3. What is Rapid Rehousing?

Carl Falconer and Danny Arroyo are back for another four quarters of football and homelessness talk. This week’s focus: Rapid Rehousing—what it is, why it matters, and whether housing programs should mandate services. Carl and Danny debate both sides of the issue, share national housing updates, and highlight the week’s football scores and “Locks of the Week.”

You’ll also hear:

• NFL Spotlight: Jason Brown’s inspiring journey from the St. Louis Rams to farming and feeding the hungry.
• Homelessness MVP: The RENEW program helping women gain careers—and housing—in real estate.
• Homelessness Fumble: Controversial media remarks about homelessness that sparked national outrage.

Packed with insights, sports talk, and community stories, Episode 3 tackles the game plan for ending homelessness while keeping you updated on the football field.

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

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to the Home Team Podcast. I'm Carl Falconer and Danny O'Roy, and we're tackling homelessness.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

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 rapid rehousing. So, how was your weekend, Danny? It was good.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

It was good with a lot of uh emotion, a lot of uh yeah, it was it was good.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Yeah, watched a little bit of that game. Uh it seemed to go up and down for your cowboys.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

It was I yeah, I went through a lot of emotions those four quarters.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Definitely, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

But it was a great game. Uh yeah. So it was a good weekend.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

How was yours? Uh it was good. It was good. Uh went to Animal Kingdom on Saturday for a little while, so that was nice. Okay. Walked around. The weather was beautiful, um, as it usually is here in Orlando. Um, but yeah, it was really good. It was really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Good, I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

So let's get to it then. Uh we'll start us off with the coin toss. Danny, if you will call it now. Heads. And it is tails, so I'll start us off. Okay. All right. Welcome to the first quarter. I'm going to kick off by defining our topic of the week, and then we'll cover some headlines from both homelessness and football, including the results from last week's home team locks of the week. So our topic this week is rapid rehousing. It's a strategy to move people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing as quickly as possible, providing short-term rental assistance and case management to help them stabilize in their homes. The rental subsidy usually lasts anywhere from three months up to two years and typically involves three core components. So these are the components of rapid rehousing. Housing identification, which of course is finding the available units for people, rent and move-in assistance, which covers costs like security deposits, first month's rent, and uh some rental assistance for up to the 24 months, and case management, which offers personalized support and connections to community resources. Rapid rehousing is a person-centered, client-directed approach that empowers individuals and families to exit homelessness without lengthy stays in shelters. So this type of housing usually differs from transitional housing by being both scattered site, meaning it's out in the community, so it's usually not in one location, and it also does not require or mandate lots of services as part of the rapid rehousing model. Um so tell us a little bit about your experience with rapid rehousing, Danny.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Uh yeah, so I've been doing uh rapid for a couple of years now. We actually do it here now, um, on our property for our three bridges program. Right. And it's it's been working very well. Again, it's it's giving um our clients or our residents a little buffer to get sustainable, you know, save up some money, um, while we help them with that, you know, that move-in costs, um, just just that extra help. Um, so it's it's yeah, it's a positive um program. I I I enjoy very much.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Yeah, and last week we talked a little bit about diversion, and this is kind of the the opposite of that. This is after they've gotten into the system, right? They're in emergency shelter, and then we try and get them rapid, rapidly rehoused, with thus rapid rehousing. But it really is more of a kind of a transitional program. So it's kind of a uh a step-through program, if you will. You know, trying to keep get someone who's been on the streets possibly or been in shelter for a very long time, get them stabilized while they're in housing, helping them pay their rent, helping them with other services that they need until they're ready to be able to become self-sufficient. And the idea with Rapid Rehousing is really targeting that for them, them for that self-sufficiency.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, what I like about it also is that it gives you that three months up to two years. So every person is different, every case is different, but it gives you it's it's a big window for three to two years, but it's it's a great way for case marriages to work with their clients, get them sustainable, you know, if they have a job, maybe find a better job um so they can save up more money. Uh but yeah, it's it's a great program and it's it's working well for us and our organization that we just started doing it back in May.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

So absolutely. And we'll talk about this a little bit more. Um, I think when one of our questions coming in from um some of the people who are who are listening to the podcast, but I I do want to reiterate as part of the rapid rehousing that people are still paying rent, that people are still paying what is available or what they have available to be able to pay rent, because particularly with rapid rehousing, the idea is to get them to pay their own rent eventually and then move off of services altogether. So that's rapid rehousing. Um, and that is our topic of the week.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Uh so we're gonna talk about headlines now, um, and gonna give you a quick update from last week's episode. We discussed the NOFO uh that the uh government put out, and we we had some thoughts and some opinions on it. Uh, but we actually had um the National Alliance 10 Homelessness um and other national organizations have sued the Department of Housing and Urban Development to stop the CLC builds NOFO. So that came, I think, the day after we had our podcast.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

