12. What is Prevention

On this episode, Carl Falconer and Danny Arroyo dive into the topic of prevention — exploring what it means to stop homelessness before it starts. From rental and utility assistance to legal aid, case management, and flexible funding, they break down the tools and strategies that help individuals and families stay housed.

They discuss the challenges of targeting at-risk households, funding limitations, and how programs like Pathlight HOME’s Flex Fund are making a difference by providing quick, flexible support when it’s needed most.

In their Offense vs. Defense segment, Carl and Danny debate whether prevention services are truly effective, weighing the cost benefits, fairness, and long-term impact. Plus, they cover the latest updates from the HUD NOFO, highlight NFL quarterback Marcus Mariota’s “Giving Thanks” initiative in Hawaii, and celebrate the Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving meal drive.

The episode closes with an inspiring reminder: ending homelessness begins upstream — with prevention, compassion, and a community willing to act before crisis hits.

Produced by Gigi Ramirez and Jay Falconer. Music and Sound Design by Kwon.

Please send any questions or comments to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠questions@pathlighthome.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to the Home Team Podcast. I'm Carl Falconer and I'm Danny Arroyo. And we're tackling homelessness.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

Today in our podcast, we'll discuss two of our passions, football and ending homelessness. Please join us through four quarters with our topic this week being prevention. So how's your weekend, Danny?

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Uh it was good. Went to Tampa to see a concert with my wife, so that was good. Went to the Yingling Center, never been there before. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's the college that USF. So that's what it's called. Yeah. Oh, okay. So I saw a good concert there, and then that's it. That's it. It was a quiet weekend, yeah. Okay. Great.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

How was yours? Uh good weekend, good weekend. Um my bears are still rolling along. So that was good. Um mainly relaxed this weekend. Um the no fo came the HUD no fo came out, so I did a lot of reading on that. We'll talk about that a little bit uh in our headlines. But um, yeah, so yeah, pretty, pretty chill weekend overall. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

So it's good to have those quiet ones.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

All right. Uh so now as we start off every episode, we'll start with the coin toss. Danny, you will call it in the air. Uh heads. It is tails, so I will start us off. Okay. All right. Welcome to our first quarter. I'm going to kick off by defining our topic of the week, and then we'll cover some news, headlines, and announce the results from last week's NFL home team locks of the week. So, as I said, our our uh our topic this week is prevention. Uh, prevention of homelessness refers to the range of policies, programs, and actions designed to stop individuals or families from losing their housing and becoming homeless. It involves identifying people who are at risk and intervening early to address the factors that may lead to homelessness, such as financial hardship, eviction, relationship breakdown, or health issues. In simple terms, homelessness prevention means helping people stay in their homes or finding alternative stable living arrangements. Some examples of prevention services or prevention programs are rent or utility to help stop evictions, legal aid or mediation between tenants and landlords, case management to connect people with housing or benefits, support for at-risk groups like youth or veterans or domestic violence survivors, or affordable housing programs and tenant protection policies. So I think you've had a little bit more uh experience with prevention than I have, Danny. So tell me what your thoughts are.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Uh yeah, I mean, it's it's helping those that are close to being evicted, who are, you know, living check to check, who something happens, a car breaks down, there's an illness. A lot of that happened during COVID when people got sick and just needed that little push to kind of cover them for that month. It's not um it's making sure it's not putting a band-aid on it, it's just making sure that they're we're helping them for that month, and then they'll get back on their feet.

SPEAKER_05 3:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Um, so I did it for a while. It was pretty successful. Um, you know, we helped a lot of people rent and utilities. Um, but there is a lot of just criteria to it that comes along with some of that funding, and some of it uh limits the amount of money that goes out. Um, especially with rent, when rent is so high, and some some of the funding would from my experience would cover like a thousand dollars, which is really not realistic.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Um, especially when you're serving families who have a rent about sixteen, seventeen hundred dollars. So it's really difficult to help those people who just didn't have the extra money to cover. Um, and and we do a little bit of it here with our flex fund for our residents, but yeah, it it works well. Um case management, I think, is really important in it because we want to make sure that they're gonna be okay afterwards. So that check-in, you know, 30 days, 60 days, I think it's really needed just to make sure that they're staying on track or even provide other services like our employment center, come back and you know, do your resume and let's see if we can find a better job for you. And so it works well if it's done correctly.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Yeah, and I think I think that's the thing overall that I've seen with prevention services is there's so many different types and done so many different ways. Usually the funding source is the one that determines what the rules are, if you will, or what the eligibility is. Yeah, and sometimes that makes it a little bit um wonky and I would say less effective because the funders typically don't understand who they're trying to serve or how they're trying to serve them. So they'll come up with these just abstract rules, like you said, a thousand dollars limit or a five hundred dollar limit or one hundred dollar limit, not keeping in mind who their population is or what they're trying to do. I think the more narrow the focus of the prevention program is, it seems like the tighter and the better it is. You mentioned our flex fund.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

