7. What is a Comprehensive Day or Drop-In Center?

This week, Pathlight HOME’s Carl Falconer and Danny Arroyo dive into the role of day and drop-in centers in ending homelessness — and how football lessons apply along the way.
Carl defines what day and drop-in centers are — safe, low-barrier spaces that meet immediate needs like food, showers, laundry, and case management while connecting people to housing and stability. Danny highlights Pathlight HOME’s own Pathways Drop-In Center, which has already helped residents move from crisis to housing.
Carl argues that day centers open the “front door” to housing by building trust and providing vital services. Danny counters that they can fall short when not connected to housing programs, leading to overcrowding and dependency. Together, they conclude that the most effective centers act as bridges, not endpoints — linking outreach directly to housing pathways.
Listener question: How does Pathlight HOME make residents feel at home?
Danny and Carl share that true community comes from connection — events like Bingo Nights, Thanksgiving dinners, resident councils, and volunteers from the wider community help residents create a place they can truly call home.
Day centers are crucial for re-engaging people who may be hesitant to seek help — but they must always lead back to housing and long-term stability.

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_03 0:04

Welcome to the Home Team Podcast. I'm Carl Falconer and I'm Danny Arroyo. And we're tackling homelessness. 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 day or drop-in centers. We have a little bit of experience with that, right, Danny? And we'll get into that in a minute. Alright, let's go ahead and start as we always do with our coin toss. Um, Danny, I'm gonna go ahead and flip it. You call it. Tails. It is heads, so I will lead us off this time. Great, fantastic. Well, welcome to our first quarter, and I'm gonna kick off by defining our topic of the week, and then we'll cover some headlines from both homelessness and football, including the results of last week's hometown locks of the week. Uh so as we said, the the uh our topic this week is day or drop center, drop-in centers, sorry. Uh comprehensive day or drop-in center is a facility that provides a wide range of supportive services and basic needs to individuals experiencing homelessness or housing instability, typically during daytime hours in a low barrier, safe, and welcoming environment. A comprehensive day or drop-in center serves as a one-stop access point where individuals can meet their immediate survival needs, such as food, hygiene, and rest, while also connecting to case management, housing navigation, health care, employment, and behavioral health services. These centers emphasize engagement, relationship building, and connection to longer-term stability and housing. The purpose is to stabilize individuals who are in crisis, reduce the barriers to accessing services, and serve as a bridge from street homelessness to housing employment and wellness. And again, uh we gotta have a little bit of experience in this, right, Danny? Um, and I I think this is a really good definition. Um I think it it talks about comprehensiveness, it talks about being open during the day, it talks about that survival kind of because really the as I see it, the day or the drop-in centers are really targeted for a very specific group of people, right? They're not for everybody, right? Um a lot of people can and do access emergency shelter, a lot of people can and do access housing, but the reality is is that some people are a little more hesitant to access some of those services, and I think that's where the drop in center kind of gets its little niche, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah, and we and we have our own drop in center uh pathways where we provide a lot of these services, including showers and laundry, and it's a place for someone to you know get out of the elements, um, get those needs that they want, and then hopefully start working with them to get them housed. That's that's what the end goal of a drop-in center should be providing all the other services. Um, but we we do a little bit of that, and and we've housed a couple of people this year through the center. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

So have to be a lot of services there. But we'll talk a little bit more about that uh as we get into it.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

So yeah, so let's take a look at some of the headlines for the homeless world. Um, so last week the Orlando City Council approved a $150,000 grant for the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida. So shelter staff can continue to provide temporary housing, meals, and hygiene kits, uh, those to those brought in by OPD. Uh being able to give someone somewhere to sleep at night and not on the streets, we provide them dignity, as we told everyone. We're here to help and we're here to enter the call. And we f when we find out that there's something going on, said City Commissioner Shaniqua Rose, who represents our District 5. So it's a great grant that they're getting to provide more services. Um and coalition's doing great work.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

So yeah, absolutely. And again, it's a it's a drop-off area, basically. Yep. And they're adding to their shelter capacity by allowing OPD or the Orlando Police Department to drop people off. Um it's an overflow shelter, I guess, is really kind of what it is what we would call this, right? Um it's temporary, they don't they don't necessarily have a long-term stay in the shelter, but they at least get off the streets for the night. And then uh hopefully they're able to access longer-term services after that.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

