,280
Speaker 4: don't have to pay taxes. You're not like those other people,

738
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 4: you know. You know how they always make that statement, like,

739
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 4: I'm not like those bad people. I'm trying to do something.

740
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 4: They're just out here just enjoying living in mansions on

741
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 4: the street and just having a twenty four hour party,

742
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 4: which is nuts in itself, But you know, I digress.

743
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 4: But I think you hit on a point that I

744
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 4: think is very very important for the people and the

745
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 4: fires to understand that they're navigating a new world, but

746
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:48,800
Speaker 4: also understanding not thinking about the consequences. When we have

747
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 4: talked about criminalizing on house people, now we are going

748
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 4: to be criminalized because we were okay with criminalizing or

749
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 4: hurting or demonizing some other community, and now we're part

750
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:02,719
Speaker 4: of that community. I don't know if that makes sense,

751
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 4: but I feel it has a strong link to that.

752
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 5: I think that you know, the people who who lost

753
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 5: their homes in the fire, you know, I hope that

754
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 5: that experience as people are recovering from that, as people's

755
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 5: lives are rebuilding, and for those for whom that rebuilds,

756
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 5: you know, And I don't I don't want to minimize

757
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 5: anybody's lost because I can't imagine what that's like to

758
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 5: for your home to you know, have been decimated in

759
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:35,240
Speaker 5: that way. But I hope that that experience might perhaps

760
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 5: result in some empathy and compassion for their fellow neighbors

761
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 5: in LA who also have you know, have found themselves

762
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 5: without a.

763
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 4: Home and also have more empathy when when you see

764
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,840
Speaker 4: police officers throwing away and house people's things that have

765
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 4: been out there for sustained period, understanding the attachment to it,

766
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 4: understanding the emotional connection, like when they start throwing away

767
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 4: their wheelchairs and I d ease over there ashes of

768
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 4: the family members and things of that that they understand

769
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 4: these were human beings with connections that what they were

770
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 4: trying to hold on to, just as people that had

771
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 4: a structure that they called a home. And like I said,

772
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 4: you know, I noticed the drawback of empathy and also

773
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 4: the financial support, which draws made to my next question

774
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 4: is which are views on the federal funding freeze?

775
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 5: Ah, Well, if you don't mind the you just you

776
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:32,839
Speaker 5: said something that sparked something. Okay, good, that's okay, yes,

777
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:37,760
Speaker 5: but we're talking about people's belongings. One of the first

778
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 5: things that I did in Kasa Mesa was I created

779
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 5: a storage center. It was called the Check and Center.

780
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 5: So it was a place for people to store their belongings.

781
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:49,800
Speaker 5: And this was you know, when the Boys Ruling was

782
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 5: was the one in place going back to two thousand

783
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:58,800
Speaker 5: and well, and it was the first storage center in

784
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 5: Orange County and it round for a number of years,

785
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 5: you know, so for probably five or six years, I

786
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,800
Speaker 5: got to provide that service. That had a team of

787
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 5: volunteers we helped run this place there. It wasn't glamorous,

788
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 5: it wasn't exciting, but it was so meaningful to provide

789
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 5: a storage bind for people to keep their most precious belongings,

790
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 5: you know. And so for years I got to witness,

791
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 5: you know, items that as people were you know, taking

792
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 5: their belongings out of whatever, whether it was a backpack

793
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 5: or a bag and putting it into into the storage bin.

794
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 5: And as you said, it's photographed, it's id, it's medication,

795
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 5: it's you know, a warm clothing, a sleeping bag. It's

796
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 5: things that are needed for safety. It's sentimental things that

797
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 5: all of us have the whole, deep, deep meaning and

798
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 5: provide our sense of belonging and identity and our connection

799
00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 5: to our family and our loved ones. And to have

800
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 5: those things be stripped away from you and disposed off

801
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:08,800
Speaker 5: without your consent is deeply damaging. And so I just

802
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 5: wanted to touch on that THEO and we can come

803
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 5: back to your other question.