We keep it pretty tight. We we're we're not trying to serve everybody with our flex fund. We're trying to serve a very specific group of people in a very specific way with the flex fund. Um these broad prevention programs like COVID, you know, when COVID came out, I mean, there was a lot of money and they were trying to serve a lot of people, and I think it just got a little bit out of control there in terms of the, you know, who they were trying. You can't serve everybody the same exact way. And unfortunately, when you set those rules and then you're trying to serve a thousand people with a thousand different problems, that's where it gets hairy.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And and yeah, there was some of the funding that I was working with was so specific. Uh-huh. Uh you had to live at a certain zip code, you had to be in city limits, you had to be, it was just so, you know, and we had a lot of different pots of money, which was great. Right. But the case managers will have to take a long time to figure out which one do you fall under.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

You know, which one works for you, then start gathering. It just it it it slowed down the process a lot when someone's just close to being evicted.

SPEAKER_05 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So we would have to intervene and talk to the landlords and try to say, listen, we're working, and some wanted to, and some would like, I want my money now.

SPEAKER_05 6:41

Yeah, you know, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

But yeah, I think I agree with you. If you make it narrow what the steps are, like our flex fund, it makes it easier to start the process faster.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Right. Well, and again, if you target very specific populations, and I think that's that's the one thing that I've seen that prevention programs don't do as well. And again, we'll talk about this a little bit in offense defense, but they don't do as well as they don't target populations very well. And when they do that, they're better. When they don't, they're worse. Yep, definitely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

All right. Well, now let's take a look at some of the headlines from the homeless world. So this week, the HUD Notice of Funding Opportunities, NOFO, dropped. Uh, this application provides funding for housing and services. Some of the changes to this year's application include limiting permanent supportive housing to no more than 30% of a community's allotment, 40 hours of service per week for transitional housing participants, and PSH permanent supportive housing limited to people who are over 62 years of age or having a physical disability.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

Yeah. Yeah. They're really and the only thing I could say about this, um, Danny, is that it it's really hard to change the rules in the middle of processes. We have people who are living in permanent supportive housing now. We have people who are living in housing with HUD funding now.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

If you change the rules and all of a sudden a vast majority of those people, or even half of those people, are not eligible anymore, and you create you're trying to create these new programs or these new things, basically you're you're making people homeless. You're essentially kicking people out of the street. Out of yeah, out of programs. And so that's what I think is the most troubling about this notice of funding opportunity is that they're essentially changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game when we've already got people into programs based off of previous rules. And from what I can tell so far, there's very little opportunity to be able to transition from one from one set of rules to the other set of rules. It's basically look, you have to now do all these different things totally different than you were doing before, and you've got to do them immediately. And that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

It's just look, I mean, the right now, does the system work for permanent supportive perfectly? No. There's kinks, right? There's issues that we're addressing, but it's working for us, it's working for what we're doing. Yeah. And now, like you said, to kind of disrupt everything going on with all these people in these units is pretty saying you have to send them back out to the street, which we won't do, of course. Right. But it's it's changing the way we do everything here. It's gonna change our process, our systems, our just the whole thing. It's it's very frustrating, very, very frustrating.

SPEAKER_04 9:36

And if they and and I understand the intent of this, the intent of this is to move more money to people who are able-bodied and can work and get them into housing and programs that will help them become self-sufficient. Right. And I have no problem with that. But what they should have done is they should have added more money to the pod and said you could only use this money for transitional programs for people who are able-bodied to get them self-sufficient. You don't take money away from the people who are already housed and working their programs and then move it to a totally different program for a totally different group of people. Yeah, that doesn't even make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

You took from one to give to another, and now it's it's it does no good because all you're doing is creating homelessness on the other side.

SPEAKER_04 10:21

Right, exactly. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, right. You're housing one, but another one's getting homeless. That's exactly right. It just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_04 10:27

It doesn't make any sense how they got it set up.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

We have some work to do. Yeah, no doubt. All right, so let's see how our Cowboys and Bears did this week. So my team was on a bye last week. They came back this week um and they played the Raiders and they won 33 to 16. Unfortunately, I didn't watch it. I wasn't feeling well, so I went to bed early. You know, age is catching up with me. Um, but yeah, I woke up and first thing I did was uh check the score and I was like, we won. I'll take it. I was gonna say maybe you should not watch it more than uh so right now our record is uh uh four five and that dreaded one. Um actually in second place. I don't know if that means anything.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

I was gonna say, absolutely. I mean, the way the teams are playing this year, yeah, the Cowboys are not in a bad position. I mean, if they could get on a little bit of a roll, play some easier teams, then they could get right back in.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So let's speak about next week's opponent. Let's talk about easy teams. I don't know if you know this team, but they're called the Philadelphia Eagles. They're defending champions. Uh so we did farewell the first game against them this year. Um, so we are playing them at home. Um, it is on Thanksgiving. Oh, is it? I think Thanksgiving. It is Thanksgiving. It is Thanksgiving, yeah. Um, so we'll yeah, it's an important game because if yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I'm at a loss for words sometimes with my team, but all right. Yeah, exactly. All right, your bears.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