So congratulations to them.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Absolutely. Um, all right, let's take a look at our football teams this week, Danny. Yes. Uh we'll look ahead and and see what opponents we have also uh next week. So your Cowboys did not fare as well as my Bears.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

They did not. So the Cowboys had the Carolina Panthers. Call mentioned last week. Oh, you have an easy schedule. Apparently that didn't go in my favor. Um, but it was, yeah, our defense is just not there. It's it's they're not good. I I didn't even give you any stats today because I'm just like it's it's it is what it is. But they they lost uh 30 to 27. So uh next week we have the commanders who played um your team. Absolutely. So this is a division um game, so it's it's a big game. With all the losses, this we had Philly lose, commanders lost, um, Dallas lost, and then the Giants of all people in the in the conference won. Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

So it's yeah, so we'll we'll see what happens next week. Yeah, it was a close game, though. It was, it was a it was a tight one all the way down to the end. Uh both of our teams ended with a field goal. Mine, of course, was a winning field goal. My Chicago Bears beat the Washington Commanders, as you mentioned, 25 to 24. Um, it came down to a last last second field goal, and just like in your game, um I'm I was you know impressed with the Bears. Um the defense was still there, but the offense actually got rolling a little bit. So I'm I'm feeling pretty hopeful.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

And next you said eight week eight. There you go. Week eight. Exactly. About week eight. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

So I'm I'm starting to see some offense come together. Good. And next week we had we play the New Orleans Saints. Um, so they're I think one in five or one in six, something like that. And so they're yeah, so they're not very good. And hopefully we can get uh another win uh kind of keep that streak going. Yep, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

How'd you hold how'd you hold how'd you hold up on the late night game?

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Because I know those late night games are hard. Oh my gosh, they are hard. It was way too late. I mean, they gotta go into overtime, so I love the 715 game though, right on Monday night. Yes, that's fantastic. But yeah, those other ones, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

All right, that wraps up the first quarter. We'll be back after this break.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

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 two seven two eight six, or email at gremieres at pathlighthome.org.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

We will each take turns discussing some opposing viewpoints of our topic this week. The question this week is Are Day Centers successful at ending homelessness? Please remember that we are trying to show both sides of the issue. Uh these do not necessarily reflect our individual stances on these positions. So call this week you have offense, and I will have defense.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Absolutely. And just a reminder, are day centers successful at ending homelessness is what is the question that we're trying to answer. Um, and so on the pro side or the offense side, the yes side, um, here are my uh my arguments or or my points uh to make the case. Um, they provide immediate relief, which can lead to building rapport and eventually housing conversations. Number two, they offer critical services such as laundry, hygiene, medical, and behavioral health services. And number three, they are low barrier and might get people who otherwise would not engage in services started on their journey to housing. You can think of them in this case as kind of the front door to the homeless service system.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

