Highlights Part 3 - Housing & Wrap Around Services - Transcript

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C-19 EP 3 Housing & Wrap Around Services

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Covid-19's Impact on Housing & Wrap Around Services Highlights Part 3

George Koster: [00:00:00] April, 2020 shelter in place. For most of us, it meant locking our doors at home for thousands of people On San Francisco streets home didn't exist. Food pantries saw demand spike from 800 requests a month to 20,000 requested days. Nonprofit sanctuaries had to close, and suddenly the question wasn't just how do we survive, but how do we reimagine what's possible?

George Koster: Over the next three years, we documented over 105 episodes showing how San Francisco's nonprofit community didn't just respond to the crisis. They transformed it. They launched virtual buddy systems to fight isolation. They layered on wraparound services, housing, healthcare, employment, support, counseling, and they created a complete ecosystem for healing and stability.

George Koster: Today we're focusing on the most urgent piece. How do we actually house people and keep them housed [00:01:00] while supporting them comprehensively? Join us as our associate producer, Eric Estrada guides you through powerful voices from the front lines, people who showed up, people who innovated, people who believed that a global crisis could become an opening to

Eric VO: do things differently.

Eric VO: Our first voice is Kevin Adler, founder and CEO of Miracle Messages. He helps unhoused individuals reconnect with family while launching Miracle Money, providing guaranteed income to build stability and independence.

George Koster: So I wanted to really start off with how has the COVID-19 epidemic impacted Miracle Messages Reunion Services?

Kevin Adler: Uh, quite a bit. So, miracle Messages is the nonprofit I run. We help people experiencing homelessness, reconnect to their loved ones. Our core service for the last five years has been a reunion service, and what we found is with the shutdown in a lot of cities, their equivalent. Programs for family reunification have been shut down.[00:02:00]

Kevin Adler: So in San Francisco as an example, Homeward Bound is the family reunification service that's kind of been put on hold for the time being. And to take a step back of what that means in San Francisco, a person who's in a shelter experiencing homelessness, who has a successful exit to get housing 30% of the time, that successful exit is as a result of Homeward Bound.

Kevin Adler: Or family reunification. And so suddenly this program gets put on pause. You have all these individuals who are now being put into hotels. There's still a a huge value in need to help them reconnect to family and friends. So Miracle Messages, our hotline one 800, miss You, has been increasing call volume significantly.

Kevin Adler: We've had more and more families reaching out to us looking for their homeless relatives because if you imagine. If you have a brother or sister or son or daughter on the streets right now. Like you wanna know where the person's at, what's going on, [00:03:00] how can you show up for them? And then the, maybe the one other thing I just mentioned, George, is a couple weeks ago, I guess five or six weeks ago, the head of the Department of Homelessness reached out and said, Hey, you do all this great reunion service work, using volunteers as the digital detectives to find loved ones, make phone calls, reconnect people with their families.

Kevin Adler: Could you mobilize your volunteers? To help the people experiencing homelessness, who are being moved into hotels who are right now super isolated and lonely through kind of a virtual buddy system. And so from that little germinated idea, we've now developed Miracle Friends with the first of its kind virtual buddy system, connecting volunteers with people experiencing homelessness, being moved into hotels for weekly phone calls, text messages.

Kevin Adler: Provide general companionship and support. And so that's now live and has only come up in the last five weeks as a result of [00:04:00] COVID-19.

George Koster: Given that we're all kind of locked down, what would you and Jess and the team like to see on the other side of this? Like what would, what could be some of the best things that could come out of this?

George Koster: Especially now that you know, the, it seems like we have more focus in the city and the state than, and the feds to some degree than ever before on unhoused community members. So what would you guys love to see come out of this?

Kevin Adler: Well, a couple things. So before we're out of this, I think there's some things that can be done while we're in this that aren't being done right now.

Kevin Adler: So this is the best chance I've seen in the five years I've done this work for layering on other support services to a person who's experiencing homelessness that's temporarily in a hotel. So, you know, people here, supportive housing first. Housing first is like kind of the. Housing first is a kind of five pillared strategy in which secure housing is the first step of multiple steps that then follow.[00:05:00]

Kevin Adler: So now is a perfect time for harm reduction, for understanding kind of the drivers of a person's housing insecurity for strengthening their social support network and providing a buffer, accessing information, helping to problem solve. So I'd say number one is. Services to people in the hotels. That's, that's one.

Kevin Adler: Number two right now is it's a perfect time to be forming relationships with people experiencing homelessness through these tools that we're relying on to communicate with each other as housed people. Well, we're now in an instance where we're isolated at home keeping socially distanced from others.

Kevin Adler: Our experience and a person who's experiencing homelessness, though I wouldn't trade my situation for theirs by a long shot, there's a little bit more of a familiarity than existed before. There's a little bit more of like, yeah, I'm isolated too. [00:06:00] I'm feeling anxious. I've been affected by this. I'm nervous.

Kevin Adler: I don't know what's gonna happen. My job's unstable. Right? So I think that moment of shared experience provides a gateway to form connection and understanding and recognition. That's where Miracle Friends is really trying to make the most of that is to form those relationships and that matters because once they, you know, whatever comes after COVID-19 with the hotels and the next stage of emergency housing or supportive housing, people are gonna need friends and supporters and neighbors who stand up for them and know them and say, Hey, it's not just, we need to house the homeless.

Kevin Adler: It's Joe. He needs to be in an apartment, right? And here's how he got on the streets. So that's what we're trying to build right now, is that relational piece and that kind of support services piece, so that when the hotel thing ends, there'll be more energy towards getting people permanently housed, which is of course what we're all after.

Eric VO: Next we meet Shannon Zynga, executive [00:07:00] Director of the Gyo Project at St. Bonface Church. The sanctuary welcomes unhoused guests for rest, supplies, spiritual care, and mobile health clinics.

George Koster: I would love to start this morning with just having you share with the audience why St. Bonface Church created the Gyo project.

Shannon Eizenga: Sure. Absolutely. So the Gubbio Project was founded in 2004 by Father Louis Vitali, a Franciscan priest and big lifetime social justice activist. Was arrested over 400 times for different initiatives and movements. He had been assigned to the parish in the Tenderloin St. Bonis Church, and so the story goes, he would go out in the mornings before opening up the gate to the church and would just be in relationship and have conversations with the people sleeping in the tents and sleeping on the streets.