No, I don't think it'll be on Thanksgiving. Because that'll be next week. That's next week. That's right, exactly. So this will probably be Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

This is the Sunday game, right? And then they play on Thanksgiving. Right. Then they play on Thanksgiving after that. They play the Chiefs. I'm sorry. Oh, the Chiefs on Thanksgiving. So it's two easy games. Yeah. There you go. Two easy games. We got this. All right, your bears again, lad. All the way at the end of the game.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

All the way at the end of the game, and they scared me a little bit more on this one. Um, I was happy to see a win. I know the Vikings have a have a really good defense, though, and that's one of the things I was worried about, but our offense overcame that. So my Bears won 19 to 17, and it was at Minnesota, which is great. Yeah, um, they got us the first game of the year, and so now we got them back. That's one and one, and now we're seven and three, and we're on top of our division. I know. How about that? That's insane. That's insane.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

You're gonna be on you're gonna be too much at the end of the season.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

He told me week 11, the Bears would be winning their division. That is insane. That's just incredible. It's a good record. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, next week's opponents, uh, the Steelers are coming into the Bears. I feel like this might be a little bit of a trap game. I know the Steelers haven't been playing as well as they could. Uh, they may or may not have Aaron Rodgers at quarterback because he got a little bit injured, a little bit banged up right his left hand. Yeah. So I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. We haven't had a great track record against Aaron Rodgers when he was with Green Bay. So maybe. Hopefully he'll be out there. Hopefully he'll be out there and we can pay him back. He can come back the following. We'll see. Exactly. Well, that wraps up the first quarter. We'll be back after this break.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Hello, I'm Daniel Arroyo, Vice President of Programs at Pathlight Home. If you're new to our mission, welcome. We're dedicated to changing the lives of those experiencing homelessness since hardship through housing, support services, and career training. What began as one dream for a compassionate solution to homelessness has become a reality. Since our funding, we've provided housing for more than 8,000 people, offering shelter, opportunity, and hope. This month, as we honor National Homeless Awareness Month, we are also kicking off our end-of-year campaign, a time to come together and give back. Every contribution, whether monetary or in kind, directly supports our residents and the community we serve. No gift is too small to make a difference. As we celebrate our journey from dream to reality, thank you for being part of this mission. Together we can make the dream of ending homelessness a reality in our community.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

This is the second quarter. We're getting a little deeper into a homelessness topic with something we call offense versus defense. We will each take turns discussing some opposing viewpoints of our topic this week. The question we will ask this week is Are prevention services effective at reducing homelessness? Please remember that we're trying to show both sides of the issue. These do not necessarily reflect our individual stances on these positions. So are prevention services effective at reducing homelessness? Danny, this week you have the offense or the yes, they are effective.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

So all right. So first one is preventing homelessness is cheaper than resolving it later. Numerous cost studies show that eviction prevention, short-term financial assistance, and mediation programs are far less expensive than emergency shelter, policing, healthcare, or long-term rehousing, because even one eviction can trigger long-term housing instability, preventing them that event often saves governments money overall. Number two, evidence shows targeted prevention works for high-risk households. Research has found that targeted data-driven prevention, example, focusing on households with past evictions, extremely low income, or prior shelter use can significantly reduce shelter entries. Programs such as flexible assistance, financial assistance, kind of like our Flex Fund, legal aid, and diversion services have demonstrated measurable reductions in homelessness when used with the right populations. Number three, prevention protects vulnerable groups before crisis escalate. Prevention funding helps stabilize populations at higher risk, such as youth leaving care, women fleeing domestic violence, people exiting hospitals or prisons. By intervening early, systems avoid trauma and negative long-term impacts. Number four. I'm sorry, number three. No, number four. Community and landlord mediation reduces evictions. Mediation programs often successfully negotiate payment plans, repairs, or behavior agreements that allow tenants to remain housed. These services are cheaper and less confrontational than formal evictions. And the last is prevention maintains social and economic stability. Keeping individuals housed preserves employment, schooling, mental health stability, and existing support networks. Avoiding homelessness avoids the downward spiral that is difficult and costly to reverse.