So my defense uh number one is does not provide housing, cannot end homelessness alone. Uh number two, risk of clients becoming stuck without clear housing pathways. Uh three, limited funding, staff, and capacity lead to overcrowding or reduced quality. Uh number four, inconsistent service, quality between centers and cities. Uh five, frag fragmented coordination with shelters, housing and healthcare systems, uh potential for dependency or parking lot effect. Uh number six, eligibility barriers, ID, sobriety rules, behavioral restrictions. Um may be perceived as unsafe or stigmatized by some homeless individuals. Uh funding instability threatens sustainability. And the last one, evidence of housing impact is limited. Uh most success comes when paired with housing programs. And those are kind of my keys.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Yeah, absolutely. So let's so let's uh talk about each of these kind of the uh again on the pro side, I and again, I think the pro and the cons kind of mirror each other, like obviously we do. There's no doubt that if these are attached to a housing program or they have some kind of housing component with them, it does seem that they would be more successful. But in a lot of cases, these day or drop-in centers are really isolated. I don't want to say isolated, uh, but the they're standalone. I mean, they don't get connected to housing programs directly. Now we have an exception here at Pathlight Home because our primary service that we provide is housing. We happen to run a drop-in day center as well. It didn't start out that way, right? Um, but we I would say inherited uh a drop-in center. And so we've been able to kind of bridge that gap. And and I think I think that's a good idea. I think the bridge, I think, is the good idea, but like you've pointed out with a few of these, people can get stuck going to a drop-in center and end up that being the end of their journey towards ending their homelessness, which is not what it's about. It's not a place for people to come and hang out and just be there forever. You know, eventually we've got to try and get them into those longer-term services.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, I think if some of these, um, like you said, some of them they're isolated um and they're focused on services and not solutions.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Um, and if you do that, then like you said, they will just continue coming to get these services, to get a shower, to get laundry. But I think once you get and again, one of my uh uh defense was lack of staff and funding. That's right. And if you don't have good case managers or peer support or even that access point to start a housing conversation, then people will get stuck. They will get stuck and and and it does get overcrowded. Um, and it does, but you have to start some type of conversation with them while they're getting those services of what the next steps are. But if you don't have the housing side of it, it makes it really, really difficult because day service centers see a lot of people in the hundreds. Yeah, um, so just to get housing, as we've spoken before about, is very difficult to get housing because there's hardly anything out there. With us, again, it's a little different. Um, but all these other service, all these other drop-ins, it's it makes it hard, but you you have to at least start the conversation of housing to make it work.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

And and I think you made a really good point on your defense when you talked about some of the eligibility barriers, because that's the that's the last thing that a drop-in center or day center should be is there should not be an inordinate amount of barriers to getting into the drop-in center. That's supposed to be almost like an emergency room at a hospital. You everybody's supposed to be able to go in there. But again, if you use that emergency shelter uh you know analogy, you can't stop at the emergency shelter. If you need longer-term care, which in this case would be housing for our individuals, well then you've got to go to the next level. You've got to get a different type of service than what you're gonna get in the emergency room. The emergency room there is there to fix you up. It's to get you started on your route into the hospital or into long-term care. But it's not the be-all end-all. You don't just go to the emergency room most of the time, anyway. Don't just go to the emergency room and then that's the end of your care, particularly if you have longer-term issues.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

So and again, if you're if you're having issues with sobriety, if you're having issues with behavioral or mental, then provide those services there so when someone's coming, they can get all those services while they're there. Um and again, it's optional, of course, it's not mandatory to be there, but I think once you start, once you go away from low barrier, right? It just it's it's not gonna work. It's just not.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

So and and again, I think in the design of day and drop-in centers, I think that's what's important, is you have to design your day drop-in center as number one able to serve the hardest populations that are out there. And by hardest, I mean the people who are most uh hesitant to access services. They don't trust the services or they can't get the services elsewhere, things like that. So that's number one thing because you've got to make it available to the people who have the biggest challenges. And then on the back end, you've got to figure out a way to be able to transition them from coming in your door to going out the door to housing. And you've got to figure out that transition. So I think it's really in the design. And I think that's again where we have an advantage is that not only do we have outreach teams which see the the people who have the highest challenges, and they can bring them to the drop-in center as an added value to the outreach teams. Yep. But we also have that back door to get them into housing, to be able to actually take them through the drop-in center to a housing option at the end. I think that's the way that it works. That's the way that day centers can be most effective in the pieces to helping us and homelessness. But if you don't have all those things in place, then you you're exactly right. Then it runs into all these other defense things that you talked about is that people get stuck, is that you know, they get into the parking lot effect, you know, those types of things. Instead of it being that bridge from the streets into housing, it then becomes a stopping point or a wall almost.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

It's like a cycle that's not going to end.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

It just keeps going. So that's exactly right. And so um, one other thing that I want to point out when you talked about the types of services that are provided here, I think that's one of the keys for the community to know about is when you see someone who has a day or drop-in center, look at what statistics they are putting out and claiming as their success. Right. Okay. If what they're putting out as success is the number of towels they handed out, the number of sandwiches they handed out, number of things like that, but they're not talking about housing people. Well, then you know that that drop-in center may have some work to be done because you've got to try and get them to the housing piece. And a lot of day in drop-in centers, that's all they talk about. I mean, obviously, we we even talk about the output that we provide, right? The number of showers, the laundry, things like that. But we also talk about housing. We talk about how many people got housed out of that drop-in center. And I know you're big on that with your staff, really targeting and asking them how many people did we house out of the drop-in center? Not just give them a shower, but how many actually got into housing because of the drop-in center?

