Episode 1: Part One of Finding Home Live Panel - Transcript

Listen Now | VOC Producers | Share | Donate | Resources

“Our work at Simply the Basics is to provide basic hygiene, which we believe is public health. When people have access to cleanliness, they can focus on higher goals and reclaim dignity”-Meghan Freebeck

VOC Finding Home EP 1 (Master Part 1)

George Koster: [00:00:00] George Koster from Voices of the Community.

George Koster: Welcome to our. Finding Home Show here at Intersection for the Arts on April 15th, 2024. Alright, so I'm gonna start with asking each of our panelists to introduce themselves, talk a little bit about why they work in the space they're working and more about their organizations, what their organizations do, how their organizations support our unhoused community members.

George Koster: So I'm gonna first turn to Mary.

Mary Carl: Great. My name's Mary Carl. I'm the Executive Director for Mari Messages. For about the past 20 years, I've been working at the intersection of homelessness and health going from overseeing a homeless program in Alameda County. To leading efforts around the intersection and doing sector change work around, um, health, public health and community health and homelessness.

Mary Carl: And I was really drawn to miracle messages because of the, work that it's doing that really looks at the whole person and that the [00:01:00] organization was really built from the community identifying what they needed and the organization was able to build that service around that. And so our organization has been in work, it started here in San Francisco and has been existing for the last 10 years.

Mary Carl: And we're looking at reestablishing and restoring relationships for our unhoused community members. And we do that through three main programs. We support individuals in reuniting with their family and their loved ones. Both individuals who are reuniting with their loved ones who are experiencing homelessness, and then also those family members who are, who've lost their loved ones to homelessness.

Mary Carl: And we support people across the country doing that. We also do this through a vast network of volunteers who are key to our organization. The next thing that we do within our organization is we, not everybody is ready to re reunite with their family and loved ones. And so we support individuals in establishing what we call like a digital pen pal, a miracle friend.

Mary Carl: And so we have housed community members across the country who are able to [00:02:00] become like a digital pen pal with our unhoused community members, and are able to establish a relationship that exists through phone calls, text messaging, and if the stars align, they're able to meet each other in person. and then the third part of our organization is focused on providing basic income to individuals to provide them with the space and the opportunity to be able to establish those relationships.

Mary Carl: We've been piloting this now for the past three years with a small basic income pilot that initially started with 12 individuals here in the Bay Area. And from that we were just finalizing a randomized control trial with Uni University of South, Southern California. Yeah. And we'll be sharing the results of that in January.

Mary Carl: and I'm excited to say that we will be continuing to be able to expand this work over the course of the next three years and really understanding how does basic income become the plus to establish relationships and to support individuals as they move from homelessness to housing and to maintain that housing.

Mary Carl: and then where we are, I mean, we've been able [00:03:00] to expand our work and be able to, to be able to provide the basic income during the pandemic, uh, and being able to really support individuals at a time where isolation has been challenging. Um, two of our friends able to participate in this program during the pandemic.

Mary Carl: Um, and Ray and Jenny were one of the participants who came here and were able to share how their relationship expanded and deepened during the pandemic. Um, and as part of the basic income work and. You know, and it life has transitions, homelessness and people's lives have different transitions. And Ray, unfortunately, this past year did transition.

Mary Carl: Um, but Jenny, his miracle friend, was able to be at his bedside during that transition in his life. And so it was just a really important piece for us to, you know, throughout one's journey, these relationships are able to help support people. Um, and that's, that's all I have to say. Thank you. And Sam?

Sammie Rayner: Hi, Sammy Rainer, um, Co-Chief Executive of Community [00:04:00] Forward San Francisco.

Sammie Rayner: And we are actually a. Uh, longstanding organization, um, been around since 1978 and we really look at providing services along the whole continuum of care for some of our most vulnerable unhoused neighbors. Um, so that looks like two core populations that we serve. Um, women, anyone who identifies as a woman, as well as, um, those with acute medical or mental health necessity.

Sammie Rayner: And so in practice, um, on any given night, we have as many as 215 people under one of the five different roofs that we have, and that can be services as immediate as a drop-in center for women. The only drop-in center where a woman can go in the middle of the night, um, that will not ask questions and will take her.

Sammie Rayner: In and provide her safety. Um, all the way up through we, we offer, [00:05:00] um, permanent supportive housing as well. And so along kind of these two pathways, the, the women's pathway and the medical and mental health pathway, there's increased opportunities for stability. So from that immediate need. To a medical shelter where I can, um, get support with, say I had a, a major surgery.

Sammie Rayner: Um, our medical respite facility can offer stabilization and really where we're pushing and looking is how can we help people meet their, um, their goals for themselves and push and help people push themselves toward, um, housing stability. So in a given month, we could see as many as, um, 600 or more guests across our, our programs.

Sammie Rayner: Um, and I think just kind of reflecting on George, we had met during the pandemic. I think one of the traditions of Community Forward that's unique is we really respond to crisis. Um, we were [00:06:00] one of the, the city's first agency to run the homeless outreach team, the hot team. Um, because we recognize San Francisco needed a street response and outreach program.

Sammie Rayner: Um, and today, uh, you know. Later, sorry, later in early two thousands, we said, no one's doing a drop-in center for women. We need to make that happen. Um, so that's been a rich part of our history is innovating and, and as we look forward, um, now we're really looking at how do we continue to thread services together for the core populations we serve.

Sammie Rayner: Um, so I'll talk more about, really specifically about the experience for women who are unhoused and our work is really looking at how we uniquely, um, make space and make safety available to women, um, and help women move through both co-ed and gender specific spaces. Um, so that, so that women can have opportunity, [00:07:00] um, and access to housing.

George Koster: And, and Sammy, could you share a little bit about your background? Sammy was on our show in 2014 when she launched hand up. So, um, she spent a, a mul, a multiple time guest along with Megan as well. So share a little bit about your background, because you didn't, you just skipped right over that I'm gonna read you to Oh, yes,

Sammie Rayner: yes.