It was very quick.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Uh yeah, so it was it was very quick. Um, and we we right now we're still waiting to see what the next steps are. Right. Um, but yeah, I think they it was a smart move to do that. Um and and yeah, it just it didn't make sense to us.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

So and again, it's only a stopgap. Um, you know, they sued obviously to have it stopped in the process that it was going through, but we'll see where it goes from there. Obviously, now it's in the court system, so we'll figure out you know, from there where it goes. Um all right, so now we're going on to the highlights of the week, our football games, and uh look ahead to next week's opponents. So, Danny, I'll let you start first with your Dallas Cowboys.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, so like we said earlier, uh my team had a very uh really it was a really good game. Um it was very back and forth all the way to five seconds in the game. Uh but Dallas did win 40 to 37. Um they were playing the Giants, who was part of their conference. Um, we did lose last week, so this win was needed. Yeah. Um but Wilson had a very good game, like they said it was the best game ever, passing for 450 yards. They were comparing him to his days in Seattle, right? Um looking like the old Wilson. And when he threw that last touchdown, I was like, Yeah, we're done. I looked at my wife and I said, We're done. And and my wife is not a football fan, but she was actually watching the game.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

And she was just seeing my face change expression and colors. My dogs were looking at me, like, what's wrong with him today? Uh, but no, we we had a good game. Prescott two for 361 yards. Um, and then Aubrey as always, you know, pulls him through. Yeah, he was four for four, and five seconds left, he hit that field goal. So it was it was a good game.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Absolutely. Uh we did pretty much the opposite of what you did. Uh it was not a good game. We played Detroit. Uh the Chicago Bears, uh, unfortunately, my Chicago Bears fell 52 to 21 to Detroit. Um, our offense couldn't get started, and then it just kind of snowballed after that. Their offense started, you know, started picking up. Our defense got tired, and one thing led to another, and it was pretty much just a schlacking all the way across. So uh at this point, I've kind of you know tempered my my enthusiasm for the changes that we made in Chicago. And I'm hoping by week eight, maybe we'll have our offense in place and our defense will start catching up. So yeah, so I'm kind of I don't know. I'm I'm a little, you know, a little upset that it wasn't going faster, but we knew it was a rebuild. We knew there was a lot of people coming in, so we're definitely gonna give it away.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

It takes time. I was I was looking at the I was watching the game, my game, and then watching the app to see how your team was doing. And I said the score just going up and up, and I was like, are they gonna score yet or what's going on?

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Not a good day. Not a good day. Anyway, so next week's opponents.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Uh so we have oh, so we have so there's gonna be some problems on the next podcast. So we're gonna have uh the Dallas Cowboys against the Chicago Bears. That's right. So it's uh president against VP next week. Uh so I don't know how we're gonna be on Monday or Tuesday, uh, but I'm looking forward to it. It's it's in Chicago. That's right. Um so we'll we'll see. I mean, you just gave me some hope by saying we won't get good until the eighth week. There you go. So it's only the third, so I'm excited. But I think it's gonna be a good game. Um yeah, we'll we'll see how that goes in.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

One of us may may or may not be more vocal on the next uh pretty much on the next podcast. Or even be here.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Or even be here for the podcast. Who knows? Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