SPEAKER_04 17:00

And now I'll talk about the cons or why it might not be as effective prevention. Many people who receive prevention aid may not have become homeless anyway, meaning resources may be spent inefficiently. Predicting homelessness is difficult, and high risk does not always translate to actual shelter entry. Some households face structural barriers that prevention can't fix. Prevention can't overcome the lack of affordable housing stock, extremely low income relative to rent, uh systemic issues like discrimination or inadequate mental health services. Without broader structural change, prevention funding can only provide temporary relief. Next, is the short-term financial aid may merely delay homelessness. If rent continues to be unaffordable, one-time assistance may postpone rather than prevent a future eviction. For chronically impoverished households, prevention may be a band-aid solution. Next, uh prevention can divert funds from proven interventions like housing first. Critics argue that resource resources should focus on housing supply and long-term support, not on preventing individual crisis. When budgets are limited, funding prevention might reduce investment in permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing. And finally, effectiveness is hard to measure. Successful preventions is often invisible. If someone stays housed, it's unclear whether the intervention caused it. This makes evaluation difficult and can weaken the case for continued public funding. So uh I'll start by talking about some of your points, Danny. Um I think it is cheaper, obviously. Your first point was it's cheaper than you know homelessness. There's no doubt about that. We used to, when I was doing outreach, we used to say all the time, stay housed as long as you possibly can, because it's so much harder to get someone out of homelessness than to keep them from coming into homelessness. Um, I think one of the other things that it it uh helps maintain social and economic stability. I think that's a really good point to make, is that if the person has a good social network, if they have a good support network in place already, giving this type of funding, prevention to those types of individuals can really help them because, like you said, then it gets them over that little bump. It's just a bump in the road and they can go right back to their social support networks, they can go right back to what they were doing before, if they're working, if they have friends and family, if they have church, if they have those supports in place and they just need a little extra to get them over, I think that's that's the perfect scenario for using prevention. But I think if you don't have that, again, back to my points, if you don't have that support network, and all we're doing is paying your rent for a month, and the next month you're gonna be in the same situation, that doesn't really solve the problem. It doesn't really put a band-aid on it. And and unfortunately, I don't think most prevention programs look it that deeply at it. They see someone who's in need, someone who's about to be evicted, and they say, Okay, we're gonna provide services to you. They don't look at all the other factors around it, but unfortunately, I think that's the only way that prevention, or I should say, not the only way, but that's the way to maximize prevention is to look at those other factors. And I think if we don't look at those other factors, and I know there's a lot of studies going on right now about prevention effectiveness and you know whether people will actually become homeless or not, which again is another one of those points that I made that we don't know who's gonna become homeless or not, or we're not really good at predicting it. If we can become better at that and understand which which factors really lead to homelessness, I think then we could really target those prevention officers.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, no, I think some of the ones, some of your points, um the short-term financial aid merely delayed homelessness and also the effectiveness to measure how hard it is to measure it. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's it's really difficult to know what the next step is for that person. Right, is it we're just paying for one month and then what's gonna happen the following one? So for me, when we worked on it, when we did it, we dug we dug deeper into the person. We didn't just say you need it, oh sure, here's a thousand bucks. We went deeper and kind of did a history on the person of what they were going through. You know, were they always short on rent? You know, did they have just just reading some of these brought me back to the stuff that the people I dealt with and the clients I worked with was you know, that family support that's right that you know, we we saw just from my experience, there was more families asking for prevention dollars than. singles yeah because the rent is higher you know you have kids to support just like when we talked about snap benefits disappear we were like these people are gonna struggle they're gonna start asking for money for rent oh absolutely they are or for utilities yeah so I I think it's it it uh if you like you said if you dig deeper into the person and what they're how they're if they're gonna be sustainable afterwards right it kind of helps the process but if it's just to like we said put a band-aid on it it it's not gonna work it's not and most of these uh um funding sources that I worked with was a one year help once you got it that's it right you couldn't ask for it again yeah so if if you're not ready to to continue your your your path of paying your rent and utilities and we help you once in six months you're gonna ask for it again and this the resources are gonna not be there for you.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Yeah that's exactly and and here's the thing I I think this is the thing that really that that we're both talking about in this is look there are far more evictions that happen in our communities than homelessness. So not everybody that gets evicted not everybody that can't pay their rent for one month or whatever the case is ends up homeless.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

A lot of people figure it out they really do figure out how to use their support systems how to you know build on whatever whatever uh deficiencies they have or whatever problems they're having to that point though we we found when I was doing this was a lot of people would come to us and they were they owed two months rent.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Maybe three months and we'll ask them why did you wait so long? Right. And it's because they were trying to figure it out they were trying to figure out and talk to their cousins and talk to their moms and see if they could you know gather some money to at least work with the landlord. That's right. And sometimes it worked so and then other times we just they they were stuck and then it made it harder sure to cover three months worth or they're going through an eviction process which now we have to bring you know legal services in to absolutely to provide some other services. So it's yeah I mean you can try to get other resources but at what point do you say okay I can't find anything now let me try to get some help somewhere else well but you bring up a good point though is that's where prevention programs have to be a little more flexible on that.

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Because you're right if someone could not find the support in two or three months worth of trying to find support well then that's probably a good prevention uh candidate. Yeah I mean helping them get them over that hump might be good. Or in some cases you might just have to say look we need to bring you into our homeless service system right because obviously you don't have the supports there and you're not going to be able to sustain this after we pay for it. So I mean it's it's really trying to navigate both of those sides of it. Yeah. It's trying to figure out do you really need the funding? Will it help you move to the next level or do you not have the supports in place. Right. You know because if you don't have the supports in place then we need to we need to bring in those artificial supports.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Because this is going to happen again. Because it's gonna happen again it's gonna happen again solely.