Shannon Eizenga: And through relationship, he discovered there was this big need where folks who were living on the streets were not actually getting any kind of quality sleep. No surprise, the [00:08:00] streets are not a restful place. And he looked at this huge empty church and thought, well, what is church? How are we living our values?

Shannon Eizenga: How are we living our Franciscan values of honoring the inherent worth and divinity and dignity of all life? And that seed of Guo was born then. And so he opened up the sanctuary doors. It was a long, complicated process to get buy-in from the community and parishioners, but eventually he did, and the Guo project was born, a space where folks can come in to the sanctuaries and get some compassionate.

Shannon Eizenga: Refuge and respite, and it has now become its own 5 0 1 C3 nonprofits separate from the church, and we have a separate location as well in the mission in San Francisco.

George Koster: I know that the sanctuary provide support services. Could you share just a little bit about what those sanctuary services are?

Shannon Eizenga: Yeah, so we endeavored attend to the whole person.

Shannon Eizenga: Folks are welcomed as they are. [00:09:00] There's as barrier free access as possible. So we tend to the psychological, spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing of our guests. Of course, if you come into the space on any given day, you will hear the sounds of deep slumber and snoring. Folks are resting. We also can make connections to other social services.

Shannon Eizenga: We give out tons of supplies, everything from toiletries to garbage bags, to razors, to socks, to sleeping bags, to tents. You name it, we it out. We have spiritual care chaplains and volunteers that are on site to be a presence of love and support to our guests. And you know, something that really matters a lot for our folks living on the streets, having clean, well stocked restrooms where folks can tend to their bodies with some dignity.

Shannon Eizenga: And we're able to do different things at the different sites. We're able to offer food and massage foot care. We have mobile health [00:10:00] clinics that tend to our folks as well. We work really closely with a number of different partners in both neighborhoods.

George Koster: So how has COVID-19 impacted both the Gup PIO project and the two St.

George Koster: Bon's church and hosting those services?

Shannon Eizenga: Yeah, it's impacted us and the churches pretty dramatically. As you know, churches across the state are closed. Worship services have all gone on Zoom, like everything else in our lives. And unfortunately, the Guo project was not considered essential. We're not a formal shelter, we are a drop-in center and a number of homeless service providers that provide a similar.

Shannon Eizenga: Quality of service have either closed their services or have gone curbside. So for example, the St. Anthony Foundation that makes meals every day normally in their dining hall, pre COVID, have now had to shift to offering all of their meals prepackaged to go out the door. So [00:11:00] the, the ways in which people are serving folks and providing care have had to shift dramatically and for us.

Shannon Eizenga: Being in partnership with two faith communities. That has meant that we've had to close, which has been very heartbreaking and hard for us because the folks who suffer the most, of course, are the ones who are already the most marginalized and scraping by as it is. We tend to see the most chronically homeless.

Shannon Eizenga: Folks in the city. So we've shifted our focus to advocacy as much as possible, really supporting our partners, other providers, working closely with the Coalition on Homelessness, working closely with the city, advocating to get our unhoused guests the care and services that they so desperately need right now.

Eric VO: Coming up next is Mary Kay Blau from Compass Family Services. Compass Family Services provides homeless families with shelter, childcare, mental health support, and rental assistance to achieve housing stability and self-sufficiency.

George Koster: Could [00:12:00] you please provide us a little overview of what your mission is and then some of the really wonderful programs that you provide families.

Mary Kate Bacalao: Yes, thanks George. I'm of Compass too. Our mission is to support homeless and at-risk families with housing stability, economic self-sufficiency, and overall wellbeing. And in order to do that, we have a suite of programs that provides a full compliment of services to families who are experiencing homelessness and at risk of homelessness.

Mary Kate Bacalao: So sort of the front door of the agency is our central city access point, which takes families into the homeless response system. You know, that program sort of. Triages families into shelter. That refers them to housing, and it sort of operates kind of at the center of the homeless response system for families.

Mary Kate Bacalao: We also operate Compass Family Resource Center, which is reemerging as a drop-in center where families can drop in after 14 months of the pandemic. We provide family shelter and 13 units of transitional housing, basically apartment style housing at Compass Clara House. We [00:13:00] also have Compass Children's Center, which is a nationally accredited early care.

Mary Kate Bacalao: Full day program for homeless and at-risk children zero to five. We provide childcare case management so that parents who are looking to get to work can access subsidized childcare to help them get back into the workforce. We also provide behavioral health services. I think this makes Compass very unique among homeless service providers.

Mary Kate Bacalao: We have a whole program that provides mental health support to families and clinical support and supervision to staff, and we also. Provide rental subsidies, one-time rental assistance and case management around housing assistance through our Compass Asset Home program, and that's a really pivotal program to get families housed and then help them retain that housing over time.

George Koster: So much of what you do obviously is in person and kind of the proverbial up close and personal with people sitting across the table from each other. How has the Compass Family Team Services been impacted by COVID to 19 and then now here we are. 14 months later trying to come back. How is Compass Family Services planning or struggling or trying to come back [00:14:00] and reopen and provide more service?

Mary Kate Bacalao: That's a great question. The early days of the pandemic were such a whirlwind. We pivoted in a matter of 24, 36 hours and every service that we could. Put online and make remote and kind of rework service delivery to accommodate families in a way that kept everyone safe. We did, so for example, our behavioral health services went fully remote and we were providing teletherapy to families and there were some magnets to that, right?

Mary Kate Bacalao: We lost that in-person, one-on-one environment in a confidential therapy realm. But what we gained was an ability for parents to be able to just. Call a therapist on the phone, right? Our rate of families were able to keep appointments actually rose. We pivoted in lots of other ways as well, so families in the early days of the pandemic were experiencing tremendous insecurity around their housing, around food insecurity.

Mary Kate Bacalao: People had lost significant chunks of their income. People are still, 46% of our families remain unemployed because of the hit [00:15:00] to the economy and the kinda low wage work that those families were doing. So in the early days of the pandemic, we turned our family resource center into sort of a, an outdoor drop-in where we have families lined up six feet apart down the block.

