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Speaker 1: Previously on Weedian House, and I wish we could get

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Speaker 1: more of a networking people like weed Them House all

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Speaker 1: around the country that lifts everybody up and we all

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Speaker 1: hold hands to lift each other up. But right now,

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's a tug of war. The government

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Speaker 1: and the officials and the wealthy white people are pushing us.

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Speaker 2: And that's where I feel like we are right now.

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Speaker 2: To be able to contribute something and know that it

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Speaker 2: was appreciated, that's the rush. And those that have never

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Speaker 2: experienced that rush, well, I pity you, because that's a

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Speaker 2: wonderful feeling to feed somebody or to give somebody something

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Speaker 2: that they couldn't quite get.

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Speaker 3: Well, now that they've accomplished that, it's a better world

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Speaker 3: for them.

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Speaker 2: They have more access to society than they did before

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Speaker 2: they were ashamed to smile. Welcome back to Weedyan House.

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Speaker 2: I'm your host, Theo Henderson. Shout outs here. Lily Steele,

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Speaker 2: a student at Bay School of San Francisco, reached out

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Speaker 2: to me about an interview she's dealing with a project

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Speaker 2: that deals with houselessness. Another shout out to Tory Frank,

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Speaker 2: a junior at USC's and a BERB media group who

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Speaker 2: wants to collaborate in exploring the un housed crisis. Thanks

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Speaker 2: to everyone who reached out and feel free to get

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Speaker 2: in touch with me on Instagram, median House or at

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Speaker 2: wiedianhouse dot com. Now let's bust this conversation wide open.

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Speaker 2: What are we talking about this week? When we hear

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Speaker 2: corruption occurring in institutions, we automatically think of people that

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Speaker 2: took a stand to speak out. They are often dismissed,

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Speaker 2: disbelieved and vilified. Looked no further than Julian Assange. This

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Speaker 2: episode of whedian Howse literally created itself. I was initially

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Speaker 2: planning on covering issue US in other areas, but my

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Speaker 2: phone would not stop buzzing. This episode will be at

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Speaker 2: least two parts, so please bear with me. And introducing

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Speaker 2: the people who we call but whistle blows that people

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Speaker 2: aren't speaking with this week. Each have their own stories,

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Speaker 2: yet they are still sounding the alarm in an unjust

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Speaker 2: system that they are part of or were part of.

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Speaker 2: We've got a lot to cover this week, but first

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Speaker 2: on house news. First, the city of Long Beach has

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Speaker 2: put in new rules aimed at the unhoused community in

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Speaker 2: public libraries. Violations include offensive odors, health and sanitation hazard

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Speaker 2: whatever that means, and disruptive behavior. Violators can be banned

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Speaker 2: but up to a year. If they fail to leave

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Speaker 2: the library when adds, they can receive a misdemeanor along

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Speaker 2: with a fine for one thousand dollars. Imagine being un

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Speaker 2: housed and being charged one thousand dollars. Our next story

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Speaker 2: takes us to San Jose, California, where the city is

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Speaker 2: training artificial intelligence to find the house's homes and vehicles.

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Speaker 2: San Jose invited tech companies to detect the unhoused community.

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Speaker 2: This is the first of its kind in the country.

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Speaker 2: The companies receiving the footage are ash Censors, Sinson, x Loop, Digital,

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Speaker 2: Blue Dome Technologies, and city Rover. At the time of

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Speaker 2: this recording, the company Sincin detected ten home vehicles since

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Speaker 2: launching this project. What's disturbing about this development is the

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Speaker 2: cognitive dissonance they are claiming they are not looking for people,

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Speaker 2: just their vehicles and the unhoused homes that they are inhabiting.

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Speaker 2: Once the information is collected, what happens next. A logical

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Speaker 2: conclusion based on this country's antipathy of the poor is

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Speaker 2: that drastic and violent action against the un housed will

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Speaker 2: be taken. This could look like forty one to eighteen,

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Speaker 2: the new Jim Crow Proposition one, or the six year

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Speaker 2: feloty for being on house in Kentucky. Just for starters,

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Speaker 2: Our next story takes us to Florida. Republican Governor Ron

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Speaker 2: Desantas signed into law banning the unhoused from sleeping on sidewalks,

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Speaker 2: in parks or in other public spaces. The law will

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Speaker 2: take effect on October first, twenty twenty four. Currently, the

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Speaker 2: unhoused population in Florida is thirty thousand, seven hundred. Finally,

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Speaker 2: Federal Court Judge David Carter opened an independent audit of

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Speaker 2: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is inside Safe program. Mayor

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Speaker 2: Bass has been touting her success model of fixing the

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Speaker 2: airplane while it's at the air Apparently the plane has

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Speaker 2: taken a nosedive, vague facts, an unknown amount of money

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Speaker 2: being used. In addition to this terminology, misuse is also

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Speaker 2: being engaged. And that's on House News. When we come back,

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Speaker 2: our first guest is going to blow the whistle on

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Speaker 2: Project Homer. Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm Theo Henderson.

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Speaker 2: Our first guest today are Danie Domingus, and DeAndre Beckham,

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Speaker 2: who have been rolling the Whistle about their time working

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Speaker 2: at Project home Key in Long Beach. We got to

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Speaker 2: speak over zoom. He's the first part of our conversation.

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Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Dania.

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Speaker 4: I am a graduate student at Long Beach State University.

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Speaker 3: I moved down here for school.

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Speaker 4: So I'm originally from the Central Valley and I've been

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Speaker 4: here since August of twenty twenty two. I am also

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Speaker 4: an undocumented immigrant, so that's something really important to this backstory.

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Speaker 4: I think that's kind of where.

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Speaker 2: My origin story is. I don't want to say villain

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Speaker 2: origin story, but orangin story.

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Speaker 4: And I am currently pursuing a master's in counseling psychology

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Speaker 4: to be a Marriagan family therapist. And for the past

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Speaker 4: five years, I've been a case manager.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay, DeAndre keell us a little bit about yourself.

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Speaker 3: Well, my name is DeAndre Beckham. I'm actually originally from

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Speaker 3: Los Angeles, born and raised. I've been working in social

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Speaker 3: services for a couple of years now. Actually a graduate

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Speaker 3: from CAW Polypromona. I got my bachelor's degree in sociology

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Speaker 3: and ever since then, I've just been working in the

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Speaker 3: field working and insisting with the homeless excellent and as

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Speaker 3: of right now too, I currently work for a or

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Speaker 3: for like a higher level of care right now with Pathways,

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Speaker 3: specifically the Opportunity Nots program, and I basically assist people

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Speaker 3: that are coming out a job, that are fresh on

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Speaker 3: probation and parole, and I assist them with getting housing

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Speaker 3: needs or recommending them for sober livings and getting the

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Speaker 3: other potential resources they may need to reacclimate into society.

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Speaker 2: That sounds exciting and also very impactful for our society.

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Speaker 2: It's as much needed. Well, Donia, tell us a little

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Speaker 2: bit about what made you get into the field.

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Speaker 4: So, like I said, I'm in undocumented immigrant and that's

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Speaker 4: kind of really important for me in my kind of

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Speaker 4: just adult life. I became interested in case management because

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Speaker 4: it just it made a really big difference in my life.

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Speaker 4: I've been in college since twenty ten, continuously, never took

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Speaker 4: a semester off, and it was important to me because

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Speaker 4: it took two years for me to go get help

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Speaker 4: to kind of figure out my life, you know. And

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Speaker 4: I finally walked into like the Undocumented Student Services Center

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Speaker 4: at at Modesta Junior College and I just started to

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Speaker 4: see how what an impacted made to be able to

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Speaker 4: get help, to be able to like look at the

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Speaker 4: different parts of my life and get help through all

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Speaker 4: of those things, and it turned my life around, honestly.

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Speaker 4: And that's kind of where I realized, like, it's important

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Speaker 4: to know how to advocate for yourself, but in the beginning,

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Speaker 4: it's also important to have advocates who can kind of

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Speaker 4: help organize you, know, your life, and help you across

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Speaker 4: those difficult things. And I just I grew passion for

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Speaker 4: it as I was trying to finish up my undergrad

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Speaker 4: at uc merceaid. As I graduated from there, I moved

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Speaker 4: straight into case management. It was just like a very

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Speaker 4: seamless transition for me. I was doing that up in Modesto, California,

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Speaker 4: and I was helping with families at two different elementary schools,

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Speaker 4: and I just started noticing that the biggest issues that

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Speaker 4: the families were facing was housing, insecurity, and houselessness. That's

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Speaker 4: kind of where I started looking into the issue, and

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Speaker 4: I just started seeing parallels between the things that people

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Speaker 4: that are in house face compared to the things that I,

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Speaker 4: as an undocumented immigrant face. A lot of the same issues,

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Speaker 4: but also a lot of the same way that we

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Speaker 4: are treated, you know, at the very core of it,

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Speaker 4: I see a lot of dehumanization. And to me, when

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Speaker 4: I made the decision to come down here for school,

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Speaker 4: I wanted to keep being a case manager, and I

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Speaker 4: told myself, like, I want to serve this specific population

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Speaker 4: because I have the ability to look at people and

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Speaker 4: treat them with dignity and humanity. Because I know what

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Speaker 4: it feels like to be treated without dignity and.

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Speaker 3: Humanity, you know.

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Speaker 4: So I just felt like it's important for these people

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Speaker 4: to have that, and that's that's how I ended up

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Speaker 4: in in case management down here in Long Beach as well.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned the similarities would be undocumented and the house community.

