4. What is Emergency Shelter?

In this episode, Carl Falconer and Danny Arroyo delve into emergency shelters, which provide temporary housing for individuals experiencing housing crises. They differentiate between congregate and non-congregate shelters, noting that congregate shelters house many people in one room, while non-congregate shelters offer more personal space. They also discuss overnight shelters, which often require residents to leave during the day, and the importance of understanding the various types of shelters to address community needs effectively.

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

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to the Home Team Aluncan. I'm Carl Falkener, anyone and we are tackling homework.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Today in our podcast, we will discuss two of our passions, football and ending homelessness. Please join us through four quarters with our topic this week being emergency shelter. All right, well, call, let's talk about this weekend. All right.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

All right, good, good, good. Actually, we were at the uh Texas Homeless Conference last week. We will talk a little bit more about that later in the show. So that was good. Um we got to go out there and learn a few new things. Um but my weekend was pretty good, yeah. Uh went to Epcot for a little while and then uh you know got home to watch the Bears game.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah. Good for you. Good for you, Carl. Uh my weekend, I uh spent my wife, it was our anniversary, so took her to some lunch and hung out a bit, and then Sunday I cried a little, I was angry a little, I threw stuff a little, uh, didn't didn't text you at all, as you could tell. Uh, but yeah, it was it was an interesting week, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Yeah, it was a pretty I I had a pretty quiet phone throughout most of the game on Sunday, but we'll talk about that in a second. Anyway, all right, well, let's go ahead and get started with our coin toss to start us off. And uh Danny, if you will, I will flip it and you call it. Uh heads.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

And it's heads, so you get to start us off. All right. Uh well, welcome to our first quarter. I'm going to kick off by defining our topic of the week, and then we will cover some headlines from both homelessness and football, including the results from last week's home team locks of the week. So, as I mentioned earlier, that our topic this week is emergency shelter. Uh so what are emergency shelters? Emergency shelters are facilities or temporary housing spaces designed to provide immediate short-term protection and support to people experiencing a crisis that has left them without a safe and stable housing. Shelters are intended to meet basic survival needs, safety, warmth, food, hygiene, and often serve as entry points into long-term support systems such as permanent housing, healthcare, employment services, and counseling. So, of course, we know there's a lot of different um types of emergency shelters such as congregate, non-congregate, overnight, inclement weather, family, domestic, safe haven, hotels. So we we've had some experience working in shelters. I have. Yeah. Um so what do you think about shelters and and the different types that we have?

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah, I think the I think the key here that that most of the public uh most of the public has their own idea of what a shelter is. And I think that's something that is a little bit of a myth because there are so many different types of shelters. And and I think that's the thing to really focus on when we talk about this description here is uh an emergency shelter is not one thing. It can be many different types of things. You know, the difference between a congregate and a non-congregate, a congregate shelter is the most, I think what most people envision as a shelter is where a whole bunch of people are sleeping in one room all together, bunk bed style or something like that, versus a non-congregate shelter where people get their own rooms. They get sometimes get their own bathrooms, their own space, you know, things like that. So the so the thing that I want to uh really look at is the emergence the types of emergency shelters. And again, I think that's one of the myths that is in the community right now is that an emergency shelter is one thing. When in fact there are multiple kinds of emergency shelters, and people really need to understand that because when we're talking about uh whether we should build more emergency shelters or not, one of the one of the key questions I think that the community has to ask themselves is what kind of shelter do we need, and what kind of shelter do we want? So, you know, the different types, let's take congregate versus non-congregate. Congregate congregate, I think, is normally what people think of when they think of a shelter. A whole bunch of people sleeping in one room together, bunk bed style, trying to cram as many people as they can into one space. Um, and for good reason. Again, they serve large numbers of people. Um, I was in Washington, D.C. many, many years ago and went to their shelter there, and they have like a shelter that holds a thousand or more people. And I mean that thing was just packed with people in there. Um, versus non-congregate, where people get their own room, they get their own bathroom, they get their own space, you know, their own things like that. And then you've got the overnight shelter, um, which this one I think is really important for the community to understand. So if it's an overnight shelter, oftentimes what they'll do is they'll make people leave during the day. Correct. Okay, instead of the people being able to stay there during the day. And I know uh there's often complaints from neighborhoods and things like that that people are hanging out, you know, around shelters or outside or whatever the case is. Those are typically overnight shelters as opposed to something like, you know, a long-term shelter where people can stay there during the day.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah, so I I I come from a congregate shelter that I worked at years ago, and you know, it was about 500 people. Um it was decent side, but it was that bunk bait style, you know, um uh it was a lot of people in it. Um with with with that, you need a lot of staff to cover and help and assist and case management. Um, but we've we've toured a couple of different places out here, me and you, that are kind of you know, the the overnight, like we discussed. Um, but also the inclement weather one is a really important one because of our where we live and our temperature and the way it you know with hurricanes and just but those those are really important because during those emergencies to have somewhere for people to go is so important and even during um heat waves which we're looking at, you know, uh kind of those uh I forgot what you call them, but the shelters with when it's hot, um and and we put people in. So yeah, I I agree with you. I think a lot of people when they think of shelters, you just think of a bunch of people just in one building and it's just chaotic, and it's really not, it's it's very organized, just from my experience. It's very organized and and but you have to provide all these services that are needed to move people out and into permanent housing.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