Mary Kate Bacalao: And we kept the line moving as fast as we could and we're passing out diapers and wipes and groceries, pantry items, mail. Our monthly grocery spending went from about 800. Dollars a month where families used to drop in before the pandemic to $20,000 a month that we were supporting families with groceries because they were making these horrible decisions.

Mary Kate Bacalao: Do we pay the rent and mitigate what we accumulate in back rent or do we buy groceries and put food on the table for the kids? And Canvas was able to pivot. And provide remote, safe in person, and then more shelter and childcare programs continued to operate. So that was a tremendous challenge for the agency and for staff who were coming in every day, commuting long distances on public [00:16:00] transportation.

Mary Kate Bacalao: A lot of our staff were low income, and so they were sharing housing with older family members or young kids, and they're coming in and providing to our families exactly the same support that they're providing to their own families. So I think the agency responded. And particularly our frontline staff in a really heroic way, and we're all really proud of our staff and our community.

George Koster: So of your many years of working there, Mary, what do you feel has been Compass Family Service's biggest impact on families in San Francisco?

Mary Kate Bacalao: I think that Compass's greatest impact has been both creating. Community where families can come in and feel safe. And the number of clients who reach out to Compass and say how much it feels like a second home to them is really staggering.

Mary Kate Bacalao: And it's that I think paired with the tremendous work that our staff do every day to help house families. And so we've really created a sense of community at Compass. A sense that home is so much more than just a lease and a [00:17:00] key. It's really a. Support, its networks, its community. It's giving back to your community in ways that your community gave to you.

Mary Kate Bacalao: And that's really so much of what I love about working at Compass.

Eric VO: Of next we meet Mark Slater and CC Ferber from Raphael House For 50 years. They've kept Families United while providing shelter, case management, career development, and wraparound services.

George Koster: Well, I'd like to turn to you, mark, to have you provide a little history to our audience about Raphael House.

George Koster: I consider to be one of the really wonderful legacy social nonprofits here in San Francisco that's been doing an amazing job of helping families, specifically single headed households in San Francisco for decades.

Mark Slater: Well, thank you. I mean, the story of Raphael House is actually a very unique one actually starting this month, it's our 50th birthday and we've been around for 50 years as an organization, and when we started out in 1971, the really the focus of the organization was to ensure that when families were experiencing homelessness and they were seeking shelter, that they're able to stay together while in shelter.

Mark Slater: That seems like such a [00:18:00] simple idea today, but back in 1971, if a single parent, if a mother with a single child needed to go somewhere, they would go to a single person shelter. And if a family found themselves experiencing homelessness, typically one of the parents would stay with the kid. Usually the mother and the father would would go to a single men's shelter.

Mark Slater: Or if it was the same sex couple, they would actually get split up on being completely separate shelters as well too. So when we were basically founded in 1971, the idea was to keep families together. In shelter while they're experiencing homelessness. And to ensure the fact that when they were there, they had a chance to even increase and develop the family bond.

Mark Slater: And that was one of the main focuses when we started out in Rafael House. Years went by as we started to develop our model. And really what came out of that was we call our holistic model support. And it was the idea that when families come into Raphael House, we see them as individuals, so we make sure that.

Mark Slater: Any challenges or roadblocks that they have within their own personal lives and their professional lives as well too, we have a chance to sit down and really try to see how they're doing, what they need and what they wanna [00:19:00] achieve. And since you really can kinda give you more details about our program, but is that unique relationship that we have in our case management and that.

Mark Slater: Seeing everyone as an individual and treating with dignity and respect while they're Raphael House and beyond that really ensures the fact that they feel supported and that they find themselves hopefully out of homelessness.

George Koster: Thank you. It's a good overview. And cei, could you dive a little bit deeper into each of the programs?

Ceci Ferber: Yes, absolutely. So within the residential shelter program and the Bridge program, we do offer four main services, and these are children's services, family wellness. Case management career development services. So Mark already shared a little bit about them, but I did want to add here that we serve around 60 families within the residential shelter program and around 200 families within the aftercare support, which we call the Bridge Program, children's Services.

Ceci Ferber: We offer tutoring support to our children and teens, family wellness. We offer support sessions that are nonclinical for families. We also provide parenting [00:20:00] support, childcare resources, and referrals for clinical services if that's needed. Case management. We support families with their housing goals.

Ceci Ferber: This sometimes means that we're partnering with housing navigators for rental subsidies or supporting the families and completing housing applications, which are so important during this time. And lastly, within. Career development services. We offer any opportunities for seeking employment, increasing the family's income, and also support with any financial literacy resources or enrolling in educational vocational programs.

Ceci Ferber: So again, these are just a few items that we support with families during this time and also under each program.

George Koster: So much of what you do obviously is in person, right? You're there in person and they're in your facilities. How has COVID-19 impacted the operations and what has the team done to pivot everyone's favorite word these days to address these issues?

Mark Slater: Yeah, I mean, really I think the biggest challenge has been shelter capacity. I mean our [00:21:00] facility, we're currently, and we have been from for pretty much most of our time as Ralph House on a facility that's on Sutter and Larkin Street and was an old, I believe it was the Golden Gate Hospital developed in 1907.

Mark Slater: So the building's a much older building. It's really conducive to our programs when it comes to the idea of group gatherings. So everything was kind of built around the social aspect and when obviously COVID hit. We as an organization. I kind of remember the first couple weeks sat down during our senior team meeting in the library and looked at each other and said, I think this is the last time that we're gonna meet in person.

Mark Slater: And a lot of my friends and a lot of people I know work within the medical industry and what they're talking initially about COVID was really that this is something that they weren't seeing. It was gonna happen just for a couple weeks, like was being expressed initially. This is something that really could be, have a long lasting effect on just our ability to gather and really how we conduct ourselves socially.

Mark Slater: So. We as a senior team right away, had to make an assessment looking at our building and thinking, well, what can we do pretty much to serve as [00:22:00] many families as possible while making sure the families are safe and staff is safe, and also ensuring that we're really adhering to the Department of Public Health guidelines.

