9. What is Harm Reduction?

In this Halloween-themed episode of the HOME Team Podcast, Carl and Danny kick off with a fun weekend recap—costumes, golf, and pumpkins—before diving deep into a powerful and sometimes misunderstood topic: harm reduction.

Through four engaging quarters, they unpack what harm reduction really means, explore its benefits and challenges in the homeless services field, and reflect on how this approach is already embedded in everyday life—from seatbelts to brushing your teeth.

They tackle common fears and misconceptions, offer real-world examples from housing programs, and share thoughtful perspectives on how compassion and flexibility can open doors to recovery, stability, and hope.

Also in this episode:

• NFL locks and fantasy picks
• A haunted house story (with a twist!)
• A homeless veteran turned artist
• Acts of kindness from NFL players
• Listener questions on healthcare partnerships and eviction impacts

A reminder: Fear should never drive how we treat people experiencing homelessness.

As always, you’ll laugh, you’ll learn, and you’ll leave with a deeper understanding of what it means to serve—and be served—with dignity.

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_01 0:04

Welcome to the Home Team Podcast. I'm Carl Falcon and Daniel Lynn, and we're tackling homelessness.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

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

SPEAKER_02 0:39

It was good. It was good. I did the uh Evergreen Pumpkin Run 5K in Jacksonville, Florida. So it's a it's a run that they do every year right around Halloween, and it's actually through a cemetery, the Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville. It's it's pretty cool. It's there's a lot of people there, costumes and everything like that. I dressed up as Mario of the Mario brothers. Very good. And my best friend dressed up as Luigi. So we were out there, you know, uh getting some calls and stuff like that. How about you? How was your weekend?

SPEAKER_04 1:10

Um it's a blur what I did. I don't remember. Uh well, my wife went to Tampa to go golfing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

I know with her job. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

I didn't realize she was a golfer. She's not, she just went.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

So uh yeah, she did other stuff. Okay. Uh so I just stayed home with the with the dogs and just hung out, and that's it. It was a quiet weekend at home.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

So well, hey, yeah, it quiet weekends are good. There's no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

So I'm going golfing. I was like, oh, okay, that's new. So yeah, so that's my weekend.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

All right. Well, great. Uh we'll start it off with uh coin toss as we always do. Um, Danny, go ahead and call it in the air.

SPEAKER_04 1:47

Uh we'll do tails.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

It is heads, so I will start us off. Uh, 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 home team, Locks of the Week. So, our topic this week is harm reduction. Harm reduction is a comprehensive, evidence-based public health and social care approach that acknowledges that some individuals may continue to engage in behaviors such as substance use despite potential risks. Rather than demanding abstinence or behavioral change as a precondition for support, harm reduction seeks to minimize the negative physical, mental, social, and legal consequences associated with those behaviors. It's grounded in human rights, dignity, and autonomy, emphasizing compassion over punishment and collaboration over coercion. Harm reduction recognizes that risks are shaped not only by personal choices, but also structural features such as housing instability, trauma, poverty, stigma, discrimination, and criminalization. Effective harm reduction, therefore, focuses on both immediate safety, reducing overdoses, disease transmission, violence, and any other harms, and on building long-term well-being through trusting relationships, accessible services, and self-directed goals. Harm reduction is flexible and person-centered. It supports any positive change, whether that means safer use, reduced use, or abstinence, depending on what the individual chooses. I don't know about you, Danny, but I don't have a lot of personal experience with harm reduction. I think there are some programs that have been in that, and I'll talk about one of these later on, that I think are harm reduction, and I think it's kind of what we're trying to do, particularly with housing people, is really reducing the harm.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

So yeah, I I haven't had a lot of experience. I think this is a touchy um subject for some because you're pretty much telling them, sure, go ahead and use. Sure, go ahead and sometimes, you know. Um, so it's it's it's tricky. I've I worked somewhere and I think I told you the story yesterday with it was during COVID and we were discussing how to allow people to stay in where we were and not have to go out and be exposed to the disease. And some of the things that they were coming up with was similar to this, but it was very confusing to to staff and allowing it just because we wanted a you know, when you work in a certain environment where there's a lot of people, you want to make sure that it's although it's a low barrier, you want to control it and manage it and make sure that there's not chaos or organized chaos as we call it.

SPEAKER_05 4:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

So it was something that we we looked at and said, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense, but um it was it was different. But I haven't worked anywhere with this where we actually done this. Um but as me and you discussed it yesterday and kind of you told us a little story about it later. Um, it was very interesting how it can work right if it's done right, you know, if it's done the the right way. Um so it's yeah, it's I don't think a lot of people talk about it as much as they should.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

No, they don't. And I I think I think because when most people in our industry in the homeless service system really think about harm reduction, they always go to the substance abuse harm reduction. But there are multiple things, multiple ways you can do harm reduction. In fact, uh the most uh the most used harm reduction model for our society is seatbelts. Seat belts.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Seat belts are a method of harm reduction. It does not keep you from getting in a car crash. It may not keep you from getting hurt, but it's supposed to help alleviate or keep you from getting killed um in a car crash. Another one is brushing your teeth. You know, brushing your teeth doesn't necessarily mean that you're not gonna get cavities, it doesn't mean that you're not gonna have bad teeth, but it's meant to help you try to avoid that. It reduces it. It reduces the harm that can come to the possibility of your teeth going bad. So uh we have harm reduction models all throughout our society and all throughout our life, we'll see harm reduction models. But I think the problem is when you just immediately jump to you know, substance abusers uh and harm reduction with substance abusers, uh, it's a disservice to harm reduction. Because, like I said, I think we've been, you and I probably have been involved in some harm reduction models. The problem is we didn't call it harm reduction because most people just think of that with substance abuse. So but there are a lot of ways to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