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Speaker 2: I know you've been aware of the challenges that's been

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Speaker 2: going on with the Republican governors busing on house communities.

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Speaker 2: I hate to use the word migrant, but the fact

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Speaker 2: of the matter that still displaces community members. They're dropping them

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Speaker 2: off in colder climbs and leaving them or with buses

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Speaker 2: or playing tickets and things of that nature. And they

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Speaker 2: also are pitting sometimes the communities against each other. Is

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Speaker 2: there any kind of way to do you think that

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Speaker 2: we could bridge the gap to understand displacement is displacement.

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Speaker 2: It just may come a different flavor, but the bottom

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Speaker 2: part of it, we all suffer under the crushing weights

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Speaker 2: of you know, stigma, violence, and basically ridicule. You know,

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Speaker 2: any insights to.

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Speaker 4: That, I think it's it's such an important point to

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Speaker 4: bring up because that's also one of the things that

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Speaker 4: drove me into working with the unhouse population. I told

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Speaker 4: myself my passion is also working with undocumented immigrants, and

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Speaker 4: I knew that I was going to come across them

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Speaker 4: in this in this situation, and sure enough, I did.

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Speaker 4: You know, at the two sites that I've worked at

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Speaker 4: since I moved down here, there were undocumented immigrants there

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Speaker 4: who are unhoused and in shelters, and nobody thinks of them.

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Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of resources that they can't

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Speaker 4: access because of their lack of status, and it's just

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Speaker 4: such a frustration for me to not be able to

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Speaker 4: connect them to anything. And I don't think that it

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Speaker 4: has to be that the type of thing where we're

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Speaker 4: pitted against each other. You know, these populations both are marginalized,

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Speaker 4: are are subject to lack of resources, and it's important

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Speaker 4: to offer resources for both. One of the things that

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Speaker 4: we just saw is medical on January got opened up

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Speaker 4: for everybody, regardless of undocumented status, regardless of age. I

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Speaker 4: myself benefited from that luckily. But you know, it's such

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Speaker 4: a simple thing as thinking universally, because if one population

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Speaker 4: is kind of benefited, it's for the benefit of all

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Speaker 4: of society for everybody to thrive.

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Speaker 3: So if Immerian.

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Speaker 4: Communities are in our societies, then they contribute and they

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Speaker 4: are also do as many resources as everybody else.

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Speaker 2: DeAndre, I have a question. Yes, you stated earlier that

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Speaker 2: you were dealing with advance state of care. Is there

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Speaker 2: a certain population that you served. Let me just start there.

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Speaker 3: So I still particularly work with people that are unhoused

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Speaker 3: in the communities, people that are dealing with homelessness. Majority

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Speaker 3: of the time, those are people that are veterans. There

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Speaker 3: are people that lost their job through the pandemic, people

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Speaker 3: that actually had mental health issues that were actually discharged

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Speaker 3: from the hospitals because they didn't necessarily like have room

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Speaker 3: for them or they didn't have any type of insurance

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Speaker 3: that they could continue to build. Also to you know,

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Speaker 3: just there are I would say a lot of people

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Speaker 3: that come from out of state as well, kids in

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Speaker 3: particular that have come out to their parents about their

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Speaker 3: sexuality and things of that nature, that have left.

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Speaker 2: From home or thrown out of home, because I've had

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Speaker 2: guests that speak on that, you know their parents are

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Speaker 2: not accepting and throw them out.

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Speaker 3: Yes, So just you know a lot of people that's

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Speaker 3: stealing with the homelessness and just displacement. A lot of

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Speaker 3: them ended up coming from marginalized communities as well. That's

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Speaker 3: one thing I've noticed in the years that I've been

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Speaker 3: working and another thing to I just kind of relate

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Speaker 3: to it because I see a lot of people that

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Speaker 3: look like dying myself and just personal friends and family

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Speaker 3: that have actually experienced it, and just knowing that a

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Speaker 3: lot of people, especially like where I come from, particular

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Speaker 3: in LA like they're not aware of a lot of

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Speaker 3: these resources that they can go to or get connected with.

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Speaker 3: And just even in some of the places that I

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Speaker 3: have worked in frequented, I've just kind of realized that

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Speaker 3: some in particular have some resources to help you get

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Speaker 3: assistance with sober living, assistance with mental health linkage and

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Speaker 3: things of that nature. We could try to connect with

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Speaker 3: food pantries and a lot of stuff as far as

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Speaker 3: like trying to get clothing and all types of other items.

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Speaker 3: But it's usually case by case on where you go

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Speaker 3: because you have higher levels of care like recoup facilities,

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Speaker 3: you have skill embarssing facilities, you have standard like home

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Speaker 3: keys like where we previously worked at, and just other

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Speaker 3: like lower level projects to kind of assist on a

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Speaker 3: micro level tool as well.

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Speaker 2: Leading into Project home Key. Let's talk about that to

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Speaker 2: give a background for people that don't know during the pandemic,

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Speaker 2: because I was initially accepted at one of the project

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Speaker 2: room keys, but I turned it down because of the

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Speaker 2: ridiculousness of the rules. They thought that they were helping,

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Speaker 2: but it was much more of a harm and it

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Speaker 2: was very condescending or patronizing the services that they offer.

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Speaker 2: But that was my experience. Some people will accept anything

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Speaker 2: because they're in dire straits. My situation was a little

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Speaker 2: more surgical, and I wanted the surgical type of help

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Speaker 2: that would be applicable to me, not getting the erroneous

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Speaker 2: help and then being lost in limbo. But I digress.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about you guys's experience. How

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Speaker 2: did you guys get involved in Project home Key?

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Speaker 3: So that's our villain origin story.

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Speaker 2: Fia Orange I got to get to music.

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Speaker 4: We were both employed with a nonprofit called Illumination Foundation

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Speaker 4: when I started. When I moved down here and started

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Speaker 4: that job in August of twenty twenty two, I was

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Speaker 4: initially placed as a case manager at a Project Room Key.

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Speaker 4: It used to be the days in Long Beach on

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Speaker 4: Pacific Coast Highway, and very similar to what you said,

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Speaker 4: you know, there's there's a lot of strict rules. They

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Speaker 4: couldn't lock their own doors. They always needed somebody to

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Speaker 4: go lock their doors for them. And I was only

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Speaker 4: about there from August ninth until September thirtieth, when the

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Speaker 4: site closed. Illumination Foundation, in my experience and from what

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Speaker 4: I've heard in the past, they usually relocate their staff

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Speaker 4: to different places. So that's kind of what happened to

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Speaker 4: me on September thirtieth, my last day at Project Room Key.

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Speaker 4: October first, I was sent to Project Home Key just

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Speaker 4: down the street, you know, just a couple of minutes

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Speaker 4: down at Project Home Key in Long Beach Boulevard. It

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Speaker 4: used to be an old Best Western and yeah, I

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Speaker 4: started working there as a case manager in October of

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: What were your insights? What do you think of it there?

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Speaker 4: I heard a lot of kind of scary things, you know,

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Speaker 4: such as I heard that there was a big like

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Speaker 4: bug infestation. I heard there was roaches everywhere, There was

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Speaker 4: ed bugs everywhere, fleas everywhere. I was told that it

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Speaker 4: was kind of dangerous as well, But I never really

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Speaker 4: experienced anything too bad while I was there. I came

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Speaker 4: in with kind of like my guard up, you know,

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Speaker 4: not knowing really what I was, what I was getting into,

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Speaker 4: and also not knowing if I was a right fit

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Speaker 4: for that kind of place, you know. But as soon

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Speaker 4: as I got there. The best part of it, of

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Speaker 4: course was our folks that lived there and also just

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Speaker 4: our co workers. I think we didn't have a lot

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Speaker 4: of support, we didn't have a lot of resources, but

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Speaker 4: we had a really strong team. It was me DeAndre,

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Speaker 4: a lead case manager and then a housing navigator for

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Speaker 4: the majority of the year and throughout the year. We

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Speaker 4: had like some people come and go and join our

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Speaker 4: team and leave our team, but that was its core

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Speaker 4: of us. So it was just me DeAndre, a housing navigator,

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Speaker 4: and then our leads. You know, we did our best

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Speaker 4: with our team. We worked really in tandem with each other,

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Speaker 4: helping each other with our caselets, just because we had

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Speaker 4: no other support for the most part, you know. But

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Speaker 4: like I said, I really enjoyed working with the clients

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Speaker 4: and I really enjoyed working with our team.

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Speaker 2: Andre. What's your insights into the project home Ky?

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Speaker 3: Prior to me becoming a case manager, I worked as

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Speaker 3: a side attendant. So that was in like the tilling

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Speaker 3: of like twenty twenty originally at the site. When I

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Speaker 3: first got there, I didn't really know what I was

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Speaker 3: getting into, just based on like the description of the

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Speaker 3: job and everything like that. But once I came in,

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Speaker 3: I seen that there was no oversight actually, so everyone

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Speaker 3: that was there side assistants and everything like that, they

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Speaker 3: were practically upholding the entire site. And even at the

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Speaker 3: time we didn't even have a site manager for that

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Speaker 3: time of being. We actually had kind of like the

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Speaker 3: lead side attendant at the time, she kind of was

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Speaker 3: overseeing everything over there. And then at the time too,

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Speaker 3: we actually had one lead case manager and that she

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Speaker 3: practically kind of tried to help everybody all at one time.

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Speaker 3: But when you got one person in just about one

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Speaker 3: hundred people, it's kind of hard to navigate. So when

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Speaker 3: I was a side attendant too, we had severe issues.