We'll see. All right. Uh so this wraps up the first quarter. We'll be back after this break.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Hello, I'm Gigi Ramirez, the senior director of fundraising and engagement here at Pathlight Home. For over 30 years, we've helped more than 8,000 people transition from homelessness to hope. But when someone moves from the streets to their own home, they often have nothing. That's why we provide immediate essentials, everything from bedding and food to soap and cookware to help them truly feel at home. Beyond housing, PathLite offers career training and supportive services, like our 12-week culinary program, helping residents gain skills, find jobs, and rebuild independence. You can be part of the story, volunteer your time, donate essential goods, or become a monthly Pathlight hero, ensuring every neighbor has a chance to thrive. Visit pathlighthome.org to donate today.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Welcome to the second quarter. We're getting a little deeper into a homeless topic with something we call offense versus defense. We will each take turns discussing some opposing viewpoints of our topic this week. The topic this week is should program services be mandated in order to receive housing rent subsidies? Please remember that we are trying to show both sides of the issue. These do not necessarily reflect our individual stances on these positions. So, call, you have the offense this week, and I have the defense, so I'll let you go first.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Alright, so I just want to remind everyone should program services be mandated in order to receive housing or rent subsidies? And I'm going to argue yes, or the offense position, yes, they should be mandated. And here's some reasons why. Um, number one, um, my first point is it promotes self-sufficiency, mandating services that help individuals become self-sufficient, such as budgeting classes and things like that, could allow them to get off of the subsidies long term. Job training programs uh could improve the employment program, substance abuse recovery, mental health services, any of those services could in fact promote self-sufficiency. And I think one of the keys here that I want to add to this portion of it is if you're going to mandate that the services that the people have the services, then you have to have those services available for the people. And I think that's one of the key points to mandating services is that they have to be available to everybody that comes through the program. If you can't make them available to everybody in the program, then there would be no way to effectively mandate that. Um, the second point is it addresses the root causes of homelessness or instability. So many people facing housing stability struggle with things like mental illness, addiction, uh, trauma, and making services mandatory, the idea of making mandatory services is to support recovery or stability alongside the housing. So it's it's understanding that people have issues and have um problems that they have to work through and giving them that support or giving them those services while they're in that housing to get them throughout throughout whatever their issue is. The third is encouraging accountability. So some policymakers, uh funders, you know, uh whoever it is, uh believe that requiring program participation ensures that people are making efforts to improve their situation. Uh one of the one of the things that people talk about is people getting into programs, getting some kind of subsidized rent, and then not doing anything after that or not trying to get to the highest level of self-sufficiency. If you mandate the services, uh it might encourage more uh accountability. And then my final point is that public support and uh and or a political strategy, if you tie subsidies, if you make them mandatory to the behavior like attending programs, it can make housing aid more politically palatable. That's a word that I'm using, Danny, palatable uh to voters who might otherwise oppose it. So again, the idea is that if people are going to get something, this renting, this rent subsidy, that they should be giving something back. And this, I think, mandating services and making sure people go through services is what the voters or what a lot of community members feel like is uh fair, I guess I would say. It makes it fair, and I think they would be more on board with giving more subsidies if they knew that people had to attend program services. So those are the reasons why, again, I'm taking the yes approach um why program services should be mandated for housing rent or subsidies.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Okay. So here's my defense, my no's. Uh so uh housing is a human right, not a reward. Um mandating services creates the impression that housing is something to be earned rather than basic human need. Individuals experiencing homelessness often face systemic barriers, poverty, racism, trauma, disability that are outside of their control. Number two, evidence shows voluntary services work better. Research on housing first models demonstrates that voluntary engagement in services leads to higher long-term success compared to mandatory programs. When services are optional, participants are most likely to build trust and maintain stability because they choose to participate rather than being coerced. Number three, mandates create barriers instead of reducing them. Service mandates often become bureaucratic hurdles. Missing an appointment, not completing a class, or declining treatment can somewhat put put someone at risk of losing housing. For people with mental health challenges, substance abuse disorders, or histories of trauma, rigid requirements can set them up for failure instead of supporting stability. Number four, uh choice builds trust and promotes engagement. Uh people who have experienced homelessness may already have carry deep dis mistrust of the systems, which is kind of a lot of what we talk about here when we're building relationships with our clients. Number five, stability, housing stability must come first. Stability in housing allows people to begin addressing employment, health, and personal goals. Without a safe place to live, it is nearly impossible to maintain sobriety, hold a job, or attend regular appointments. So for me in conclusion, uh mandating services to access housing undermines the very goal of ending homelessness. Housing should be unconditional with services available, accessible, and participant driven. By respecting choice, reducing barriers, and prioritizing stability, programs can foster genuine engagement, stronger outcomes, and long-term housing retention. So a little bit of total opposites of kind of what we're saying there.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

So uh so to kind of counter the points or or to kind of give a sum-up of both positions is it it seems like uh again, neither of these positions are advocating not having program services. It's whether we should mandate those program services as part of the housing program or not. And uh and uh I I can see your point where obviously voluntary services make a whole lot more sense than mand mandatory services. I mean, look, it it we're human beings, right? And anytime you tell somebody that they have to do something, they have to participate in something, they have to do there's just an automatic resistance to that as opposed to giving them those options. I think the the one thing that I would say about my position that that maybe makes it the strongest point is that if you mandate services, and I said this, if you mandate services, they have to be available to everyone. And unfortunately, if you if it's voluntary for people to get programmed services, unfortunately, what I've seen in some cases in housing programs is that they don't have enough resources to be able to offer it to everybody. Right. And so if you mandate it for everyone, then the whoever the funding source was, let's say it's the government or whoever it was, would have to put enough resources in there to make sure that let's say we have a hundred people in housing. You've got to have resources available so that a hundred people could access substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, medical treatment, all these support services. And right now, that's not how our system is set up. It's not set up to give that many resources to housing programs. So I think, you know, from that standpoint, mandating it could be a positive thing. It could be positive because it means that the resources would come for sure with the housing. Um, but again, on the other side of it, I I agree with you. I think that that voluntary is certainly better. It seems like the the research shows that the the more choice you give people and the more options you give people and the more ability you give people to be self-sufficient is is um better.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I I think the engagement will be more of its voluntary instead of like being told you have to do this, right? You're you're gonna you're gonna have them disengage and not want to get any of those services.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

