1. What is Housing First? (Inaugural Episode)

Pathlight's HOME Team Podcast - Where Football meets Housing Solutions with Carl Falconer and Danny Arroyo

Welcome to the Inaugural Episode. This week, Carl and Danny weigh-in on the upcoming football season and examine New York City's Right to Shelter Law, which guarantees shelter to homeless individuals but faces criticisms over financial burdens and inefficiencies. They highlight positive initiatives like the 407 Connect bus, which provides overnight shelter and connects individuals to permanent housing. They also discuss the eviction of 60 families from a Howard Johnson hotel due to non-payment and a malfunctioning fire alarm system.

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 0:02

Welcome to the Home Team Podcast. I'm Carl Falconer, and I'm Danny Arrion, and we're tackling home. This is our inaugural home team podcast, uh, Pathite Homes Home Team Podcast. And we always start the podcast with a coin flip. So I want to give you a little bit about our podcast here. We're going to be talking about homelessness, we're going to be talking about housing, solutions, opinions, options, all different types of things. But we're doing it with a football format. And the reason for that is that Danny and I are both huge football fans. And so we thought we'd try and make it a little more exciting, a little more fun. Um, so we're using football as a format for this podcast, but we're primarily going to be talking about homelessness and housing. So let's start with the coin toss. Hold on one second. Let me get my coin out. All right. Danny, call it in the air. Heads. And it is it's heads. All right, great. So Danny defers the second half, and I'll start the podcast. Great. Uh first, let us go ahead and introduce ourselves. Uh my name's Carl Falconer, as I said. I'm an Army veteran. I've been in the homeless service industry now for 31 years. I started as a street outreach worker, uh, primarily in Jacksonville, Florida, but then I also have moved and worked with organizations in Dallas, Texas, Broward County, Florida, and Asheville, North Carolina before coming here to Pathlight Home, and now I'm the president and CEO of Pathlight Home. Danny, tell them a little about you.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Sure. And my name is Danny Roy. I'm the vice president of programs. Uh, I've been in this field for about 12 years, started my career in New York, uh, working for a day service center, uh, moved to Florida, started working there at a shelter for about five years, uh, moved over to another day service center, and I've been at Pathlight Home for about a year and a half now.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Great. Thanks, Danny. All right, uh, so this segment in the first quarter would normally we would have we would talk about headlines, but because we did our introductions today, we just kind of want to give you a feel of who we are. Um, and then next our next segment each week will be highlights of the week from the football games. Now, we're starting at the beginning of the football season. We're both excited. Both of our teams, my Chicago Bears, his Dallas Cowboys, undefeated at this point, and definitely going to the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

The season has stopped very good. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

It's off to a great start, no doubt. All right. So uh we're gonna talk about the games coming up this week. Um, Dallas plays Philly on Thursday night. So talk about that a little bit, Danny.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Yes, so we are playing the defending champions. Uh last game was in December that we played them. We didn't fare very well. Uh so I'm positive that we're gonna have a good start to our season this week, um, which is a Thursday night game. Uh so I don't know how I'm gonna come in on a Friday. We'll we'll we'll see how that goes. But uh I'm confident. I think we have a pretty good team. Um but Philadelphia's a they're good, they're they're strong. Jalen Hurts, and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

They definitely are. So uh as another headline, the big headline this week, of course, was Jerry Jones, your uh wonderful owner and general manager, and got rid of Micah Parsons. Yes, yes, and uh I know Dallas Nation is mourning over that.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Yes, and I I was watching uh America's team on Netflix, and as soon as he took over Dallas, he got rid of Hershey Walker. Right, but I kind of got a flashback and kind of some PTSD from that. Uh but yeah, it's it's Jerry, it's what he does. Um, so we'll we'll see how that's gonna affect our team.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

And he couldn't have picked a different team to trade him to? I mean, seriously, the Green Bay Packers, the mortal enemies of the Chicago Bears.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

It's it's what Jerry does. Uh that's that's what he does. So you you never know what he's gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

So yeah, that was crushing to both of us.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

It was so I mean we knew their trade was coming. Um we expected it. Yeah. Uh we just didn't know where. So it was a big surprise.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

That's just that's wrong. Anyway, uh, Minnesota plays my Chicago Bears in Chicago on Monday night, actually, this this year or this week. Um, and so uh I'm looking forward to that. Uh, we have a new offensive coordinator, we have a new head coach, we got a totally revamped offense. Um, I'm looking forward to seeing how they're gonna do, uh, especially against JJ McCarthy. It's a division game, just like your Eagles and Cowboys. Yep. And I think Chicago's gonna do a really good job this week. Um, all right, next would be our lock of the week results uh each week. And we will, in fact, later in the show, we'll each pick our home team lock of the week uh from the NFL schedule. Um, and this is where we'll talk about the results, and then you know, Danny can raz me if I'm not winning enough, or I can raz him, or you know, back and forth. But uh that will basically cover our first quarter, and we're going to jump into our first housing topic after this break.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

