Transcript
0:00 Hello and welcome to Radio Abundance. My name is Steve Boyle. I am your host. I am the Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America. And today we have a really special episode and really the first in a short series of episodes that I'm genuinely honored and excited to bring you. At the very beginning of this podcast and our journey, we did an episode, a double feature, with the folks from YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County and Congressman Scott Peters, who is in the U.S. Congress and represents San Diego. Now, that must have made the rounds on San Diego social media because a local organization here called Lived Experience Advisors, and specifically a woman named Natalie, who will introduce herself in a second, reached out and said, "We are some folks who have experienced homelessness, who work with folks experiencing homelessness, who help them, who advocate for them, who help them speak to City Hall and government and get stuff done and represent them."
0:57 and maybe it might be nice at least to talk, if not to do a podcast episode. And I was honored by that reach out and so excited about it because I think on pretty much every episode of Radio Abundance, we talk about this issue. It's one of the most important things to us. If you don't build houses, people don't live in houses. It's pretty simple, right? If you don't build houses, there's nowhere for people to live. If you don't build houses, the price goes up and people can't afford a house. If you don't build homes and somebody can't make rent that much, it's a big deal. If you don't build houses, something goes wrong in their life. If you don't build houses, something goes wrong in their life. If you don't build houses, there's nowhere for people to live. If you don't build houses, the price goes up and people can't afford a house. If you don't build homes and somebody can't make rent that month, something goes wrong in their life. If you don't build houses, there's nowhere for people to live. If you don't build houses, the price goes up and people can't afford a house. If you don't build homes and somebody can't make rent that month, something goes wrong in their life. And I was honored by that reach out and so excited about it because I think on pretty much every episode of Radio Abundance, we talk about this issue. It's one of the most important things to us. If you don't build houses, people don't live in houses. It's pretty simple, right? If you don't build houses, there's nowhere for people to live. If you don't build houses, the price goes up and people can't afford a house. If you don't build homes and somebody can't make rent that month, something goes wrong in their life. I mean, if you're on the streets, it gets every day and every moment harder to pull yourself back up. And there's a lot of folks for whom the shelter experience is a worse bet than being on the street. And so this is something we care a lot about and we talk a lot about and we bring on policy experts about. But we haven't yet on this program had people who've lived it. Now, the last thing we want to do together is some poverty porn. That's not what we're here to do. But we are here to tell stories and to talk about it and hear some perspectives that we haven't heard yet and that you don't always hear.
1:58 And I'm really excited about this. So we're meeting up today in San Diego. We're going to talk for a little bit. We're going to break this into a few episodes and we're excited to share that with you. And I'd love the three folks who are joining me right now to introduce themselves, starting with Natalie. Hi, my name is Natalie Rashke. I've lived in San Diego for about 18 years now.
2:19 Hi, I am Vanessa Graziano and I am part of the lived experience advisors and I have, gosh, I moved to San Diego when I was 13. So, yeah. My name is John Brady. I'm the executive director and founder of lived experience advisors. I myself was homeless for a year about a decade ago on the streets of San Diego. I never in my life expected to be there.
2:43 And I reluctantly started advocating, and there's a long story behind that, for people experiencing homelessness. But I will tell you, like many people that experience homelessness, they do not want to let people know, not even their friends or family. It's a source of shame. And I was similar in that regard. And we're going to hear perspectives like that today. John, I think you're going to join us for this very first conversation. And you do have, I think, I mean, something happened today that you want to talk about. And I'm, this is before you do, you know, I want to make sure, I'll be honest, the cameras are on one side of the room, and I want to make sure people see you. So you can look at the camera if you want. I can also switch chairs with you if you want. But I want to make sure we see you for this, and I think you wanted to reflect on something that happened in your life today and what that meant to you and how that ties into this.
3:37 Well, unfortunately, I would just say that death is something that homeless people tend to experience more often and earlier than the rest of the population.
3:54 So my roommate, who had experienced homelessness on and off over a period of years here, I was reluctant to go to the hospital. Fortunately, I finally put my foot down and said, dude, I don't want to wake up and you not be here anymore, and you need to go to the hospital. And that was two days ago. I had not been able to reach him and finally had to drive up to the hospital, and this is the dehumanizing part of where we are with serving people like this. They couldn't even tell me that he had passed because I wasn't the emergency contact. I had to drive up to the hospital, put pressure on real people that knew what had happened but couldn't tell me until I finally almost made a scene in the lobby, and somebody came down and said, he's no longer a patient here, and you need to reach out to his next of kin.