So well, and and the other thing about that is, and this is something about the rapid rehousing model, is you're trying to get them used to, you're trying to get whoever moves in used to the fact that they well because here's the thing. Once the program goes away, there's no mandatory services. You and I don't have mandatory services where we live. There's no mandate for it. Right. Which means if you mandate it while they're in the program and then they graduate from the program, there's not going to be any mandatory, there's nothing mandatory after that. They're gonna still have to choose whether they continue to go to mental health treatment, whether they continue to go to medical. And so doing it voluntarily as part of the program and getting their buy-in while they're in the program almost assures that they're going to continue to receive those services or access those services voluntarily after they leave the program.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

And show them that it's working while they're doing it, uh while they're being case managed. And so when it's time to kind of phase out, they they know that it's still working for them, they can continue doing it. But again, voluntary.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

So finally, uh, I wanted to cover Pathlight Home's um position. Uh our position here has shown and still believes that with the right support, available resources, and excellent case managers, residents will voluntarily get the services they need to maintain their housing and get to their highest level of self-sufficiency possible. Now, and again, it's about voluntary services. And we've been, I know we have been adding a lot of voluntary services to people that are here. We've added mental health treatment, we've added uh some substance abuse treatment, we've added employment services, of course, we have on site, so we've added those services here to make sure that anybody that wants to access those services can access those services.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

And again, it's it's there for them if they need them.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Well, 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 I'll start with uh our fan interaction. Uh, we have a couple of questions here. Um, the first question, and I'll throw this to you, Danny, uh why is it okay for homeless people to pay nothing for their housing? This comes from John, um, one of our uh listeners. And so uh you want to take this question first, Dan? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

So I I think that's a touchy question for people. Uh because again, kind of those myths that are out there and those uh stigmas of you know, people don't want to work, right? People don't want to pay for anything, that's right. But there's circumstances where they can't.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Um, there's circumstances where they They have no income. That's right. There's nothing that, you know, a case manager or anyone can go out there and get for them. Um, just like some of our people that reside with us, um, they don't have income. Um, but we do have funding to cover their rent. So it it yes, it is okay. Well, it is okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

It is and here's the thing is is what people don't realize is that most people are paying rent. Correct. They're paying what they can afford to pay. And and that's the difference between our programs and some other programs. Although we have market rate units, as we mentioned on the show before. We have market rate units where people pay their full rent here. Uh, people who were formerly homeless and happen to have income move in, and because our rent is affordable for them, they pay the full amount of rent. They we give them no subsidy or no discount. Uh basically, our discount is that low rent that they have to pay, but they pay the full rent.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah, out of the five six five hundred and sixty units we have, the amount of residents that are here that don't have any type of income coming in is very small.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Very, very small.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Very, very small. So there are, like you said, people that are working, there are other people that are getting social security, right there, they are getting income in. So that that number is very small, but that does not mean that we cannot help them. That's right. Because they don't have any income. That's exactly and you know we we have to provide housing for them. That's right. And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

And the requirement actually in programs, even for the people who have zero income, the requirement is you have to pay 30% of whatever income that you have. Correct. So coming into the program, if they have zero, that's the only time that they won't pay rent. If they make ten dollars, they pay three dollars. If they make twenty dollars, they pay six dollars. Right. Yep. They pay thirty percent of their rent. And I think that's one of the myths about this is people say that people are getting free housing. They're not getting free housing, they're getting subsidized housing and they're getting help trying to make sure that we can build them up, but they're not getting free rent in most cases. And like you said, the it's very, very small the number of people who have zero income, and even those people that come in with zero income often get rent or get income very, very quickly after they're here.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah, and something we've seen uh starting our outreach this year is a lot of the people that we're interacting with that are on the street have income. That's right. They have income, they just can't afford rent somewhere, that's right. Um, which that's why we come in and we're affordable, and we can help them get into a unit here. Absolutely. Um, but previous to us possibly having conversations with them, they didn't know what to do. That's right. So they had nowhere to go because the rent is two, three times the amount of what they're bringing in. That's right. So we at least can help them in that sense. That's exactly right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