Yeah, and we'll definitely address it going down to show. All right, uh, so now let's take a look at some of the headlines from the homeless world. Uh so this week, the announcement by the federal government that if the shutdown proceeds past November 1st, food stamp recipients will not receive their funding for the month. So let's just add on another issue with this federal law.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Another layer of confusion of you know, people missing out, things like that. And and for our for our residents and for the people who are living here, or the people who aren't, even the people on the streets, some of a lot of them qualify for these food stamps and are trying to get food uh through this means. And the fact that they would shut these off really now people have to start making those hard decisions about do I pay for my medications, do I pay for my rent, do I pay for food. Right. Because uh the only reason that they would be on food stamps is because right now they can't afford to buy all of those things with just the money that they have coming in. We talked about this before. A lot of our people have income. The problem is they don't have enough income to pay all of those basic needs for them. And food obviously has to be at the top of the list. I mean, if you can't get food, obviously you can't live.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Yeah, I think yeah, it's again just the not knowing it's scary. But I think for not just our residents, just in general, I mean, people who are relying on this to put food on the table every night for themselves, for their children, for their family in general, now is having to make that tough decision of do we want food tonight or do we want to pay our rent? Um, and and I'm glad that there is a lot of food banks and pantries like we have and places that people can go. So I think we might see an increase in that. Yeah. People going to get food outside somewhere else or going to their churches, or so I think as this goes on, and you know, we still don't know yet, things might change in the next couple of days. But as things go on, I think the community as a whole has to get together to figure out how to assist these people that are probably not going to be able to afford both rent and food and electricity and all the other stuff that comes with just living somewhere. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah, and and you brought up a good point though. The majority of the people who are on food stamps are probably children. I don't know what the statistics are, but there are a lot of families that are receiving food stamps and the and so for children to go hungry because you know the government is shut down and can't get their act together in terms of trying to you know pass a budget.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

And we've talked about you know NFL players giving back, and a lot of times they're giving back to schools and they're giving back to food pantries and all that food insecurity in in school. There's a lot of kids who are just going hungry. Um, you know, and now with these food stands possibly disappearing, it might get a little bit worse. So we'll we'll see what changes from this week to next week. I hope it I hope they get it back up.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

So I hope so too.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

Um all right, so let's see, uh Lord, how our cowboys and bears did this week. Jeez. Let's just get this over with.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I think every time you do the introduction to this, uh it's a bad week. It's a bad week.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

Yeah. So as of next week, I will not do this part anymore. We'll switch it up. All right. So my my cowboys uh played uh the Denver Broncos. Um again, Denver's a really good team.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

They really are.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

Um it was yeah, we we we lost uh 44 to 24, so it's yeah, with 3-4 in that darn one.

SPEAKER_05 9:50

That's it.

SPEAKER_04 9:50

Um, but yeah, it was next week we have the Cardinals at home, so hopefully we'll bounce back. But they're like they're up there. I don't know which team I'm gonna see every week. It's it's very weird.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Let's face it, your defense is terrible. It's bad. It's just really, really bad. Your offense looks really good. Yeah, the offense looks like that. And the and I think the reason they got beat by Denver is because Denver's defense is really good, and they really were able to shut down the Cowboys, at least some. I mean, Cowboys scored 24 points, which in a typical week would put you right in the game, but that defense is just our struggle all year.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

I know. All year. Our secondary's hurting, and it's just bad. So all right, your Bears.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Now let's go to the Bears. Uh, we didn't do any better. I called it, Danny. Um we'll get to our locks of the week next week. And I I told you I thought this was a trap game for us. And it was even more of a trap game because Lamar Jackson, I thought he was coming back. I knew Baltimore was getting several of their players back that were healthy. Um, but Lamar Jackson didn't even play. And they had to play against uh who was it? Tyler Huntley, I think. Yep. And uh uh anyway, the Ravens ended up winning 30 to 16 over my Bears. Again, it was our offense. And uh if if you could take our defense and we could take your offense, I think we'd have a great team. We'd have a Super Bowl team. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. So that makes my Bears four and three. Still not bad. Uh still not bad, still not bad. Um and next week we play at the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals talk about an up and down team, um, but I know they lost their best player, Trey Hendrick Hendrickson, um, on defense anyway, and that's gonna make it really tough for them. If uh hopefully my Bears defense can get us ahead, and our offense can score a few points, get us ahead, and then I think we'll we'll be on a road to to getting a win.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

Let's hope this is my last week. My last week of talking about this.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Let's see what happens next week. We'll see, exactly. All right, well, that wraps up the first quarter. We will be back after this break.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Hey, this is Gigi Ramirez, Senior Director of Fundraising. As you know, homelessness affects us all. Our neighbors, our businesses, our community. Join Pathlight Home on November 6th for a place at the table at the Citrus Club. Together, we can create pathways to housing and hope. Get your tickets today at pathlighthome.org or contact us at 407-462-7286. Again, that's four zero seven four six seven two eight six or email at G Ramirez at PathlightHome.org.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