804
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 4: Well, I also want to point out to why I

805
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 4: made it a point of there was a couple of

806
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 4: people that I've interviewed that had lived and had families

807
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 4: and had or had children that had passed away, and

808
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 4: they had their ashes, and they were waiting for a

809
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 4: place to stay so they could be able to put

810
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 4: them at rest or put them in a more of

811
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 4: an appropriate type of setting, and that was just discarded

812
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 4: like trash. And that emotionally and reason that I pointed

813
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:42,879
Speaker 4: out because it really emotionally affected, like you said them,

814
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 4: because it just made it this statement that the city

815
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 4: is saying loudly that your belongings doesn't matter. Your trash,

816
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 4: Your memories are trash. Your belongings, your memories of your

817
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 4: child or your your family members. Ashes are trash and

818
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 4: they're going to be discarded, and you going to accept

819
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:02,359
Speaker 4: the services or you're going to go to jail.

820
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 1: I mean, that was the impact. That's the message.

821
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 4: No matter how they try to dance around and they

822
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,399
Speaker 4: talking about that, they're empathetic. That was the message that's

823
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 4: been brought. But I agree, let's let's talk on the

824
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 4: federal funding phrase and see if there is anything you

825
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,399
Speaker 4: could be said done on this kind of ridiculousness.

826
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 5: But please, yeah, I think you know, there's there's so

827
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 5: many things that are happening at the federal level of

828
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 5: the minute. There's you know, it's it's fast moving, it's

829
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 5: ever changing. It feels like, you know, every every day

830
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 5: there's a new story that's happening, and so being able

831
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 5: to follow great organizations like the National Alliance to End Homelessness,

832
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 5: the National Council for Nonprofits, the National Low Income Housing Coalition,

833
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:50,320
Speaker 5: and Funders Together to End Homelessness. Those are entities that

834
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 5: are found to be incredibly helpful as somebody, you know,

835
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 5: in my position trying to sort of distill what's happening

836
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,760
Speaker 5: at the federal level, understand where to help call people

837
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 5: to the advocacy you know when to say, hey, now

838
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 5: it's a really good time to call your representative, to

839
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 5: write those letters and helping to sort of be translating

840
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 5: what's happening on the national level. So what might potentially

841
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 5: impact for Orange County. I've been on our Continuum of

842
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 5: careboard for the last four years for Orange County. That's

843
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,800
Speaker 5: a budget of about thirty five million dollars of federal funding,

844
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 5: so smaller than LA but certainly not insignificant. There's definitely

845
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 5: a lot of concern in our community, a lot of concern.

846
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 5: You know, through through my position in a way, we're

847
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 5: connected to about forty five different agencies that are addressing homelessness,

848
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 5: very very serious concerns about how to help people pay

849
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:53,399
Speaker 5: their rent, about you know, what's going to happen if

850
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:57,680
Speaker 5: if funding doesn't come rut all these programs. So yeah,

851
00:49:57,760 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 5: a lot of concern, a lot of need for advocates.

852
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 4: Wow, I could say, you know, there's so much. I

853
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 4: won't say the war never ends, but the movement nothing.

854
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:09,879
Speaker 4: And in the way we have to continue to keep

855
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 4: up despite the funding freezes, the information or disinformation that's

856
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,359
Speaker 4: going on. We must continue to do what we need

857
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:19,839
Speaker 4: to do or what we have to do in order

858
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:25,879
Speaker 4: for us to repopulate the conversation and people with more

859
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,279
Speaker 4: accurate ideas on how unhouse people are on house, I think,

860
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 4: and it's more important. It looms larger because of the

861
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 4: climactic catastrophic events that are going on, like the freezing

862
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 4: in North Carolina where the displaced people were displaced during

863
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 4: the floods. Now we're living out intents, and how the

864
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 4: city is trying to remove them and create the same

865
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 4: grants past kind of horrors for them as they did

866
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,120
Speaker 4: with unhoused people that were not affected by the floods.

867
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:56,920
Speaker 4: And then we have to understand the cold with the

868
00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 4: chills and the northern climbs in the Midwest than how

869
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 4: they're removing on house people and families are giving them

870
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 4: a short timelines and things of that nature. And then

871
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 4: conversely here in Los Angeles, you know, we got now

872
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 4: people that are displaced. Famou has packed up their things,

873
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,839
Speaker 4: thrown them to the you know, the winds and rains

874
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 4: of heaven, and now they are going to have to

875
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:22,880
Speaker 4: navigate a world like the current on house that have

876
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 4: been navigating it for some time. They're going to have

877
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 4: some crash course lessons on what it's like to be

878
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 4: living from a moment to moment and having to live

879
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 4: by your wits. And this is you know, this conversation.