So absolutely, and we'll talk a little bit more about emergency shelter um later in another segment. Um, let's take a look at some of the headlines from the homeless world. And like I said, we attended the Texas Homeless Network conference last week, Danny and I. And so we just kind of wanted to tell you some of the things that we saw there in terms of headlines. Um uh I'll start. Um I attended a couple of different workshops there. Um, one of them was about putting mental health services with housing and how important that is. And uh in Dallas, they're doing some really good work there where they are uh pairing the uh mental health provider with housing providers and really trying to enhance those mental health services, particularly for people who have uh severe and persistent mental illnesses. And then I attended a session where a person with lived expertise, um person who's experienced homelessness, uh, gave a wonderful uh talk on social connection and natural support systems, how important it is that people not only move into housing and get into housing, but also that they create kind of a community after they get into housing and how important it is for providers to really help us or for us to help the clients get those natural supports, you know, uh faith-based organizations, community support groups, you know, even friends and neighbors that people have. So it was a wonderful session. I had I had a couple of really good sessions that I attended. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, I did as well. Um, I attended a property management one, of course, because that's what we do here. Um, and it was good to hear a lot of what they did is similar to us um with just the property management, the case management, the peer support, just all of those those supportive services. But something that I think I mentioned to you while we were out there was they said that they wanted they worry about the health of the clients, but they have to worry about the health of the property. And I found that so important because um, as they mentioned, um, they said that they somewhat neglected their property for a little bit, and now they're having to spend a lot more dollars on getting it fixed. So I when she said that um it was like we that's what we're trying to do here, right? It's take care of our property, take care of our our residents as well. Um, I did have one as well with a person with lived experience. Um, that was a really interesting one. Just I like listening to those stories about where people are coming from and what they went through, and just just listening to everything, and that this person was in a shelter. Um, they went through a lot of hard times, um, ended up getting pregnant, um, and then she decided to change her life and get things. But what stood out for me was that she uh got housed and then a couple of weeks or months later, she was institutionalized because I guess the services stopped and she still needed those that that that support. Um, so it was just so important, like what we're saying about services and continuing for people to receive them after they're in a in a unit. So it was just interesting. Now she's doing great and she started her own little foundation, and and it was really good. But just listening to her story and how she got to where she was, but just showing that even after you're housed, you still have to continue getting some type of assistance from someone. And then the other one I had was about elderly in rural communities. Um, so we joke all the time that you know we're considered elderly. Um but they say that's not we shouldn't be using that term, we should be saying older adults. Right. Um, so I yeah, I'm I'm an older adult. I prefer older adults. But it was it was very interesting about what they said about people that are living in these rural communities, how difficult it is for them to get any type of service or for them to travel to get some type of service because of their age, their health. Um, but they they were very, very good um sessions that I attended, and we had we had a great time out there, and it was good. Yeah, great. Uh all right, so now we are going to oh yeah, so now we're gonna do the highlights of the week for football games and look ahead to our team's next opponent. So call, go ahead, brag.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Go ahead. Well, uh, we had a matchup of our two teams this weekend. Uh my Chicago Bears and Dallas and Danny's Dallas Cowboys went head to head in uh Chicago, and I'm happy to say that my Bears came out victorious. 31 to 14. We finally found a little bit of offense, Danny. Uh unfortunately, I was at the expense of the Cowboys. Um I know y'all lost C D Lamb at the beginning, and that really hurt your team, I think. Um your team is very similar to mine this year. I think if our offenses are not clicking, our defenses can't hold on. We need rest, we need to stay off the field, and we need to know that we have an offense that's backing us because once our offense falls flat, our defense just starts to fade away, basically. And I I always say they get tired, but honestly, I think they just lose some of the motivation too. If your team can't score and you're out there the whole day on the field, you it's just a hard, hard slog to go through in the NFL.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, they once CD got hurt, um, it kind of changed the whole vibe of the game, but kind of what I discussed with you yesterday that secondary is just not. I mean, same thing happened with the Giants last week. They were just getting killed out there, and and this happened this week again with these long bombs. And um, yeah, it was it was a hard game, and uh CD saying he's coming back next week, but that's what he's saying. So he needs to be cleared. Um it was an I think it was an ankle sprain he had.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Yeah, ankle sprain.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Um he did try to come back, which I admire, but yeah, it didn't work out. So it was a good game, but we we got blown out. Yeah, we got blown out. So who do you have next week?