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 statement that we're discussing this week is should we have more harm reduction programs in the homeless service system? Please remember that we're trying to show both sides of the issue. These do not necessarily reflect our individual stances on these positions. I will say, though, after we get done and we have a conversation, you'll pretty much know where we stand.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Um, anyway. Uh so I'm taking the pro this week. I'm taking uh should we have more harm reduction programs in the homeless service systems? I'm saying yes, and here are some of the reasons why. Uh health and safety benefits, uh harm reduction models have proven to reduce things like infectious disease, spreading in our community, provide preventative health care to people, and reduce overdoses. Some examples of health and safety, uh clean needle exchange programs, COVID-19 quarantines, quarantines are uh in fact, uh, or were a health and safety benefit of harm reduction, and also brushing your teeth, um, harm reduction. We talked about that just a few minutes ago. Um, social and behavioral benefits. It allows people to seek and get help with less judgment, more empowerment, and the opportunity for positive change. Instead of an all-or-nothing approach, it allows for incremental changes towards wellness. Things like halfway houses are a good example in our field, and things like cheat days when you're on a diet are an example of harm reduction in our everyday lives. Uh, integration and cost effectiveness is the next one. It works well within other long-term programs, such as permanent supportive housing, medical respite programs, outpatient substance abuse programs. These make the other programs more effective and can help lower costs and time in the program. Harm reduction can also help with end-of-life programs to ensure people die with dignity and less suffering. Uh, examples of this might be hospice, methadone programs, or seatbelts, uh, as we mentioned previously.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

All right, so my cons or defends are misunderstanding and stigma. Some believe it enables substance use or slowly or slows recovery, requires education and culture shift to gain community support. Inconsistent implementation. Uh some programs lack full wraparound supports. Poorly designed policies can reduce effectiveness and staff safety. Resource demands, staff training, appropriate space, healthcare access, and supplies cost money. Underfunded programs may struggle to meet high needs. And then community pushback. Neighbors may oppose harm reduction housing or services. Not in my backyard, right? Yeah. Uh we hear that a lot in almost every conversation we have in these shows. Uh, fear and misinformation can disrupt program sustainability. And then it requires long-term commitment. Benefits grow over time, which can frustrate funders seeking quick results. So those are pros and our cons.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Okay. Um, so I'll talk first about your cons and um some of the ideas here and some of this. Um, we forgot to mention at the beginning of the show, Danny, that this is our Halloween special show. So we're talking about fear, we're talking about spooky things in the homeless service system.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

Um my fear is every Sunday. There you go. Pretty much watching my team.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

The Cowboys defense. That's when the Cowboys go on defense, that's when it's when Chicago goes on offense. That's when I start panicking. It gets very uh scary then. But harm reduction is one of those really scary things um in our field, as you mentioned before. And I think some of those things that you mentioned in the cons of it is misunderstanding, is people not understanding what the what the goals of harm reduction are or what harm reduction really is. Um the resource demands, obviously, we talk about that almost every single episode that we have, is that there are not enough resources out there. And unfortunately, with things like harm reduction programs, if you're not doing them correctly and you don't have them staffed and resourced correctly, they can turn really, really bad. You can turn something that's really good into something really bad. It would be akin to uh I'm gonna go back to the diet again, right? Is the only options that you have to eat are fast food. Well, if the only options you have to eat are fast food, you know very well the diet is gonna be very, very hampered in trying to lose weight that way. If that's all if that's all you have available to you is fast food. So I think those are good cons in terms of I I think those are realistic things and community pushback, obviously, fear and misinformation. There's a lot of misinformation out there, which is obviously one of the reasons why we even started this podcast is to try to educate people and help people get real information from people who have been really working in this system and doing these things.

SPEAKER_04 17:58

Yeah, get people away from that stigma and the misunderstanding of you know what we do and the people we serve and try to understand it. But I mean on your side, just the the I like the one about um allows people to seek and get help without with less judgment. I think a lot of people sometimes don't want the help because of that. Because they're gonna be judged or they're gonna be seen differently, or but it I love the empowerment and all that, but I agree with you with the um health and safety benefits, you know, clean needle exchange, that's a big one for people that are using, you know, and the spread of just all these different diseases. And then, like I said earlier about the COVID-19, that was a big shift at where I was. We had to adjust to uh the people we serve because it was a big and just putting them, uh isolating them and taking them away from everyone else.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

It's so it's yeah, it's it's it it it's very hard to do that when there's so many people around and trying to figure out, but well, I think I think one of the things that COVID showed us, and again, we already knew this, and and it was interesting because when I was I was uh working obviously in the homeless service system during COVID, and people kept asking me from the outside, how is COVID changing your processes, and how is COVID changing your policies? And what I said is, well, in most cases, we already have a lot of policies and programs and processes in place for other kinds of diseases that are similar to this tuberculosis, um, flu, um, even the common cold. A lot of the programs that I have been over in my career have already are already dealing with those things. And we deal with those things day to day. Bed bugs is another bug. You know, a huge one, especially in shelters and things like that. So I think we do a lot of the harm reduction already. And so when COVID-19 came around, it was like, okay, so we have to move the beds a little bit further apart. But the reality is we still want people washing their hands, we still want people not coughing on each other, we still want people, you know, safe and keeping a distance from each other, particularly when they're sick. I mean, all of those things, we kind of already had those things in place. And I think that's one of the things that people don't realize about the homeless service system is that we're dealing with a lot of really big, sometimes scary issues that we have to deal with on a regular basis. But we figured out how to do that. We figured out how to how to quarantine people who are sick, how to get them away from other people who are not sick, how to make sure that that stuff that things stay clean, how you know, all those different things. We do a lot of these things already.

SPEAKER_04 20:39

Yeah, and COVID only to do was just educate ourselves more into figuring out how to because you know, this just blew up and we had to figure out all these other different ways of addressing what we were already addressing just on a bigger scale, I guess, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

So it's well, I think the bigger issue for us during COVID, uh, the homeless service system was the fact that the entire community shut down. And now our people couldn't be outside and they couldn't be, you know, walking around, they couldn't be inside, they couldn't go to stores, they couldn't work anymore. I know that was a huge thing for our people because a lot of our people had either part-time jobs or minimum wage jobs in most of the restaurants, everything closed, and that really put a uh hurt on our individual.