Mark Slater: So initially, what we're serving 20 to 25 families within our facility. We really had to reduce our capacity down to 12. We had to look at our meal program and really have, start doing step meals, making sure that there's social distancing in our dining room. Really have to change the nature of our programs.

Mark Slater: And I will say there was a lot of challenges initially because not everyone had a laptop. Not everybody had a computer, not everybody had an internet connection. The digital divide is real. So we really started working with some of our community partners. Of course being privately funded, some of our granters, and we're able to have these conversations because they're very flexible to change some of the funding we had over that time to help our families to overcome the digital divide, start working towards more education initiatives with kids having to go to school, obviously via Zoom, and really working within their own shelter to make sure that the families have access to the technology that they needed to engage in our programs.

Mark Slater: So. This first quarter, [00:23:00] really the first few months of COVID was us kind of re-imagining our program and really seeing how we could serve our families more effectively. But initially, capacity and still is actually today is one of the largest issues because just the nature of our facility and we can't change that.

Eric VO: Joining us now is Kevin Adler, founder and CEO of Miracle Messages Jen Roy. A Miracle Messages Volunteer committed to supporting unhoused people. And Ray, a Miracle Money Program participant who shares his journey using Miracle Money to achieve permanent housing and reconnect with family.

George Koster: Thank you. And Kevin, staying with you.

George Koster: Why did Miracle Messages create the Miracle Money Pilot Program?

Jugal Patel: Well, my design philosophy, which is an odd way to answer a very simple question, but my design philosophy is to follow what is called desire pathways or natural pathways, which is basically you think of a feel and you think of there's the road on one side and on the other side of the field, but then people cut through the middle of that field to try to get from point A to point B.

Jugal Patel: And I [00:24:00] believe it's less about creating something from nothing, and it's more about finding what people already wanna do. And how people already wanna walk and how people already wanna support and then enabling that. And so back in November we had the Miracle Friends Phone Buddy program up and going have over a hundred.

Jugal Patel: Matches between Unal friends and volunteers for weekly phone calls and text messages, and we started sharing stories of those individuals on social media. And one by one, every story would usually elicit comments like, Hey, I'm really moved by Ray's story. I'm really moved by Elizabeth's story. I'm really moved by this person and their connection.

Jugal Patel: And so put out the campaign in early December and set an initial goal of $15,000. To try to raise $500 a month for six months for five individuals that were experiencing homelessness. We ended up raising over $40,000 in just 24 hour [00:25:00] period, and then was able to dedicate my birthday a few months later to raise another $10,000 so that we could bring in an initial cohort of 15 individuals and give $500 a month in a guaranteed income for our unhoused friends.

George Koster: Kevin staying with you, how are members of Miracle Money chosen and then how are the funds distributed? Yeah, I mean, a

Jugal Patel: question that we get a lot is how people are selected and then kind of the question behind the question sometimes is, well, how do you make sure people are using the funds for good purposes or not substances, and just to directly address both of those.

Jugal Patel: So what we've developed is a buddy program where our house volunteers. They're friends to say they're in a great spot to receive miracle money. We believe that they're in a great spot in their lives. I vouch for them. I give them my stamp of approval, and it's not a perfect system. Sometimes people may not get along and things happen, but from our 120 or so participants in the [00:26:00] Miracle Friends Program, 70 of those individuals were nominated by their volunteer friends.

Jugal Patel: For the Miracle Money Pilot, and of those 70, we then selected 15 of those individuals to receive it. This is more competitive than most elite universities, right? And so then it's just walking with people through their journey and being open and honest. I stumble, I make mistakes. There's things I probably spent money on that I shouldn't.

Jugal Patel: We don't hold our friends to any lower or higher standard, so we just make sure that the relational piece is there every week, and that we set goals and then we work together to achieve those goals. And we found pretty universally that our Euro money recipients have used the funds and invested the funds in ways that not only make sense, but are better than anything I could have envisioned for what the person needed.

Jugal Patel: So it was just stories like that over and over again of seeing our unhoused friends. Using their Miracle Money funds for really thoughtful reasons, and Ray is a perfect example of [00:27:00] that.

George Koster: That brings us to you, Jen. You're one of the Miracle Message friends. Why did you apply?

Jen Roy: I've always volunteered my whole life.

Jen Roy: It's, it's something that's been really important to me and specifically with nonprofit. That support those that are unhoused has been a real kind of volunteer niche and belief for me, and I think probably has to do with growing up in San Francisco and really being hyper aware of our unhoused populations in the city and how we were addressing it.

Jen Roy: So it's a population I've always gravitated to. So most recently I was volunteering at a nonprofit in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco for a nonprofit called Care Through Touch. That offers healing, touch and seated chair massage for those that are living on the streets or in a shelter or in an elderly assisted living program.

Jen Roy: And so I'm one of the volunteers who actually goes out and, and gives massage and it's really been an incredible opportunity. But obviously when [00:28:00] COVID happened. We had to stop doing our volunteer work and not knowing how long it would be before we would be able to go do that again. And we actually still haven't begun doing it yet.

Jen Roy: So I was looking for another way to support the unhoused populations that I was used to serving, and came across a newspaper article, I think it was in The Chronicle, about Miracle Friends. And the program that they were starting and was very aware of what San Francisco was doing to provide housing to people who normally wouldn't be housed in the midst of the pandemic and moving people into hotels to keep them safe.

George Koster: So Ray, what do you think has been the biggest impact of the Miracle Money Program on helping you stabilize your life? Well

Ray: before even the biggest impact, what it gave me during the process or during my journey was a sense of security that I was able to do it. I'm able to get to my goal once that time comes.

Ray: And the biggest impact is this right here. I'm not in [00:29:00] house. I have permanent housing here in Kansas and that. Totally through the Miracle Money Program, and I guess I'm happy, I'm comfortable, I am able to focus on health. Just before I moved out here, I was able to do the one thing that I set my goal on, kind of to tell my daughter, Hey, you know what?

Ray: Things don't work out or You just need a place to stay. You're welcome here. This is your home too. And that by far is just, yeah, it was a blessing.