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Speaker 3: There were infestations, as Donna was saying, there were problems

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Speaker 3: with the plumbing. Actually the first week I got there,

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Speaker 3: somebody died and me and the actual site stuff that

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Speaker 3: trained me, if we kind of want to call it that,

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Speaker 3: we actually walked in and found them that same week.

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Speaker 3: And then we kind of had an issue too where

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Speaker 3: there was supposed to be an interim person to kind

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Speaker 3: of come in and oversee, but that didn't necessarily happen

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Speaker 3: until I kind of informed the AC I was dealing

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Speaker 3: with at the time some of the issues that were

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Speaker 3: going on there, and then the safety of the staff

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Speaker 3: because we had a lot of people just coming in

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Speaker 3: at random, they had weapons at times, we didn't necessarily

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Speaker 3: have enough security, and there were just a bunch of

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Speaker 3: needs that weren't being met for any of the clients.

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Speaker 3: So I kind of brought that to their attention as

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Speaker 3: a site attendant, and then I basically kind of got

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Speaker 3: my job threatened and they kind of told me like,

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Speaker 3: this doesn't necessarily seem like a fit for you, and

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Speaker 3: I was just kind of like, okay, that was my

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00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:21,280
Speaker 3: first indication of well, when you kind of speak up

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Speaker 3: about the severity of the issues going on here, they

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Speaker 3: kind of try to get you out the way. So

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Speaker 3: after that, that's when I initially had left and went

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Speaker 3: to another organization. I worked that path, but this is

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Speaker 3: out in Orange County. Fast forward a little bit. I

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Speaker 3: was dealing with my issues because I was on dialysis

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Speaker 3: at the time too, and I was just trying to

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Speaker 3: get ready for surgery. But I had to kind of

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Speaker 3: leave that. Originally. I came back to work as a

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Speaker 3: case manager though, and at that time they had finally

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Speaker 3: got a site manager and we had a little bit

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Speaker 3: more of a team. So that same case manager, which

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Speaker 3: was actually the lead that Donnie was speaking of, we

351
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 3: kind were able to kind of work and get a

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Speaker 3: few people house, but a lot of the same underlying

353
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Speaker 3: issues were still there, and a lot of health concerns

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Speaker 3: and safety concerns too for all members.

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Speaker 2: Which brings us to the whistle blowing thing. I noticed

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Speaker 2: that there was some media covers about it. They are

357
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Speaker 2: mentioning that, you guys a whistleblowers, What prompted that? What

358
00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:24,760
Speaker 2: brought this whistle blower thing to its climax?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think the climax had been building since

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Speaker 4: DeAndre and I we finally came together at the site

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Speaker 4: in I believe in November of twenty twenty two, and

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Speaker 4: on December twenty fifth, we ended up losing I think

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Speaker 4: one or two clients must have died about on the

364
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Speaker 4: same day and they both died on site. And then

365
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Speaker 4: on New Year's another client passed away, but she was

366
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Speaker 4: actually struck in a hit and run off site. So

367
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Speaker 4: after that, and I think like two weeks later, we

368
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Speaker 4: lost another client on site. So DeAndre and I and

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Speaker 4: like the other lead case manager, we just started asking questions.

370
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Speaker 4: You know, we just started expressing our frustration about the

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Speaker 4: fact that so many people are dying on site. We

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Speaker 4: carry the emotional and mental toll of that, you know,

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Speaker 4: like we work closely with these people, We work where

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Speaker 4: they live. They are not just clients to us, They

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Speaker 4: are a community for us. And you know, I know

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Speaker 4: DeAndre walked in on the client that passed away on

377
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Speaker 4: Christmas night, so just having to see that. And one

378
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Speaker 4: of the things that we did as a preventive measure

379
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Speaker 4: to try to keep people safe is our site just

380
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,080
Speaker 4: seventeen people, mostly case managers and site staff and one

381
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Speaker 4: medical assistant. We started trying to see if we couldn't

382
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Speaker 4: implement like a wellness check, like a daily wellness check.

383
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Speaker 4: But at that point, is it a case manager's job

384
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Speaker 4: to do that, is it a site staff's job to

385
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Speaker 4: do that, or is it the one medical assistants job

386
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 4: to do that who's not even there all week. So

387
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 4: that inevitably failed. You know, it's not something that we

388
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Speaker 4: could sustain for long periods of time.

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Speaker 3: Time.

390
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Speaker 4: We also have a high turnaround in site staff, and

391
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 4: it was hard to kind of get them trained on

392
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Speaker 4: that to keep it going.

393
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Speaker 3: So people kept dying.

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Speaker 4: You know, we lost another one at some point, maybe

395
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Speaker 4: in late winter, early spring. We lost another one in July,

396
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,359
Speaker 4: We lost another one on October second, and then another

397
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:11,119
Speaker 4: one on in the beginning of November. So in total,

398
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 4: in the whole year, we ended up losing eight clients,

399
00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:17,200
Speaker 4: and six of them are actually on my personal caseload. Now, again,

400
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 4: when every time somebody would die, we would just ask, like,

401
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,159
Speaker 4: what happened to the wellness checks? You know, some of

402
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:25,200
Speaker 4: them had been in their rooms for a few days.

403
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:29,760
Speaker 4: They were in states of decomposition, and that's something that's unacceptable.

404
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 4: You know, I started noticing we're just pointing the finger

405
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 4: at each other, like you didn't do this, you didn't

406
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Speaker 4: do the wellness check. And I told myself, why are

407
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 4: we blaming ourselves for something that's kind of systemic? Again,

408
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:45,360
Speaker 4: we are or structural. We don't have the right staff,

409
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:48,640
Speaker 4: we don't have enough staff, and none of us are trained.

410
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:50,879
Speaker 4: You know, we're not meeting the needs of the people

411
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Speaker 4: that are passing away here. And we started raising those concerns,

412
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Speaker 4: you know, like like I said, we would sit around

413
00:22:57,080 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 4: and just kind of like talk it out and like

414
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:01,840
Speaker 4: try to figure out what could do. We started with

415
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 4: our with our direct supervisors, and it kind of felt

416
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,919
Speaker 4: like it was kind of reaching like a glass ceiling

417
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,879
Speaker 4: type of thing, like where where our concerns aren't being

418
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 4: moved up further than our't than our our direct supervisors.

419
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 4: We did have the opportunity to talk to Paul Duncan,

420
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Speaker 4: I think in early August. He's the manager of the

421
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:24,360
Speaker 4: Homeless Services Bureau in Long Beach. We ran into him

422
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:26,640
Speaker 4: into some kind of celebration that they were having for

423
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,760
Speaker 4: reaching the milestone of using all the emergency housing vouchers,

424
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Speaker 4: and DeAndre and I had two separate individual conversations with

425
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 4: him about the types of concerns we had, and you know,

426
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 4: we kind of just got brushed off. We also had

427
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 4: two different opportunities to talk with the CEOs with Illumination Foundation,

428
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 4: one in June or July and then another one in October,

429
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,679
Speaker 4: exactly a week after our October client passed away, and

430
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:54,120
Speaker 4: the same thing. It's just, you know, we're we're saying,

431
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 4: this has been happening first since last December, and we're

432
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 4: not seeing anything done all at DeAndre Tel. The second

433
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,479
Speaker 4: meeting with the CEO went, but it was very it

434
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 4: was very tense, and we feel like we finally got

435
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 4: the right attention for things to start for the CEOs

436
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 4: and for people to start taking our site seriously. Because

437
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:18,919
Speaker 4: the site is also different than what Illumination Foundation specializes in.

438
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 4: The agency specializes in recouperative care centers, so we always

439
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 4: joked around that we're like the middle child of the

440
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 4: or the stepchild of the company. You know, that nobody

441
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 4: really pays attention to us. And it was at that

442
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 4: point that we started seeing them emailing the city and

443
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 4: relaying our concerns and the types of supports that we

444
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 4: were asking for and trying different things on site to

445
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 4: see what would work, but none of the changes that

446
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 4: they implemented stuck, and we believe that this led to

447
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 4: Illumination Foundation like making the decision to pull out of

448
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 4: Project home Key. They had been renewing their contract, I

449
00:24:57,600 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 4: believe every six months, and they decided not to re

450
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 4: at the end of February eighteenth, and they told us

451
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 4: that we were getting laid off. And like I said earlier,

452
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 4: they have a track record of relocating their staff, but

453
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 4: this was the first time anybody had ever heard of

454
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 4: them not relocating somebody. Our lead case manager and a

455
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 4: site staff had actually been with the company for about

456
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 4: six years, and luckily our lead case manager was on

457
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 4: by the time that they close. She was on maternity lead,

458
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 4: so they will be relocating her. But the other one

459
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 4: they just let go like everybody else, you know. So

460
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,640
Speaker 4: we were really frustrated about that, and it just felt

461
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 4: like they were just trying to get rid of the

462
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 4: issue altogether, you know, not address any of the deats,

463
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 4: not be accountable for any of the debts, not make

464
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 4: any change. One of my personal frustrations was saying, you know, like,

465
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:43,439
Speaker 4: how can we drop out when we know that this

466
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 4: place is eventually going to turn into permanent supportive housing.

467
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 3: Why not stick it out until the end. For if

468
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 3: we really our.