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Um next week we have the Las Vegas Raiders. So I'm hoping maybe we can start a little bit of a streak here. Um the Raiders haven't been doing too well yet this year. I think they're still one of those rebuilding teams that um you know has new offense, new coach, all that stuff. So hopefully we can do well against them.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

So we do? Yeah, I have uh we have the Chicago Bears' best friends, the Green Bay Packers. Um, but we're at home, so let's see if we can bounce back. Green Bay, I think, lost this week, if I'm not mistaken. Um so yeah, let's see what happens at home.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Yeah, I'll definitely be rooting for the Cowboys this week. Thank you. Thank you for the support. Yeah, absolutely. Great. Uh that wraps up the first quarter, and we'll be back after this break. 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. Path Light Home is a 501 nonprofit organization in Central Florida. We currently have 560 units of housing that we provide to individuals experiencing homelessness, but we also provide additional support through employment resource centers and mental health services. We have a drop-in day center where people can come in from the heat, do laundry, get meals, all in preparation to get them into housing eventually and off the streets. Community involvement is key to the success of our efforts, and we love when community members want to get involved with Pathlight Home. There are three things we invite you to do to help. Number one, consider supporting us with funding. No donation is too small, and every dollar has an impact on our community. You can go to pathlighthome.org and click our donate button to contribute anytime. Number two is volunteering. We love to have volunteers come in and help us with any of our projects. We have ongoing projects and needs, but are also open to individuals and groups sharing specific talents in ways that build up our residence. Number three is take a tour with us. Come here to our facility and see what we do for yourself. It's the best way to get an inside look at what we're doing at Pathlight Home each day. We think it's important to understand the work it takes to fight homelessness and love the opportunity to meet community members who are passionate about the issue. We love our Central Florida community and are grateful every day for the continued support. And again, to get involved, go to pathlethome.org. Thank you. Welcome to the second quarter. We're getting a little deeper into a homelessness topic with something we call offense versus defense. We'll each take turns discussing some opposing viewpoints of our topic this week. The topic this week is should we build more emergency shelter? Again, kind of building on that emergency shelter topic overall. Please remember that we are trying to show both sides of the issue. These do not necessarily reflect our individual stances on these positions, even though I seem to be winning all of these arguments. At least in my mind, I'm winning all these arguments. But that's okay. If that's what you want to believe, man, we're gonna start with you on offense this week. Yeah. Um and so again, should we build more emergency shelter? And Danny says yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yes. So every night thousands of people are forced to sleep outside in cars, tents, and under bridges in unsafe and unsar unsanitary conditions. Um emergency shelters provide immediate safety, they meet basic needs and connect people to long-term solutions. Uh they save lives, protect communities, and reflect on moral responsibility. So one, like I said, shelter saves lives. Exposure to extreme heat, cold, uh, and violence kills hundreds of unhoused people each year. Emergency shelters are life-saving alternatives during crisis. And disasters of public health emergency shelters are often the only defense for vulnerable populations. Uh it's a gateway to stability. Shelters are not the end, they are the beginning. Many provide case management, housing referrals, mental health support, substance abuse treatment, job readiness, and without this entry point, people often remain trapped in crisis. Uh public health and community benefits, the uh unsheltered homeless creates community challenges, uh-huh. Uh disease outbreaks and sanitation issues, rising emergency room visits and police calls. Uh shelters reduce strain on hospitals, law enforcement and social workers while making public spaces safer and cleaner for everyone. And economic logic, uh leaving people unsheltered costs more. Emergency healthcare incarceration and crisis interventions are far more expensive than shelter beds. Uh investing in shelters is a cost-effective bridge while building long-term uh housing.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Great. Um, and then I'll take the defense and I'll uh speak to why uh it might not be such a great idea for emergency shelters to be built. Um my first point is that emergency shelters are a temporary solution. So uh the one thing I I really want to make sure people understand is that shelters don't end homelessness. People are still, in fact, literally homeless when they are living in a shelter. They become long-term holding spaces or can become long-term holding spaces rather than true transitional options, as you mentioned before. There needs to be a true analysis done to determine if and when more emergency shelter beds should exist in an area. One of the things that I've seen in my uh time and my career is that oftentimes emergency shelters are just popped up as some kind of, you know, uh, you know, band-aid thing, and I'll get to that in a second. But it it there's not there's not long-term thought about it, you know. And I think that's one of the things that we that they we really have to look at is an emergency shelter has to be a temporary solution and a transitional solution. But if you don't have those other resources on the other side of it, right, well then there's nowhere for people to go. Uh my second point is cost versus long-term impact. Emergency shelters are often expensive to build and to operate. Those same funds that we use on an emergency shelter could be better spent on permanent supportive housing or affordable housing, which are more sustainable solutions, obviously, long-term, and actually get people out of homelessness. Uh, my third point is shelters are not for everyone. Um, there's often uh people complain about theft or violence. Um, they complain about strict rules. Sometimes there's curfews that won't even allow people to go to work. Uh, there might be sobriety requirements and not allowing people to work through their their substance abuse issues or not even having substance abuse uh services available to help people work through those issues. And then finally, there's a lack of privacy or dignity, uh, particularly in the congregate living where you're in the same room. I've seen uh bays of people be as many as 150 to 200 people in the same space. So just no privacy and no dignity there. Uh and then four, the fourth point, they're hard to get approved in any neighborhood. Uh a lot of people have heard the term NIMBY, not in my backyard. And when you hear people talk about that, they have concerns about shelters being built in their areas. You know, that's the thing is uh a whole lot of people in the community will often say we need more emergency shelter for people, but I don't want it in my neighborhood. Well, if nobody wants it in their neighborhood, then where are you gonna build those things?