SPEAKER_04 21:22

I I think with harm reduction and and programs, I would love to see what's out there and how these programs are actually successful and get data out of it because I think that'll give us a good idea of how you know what what's working, what's not working, you know, the different ways that they're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

And what I've seen is is if they have the resources, if they have the right staffing, usually these programs really are effective. Because you think about it, nobody wants to be told what to do.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

And nobody wants to be told that you have an all or nothing on anything that you do, right? Again, I'll go back to that diet, you know, and you and I at certain times during our lives. Had to be on diets for numerous reasons, whether it's health reasons or trying to lose weight, which is, I guess, a health reason still.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Um, and we don't want to be told you can't eat this, you can't eat that, you can't eat anything like that. What we want to do is we want to have some flexibility there and we want to have some control over that.

SPEAKER_04 22:18

If I want a Twinkie, let me eat a Twinkie. Let you eat a Twinkie.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

You know then that you're not going to be able to eat a big T-bone steak after that.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

But it's your cheap day.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

You know, it's your cheat day, exactly. And that's harm reduction. Um, Pathite Homes position. Uh, we believe that making sure people are housed is the best harm reduction model. Our housing with supports has been so effective that we really honestly haven't pursued a lot of other harm reduction models, right? I mean, it's mostly housing and those supportive services that go around it. I think the big thing with us in terms of harm reduction is that we're flexible with people, is that we understand, look, you know, you may not be able to pay all of your rent one month. We'll help you out, we'll help subsidize, we'll try and get you to the next month and help you through that.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

All right, 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. So let's start by hearing from our listeners. So the first question comes from Heather. Uh, what relationships do you have with local health care to help people with medical needs?

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Oh, this is a really good one. Um and and to all the homeless service providers who are listening out there, if you don't have a relationship with a healthcare provider, you're really missing out. You you really need to have a relationship with healthcare providers because they are so essential to everybody that we're serving. We have a great relationship with uh start with Orange Blossom Family Health.

SPEAKER_04 23:47

We do.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Um we actually started kind of a medical respite program, which is one of the things that I talked about, it's kind of harm reduction, where they take people who are who have medical conditions and medical issues, and they're able to use some of our units that we have of housing and help them transition to longer term housing from there. But they but they can get them in quickly, they can get them off of the streets, they can get them out of the hospitals, which costs so much money for people to be there. Um, and basically it's kind of a step-down model between the hospital and them going into the housing on their own, is that that kind of gap that it fills out.

SPEAKER_04 24:23

And see, these are some of the people that don't qualify for shelter and kind of we stepped in and said, well, let's work together, see how we can move people in, and then hopefully get them into either one of our units or get whatever other needs they might have outside of here.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:37

Um, whether it's you know permanent care somewhere else or just another housing, and it's worked very, very well. Um they've moved a lot of people in our units and then out somewhere. So it's worked very, very well.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Yeah, and we have other relationships. Um, I know we've we've started a relationship with uh college and it's uh totally Canyon University. Canyon University, Grand Canyon University, that's right. We started a relationship with them. They have a medical program or they're going to be sending interns to us. We have a community wellness program or wellness center, sorry, that we're uh rehabbing right now. And once that comes online, we're hoping we'll have a whole bunch of different provider, medical providers come in and be able to provide uh medical services on site. And most of those are prevention, honestly, is really what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_04 25:24

And we work with Aspire as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Aspire, that's many, many years.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

And we have multiple units here with them as well. Absolutely. So, yeah, we work with a lot of healthcare agencies. So if there's anyone listening and wants to partner with us, give us a call. Absolutely. We're more than happy to. Again, it's helping our residents, you know, with everything that they might need that's health related, and you know, yeah, either coming here because they visit us here and they'll bring a mobile unit, all these different I'm hoping health is another one.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

And they bring more medical units out, and we get all these different services, whether it's HEP A, HIV testing, I mean, there's so many different and it makes the residents uh easy access for them to just have them here. So all right, uh perfect. So next uh question comes from Haggio. If someone with addiction or mental illness is asked to leave their housing, whether due to relapse, behavioral issues, or other challenges, does that affect the future housing placement for other with similar conditions?

SPEAKER_02 26:18

This one, uh it depends. This is a depends, it depends uh answer. And the reason is is because it really depends on the kind of program that they're in, or if they're not in a program. So uh as we've mentioned before in other shows, we have two types of units or housing units that we provide here. One are mark what we call our market units, and I'm using my air quotes because the rent is way lower than what the market is, um, but they don't have uh case managers assigned to them. We have case managers available, but they don't have them assigned and they're not part of a program. So if they're asked to leave, if for whatever reason they break the rules or whatever the case is of their lease and they're asked to leave, we try to find them other places to go and and places to be, but it can affect their housing placement, their future housing placement. And the reason is because landlords look at those things. They look at evictions, they look at how long you stayed at the last place, what your rent history was. I mean, they look at all of those kinds of things. So it does make it harder for people to get placed. Now, if they're in a program unit where they get they get a subsidy, they get a case manager, they get those types of things, then it should not affect the future placement because they're rolling with that case manager and that subsidy is the way it's supposed to work. So if in a program, they should be able to just transfer to another location, another unit, whatever the case is. If they're not in a program, that's where it gets a little more challenging, which is why we also encourage our market unit people to get a case manager with us. That's right, because case managers will help you.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