Sammie Rayner: Um, so I've been a entrepreneur for more than a decade. Um, uh, and we met when I had launched Hand Up, so that's a, um, a social impact startup, a fundraising platform where people experiencing homelessness can fundraise for basic needs. So we helped thousands of San Franciscans, um, meet every need from, you know, uh, help with security, deposit dentures, um, medical needs that fell through the cracks.

Sammie Rayner: Um, so I have a big passion for. Looking at hard problems and coming up with solutions. And so this has been, um, fun to kind of [00:08:00] come into an older or older organization and bring some of that spirit of entrepreneurship innovation and look at how, how can we rethink some of these longstanding programs for the city.

George Koster: Thank you. And Erica?

Erica Kisch: Hi, um, I'm Erica Kish. I'm the CEO at Compass Family Services. Um, I'm a. Licensed clinical social worker by training. I've been in social services pretty much all my career and even before that, um, I was hiding this from my board 'cause I didn't want any fanfare, but I just celebrated my 30 year anniversary at Compass last Friday.

Erica Kisch: Um, so people ask me if I was the founder, but um, compass was actually founded in 1914 as Travelers Aid San Francisco. So I'm old, but I'm not that old. Um, and before that I founded an organization called the Homeless Children's Network, um, that is still around and functioning. So, [00:09:00] um, compass, uh, our mission is to help families that are homeless or at risk of homelessness to achieve housing stability, economic self-sufficiency, and family wellbeing.

Erica Kisch: Uh, we have a broad continuum of programs and it's growing and expanding as we speak. Uh, this past fiscal year, we served 9,628 parents and children, which is a heck of a lot. And you know, obviously we're gonna exceed 10,000 this fiscal year. Um, and it's pretty crazy. Um, and not in a good way. Uh, so our services are really pretty broad.

Erica Kisch: We're very responsive to need as things change. Um, in the housing realm. Uh, we're the, um, central city access point, which is, uh, in civic center, a family facing a housing crisis. That's how they get into the system, get shelter or, um, you know. Problem solving or whatever the service are, are [00:10:00] that are, are available.

Erica Kisch: Unfortunately, right now there's more than 530 families waiting for shelter. Um, we have, we, we've launched a new, um, hotel program, uh, funded by the city that's gonna be the overflow to the family shelter system. And we're ramping up to 130 hotel rooms for families, which is kind of mixed because, you know, I've been around long enough that things kind of come full circle.

Erica Kisch: Back in the day, we just wanted to get out of the hotel business for families 'cause that's not a great place for children to be raised. But right now, you know, it's better than being on the streets. Um, we, uh, run permanent supportive housing at the, at the Margot over at 10th and Mission with our partners Dish and Citywide.

Erica Kisch: Um, and we have a large portfolio of, uh, rapid rehousing, different contracts that work in different ways. Summertime Limited and summer are permanent and the subsidies are all over the city. Then we do, um, we have a very large behavioral health [00:11:00] program supporting families, um, that have trauma, um, which is, you know, a good portion of our families.

Erica Kisch: And our goal is therapy on demand. Not like here, get on a waiting list and we'll call you in six months. Because when the crisis is now, the crisis is now. Um, we run early childhood education programs for homeless and low income kids. We do childcare placement for, uh, families, um, that are homeless. Um, we have workforce development services and um, a whole host of other, uh, services for families.

Erica Kisch: And we've been just growing and growing the last two fiscal years in crazy ways, um, to just try to keep up with the need. That is so great.

George Koster: Thank you Erica and Megan.

Meghan Freebeck: Thanks George. Uh, so my name is Megan Beck. I'm the director of simply the basic. Uh, my background is I managed a homeless shelter in Chicago for a few years until moving to San Francisco about 12 years ago.

Meghan Freebeck: And when I moved [00:12:00] here, I, uh, took a role as the director of San Francisco Suicide and Crisis Prevention. And it was there that I really came to realize that, uh, so many of the people that are facing a crisis, you know, a strategy when somebody is facing a crisis is you can't really respond to them by saying, great, let's solve all of your problems on this phone call.

Meghan Freebeck: Um, what you do is you connect someone back to their, their basic human feelings. And oftentimes that's asking someone if they had a meal Today, you asked if we had breakfast today. Um, did you take a shower today? And what was really challenging was we would receive about 300 phone calls every single day from San Franciscans, and over half of them could not respond that they'd been able to access these basic human needs.

Meghan Freebeck: So these tools that we use to deescalate, to feel human, to then think about how you could reach these other goals and other needs in your life were simply inaccessible to people. And that was really frustrating. And then I would leave such a hard day job and walk [00:13:00] home and find that my walk home was actually the harder part of my day.

Meghan Freebeck: I think a lot of people in San Fcan, uh, San Francisco and, and all across the country, sadly, feel this way. Um, so what I did was I founded the organization, simply the basics, and we really focused on let's help people just to have access to those needs. We can't expect someone to focus on a greater goal if you don't have your basic human need.

Meghan Freebeck: And we actually surveyed over 80 organizations in the Bay Area. Uh, almost all of these organizations participated in that survey. So thank you very much for doing that. Uh, and what we learned was that a lot of these organizations that serve our neighbors experiencing homelessness in the low income community, um, the staff did not have the time or capacity to get the proper products.

Meghan Freebeck: So the shampoo that I use is gonna be different than the shampoo that someone else might use. The skincare that I need is different than what someone else might need. So we can't expect to receive an inkind donations, everything that the people we serve, the diversity of the people we serve needs. So [00:14:00] that's how simply the basics really began to understand that we not only have to make these basic needs, uh, predominantly hygiene needs because there are social service programs that provide things like food, but none that provide hygiene at this time.

Meghan Freebeck: Uh, we need to make 'em accessible and we need to make it equitable, and we need to make sure that it's new and it's clean and it's diverse, and there's choice in what people are getting so that they can focus on what their greater goals are and so that the staff that are serving them, providing housing and mental health and family connections and safe rest so that these organizations can work on that.

Meghan Freebeck: Uh, so simply the basics is in, in short, we are, we think of ourselves like a hygiene bank. Uh, however, we are the largest nationally reaching hygiene service. We have partners in over 200 cities. We served our 3000000th product this year. Um, we have provided to, as a partner every organization here at this table, which is really wonderful.