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

So there's often a lot of neighborhood resistance, and I think a lot of that is about education, though. We talked about that a little bit before with the different types of shelter, and I think people would be more amenable and more open to having a shelter in their area if they really understood what shelters were, and they got to have some input into what kind of shelter came into their neighborhood. And then finally, they may enable uh policy in action. So building shelters, again, is a temporary solution. Relying on shelters can give governments a way to avoid addressing structural issues or longer-term issues like the rising housing costs, lack of living wages for employment, inadequate support services, and shelters become a political band-aid rather than pushing for real reform. So if you're going to build a shelter, the thing that you have to keep in mind is you're going to have to have housing for every person that comes through that shelter. So if you really want to build a shelter, let's say you want to build a hundred-bed shelter, have a hundred, then you need to have a hundred, two hundred, maybe even three hundred uh beds or sorry, units of housing available to the people that are going to come through that shelter because otherwise all you're doing is just putting a band-aid on the problem. So uh counterpoints. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

So just listening to your the the beginning of the And then the second one about the shelters are expensive and built to oper. They're very expensive. I again I worked for a 24-hour shelter and my team, I had a huge team, and it was very expensive to operate. But yes, shelters don't do not end homelessness. I agree with you there. However, I'd rather have someone in a shelter safe than on the street. Same thing when it comes to building permanent supportive housing. As long it takes a while to build a property to get it, you know, ready to go for people to move in. While we're waiting for that, these people are on the street. That if we do have them in the shelter, they're safe. That's what I'm concerned about, is their safety. Um the the the theft or violence and the strict rules, I guess each shelter is different on that. When I started at the shelter I worked at, it was um it was uh it wasn't a low barrier. So there was a lot of rules. And the turnover and the recidivism was very high. Then when it became low barrier, a lot went out the window, but you still have to have some type of um uh rules to keep it organized. So it's kind of both ways on that. But but I I I think that definitely, yeah, I agree. It doesn't end homelessness, but we have to have people off the street and somewhere safe as long as we provide those services and get them housed, and but I agree with you too. If we have a hundred people and we only have fifty, you know, rooms, then what do we do? That's exactly right. But I I look at it more of like we were talking earlier about the heat and the inclement weather and you know being incarcerated, and at least if we have them somewhere safe, we can hopefully try to provide all those other services for them.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

So yeah, I I agree with that. I I think you're right. I think shelters should be for safety and they should be for immediate concerns. But if you're going to build these buildings and you're gonna have these large, you know, buildings out there with a whole bunch of people, they have got to become transitional at some point. They've got to be able to move people through. And I think that's one of the things with the shelter is that people who or funders or governments or whoever approves shelters getting built only thinks about getting it built and then having people move into it. They don't think about the people moving out, and I think that's where we get a little short-sighted with it. And that's when it becomes that band-aid or warehousing or whatever term you want to use, but people get stuck there. And I think that's the real key here is you've got to have enough resources. If you're gonna build a shelter, you've got to have enough resources to be able to get everybody out of that shelter.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah, and we've had a lot of discussion about this, about shelters and uh you know, not going big, right? Doing smaller shelters, right? You know, uh kind of we talked earlier about the different type of shelters. You know, do you want a shelter that's just about the elderly? Do you want some shelters that just about DV, domestic violence? Yeah, or uh and smaller you can manage it better, and you can work harder because it because now you're working with a certain population to get certain housing for them. So it makes it a little bit easier. So I I yeah, it's kind of that meeting that middle ground, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Yeah, and I think smaller is better, but also then you can put more resources into the housing as well, and the supportive services, like you talked about, you know, having those things available at the shelter. Definitely. Um, and then finally we want to talk about Pathlight Home's position. Um, our position has always been housing over shelters, um, but shelters should be able to get people into housing quickly if they do exist. And so that's our take. Obviously, we're a housing provider, we're not a not necessarily considered a shelter provider, um, but we do have types of housing that people transition through. Right. And we're real proponents of getting people all the way until they're self-sufficient and they have their own units or they have their own places to live on their own.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

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 the first question comes from Julie. Call, this is for you. Uh, why wouldn't people go into shelter when it's available?