They'll help, they'll advocate, they'll figure out the options because again, the last thing we want to do when we evict someone or have someone have to leave our property is to go back out on the street. That defeats the purpose of what we're doing, right? But those market units, because we have so many, not everyone is case management, and some don't need it. Some don't need case management. Um, but for those that are struggling, whether it's the rent or any other issue like mental illness or the substance abuse, uh talking to someone here it's gonna help them. It's gonna figure out whether we have mental health counseling on campus. I mean, literally on campus, that they can get help. So um, but but yeah, I think it varies case by case, and there's some that we just you know it's hard to to narrow. But if we don't know what's happening, we can't address it. Absolutely and we can try to help them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Absolutely. Uh time to get inspired by our quote of the week. The quote of the week this week is fear is uh sorry, it comes to us from Terrence Lester, he's the founder of Love Beyond Walls. He's a speaker and an activist uh for the homeless service system. Uh his quote is fear is dangerous. It creates an environment in which it's acceptable to treat those experiencing poverty and homelessness with anger and hate. The first step to stopping this is to realize that this fear is unfounded and dangerous. It really is. It uh most of the people that we're working with honestly are scared. I mean, they're scared themselves. They're in a situation they never intended to be in and they never wanted to be in, and they're just trying to get out of that situation.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

Yeah, and it's them not knowing what's next, what's gonna happen tomorrow, what's you know, where they're gonna eat, right? Now we're talking about snap benefits and the people losing their snap benefits or where they're gonna get food next, where are they gonna sleep? You know, that's the biggest one. If they're being moved from where they're at, you know, what's the next step? So it's fear is dangerous, but it also is is about uh those that have fear of the population we serve, is again education, it's learning about them, it's learning how they are living, why they're living the way they're living. Absolutely, and and and trying to help with that. You know, I I think like next year our pit count is coming, which is you know the point in time count. I was told I have to say the words. The point in time count. But but I think that is a great way for someone who doesn't understand the community we serve to go out. That is a fantastic way to get it.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

That's how you learn that's how you learn. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

Because you actually have that one-on-one conversation, you'll get stories out of them. I think that those point in time counts, when you do those stories, people just want to talk to you and they'll tell you their story. They do, absolutely. So I think that'll take away the fear. So when you're out driving in a car and you see someone on the street, you know, panhandling or whatever, you can understand why. That's how you get a fear of it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

At least you get a flavor of it, and you realize that these are just human beings, these are just people there. So I have a story to add for this here. Um, so I was working with a fact team, um, a Florida, it's Florida Assertive Community Treatment Team. And the way that the Fact Team works is that it's a about a 12-person team and they serve a hundred people, so it's a really low uh staff to resident ratio. But these are people who have the most severe mental illnesses in our community, and in fact, most of them were homeless as well, but a lot of them were coming directly out of the state hospital, and so uh so obviously the people had severe mental illness, right? And so uh I got I I was working as a case manager, and we would go out and we would make visits to people living in the community. By the way, all of these people were living in the community, living right beside us, they were your neighbors, and most people didn't even realize that who was living there, who was there. So anyway, I got assigned to this one person to go out and visit this one person, and uh again, in the spirit of Halloween here, Danny, I'm gonna tell this story. So I drive up to the house and it's in a beautiful neighborhood. I mean, really like big mansion houses, beautiful, beautiful neighborhood. I drive up to this house, and it has one of these really, really long U driveways, right, in front of it where you drive up and you can drive all the way around and through. And so the yard, so the house is sitting, I don't know, it's probably 30 yards off of the street, right? It's it's way up there. It's an older house, and um, I start to drive up in the U driveway, and it realize it kind of looks like a castle, is what it kind of looks like. It's a huge house. And I'm driving up, and most of our people don't have a lot of income, so I'm trying to think to myself, now it is not in great shape. Don't don't get me wrong. It looks like the old Transylvania castle, right?

SPEAKER_05 32:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

And so I drive up there, I get to the I get to the door, and it's one of these wooden doors with the metal, the round metal knocker thing. And I'm thinking to myself, that okay, this is uh this is just too much here, right? So I knock with a metal knocker thing, and my the client who I'm serving comes to the door, and she's uh I think she's about 19 years old, really short, a little bit stocky. Um she opens up the door and you know says, Hey, how's it going? You know, real nice, real pleasant, all this good stuff, absolutely. And again, in the back of my mind, I've never met her before. I know that she has serious uh mental illness issues. I also know, though, most of the time she's on her medication and she's doing pretty well generally. And so she invites me in, which is common. I start walking in, and I swear to God, Danny, it was like a haunted house. I walked in and like the walls were not there, so you can see like the studs of the like you can see like into the walls, the studs of the walls and things. I walk in, there's there's stuff piled everywhere. I mean, and it's dark. It's really dark. I'm walking in this hallway with her, she's like, Yeah, let's go around here. My dad's over here. She lived with her dad. I walked in, and again, this house is huge.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

And she was your client. She was my client.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