Eric VO: As we reach the mint point of today's voices of the community, let's pause on what we've already heard. In the first half, we've heard from Kevin Adler of Miracle Messages, Shannon Zynga from The Goo Project, and Mary Kay Blau from Compass Family Services, Mark Slater and CC Ferber of Raphael House, Jen Roy, A Miracle Messages Volunteer along with Ray.

Eric VO: A Miracle Money Pilot participant. They've traced a stark picture, unhoused neighbors relocated to hotel rooms, but cut off from community and support parents deciding whether to [00:30:00] cover rent or keep food, diapers and lights flowing, and shelters and drop in sanctuaries, squeezed by reduced capacity closures and a widening digital divide that keeps kids from school and parents from work.

Eric VO: This Christmas season, you can stand with them. Voices of the community is matching up to $500. For Compass Family Services Annual Adopt a Family Toy Drive. Make your tax deductible donation at voices of the community.com and click on the donation link together. We can keep families housed and make sure children in shelter wake up to Joy.

Eric VO: Let's rejoin guests from our COVID-19 special series in our second half. Next on the program is Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. She's advancing the Compassionate Alternate Response Team, an alternative to Police that addresses homelessness with dignity and care.

Eric VO: We also hear from Quiver Watts, editor of Street Sheets, a publication that amplifies homeless [00:31:00] voices while providing vendors with income and community organized opportunities.

George Koster: Jennifer, staying with you for a second, some of your research projects now, I know one of the ones you worked pretty extensively on was the compassionate alternate response team research piece.

George Koster: Can you share just a little bit about that?

Jennifer Friedenbach: Yeah, would love to. So for years we've been focusing on two things. We've been focusing on trying to, of course, end homelessness and create permanent solutions to homelessness, but also try to protect the folks who are forced to live on the streets. And the response from San Francisco has been primarily police response, kind of moving people around at best or criminalizing folks and ending up in jail.

Jennifer Friedenbach: We really have been working on trying to shift away from that and this latest, but a long string of different changes. That we've been able to achieve is to halt that police response and have an alternative team that is made up of folks with lived experience of homelessness that goes out, and when someone calls the city, let's say I'm in my house and someone's blocking my [00:32:00] doorway and I'm nervous about, for whatever reason, maybe I'm a single woman or whatever, I'm about opening the door.

Jennifer Friedenbach: I can call this team or I can call. 3 1, 1 or 9, 1 1. And this team will be sent out and they will very compassionately try to address the issue that's being called about in a way that's effective. So let's say the person really would like to go to a sobering center. They'd be able to provide transport and bring the person to a sobering center.

Jennifer Friedenbach: So really trying to address the issue in a real way. Hopefully moving towards getting that person permanently off the streets as opposed to just moving 'em from corner to corner, which is what the police engage in. So that's the basic idea, and it's modeled off of a program in Eugene, Oregon called Cahoots.

Jennifer Friedenbach: It's been very successful for several decades doing just that.

George Koster: Thank you. Turning to you Cooper, so you're the editor and now producer of your own podcast as well. Could you share with the audience a little bit, a street sheet?

Quiver Watts: So we've actually been back in proof for a while. We have been printing for most of the last 30 years with a brief few month break.

Quiver Watts: At the [00:33:00] onset of COVID. We reduced from sending out issues twice a month to once a month, and this is our first month back with two issues a month. So we have. Somewhere around 20,000 issues right now that are going out, which is mostly content created by people with lived experience of homelessness and frontline advocates who are working with homeless people to address the systemic causes of homelessness.

Quiver Watts: And an important part of our paper is that we really. Trust the leadership of people with lived experience and think that too often stories about poverty and homelessness in San Francisco where the issue is so often talked about. Too many of the stories leave out the perspectives of those who are. The true experts, which are homeless people themselves.

Quiver Watts: And so we really attempt to elevate voices that are left out of the conversation because we think that's where the real solutions come from. And yeah, like Jenny said, we have the most continuously published street paper in the world, but we're not alone. There [00:34:00] are hundreds of papers now in the US as well as around the world.

Quiver Watts: So we're also part of an international network of street newspapers, INSP, and we're. All working on similarly getting news out that focuses on poverty and homelessness and is distributed by homeless people themselves. I guess the important thing that I left out there is that folks in San Francisco who are experiencing poverty and homelessness come into our office and pick up the newspaper for free, and then they distribute them on street corners around the city and keep all the proceeds that they make from sales.

Quiver Watts: So it's not only a platform for folks to share their stories, but also a way that they can earn a little bit of money and participate in a community organizing project.

Eric VO: Joining us now is Sally Heineman, founder and executive Director of Youth Spirit Artworks. She provides job training, housing, wellness services and art programs, empowering unsheltered youth towards self-sufficiency.

Eric VO: Sally, please provide our audience an overview of

George Koster: Youth Spirits Artworks and your [00:35:00] programs.

Sally Hindman: Spirit. Our works is almost 15-year-old nonprofit organization that was founded in order to respond to the really quite dire need for job training and jobs. Opportunities for underserved and unsheltered young people, ages 16 to 24.

Sally Hindman: And so we carry out our. Work through four different program areas. We train youth along eight vocational pathways, and everything that we do is anchored in art as a vehicle for empowerment and transformation in the lives of young people. We see art as a means of really teaching youth about jobs readiness, about working as part of a team, about working hard, about reaching goals.

Sally Hindman: Just many things that can be done through our. But art is only one of the areas that we train people in, and that area is commercial art, in fact. So US Spirit provides wraparound services for the young people involved in our program. We evolve as many as [00:36:00] 150 young people a year in our core jobs training program.

Sally Hindman: We also have a wellness area where youth get therapy and other kinds of supports to move ahead with their lives. And then we also have a program area called Voices of Power and Invoice of Power. Youth are involved in writing poetry, doing journalism, other kinds of communication. They run the homeless newspaper Street spirit.

Sally Hindman: That is our 25-year-old newspaper that has over 80 homeless street vendors. So they're super involved in making their voices heard through our homeless newspaper. So those are some of the areas that we work in, and we've just grown a lot through our a hundred Homes for Homeless Youth campaign and creation of our first tiny house village.

Sally Hindman: And so we're really ramped up to a whole new level in the last two years.