SPEAKER_02 26:20

So, uh so we talked about this a little bit in the offense-defense segment, um, but uh there's several reasons why people might not go into shelter. Um, number one, the rules. Um, again, I'll use it, I'll use uh a perfect example of somebody who's working at night, somebody who works the late shift. Um oftentimes shelters don't allow for that. They have very strict rules on curfews on when you can be out of the shelter and when you have to be in the shelter. And sometimes those don't coincide with what a person's work schedule might be. So if they're trying to work at night or they're trying to work some odd schedule, or they don't have a schedule that is nine to five Monday through Friday, well then they're gonna really struggle to be able to stay in that shelter and follow those rules of the shelter. There's also things like, you know, uh people with mental health issues. Um, it's really difficult. People, uh veterans with PTSD, things like that. Being around so many people in such an enclosed space really makes it challenging for people to be in a shelter. So those are just some of the examples, not to mention the fact that if you do break the rules or you're caught breaking the rules or whatever the case, sometimes you get banned from the shelter and you won't be allowed to go back to the shelter. So, yeah, so there's several reasons.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Yeah, same uh when when again when I worked there, we we did a survey of some folks that will come in for meals. We did a survey to ask them, you know, why they didn't want to come into the shelter. And the number one was the rules. They just didn't want to go by the rules um about the curfew. Um uh the belongings was a huge one because we only allowed a certain amount of belongings to come in because it was a small locker. Again, you had over 500 people, there's only so much limited space. So that was another one. They didn't want to leave their belongings behind. Pets was another one. Pets is a big one, though. They didn't want to even even trying to find other options for them or another home for the pet, they just didn't want to separate because that's all they had. Um, so yeah, those were all uh a lot of the results that we had when we did the survey for them. So yeah, absolutely. All right, uh the second question call comes from Joe. Uh, won't building a shelter bring more homeless people into my neighborhood?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

This is a really good question, and this is one that I've heard a lot from people uh going back to the not in my backyard or the NIMBY issue. This one I've heard a lot from people is they think that more homeless people will come into their neighborhood because of that. First of all, in most of the locations where you're going to build the shelter, there's already people who are homeless there. And as you said, they're out on the streets. Would we rather have them out on the streets or would we rather have them inside in a shelter? Um that's the first thing. The second thing is it depends on the kind of shelter as well. And so, you know, things like an overnight shelter where people have to leave during the day, you're right. You might see an increase in the number of homeless people in your neighborhood because during the evening time, they might be, you know, having they might have 150, 200 people in a shelter at night, but then during the day they have to leave during the day and they have to go somewhere. And so that's where, again, it gets down to I think if if the neighborhood, instead of just saying no, what neighbors should say is we want to have input into it and we want to understand what kind of shelter is good for our neighborhood. Like you said, build a smaller shelter, you can build you can make sure that the shelter will keep people inside during the day. You can make sure that there are all kinds of uh services available there, including security, on-site security, things like that. All of those things can mitigate any of this in terms of people being in the actual neighborhood where a shelter is.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Yeah, and again, it goes back to the myths that's right, those misconceptions and education, and and and everyone has a right to feel that way, thinking that their neighborhood, you know, they want the neighborhood safe for themselves, for their kids. Absolutely. You know, um a lot of people talk about their property value going down. Um, but yeah, it it's it it getting the community involved more and getting their input is is key for them to understand why we're building a shelter, what's the purpose of the shelter, what what are the outcomes of the shelter. Um, because people think that they're gonna move in there, stay there, never move out, and then it just becomes chaos outside. But like you said, if if the if the shelter is managing the property correctly and making sure that their facility in and out is taken care of, then there should be none of that. But like you said, you can walk around anywhere now and there's no shelter around, but there's homeless people outside, and they're hanging out in front of parks, in front of stores, you know, walking everywhere. So and there's no shelter. So that's right. What's the difference on that?

SPEAKER_02 31:09

So yeah. And now we'll go to the homelessness quote of the week. Um, the quote of the week this week is criminalization is a very expensive way for taxpayers to make homelessness worse. And that was from an advocate. Uh, I picked this up somewhere, I think, at a conference. Uh David Peary uh brought that up. Um, I think that's a really good example of people not understanding is people think that by criminalizing homelessness, and again, we're talking about shelters here and trying to get people into shelters, things like that, but criminalizing homelessness is not going to make it any better. And it's going to cost way more dollars. Um the the story that I would add to this one in particular is uh in Broward County, I was working a lot with law enforcement officers, and law enforcement officers, you know, by and large, the most of them that we talked about were not in favor of criminalizing or arresting people for being homeless, camping outside, you know, uh loitering, whatever, whatever charges or whatever ordinances they had in place. Because what they realized is that the people are only gonna be in jail for a minimum amount of time, right? Probably two or three days. They're gonna be right back out in the same situation, and they're gonna end up probably in a worse situation than they were in terms of being able to get long-term services or long-term housing. And so most of the police officers that we worked with there were really trying to help us by calling the social service agencies, getting our outreach teams involved, and trying to get services to those people before they had to arrest them because they knew if they arrested them or had to arrest them, that all it was going to do is make homelessness, the the person, the individual's homelessness worse.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, and as we've discussed in previous shows, our three bridges is doing that. That's right. It's it's having law enforcement drop someone off instead of taking them, you know, to prison.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