Meghan Freebeck: Uh, and we found that 67% of the [00:15:00] people we serve. Reported physical health conditions that are preventable with access to these hygiene needs. So that's our goal. That is really what we're trying to do, is to improve that physical health that comes when you don't have access, uh, to improve the feelings of wellness and dignity when you do have access to make sure that you have choice to save our partners time.

Meghan Freebeck: We saved on average eight hours of staff time a week last year for all of our receiving sites because when you're not focused on trying to secure tampons or textured hair shampoo, you can focus on your client's job readiness and mental health and housing programs. Um, so that's what simply the basics does.

Meghan Freebeck: We really believe in a collaborative model. We really believe in working with our partners, um, working with our receiving sites and letting the people we serve tell us what they most need so that they can focus on their goal.

George Koster: Thank you Maggie and Lydia.

Lydia Bransten: Uh, my name is Lydia Branston. I'm the executive director of the Guo Project.

Lydia Bransten: Um, and I'm. [00:16:00] Incredibly honored to be sitting at the table with these amazing women who have really, like led the charge. I write all of your coattails. Um, our organization is small, hyper-local. Um, we are in a church called St. John's in the Mission. And what we started with 20 years ago off the idea of Father Louis Vital and Sister Mary Little, um, was opening up church spaces for people to be able to sleep during the day that people who were sleeping out on the streets in the Tenderloin, um, while churches were sitting empty, was something that seemed untenable to Father Louis, who was a fabulous activist in his, in his life.

Lydia Bransten: Um, and it was a radical idea and it still is. There's churches and synagogues and mosques, um, and temples all over the city that sit empty all day long, um, while people are sleeping out on the street. Um. St. John's has a beautiful [00:17:00] courtyard as well. So what we do is we open the doors and we welcome people in.

Lydia Bransten: People can sleep in the church, people can hang out in the courtyard. We serve coffee all day and snacks. We have bathrooms. Um, but after the pandemic, one of the things that we saw was that the people's need was greater than we were providing. You know, that people were coming to us experiencing extremely neglect, um, with mental health issues, with um, illnesses, with issues of substance use disorders.

Lydia Bransten: Um, people were dying at rates that were alarming. Folks who had been in the community using drugs for decades were dying decades. And this has to do with, you know, a condition that. That wasn't being addressed, you know, and, and an idea that in somehow Law and Order was gonna solve what is a, [00:18:00] um, what is a, a public health issue, right?

Lydia Bransten: And so we couldn't stand by and just say, well, you can sleep here. Right? While our philosophy is grounded in the fact that without rest, there is no healing, that in order to be able to heal, in order to be able to work on yourself, in order to be able to have a conversation, even you have to be rested because exhaustion is a form of mental illness in itself.

Lydia Bransten: Um, we started to work on building partnerships. We were a very small organization with almost no, um, funding. We moved from a Catholic church to an Episcopal church and didn't have, and so we lost about 80% of our funding because we did no longer had a connection to the, the Catholic. Um. Funding pool. Um, and we've spent the last four years essentially doing a partnership with a [00:19:00] purpose, working with simply the basics, working with the Department of Public Health, working with the department of, uh, homelessness and housing, working with, um, working with the street teams.

Lydia Bransten: That includes HO It's complicated, but if you have people who are moving folks off the street, I want to know when they're gonna do that. I want to know that they're coming with resources. I want to know that I want our folks who are on the street to know that this is gonna happen and what they should be prepared for.

Lydia Bransten: Right. And knowing that they often had the keys to this. They had the keys to the housing, the Street to Housing program came through D-P-D-P-W, you know, and D and, and DPH, and you know, it's like, it's a it. So we were like very, very strategic in making partnerships. We are now a dropoff space for the crisis team.

Lydia Bransten: Crisis team brings folks to us. We're a dropoff space for Department of Public [00:20:00] Health. We're a dropoff space for Bart Police, SFPD. Um, people come to us because they like being in our space, not because they're going to be, you know, put through a system, but rather they just like to be there. So, hot team comes every morning, the homeless outreach team, and checks in.

Lydia Bransten: They give us a list of people that they, that they need to connect with. If we see that person we, we call, you know, it's, it's a, it's a really simple idea, but it's one of the things that's really lacking in this city is spaces for people to just be, you know, even those folks who we do connect to housing, come back to our space because putting someone in a home that may be on the other side of the city from their community.

Lydia Bransten: Is often challenging as well and we can, we have a lot of things we can talk about in that, in that arena. But yeah, I am excited to be here today and thank you so much. [00:21:00]

George Koster: Thank you Lydia. So, um, just wanna back, uh, up for one moment because you've just heard five really wonderful individuals who've devoted their lives to helping our unhoused neighbors.

George Koster: Um, if you'd like to dive into each of the backstories, if you will, of the organizations, why I brought, uh, the five, um, guests, uh, together today was we actually featured them from, um, from 2020 to 2023. January 23. We produced 105 episodes on how COVID-19 was impacting nonprofits, small businesses, our local government, and then of course our public libraries.

George Koster: So each of their organizations have a full story that we featured, um, back during the depth of the pandemic. So you're welcome to go back and, and dive into each of those, uh, organizations 'cause there's so much more and we'll, we'll get into that. So I really wanted to bring them all back together today because here we are in the new market dynamic and the.

George Koster: Post pandemic time where, uh, funding is harder. [00:22:00] Uh, politics have gotten rougher. Uh, we now have a Supreme Court justice decision that allows cities, counties, and states to just move people from point A to point B, um, which we know historically does not work. And so I really wanted to bring everyone back together today and just kind of share from each of their perspectives how they're dealing with the new, you know, post pandemic, which is all still here, um, you know, fundraising and uh, and community engagement.

George Koster: And then, um, what they see the, the Supreme Court Justice, um, decision is impacting their work. Along with, we'll get into their recommendations and solutions and then how you can get engaged. So let's start backwards. I'm gonna start with, uh, Megan, with me. Yeah,

Meghan Freebeck: sure. Uh, so, you know, just, uh, speaking to the change, the shift we've seen since the pandemic, as you mentioned, um.