She was the client. So I'm walking in, I turn the corner, and her father is sitting out there in the middle of this huge living room, just piles of things all around them. And it's like half of the house has has is going through like demolition or something. It's like every stuff is broken, the walls are broken, the I mean, it's just crazy. There's a television sitting in the middle of the room, and I walk in and she's got it paused. This is back in the day, Danny, so it's VCR, right? She's got it paused, and she's watching Saw. Oh, the movie. Apparently, she's a big horror movie fan. Oh. And so I walk in and I'm sitting with her. And again, in the back of my head, I'm thinking to myself, hold on. This woman was in the state hospital not long ago. She has severe mental illness, and she's watching horror flicks, where people are just dismembering people and doing all kinds of stuff there, whatever. And her dad's sitting there and he's reading a newspaper. And I go in and I sit down with her and she starts talking to me about this movie. And she's like, Oh, you want to see the part where they cut this person's arm off or whatever they're doing and all this stuff. And I was like, Well, you know, I'm trying to, you know, figure out. I'm trying, I said, you know, I want to talk to you about you. I want to talk to you about how it's going and, you know, how you're doing and everything like this. And she sat down and we had a great conversation. And I realized this is just all in my head. This is stuff in my head. The reason the house looked the way it was because they weren't, they weren't rich enough to be able to restore this old house. It was falling apart. I mean, it was literally just falling apart. And it was dark because they didn't have a lot of money for electricity and things like that. So they minimized what they where they used. I had like one bathroom that they used in the house. They used like one room in the house. And so they were minimizing everything because they didn't have money for things. And so when I left there, of course, you know, did that little shake with the shiver down your spine and stuff. Because, but I was thinking to myself, you know, this is a perfect example of how fear can just overwhelm you with things that you don't know. And after I started talking to her, she was the nicest person in the world. Her dad was great. I mean, we had great conversations. She was obviously on her medication. She had no problem, happy as can be. That's the thing. And she was watching these horror films and she was she was beside herself happy. She loved it. She was as sweet as can be.

SPEAKER_04 36:50

And I was just like, how many case managers would have drove up and said, Well, let me keep going over the video. That's what I was thinking to myself.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

I was thinking, okay, I think they set me up on this one. I was like, wow. But I was also thinking, man, this would be a great house for Halloween. I was thinking, man, trick-or-treaters come here. She could dress up and wow, it's like the salt capital. That would scare some people, definitely. But that was a that was a perfect example of just what we're talking about here. And again, the reason I bring that up is because fact, the Florida Assertive Community Treatment Team really is kind of a harm reduction model. Is these people had severe mental illnesses, and we had to go out and visit them sometimes three times a day to get them their medication. And they were still, they still had some psychosis. They still had some issues and some problems. But we weren't worried about that. We were worried about can you live? Can you survive? Are you okay? Are you making it? Sometimes they had to go back in the hospital for a little while, but most of the people were surviving out in the community and doing just fine as long as they had that assistance from us and they had that help. Housing first. That's right. Absolutely. Housing first.

SPEAKER_04 37:57

All right. And that concludes our halftime. Please stay with us after this short message.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

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. Pathlight 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.

SPEAKER_04 40:15

Looking at how our local football teams fared and announcing our NFL home team locks of the week. So our NFL player spotlight of the week is Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Rashad Bateman. He hosted his third annual Halloween party at the Ronald McDonald House Charities in Maryland on Monday, October 20th. So just recently he just did this. The event was filled with fun and surprises for families staying at the house, including trick-or-treating, arts and crafts, pumpkin decorating, and sweet treats. Bateman expressed his commitment to giving back, saying, being able to show the Ronald McDonald House that there is an athlete out there that cares about them more than football. He added, It's incredible. It's an honor to be in this position to be able to do this. I know the kids back where I'm from would appreciate it as well. It's cool to be able to do this and give back. Ahead of the celebration, children and families visited the Bateman Boutique to select Halloween costume purchased by Bateman himself. Guests had the opportunity to meet Bateman, Ravens cheerleaders Poe, and other Ravens players. The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maryland, the only one in the state, has been a home away from home for over 40,000 families since 1982, offering support to those seeking medical care for six Baltimore area hospitals.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

That's great. Giving back.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

Giving back right in the community.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

I saw Rashad baby catch a few passes against my bears this last weekend. I think that's why I put it in there. Yeah. Just to dig a little. Just to dig a little.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

Okay. Okay. I see you, Danny. No, again, it's it's that giving back. It's you know, and it's Halloween, and he's done it third three years in a row, which is fantastic. So I mean it's it's crazy how there is only one Ronald McDonald house in Maryland. It's a small state, but it is, but look how many people they've helped since 1918. That's a lot. So absolutely. All right. Uh we are going to look at my favorite part. My favorite part of this whole episode is fantasy football pick of the week.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

All right, here we go, Danny. All right, so I'm back to my losing ways as it is. Uh last week I chose Josh Jacobs, running back for the Green Bay. They were playing at Pittsburgh. He was expected to get 14 points. He ended up with 11 points. Almost just short. Just short. So at least it wasn't as bad as uh some of the picks that I've had in the past, but he didn't make it. This week, uh my pick is Josh Allen, quarterback for Buffalo.

SPEAKER_04 42:39

Buffalo.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Kansas City is going to Buffalo next week, and that should be a huge game. He's expected to get 20 points uh for fantasy football, and that's a big number. But Josh Allen puts up big numbers. Yeah. And I'm expecting against Kansas City, they're gonna have to score a lot of points, is what I'm expecting. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_04 42:57

I saw he's another player that I'm gonna try to see if I could find him, but there was a I think it was a video I saw of him of people that he's given back to just talking about him. Yeah, and the way he just broke down. It was so cool, but he gives back a lot of things. Oh, absolutely. And he's a great player, too.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:12

He's a really good player. So let's see if you hit those 20.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

There we go. We'll see. Um, the fantasy flashback this week comes from uh Carson Palmer, quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals at the time in 2004, way back in the day. On Halloween in week nine of 2004, he had 366 passing yards and three touchdowns against the Cleveland Browns. So he had a huge week, scary week for Cleveland, uh 366 passing yards, three touchdowns. So he had a great game. Yeah, if you had Carson Palmer in your lineup in fantasy football that week, you're a good chance that you won your week. Uh now on to our local football teams to watch. Uh, we'll start with my Jones High School, uh Jones uh score. 49 over Lake Region, zero. That's fantastic. They moved to 7-2 in Florida, they're number 20, and in Orlando now they're number three. Our next game is on the 30th, uh coming up. Uh Jones versus Akoe.