George Koster: Thank you, Sally. Could you please tell us how has COVID-19 impacted Youth Spirit Artworks, and how are you and the team been dealing with it over this last 15 minutes?

Sally Hindman: Of course, the pandemic has [00:37:00] been very tough for so many organizations and for all of us just ex.

Sally Hindman: Extremely challenging, but we have been really blessed at Youth Spirit Artworks in the sense that we were able to really ramp up during the pandemic and keep all of our programs open. We managed to get our core jobs training program on Zoom within around three days. And so all of our participants were using Zoom, and then we were able to continue the building of our first tiny house village, and we ended up.

Sally Hindman: Involving over 2000 volunteers from 45 congregations in our project during COVID without anybody actually getting the virus. So we were able to open our tiny house village, our first tiny house village during the pandemic and have 26. Young people move in off the street and into housing. 22 youth and four resident assistance moved in.

Sally Hindman: We've just been very fortunate. Other agencies have been just devastated, but we've managed to keep ourselves afloat. We also, with our Street Spirit newspaper, [00:38:00] our editor in chief, made a huge effort and was able to raise $45,000 from donors to be able to keep our street spirit vendors working. And getting an income during the three months that they had to take off.

Sally Hindman: So we were able to give the vendors stipends during that time, and then we were in July able to resume sales of the newspaper on the street. So we've just been very fortunate and feel grateful for our ability to be able to pull that off.

Eric VO: Meet the team in Hospitality House, Wendy Click, Janet Williams and Joe Wilson.

Eric VO: They operate drop-in centers, employment programs, and a community art space serving unhoused people with dignity and care.

George Koster: Wendy. Turning to you, you're the manager of Hospitality Houses Outreach. Could you share with the audience a little bit about the various programs?

Wendy Click: Thank you. Yes. We do have two drop-in centers, one on 1 69 sixth Street and 1 46 Leavenworth.

Wendy Click: Those two are open for anyone to come on in and get. Respite if they need case management. We have case management on site. [00:39:00] If they want to see an uh, harm reduction therapist, they can go and make an appointment with the harm reduction therapist. So you can get hygiene kits. If you just want respite off the street and relaxed, you can go into our drop-in centers.

Wendy Click: So we have our employment program at 180 1 sixth Street and 1 46 Leavenworth in the basement. So those will help people with cover letters and resumes. I help you with barriers. If you need a id, we can help provide you with a voucher to get a discount on a id, but you need a mock interview that's a part of the appointment program as well.

Wendy Click: We do employer spotlights for some employers or community members. So every week there is a couple of employer spotlights, and then you can have your cover resume and an interview at that point. We have our community building program, so the community building program holds thing, self support groups. We do have a trip to City Hall when they allow [00:40:00] us in and they meet the district supervisors.

Wendy Click: And we do oversee a shelter in place Hotel. During CO, we were impacted 'cause we were the smallest but oldest shelter and we are now operating a shelter in place hotel. I would talk about the community arts program, but Janet is here, so I think that she could give a better overview of the arts program.

George Koster: Great, Wendy, and good segue to you, Janet. One of the unique parts of Hospitality House is the community arts program.

Janet Williams: Yeah. We're a pre drop in open to everyone, low threshold harm reduction Arts Center on Market Street. So essentially anyone that wishes to come through the doors, we'll welcome them in, check in, say, what do you wanna make today?

Janet Williams: What do you wanna express? If someone wants to come in and just do some simple like doodles, that's great. If someone wants to come in and work towards an exhibition and creating their whole art practice will also support. It's every level and every interest and every medium. Our whole thing is to just get people in the door, get them making art together in a community so that they can [00:41:00] grow and support each other as they're all working through their art practice.

George Koster: That's great. Turning back to you, Joe, how has COVID-19 impacted hospitality houses' operation? Wendy had mentioned gone from your shelter to actually operating the hotel programs, the SIP Hotel. So how has COVID-19 impacted hospitality House?

Joe Wilson: Well, in a number of ways. I think certainly the example of what happened with our emergency shelter were we.

Joe Wilson: We're the first adult shelter in the city to move our residents out of the congregate shelter into privately funded hotel rooms. I think the medical establishment has been clear that housing is health, and particularly in our community where high rate of poverty, high rate of unemployment, significant concentration of renter households, the racial and ethnic diversity is probably close to second in terms of the most diverse communities.

Joe Wilson: Those communities have all been suffering from oppression and disinvestment in a variety of ways. And the COVID [00:42:00] crisis merely exacerbated those existing conditions of poverty and racism that have shackled our communities for so long. And so part of our effort really making the decision and keeping our doors open to remain an available asset for the community, we had to reduce our daily capacity in terms of complying with c.

Joe Wilson: Safety protocols. We significantly invested in cleaning site sanitation, air circulation, purification machines. I think indoor air quality is gonna be a huge issue frankly, in the non-profit sector. We had to also suspend many of our support groups for much of, uh, past, uh, 12 to 14 months. And so. That encouraged us to be more creative in how we were maintaining connections with people.

Joe Wilson: And that's exactly what the Hospitality House staff did over this past 15, 18 months. It has been truly remarkable to see the dedication that people feel for the community that many of them grew up in, [00:43:00] or communities just like the Tenderloin on South the market. And I've been truly inspired, uh, in working with the hospital Calgary off staff or the duration of this.

Eric VO: Thank you. We now turn to Alan Gutierrez, manager of Housing subsidy programs for the city. The flexible housing pool uses private market units and case management to move people into permanent, stable homes. We also hear from Beth Stokes, executive Director of Episcopal Community Services. She provides interim housing, mental health support, workforce development, and rapid rehousing pathways for unhoused San Franciscans, as well as Jule Patel.

Eric VO: A housing subsidiary recipient during COVID. He secured permanent housing, found employment, and completed his finance degree demonstrating the power of housing stability. And I'm turning to you, Ilan. Can you share

George Koster: with the audience what is the flexible housing program and why was it created?

Alan Guttirez: Thank you, George.

Alan Guttirez: The flexible housing subsidy pool program [00:44:00] combines a rental subsidy housing location services that are designed to support someone with identifying a unit in the private rental market as well as. Ongoing case management services that are really there to ensure that after someone is housed, that they're able to maintain their housing and connect with resources and communities wherever they decide that they want to live.