Meghan Freebeck: And you did bring up funding. We, we did [00:23:00] see, you know, a brief time people really reach out and support organizations, I think in a big way when the pandemic occurred. Um, however, it's nothing compared to the increased need that we saw. So I can, I have only speak for my organization, but I have a feeling that it's probably echoed a lot in everyone's, which is for every person that you know, something that's interesting about simply the basics is I've been saying for a really long time that hygiene health is public health.

Meghan Freebeck: And then finally people believed me that it was important to make sure everyone can wash their hands and be clean and have access to these basics and be indoors and be safe. Um, so while it was nice to not have to convince people anymore, I also, we saw almost quadruple the amount of people reach out to us for support that were not unhoused, but simply lost employment.

Meghan Freebeck: Simply their income change, simply their needs changed in their household. So it has been a struggle. We're entirely privately funded, so we really do rely on [00:24:00] the, uh, support and generosity of the community. I think that often we hear, you know, when we think about someone in need, it's pretty easy to remember.

Meghan Freebeck: You know, housing and food are crucial things, um, because we, we have all felt hunger, right? Like we can feel that in our stomach, but it's not as easy for somebody who's never been without a home or never been without a shower to understand what it feels like to not be able to go into a home when you need it to feel safe.

Meghan Freebeck: San Francisco just experienced a heat wave, and boy did I feel gratitude in my heart and in my body that after being outside all day, I had, I had a place I could go home and be indoors and cool, and shower and comfortable and safe in, and a lot of the people that we serve don't. So, yeah, I, I would just say that the need has increased tremendously.

Meghan Freebeck: And the pandemic funds have slowed, but the needs have not. And the people who were hit hard during the pandemic, they continue to be hit hard. [00:25:00] Um, I will also say that, you know, housing is the priority and so the more that we can really focus on that is significant. Um, you know, I told my board not to listen, so I'm okay saying that.

Meghan Freebeck: Um, but that is what we've been needing to see for years. Yeah, well,

George Koster: in our first interview with you, um, in the pre pandemic times in the way back machine, um, when you were the ED at, um, you know, basically, you know, connect, um, homelessness. Can I connect? You shared with me, and I used it actually as part of our, our show, um, that housing is healthcare.

George Koster: And I, I thought that was just such, you know, everyone in the panel of course is nodding. Um, but I thought it was, uh, it's so, uh, much, you know, the theme of where we are, you know, and we've decided sadly as a country, um, that it's okay that we have 180,000 plus people in California, eight to 10,000 people in San Francisco, depending on whose numbers you believe.

George Koster: It's absurd.

Meghan Freebeck: Yeah, it's absurd. We're still having to convince people of [00:26:00] that, but yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

George Koster: So Erica, I want you, um, to share a little bit about how you've been working with families. Um, as I shared with everybody in, um, when we were doing a little, a little pre walkthrough, my wife's a teacher and, you know, a very large percentage of her students, you know, from pre-K to fifth grade live in shelters or RVs.

George Koster: Um, and some of them are lucky if they can, you know, get into a safe place. But, you know, uh, uh, I'm not sure if you know the statistics of what's the percentage of unhoused community members that are actually families and, and children.

Erica Kisch: Yeah. Um, yeah. I think, uh, about a third of, uh, homeless individuals are, uh, in families and that's, uh, parents and children and toddlers and infants and pregnant people, um, who have no place to stay.

Erica Kisch: Um, just kind of the conversations take me back and I'm sitting here thinking about that covid time and the response. And, um, boy that was a terrible [00:27:00] time and I could not have been prouder about how like, compass kind of turned everything upside down and showed up, um, to deal with the pandemic and to do things in incredibly creative ways, uh, to support families in terrible need.

Erica Kisch: Like from day one of, you know, the shelter in place, families unable to feed their kids and unable to pay their rent. And all those jobs that, uh, parents typically do we're going away, uh, you know, in the hospitality industry and in restaurants and, you know, taking, doing housekeeping in people's homes. So it was just.

Erica Kisch: Pretty unbelievable, as we all know. Um, but we did so much. And the, you know, our fundraising, you know, COVID was good for our fundraising, I have to say. Um, and our fundraising is not necessarily suffering right now, but what everyone's saying is the need has increased so tremendously. So from 2019 till now, the number of families, uh, seeking our [00:28:00] services has increased a hundred percent.

Erica Kisch: Um, and in the last two years, they've increased 36%. We have, you know, we can have 150 families coming through the doors of our family resource center. We have one of two family resource centers in San Francisco specifically. Targeting families that are homeless, um, and 150 families coming through the door looking for support, looking for services, looking to have their basic needs met.

Erica Kisch: And it's just been a struggle to maintain the quality when you're trying to handle the quantity. So that's something that, you know, we've really been trying to figure out. But, you know, the pandemic ended, but it didn't really end for, uh, the families we serve. Um, you know, so many jobs that never came back.

Erica Kisch: The price of food, um, the price of gas, um, and then the public supports that kind of snuck away. You know, everyone got used to, okay, we can reduce the child poverty rate to 7.5% from [00:29:00] 19% if we, you know, have this CalFresh and this eviction moratorium and the tax credit. And that really worked. That was working, but.

Erica Kisch: You know, those were removed. So little by little, you know, families that were kind of stabilizing themselves with these extra things, um, just becoming destabilized. So

George Koster: I, I just wanna follow up because I, I think one of the things that I realized in talking to all of you and or your organizations during the Pandemic and so many other nonprofits is obviously the pandemic accelerated all of the causes that were out there for decades.

George Koster: Um, but I love the fact that, you know, we said we couldn't do things like, you know, hotel and motel rooms, and then we magically did it. We said we, we couldn't, you know, stop evictions and then we magically did it. So, uh, you know, share, I know you just, you know, finished that you're back into hotels and motels, but if you, uh, participated in Project Home Key and all of that during the pandemic, what were some of the findings that you, that you came out [00:30:00] of that?

Erica Kisch: Yeah. Um, you know, one of the things we did, there were so many things, um, to support families during the pandemic is, uh. We stood up a hotel, you remember that hotels weren't being used for their normal purposes. Um, so, uh, there was a vacant hotel that we, uh, were able to rent all the rooms in. And, um, the prioritization, and it's hard to even remember this 'cause I've tried to kind of block it out, but the prioritization for families was more about like if there was some kind of special medical need.