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Yeah yeah all right so really looking at it that way is really really the way to be able to do it. And now we'll give you Pathite Homes position which is safe and affordable housing is the only real prevention for homelessness. If that can't be achieved or sustained for people then no amount of prevention funding is going to be effective. And again we talked about that so we've made it to the halfway point and during halftime we want to take a moment for fan interaction and highlight an inspired quote related to housing and homelessness.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

All right so let's start hearing uh from our listeners so the first question comes from Marcus um the question is called how should success in homelessness prevention be measured? So we've chatted about that.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

Yeah we chatted about a little bit so success in homelessness prevention um I I've seen it done multiple ways obviously if somebody stays in their housing you can call that success on some level but I think there has to be some longevity that goes along with that. Exactly and I think you know you talked about the 30 60 90 days six months 12 months I think that's what you've got to look at is you've got to look a little further out there to see if prevention really worked longer term rather than just that one month. Obviously we can pay your rent for one month and you can sustain for another 30 days that one's pretty simple I I I wouldn't say that that's a good success measure. But 90 days six months from now if you can sustain your housing after the prevention service is is input for 90 days or six months I think at that point we would probably have to say it's successful. Even if after that longer term somewhere along the way you become homeless later I think that prevention service was was definitely uh successful. And again maybe it goes to the return on investment you know what I'm saying if if we spend $1,000 for you to keep you in housing for another six months the reality is what would our homeless services have spent on you during those six months exactly and so is it a better deal to give you $1,000 now and see you in six months or is it better to spend $1,000 on you or more than $1,000 over the next six months?

SPEAKER_01 27:31

I think that's kind of I think just paying someone's rent and you stayed in your unit isn't it's kudos but it's not success. No. It's following up with them and then and a lot of prevention programs has no follow up with case management. It's a one and done. Yeah. So we have no idea how they've done that's right did they go back out on the street now if they don't call us we're assuming they're okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

But they probably went and got some funding somewhere else. Yeah absolutely so but I think that 3060 and I think 30 is too short I think it got to be 90 six months even up to a year.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

I agree that to me successful yeah in a year you reach out and you're okay you don't need our help anymore we're good that's successful to me absolutely so um one of the best ways that I saw uh measuring success uh when I was in Jacksonville is we worked with the utilities company and what we did is we did follow up for the people that we got that uh got prevention dollars to find out if they still had their utilities on oh that's pretty good it was a perfect example of success because at six months if we could see that they were still on the utility roll and they were still paying their utilities we pretty much considered that a success and it was a it was a great way to do it it was a great partnership that we created with the with the electric authority there and I again I think it was a real way to be able to measure success for programs. Yeah absolutely because you know they're still living there that's right you know that somebody there they still have it in their name and they're still living somewhere with the utilities yeah absolutely all right the next question comes from Joshua what barriers limit prevention programs effectiveness? Again I think we've talked about these a little bit um I think it's it's some of the some of the limitations we put on it and I think and again very rarely is it us as program service providers that put limitations on the funding. We very rarely get a chance to add now our flex fund that we have here at Pathlight Home we got to create those those criteria which is why I think it's a little more effective.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

And it's a little bit more flexible.

SPEAKER_04 29:38

And it's more flexible exactly again flex fund. I think when funders put barriers or put limitations on to who they can serve how they can serve them all those different types of things I think that's when it gets a little bit uh less effective because they'll put barriers that are unrealistic or it becomes clear in some cases that the funders might just be trying to get the money out the door as we say. Right yeah and that's all they're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

So it's first come first serve it's we don't have any prioritization it's you know things like that those make for often make for an ineffective I I remember just some of the funding sources we had was so detailed of what they wanted and it was just having the case manager and the client just jumping through hoops. Right. And it was so frustrating and you know you got to think about the person is about to be evicted their lights about to be turned off they're struggling right now. Right. And then to have them add all this extra we need this we need this paperwork we need I mean it it was it was it was really really difficult to to get some of that funding. But I agree some of them were like you have to spend the money you have to well we know that right don't put so much on us to for someone to qualify because it's just you know there was some people that just for one document wouldn't qualify. Right or a certain dollar amount wouldn't qualify and it was very frustrating to get that done.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