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yeah, I mean, everyone that comes through our door at the drop-in, we're here to give you all the services we're providing, but we have to have a conversation with you. We have to see what are the next steps for you to just stop that cycle, right? And then that way you can have your own shower in your own unit. You can have your own food in your own unit. You don't have to rely on us for that. Now we're always there if you need to come back for case management or mental health or anything else. Absolutely. But we want to get you sustainable to kind of be on your own and not have to rely on a drop-in center. So, yeah. Right. Uh, so uh Pathite Home's stance on uh day service centers is we believe that the day centers are key to helping people who are suspicious of services get recognited to housing.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

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. So, our question this week, Danny, comes from Tina. Um, last week the quote was home is where the heart is. How does Pathlight Home, and I would say other housing programs, how do they make the residents of its properties feel like it's their home rather than just a program or rather than just housing for them?

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, well, uh here we try to make it a community. So because we have a lot of units, 560 units through three properties. So we try to engage our residents in, I mean, just everything, activities. We have, I mean, where do I start? We have bingo night, we have movie night, we have uh card games, spades is a big one here. Uh there's a lot of a lot of competition that but we do uh Thanksgiving and Christmas uh dinners. We bring out volunteers and partners to come and and and and serve our residents. So we we have a marketplace that they can come and shop and uh of no cost, of course, but they're able to come and get stuff for their units to make their units feel like a home. So we provide as much uh to them as we possibly can so they can all interact together and just again because they're living so close together, they we want to make sure that they all and they all pretty much know each other and they you know, and we also have a resident council which kind of discusses issues that we have on our properties, how we can make it better, whether security or um events. So we we try to engage them as much as possible. And the case managers do a great job with that here. Um just engaging residents to again, we want it to feel like a community, it's their home. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Yeah, I think there's I think there's two ways to be able to do it ultimately. I think like you explained, we can create our own sense of community here, and luckily our properties are big enough where we can create a sense of community here. I mean, this is a neighborhood for them. It is but with enough people here that they can interact, that they can do things like that. Like you said, they have outings, they do all the regular things. The second way to be able to do that is to bring the community in. And I know we do that as well with volunteers. And having volunteers like churches and other clubs and groups come here or neighborhood uh individuals come here and volunteer, it allows them to get to know some people that are in the community that are outside of our properties and eventually in some cases connect with them. Go to church there or go to a club there or you know, just make friends with people, honestly, who are out in the community. So I think it's both of those ways. And I'm glad you brought up the marketplace because I think that's a real key uh thing that we have here and taking in-kind donations for people really allows us to be able to make someone uh allows us to help people make it their home, is put pictures there, put up paintings there, you know, put up posters or whatever they want in their, you know, make it their space, make it their home, their home. And again, I think the other part of that is making sure that you have residents, uh, you have properties where residents can stay as long as they need to stay.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Um, again, we talked a lot about how our a lot of our residents transition out to other communities, and that's great. We love that. We love them moving up and moving to other places. But the reality is that people can stay here as long as they need to, and having that security and that safety and understanding that as long as they follow the rules and get along with people, they can be here as long as they need to be here. I think that's all another part of making it feel like it's their home because now they have a chance to defend someone. something or or invest in something, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

That is long term for them. That they know it's not a transition.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

And that's what we want is if we know that they're gonna be here long term and you know which is okay. That marketplace is a great place because they can just grab everything they want from in there and make it their home. So when they come home every day they know it's theirs. It's nobody else's but theirs and everything in there is belongs to them. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

All right. Uh so the homeless quote of the week is by Jan Shikowski, who is uh a congresswoman from Illinois. Um I I found that a couple of days ago. Um but it says there's a lot happens around the world we cannot control. We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts and we cannot prevent all conflict. But when we know whether hungry the homeless and the sick ex sick exist then we can help. So there's so many things that are out of our control. Yeah but I think when it comes to homelessness and and the hungry and we can control that. We can make we can address it. We can fix it. We can just not look the other way. So earthquake of course we can't control that if it happens it happens but when you see someone sick or someone in need we can help.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