Erica Kisch: So, but who doesn't have a medical need when you've got children and babies and you're pregnant during a global pandemic? So, um, so we took 30 families that were sheltering in place in like storefronts or on the street, and we put them into this hotel, completely privately funded. You know, we, um, had we set up a meal system, we brought in a case management, we did this with a couple of partners and we committed to not one of those [00:31:00] families was going to be exited to the streets at the end of the shelter in place.

Erica Kisch: And we were able to, um, to pull that off. And we put this in place in like a couple of weeks so it can be done. Um, it totally can be done. Um, and you know what's happening right now with this kind of reversion to using hotels as part of the shelter system, again, it's better than. Being on the streets, certainly.

Erica Kisch: But, um, you know, the idea of children being raised in hotel rooms, um, where they don't have a kitchen, um, where they don't have, you know, their own space. Um, it's not, it's not fantastic. And obviously housing is the most important thing. Permanent housing for every family. Um. And that's where we need to go.

George Koster: Thank you. And then Sammy, um, uh, I, I really want you to dive a little bit deeper on a couple things. One, um, women and the impact of being unhoused and, um, and, you know, for women in our community, but also a big component of that is spousal abuse as well. [00:32:00] Um, besides everyone thinking it's mental health, it's drugs, et cetera, that's, that's a big driver of it.

George Koster: So I want to share about that and share how someone who comes into your system, um, what, what, you know, what is the steps for them to reinvent, if you will, their, their lives.

Sammie Rayner: Yeah. Thank you. And, uh, October is domestic violence awareness month. So, um, yeah, important time to just be educating ourselves.

Sammie Rayner: 'cause it is much more prevalent, I think, than, uh, that it's an issue that gets hidden, uh, very easily. And kind of putting all of the, this in context with the pandemic. We saw a rise in homelessness among, um, women and anyone who identifies as a woman, um, as well as our gender nonconforming community through the pandemic.

Sammie Rayner: Um, homelessness has been on the rise at double the rate, um, among women and girls, as among men and boys during the pandemic. [00:33:00] And a huge driver of that is, you know, all these things Eric was talking about. Loss of key family resources, women having to stay home and increased stress in the home is, you know, creates this really scary reality.

Sammie Rayner: Um, and nowhere to go, right? Like having to be home all day long. Even, you know, a woman who is in an unsafe relationship who could go to the store, go out to, you know, go to work, like, have a break from. Uh, a violent situation isn't getting that space. Um, and we are seeing on the other side of that, the impact, um, and, and through the pandemic, seeing not, not just who you think of as who's a typ, like an unhoused homeless woman, but, you know, talking to our guests who are, I'm, you know, one woman who was a substitute [00:34:00] teacher and she was sleeping at our drop-in center, um, because she had nowhere else to go.

Sammie Rayner: Um, so I think understanding that, you know, about a third, um, 38% of the homeless population in San Francisco, that's over 3000 women, um, are on our streets every single night. And we, what we're really working on is how can we increase the level of investment in women only spaces. Um, we did it, we. Always are doing, you know, street outreach surveys.

Sammie Rayner: One of the surveys we did, we talked to 106 women in our community and asked, where do you feel safe? The number one answer from women who are, you know, actively homeless, living on the street, the number one answer was nowhere. The number two answer was with other women. And so we at [00:35:00] Community Forward have really, we have, you know, we have been the place and the safety net, um, that will, you know, take women no questions asked, no wait list, meet that need.

Sammie Rayner: And we really are trying to chart a path forward, um, so that we have more of those spaces. 'cause right now only 5% of San Francisco's, um, homeless response systems, so that's shelters, transitional housing, permanent housing. Only 5% of the spaces are gender specific. Um, and not, again, not that gender specific is, is the answer for every single woman, but I think we need to give a little more than 5%, um, to say that we're seeing this population and they are not seen in the point in time count.

Sammie Rayner: A woman surviving on the street is not going to be seen in the middle of the night. She is actively going to hide or look like a [00:36:00] man, um, you know, to disguise herself to be safe because 80% of unhoused women report abuse as one of the causes of their homeless, of their homelessness. Um, so I think, uh, you know, just to kind of wrap it all up, for us, it's about, um, having, again, the, the, the, our drop in space is that immediate safety.

Sammie Rayner: Um, one example, uh, a client who was recently in our care. Um, I'll call her Darlene. She, um, a lot of the women we work with are so traumatized. They're nonverbal when they first come in. And so you're, they're not able to come in and say, yes, this is exactly the five services that I need. You know, it's not, it, it's about community and it's about rapport building and relationship building to create opportunities to engage further.

Sammie Rayner: And so our [00:37:00] amazing director at our drop in just, you know, had this eye on her. She came, she sat in front of the director's door every day and just slowly built that rapport, realized that, that she actually qualified and was a great fit for our transitional housing program. Um, and so she was able to move from that kind of emergency overnight space into a, a, a, our transitional housing program that has.

Sammie Rayner: Much more robust services, mental health support, um, you know, we can help you with workforce readiness. We can help you look at your benefits that you should be getting, um, really come around our guests with a holistic approach and support, um, of, of services. Um, but yes, definitely I think, um, one, just one more stat because it is domestic violence awareness month.

Sammie Rayner: Um, one in four women will have an instance of, or will experience an instance [00:38:00] of, of violence or assault in their lifetime. So that means of the women on this stage two or three, you know, one or two of us, you know, has had, could have had that experience. Um, and it is, um, so important no matter whether you're in focused on women like we are or in especially in co-ed response to homelessness, to just.

Sammie Rayner: See what a woman might be holding in her, you know, experience.

George Koster: Thank you, Sammy. Um, Mary, I'm gonna turn to you and, um, for folks, Mary had mentioned Ray, and Ray was actually, uh, so Kevin Adler, who's the founder of, um, miracle Money. And then, uh, well his first, uh, miracle Messages was spent on the show three times, and we featured Ray during the pandemic, I think it was 2021 actually.