Well and it's it's creating that balance there. It's finding the balance between too many barriers and not enough barriers or not enough targeting of your population. And so it's finding that sweet spot in the middle where you have you have some you know eligibility rules that you have because you're targeting a specific population and also not having enough barriers so that you can serve that actual population. So it's really in between you have to meet somewhere in the middle with that's right exactly yeah I think so uh it's time to get inspired by our quote of the week this quote comes from Roseanne Haggerty who is the president and chief executive officer of community solutions ending homelessness is not impossible. It just requires the moral will to see every human being as worthy of a home. I think that's great. I think that's perfect. I I have firmly believed that since I've been in the homeless service system is that homelessness is not impossible to end. We could end homelessness it's absolutely having that will and being able to see people as human beings and part of our community that we need to serve just like any other person in our community if someone you know gets cancer we want we want to make sure that they get served if someone is you know uh gets into a car wreck we want to make sure that they get served if anybody else in our community has an issue or has a problem we want to make sure that they are whole that we can get them back into our fabric and they can be productive citizens. So I have a little bit of a story for this one. When I first started out as an outreach worker uh we uh we were part of a team so there was I think there was five of us on the team five case managers or four case managers in our in our team lead um so we were a small group and every day we would sit down at the beginning of the day and we would go over new applicants or new people who were possible clients of ours and we had eligibility eligibility criteria and things like that we were serving people who were the hardest to serve they were they had to be unsheltered and they had to have a severe and persistent mental illness. But we still got to decide who came into the program. So we would sit down every day we'd have a staff meeting basically at the beginning of the day and anybody who had come in the day before who had come in to you know try to get into our program we would do kind of a screening sheet with them and then whoever had screened them would present them to the group and say here's who I have should we take them in or should we not? Well so we had five people on the team so uh two of our staff members were I would say highly unusual I guess we had one staff member who wanted everybody to get in said yes to every single person that got screened. And then we had one staff member who said no to every single person that got screened. And so and it was the weirdest thing because they had a great relationship they loved each other. They were fantastic but we would have these just knockdown dragots about who should get in and who shouldn't and they would make their cases and you know the rest of us uh the other three of us would sit and we would listen and we would you know try to make a real real rational decision. Well one day after a meeting uh a pretty you know heated meeting I went over to the to the gentleman who always said no to everybody and asked him a question I said why do you always deny every single person I said obviously some of these people are eligible to get in and of course they did get in I said but why do you deny every single person? And he said this and this is really poignant he said to me he said you know what Carl he said it's because I don't want people to be in our system he said when you get in our system you get stigmatized you get labeled and you all of a sudden become a different person when you will become uh one of our program residents or one of our program clients and he said I don't want people to have to go through that if they don't have to and here's the thing about it is he said I will try every other option for people before they come to us because we are the option of last resort. And and it was poignant to me because I had never thought about it that way but it was true when people became clients of ours it changed who they were they were no longer Bob Jones or whoever now they were Link or at the yeah at the time it was Link or Quest client. And it completely changed you know how people might see them from the outside. And so he and and the the beautiful thing about what he was saying is that he saw them as human beings and he saw them as people who deserve not to be labeled who deserve not to be stigmatized who deserve not to have to go through our system. So he was trying everything and let me tell you he had a list he had a huge book of resources available to people other than ours and he would always make the case no let's send them here first let's send them to this other program that does is not as severe as our program because he was trying to keep them out from from reaching that level and basically saying look you're on the bottom of the of the of the totem pole you know I want to keep you at a higher level I want to keep you with some dignity I want to keep you with all these other because once you come in here we have to treat you as a client and and you're gonna be stigmatized.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Stigmatized exactly yeah and I think that's that's this quote is saying that is looking at everyone as a human being that's right everybody's worthy of a home everybody is you know in this but again when you see people I I think that's what we try to do at this podcast is educate people like we've been trying to do all these episodes is when you see someone on the street they're a person regardless of the situation they're in they're a person and they're going through something and they need help.

SPEAKER_04 37:13

That's exactly help and you know so I guess but it was really about prevention. I mean more than anything he was trying to prevent people from going into the from having to use a service that he knew was their last resort. He's like look if everything else fails then let them come to us but I want to try everything else you exhausted all the other options I've exhausted all the other options exactly and it was really it was really poignant to me to to look at it that way.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Yeah you know kind of saw it in a different light the way things all right and that concludes our halftime please stay with us after this short message.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Hello I'm Gigi Ramirez the Senior Director of Fundraising and engagement here at Pathlight Home. For over 30 years we've helped more than 8,000 people transition from homelessness to hope but when someone moves from the streets to their own home they often have nothing. That's why we provide immediate essentials everything from bedding and food to soap and cookware to help them truly feel at home. Beyond housing PathLite offers career training and supportive services like our 12-week culinary program helping residents gain skills find jobs and rebuild independence you can be part of the story volunteer your time donate essential goods or become a monthly Pathlight ensuring every neighbor has a chance to thrive visit pathlighthome.org to donate today it's now time to kick off the third quarter by highlighting the goodwill and good works in the NFL community and looking at how our local football teams fared and announcing our NFL home team locks of the week.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