880
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,800
Speaker 4: House business is not going to go away. Catastrophic events

881
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 4: are not going to stop happening, and we need to

882
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:47,320
Speaker 4: stay stay the course. I think I covered all of

883
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 4: the questions I wanted to cover it. Did I miss

884
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:50,399
Speaker 4: anything that you wanted to add?

885
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 5: I think the last thing that I were just to

886
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 5: add if I can. It's just something that came out

887
00:51:56,800 --> 00:51:59,359
Speaker 5: in the twenty twenty four point in time count here

888
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 5: in Orange County that I that any time I get

889
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:04,400
Speaker 5: a chance to kind of underscore and highlight it, I

890
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 5: like to. I think one of the myths that's out there,

891
00:52:08,239 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 5: you know, is that people don't want help, you know.

892
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 5: And if I could get rid of the term service resistant,

893
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 5: I would. And so there's the perception, right that we

894
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,759
Speaker 5: have a homelessness crisis because people who are unhalped they

895
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 5: don't want help, they don't want to access the resources

896
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 5: and a just not true. B what are the resources

897
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 5: that are being offered? And see what I was really

898
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 5: excited about that got highlighted here at our community. They

899
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 5: looked at a couple of emergency shelters that are here,

900
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 5: and they had seventy two percent of people the almost

901
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:46,320
Speaker 5: three quarters of the people in these two emergency shelters

902
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 5: had completed all of their paperwork, you know, to be

903
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 5: enrolled into the coordinated entry system. They had done every

904
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 5: single thing that had been asked of them, produced the documentation,

905
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 5: filled out forms to the surveys, all of that, and

906
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 5: only one out of twelve was ever connected to a resource.

907
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,320
Speaker 5: That doesn't actually mean that one out of twelve was

908
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 5: actually able to have their housing crisis results. And I

909
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 5: think that's just really important to highlight that our systems

910
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 5: are extremely compligated. They are difficult to navigate, and there

911
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:28,800
Speaker 5: are not enough resources to help permanently resolve somebody's helping crisis.

912
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:32,080
Speaker 5: Somebody being able to act as an emergency shelter is

913
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 5: not the thing that their housing crisis being resolved. And

914
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 5: people are engaging with our system. People want to be

915
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:43,760
Speaker 5: able to get off the streets, but our system doesn't

916
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 5: have enough resources to do that at the rate that

917
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:51,280
Speaker 5: is needed. And that I think is something really important

918
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 5: for people to remember.

919
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:55,360
Speaker 4: And if I may add, I use the example to

920
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 4: particularly with law enforcement, that's a safe example that you

921
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 4: had a medical revergence, and you go in and you

922
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 4: tell the doctor your symptoms and they're not listening to

923
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:06,799
Speaker 4: that system. They says, you need to get your leg

924
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 4: cut off, and you don't need your leg cut off.

925
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 4: But you keep explaining to them that this is what's

926
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 4: going on. It's not my leg, it's my stomach and

927
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 4: my heart. I'm thinking of having a heart attack, and

928
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:19,680
Speaker 4: they're giving all kinds of resources. Well, we're going to

929
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 4: cut your right leg off and you won't be able

930
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 4: to walk. We'll do this and that and that, and

931
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,840
Speaker 4: you keep explaining, and then you know, they asked, we

932
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 4: we need you to sign in to have your leg amputating,

933
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 4: and you just walk off and say no, you're not

934
00:54:31,560 --> 00:54:34,239
Speaker 4: helping me. And then it's well, you know, you take

935
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:38,279
Speaker 4: the AMA against medical advice, your service resistant. So now

936
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 4: you're in the system that you go back to another

937
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 4: hospital that got you in the system that you were

938
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 4: a service resistance.

939
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 1: They don't even look at you or evaluate the scope

940
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:48,200
Speaker 1: of what you need.

941
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 4: They says, well, you left another hospital because you didn't

942
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:51,879
Speaker 4: want your leg cut off.

943
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 1: We got to cut your leg off off.

944
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 4: But and then it finds out later that you didn't

945
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 4: need your leg cut off and you needed, you know,

946
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,439
Speaker 4: life saving certa to save you from my cardiory function.