I mean absolutely and I have a great story for this one. So most people remember uh 9-11 right they and if you ask anybody who was an adult during that time where they were they can tell you exactly where they were and exactly what they were doing. Well I happen to be doing outreach right and uh I say outreach. We weren't actually out on the streets while it was happening. But we had uh what we called intake days where people would come into our office from the streets. So we had unsheltered individuals who either knew or didn't know and they could come in and they could meet with all of the outreach workers in our location in our office. We had coffee there we had you know all kinds of different items and stuff hygiene items things like that for people to come in but I remember specifically we were doing intake and we were doing intake so we had a waiting room full of people who were waiting to see all of our outreach workers and someone came in and said something about you know something's happening you know uh one of the you know towers got hit by a plane in New York and something's going on and I thought to myself uh you know initially we we can't control any of those things. We've got a room full of people who are out on the streets trying to get into housing. We can't control anything that's going on in New York. Look you know we'll have time to go look at all the footage and see all the stuff that's happening and and all that good stuff. But right now what we can control is right here in our waiting room and we just kept seeing people you know people kept coming in we kept talking to people we kept trying to get them connected to housing to other services things like that and and again it it really kind of gave us that perspective I know a lot of people stopped what they were doing and started watching the news which is great and that's fine. If you have the luxury to do that fantastic but we had a room full of waiting we had a room full of people who were unsheltered trying to get services from us and that's what we could control. That was the thing that we could control regardless of everything else that was happening in the world and we had to focus on that there. And that's what we did. We focused on them and afterwards we went and looked at the footage and we were you know watching the news and all those kinds of things but at that point we really had to focus on everyone in front of you had a need. That had a need at the moment so um I heard one time uh someone said uh uh they were talking about customer service and they were saying uh they were talking about the difference when when someone's providing customer service to you let's say you're at a hotel or or whatever and the and uh someone's there helping you and you've got a person standing in front of you and a phone call comes in and someone once said and I don't remember who it was or or where it was in my experience but someone once said you always deal with the person in front of you first let the phone ring and let the phone ring as many times as it needs to ring but you always deal with the person who's in front of you first and again to me that's what this saying is about it's about controlling what you can control what's right in front of you take care of that first and then you know you can start to look at outside your sphere outside of what everything else is but you've got to deal with what's in front of you yeah the person in front of you is the most important person there.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Because they you that one-on-one interaction that one-on-one conf whether it's a hotel whether it's at a at a drop in whether it's at a shelter whether it's at an outreach that person in front of you is the most important person at that moment right there. That's right. Because if if it doesn't go the right way you might not see them again.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

That's right. And and sometimes that gets difficult again back to our day in drop-in centers because of the volume of people that comes in which is where you talked about the amount of services that are needed and the amount of people that are needed at a drop in center because you really have to focus on that one person at a time at that drop-in center.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

You know it's great to hold a group you know uh meeting with 30 people but really when you get into those one-on-one conversations that's where the magic really happens just how how we discussed about outreach having that one-on-one relationship and building it is is key so and that concludes our halftime let's jump into the third quarter we're ready to highlight the goodwill and good works in the NFL community look at how our local football teams fared and announce our NFL home team locks of the week so we'll start first with the NFL spotlight player spotlight of the week this week it goes to former NFL defensive end and Barberton Ohio native John Kaminsky.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