469
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 4: Clients centered, if we care about these clients, then we

470
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 4: care about the continuity of services. We've been with these

471
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:57,919
Speaker 4: people for a year and a half now, you know,

472
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 4: so it's to their benefit for us to continue there

473
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 4: until the site closes. But again, it's all money, it's

474
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 4: all optics. So what ended up like trumping how we

475
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 4: serve the clients is just making sure that we pull

476
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 4: out of there. Well again, I'll let DeAndre tell it,

477
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 4: but I ended up leaving it at the beginning of

478
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 4: January at the same time as DeAndre, just because it

479
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:21,920
Speaker 4: felt unfair the way that things kind of started boiling down.

480
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,120
Speaker 4: And that's when I reached out to the Long Beach

481
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 4: Post to tell the story. I had read an article

482
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 4: that came out around those days about how the Illumination

483
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 4: Foundation was pulling out of the of the contract and

484
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 4: they I read in the article that they weren't able

485
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 4: to get anybody to comment from Illumination Foundation. So I

486
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 4: emailed her and I was like, I can provide comments.

487
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 3: And that's kind of.

488
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 4: Where we did this started, you know, just being like, hey,

489
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:46,199
Speaker 4: this is what's going on there, this is what the

490
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 4: site is like, this is what the clients are dealing with,

491
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,840
Speaker 4: this is what we're dealing with, and like, these are

492
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 4: all the deaths that have been happening, and people need

493
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:55,159
Speaker 4: to know, you know, people need to know that like

494
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 4: putting somebody away in a hotel room is just kind

495
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 4: of like invisibilizing them. And when the structure of the

496
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 4: contract is so bare bones in regards to services and

497
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 4: inevitably people are going to die that didn't have to

498
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 4: die or didn't have to die in such an inhumane way.

499
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:12,639
Speaker 2: We're going to take a break and we will be

500
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 2: right back. We're back, DeAndre, Do you want to pick

501
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:24,920
Speaker 2: up where she left off?

502
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 3: So just to kind of piggyback off of the initial

503
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 3: meeting that we had with Paul Duncan at the that

504
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 3: was the Icy Miss lunch, and I believe it was

505
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 3: so yeah, arly August. So we were, like Donia was saying,

506
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 3: we kind of try to address a lot of the

507
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 3: concerns that we were having regarding a lot of the

508
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 3: things that were going on as far as like client

509
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:49,160
Speaker 3: care and a lot of the things that were going

510
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 3: on with staff, just as far as like overall well

511
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 3: being and some of the resources that we need, because

512
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 3: we went to our supervisors and we were just trying

513
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 3: to make them aware that this isn't necessarily sustainable and

514
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 3: just based on the rate of depths and everything that

515
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 3: was going on in the building, it was very apparent

516
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 3: that we need more help. So we tried to reach

517
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 3: out to them, and like Donnie was saying, like it

518
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 3: didn't necessarily get any further because from what I understand,

519
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 3: everybody wanted to try to keep it in the house

520
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 3: because understanding like if you raise these issues, then it

521
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 3: escalates higher and then it reflects on the site manager

522
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 3: and the operations manager bad. So they weren't necessarily advocating

523
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 3: for us and the clients like they said they were.

524
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 3: So at that time when we spoke with Paul Duncan,

525
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 3: like I know, when I personally spoke with him, I

526
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 3: just kind of addressed some of these issues with him,

527
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 3: just kind of wondering, like what are we going to

528
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 3: do Because we were told as well that the vouchers and

529
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 3: everything was running out. They didn't necessarily discuss where they

530
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 3: were going to place anybody. This was all up in

531
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 3: the air because even when they told us that they

532
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 3: were going to convert into a permit and supported housing

533
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 3: that wasn't guaranteed for any of the members that were

534
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 3: currently staying there, and we actually weren't privileged to that information. No,

535
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 3: only reason we found out is because another ICMS worker

536
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 3: kind of came by and it was just like, oh, yeah,

537
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,959
Speaker 3: by the way, like this is going to happen. So

538
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 3: then when we tried to address those issues with Paul Duncan,

539
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 3: like in particular, asking him, what's going to happen, how

540
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 3: are you going to come and help the people that

541
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 3: are here? What are you going to do about the

542
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 3: deaths and everything? He laughed us off and he didn't

543
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 3: necessarily give any answers. We're working on it. He just

544
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 3: kept saying, we're working on it. We're going to find out,

545
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 3: we're going to do something. Mind you too, Like he's

546
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 3: the head of this whole thing. So even with us advocating,

547
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 3: you're supposed to be advocating with as well, and you're

548
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 3: not being transparent in the plan in regard to any

549
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 3: of our members about their safety, about their well being

550
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 3: and where they're ultimately going to be placed, because as

551
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 3: of right now, without any for sure answer, everybody's limbo,

552
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 3: so just to kind of speak on the attitude he

553
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 3: kind of had towards it. He never even came to

554
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 3: the site, like the day it opened up, he was there.

555
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 3: After that, he was nowhere to be seen until we

556
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 3: literally had to go seek him out because when we

557
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 3: talked to our supervisors about it, they said, oh, we'll

558
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 3: send an email or we'll reach out to them, but

559
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 3: we never got worried back as to what they said

560
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 3: or any follow up or anything. So we took that

561
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 3: as our opportunity to actually cut the middleman out and

562
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 3: speak to him directly, because at the time we didn't

563
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 3: necessarily like know what he could do. But as the hey,

564
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 3: you can kind of look in things investigating, you could

565
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 3: kind of get a first hand to count about what's

566
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 3: going on in particular about the site. But after speaking

567
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 3: with him, we just kind of seen the dismissiveness and

568
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 3: just like a transparency and he honestly didn't really seem

569
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 3: to care too much. So when we took that information back,

570
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 3: we were just kind of taken aback about, like this

571
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 3: is somebody in a position that can actually affect change,

572
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 3: and to kind of see that attitude and that temperament

573
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 3: of just like indifference. It definitely kind of rattled us too,

574
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 3: because we're literally working bare bones. There is not an

575
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 3: actual structure to this facility. And the reason why it

576
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 3: worked was because you had the case managers and you

577
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 3: had certain sight staff trying to come together and kind

578
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 3: of alleviate some of those issues because that building would

579
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,719
Speaker 3: honestly fell a long time ago.

580
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 2: Which brings up a very valid point. What did you

581
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 2: learn from this experience from Project Home Key. I'm going

582
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 2: to ask you DeAndre, and then I'll shunt it over

583
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: to Danya.

584
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 3: I learned that everybody isn't necessarily necessarily like the advocates

585
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 3: they claimed to be, because it were. If we all

586
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 3: believe in a mission statement, and we all believe in

587
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 3: these principles about helping clients housing first, making sure they're

588
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 3: in the best conditions as possible, you think they would

589
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 3: take heed to some of these warnings. I've come to

590
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 3: realize that there are a very select few amount of

591
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 3: people here that actually do care because they look at

592
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 3: some of the clients as like family. We're day in

593
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 3: and day out with them, and for a lot of people,

594
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 3: it's kind of out the side, out of mind. There

595
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 3: are a lot of people that hold certain titles that

596
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 3: aren't necessarily involved the way that they need to be,

597
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 3: especially in situations like this, because if you're overseeing in

598
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 3: your housing first and you want to help people get house,

599
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 3: you want to help the homeless population. In my mind,

600
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 3: you will want to know what's going on exactly at

601
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 3: every side. You will want to touch bases with people.

602
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 3: You will want to see how the facilities are operating,

603
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 3: you want to see how it is structured, just to

604
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 3: help us help support the members. And I've come to

605
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 3: realize that that's not the case. A lot of stuff

606
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 3: just kind of sounds good on the website, like, oh,

607
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 3: warehousing first, we believe in advocating for the clients. We

608
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 3: believe in getting them all the resources necessary. And I

609
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 3: didn't feel that at all, because a lot of people

610
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 3: were in place and in the depths of a lot

611
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 3: of members that were there at that building, and a

612
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 3: lot of them didn't necessarily have to speak the corners.

613
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 3: They didn't have to speak to the police officers, they

614
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 3: didn't have to speak to the paramedics or even talk

615
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 3: to the families that are crying out in the lobby

616
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 3: wondering what happened, How did this occur and they don't

617
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 3: see that part of it. They just see, oh, okay,

618
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 3: well they're off the street in their house. But honestly,

619
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 3: in facilities like these, they may be housed, but is

620
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 3: it truthfully any better, because granted they are, they have rooms,

621
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 3: but if these rooms are infested, these rooms have mold,

622
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 3: if these pipes are busting, if there's consistent flooding, if

623
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 3: members that are in power chairs, walkers, and all of

624
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 3: these things have very limited mobility and very high health issues,

625
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 3: they can't get around in this facility itself does not

626
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 3: necessarily meet their needs. We don't have staffing for we

627
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 3: don't have the medical for it, we don't have the

628
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 3: mental health supports for it. So granted they may be

629
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 3: inside a building, but they're still facing a lot of

630
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 3: the same issues that they were facing outside.

631
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 2: What did you.

632
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:14,359
Speaker 4: Learn, Danya, I think I learned two things, and they're

633
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 4: very much in tandem with everything that DeAndre just said.

634
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 4: I think I learned that sometimes these institutions, these systems

635
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 4: have a stated mission, they have stated goals, and they

636
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 4: have stated values, but the actual way that those policies

637
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 4: in place according to those goals, missions and values play out,

638
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 4: they don't always work out that way, you know, tying

639
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 4: it back to like my experience as an undocumented immigrant.