And we end up getting them housed. And it and that collaboration and working together and the understanding of what we're doing and what they're doing is so important. Um, but yeah, we've we've had some instances that we've had housing available for people, and then we don't know where they're at, and we end up finding out that they're in jail um for whatever reason, yep, and they end up losing their housing. And then when they come out, they have to start over again going through the process to get them into a unit. So it's and again, and I agree with you, it is way more expensive to have someone in jail than have someone in housing. Oh, absolutely. Or a shelter. Or a shelter. Absolutely. So 100%. Uh so we want to take time to thank Joe and Julie for their questions. Um, if you have any questions or comments, please uh email us at questions at pathlighthome.org. All right, and that concludes our halftime. Let's jump into the third quarter. We are ready to highlight the goodwill and good works in the NFL community, look at our local football teams fared, oh boy, and announce our NFL home team locks of the week. So our NFL player spotlight of the week is Jeremy Chin. Uh, he's has been selected after hosting a season kickoff celebration for 90 teenagers experiencing homelessness in Nevada. Being recognized as a staple in the community is a major honor, Las Vegas Raider Safety said. My charitable motivations come from wanting to uplift, support, and inspire young people facing unfortunate circumstances. The special event featured a dinner, a live DJ set, an interactive football game, free haircuts, uh, and a meet and greet with Chin himself. By teaming up with the Health Plan of Nevada Medicaid and help of Southern Nevada's Shannon West Homeless Youth Center, each attendee also received a set of essential items, including a drawstring backpack, shorts, hoodie, and athletic sandals. Uh, it's an honor to be part of something that brings joy and support to these incredible young people, Chin said. Everyone deserves to be feel seen, valued, and supported, and events like this remind me, remind us of the power of community and compassion. Chin's passion for helping people experiencing homeless stems from his own childhood when he saw his aunt face those challenges firsthand. Since entering the league in 2020, Chin has used his platform to provide practical assistance and resources through events in his team cities to help individuals, particularly youth, transition out of homelessness. So that's a great highlight.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Jeremy Chin's a wonderful player, too, for the Las Vegas Raiders. He's really good, and I'm really glad to see him giving back. And again, this is just uh again another example of you know NFL players doing some really great work, working on uh getting people out of homelessness and working with our youth in particular. I particularly like the part where you talk about it, uh he says, reminds me of the power of community and compassion. And I think that's what it's about. Is again, we've talked about this multiple times on our on our show here, is that it's going to take the entire community to help us solve this problem. It's not just a provider issue, it's not just a government issue. Everyone has to do their part to get involved in this, and I'm glad to see that this NFL player.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Yeah, and we're seeing an increase in youth homelessness. Um, so uh him addressing it and taking care of that population is is fantastic. So I love that he did that, and yeah, really good. So all right. So now we are gonna go to call, uh, the expert in fantasy football. Uh so he's gonna pick the player, uh, player pick of the week.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Fantastic. Thank you, Danny. Um, I don't know about expert. Um I'm I'm certainly trying. I'm not doing so great on my fantasy football player picks of the week. Um last week I picked James Connor, a running back for Arizona. He was expected to get nine points and he ended up with four points.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Uh Arizona had a bad week, um, and uh James Connor really did not do well. Um this week, though, I'm I'm more hopeful. Um I'm picking Keenan Allen, who is a wide receiver for the Los Angeles Chargers. They played the New York Giants, and you know, we talked about how the Giants have are not having so great a year. Um he's expected to get eight points, and I think he will far outperform that those uh eight points.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

So hopefully one day you'll teach me on this. So is is is the expectation of nine points, eight points good? Is it bad?

SPEAKER_02 37:49

Is it uh it's about middle of the road. Um middle of the road, nine, eight points. And again, I'm using our league's scoring system, so in other leagues it might be different. The scoring system might be a little different. But in our in our system, this is about middle of the road, about eight points, anywhere from eight to twelve points, usually, unless it's a quarterback. Quarterbacks can usually score a little bit more points. But for a wide receiver, eight points is a decent game. Um, and so I'm expecting Keenan Allen to have better than a decent game. I expect him to have 12 or 15 points, hopefully, and we'll see how it turns out. All right. Um, our fantasy flashback this week, uh though I'm going way back in the time machine on this one, baby. I saw that. I don't even think you knew who this was, right? Yeah, only the older adults will know this. Exactly. Um, I'm going back to week four of the 1951 season. Wow. 1951, but for good reason. There's a quarterback by the name of Norm Van Brocklin. Us football nerds know who he is, of course. He was a quarterback with the Los Angeles Rams. And in week four of 1951 season, he threw for 554 yards in five touchdowns versus the New York Yanks. At the time they were the New York Yanks. How about that? Wow. Um, and this record, by the way, 554 yards in a game, actually still stands as the NFL record in a game. And so from 1951. And here's the interesting part about that Norm Van Brockland was not the only quarterback on the Los Angeles Rams team. He actually had to alternate with another quarterback and for the entire season. So he threw five touchdowns in one game. And you know how many threw for the entire season? 13. Wow. Thirteen. Wow. Because he only played half of the game. They would alternate quarterbacks back then in 1951. And you said that record still stands in 554? 554 yards in a game still stands today. And let me tell you, that's a that's gonna be a tough one to break.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