All right. Our second question is um uh from Toby. Uh the question is Is mental illness a leading cause of homelessness?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

No. Can we move on? No. I mean, no, again, that's another another myth. It's another, you know, it's it's saying the same thing. Is they have a mental illness or substance abuse and that's why they're homeless. It's not it. I have experience a personal experience in that sense of someone I know who suffers from that and was homeless. And it wasn't that they wanted to be homeless, it's not it was just circumstances that that occurred that he became homeless.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Um, but no, that's yeah, and and and the good indicator of that is the statistics. If you look at the data and you look at how many people suffer with mental issues, mental health issues in our community, it far outse out sorry, it far exceeds the number of people who become homeless. If mental illness was a cause of homelessness, there would be hundreds of thousands of people who would be homeless, way over the numbers that we have currently. And again, if you think about it, think about a lot of the people that you know, some of your friends, some of your family who have mental health issues, they're housed. They're not homeless. The cause of homelessness is housing, is affordable housing. Because even if I have a mental illness, and even if it's a severe mental illness, but I can pay my rent, I won't become homeless. It's as simple as that. So, anyway, um, so those are questions. Um, thank you, Danny, for jumping in with me on those. Yep. Um, trying to get over some of those myths. Um, let's go to the homeless quote of the week.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Sure. So the quote of the week this week is a person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still. So that's a good one. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Never heard that one before. And again, it goes to the idea that if you're going to mandate services for people, that it's oftentimes not going to stick. And I have a little bit of I have a little story that I want to tell you uh or tell the tell the the listeners um today about this. Um so when I first started in the in in um in outreach, we did outreach and and all this, and we heard about a program that was being mandated. It was a uh uh pre-release program or a jail program, and what they were doing is they were offering well not offering, they were mandating substance abuse services as part of this jail program so people could get out a little bit earlier, get some time reduced off their sentence if they went through the substance abuse treatment program. And so the obviously there was a there was the carrot there to to entice people to do it, and um, and the only way that you could get out early is if you went through this treatment program. So people would go through this treatment program, and we would hear stories out on the street, and in fact, some of our outreach workers actually saw this in person. So people would come out of this this release program having graduated from the substance abuse recovery program, and they would walk down to the local convenience store, buy themselves a six-pack of beer, and drink beer and hold up their certificate around all their friends and tell them how they had graduated while they're while they're getting drunk at the same time. Okay. After going through the substance abuse recovery. And it it just shows that they they had no intention of trying to get sober or to get or to recover. And I'm not saying that people didn't recover from this program. Those there are some really good programs out there that really do work, but but this was a a clear indication that the person that was convinced of substance abuse recovery was not really buying into it. And I think that's the difference between mandating services and making them voluntary is that people have to buy into it if they're voluntary, otherwise they don't.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yeah, I sent this quote to a couple of friends of mine and asked them, what do you think that means? And I I got a couple of texts back, but one that that my friend sent was true change of opinion cannot be forced. It requires the person to genuinely choose to see things differently. That's right. So it was like uh I I was asking, what do you guys think that means? And that just hit. Yeah, you know, it's you can't just force someone to do something. It you know, you have to be willing to do it, you know, to get the help of it.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

It's like our wives trying to get us to go on that diet, right, Danny? Yeah, it doesn't work. I mean, they've been trying for years and years, and I have to say it's still not working very well.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Yeah, my house is usually more MMs.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

All right. Um, so and that concludes our halftime. So let's jump right 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 team locks of the week. So we'll start with the NFL Players Spotlight of the Week. And uh, Danny, I'll let you go ahead and take this one.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Sure. So the NFL Player Spotlight of the Week is Jason Brown. Uh he is a former center for the St. Louis Rams who quit to become a farmer. A farmer. He had no idea how to be a farmer. None, none at all. He walked away from his successful career and millions of dollars in 2014 to start a 1,000-acre farm in North Carolina called First Fruits. Uh it's primarily um, he grows crops, primarily uh sweet potatoes, to feed the hungry and combat food insecurity in his community. Uh he famously learned how to farm by watching YouTube videos, which I do this a lot. But I want to know how to do something.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