4:49 That was all they could say. But that's – I knew right then. I mean, I knew in my heart when they were kind of giving me the runaround. But, you know, and here is a human being that he would give you the shirt off his back. He was the most generous, kind, mellow person. And these are the stories you don't hear. Like, sometimes we focus on, like, the criminal element that is in our community like everyone else's community. But what we miss is the humanity of somebody – we were all very similar when we were on the street to – if somebody needed something and you had it, and even if it was your last one, you gave it to them. That's right. I mean, not – I mean, if they were just a person that was a taker, then that – but you build a community.
5:39 You build a tribe, and that tribe is your protection for your things, for yourself, and that's what human beings do. They need that contact. And I'll tell you the story about Mike that most touched me when I got to know him after he moved in.
5:55 So Mike has nothing. He's homeless. He's on the street. He's legally crossing an intersection, walking his bicycle, and an MTS driver really ran him over, like, did serious injuries. And he comes running out, and he's just terrified, and he's like, I'm going to call the ambulance. I'm so sorry. I mean, the guy – it just was an accident. Things happen.
6:19 And Mike hurt – and he's like – and somewhere under his breath, the guy says, I'm going to lose my job, and I just had a kid. And Mike looked at him, and he said, this didn't happen. And he picked his bike up and walked away. So that that MTS driver did not have the – he may not have lost the job, but he may have. But that MTS driver may still be driving today, and it was just an accident. But Mike was like, I'm just a single guy. I mean, he could have been housed right then and there for the rest of his life.
6:57 That's the story that – that's what I remember about living on the street was it was the – they come around. And what you shared and all of the things that are happening now, pushing people around, moving, you know, criminalizing the very sin of being poor, not being able to afford exorbitant rents. We've lost our humanity as a society when we can look at a group of people – and I need people that understand this.
7:29 60 percent, according to the federal government, of our people on the streets are disabled, okay? And in California, that's not – under the California law, that's not – it says 95 percent.
7:44 So we are forcing our blind, our physically disabled people with mental health issues, et cetera, to constantly shuffle. And you have no idea how hard it is to live on the street. Until you've done it, I was the guy that was like, oh, you just need to get your ass together. And, you know, you're just lazy. And until it happened to me. And then I realized, holy smokes, getting out of that hole? I mean, it's sort of like somebody gave you a teaspoon to dig your way out of the hole and somebody up top is shoveling dirt down on you. Buckets.
8:23 And now with these new laws that have just been passed that somebody supposedly got to do 20 hours a week of volunteer service, that's not possible for somebody on our streets. We're just going to have people starving. I don't even know how I could have survived without it. But it's just all headed the wrong direction is kind of where I'm coming from. And I wanted to tell Mike's story to, A, honor the loss of Mike.
8:49 Emotionally, I can't stay here much longer. But this is who Mike was. And everybody who Mike, I mean, we just celebrated his birthday recently. And a whole group of people came together. And just, it was just all love.
9:04 And he was that guy. Yeah. He's not the guy that people think of when you think of people experiencing homelessness. And this is the important distinction. The people that the general population refers to as the homeless are really the chronically homeless. We have left them out there too long. And when you live targeted, sleep-deprived, in poverty, having your benefits stripped away, not being able to, I mean, in some cases even walk or see where you're going or you're a senior, that's what happens to human beings that live in those conditions. And it is very clear. And our shelters were designed for a 90-day stay.
9:52 Even the military wouldn't put people in the density that we put people into. You don't put people in bunk beds in the military. Not long-term. You don't do any of these things. But we've got people that are now staying in shelters for a year, two years, three years. And that's in an environment that we wouldn't even put kids, our own kids, in summer camp in, in terms of density. It's almost worse than a jail. And more importantly, as a community in the San Diego region, we are spending $500 million a year managing homelessness. That's over $25,000 per homeless person broken down among the bigger figure of $30,000. And we don't even come close to that amount of money on the solution, which is housing.
10:42 You know, as you were speaking, I think two things really shown out to me. One is, you know, you mentioned how many folks on the street are dealing with disabilities, right? And physical encumbrances and mental health issues. But it's not just that we're doing wrong by these people. We are, I think, creating those problems, right? If you think of everybody's gut shit, I mean, there's nobody who is so mentally robust that they could not, that there are not moments that you could slip into those struggles. And the difference between being able to handle that with friends and family and a roof and a therapist versus on the street with people treating you like crap and stress every moment, that is the creation of mental illness. The prolonging of mental illness, going past a point where it feels like the point of no return.