640
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 4: Right in undergrad I read this book called The Land

641
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,240
Speaker 4: of Open Graves by Jason de Leone, and this talked

642
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 4: about like this policy called prevention through the turance, right,

643
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 4: and then it's written in the policy that if we

644
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 4: funnel people through the desert, they're going to die, and

645
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 4: that is a deterrence for them coming over. Right. So

646
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 4: I've been thinking about that lately and in regards to

647
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 4: this experience as well, you know, and how that is tied.

648
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 4: It feels like with these project home key sites that

649
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 4: don't have the needed services, it's almost like the policy

650
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 4: is to get you out of sight and out of

651
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 4: mind and it excuses the problem, right, Like you get

652
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 4: to say, hey, they died in a room, they died

653
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 4: with dignity, when you know, somebody being dead in the

654
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 4: room for five days straight in the middle of Long

655
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:24,360
Speaker 4: Beach is not dying with dignity. You know, somebody found

656
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 4: in a state of decomposition is not dying with dignity.

657
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 4: It is not enough to just die with.

658
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 3: A roof overarrier head.

659
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 4: That is not equal dignity, right, I also feel that

660
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 4: I learned that death is political. You know. What I'm

661
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 4: saying is like the same as the desert, or like

662
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 4: a holds up in the middle of a Project home

663
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 4: Key program. It's almost like a zone of confinement, right,

664
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:48,720
Speaker 4: a place where no upstanding citizen.

665
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 3: Is supposed to see.

666
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 4: So if you put somebody inside of in a hotel

667
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 4: and they're not dying on the street, nobody sees it happening,

668
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 4: is there going to be an uproar about it? Of

669
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,319
Speaker 4: course not, But is that did you do enough for

670
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 4: this person? One of the things I was told when

671
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 4: I was dismissed from Project Honkey about a week ago,

672
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 4: is like, hey, they died with a roof over their head.

673
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,800
Speaker 4: The site manager actually told me, Paul knew a person

674
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 4: that died hear, and he told me, I'm so glad

675
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 4: that she died there, because if she hadn't died at

676
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 4: Project Homeky, she would have died on the streets. Yes,

677
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 4: and it's still they deserve more than that, right, That's

678
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 4: that's kind of what we're fighting for, And that's kind

679
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 4: of also what we've been seeing as a response from

680
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 4: the mayor that hey, we're glad that they died in

681
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 4: a building, and we're saying it's good that they died

682
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 4: with the roof over their heads, but they did not

683
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 4: die with dignity, And we're asking them to take the

684
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,240
Speaker 4: additional steps to provide them with the type of supports

685
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 4: that where they can actually die with dignity, you know,

686
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 4: and not just be hold up out of sight, out

687
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 4: of mind.

688
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 2: What do you think a project home key is going

689
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 2: to look like in five years?

690
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 4: One of the things I was told again when I

691
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 4: was dismissed is the site manager made it sound as

692
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 4: if me and DeAndre speaking out about this is going

693
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 4: to get the place closed. So she said, what is

694
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 4: the best what is the best case scenario today? She goes,

695
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 4: is it better that they're here or is it better

696
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 4: if this place closed? You know?

697
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:11,879
Speaker 3: And I was just like, that's not what we want.

698
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 4: You know. In my ideal world, we have the type

699
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 4: of place where like people who are referred to these

700
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 4: sites are met with the types of supports that they need,

701
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 4: you know, and round the clock supports. I understand that

702
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 4: if you need to send people with severe health issues,

703
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 4: then make sure that your program meets those health needs, right.

704
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 4: Don't just have one medical assistant for people with strokes,

705
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 4: for people with heart attacks, for people with developmental disabilities,

706
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 4: physical disabilities, severe severe health issues. You know, it's just

707
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 4: not going to cut it. But again, if you need

708
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 4: to send those people, then you need to make sure

709
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 4: that your program is structured in the contract to meet

710
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 4: those needs. One of the things that we had been

711
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:52,439
Speaker 4: doing at Project home Key is like, yeah, we bring

712
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 4: in like nursing students as volunteers, we bring in hospice,

713
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 4: we bring in healthcare and Action which is the mobile clinic,

714
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 4: you know, but they're not there twenty four to seven,

715
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 4: and it's just it's not enough services. We need round

716
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:07,919
Speaker 4: the clock care for the people that are in there,

717
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 4: and they're also not like written into the contract. These

718
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 4: are like ad hoc measures that we've been trying to

719
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 4: take to keep people safe. But it doesn't compare it

720
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 4: to having it written into the policy, into the contract

721
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 4: and having it funded. You know, it's us trying to

722
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 4: do our best under horrible circumstances, and that just doesn't

723
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 4: cut it.

724
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,280
Speaker 2: Where do you see Project home Key in five years?

725
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:35,360
Speaker 3: DeAndre me personally, I feel that Project home Key could

726
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 3: work when you have the right people in place. Everybody

727
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 3: has to be on the same page, and everybody has

728
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:46,439
Speaker 3: to be definitely clients centered. That's first and foremost. Also too,

729
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 3: in order for Project home Keys the work, I think

730
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 3: it needs to be structured a little bit differently because

731
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 3: just to kind of piggyback off of what Donya was saying,

732
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,239
Speaker 3: you need the proper resources, especially if you're going to

733
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,719
Speaker 3: accept high acuity like clients and stuff like that. You

734
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,880
Speaker 3: need to make sure that you have substance use counselors.

735
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 3: You need to make sure that you have the mental

736
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 3: health therapist. You need to make sure you have these clinicians.

737
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:10,880
Speaker 3: You need to make sure that you have an actual

738
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 3: full case management team that can actually divide the lows equally.

739
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 3: So it's just not a bunch of overlap. You need

740
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 3: site managers, you need somebody on site twenty four to

741
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 3: seven because even after we leave, there's always going to

742
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 3: be something that may occur. And also to believe kind

743
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 3: of having a little bit more structures in regard to

744
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 3: just kind of like rules just more so as protections,

745
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 3: not to kind of hinder anybody from doing anything or

746
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 3: like kind of take away their freedoms, but just the

747
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 3: more so just pit certain things in place just for safety.

748
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 3: That's the most important thing to me. And then also

749
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 3: too just having all the necessary resources. Don't just start

750
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 3: a own key bear bones, and then you expect the

751
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:58,720
Speaker 3: staff to kind of just cover everything in its entirety

752
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:00,959
Speaker 3: because a lot of people what they end up doing,

753
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 3: especially if they care and they have empty for the clients,

754
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 3: they go above and beyond literally, so they'll do things

755
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 3: that aren't necessarily in the job description just to make

756
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 3: sure that this client's needs is met. They have everything

757
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:15,759
Speaker 3: that they need to do, whether that be taking them

758
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 3: the doctor's appointments, whether that be showing up for court,

759
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 3: whether that just be trying to de escalate certain things

760
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 3: for happening, that's going out talking to property managers, trying

761
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 3: to find them housing, and even sometimes that's doing the

762
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,760
Speaker 3: jobs of other people because we don't necessarily have the support.

763
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 3: I understand. Like they may say, like, oh, they can

764
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 3: get connected to this resource where they can get connected

765
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 3: to this agency. But a lot of the times, though

766
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,279
Speaker 3: a lot of people are burnt out, and a lot

767
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 3: of people from those other agencies, they're also getting laid

768
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 3: off or they're just they're facing a high turnaround because

769
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 3: they're not necessarily getting the support they need either. So

770
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 3: what that leaves is a lack and that makes a

771
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 3: lot of case managers or even site staff they have

772
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 3: to kind of come help and pick a lot of up.

773
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 3: So I just more so say that we just need

774
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 3: to have the proper medical staff. We need to have therapists,

775
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 3: we need to have clinicians, we need to have counselors,

776
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 3: we need to have substance abuse We just need overall

777
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 3: a staff that genuinely cares, and we need to have

778
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 3: the right numbers for it to sustain it just in

779
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 3: order to help people graduate from the program. Just like Dannie,

780
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 3: I'm saying we want to take preventive measures from people

781
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 3: dying or you know, meeting very bad ends, I should say,

782
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 3: just so they can get all the resources that they need.

783
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 3: I feel it's definitely necessary everybody's on the same page

784
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 3: from a micro level to a macro level too as well.

785
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 3: Everybody has to be transparent to as well. Nobody can't

786
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 3: be in the dark about what's going on and how

787
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 3: are we moving forward with the program, what are we

788
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 3: going to do next, what funds are going where to

789
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 3: assist the members that are currently here. That's how I

790
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 3: personally run it.

791
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 2: Recently, Mayor Bass has been ordered by the court to

792
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 2: do an audit and show where the money is going

793
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 2: because she's has this idea that she's solving houses, running

794
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 2: up on people in the rain, throwing this stuff away,

795
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 2: and she's thinking they put them inside without like these

796
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 2: same safeguards and same kind of services. She's doing something,

797
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 2: which is which many of the inn house are saying

798
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:28,479
Speaker 2: she's not, because you know, it's an indefinite limbo on house.

799
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 2: People want services, they want to be inside where they

800
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 2: know that they're going to be transitioning to a home.

801
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 2: They're not trying to stay in a shelter for like

802
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 2: what some of them have two or three years and

803
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 2: that's just not cutting it, you know, or they'll be

804
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 2: thrown out. When you have such car through type of

805
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 2: environments that you sneeze wrong, then you being thrown out,

806
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 2: you know that kind of thing. So that's that's what's

807
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 2: going on here in Los Angeles. So you know, stay

808
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 2: tuned and you'll hear about this audit and where this

809
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 2: money is going on lack thereof.