That's a true millennial right there, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Exactly. I I look at how to change a bulb or something, not how to farm, but um but yeah, he so uh after playing for nine seasons, signing a large contract, Braun retired at the age of 29 to pursue farming, a stark contrast to his previous life as a professional athlete. Um it was a calling of a calling of faith. His decision was driven by a strong spiritual calling, leading him to believe that his purpose was not in fame or materialism, but in serving others by working the land. Um impact of his work is as of late 2024, First Fruit Farm had donated over a million pounds of food to fight hunger in North Carolina, highlighting the significant impact of his transition from the NFL to a farmer.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Wow. That's fantastic. Yeah, but to make that kind of a change in your life, I mean, you're obviously on one career path, whatever it is, NFL or or accountant or lawyer or whatever it is, and then just to have that calling, have that, you know, uh speak to his heart and basically say, look, you know, you're meant to do something else, and to just go out there and put full faith into it and really get out and just absolutely and apparently YouTube has a one-on-one on how to farm.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

I mean, who knew?

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Go YouTube. Exactly. All right, now we go into the fantasy football section. Of course, this is my section. Um, and uh I want to go over last week's fantasy football player or the player pick of the week, and that was Chuba Hubbard from Carolina. He was scheduled to score 11 points. He actually scored 14, so he did a little over his average. I would have liked it to be a little higher. Um, if you had Chuba Hubbard, you probably had a decent uh week with you with his score, but nothing spectacular. This week I'm choosing James Connor. He's a running back from Arizona. He's scheduled to score 12 points this week, and I think he will exceed what his uh what his fantasy value is. Um our fantasy flashback comes from 2016, week three in 2016. Marvin Jones Jr., wide receiver for Detroit Lions. Do you remember Marvin Jones Jr., uh, Danny? From way back? Okay, good, good, good. Uh I remember him too. Uh he was a lesser known receiver for Detroit since they had Calvin Johnson there, but he certainly had a big day on week uh week three of 2016. He had on that day, he had six receptions, two hundred and sixty-five receiving yards, and two touchdowns. So if you had Marvin Jones Jr. that week on your and your fantasy football team, you probably won the week. There's no doubt. That's a lot of receiving yards, a lot of touchdowns and a lot of points for uh for Marvin Jones. Good game. Now we'll move on to the uh local teams. My Jones high school team is is struggling, Danny. They're struggling. You didn't have a good weekend. Did not have a good weekend. They lost to Edgewater 20 to 17. I know Edgewater is a pretty good opponent. They're like uh, I think number one now in the Orlando area. Um and they're they're a really good team. Um, and unfortunately, they lost to them on the road 20 to 17. Our next opponent is Osceola High School. Hopefully, uh we'll get back on track. Uh Jones High School will hopefully, you know, be able to win one and and get back in the winning column.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

So Boone High School uh it actually was playing West Orange. They were both undefeated. Um and Boone actually won 27 to 21. Wow. Uh so they're a 4-0. Uh they moved up 24 points in the rankings. They're now at uh 70 for Florida and 18 for Orlando. So good week. I I don't have who they're playing next week. That was my fault, but that's okay. I'll give you guys an update next week on that. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they're gonna win again, so it doesn't matter. Oh man. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

Well, here we go. Okay, fair enough. All right, so now let's look at the locks of the week. Uh predicting the home uh uh each week we predict the home team to win each week. Uh so the let's go to our lock of the week results. Uh last week I picked Kansas City. They lost again. I I feel like there's a theme going on here for this week, unfortunately. And Danny picked his own Cowboys. We went at home and they won. They did. So that makes Danny 2-0 in the locks of the week results, and it makes me one and one. Um and now we'll go to this week's selection. Danny, your lock of the week this week.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

So I am the first episode we picked who was gonna play in the Super Bowl. Right. Um, and I picked Philly against the Ravens. Right. That's right. You gave me some grief on that. So they are playing uh the Detroit, the Baltimore Ravens are playing the Detroit Lions this week. Yep. Um, and I'm picking Baltimore. Oh, wow. Okay, very I'm picking them for the Super Bowl. You gotta pick at least one home. At least one. So I I think I think they're gonna have a good game. Um again, Detroit. Uh I don't know if you heard, but they played the Bears this weekend, and you know, they kind of played really well. Yeah, they did. So I'm hoping that Baltimore uh Baltimore. It's gonna be a good game between both teams. So I think Baltimore is one and one right now. Yeah. Absolutely. Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

And my selection this week, Danny, you'll be happy to hear, uh, is my Chicago Bears. Okay. They're at home versus Dallas, so I'm going all in. All right. All in for the week.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Oh, next week is gonna be great. That's what I said. Next week's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

That's what I said. After uh after our game on uh Sunday, then uh we'll we'll definitely see who shows up uh for the podcast next week.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