George Koster: Um, and it's, it's a really wonderful story, um, about Ray and his daughter and his volunteer, uh, Jen who worked with him, et cetera. So, you know, one of the things that I [00:39:00] love about, um, you know, what. What Miracle Message has been doing. Um, which, you know, I was first, uh, introduced to Kevin, uh, by, uh, by Megan.

George Koster: Um, 'cause I was thinking about like, how can we give folks money? 'cause I loved hand, you know, hand up. Um, was just the fact that, you know, you're one of the solutions of bringing families back together. But also, um, you know, for folks in the audience, uh, we did a documentary series on Stockton and Michael Tubs was mayor at the time, did the first, um, exactly go.

George Koster: Michael Tubs, uh, did the first with Chris, who is the co-founder of Facebook with a counterbalance to Mark Zuckerberg, um, who had a foundation work with Michael Tubbs to do the first, uh, UBI, universal basic income in Stockton to give people money each month to show that they weren't gonna go buy drugs, big dv, you know, et cetera.

George Koster: They actually pay their utilities, fix their car, you know, et cetera. Took care of healthcare. But share with us, you know, some of the solutions that you've seen. And then, um, I'll turn to Lydia and then we'll get into [00:40:00] the solutions part of it. Yeah.

Mary Carl: Um, yeah, so I mean, I think some of the solutions that we've been seeing, I think we talked about the reunion services that we're providing, um, in supporting individuals and reconnecting with their families.

Mary Carl: Let me back up actually. Like, lemme start with, so we think there's two parts of our mission. One is that nobody has to experience homelessness alone. And the other part is that nobody has to feel hopeless around the, the issue of homelessness. And so our organization has like just a couple of, uh, like incredible, like full-time employees, but we are really built off of the support of a, an incredible network of volunteers.

Mary Carl: And these are, and so I think that that is a way of really engaging individuals who are, you know, are housed community and being part of the solution. And also being a part of challenging one's perceptions around what is homelessness, why do people experience homelessness and, and you know, and why the challenges of people moving out of homelessness and then maintaining their life outside of homelessness.

Mary Carl: And so I [00:41:00] think that like, that's one important piece of what we're doing. We do that through the reunion work. So really connecting people to their loved ones. Um, and then we, and I think that is incredibly important right now as we are seeing things, you know, from the Grants Pass, there's a lot of efforts across the country, um, both here in San Francisco, California, and, you know, we have a, one of our colleagues in Florida that's also trying to support county and, and city and county governments, really trying to reconnect people with their loved ones.

Mary Carl: And we're really trying to think about. How do we utilize our experience and really doing this in a person-centered way so that we are making sure that the individual who's experiencing homelessness interests are at, at first and foremost. And so like one of the things that we do is we provide people with a two-way bus ticket so that when they reunify with their family that they haven't seen in 10, 15 years, they don't have to necessarily move in permanently.

Mary Carl: They can come back home and then they can both like come back to here in [00:42:00] San Francisco and like reassess and decide like what other services are they really ready to make that transition back into their home? Because our goal is not just to, we really want them to reconnect, but not to do so in a way that then results in that family not being able to set up for success in the long run.

Mary Carl: Um, and then we also look at the, the relational supports that we provide around engaging our house community and our, um, unhoused community neighbors and getting to know each other through these miracle friends, like which brought those relationships like Ray and Jenny. Um, we have other individuals who are, you know, who've been friends now for four plus years, where these are like, we have our, our natural support system that gets established.

Mary Carl: And so you have your case managers who are there wrapping around individuals and you have your housing case managers and your medical social workers, but who are you gonna call and talk to? Like, you're not talking to your case manager about like how, you know, what are, what are all those like intricate little things that you need to do in your life.

Mary Carl: And so that our friends are act are able to come in and be literally that like the friends and family for individuals. And so, [00:43:00] and that leads to opportunities for people to be supported in like gathering, you know, as they moved into housing in Hayward and they don't actually have access to transportation.

Mary Carl: How are they able to navigate getting those food delivered to their home? How are they able to navigate those challenging relationships that they have with their landlord at really odd times of the day? And so these really, these friendships are able to help support people through those jour through that journey.

Mary Carl: Um, and then again, the basic income. I think we are really trying to look at how does money help support people? Not, and it really has to be the plus, like as you're starting to see a lot of researches coming out right now that was really thinking that like basic income was gonna be the silver bullet.

Mary Carl: And like you don't need all these other social service supports, but you, it is like basic income is in addition to all the other services and that allows for an individual to have a little bit more breathing room while they're navigating some challenges. And so I think we're able to really lean into and help identify the benefit of that.

Mary Carl: Um, we've been able to start to show the [00:44:00] results of that and we're gonna be able to continue to show that moving forward and think about how this basic income becomes part of the solution. Um. So those are just a few examples. So,

George Koster: so, um, over the years Yeah. Since, um, Kevin launched and maybe, uh, Megan remembers how many years ago as it was, but how many, how many folks have, they, has messages brought family members back together that have actually stayed kind of together and worked?

Mary Carl: Yeah, so we've, we've supported a thousand reunifications since we started, um, for the past 10 years. And our goal is to make that the next 10 years to be able to support 10,000 families. And so we're looking at trying to expand that. Yeah.

George Koster: Nice. And then how many, um, um, folks like Ray who Mm-Hmm. Was so proud to actually have a place to live that he could call his own.

George Koster: And so mm-Hmm. The, the whole, the whole idea of money completely changed his relationship. He shared about going to his daughter's college graduation, et cetera. So, you know, how many folks lives, have you changed through, uh, direct, uh, income? [00:45:00]

Mary Carl: Yes. We've supported a, a just under a hundred, 140 individuals in getting basic income supports, um, since we started.

George Koster: Yeah. And then of those, how many of them have some form of, um, semi-permanent, or, or, or housing?

Mary Carl: Yeah, so we, um, individuals, so were twice as likely to move tonight, spent unsheltered, um, because of the basic income. Um, but that's not the, we don't have the exact number of like how many people actually moved into housing.

Mary Carl: The initial pilot, um, which was 12, 12 individuals, 65% of them were able to move into permanent housing. So. So it's a, it's a, so we're still finalizing what that looks like for the current RCT, so,

George Koster: well, the hardest part of the entire equation and is there's just not enough places for people to move into.