810
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's something that we're seeing to Since the

811
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 4: articles came out, people have been kind of reaching out

812
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:04,399
Speaker 4: to me and saying like they're seeing the same thing

813
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 4: in their different workplaces, like all these different case managers.

814
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 4: You know, even I started reading the whole Aid Healthcare

815
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 4: Foundation thing and it's, oh yeah, it's the exact same

816
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 4: thing that's happening at Project Home Key, you know. So

817
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 4: it's a roof is just never enough if you're not

818
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:20,359
Speaker 4: going to follow through and make sure that people are

819
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 4: living with dignity inside these places. And it's just such

820
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 4: a discrepancy of values. I think, you know, like to

821
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 4: these politicians, it's good enough to have a roof over

822
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 4: your head, and I think us on the ground, we're

823
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 4: saying that, hey, this isn't playing out in any dignified

824
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 4: sort of way.

825
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:35,839
Speaker 3: You know.

826
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 2: You know, there is a and I want to date myself,

827
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: but when I was growing up and I seen on

828
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 2: house people, there was also always this conversation of this

829
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 2: belief system that it was a personal failure, but also

830
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:53,479
Speaker 2: beggars can't be choosed. I grew up in the era

831
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 2: that you know what, when in particularly in the religious setting,

832
00:43:57,719 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 2: God helps those that's helped themselves, and you will hear

833
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 2: it in the older communities, they will talk about it

834
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 2: and it's like it's a very pernicious kind of viewpoint,

835
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 2: and it gives puts the owners off the system or

836
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 2: the reality of this person individualized why that they want

837
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 2: to be away from services that are not helping them.

838
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 2: They won't take the next step to examine that. It's

839
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 2: easier to blame the victim because it absolves you of responsibility.

840
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 2: You can just say, well, you know what, they didn't

841
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 2: want the services. I did the best I could. I

842
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 2: washed my hands of them and keep on moving. And

843
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 2: so that's one of the things that I've noticed when

844
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:39,399
Speaker 2: we have this conversation and the mismatch of words. When

845
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:43,280
Speaker 2: people say housing, people conjure up the thing of a home.

846
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 2: What they don't conjure up is those tiny sheds that

847
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 2: we got here. They don't conjure up the congregate shelter.

848
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:53,320
Speaker 2: They don't put in this hotels. They say that as housing,

849
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:57,760
Speaker 2: and they've considered that a success. And what it really

850
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 2: is is that's an erasure tac where they don't have

851
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 2: to have the question presented to them as forwardly as

852
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 2: possible because of the fact that they don't see the

853
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 2: un housed, these different sectors of houselessness. It's not always communicated.

854
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 2: There's so much just going on. That's why I'm trying

855
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 2: to keep the show going. And I thank you guys

856
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 2: for helping me being a part of it. Thank you

857
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 2: so much to Donya and DeAndre for sharing their experiences

858
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 2: and blowing the whistle here on Weedy in House. We

859
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 2: got into a lot more. So tune in for the

860
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 2: part two of our conversation. In the next episode when

861
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 2: we come back, I'm speaking with another whistle blowing Tiny

862
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 2: Stay with us. Welcome back to Weedy in House. Our

863
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,879
Speaker 2: next guest is blowing the lid of her various experiences

864
00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:00,080
Speaker 2: dealing with injustice and being unhoused. Here's my interview with Tiny.

865
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:07,879
Speaker 5: M poverty scholar, that houseless mama, that houseless daughter. There's

866
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 5: a price on our head cause we don't got money

867
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 5: for a roof, for a bed. I wanna shout out

868
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:17,320
Speaker 5: to all the mamas uh specifically and the indigenous mamas

869
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 5: of Tavanga were in occupied Davanga Territory aka what the

870
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 5: settler's call la. I wanna shout out to the houseless

871
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 5: mamas like my mama Dee. I was just tripping cause

872
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:30,960
Speaker 5: we're out here in East Hollywood. I just did a

873
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 5: a piece on it. Back in East Hollywood again, we

874
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 5: used to walk these streets every day trying to figure

875
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:37,800
Speaker 5: out how to pay the rent.

876
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:41,240
Speaker 6: So it's a lot of deep trauma.

877
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 5: And then you know, these these gentrif fuckers as I

878
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 5: call them, don't disrespect, but a lot of folks come

879
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 5: into neighborhoods and bodios like like our you know, our

880
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 5: homes like East Hollywood, and then suddenly the next thing,

881
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 5: you know, you can't afford the rent. So I'm uh

882
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 5: walking always with my mama's I'm walking always with the

883
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 5: daughters and the sons and the papas who are whose

884
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 5: bodies are seen as criminal and whose lives they would

885
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 5: rather erase. And I'm so honored to be here THEO.

886
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 5: Because you're a badass. So those of you who watch it,

887
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 5: you need, you need to support THEO Henderson. Shout out

888
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 5: to my brother Leroy and all of Poor Magazine and

889
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 5: Hopefulness relatives. But yeah, another poverty scholar. I'm honored to

890
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:31,879
Speaker 5: be here.

891
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:34,320
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, you forgot to mention Poor Radio.

892
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 2: You do PO Radio as well. I encourage you guys

893
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 2: to log in and check her out. And she does

894
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 2: quite quite a lot of instas, as you say, instace

895
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:48,920
Speaker 2: scam our lives and she's and she's a person about town.

896
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 2: I've seen you in several different instances you guys had recently,

897
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 2: I believe a memorial with the connecting with the Young

898
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 2: House as well as the Palestinian people that have been

899
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 2: attacked constantly are still attacked. And so I was going

900
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 2: to say, how did this journey began? How did you

901
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 2: get started onto this journey?

902
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, I appreciate you for naming that

903
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 5: I don't talk about. I do this thing called podcasts

904
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 5: from a poverty scholar, right and if you ever want

905
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 5: to look me up relatives, I'm on all the you know,

906
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 5: socials and also Poor People's Radio shout out to Poor

907
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 5: People's Radio News Hour, which actually THEO was a guest

908
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 5: on a few months back. But that's also available of course,

909
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 5: on all the all the wherever you get your podcasts.

910
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:43,439
Speaker 5: But I think the journey actually began, and that's why

911
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 5: it's really historic for me to be right here. The

912
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:52,320
Speaker 5: journey began right here in Hollywood, right here in Crenshaw,

913
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 5: East Low's Echo Parke Let's see City of Industry COVID

914
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 5: Redondo Beach for a minute, Venice Beach. Essentially, me and

915
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 5: my mom were what a lot of single parent families are.

916
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,600
Speaker 5: We had to hide right the minute that you're seeing

917
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:18,280
Speaker 5: as a family, your body and your lives are possibly

918
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:21,960
Speaker 5: under threat. When I was eleven years old in the

919
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 5: sixth grade, and you know, mom was a single parent.

920
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 5: But she made it by any means necessary, like all

921
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 5: our mamas do. But she was a torture child. She

922
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:33,439
Speaker 5: was mixed race, she'd been raising of orphanages in foster homes.

923
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 5: She barely made it out alive, Eva Yeima. So she

924
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 5: finally got herself a little you know, the little piece

925
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 5: of paper, got that degree, got hired. I don't want

926
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 5: to say where it is because it's in la But anyway,

927
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 5: she was practicing family restoration right, as all of our indigenous,

928
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 5: black and brown peoples do.

929
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:53,359
Speaker 2: Right.

930
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 6: Family is interdependent. Right.

931
00:49:56,680 --> 00:50:00,840
Speaker 5: The white psychologists fired her because as a social worker,

932
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 5: they want you to be what I affectionately call an

933
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 5: anti social worker, an agent.

934
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 6: Of the state.

935
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 5: They want you to operate, to separate. That's where they

936
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 5: make the money on our bodies when we get into

937
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 5: foster care. That's where they make the incentive to continually

938
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 5: separate families. And there's issues, don't get me wrong, but

939
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,799
Speaker 5: a lot of the issues go back to poverty. And

940
00:50:26,719 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 5: my mom was practicing family restoration, she was practicing her

941
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 5: values as an interdependent single parent, an Indigenous woman. They

942
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,000
Speaker 5: fired her, and for her, it was one more little

943
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 5: murder of the soul. She wasn't able to keep on

944
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 5: keeping on. She used to say, you know, I did

945
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 5: what I could. I kept on as long as I could.

946
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 5: I kept trying to fight. So at that point, we

947
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:56,719
Speaker 5: were living right here on Vine in an apartment. Like

948
00:50:56,760 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 5: there's so many of these four people apartments down here vice,

949
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 5: but you're no longer cheap, you know. And they were

950
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 5: like at the time it was maybe five hundred a month,

951
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 5: was a studio, a little run room, and we couldn't

952
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 5: get the rent together the o I know, you know

953
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:15,760
Speaker 5: how that feels. Oh yeah, right, certainly, yeah right, And

954
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:19,360
Speaker 5: and boom that within thirty days we were outside and

955
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:21,359
Speaker 5: we were staying in our car when we had one

956
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,239
Speaker 5: hoopties you know, that were half broke down. And then

957
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 5: eventually the hooptie was towed. We ended up in a

958
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 5: tent doorways wherever we could be. I actually made a

959
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 5: children's book about that that first year when mom and

960
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 5: me lived outside. It was actually turned into a short movie.

961
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:41,759
Speaker 6: But yeah, it's a lot.