SPEAKER_04 44:16

So uh Boone High School, they won against Freedom. Not to push it, you know. They have to outdo Jones every week. 63 to nothing.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Um so we are nine and oh, so we still have not lost a game. Look at you rolling. I know. We are uh Florida, we're at number 40, and Orlando, we're at number eight. So we just keep on creeping up. So next week, uh this week, we play against Edgewater. So I think that's gonna be a pretty good game.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

That's gonna be at Edgewater. Because we had to play Edgewater, and I know Edgewater was one of the teams that beat us this game.

SPEAKER_04 44:52

That's gonna be a very good game. So and it's at Edgewater, so we'll see how that gets it. So yeah, I check in on Fridays as the game started at seven. Uh-huh. And it was like 740, and they were already up like 40 something thousand people. Oh my wow, this is insane. So we'll we'll see how Edgewater does against them.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

So that's great.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

All right, so now the lock of the week results. So call, you first.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

All right. So I did it. I picked against my Bears, uh, the Baltimore Ravens. I thought it would be a trap game, and sure enough, it ended up being a trap game. So Baltimore beat uh Chicago, just like I said they would. Danny.

SPEAKER_04 45:27

Yep. So I had the Packers against the Steelers. Unfortunately, Steelers lost. I really thought they were gonna win that game. Yeah, but they did not. So uh so right now. Yeah, it was a close one, yeah. So call is four and four. So at 500 right now. And I am five and three.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Ooh, one game at next week. Next week. Okay, next week. All right, so next week I have Washington, who is hosting Seattle coming to uh Washington. So hopefully uh Washington will get a win for me.

SPEAKER_04 45:59

And I have the Jaguars at Raiders, so I'm picking the Raiders for that. There you go, Las Vegas, all the way. See how that goes.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

There we go. We'll see. Uh stay tuned for a wrap-up after this message.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

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, Pathlight 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 hero, ensuring every neighbor has a chance to thrive. Visit pathlighthome.org to donate today.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

So, call, you have the homelessness MVP of the week.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

I do, uh, and we'll get started there. A few years ago, he might have found Deborah Gotto living in a tent in the woods near Blaine, Minnesota, or perhaps in the green near the Cathedral of St. Paul. She passed the time sketch drawing bridges with the general goal of documenting every major bridge in the Capitol City. Her five years of unsheltered homelessness offered her a unique vantage point, but not always a safe one. After a month in a battered women's shelter in Plymouth, Minnesota, an attorney working on her case directed her toward Catholic charity's Dorothy Day residence in downtown St. Paul. Gotto, who had once managed three Dollar Tree stores at a time, and before that, test fired a Patriot missile during her five years in the U.S. Army, Go Army, was able to secure a small efficiency apartment of her own in late 2019, a few floors above the large Dorothy Day cafeteria that serves the city's neediest residents. A housing voucher from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, Veterans Affairs Support of Housing covers all but $80 of her nominal monthly rent, getting her back on her feet while homeless. It's almost too scary to try to figure out on your own, Gato said, with the VA saying you don't have to pay rent. That was hard for me to wrap my head around. It's downtown St. Paul, and I'm a suburban girl. I was scared. One person told me that's where people go to die. I'm like, what? She now has her own small kitchen from which she's prepared a Thanksgiving meal for all the residents on her floor. That alone has been a small blessing compared to the meals she once ate on the fly while living in tents or on friends' sofas. Homelessness is the most expensive thing anybody could go through, Gotto said. We all get food stamps, but none of us have refrigerators. You have to go buy gas station food, you can eat right away. You can't put stuff away. At the Dorothy Day residence, Gotto took art therapy classes when they were offered and led some lessons of her own. I've learned a lot about myself, she said. You have people here who are here to help you or not, because all the services are voluntary. I don't have to go to my case manager, but you have to initiate that stuff. So that's a fantastic story. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 49:59

But it shows it shows how being on the street is so scary. Like so scary of not knowing what to do next. But then you have, you know, places like Catholic charities. That's right. The VA stepping in and helping as they should.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 50:13

Help, you know, an army vet. That's right. Um, and just finding all the different resources that are out there. And and she did that. She utilized all the different services, and and now she's back on her feet. So but as she says, she was scared, she doesn't know what to do next. You know, she didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

And here's the thing I'm sure when she was in the Army and when she was managing those Dollar Tree stores, she never even imagined that she would ever become homeless. And here she is, you know, out on the streets, scared to death, trying to figure out where to go, what to do. And just like she said, there's you gotta reach out to people. You gotta be able to trust our homeless service system, outreach workers, people that are out there to try and get you back on your feet and get you back to services. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:58