Alan Guttirez: Because the flexible housing subsidy pool uses units in the private rental market. We're really uniquely positioned to scale this program as new funds. Become available, whether they're local, state, or federal funds. I think also important because it does take a fair amount of time for new construction to materialize.

Alan Guttirez: The flexible housing subsidy pool really enables us to start much more efficiently and when we're building a new site, just as we do for our site-based permanent supportive housing.

George Koster: And so [00:45:00] how, just to follow up for a second, Ilan, how would someone participate, if you will, in the flexible housing program?

Alan Guttirez: So the flexible housing subsidy pool folks end up getting referred to that in a number of different ways. Most recently, San Francisco's response to the COVID-19 pandemic led to this city opening over 20, what we call shelter in place hotels, and which in many communities they're called the non congregate shelter.

Alan Guttirez: After sheltering in thousands of San Franciscans who were vulnerable to COVID-19, we had a new mission, which was to support as many of those guests and the shelter in-place hotels with finding a permanent home. So most recently, the primary way that individuals are getting connected to the flex pool is by being referred through those shelter in place hotels.

Alan Guttirez: Going forward, we're really excited about launching a flexible housing subsidy pool for [00:46:00] youth as well as for families. And our newest, flexible housing subsidy pool program is geared towards individuals and households in the Bayview District of San Francisco.

George Koster: Thank you, Alan. Turning to you, Beth, I wanna do a couple follow up.

George Koster: First, besides just housing, what are some of the other wraparound services that your organization provides? Our around house community members?

Beth Stokes: Yeah, I, I'd say other BCS provides interim housing and partnership with Shireen and her team. We also provide behavioral health services and supportive housing and interim housing.

Beth Stokes: We provide, we have a healthy aging program, so we have a, a senior center do healthy aging work. We also provide workforce development. We have a very kind of. Successful initial pilot where we're paying folks for their training in workforce development and really getting folks who are experiencing homelessness.

Beth Stokes: Actually in jobs, our average wage is $23 an hour. We're super excited about what that's showing and hoping to grow that. We also do a lot of work with rapid rehousing. As Aju will talk about his experience [00:47:00] with that program. And I think that's another really important intervention for a large group of people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

Beth Stokes: We do think that workforce has to be matched with rapid rehousing 'cause it is a short term subsidy intervention and just requires a lot of support around helping people find sustainable employment that can help. Them with a livable wage. And so that's an important part of what we do we're we develop housing.

Beth Stokes: So we partner often or we rehab new projects ECS in partnership with Shireen and M-O-H-C-D. And the mayor of San Francisco has two home key sites. So we're currently in the process of doing occupied rehab at the Granada Hotel as well as the Diva Hotel. And that's a little bit about what we do.

George Koster: Thanks Beth.

George Koster: So turning to you, Al, I wanted to turn to you and, and have you share with us how has COVID-19, the pandemic, ongoing pandemic impacted you on your pathway through housing and job, et cetera?

Jugal Patel: Yeah, as I had mentioned before, I [00:48:00] started with the housing subsidy and getting my own place for the first time in many years.

Jugal Patel: In the middle of the pandemic in very early days in the pandemic, it was kind of chaos at the facility that I was in, and the housing subsidy like gave me a stable place where I knew what was gonna happen. In the middle of all of that, like we were a couple months in realizing that like, this is gonna be an indefinite experience, which you really didn't know how long it was gonna take.

Jugal Patel: And then also I got a job at a grocery store because that was the only kind of jobs that you could get at that time as a starting position. That was all that was available when I'm going out to get my first job that I haven't had in so long. So it was an intense time for everybody, obviously. So like during this housing subsidy, it started during COVID, this very COVID heavy job because I was out kind of out on the front lines of it every day.

Jugal Patel: Yeah. Took me through to the end of my subsidy. I'm like, I really lived my COVID experience. In this housing that I got through this subsidy, and then my whole grocery store career, [00:49:00] so to speak, and my school career of doing school from home, obviously, because the campus was shut down, so I finished my finance degree also within this last year.

Jugal Patel: None of that. Would have been possible without having this safe space during all of this like collective traumatic experience that we were going through with COVID.

Eric VO: Lastly, we hear from Dr. Yang xo, lead researcher and Heather Hayes from Foundations for Social Change. As they discuss how direct cash transfers help unhoused people achieve stability faster, and emerging trends in homelessness are affecting families.

Eric VO: And seniors. So staying with you, Jay-Z, could you provide

George Koster: the audience some context and kind of background about the actual study that you put together on providing cash transfers directly to unhoused community members there in British Columbia?

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: Sure Foundations Literacy Change started the New Leaf Project back in 2016.

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: It was co-founded by Claire [00:50:00] Williams and Franz Chii. I joined the combo as the research lead for the pilot. So this project was motivated by an innovation, which is to reduce homelessness. Cash transfers. The reason being existing approaches to homelessness include providing emergency services like shelters, providing healthcare services, like detox treatment programs, or providing supportive housing.

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: None of the existing approaches addresses the core cause of homelessness, which is lack of money. So this is where we came in. We want to provide people with a large lump sum cash transfer so that they can make decisions for themselves. They can decide how to spend the money so they can get out of homelessness and into stability.

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: The whole project was founded upon this model, which is believing someone. We, we'll distribute the cash transfer. We'll believe in you to make the best choices for yourself. That's the idea. So in this pilot, we recruited 115 individuals experiencing homelessness in [00:51:00] Vancouver, and we gave 50 of these individuals a one-time cash transfer of $7,500.

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: And we tracked. The impact of the cash transfer for one year, and the reason for the $7,500 was that was the annual income assistance in BC back in 2016 when we were designing the project. Now the income assistance was over $10,000 per person per year. That's where we'd like to go next, and what we found was we promising results from the pilot.

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: So the cash recipients reduced their days in homelessness, so they reduced close to three months. In homelessness, they were able to get into stable housing faster than people who did not get the cash transfer. They increased their savings, spending, particularly spending on rent, food, clothing, transit, and durable goods like furniture, cars, et cetera.