962
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 5: It's a lot just going back to that moment because

963
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 5: I was separated by CPS Child Separation Services and I

964
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 5: watched my mom, you know, and me literally being taken

965
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 5: away for the crime of being poor and was put

966
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:02,359
Speaker 5: in foster care and asked all these litany of questions

967
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 5: about you know, where did I live, and I was

968
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:09,040
Speaker 5: like in the parking lot, like you know, and we

969
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 5: were fine, right, but that wasn't within the paradigm of

970
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 5: their understanding because you know how it works, right, and

971
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:20,439
Speaker 5: they wanted to separate us. Eventually we were reunited after

972
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 5: she went through all their hoops and we never got

973
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 5: back anywhere.

974
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 6: Close to the system.

975
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 5: And coming out of that, you know, poverty doesn't and

976
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:32,600
Speaker 5: right away it wasn't some happy ending. There's no bootstrap

977
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 5: story here. Relatives. I know you film me. But many

978
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 5: years later I got you know, we call came up

979
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 5: all Beverly hillbilly style up to the Bay area.

980
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 6: Mama thought it would be better.

981
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 5: There, Oakland, Berkeley, Frisco. Ended up houses there. Unfortunately, selling

982
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 5: hart On the street and getting criminalized for not having

983
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 5: licenses and you know, again really working hard, trying to

984
00:52:58,400 --> 00:52:59,439
Speaker 5: make it by any means.

985
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:02,280
Speaker 6: That's what us poor people do. We are always trying

986
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 6: to make it.

987
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:05,880
Speaker 5: Shout out to my relatives at Wood Street, at Edna Street,

988
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 5: to all the relatives at homefulness, we are always trying

989
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:11,880
Speaker 5: to make it. And all those myths they say about

990
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 5: our poor lives is you already know so bs Okay

991
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:21,800
Speaker 5: that said, we came up to the Bay and again

992
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 5: you know, it wasn't better. And when I was eighteen,

993
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 5: I was incarcerated. Yeah, which is why I wear my

994
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 5: toe up jail suit. Not because orange is new black

995
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 5: and any crack Collie will sell you that. And I

996
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,880
Speaker 5: did three months in County for homeless crimes.

997
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 2: Yes, you know what they call quality of life or

998
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 2: survival basically survival crimes that people try to over amplify.

999
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 2: But understanding, when you're living on the street, you have

1000
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 2: to be creative and think on your feet differently than

1001
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 2: how are your house? But I totally understand.

1002
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 5: So thank you and thank you so much for your

1003
00:53:57,200 --> 00:53:58,359
Speaker 5: poverty scholarship.

1004
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 6: It's so great to talk to me who gets it right.

1005
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 5: Relatives anyway, and I just wanted to say at that

1006
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:12,239
Speaker 5: point though, as we know, that almost killed me. I

1007
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 5: did try to take my life THEO and there was

1008
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 5: a lot of depression and trauma, those things, those you know,

1009
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:21,879
Speaker 5: those acts of violence against four people's lives. We don't

1010
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 5: just come out of it, Okay, you know, feel me,

1011
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:30,080
Speaker 5: I know, you know, I'm obviously I'm here. We made

1012
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:30,760
Speaker 5: it somehow.

1013
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 6: Together.

1014
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 5: Mama started to go to she was ever the Secret

1015
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:39,640
Speaker 5: of Knowledge by A and she started to go to

1016
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 5: Black Studies, Women's Studies, Indigenous so that'sa.

1017
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 6: At San Francisco State.

1018
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:52,759
Speaker 5: She started audit classes and for the first time in

1019
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:56,719
Speaker 5: our lives, we started to build the beginning of a

1020
00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:00,839
Speaker 5: consciousness concientia, realizing that our can an actions to poor

1021
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 5: families all over the world as much is really very deep,

1022
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:09,800
Speaker 5: that we actually share a lot of things. And coming

1023
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:13,959
Speaker 5: out of that, we found a scam lord that didn't

1024
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 5: evict us the first time. We didn't have the money

1025
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:18,839
Speaker 5: for the rent. And I'm not going to call them

1026
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:22,360
Speaker 5: a scamlord. I'm going to call them a beautiful human being.

1027
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 5: I want to say to all the people listening that

1028
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:29,160
Speaker 5: you can make a difference doing things like that. Resisting

1029
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 5: the lie of private property, resisting the lie of rent.

1030
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 5: Those are huge acts in a cropitalist system. And coming

1031
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 5: out of that, we actually started to build a community

1032
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,720
Speaker 5: of fellow houseless and poor people. And in nineteen ninety six,

1033
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:50,880
Speaker 5: actually nineteen ninety five, and shout up to Joseph Bolden

1034
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 5: and Leroy Moore and Jennifer Nevado and so many more

1035
00:55:55,480 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 5: ken mouchesh we built a circle of houseless warriors like

1036
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:03,440
Speaker 5: us to start.

1037
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 6: The process of building Poor Magazine. It was right.

1038
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:11,680
Speaker 5: It was originally seen as an intentionally glossy magazine that

1039
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 5: was a sacred vessel, a container for poor people's stories.

1040
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 5: Shout out to all the street newspapers and locally street

1041
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:24,959
Speaker 5: news and street sheet and street spirit. In our case,

1042
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 5: we were just also though, trying to make this container.

1043
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:31,800
Speaker 5: And so a lot of things happen later family. I

1044
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 5: won't go into all of them, but you can read

1045
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 5: the book Criminal Poverty, Growing Up Homeless in America, and

1046
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 5: the whole story is there. But also we had to

1047
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 5: beg borrow and steel. You feel me, because sometimes you've

1048
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:44,440
Speaker 5: got to do what you've got to do to make

1049
00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 5: it happen. Okay, the rest is history. Twenty eight years later,

1050
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:55,760
Speaker 5: THEO coming out of all of that, We're building Homefulness,

1051
00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:57,879
Speaker 5: a homeless people's solution to homelessness.

1052
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 2: This is such a moving story and I'm riveting. I'm like,

1053
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 2: and there's so many questions I want to ask, but

1054
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:06,279
Speaker 2: I know this is like, you know, we have a

1055
00:57:06,320 --> 00:57:09,560
Speaker 2: short period of time, So I'm going to jump to

1056
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 2: what are you guys doing in this day and age,

1057
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 2: you know, because I know in the twenty eight years,

1058
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:17,560
Speaker 2: I can't cover it in thirty minutes, but I'm going

1059
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 2: to try to pick and choose my conversational part.

1060
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:23,840
Speaker 6: Yes, I love it. I love it well.

1061
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 5: I want to again shout out to Etna Street and

1062
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 5: the badass folks believe it or not, even at uc LA, Yes,

1063
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 5: we love you. Who invited this poverty scholar in with

1064
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 5: my sixth grade education and you know, honored the fact

1065
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 5: that poor people have our own knowledge.

1066
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:43,920
Speaker 6: So we created theory.

1067
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:50,439
Speaker 5: Shout out to Mutiao Cilencio and Israel and Franti Francis

1068
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:53,440
Speaker 5: and Laurie McElroy eva.

1069
00:57:55,080 --> 00:57:56,600
Speaker 6: Bruce Allison and so many more.

1070
00:57:56,720 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 5: We created what we call poverty scholarship, right, and so

1071
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 5: this concept of poverty scholar comes from that right, And

1072
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:06,400
Speaker 5: it means that our knowledge is not just rooted an

1073
00:58:06,440 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 5: institutional paper, right, that THEO over here is a scholar,

1074
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 5: and I am and Mute and Israel and Juju and

1075
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 5: angel Hart and all of the warriors are Gloria and

1076
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 5: Ingited and so many relatives who aren't seen as scholars.

1077
00:58:22,400 --> 00:58:27,200
Speaker 5: We have this called the scholarship of life. So that said,

1078
00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:33,800
Speaker 5: from that concept of that poverty scholarship informed, we started

1079
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 5: a thing called People School where we teach folks who's

1080
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 5: racing class privilege about radical redistribution. And through that we

1081
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:46,919
Speaker 5: were able to build this called the Solidarity family, which

1082
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 5: are housed folks with resources who radically redistribute so that

1083
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:57,680
Speaker 5: us poor folks can do for self. So, in other words, yes,

1084
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 5: housed folks of you who have resources, whether it's paper

1085
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:05,920
Speaker 5: from an institution that allows you to infiltrate, to liberate,

1086
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:08,360
Speaker 5: bring us in to do like what we're doing at

1087
00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:12,400
Speaker 5: ECLA with Theo's done, or whether it's that you have

1088
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 5: trust funds or extra stocks, you have more things than

1089
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:19,520
Speaker 5: you need to keep your family safe, how about you

1090
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 5: radically redistribute those to those of us who have none.

1091
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:27,080
Speaker 5: Right now, we know that there's these insane lies like

1092
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 5: excuse me laws like forty one eighteen SB ten to

1093
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:36,280
Speaker 5: eleven proposition one right proposition one that is literally on

1094
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:40,840
Speaker 5: the settler colonial books to criminalize our bodies on the

1095
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 5: regular and occupied Tongva. Here they take people's tents and

1096
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:47,800
Speaker 5: jackets and so you got people laying on the street with.

1097
00:59:47,840 --> 00:59:50,320
Speaker 6: Nothing on them. They want us dead.