He spent the last six years playing professional football now he's returned home uh to give back to his community Kaminsky who was a fourth round draft pick in 2019 spent time with the Atlanta Falcons and even the Detroit Lions during his playing career but even as he played away from home he always made his way back to give back through the Kaminsky Family Foundation the retired defensive end has been able to support members of his community like local dad Artez Evans and his son. I met John at his youth camp said Evans because my son Artez Jr. attended it meeting John and realizing he's a nice guy for real it was real special. That's like the first guy in the NFL I got a picture with Evans Jr. said the former defensive lineman may have hung up his cleats but he has slipped into a pair of running shoes as he dives deeper into the community and his foundation I'm running in the Akron half marathon 13.1 miles it's a lot a family friend gave me the idea to have a t-shirt sell advertisement space on it to local businesses and so far it's reached 5500 bucks Kaminsky said the money being raised will help local families which Kaminsky says the goal is just to help out the youth we've been able to get the food pantries we've been able to put on a football camp and so that's our NFL player spotlight of the week uh John Kaminsky uh former NFL defensive end uh I think that's great just running absolutely just running just running and again I think that that points to how valuable that podium can be for any player who's had some kind of career in in sports in the NFL in whatever it is but using that using his platform his his notoriety his fame to be able to just do simple things like he said he's gonna go out he's gonna run he's gonna sell you know advertisements on his shirt and use all that money to be able to give back to the community what I love about these stories that we do is every player gives back where they're currently at but they always go home to where they came from which is fantastic they're always giving back to where they came from then they don't forget kind of where they're they're from so it's I that's great. Absolutely absolutely and and there's a lot of there's a lot of stories out there so uh we're we're really happy to highlight this uh NFL player this week so now we're on to the fantasy football section and favorite part of the show my favorite part of the show let's see how you did this we call here we go all right so last week uh my fantasy football player of the week was Alvin Camara the running back for New Orleans he played New England he was expected to get 11 points guess what he got Danny he got seven points seven seven okay all righty so yeah okay great seven uh this week my selection for fantasy football player pick of the week is Justin Herbert he's a quarterback with the Los Angeles Chargers they're playing Indianapolis uh at Indianapolis and he's expected to get 18 points this week so we'll see we'll see how Justin Herbert does okay good luck and uh and then we go on to the fantasy flashback uh in week seven uh of twenty twenty a Devontae Adams uh who is still playing in the NFL uh traveled around quite a bit after this though he was a wide receiver for Green Bay when Aaron Rodgers was there and in week seven of 2020 he had 13 catches for 196 yards and two touchdowns that's a big game going on right there. So I mean if you had Devontae Adams that week there's a really good chance that you were winning your fantasy football uh he had a good game that was a good game yeah really good game uh now we'll move on to our local football teams to watch uh Danny I'll let you go first yeah so last week our teams were off um right yours was off as well yep yep uh so uh so we had Boone High School play Winnipeg uh they won again 44 to 38 we are currently 7 and oh we have not lost um we're moving up in the rankings uh uh Florida we are at number 44 and in Orlando we are up to number 10 right now wow yeah so next week uh actually this week on Friday we play Colonio um who is two and four so we'll see how that goes yeah well they got to keep it rolling yeah they did they're doing really good yeah boone has been doing really well this year I mean they're they're looking for an undefeated season at this point right yeah and they're playing good teams they've been playing good teams so yeah um Jones High School uh played Lake Wells this week they won uh 48 to 22 they're now five and two and they're ranked number 18 in Florida and number two in Orlando so I think they played a little better competition I think than Boone has probably um having those two losses but I think those are just a pretty strong team. Yeah um next week they play Wakiva uh high school so we'll see how it turns out there absolutely all right all right let's go on to our lock of the week results um last week I selected Baltimore they just played horrible they're playing so horrible this year I thought Lamar Jackson was coming back and he didn't he didn't yeah he didn't your old Dallas Cowboys quarterback Cooper Rush was out there playing quarterback for him so had I known that Lamar was not going to play probably would have picked somebody else yeah but um but that's the way it rolls sometimes I like Cooper Rush. Yeah he's not I like him sure but he's not he's not the quarterback that they need definitely against the Rams yeah so they lost 17-3 to the Los Angeles Rams last week that makes me three and three uh right on the Mendoza line for the uh lock of the week Danny how'd you do so uh I had picked the Tampa Bay Buccaneers we played the 49ers um I figured it was going to be a really really good game uh but we did win 32 uh 19 uh so my I am four and two for the year wow look at you Danny last week I didn't start to get a little separation there just a little bit so just a little so who do you have next week this week I have uh this week Indianapolis uh they're playing the LA Chargers at Indianapolis um so I'm hoping that Indy will uh will pull me back into the winning column and and and you're a fantasy football player as well yeah I'm a fantasy football player exactly yes uh so I uh have the Texans at the at Seahawks at Seattle so I picked Seattle for this week and see how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