Mary Carl: Well, and it's also math too, right? Right. So, um, you know, we provided, and so, I mean, we provided $750 to individuals for 12 months in California. That's not, I mean, [00:46:00] so it's, it's around like what are those other, again, that's, what are those other services that are being provided now? When we did the initial pilot where there was the, the 12 individuals and they had 65% of them, that was also during the relief funds that were coming in, during the covid and during the pandemic.

Mary Carl: And so things looked a lot different than they do right now, so,

George Koster: yep. Yeah. Yes. All that money was really wonderful. And now we don't need to, we don't need to do the tiles tax credit or, Mm-Hmm. You know, CalFresh.

Meghan Freebeck: Yeah.

George Koster: It's all gonna happen. Yeah. Um, I'm going come to you Lydia. 'cause when I dropped off, uh, the sleeping cots and we first met, um, at the, at the church again, um, you were just talking at that point, you guys were kind of working on a relationship with a city that would allow you to kind of scale up some of your wraparound services that you talked about.

George Koster: So how is that going?

Lydia Bransten: Um, it's, it's, it's going really well. We, um, we have secured a contract with Department of Public Health. I. Um, to, to move our hours from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM [00:47:00] um, which is gonna be really great. And also to be able to have resources in terms of more staff to be able to connect with our folks, including a wellness coordinator and, um, folks who are working on substance use disorder specialists.

Lydia Bransten: Um, having folks who are gonna be able to go out into our direct community and encourage people to come and visit our site, see if they wanna hang out. Um, but I wanted to turn around for one second 'cause we were talking about fundraising and, and charity and, and I think one of the most important things that I learned over the pandemic, you know, charity is good.

Lydia Bransten: Um, giving people funding for, um, for projects that improve people's lives is a really good thing. But what was different about the pandemic was you had federal money. I. The big bucks, the real money right. Coming in where it's not like you're having to like pick and choose which foundation, which, I mean, the, the infrastructure of fundraising is as in itself a [00:48:00] huge burden on organizations, small organizations like The Goo Project where I'm the fundraiser and sometimes the toilet cleaner.

Lydia Bransten: And, you know, you know, we are embedded in the community. I don't see myself as having an office, uh, you know, in another place. We are an organization that's embedded in a community that already exists. Right? And so the need, the, the greater need for the community is, has to do with like the fact that there's huge income inequality.

Lydia Bransten: The fact that we're having to rely on people who have made vast amount of money to be charitable in a direction that they find appealing. Love Right. Is in itself problematic. And so it's like, when are we as a, as a society gonna say that housing is a right, not a privilege. And it shouldn't be dispersed to us based on like whether or not we can show up to an appointment with our [00:49:00] counselor.

Lydia Bransten: Right. Because a lot of the folks cannot, the folks that we work with on a daily basis are people who are gonna be cared for for their entire lives. They have been to treatment, they have been to jail, they have been to social workers, they have been to counselors. Right? Right. And, and still they, they are in stable society.

Lydia Bransten: What, where do we as a society have a place for these people? You know, we talk about giving people dignity. In my, in my learning, people have dignity and that respect. Is our acknowledgement of that dignity. And so when I say we're embedded in a community that already exists, I didn't create this community.

Lydia Bransten: I opened the doors and allowed the community to come in and said, what do you need? Right? And I think as a society, when you ask, you know, what are the solutions? It has to do with a sea change in how we see people [00:50:00] that people aren't a burden. You know, when you walk down the street and you see a group of people using drugs together, people are like, oh my God, look at those people.

Lydia Bransten: They're all using drugs. They're just feeding off this. I mean, the language that's used about people, I mean, this is still a community and the vast amount of people who have overdoses reversed are done by other people using drugs with them. People use drugs together for safety. We talk about drug use, but we don't talk about the cause.

Lydia Bransten: Why are people wanting to be obliterated? Why they didn't wake up that way? My kid's 16. Thankfully she doesn't use drugs yet. Hopefully never. But, you know, she didn't, her, her goal in life isn't to like, use drugs, be on the street, you know, she has goals. All of these people have had goals, they all had desires, and they have different challenges.

Lydia Bransten: And I think the way we show up, not just as [00:51:00] community organizations, but as a society needs to change. You know? And that's a huge ask, but we saw it during the pandemic, right? So, and like you said, like all of those, all of those, uh, all of those things that helped us. The, the money for food disappeared, right?

Lydia Bransten: The money for, uh, for the, for the housing and the hotels disappeared. All that tap was turned off. I mean, I sat in a meeting with City Hall where they were talking about, Hey, the tap is turning off. We're gonna have a huge budget deficit.

Lydia Bransten: We can do it. So if you wanna know how to change it, you gotta, you actually have to like, want to change it and not continue putting band-aids on it.

George Koster: Thank you. Wonderful segue to the next part of our, um, our conversation. I'm gonna turn to you, Erica. Um, so the, the focus on this part of the conversation is from our panelists, from their perspective and where they sit and, you know, what [00:52:00] are some of the solutions that they, uh, have seen worked on, would like to see.

George Koster: We're in an election season, obviously, uh, we have stuff coming up in the state and the city and county ballots. So what are some of the things that, um, that you've done that you'd like to do, that you'd like to see the city and county do to support our unhoused families?

Erica Kisch: Mm-Hmm. Um, I'm glad you asked that because I wanted to follow up about universal basic income, um, which is, uh, one of the solutions that I think, uh, is showing so much promise.

Erica Kisch: Um, and, um, so Compass is actually doing a research project. Um, US and Hamilton families in partnership with Google, who's the funder, and NYU, who's the research partner, um, we are, uh, providing families that are six months from exiting their subsidies. So remember I said that some of the rental subsidies are time limited and we're providing them with a thousand dollars a month for a year, and we're trying to kind of see [00:53:00] what impact they ha that has on them at that vulnerable time when the subsidy is being taken away.

Erica Kisch: And they need to be able to pay their rent and keep self-sufficiency. Um, and, you know, it's too early to tell in terms of the results we expect, they will be positive. There's a whole body of studies that have been done and pretty much all of them show that, um, people use the money for the right things to take care of their business, to take care of their families.