1098
00:59:50,400 --> 00:59:55,720
Speaker 5: Relative hopefulness is an emergency solution and it can't happen

1099
00:59:55,760 --> 01:00:00,760
Speaker 5: without people working together. And so right now I'm in

1100
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 5: Tallvonga to help folks down here. Shout out again to Etna,

1101
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 5: Shout out to La Can, Shout out to the warriors

1102
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:10,480
Speaker 5: down here who are holding it down and fighting the

1103
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 5: man so that we can build our own homefulness right

1104
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 5: here and occupy in Tvonga La a healing, rent free

1105
01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:25,360
Speaker 5: model of permanent housing deal because lie of rent, it's

1106
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:27,959
Speaker 5: got us in the tent and we need to move

1107
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:33,280
Speaker 5: on from that mess. And we're also in so called

1108
01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:36,840
Speaker 5: Pacific Northwest. We're also in Frisco. Shout out to my

1109
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:40,560
Speaker 5: Frisco fam and Guilletimo Precente, a seventy eight year old

1110
01:00:40,560 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 5: man who died on the street because homelessness kills. Shout

1111
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:47,800
Speaker 5: out to Mission Defense and all of the relatives in

1112
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:52,000
Speaker 5: that territory Anuchin Oakland, where we're just trying to get

1113
01:00:52,080 --> 01:00:57,640
Speaker 5: enough money because we actually liberated two spaces deal with

1114
01:00:58,280 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 5: these bloodstained and delay of stained dollars from Solidarity Family.

1115
01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:07,640
Speaker 5: We're trying to get enough money to build fourteen units

1116
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 5: of rent free forever housing. That's one of the things

1117
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 5: we're doing now, and honestly it's a prayer. It's extremely hard,

1118
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 5: but we need to be turning a different way THEO I.

1119
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:28,240
Speaker 2: Was going to ask too, how can more house people

1120
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:32,200
Speaker 2: tap into getting involved that they want to really radically

1121
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 2: change or be involved in this conversation? So what suggestions

1122
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 2: do you offer?

1123
01:01:37,640 --> 01:01:42,520
Speaker 5: Thank you for that, I would seriously urge people to

1124
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:45,680
Speaker 5: do a couple things. First of all, on April eleventh,

1125
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 5: right here in LA we're going to be at the

1126
01:01:51,120 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 5: Luskin Center Public Affairs Building and it's on the second floor.

1127
01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:00,200
Speaker 5: I don't have the room number, but it is in

1128
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 5: the Luskan Centered Public Affairs Building of UCLA April eleventh

1129
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:08,439
Speaker 5: at five pm. Urge people and locally to come out

1130
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:13,000
Speaker 5: to that. We're teaching on how community reparations, how it

1131
01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:16,480
Speaker 5: even happens, and how it can lead to hopefulness and

1132
01:02:16,560 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 5: landless and homeless, people's own solutions and self determination. If

1133
01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:23,800
Speaker 5: you're not listening locally but you want to get involved,

1134
01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:28,800
Speaker 5: People School, which happens on Zoom so anybody in the

1135
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,720
Speaker 5: world can do it. It's two days seminars, the Decolonization

1136
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:39,720
Speaker 5: Degentrifocation Seminar. Because we've all been lied to about capitalism,

1137
01:02:40,240 --> 01:02:43,240
Speaker 5: we've all been lied to about hoarding. We've had live

1138
01:02:43,280 --> 01:02:46,920
Speaker 5: to about the shame of poverty and these insane things

1139
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:51,840
Speaker 5: that even wealth hoarders feel about being ashamed of the

1140
01:02:51,880 --> 01:02:55,120
Speaker 5: resources they have. Guess what, that's a waste of time.

1141
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:59,439
Speaker 5: Let's get active. Let's activate to liberate like we are

1142
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 5: and we need to be for our relatives in Palestine.

1143
01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 5: Free free Palestine every day, Free free Turtle Island, Congo, Kashmir,

1144
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 5: what's Papua and right here on Turtle Island. And if

1145
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:14,160
Speaker 5: you don't, can't do any of those things. But you

1146
01:03:14,320 --> 01:03:16,960
Speaker 5: just want to be involved and you know you can. Also,

1147
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:19,080
Speaker 5: if you're local in the Bay Area, you can get

1148
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 5: down with us at Street Newsroom. We do it once

1149
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 5: a month on the first Thursday of every month. And

1150
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:28,160
Speaker 5: if you're interested in learning more, but you're not all

1151
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:32,160
Speaker 5: the way ready for that big step. Email you, folks,

1152
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:36,440
Speaker 5: poor Maggot gmail dot com and we'll also we have

1153
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:42,400
Speaker 5: a beautiful series of curriculum poorpress dot net, which actually

1154
01:03:43,080 --> 01:03:46,840
Speaker 5: the books of Houseless and Poor People, The Theory of

1155
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:51,200
Speaker 5: Poverty Scholarship, the how to book, How to Build Homefulness,

1156
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:56,040
Speaker 5: a Homeless People's Solution, Leroy Moore's bad Ass Grip hop Ology,

1157
01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 5: Angel Heart Multiado. So many of our relatives have knowledge,

1158
01:04:02,560 --> 01:04:06,200
Speaker 5: We have knowledge to share and knowledge that brings solutions

1159
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:06,800
Speaker 5: and healing.

1160
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:08,880
Speaker 6: So check us out.

1161
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:12,640
Speaker 2: Wow, I want to ask, is there anything that I

1162
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 2: missed that I should have asked you before I get

1163
01:04:15,040 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 2: to the last question?

1164
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:20,200
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess the other very important thing to

1165
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:24,360
Speaker 5: name is that none of hopefulness, none of our work,

1166
01:04:24,360 --> 01:04:29,920
Speaker 5: would be possible without the permission and the humility and

1167
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 5: the gratitude for first nations folks. Shout out to Koreina Gould.

1168
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:38,200
Speaker 5: Shout out to Sigorite Land Trust, who, by the way,

1169
01:04:38,720 --> 01:04:43,080
Speaker 5: after years of fighting to keep a five thousand year

1170
01:04:43,160 --> 01:04:47,000
Speaker 5: old sacred burial site that would become a parking lot, just.

1171
01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:48,919
Speaker 6: Got it back. Yeah, land back.

1172
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:53,080
Speaker 5: But I want to say that if you do these

1173
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:57,320
Speaker 5: hopefulness in their truest sense, in a good way, which

1174
01:04:57,360 --> 01:05:00,360
Speaker 5: is what we're about. You have to RECOGNI eyes, that

1175
01:05:01,160 --> 01:05:03,080
Speaker 5: we're not the first ones who went through this terear,

1176
01:05:04,120 --> 01:05:07,120
Speaker 5: that our relatives who were here before there ever was

1177
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:10,640
Speaker 5: an americlan went through the violence of colonization.

1178
01:05:11,520 --> 01:05:13,560
Speaker 6: And so to do this in a good.

1179
01:05:13,360 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 5: Way, in a right way, we must always ask permission,

1180
01:05:17,120 --> 01:05:20,160
Speaker 5: as our ancestors did when they went on to land.

1181
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:25,040
Speaker 5: I identify as Taino, half colonizer though real talk, and

1182
01:05:25,120 --> 01:05:29,560
Speaker 5: so I always know my position as walking in humility.

1183
01:05:30,280 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 5: Shout out to the Tavanga relatives, L Frank and others

1184
01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:37,920
Speaker 5: who we've been building a relationship with, because right here

1185
01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:40,920
Speaker 5: it's the same, and so I want to say that

1186
01:05:42,000 --> 01:05:46,200
Speaker 5: we also need to walk with humility in recognition that

1187
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:49,200
Speaker 5: before we can talk about homelessness and houselessness, we need

1188
01:05:49,240 --> 01:05:52,080
Speaker 5: to talk about land back. We need to talk about

1189
01:05:52,240 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 5: black land theft. We need to talk about the ways

1190
01:05:55,400 --> 01:06:00,280
Speaker 5: that gentri effing and false borders have turned you get

1191
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:04,120
Speaker 5: out the indigenous people into a commodity that can just

1192
01:06:04,160 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 5: be used and abused.

1193
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:11,000
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Yeah, thank you, Thank you relatives,

1194
01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:17,960
Speaker 2: We love you. Thank you to tiny Donia and DeAndre

1195
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 2: who have taken the time to share their stories and

1196
01:06:21,080 --> 01:06:25,560
Speaker 2: blow the whistle on injustice. There's a lot more where

1197
01:06:25,600 --> 01:06:28,800
Speaker 2: that comes from. Tune into our next episode in this

1198
01:06:28,960 --> 01:06:32,720
Speaker 2: series on dealing with the cities ineptness and mishandling of

1199
01:06:32,760 --> 01:06:36,320
Speaker 2: the houseless crisis under the leadership of Mayor Karen Bass.

1200
01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:39,960
Speaker 2: If you would like to share your story on whedian howse,

1201
01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 2: please reach out to me at Wiedianhouse dot com, at

1202
01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:49,560
Speaker 2: Whedianhouse on Instagram, or email me at wedianhousat gmail dot com. Again,

1203
01:06:49,600 --> 01:06:52,000
Speaker 2: thank you all for taking the time to listen, and

1204
01:06:52,040 --> 01:06:57,240
Speaker 2: may we again meet in the light of understanding. Weedian

1205
01:06:57,320 --> 01:07:01,840
Speaker 2: House is the production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted,

1206
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:06,800
Speaker 2: and created by me Bo Henderson, our producers Jbie Loftus,

1207
01:07:07,520 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 2: Kailey Fager, Katie Ficial, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is

1208
01:07:13,240 --> 01:07:16,960
Speaker 2: Adam Wand and our loco art is also by Katie Ficial.

1209
01:07:17,360 --> 01:07:18,160
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.