11:28 And yet, something that also stands out as we're here, I'll just out-reflect from my perspective, right? Each of the three of you, if you just showed up here, if I was like, hey, these are my friends and we're going to talk about housing policy, not a single person watching this would think those people experienced homelessness. You and I just met, we never spoken before, we met in the thing, and you were telling me about your background, the work you did with experienced advisors, and I had to be like, you know, because we were like, we're going to talk to people who experienced homelessness today. I had to be like, um, have you? You know what I mean? Because there's no, it's not like, and we know this, but it bears fucking repeating. There's not some quality of homelessness as a person. You are, you know, before you look like everybody else, after you look like everybody else, and all of us could be put through that wringer. Except for one thing, I'll tell you this. Because once you're at that table, and they discover that you're homeless, all of a sudden, you're not worth as much as the consultants that they're paying big bucks at that table, and people treat you as less than.
12:24 And it's stunning to me. Like anywhere else, if you've had experience, you've been through it, you know what works and what doesn't. You're the only honest voice at the table, and yet you're either not being paid at all, which we, and we're picking up the tab for it. We're paying people a living wage. Or your voice is just discounted. And it's not easy doing this work. I mean, I, 50% of what our effort is amongst our staff is really devoted to supporting the people that are still in crisis, recovering from homelessness, even if they're years away from it. Because you will never, ever stop thinking, what happens if I could lose my home? What am I going to do if I lose my home again? You know, my background is not in politics.
13:10 It is in events and live theater and immersive experiences and game design. But I did work for a time with the foster care system in California, and I both made, like, a virtual reality, like, 360 film to tell the story of people. Actually, sort of choose your own adventures, and they're active to dealing with that. But my favorite thing was I made a board game for them, like a dice game, like a tabletop game. And the point of this game was that, A, so much of your life in the foster care system, in being homeless, is determined by chance, which is to say the role of the die. But, B, it stacks. When shit happens, the deck gets stacked above you. So the more you've got to deal with, actually, the higher number you've got to roll to get out of it, and so on and so forth, until the same people making the same choices and similar roles are going to go in different directions, and it gets hard to pull yourself back up.
14:00 Now, in a moment, we're going to close out this episode, and then we will follow up this episode by talking with Natalie and Vanessa about their experiences. John has to get out of here in a moment. This is all I have to do with. I want to give you the final words, man. Well, you brought something to mind. So that whole experience of talking to many people on the staff at the hospital, them, because of HIPAA laws, not being able to tell me what was going on, and it wasn't until I actually drove up and had human contact with the human beings that weren't telling me what was going on, that I finally got what I needed. And to some degree, that's the problem we have with homeless. Like, if you work in homeless services, you can't even call the client by name when talking to someone else.
14:48 You have to refer to them by number. And it's just dehumanizing. It's HIPAA law has gotten to the point. Like, if you were in a small town and your grandparent died or your neighbor died or my roommate died, everybody would know about it. Like, there was – but HIPAA, the people that are very much around that person, we lose people all the time on the street, and we have to wonder, did they die? And we'll never know because we can't find out if our friend that disappeared in an ambulance ended up in a home or in a casket. John, last question. Where can people learn more about lived experience advisors and how can they help? How can they plug in? Well, we've got World Homeless Day coming up. That's where this year we are going to provide – it's a day of service for those that are still suffering on our streets and a day of remembrance for the over – oh, God, it's nearly 3,750 people that have died since we started record keeping.
15:44 And we put out a luminary for every person on the lawn of the county building that has passed during that time. So we need volunteers to help with that process. You can find out more about lived experience advisors at livedadvisors, A-D-V-I-S-O-R-S, dot org. And you can sign up for an email. You can make a donation towards World Homeless Day or our operations and help us take formerly homeless people and turn them into civic leaders. You know, when people learn more about lived experience advisors, I think they'll learn more about lived experiences too. So I like that. Well, we just started a newsletter and we're cranking it out now because the misinformation tropes is crazier than ever about the people that are suffering on our streets.
16:29 So thank you for your – Thank you, John, Natalie, Vanessa, thank you for being here with us today. And thank you for tuning into this episode of Radio Abundance. This is the first in this series. Stay tuned for more. And thanks for being with us on Radio Abundance. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.