All right, so now our fumble of the week. So a few weeks ago, a man in the alley behind our house began screaming. Screaming is not unusual around us, unfortunately, but usually it comes and goes, less frequent than the airplanes, most frequent than the helicopters. One man walks around screaming all the time, long beard, bike. Sometimes he begs on the corner, sometimes he disappears for weeks, but he's always back and almost always screaming. This man, this wasn't him. We know him. This was deeper, closer and more disturbed. And it wasn't going away. It scared my daughter. I went back there uh with the flashlight and found the man. He was ensconced in the in a combination of blankets and garbage. He was ranting incoherently, unaware of me, even as I tried to get his attention. I finally yelled, hey, he turned and looked right at me. You're freaking people out. He snapped out of it. I'm so sorry. I know, I know, I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go. The way he snapped out of it turned my anger and fear immediately into pity and wonder. It was like he was two people. The one made mad, screaming at the cold, fueled by drugs, the trauma, and the one below the surface almost watching himself. It was cold. San Diego is more comfortable than most places to be homeless, but try sleeping in 45 degrees. It's bone-chilling cold. I couldn't do it. I couldn't last more than a night or two before, well, uh before I did the things that will probably lead to screaming. We are now entering the eighth year of the homeless crisis, counting back to 2017, when their deaths due to viral infection spread through lack of hygiene, uh, alarmed San Diego's leaders so much that they mobilized the government to address it. Now, almost years later, it's as bad as ever. We are numbed to so much of it. The suffering and poverty, the disorder and chaos, the screaming. It almost takes someone new, a visitor, to remind us to look at it. San Diego is a catastrophe. The city and county is completely broken. The way jurisdictions are bifurcated bifurcated, they don't work together, one resident said. The city is teeming with suffering, its infrastructure is crumbling, its cost of living living is extreme and escalating rapidly. People are leaving. The region's growth projections for the first time in decades show a peak and downturn, not because people don't want to be here, but because they can't afford it. Public school enrollment is down as well. So it just shows it just shows the mental health side of things. Absolutely. And and how this person has is just struggling. He's struggling out there, and the community knows him. They know who he is, they know about him, and they they wanted to know what was going on because it's not his normal self. But you know, California, right? San Diego, homelessness is is is huge. That's a huge problem. It's been for many, many years.

SPEAKER_02 53:37

So it sure has. And I think it it you brought up a good point earlier in the show, the point in time count. These are the kind of people that you get to meet and talk to at the point in time count. And just like here, whether they're, you know, acting erratically or screaming or doing whatever, if you can get to them, if you can have a conversation with them, if you can talk to them or get them to settle down and understand that you're not there to harm them, then most of the time you can actually have a conversation, you can try and get through to people. And again, during the point of time count, our our uh reason for doing it is to try to get information from these people. You know, how long have you been out here? What kind of services do you need? What can we help you with? Where, you know, what what more can we add to our system to really get you out of the situation that you're in? And it's valuable for people to go out and have conversations with people. I mean, again, you know, uh that point in time count can be so valuable. Again, I want to reiterate it at the end of January, is when we do it, we will definitely make sure on this podcast to get the word out about people volunteering for it. But we love to have community members out there because you get to understand what people are really going through rather than making up stuff in your mind about what you think people are going through.

SPEAKER_04 55:02

And this is a perfect example. Just when when she said that she spoke to him, yeah, people automatically think he's gonna get violent, right? He's gonna attack me or my child. And the first thing out of his mouth was, I'm sorry. Because he knows something's wrong. He needs the help for it. So yeah, it was just I just read the story and I thought it was really good. Just showing the the side of mental illness and how we can better educate and talk to the people that are out there and just get an understanding of what they're doing and then try to find some resources for them to so they can get the help they need so they can get off the street.

SPEAKER_02 55:31

Yeah, and then and another thing, and again, I hate to harp on this, but the point of time count is a safe place for the community to go out. We're not saying that every time that you approach somebody on the street that you're going to have a positive encounter. That's not what we're saying. What we are saying is these are human beings out there, though. And if you can approach them or you can approach them in a reasonable way or try to get their attention, what you'll find out is that they're scared, they're trying to get out of their situation, and they're trying to get help as well. And the point-in-time count is great because we have team leads, we have professionals who go out with every group that's out there, and we're trying to get people to interact with the people that are out on the street so that they can see what's really happening and understand that. And so they they take a different perspective back to their friends and families and neighbors and talk about hey, you know, not everybody out there is like this, like we think that they are. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 56:25

That's and I think that's what our reach team does fantastically here is that is building the relationships and getting people housed and building that trust and people knowing who we are, or seeing that person go out and say, hey, he helped me. Why doesn't he talk to you?

SPEAKER_02 56:38

And you know, and it's also another, it's also a great opportunity to volunteer at a local homeless service provider agency because you'll get to interact with people who were out on the streets and they'll tell you their stories. They'll tell you what happened with them or what was going on with them, and you'll actually get to see what they look like when they've moved through their crisis and they're doing it.

SPEAKER_04 56:58

I'm pretty sure down next year we'll do an episode on Pit Count and point in time. But I think that volunteering with just if you don't want to go out, bring your friend, bring your neighbor, bring in an office setting, bring all your co-workers and do that. So Orange County and the City of Orlando do that. They get a group of people and they've come to help us last year. So absolutely it's really, really good.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

So and finally, here's our key takeaway to this episode. We have the unfortunate opportunity to meet people at their lowest point, which for them can be very scary and overwhelming. But the people who work in this field are willing to work with anyone. And so, like that old show that used to go on many, many years ago, apparently fear is not a factor for us.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 57:40

And I think that's the biggest thing that people have to overcome if they decide they want to work in this industry, is they've got to realize they've got to leave all their pre preconceptions, their prejudgment, all that at the door. And they've got to start meeting people where they're at, and they've got to start talking to people as human beings. They're human beings first, and then everything beyond that is second.

SPEAKER_04 58:02

Second, yeah. And just have an open mind. Just that I mean, that's pretty much it. Have an open mind. When we got into this field, right, we were probably apprehensive to talk to someone. We were scared to go out there and speak to someone and someone who was struggling with mental illness. We're like, how do I even address this? And now it's like, it's just a person. Yeah, it's just a person. Let's let's chat, let's see what's going on, you know. So all right, so that concludes our episode for the week. Remember, if you have any questions or comments for us, email us at questions at pathlighthome.org. And as always, we leave the last words for our beloved co-founder, the late Reverend Fred Maxwell. I'm still dreaming.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

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