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: Importantly, we did not see an increase in spending on alcoholic drugs and cigarettes. So this is in contrary to a lot of the assumptions we hold about people in homelessness, which is that if you give them [00:52:00] cash, they're gonna spend it on drugs and alcohol. And finally, I wanna say that because of the cash transfer, people relied on social services less, they actually become more self-sufficient and independent.

Dr. Jiyang Zhao: So as a result, this less reliance on social services led to a cost savings for government. And we calculated exactly how much that saves the government. So our cash transfer produced a net savings of. Over $700 per person per year. This is after accounting for the cash transfer itself. So what this shows is that cash transfers help people significantly to help people get out of homelessness, and they help governments save money at the end of the day.

George Koster: So Heather, there, you've done this over the last two years, how has COVID impacted the pilot program And now you're phase two?

Heather Hays: Yeah, no, I was just gonna say that during COVID we had some good financial support from our federal government, provincial governments. Through er, which was financial assistance.

Heather Hays: And now that SRB has completed and finished and that support is not available [00:53:00] to individuals, I think it leaves a glaring gap in the supports to our families who are the working poor. And I think during C, they somewhat didn't have to worry about paycheck coming in because Sir was there. And sir kind of balanced that out.

Heather Hays: I think it's back now to a situation where we don't have universal basic income, and so people are still struggling about how to make ends meet, particularly here in Vancouver. Some of the trends that we're seeing from the expansion project are because of a huge increase in rents. Our rent increased over 46% this year in bc.

Heather Hays: So people are just been unable to meet their rent agreements, and we're seeing way more evictions, more a trend of more single moms and families. I think in the pilot, we didn't see as many children that we're currently seeing now with the potential to default to the street. We've been partnering with rent banks here as well in BC for the project, and [00:54:00] the rent banks have just been swamped in the past six months with the number of evictions and supports and the increased workload to manage people who are getting evicted from their homes.

Heather Hays: Cost of living just hasn't kept pace with the increase in housing here for sure. We're seeing trends as well of elderly, so. People who are 65 and over our project is just supporting individuals who are 18 to 65. But certainly a trend has been over the past number of months, we're getting calls throughout the neighborhoods saying that there's more and more seniors that are living in their cars, that are unhoused, that are living with friends and have become destabilized.

Heather Hays: And I think partly it's because being on a fixed income and with the cost of housing going up, they're defaulting to the street. So I think those are the major areas where we're seeing new trends in the expansion project than we had from the pilot. But recognizing again that the pilot [00:55:00] was a very small sample size.

Eric VO: Thank you for joining us for the second half of this compelling highlight episode of focusing on critical wraparound services. We were honored to hear from Jennifer Friedenbach and Quiver Watts from the Coalition on Homelessness, Sally Hyman of Youth Spirit Artworks, and Wendy Click, Janet Williams and Joe Wilson from Hospitality House.

Eric VO: We also featured insights from city and service leaders, Alan Gutierrez of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Beth Stokes of Episcopal Community Services and their client Jule Patel. To wrap up, we explored the impact of direct giving with Dr. Jang XO and Heather Hayes of Foundations for Social Change.

Eric VO: The Crisis illuminated three primary challenges, the profound isolation and loneliness faced by the unhoused during the pandemic, the widening of the digital divide, and the lack of money as the fundamental root cause of homelessness. In response, guest championed key solutions providing guaranteed [00:56:00] income or cash transfers to promote independence.

Eric VO: Implementing trauma-informed alternative response teams. Instead of police and layering support services like Virtual Buddy Systems for people temporarily housed in hotels, please consider taking two steps to help visit voices of the community.com. Click on the COVID-19 and San Francisco Nonprofits button and series.

Eric VO: Highlight part three to find out more about all our guests and how to support their vital work. While you're on our website, click on the donation link to help us reach our goal of $1,000 for the Compass Family Services. Adopt a Family Toy Drive. This Christmas season voices of the Community will match up to $500.

Eric VO: To learn more about each guest and support their work, go to voices of the community.com. CVID 19 series. Series highlights, part three, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates and actions. Thank you for joining us. Now back to George to close things out before we sign off. A sincere

George Koster: [00:57:00] thank you for spending time with us today.

George Koster: This episode is part of our special highlight shows drawn from our COVID-19 special series, A body of work that began when Beak Media invited us under Paula Arne's leadership to co-produce SF nonprofit Spotlight. Those 10 television episodes we helped to produce led us to chronicle the wider ecosystem of social, government and economic support.

George Koster: We introduced you to nonprofits, small businesses, libraries, artists and public agencies, adapting in real time to the first global pandemic and several generations. From April, 2020 through January of 2023, we produced 105 episodes. Documenting what it looked like to serve, survive, and innovate under extraordinary pressure and what our common community ecosystem demands from all of us today and into the future.

George Koster: Here's how we can keep the momentum going. Start by subscribing to the voices of the Community [00:58:00] podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen. So new episodes find you automatically. Next, please rate the show and share it with friends or colleagues. Your reviews and repos markedly increase our reach, putting these voices in more ears that can act, then subscribe to our YouTube channel.

George Koster: For full video episodes and archives, search YouTube for Geo Coster and click subscribe. If this storytelling serves you, please consider making a tax deductible donation at voices of the community.com. Just click the donate button and your contribution directly supports field reporting. Editing, mixing, transcription and distribution.

George Koster: It keeps community media independent and accessible. We also want to hear from you. Send feedback on today's show, proposed topics, or suggest guest by emailingGeorge@georgekoster.com. Your note, shape our editorial calendar and introduce us to new problem [00:59:00] solvers. We could not make these shows possible without our wonderful team associate producer Eric Estrada for co-hosting, plus his audio and video wizardry and designer Casey Naz of Citron Studios for her visual brilliance.

George Koster: Thanks also to our broadcast partners, K-S-F-P-L-P FM 1 0 2 0.5 FM in San Francisco, and K-P-C-A-L-P FM 1 0 3 0.3 FM in Petaluma for highlighting these stories. Thank you for listening, supporting, and sharing. I'm George Koster in San Francisco. And join us for our next highlight episode in the COVID-19 series featuring voices addressing homelessness and housing services for our unhoused neighbors.

George Koster: Until then, take care and remember, your voice matters.

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