So our NFL player spotlight of the week goes to Washington Commanders veteran quarterback Marcus Mariota. He continues to lead both on and off the field known for offering guidance and motivation to his teammates Mariota also gives back to his home state of Hawaii through community outreach. For the seventh consecutive year Mariota's Motive 8 that's with an 8 foundation partnered with Ruby Tuesday Hawaii for their 11th annual giving thanks event according to KHON2 held earlier this week the event brings an early Thanksgiving celebration to those in need across the islands Ruby Tuesday staff at two Hawaii locations prepared 800 pounds of turkey in traditional Thanksgiving sides like stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn. The meals were then delivered to local organizations including IHS, River of Life, Surfing the Nations, Wanay, Boat Harbor, and the Veterans Center. The Washington Veterans Motivate Foundation plays a key role in supporting Hawaii communities year-round it provides educational opportunities including building computer labs in underserved schools and supports student athletes through programs like GPA showcase which helps high school student athletes earn college scholarships. The foundation also distributes food and supplies to families in need and has provided meals to frontline workers and homeless shelters. Mariota who recently re-signed with the commanders on a one-year deal continues to use his platform to give back. Through initiatives like giving thanks he brings hope and nourishment to those who need it most helping bring comfort and care to those in need.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

800 pounds of tope 800 pounds giving back to where he came from yes giving back to where he came from absolutely I think now that we're in the holiday season we're gonna see a lot more players not that they don't give throughout the year but now you'll see a ramp up on you know meals and and we talked about this before it's hard on people when they don't have a place to stay and they don't have their family to be around for the holidays.

SPEAKER_04 41:23

I mean obviously this is a time when you usually get together with your families right you spend time at your home you know you have a nice home cooked meal all of those different things. And so if you don't have that available this can be a really you know depressing time for people to be able to go through in that kind of situation.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

So he's doing great great work.

SPEAKER_04 41:44

Absolutely and now we're on to the fantasy football player pick of the week here we go Danny let's see what the I'm up I'm down I heard a little bit yesterday so last week I picked Derrick Henry running back for the Baltimore Ravens. Baltimore is playing at Cleveland he was expected to get 12 points and the Yeti got me 17 points. How about that? Danny is very good yes he's back he's back finally when the snow falls Derek Henry runs that's the way it works said it last week absolutely this week I'm choosing uh one of my own Colston Loveland a tight end for Chicago uh Pittsburgh is playing at Chicago and they have Colston Loveland I don't understand this they have Colston Loveland expected to get four points four points is pathetic Danny if he doesn't score more than four points I I might have to quit we might have to do we're gonna eliminate the segment completely can't score four points or more come on now I mean that's ridiculous next week's gonna be no he's he can do more than four points um so my fantasy flashback this week takes us back to week 12 of 2007 Adrian Peterson Adrian Peterson running back for the Minnesota Vikings he rushed for 296 yards against the San Diego Chargers setting the single game NFL rushing record which still stands today 296 yards in a game rushing did they win that game they did win the game okay just want to make sure all that rushing then you don't win the game they did win the game absolutely 296 yards that's just wow that's unheard of I mean 200 yards how many touchdowns did he score do you know I don't know uh no it didn't say a couple but he had to uh he might not have I mean just a good running just running just running a lot yeah absolutely but uh yeah two hundred and ninety six yards that's just wow um all right and now we're on to our local football teams to watch okay here we go here we go all right uh so my Jones high school Jones Played Deltona. We won 35 to 13. Very good. Our record now is nine and two. In Florida, we're ranked number 32. In Orlando, we're ranked number five. Next week, we got a got a tough game next week. Of course, this is a playoff, so we expect this. Yes. Um, Jones is playing versus Vanguard, who is also nine and two. So should be a pretty good game, but uh I think Jones can get it done. It's playoff time.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

All right. Well, Boone High School played uh Winnipark, and we did win that game. I forgot to score here, but we did win that game. Uh we are 10-1. Nice. Florida, we're at uh 51 and Orlando 10. Okay. Um next week we got a really hard game. Yeah. We're gonna play the land, um, who is 11-0.

SPEAKER_04 44:44

11-0. So that's gonna be a really hard game. 10-1 versus 11-0. You know it's a playoffs.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

You know it's a playoffs. Yes, exactly. Yeah, so more of these 0-7. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, so it's it's gonna be it should be a good game. So they're both on the same day, 11-21.

SPEAKER_04 44:59

Yeah, absolutely. So should be very good. Uh, now we'll go on to our NFL locks of the week. Uh and last week, as my home team, I predicted Buffalo would beat Tampa Bay. That was a good game shootout. Uh, you know, uh 44 to 32, Buffalo came through. So that puts me at five and six.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Yeah, you're getting there. All right. Good too. All right. Uh I had the commanders against the Dolphins. Uh, and the Dolphins won 16 to 13. So my record call is a 7-4.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

Now hold on. I want to dispute this one. I'm throwing a red flag or a yellow flag on this one. Yeah. They weren't actually at home, you do realize, right? This game was played in Spain. That's not home game. Come on. I'm just saying they were the home, they were designated the home team. Somebody's gonna be able to do that. They were not at home. They were not at home. Okay. So I'm just I'm just gonna keep it going. I'm just saying we should call that 7-3-1. You get it. I think that's what we should do. Because they weren't at home. They weren't at home. All right, let's move on. You gotta you gotta check your numbers. Uh this week, uh, I am taking the Los Angeles Rams, who are hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So you're going against Tampa. Tampa Bay, yeah, going against Tampa again, second week in a row. So we'll see. Uh LA needs this win.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yep. So I have the Falcons against the Saints. They will be playing in New Orleans.

