Episode 102: Miracle Money Update

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Miracle Messages Programs - Family Reunion, Miracle Friends and Miracle Money

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“It breaks my heart as a mother and a teacher almost the, majority of people who are unhoused are families with children. Sleeping in cars, sleeping in garages, and that these families, these moms and dads, aunts and uncles, they work, but again, they can't get enough together to secure safe and affordable housing”-Elizabeth Softky

Welcome to our annual holiday show and fundraiser. As we bring this year and our special series on Covid-19’s impact on nonprofits to a close, we wanted to go back to Episode One in the series when we introduced you to Miracle Messages and in Episode 75 when we introduced you to Miracle Message’s Miracle Money.

In our 102 episode of this special Covid-19 series we are featuring the voices of the CEO of Miracle Messages, Kevin Adler, and Miracle Messages general manager of Los Angeles Jenni Taylor along with Miracle Money Program participant Elizabeth Softky.

Elizabeth Softky

I was born in Los Angeles, California, into an aspirational Black family that valued education.  Although my father worked in aerospace (after a career in the Air Force), he was also a gifted visual artist and sculptor.  My mother was a home artist who did everything to the nth degree.  Before she married my father, she was a sought-after cook in Texas and beyond.  Our home was filled with books, and people with an intellectual bent made their way there as well. (The literacy nonprofit I founded has its genesis in my childhood).  

As the bossy older sister, I truly believe I was born to be a teacher.  I started practicing on my two younger sisters at an early age by teaching them Spanish from a book that belonged to my father, who was fascinated by languages.  I would inherit this love from him.  Later, as the de facto leader of the neighborhood girls, I organized activities, clubs, and led expeditions around the culturally diverse city.

I loved school, and as my parents' marriage started to fall apart during the 1970’s, it became a refuge from their fighting, and bullies on the playground.  It’s where I also began volunteering.  My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Hellsley noticed that I was sitting by myself at recess and lunchtime, so she would invite me to help her with classroom tasks.  I still remember the joy I felt from moving desks back to where they belonged, or choosing paints for art projects, and I’ve never forgotten the shame I felt when, in 8th grade, I forgot to put the screen back on the top of the mice’s cage in the science lab and they'd all escaped! 

After high school I attended UCLA, graduating with a degree in Sociology.  During my time there, I became interested in progressive politics through the Progressive Labor Party, helping farm workers to fight for fair wages and benefits.  However, language barriers hindered their efforts.  Since I spoke Spanish as well as English, I was asked by Party leadership if I’d lead English workshops for our immigrant Spanish-speaking families in Downtown L.A.  I also received recognition from the university’s International Student Center as Volunteer of the Year as well, before I left.

Even better things were to come.  Volunteering with children’s programs that my oldest son attended at my church, would eventually lead me to becoming it’s Director of Religious Education.  From there, I went back to school, studying at the Claremont School of Theology.  My then second husband was studying near-by at Cal-Tech.  For his post-doctoral work, he received a research grant from the National Institutes of Health, while I became a stay-at-home mother for the first time.

Restless for something to do during my infant daughter’s long naps, I spotted a notice for writers wanted for our excellent local newspaper.  I jumped at the chance, and that was the start of my successful ten-year free-lance writing career, with a focus on LifeStyle and Education.  Six years later I was divorced again and couldn’t depend on child support alone.  Substitute teaching fitted perfectly with my children’s schedules, and I was back teaching children who were challenged in so many ways, which I excelled at.  

In the end, I decided to enter the Teacher Credential Program at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California.  I finished all my coursework, but I’d got mis-information on test requirements so that the harder I tried, the more I failed.  But again, it worked out because I’d become disgusted by the racism towards the majority Latino students and their parents in my school district, as well as over-testing, which cut into instruction time and made children fall behind.   For more insights into Elizabeth please watch the wonderful PBS News Hour video which features Elizabeth and the Miracle Messages' Miracle Money Program

Jenni Taylor

Jenni is the general manager of Miracle Messages in Los Angeles County. Originally from Chicago, she spent over a decade in international education and managing educational nonprofits in Peru, China, and Cambodia. Coming back to the US and moving to LA inspired a change in cause, and she's happy to be a part of the solution for our 69,000+ unhoused neighbors in LA County through Miracle Messages and their focus on solving relational poverty through social support.