And that's the end of the third quarter. Uh stay tuned for our commercial break.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

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

SPEAKER_01 38:53

So the MVP of the week is the Real Estate Network Education and Work, uh, Renew. It's a program that provides real estate training for women facing homelessness or housing insecurity in the greater Sacramento area. Uh it was launched in 2018 and is now in its 12th season. The program was inspired by the Restart program in San Diego. The goals of this program is uh to provide career pathways in property management and real estate. It helps participants secure jobs that often come with housing, such as on-site apartment managers, uh, achieve both employment and housing stability for women in transition. As Cochran explained, uh the goal is that they get a job that has housing because a lot of times in the apartment community communities, you need an on-site manager. So housing is part of the job. We're trying to achieve both those goals with the same program. Um, this program is supported by Women's Empowerment. It's a Sacramento-based nonprofit that helps women and children experiencing homelessness. They run four nine-week programs annually and 16 orientations per year. Their approach ensures participants enter when they are ready to commit to life changes and build sustainable pathways out of homelessness. Executive Director Lisa Kolp emphasized this timing has to be right for them. They have to be ready to kind of change the course of their life so that they can create a pathway out of homelessness. Um I read that yesterday and I thought it was fantastic. Just the fact that they are going through this course and at the same time, while they when they graduate, they're gonna have a job and housing at the same time. I found that just fantastic. That's a win-win for everybody right there. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

Absolutely. Yeah, that's great. Yep. Fantastic. All right, now we'll move on to the homelessness fumble of the week. Yes, sir. Um, this one was pretty easy, Danny, I have to say. Uh we don't often get a uh a huge fumble that just falls in our lap. Um, but this one was pretty simple. Uh, most of you probably have heard by now. Um in a shocking moment on Fox News on the morning of September 10th, Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmead apparently advocated for the killing of mentally ill, homeless people during a discussion. He also suggested that it could be done through, and this is in quotes, involuntary lethal injection, unquote. Uh the remarks were made during a segment about the recent murder of Ukrainian refugee Irina Zarutska on a light trail in North Carolina by a person experiencing homelessness who was also suffering from schizophrenia and had an extensive criminal history. So I'll just kind of highlight some of the discussion and then talk to you about uh my thoughts about the fumble of the week. So uh Lawrence Jones was one of the co-hosts on this show, and he um he was talking about how we shouldn't have to live in fear, talking about the community, uh, while authorities try to figure it out. He suggested that people uh people experiencing homelessness uh who suffer from mental illness should be put in a mental mental institution or put them in jail or something of that nature. He was talking about fearing uh people. Uh he was talking about giving billions of dollars to mental health and homeless uh population or homeless programs. Um, and basically what he said is um a lot of people don't want to take those programs, don't want to get the help that's necessary. You can't give them a choice, he said. Either you take the resources or we're going to give you where that we're going to give you, or decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now. Um, and then of course, uh Bri Brian Kilmead made his uh comments, which I already went over, and um there and it went from there. So uh Representative Don Bayer of Virginia afterwards tweeted America's homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty. Uh and then he talks about how it's just it's sick that they even uh said something like that. So I wanted to kind of take a little bit of a different angle on this, Danny, and I'll get your thoughts in a second. Um but uh obviously the comments that he made that Brian Kilmead made are very inappropriate. Uh obviously we never advocate for any violence against anyone um anywhere, and I don't think that's that's what we should be advocating for. Um but I do want to highlight a couple of things that were said primarily by uh Mr. Jones, Lawrence Jones, during the podcast. Um and and show kind of uh the contrast. So he's talking about fear from homeless people. So one of the things that I wanted to highlight is that in most cases What the research shows is that individuals experiencing homelessness are actually more often victims than they are perpetrators of crimes. Now, obviously, one is one too many. There's no doubt about that. We we certainly don't advocate or think that anyone who commits a violent crime should not be penalized or you know be arrested or taken into custody. There's no doubt. But there were also in Charlotte, North Carolina, where this incident happened, there were 42 homicides that occurred from January to June of 2025. Did you hear about any of those homicides, Danny?

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Mm-mm. Nope. None.

SPEAKER_03 44:43

Did you hear about any homeless individuals who had committed those homicides?