947
00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 4: And that is the long and short of it of

948
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 4: how when we say when people are service resistant and

949
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 4: things of that nature, we need to listen and understand

950
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 4: it is not that it is because if we don't

951
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 4: listen to what the symptoms are and why that people

952
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:22,720
Speaker 4: don't want to join shelters or short term solutions because

953
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:24,520
Speaker 4: some of the people that love to want to live

954
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 4: on the street.

955
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 1: They don't want to go through the hoops again.

956
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 4: They don't want to face the disappointment, They don't want

957
00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 4: to give the stress, or they don't want to deal

958
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:33,880
Speaker 4: with the stresses of shelter life or stresses of staff

959
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 4: abuse or whatever. They just rather depend on themselves and

960
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 4: the circumstances that they're involved with because they create, which

961
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,760
Speaker 4: I did myself, create a reality that I can navigate

962
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 4: that's going to give me mental relief and physical relief

963
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:53,359
Speaker 4: instead of me having to be on tenter hooks living

964
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:55,320
Speaker 4: in an environment that I don't know what's going to

965
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,640
Speaker 4: jump out at me and I have to navigate and

966
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,840
Speaker 4: I don't what may have the copings feels to do so,

967
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:03,440
Speaker 4: so I don't know if you have anything else to

968
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:04,840
Speaker 4: add on that I do.

969
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I do, yes.

970
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 5: So in twenty twenty three, there was a survey down

971
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:19,800
Speaker 5: of people who were experiencing unsheltered homelessness here in Orange

972
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:23,280
Speaker 5: County and our community, and some of the key findings

973
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 5: from that were people that actually, I want help, I

974
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:32,239
Speaker 5: want to resolve my homelessness, and that was you know,

975
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:34,400
Speaker 5: and it was sort of really funny to me that

976
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 5: that was lifted as a key finding off the survey,

977
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 5: the fact that that needed to be stated, but it

978
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:41,560
Speaker 5: needed to be stated. The number one key finding of

979
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 5: the survey was people experiencing homelessness do want help. And

980
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,360
Speaker 5: then one of the other pieces that were really discovered

981
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 5: and here is that safety and respect were some of

982
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 5: the key things that people, you know, really wanted to

983
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,840
Speaker 5: make sure it would be in place when accessing services,

984
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:07,399
Speaker 5: which is the same for any of us. I don't

985
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,800
Speaker 5: want to go somewhere if i think I'm going to

986
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 5: be disrespected, or if I know a friend of mine

987
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 5: went there and they were disrespected, I don't want to

988
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:17,560
Speaker 5: go somewhere if I think that I'm going to be

989
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:21,680
Speaker 5: unsafe and so when it comes to accessing services, just

990
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:26,120
Speaker 5: for what you were saying around safety and respect are

991
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:30,439
Speaker 5: just so important and our system, our homelessness system, needs

992
00:57:30,440 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 5: to take that seriously. People are telling us what it

993
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 5: is that they are looking for that would help them

994
00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 5: in terms of accessing some of the services that we have.

995
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 5: We need to listen.

996
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 4: I couldn't say it better myself, and I wanted to

997
00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 4: thank you again, miss hey Hook Khalil for joining us,

998
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:49,000
Speaker 4: Thank you very much for your.

999
00:57:48,960 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 5: Tex very happy to be engaged. Thank you so much.

1000
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 5: I really enjoyed our conversation.

1001
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 4: Thank you so much to doctor jo Khalil. You can

1002
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 4: follow her work and learn more at the links in

1003
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 4: the description. This is the final installment of our Educate, Liberate,

1004
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 4: Motivate series. To conclude, it is my hope that my

1005
00:58:18,280 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 4: listeners will go back to previous episodes to listen, to understand,

1006
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,320
Speaker 4: and be able to create better solutions for these difficult times.

1007
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening, and may we again meet in

1008
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 4: the light of understanding. If you have a story to

1009
00:58:35,960 --> 00:58:39,240
Speaker 4: share on the air, please reach out to me at

1010
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 4: weed and How's at Gmail or we at house on Instagram.

1011
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:49,960
Speaker 4: With that, thanks again for listening. Weedian Howes is a

1012
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:54,920
Speaker 4: production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted, and created by

1013
00:58:55,040 --> 00:59:01,920
Speaker 4: me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie loftus Ayer, Katie Official,

1014
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 4: and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Wand and our

1015
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 4: local art is also by Katie Official.

1016
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.