All right great we'll see fantastic we'll see uh stay tuned for our wrap up after this message 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 welcome to the fourth quarter where we will wind down this episode by reflecting on a homelessness MVP and fumble of the week before wrapping up with our key takeaway.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Alright so the MVP for this week is the state of New Mexico they are looking to be the first state to make child care free. The program which will start in November and expected to save families $12,000 per child annually and is available to all residents regardless of income. In an unprecedented move New Mexico is making child care free. Beginning in November it will be the first day in the nation to provide child care to all residents regardless of income Governor Michel Luhan Grisham announced this week this latest change removes income eligibility requirements from the state's child care assistance program altogether and waives all family co-payments. The initiative is expected to save families $12,000 per child annually child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation and New Mexico's future prosperity, Loen Grisham said in her announcement by investing in universal childcare we are giving families financial relief, supporting our community and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive. The news also comes with improvements for childcare facilities and potentially raises for their staff. As part of the rollout the state will establish a $13 million loan fund to construct and expand facilities, launch a recruitment campaign for home-based providers and incentivize programs to pay staff a minimum of $18 an hour. The state hopes the initiative will lead to the creation of 55 new child care centers and 1,120 home-based child care options.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Thora Walsh Padilla the president of the Mescalero Apache tribe praised the initiative saying it is so timely and it answers so many needs she said that's fantastic free child care like whoa can you imagine that and I know that's one of the biggest barriers that people have to staying housed is childcare. Childcare gets so expensive I mean and if you have to choose between good child care and paying for good child care or medications or food or any of those other things that people struggle with any of the other high ticket items I mean that's that's it's really really challenging. And so for them to be able to offer free child care to everyone that is great. I'm interested to see how their evictions are affected by this. Hopefully it lowers the amount of evictions that people have and maybe even lowers the amount of homelessness that happens. One of the biggest reasons why particularly single mothers or single parents can't get employed and can't get rehoused is because of childcare, lack of childcare and being able to find it making it available first of all and second of all affordable and then third of all quality childcare I mean all three of those things lining up for you are really really substantial for you being able to the the younger the child the more expensive it is and again people who are making very low income most of that money goes to childcare.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

That's right you know and you still got to pay your rent you still got to pay all these other things so the fact that they're doing this is fantastic. Yeah absolutely that's a lot $12,000 per child annually that's a lot so that's a lot.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Yep now we'll go to the fumble of the week uh the fumble of the week is the city of Koe which is here near Orlando it's a smaller city on kind of a suburb of Orlando if you want to think of it that way they have stepped up their arrests of homeless people for sleeping outside. It was originally this story was originally published by the West Orange Vox Populi and the story goes five unhoused people mainly white men in their mid-50s recently were picked up by Akoe police for violating both the city's ordinance and the state law against camping on public property or on private property without permission. Akoy police appear to be stepping up the arrests of people who are homeless in the first eight months of 2025 after the punitive measures of the statewide camping ban went into effect that was January 1st allowing any resident business owner or state attorney general to file a lawsuit against a municipality for not enforcing the ban during that timeframe the first eight months no arrests were made in a COI according to a review of the public records. But then in a three week span between August 28th and September 15th there were five arrests. So no arrests for eight months and then in three weeks five arrests asked what was driving the recent spate of arrests the ACOI police mailed Vox Populi who did this article the following statement the ACOI police department responds to calls for service based on complaints from the public and officer observations. Officers are trained to use discretion and prioritize outreach where possible arrests are generally a last resort and typically occur after attempts to offer services, issue warnings or when there are repeated violations or accompanying criminal behavior. Okoi police told Vox Populi in an earlier email that in each recent case the individuals were previously warned multiple times and in and informed of available shelter options and support services including resources from our victim advocate. The story goes on to talk about how though actually that when they talked with some of the individuals that were involved they actually did not get warned that they were going to be arrested. And in fact one person who got arrested was released the very next day with a fine that they have to then pay within a year. And so again this fumble of the week just speaks to the larger larger problem right yep today we're talking about the city of a Koei but it could just as easily be a hundred other cities across the country. The fumble of the week is about you know arresting people who don't have other options and other things um available to them there is no shelter in a Koei nope we know that the nearest shelter is downtown Orlando which is some what 20 miles away probably yep um from where they are um and so it's not an easy thing for people to be able to be able to even get from a Koei to the Orlando shelters and we know those shelters are full. They're full so it's not it doesn't really make a lot of sense and again this is the kind of things that we're that we at Pathlight Home are trying to mitigate by having our outreach workers work with local law enforcements and making ourselves available to law enforcement officers. So if the ACOI uh city of ACOI or a COE police department is listening to this podcast make sure that you come see us meet our outreach teams and let them come out there and see what they can do. Again we talked about the day drop in center and that's a whole better option to try and bring people there, get them those resources and get them connected to housing.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