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Nope, none.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

And I just want to point out that, again, one is one too many, and we understand that. But the reality is that is that homicides are happening in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we never hear about those homicides, or they get very little tracks or they get very little news coverage until it becomes someone who is experiencing homelessness. Another one of the one of the things that Lawrence Jones had suggested, and we talked about this a little bit in our offense defense, is mandating people to services. Well, right now, according to uh the state of North Carolina, there are 18,950 people on the registry of unmet needs for mental health treatment in North Carolina. North Carolina doesn't have enough mental health treatment to serve everyone who wants to get services. These are people who have put themselves on a registry to get mental health services and still can't get them. 18,000 of them couldn't get them.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 45:53

So how do you think that someone suffering from schizophrenia, living on the streets, is going to access services ahead of 18,950 people who are on a wait list who want to get into services? So that's that's another myth that that is just being perpetrated here. So the other thing that I wanted to uh talk about is uh Mr. Jones um had said that they're giving billions and billions of dollars to mental health and homeless populations when in fact North Carolina doesn't receive near that amount from the federal government. In fact, most of the mental health funding that North Carolina gets is from Medicaid. And I don't know if you've looked at the latest uh news or anything about uh Washington and what they're trying to do with cutting Medicaid, but I've heard uh anywhere from 40% to 70% of Medicaid that they want to try to do away with. So I I don't know, but it seems like they're probably going to be getting less Medicaid funding. In fact, as of April 2025, 1.6 million people in the United States were on a wait list for mental health services.

unknown 47:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

That's how are people supposed to be able to get these services that just magically are supposed to be there for everybody that wants to access them? Um some people on the wait lists are waiting two years to get mental health treatment. Wow. So there's a couple of things. Again, uh obviously the comments that Mr. Kilmead made were very inappropriate and very out of line. Uh but but Mr. Jones was also perpetrating a lot of these myths that go along with this. Is you know, making things mandatory for people, as we've talked about already, is not the most effective way to be able to get people treatment and to be able to do that. It's to make services available. How do we even know that this gentleman or this person who committed this crime didn't try to access services? Right. We don't even know that that wasn't the case. There's such a huge waiting list right now that he could have been trying to get into services for a long time. We don't know that. And with the waiting list, I imagine that it probably was almost impossible for him to get into the waiting list. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

So um, yeah, I I won't I'm not gonna address the the the comment of Mr. Kilmead, but Jones, when he wrote when he said that we shouldn't have to live in fear, to me, that's they need to get educated on why are you in fear. Learn about the population that you're talking about. Um I think we said that in our first podcast was education. That's right. Learning what the homeless population, what mental health is with them, their substance abuse, why they are in the situation they're in. Um jail, I mean, that's not an option. I mean that's just that doesn't make sense. I think that's part of what we do now, right? Our three bridges is to avoid taking someone to jail and us providing housing for them. Um so I just I just think it was a very ignorant comment and just yeah, I just leave it there.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

Yeah, I think it was a pretty uneducated uh segment all the way across the board. And ultimately, I think like you said, education. There needs to be better education, but there also need but people need to be real about what's you know what's happening out there and what can be accessed and what can't be accessed.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

So yeah, so uh so our key takeaway for this is uh something about how choice matters. It's it's it's kind of what we've been discussing this whole time with uh having someone choose uh the services that they want, choosing uh how to be helped um and and not you know living in fear, having people live in fear or putting them in jail, or it's giving them an option, but providing them those services, right? Having those services available for them if they want to take them. So that's yeah, I think particularly for us.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

I think it's voluntary. I I think it's I think the research has shown us that voluntary services for you know, in in any capacity, honestly, voluntary services for people are much more successful than actually mandating that people go through those programs or those services. And in fact, we're the land of the free, Dan. This is the land of the free. Yes, it is. Uh, last time I checked anyway, and again, as a as an Army veteran, uh, that's one of the reasons that I went into the Army, that I joined the Army was to make sure that we stayed a free country and people were allowed to do the things that they felt were most beneficial for them.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Yeah, and I think what you said with your offense earlier was about choice, but make it accessible for everyone. That's exactly not just pick and choose who can get these services. That's exactly right. Uh, because then you'll have more people participating to to take those services.

SPEAKER_03 50:46

And and that's the other part of it, is until we have enough resources for everyone, until we have enough housing, until we have enough mental health resources, until we have enough substance abuse treatment services, we won't know if people are ready to choose those or not.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:01

Because we don't have enough for everybody.

SPEAKER_04 51:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

And until we do have enough for everyone, then we won't know whether people really are not choosing it or not. Because right now we don't know because we don't have the resources for it. That concludes our episode for the week. I want to remind everyone again that if you have questions or comments, please send them to us email at questions at pathlighthome.org. As always, we leave the last words for our beloved co-founder of Pathlight Home, the late Reverend Fred Maxwell.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

I'm still dreaming.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

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