And considering with all the quarterbacks we've had since they are.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Dan Marino, Dan Fouts, I mean some really great quarterbacks. And no, they have not broken the 554-yard mark. So now we'll go on to the local football teams to watch. Um, I'll start with my Jones High School team, which finally got a win again, uh got back on the on the winning record. Uh Jones beat Osceola 28-14, uh, improving the record to 3-2 on the season. And uh they are currently ranked number 27 in Florida uh for football teams. Their next team that they play next week is Auburndale.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

All right. So I have Boone High School, so they played West Orange and we won 24 to 21. We are 5-0. Uh they had a total of 250 rushing yards uh for that game. Uh they keep moving up in the rankings. They moved up to seven uh seven points and are 63 in Florida and moved up to 16 in Orlando. I think when we started having the podcast, they were like 27 to 28. So they're they're moving up. Yeah. They're moving up. Uh we have uh Timber Creek next uh this week on the 26th, and their record is uh two wins and three losses.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Fantastic. Great. All right, now we'll move on to the locks of the week, uh, where we each predict a home team to win each week. Um I'll go ahead and I'll start because I picked the Chicago Bears at home to beat the Dallas Cowboys last week. Um I really put it all on the line out there, and of course, my Bears won. They beat Dallas, and uh so that makes me two and one for the week. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Um, so I picked the Ravens uh because that's who I picked for the Super Bowl, and uh they played Detroit, who beat Chicago last week. Just want to put that out there that they beat Chicago last week. Uh but unfortunately they lost uh I think it was 38 to 30. Uh there was a fumble in the fourth quarter that kind of just screwed them up. So uh yeah, so I didn't get my pick.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

So I think I makes you two and one as well.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yep. Two and one. Yep. Okay. Uh so this week's selections call you have.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

I have the Atlanta Falcons. Over the rest of the year. They had a really bad week this week against Carolina. They uh scored what we call affectionately a donut, a zero against Carolina. And so uh they're looking to bounce back. They're playing the Washington Redskins this week.

SPEAKER_03 42:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

They're at home, though. I think Atlanta's gonna have a big week, and they're gonna they're gonna come back from that, from that uh embarrassing loss to the to the Panthers last week.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

So I have the Indianapolis Coast versus the LA Rams. I'm picking the Rams. Um, Indianapolis is undefeated. Um, so it's gonna be an interesting game at home, but LA is a good team. They have a very good team, so we'll we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

That's right. Yep. All right. Well, that takes us to the end of the quarter, so stay tuned for our final quarter after this message.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

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_01 44:13

Welcome to the fourth quarter where we will wind down this episode by reflecting on a homelessness MVP and a fumble of the week before wrapping up with our key takeaway. So, Carl, you have the MVP of the week.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Yeah, the homelessness MVP of the week comes from our Texas Homeless Network conference. The Texas Homeless Network is the continuum of care, the balance of state continuum of care, and also the lead agency for that continuum of care. So they cover basically for those who don't understand the balance of state, it's effectively all of the geographic areas that don't already have a continuum care. So in Texas, it's mainly a lot of rural areas, but it covers a large area in Texas. And so they're the lead agency, which means that they lead the services or homeless services in those areas. And what they've done is they've come up with an innovation fund. This innovation fund is going to be flexible grants for families. It provides private, flexible dollars to quickly meet family needs that other funding sources can't cover. It helps families avoid or exit homelessness by covering urgent costs like rental arrears, landlord incentives, moving expenses, application fees, utility payments, or document replacement. It prioritizes families with young children aged zero to five, recognizing the profound impact that housing instability has on child development. And so they've come up with this fund and they're going to put out a what we call a NOFO or notice of funding opportunity to all of their areas, all their geographic areas they cover, and they're going to allow people to apply for these dollars. We have something similar to that. We do here at Pathlight Home. We have what we call our Flex Fund, which does the same thing mostly for individuals, but it's available. And like it says, it covers those small costs that other funding sources won't cover. One of the things a lot of community members don't understand is that the funding that we get, particularly from large funders, government funders, foundations, things like that, are really what we call restricted. And so they have very specific rules and guidelines on how that money can be used. And oftentimes it doesn't cover really small things, you know, like moving expenses or application fees. And there's numerous times when I was a case manager or I was doing outreach where $25 was keeping someone from being able to move into housing. And to have something like a flex fund where you can dip into those funds which are flexible and pay $25 to pay an application fee so that somebody can move into housing, that's a huge thing to be able to get people off.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Definitely. I mean, I I the the flex fund we have has been fantastic and it's helped many residents here who some emergency comes up that you know they got sick and had to go to the hospital and couldn't work for a couple of days, their car broke down, and they just they don't have that extra money to pay for their rent at the moment. And we kind of come in with that flex fund and help out. We've helped a lot of people just this year alone with just with that flex fund, so it's great. The other point to the Texas Homelessness Network is listening to the sessions that I attended, a lot of them, there was so much about the rural communities. And I didn't know about Texas to that scale of how small some of these counties are. Oh, yeah. And there's hardly any services like we talked about earlier. So this is great. This is really, really cool. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