SPEAKER_04 46:28

Will just so you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Not in Spain again.

SPEAKER_04 46:31

Thank goodness. So, anyway, so that should be a good game.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

We shouldn't get a tie out of this, okay?

SPEAKER_01 46:36

We'll see. I'm keeping my seven and four. So, all right, let's let's move on. So uh stay tuned uh for our wrap-up after this message. That's so grimy.

SPEAKER_04 46:48

Hello everyone. I'm Carl Falconer, the president and CEO of Pathlight Home. And I'm often asked by many in the community, what can I do to help end homelessness? I would like to invite you to join Pathlight Home's efforts. PathLite Home is a 501c3 nonprofit organization in Central Florida. We currently have 560 units of housing that we provide to individuals experiencing homelessness. But we also provide additional support through employment resource centers and mental health services. We have a drop-in day center where people can come in from the heat, do laundry, get meals, all in preparation to get them into housing eventually and off the streets. Community involvement is key to the success of our efforts, and we love when community members want to get involved with Pathlight Home. There are three things we invite you to do to help. Number one, consider supporting us with funding. No donation is too small, and every dollar has an impact on our community. You can go to pathlighthome.org and click our donate button to contribute anytime. Number two is volunteering. We love to have volunteers come in and help us with any of our projects. We have ongoing projects and needs, but are also open to individuals and groups sharing specific talents in ways that build up our residence. Number three is take a tour with us. Come here to our facility and see what we do for yourself. It's the best way to get an inside look at what we're doing at Pathlight Home each day. We think it's important to understand the work it takes to fight homelessness and love the opportunity to meet community members who are passionate about the issue. We love our Central Florida community and are grateful every day for the continued support. And again, to get involved, go to pathlethome.org. Thank you. Welcome to the fourth quarter where we will wind down this episode by reflecting on a homelessness MVP and no fumble this week, actually, before wrapping up with our key takeaway.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

All right. So let's start with our MVP of the week. Uh the Detroit Lion players and staff joined others in the community to win to put in a win for Thanksgiving meals for those in need. On Tuesday, November 11th, players and staff joined volunteers for the Meyer and the Lineage Foundation for Good and Packing Thanksgiving meal kits at Gleaners Community Bank in Taylor. Volunteers packed canned and dry goods into 3,000 Thanksgiving meal kits. That's a lot. That's a lot. Well, look at this. These meal kits are part of the Lions plan for 10,000 kits, double from last year. Part of what made the meal kits possible is donations from the Detroit Lion partners. For years, the Lions have done Thanksgiving Meal initiatives to help those in need. This is the second annual uh partnership with Grand Rapids-based grocer for Meyer, and the third with Gleaners. As they did last year, Meyer, the exclusive grocery partner for the Lions, is donating all proceeds from this year's Raise the Roar Lions flag sales to the Detroit Lions Foundation with proceeds tackling food insecurity. The Meal Kit Packing Initiative began a month ago and included Detroit Lions partners AAA, the Auto Club Group, ACG, Delta Airlines, and Jiffy Mix, the Lineage Foundation for Good, and Modern Woodmen of America. Angela Havelson, Director of Community Giving for Gleaners Community Food Bank, said packing these meal kits on Tuesday represents a community coming together to help neighbors who might be food insecure this time of year. The time is important because Thanksgiving is in a couple of short weeks from now, and we want to make sure that many in Southern Michigan are going to sit down to a warm meal that they can count on for the Thanksgiving dinner.

SPEAKER_04 50:41

And we didn't really talk about this in our prevention uh discussion, but this is a form of de of prevention. Prevention, yeah. Is being able to provide other things, other support. Well, it in it doesn't necessarily always have to be just money. I mean, being able to provide food so people don't have to spend money on that food and being able to provide other services to people really it's kind of like our food pantry here, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:07

At all locations is we give that little extra help when someone you know is short on cash. Well that we have food for them as well. So um, as Carl mentioned earlier, uh we have no fumble of the week, so that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_04 51:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Um and now we are finally and finally, uh, here's our key takeaway for this episode. So we must continue to work further and further upstream to prevent homelessness before it happens. If we don't resolve systemic issues that are causing homelessness, then no amount of prevention or service dollars are going to reduce it.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

Yeah, we talked about this in offense versus defense is the systemic issues are where we've got to get to. We've got to get to more affordable housing, we've got to get to higher wages for people or livable wages for people. We I mean we've got to get to the point where it's not even an issue for people to become homeless. They have to have enough to sustain themselves. Yep. So that concludes our episode for the week. Remember, if you have any questions or comments for us, please email us at questions at pathlighthome.org. As always, we leave the last words for our beloved co-founder, the late Reverend Fred Maxwell. Take it away.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

I'm still dreaming. I'm still dreaming. That we will become uh able and sufficient to increase uh the housing of homeless. This is merely a beginning.