And there there are day service centers in a KOE but if these arrests came after hours at night, I mean there's no options for them to go anywhere and even the shelter if there is room At that time they won't take them in anyway.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

So it just it's weird how there was no arrests made all year and then all of a sudden in August, like there was no complaints, there was no calls, they were I it's it's and and and again and also on the other side of it, let you know, I'd like to speak to the business owners, any business owners who are listening to this. You know, just because you have the right to file a lawsuit against a city or municipality doesn't mean that that's really going to solve the problem. Again, they arrested someone who got released the very next day with a fine. It's not solving the problem of homelessness. What we would rather do is have these business owners not only, again, reach out to Pathlight Home, we have an outreach team that can come out there, that can start working with the people, that can get people connected to our day dropping centers and try and get these people off of the streets because that's the only way we're gonna end this. Otherwise, it's just a cycle. It's a cycle. Yep. If you call about somebody today, guess what? Tomorrow, you're gonna make it some other business owner's problem. And all you're doing is pushing the problem around this way. And so what we need to do is we really need to focus on what the solutions are. And again, in both of these situations, both business owners or any community members who are worried about someone in their area should contact and the Okoe Police Department should contact our outreach workers or an outreach team that's working in the area or that day center that you mentioned, because there are day centers out in their area. Take them there, see if they can get them connected to services, see if they can get them connected to something else.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Yeah, and if they can't, then hopefully they have some partners, including us, that they can call and we can go out and have conversations with them.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

And the thing we didn't even talk about in this is the whole economics of this, is that it just costs way more money and wastes way more time. You've got the the ACOE police department has got to have better things to do than trying to go around and arrest individuals who are homeless for being homeless, basically.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Yeah, definitely. All right, so our key takeaway for uh this this episode is uh helping people access housing in our current environment is not easy. We need as much support and as many types of services available as possible.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

And I think that's where the drop-in center day center, again, we've been talking about ending homelessness, and we know that drop-in centers, day centers by themselves are not the be all and all, but they can be one piece of the puzzle. And I think that's what this key takeaway really talks about is we need a lot of pieces of the puzzle. We need a lot of options available for all kinds of individuals because again, as human beings, we have, you know, we need options available. Um, I was talking over the weekend with my family, and one of the things that came up was how many options we have available for things in in our world, you know, in the United States, in this country, is that if I don't like a burger here, I can go somewhere else. If I don't like groceries at this place, I can go somewhere else. And so that has to be our our motto in the homeless service system as well, is making sure that we have enough services and different types of services available for everybody so that everybody has things that they can access. In fact, what would be ideal is to have for them to have multiple things that they can access or want to access to be able to get them out of homelessness. And give them more options. And give them more options, absolutely. Yeah, give them more options.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

But yeah, I think with the day service center again, providing all those different services, having everything there, and working with a lot of partners because day service centers need partners to provide different services. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

Yeah, absolutely. Well, that concludes our episode for the week. As always, we leave the last words for our beloved co-founder, the late Reverend Fred Maxwell. As always, if you have any questions for us, please email us at questions at pathlighthome.org. We'd love to hear from our uh listeners, and we'd love to be able to answer questions that you have about anything uh considering homelessness. Reverend Maxwell, take it away.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

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