Yep. And now you got the homelessness fumble of the week, Danny.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

So the fumble of the week goes to Redwood City, California. They recently added their name to a long list of cities to make public camping a misdemeanor. In Redwood City, homelessness is now punishable by a misdemeanor charge and up to six months in jail. Hearing you will find uh housing prices that are 190% higher than the national average, and 700,000 of those homes are missing in the San Francisco Bay Area alone. These numbers make it impossible to argue that homelessness is driven by anything other than the lack of affordable housing. There are many problems with this punitive approach. Some of those most glaring issues are as follows. Criminalization does reduce homelessness or even reduce unsheltered homelessness. There are no communal benefits to this punitive approach. Homeless people who are arrested, cited, or fined are less likely to be able to obtain housing or employment in the future. Loss of possessions during sweeps can mean being cut off of much needed assistance. All these issues are important to bear in mind, but perhaps the least spoken and most horrifying problem is the fact that the penalties grow harsher as they increase.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Yeah, and and I think this fumble in particular, uh again, we're pointing out Redwood City because they just uh enacted this this uh you know camping misdemeanor law or whatever the case is. But really overall the fumble is is any criminalization of homelessness. And again, we've talked about this, and in conjunction with the emergency shelter, is and again, even in their misdemeanor, the way that I read this is that their misdemeanor says uh if you are unwilling to go to a shelter bed that's available, the reality is there's no shelter beds available. So uh it's it it's almost a moo point with this misdemeanor because if there aren't shelter beds available to people, well then what are you gonna do? And what ends up happening in a lot of these circumstances, there's no shelter bed available, so they can't arrest them, but they don't want them to be in the same place, so they just end up moving them around. They just end up moving them down the street, moving them to some other location, they lose a lot of their belongings, they lose important documents that they need to be able to get out of homelessness, those kinds of things. But in particular, here, when your housing prices are 190% higher than national average, and 700,000, your short 700,000 homes that are affordable in your area, how do you even how do you even rationalize making camping then a misdemeanor offense?

SPEAKER_01 50:32

I mean, that doesn't even make sense to me. Right. Well it goes back to what we said earlier about if you're gonna build shelters and have shelters, then you need all these housing units for people. Um but it also all the other things that it says about just looking at someone going to jail for six months, yep, now this person comes out, it's gonna be impossible for them to get any type of housing. You know, something we didn't bring up, and I just thought of while you were reading it was now they have a record, now they're gonna apply for housing somewhere, and they might not get denied because of their criminal past. That's exactly right. We on our side, we we're not, we don't do that. Obviously. But you know, you're applied to a regular property manager and they see that you've been in jail for six months for whatever it is, they're gonna reject your application. That's right. And so it's now it's gonna make it even more difficult for you to get some type of housing anywhere. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

And and they might not even necessarily deny you because it's a misdemeanor. Right. But what we have to keep in mind is when your housing market is so tight, you're competing against hundreds and thousands of other people. And if they don't have a misdemeanor, and you do, guess who's gonna get the unit? The person without the misdemeanor.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

So it just makes it more difficult all the way around. Um finally, we'll go to our key takeaway. Um, we should strive to end homelessness, not just manage it. And when you're choosing agencies to support, one of the things that we ask you to do is please check to make sure that they're doing so. I'll give you an example of our organization. Pathlight Home has housed over 8,000 people since our inception. If you're working or you're trying to support a uh homeless serving or uh an agency that serves individuals who are experiencing homelessness, one of the key things that you have to be looking for is how many people did they get housed. It's great, and don't get me wrong, it's great to provide shelter, it's great to provide meals, it's great to provide showers, and we do all of those things. But the reality is if people aren't getting housed or out of homelessness from this organization and they can't prove to you how many people they're moving out of homelessness, well then you really gotta wonder, you know, what's going on with those resources and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

Yeah, if you're a shelter and you're just doing services and not solutions, right? It's not working. That's exactly it's not working. You you want someone to go in there, be safe, but then eventually go into something permanent.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

And that's that's the goal of a shelter. That's what it should be. And th and those are the types of things that you should be looking for is what are those long-term outcomes? How did people improve their lives after going through whatever agency or whatever place it is?

SPEAKER_01 53:09

And when someone leaves, also continue assisting and helping with those other services. Like we talked earlier about the young lady who was the peer li had a lived experience. She went, got housed, thought everything was fine, and then fell backwards because she didn't have those services.

SPEAKER_02 53:23

That's exactly right. All right. Well, that concludes our episode for the week. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Uh, if you have any questions or comments, please send them to us at our email, which is questions at patholitehome.org. And if you want to learn more about Pathlight Home, our organization, please visit our website at pathlighthome.org. As always, we leave the last words for our beloved co-founder, the late Reverend Fred Maxwell.

SPEAKER_03 53:58

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.