Erica Kisch: Um, and that it does make a difference. So, um, you know, and the supports that were put in place during the pandemic are actually the same thing. Um, guaranteed income and what do you know? They actually really made a difference. So, um, a plug for guaranteed basic income, um, as a solution because, you know, we need to be creative.

Erica Kisch: We need to do different things. 'cause what we're doing isn't really working all that well. Um, another thing that we did, um, this past year is we were very involved in trying to challenge, [00:54:00] um, the homeless count for families, which was always just ridiculously under reported. So like, if we've served almost 10,000 families in a year and there's like.

Erica Kisch: Uh, 113 classrooms worth of homeless children in San Francisco Unified School District. How could the homeless count show that there are 130 families in San Francisco that are homeless? So, um, you know, really kind of pushed with partners and the city agreed to partner with us. Um, and so we came up with a count that was 90% higher than the previous count, but we also still know that it's extremely undercounted nonetheless.

Erica Kisch: Um, but you know, right on the heels of that information being released, mayor Breed, uh, unveiled her Safer Families Plan, which does bring more resources to play for, um, addressing family homelessness. So that was, that was, uh, definitely very, um, affirming and inspiring, and we need to keep at that. Um, I mean, kind of more generally, I think just [00:55:00] the notion that nobody wants.

Erica Kisch: Homeless people. Um, nobody wants homelessness, but nobody wants homeless people anywhere near them. And nobody wants housing for homeless people in their neighborhoods. So like, everybody needs to be like, just challenging that because it's just impossible and ridiculous. Um, I mean, it's the most basic of things, but you know, it's, it's just impossible.

Erica Kisch: Um, what else? Um, again, we are just trying to grow some of our more specialized services, do things are that are a little more creative and, um, outside the box to serve more families. Uh, we just, uh, secured private funding that I'm really excited about because we, so we have 13 programs that address family homelessness and target families that are homeless, but they're not all housing programs.

Erica Kisch: So like if we have a family in our behavioral health services whose housing is unstable or who [00:56:00] doesn't have housing but isn't in one of our housing programs. How are they gonna move forward in terms of securing housing? So we were able to secure from a very generous donor, uh, funding to, um, hire three dedicated housing locators who are gonna be working with the families that aren't in our housing program specifically to get to secure housing and to kind of like, you know, move along, um, on the path towards, towards housing.

Erica Kisch: And that is really exciting. We're getting ready to hire those folks. Um, we're doing more dedicated services for, um, uh, parenting te so transitional age youth 18 to 25 who have children but like are at a different developmental stage than some of the other parents we serve. And you know, we've always known that.

Erica Kisch: Um, and so we have like a targeted case management program and supports for that population. Um, again, we've gotta be creative, we have to do things differently. Um, it's such a crisis. Um, we have to just pull out [00:57:00] all the stops on solutions.

George Koster: So follow, follow up two things, Erica. First, from your vantage point and your own data, what is a realistic number of unhoused families in San Francisco right now?

Erica Kisch: You know, it's so hard. That's like, I've been doing this so long and it's such a disgrace that I can't really answer that question easily because you know, there's the HUD definition of homelessness and then there's the San Francisco definition of homelessness and they're not the same. Um, you know, all the families in SRO hotels that are doubled or tripled up living with friends or family, those aren't counted in the HUD definition.

Erica Kisch: They are counted in the San Francisco definition, but none of those families will ever make it to the top of the list so that they can get shelter or housing because there's so much need. So even though they. Are technically homeless by San Francisco definition, they will not get the services they need.

Erica Kisch: So [00:58:00] I'm, that's like, I'm evading your question. Um, no,

George Koster: no. It's, it, it, it's hard. I mean, I, in diving into it, uh, 'cause I'm a data junkie as well, I mean, uh, one of the numbers I found really fascinating is six out of 10 folks in the latest point of account were residents of San Francisco who used to have housing who are now unhoused.

George Koster: Yep. Right. So, I mean, it's just, you know, the people, you know, the, the narrative that, oh, people are coming from out of town 'cause they want to, you know, you know, utilize all of our social services, et cetera. I mean, these are San Francisco residents who, you know, became unhoused. Yeah. A lot of them are seniors.

George Koster: Yeah. A lot of them are people of color, a lot of them are women, um, you know, et cetera. So,

Erica Kisch: yeah, and I live in Oakland and it's really the same thing. You know, people who grew up in Oakland and there's so much kind of movement between the East Bay and San Francisco. So it's hard to really say. Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, it's all kind of one big community.

Erica Kisch: Um, but you know, they grew up and now they're on the streets because they can't afford to live there anymore. Um,

George Koster: so is [00:59:00] there something, you know, some piece of legislation, 'cause now everybody's throwing out candy to become the Nexts mayor. Right? So is there some piece of legislation or some legislation that you would like to see that the supervisors and whoever happens to be the mayor can, can, can do, or is there anything on the ballot here in two, three weeks that people can vote for that would actually change it on the street?

Erica Kisch: Um, well, you know, there needs to be more permanent housing.

Thanks to our Sponsor

Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, whose Arts and Culture grants ensure vibrant work is created, new voices are celebrated, and artists and audiences inclusive of the Bay Area’s diverse communities and cultures have opportunities to thrive. Find out more at ZFF dot org

Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from the Peaceful World Foundation dedicated to fostering a culture of global peace through the promotion of hosted conversations and education. You can learn more at peaceful world foundation dot org.

Thanks to our CoProduction Partner

BAVC Media is a community hub and resource for media makers in the Bay Area and across the country, serving several thousand freelancers, filmmakers, job-seekers, activists, and artists every year. BAVC Media provides access to media making technology, storytelling workshops, a diverse and engaged community of makers and producers, services and resources. Get Training, participate in the MediaMaker Fellowship, become a member and produce shows through the SF Commons program.

Donate to Voices of the Community

We are fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. If you want to send us a check, please make checks payable to Intersection for the Arts and write [Voices of the Community] in the memo line of your check. This ensures that you’ll receive an acknowledgement letter for tax purposes, and your donation will be available for our project.