Kevin Adler

Kevin F. Adler is an award-winning social entrepreneur, nonprofit leader, and author. Since 2014, Kevin has served as the Founder and CEO of Miracle Messages, a nonprofit organization that helps people experiencing homelessness rebuild their social support systems and financial security. To date, Miracle Messages has reunited over 700 unhoused neighbors with their loved ones, matched 300 with caring volunteers globally as phone buddies, and directly distributed over $1 million through the first basic income pilot for unhoused individuals in the United States.

Through his work at Miracle Messages, Kevin has pioneered the concept of “relational poverty” as an overlooked form of poverty that disproportionately affects unhoused individuals. Kevin has given talks on homelessness and relational poverty at TED, the US Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Health and Human Services (HHS), Google, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and The Commonwealth Club. Kevin’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, on a billboard in Times Square, in an essay by President George W. Bush, and in videos that have garnered over 1 million shares on Facebook.

Kevin has been honored as a Presidential Leadership Scholar, TED Resident, MassChallenge winner, SXSW Community Service Award winner, and Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, for which he served one year in Oaxaca, Mexico. Kevin is the author of Natural Disasters as a Catalyst for Social Capital (University Press of America), a book that explores how shared traumas can bring people together or tear them apart. Kevin earned his MPhil in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, and his BA in Politics from Occidental College, where he was the 2018 Erica J. Murray '01 Young Alumni Award recipient, and where President Barack Obama's favorite professor said, "in 40 years of teaching, Kevin is the single best student I’ve ever had."

Motivated by his late mother’s work teaching at underserved adult schools and nursing homes, and his late uncle’s 30 years living on and off the streets with severe mental illness, Kevin believes in a future where everyone is seen as invaluable and interconnected. To find out more about the origins of Miracle Message and Kevin’s story

Miracle Messages

We offer a humane way to help end homelessness: reconnect families, strengthen local social support systems, shatter stigmas, and empower people everywhere to get involved. Our work has been featured in The New York Times, CNN, NowThis, on a billboard in Times Square, in a TED talk, and hundreds more. Founder and CEO Kevin F. Adler started Miracle Messages in honor of his uncle, who lived on-and-off the streets for 30 years. We are on a mission to end relational poverty on the streets, and in the process, inspire people everywhere to embrace their homeless neighbors not as problems to be solved, but as people to be loved.

Direct cash transfers: Miracle Money is a direct cash transfer program for people experiencing homelessness in the US. Beginning in February 2021, an initial pilot of 15 un-housed participants in Miracle Friends are receiving $500/month for six months.

Reunion Service: Our approach is simple, effective, and built to scale: a person isolated by homelessness records a short message to a loved one, often with the help of a local referral partner, volunteer, or formerly homeless ambassador. Then, our network of "digital detectives" attempt to locate the loved one, deliver the message, and facilitate a reunion. To date, we have reunited 325 families, with an average time separated of 15 years. 80% of delivered messages have been positively received, and dozens of reunions have resulted in getting a client off-the-streets.

Buddy System: A reunion service is appropriate for about 10-20% of the homeless population. But what if someone doesn’t have loved ones, or the family is part of the problem, or similarly under-resourced? Enter Miracle Friends, a first-of-its-kind virtual buddy system that matches 1:1 individuals experiencing homelessness with volunteers for daily 5-10 minute phone calls and texts, for general companionship and support. Miracle Friends piloted a program in the San Francisco Bay Area to support homeless individuals that were moved into hotels during COVID-19. Find out more about Miracle Messages’ on-going support of our unhoused community members during the Covid-19 pandemic

Donation/Volunteer

Miracle Messages Miracle Money Holiday Fund - George Koster is matching donations up to Two Thousand Five Hundred Dollars. So please go to miracle messages dot org forward slash donate

Miracle Messages is a nonprofit organization that reconnects people experiencing homelessness with their loved ones, and with us as their neighbors. Everyone is someone's somebody. Join us, learn more, or donate today nation: miraclemessages.org/donate

Miracle Money Program - Find out more about donating funds directly to our un-housed community members through the Pilot Program Miracle Money which provides a direct cash transfer program for people experiencing homelessness

Volunteer to help our neighbors experiencing homelessness to reconnect with their families. For more engagement email hello@miraclemessages.org

Videos

Find out more about Miracle Messages and their Miracle Money Program through these videos

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