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_02 7:14

This is the second quarter, and in this quarter, we're going to do what we call our housing drive. We're going to do a deep dive on a housing topic. Uh, we're gonna we call this segment offense versus defense. One of us is going to, each week is going to argue the positive aspects of a certain topic, a phrase, an initiative, something in the homeless service sector. And then one of us is going to talk about the cons or the negative side of that topic. Uh, as you can imagine, just about every topic has a positive and a negative. And then at the end of the segment, what we'll do is we'll tell you what Pathlight Home, our nonprofit organization, will tell you what that organization believes or what our stance is. So the topic this week is going to be New York City's right to shelter law. And uh this uh I've chosen the offense for this week, so I'll talk about the positives of it. And Danny has chosen the defense, so uh he'll talk about maybe what some of the cons are of the New York City's right to shelter law. Um and so I'll go ahead and I'll start because the offense always starts the game, of course. Uh, and so I'll start my drive first. Uh let me tell you a little bit, give you a little bit of background about the right to shelter law in New York City. It's been in place since 1981. Uh, it guarantees a bed in a shelter to anyone in the city experiencing homelessness. In March of 2024, so just not too long ago, they rolled back some of the law stating that single migrants may only access shelter up to 30 days with possible extensions. As of October 2024, the latest count, there were 58,108 people who are currently being sheltered in New York City. Um, so let me talk about some of the positives. Uh the first positive, which might be the most important one, is that it's actually less expensive than housing. Now, this won't wouldn't be the case in a lot of places, but uh because shelter is typically pretty expensive. Uh but in New York City for what the cost of housing is, actually, as of December 2024, there were 52,000 people in shelters who are trying to get out of homelessness and had vouchers from the city, right? But each voucher actually cost the city about $20,000 a year. If you do the math on it and you take the shelter costs versus the housing cost for that same five years, the city actually saves $1.8 billion. That's a billion with a B by providing shelter instead of housing to those families over the five years. Now, the second part of this, or my second uh reason or rationale for the right to shelter, is because, and this is one of the reasons that they have the savings, is because the federal and state government actually subsidize shelters more than they subsidize housing in New York City. So they get help to shelter individuals, um, but the same they don't get the same level of help for housing individuals in New York City. The third uh point, even if housing was less expensive, there isn't enough to accommodate everybody, of course. So I talked about those 52,000 people who had vouchers at the time, 11,000 of them, even though they had a voucher, still weren't able to find an apartment because there just aren't enough apartments available for people. Um my fourth point is it may work better for smaller communities. So obviously New York City, um the right to shelter law, like I said, it saves money over housing, things like that. But if you took someplace like, let's say, Volusia Flagler County, their point in time count last year or in January of this year was six hundred and twenty-five people unsheltered. And if you think about just providing shelter to those six hundred and twenty-five people, that might make a lot more sense than providing shelter to fifty-two thousand or fifty-eight, thousand, whatever that number was. Um, so that might be another positive, too, is it might work better in a smaller community. And finally, if we could get everyone in shelter and off the streets, it might get more support or financial resources from business owners. I know that's one of the issues that business owners often have is seeing people out on the streets. And if we could get those people off the streets, it might get them more interested in being involved in helping us solve homelessness. So those are the positives. Those are the things that I see for the, like I said, New York City's right to shelter law. Danny, tell us what some of the cons might be.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Thanks, Carl. So I think the biggest issue I have with this is the financial burden. Um that's the biggest concern for me. I think in just two years of spending on the system climbed from $2.7 billion in 2022 to over $4 billion, that's a B with a B in 2024. And these costs are projected to rise even further since the city signed a $1 billion in whole cut to hotel contracts to house people temporarily. Um those hotel costs uh per person is $352 per night per person. Uh the other issue I have with this is that in mid-2025 the nightly census averages over 105,000 people, with 35,000 of those being children. Um and I just don't think that's a good uh place for children to be. Um I think that we can invest uh way more into just housing with this four billion dollars. Uh of course shelters have to be around. Shelters have to have people. Um it's a process to get people into housing. But I think just focusing on shelters and not addressing the housing crisis. Uh I think you can utilize these dollars better to start building some affordable units. Um start small uh because it is New York and New York is very expensive to live. Um it's very expensive to uh to build. But I don't think they're addressing it as much. And they're just focusing on shelter, shelter, and shelter, and I just don't think that's the answer at the moment. Um the other problem I have uh again with money is that some of these shelter executives are being paid upwards of seven hundred thousand dollars annually. And although we want our CEOs and presidents to get paid well, uh I don't think that seven hundred thousand dollars is it just doesn't make sense. Um we can utilize that somewhere better. Um and this reflects a broken system. Uh that shelters are crowded. Um we could use these dollars way better somewhere else, and I don't think that the city is thinking very smart.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Yeah. So with that salary, you could almost afford a one-bedroom apartment in New York City, right? I mean, just about. You possibly can, yes. Just about. Yep. Anyway, um, that's our offensive defense segment. Uh like I said, Pathite Home, our take on the right to shelter law has always been that we're focused on housing. Although, like Danny said, we do need shelter. The reality is that we want people to be housed. So if there's any way that we can house them instead of shelter them, then that's the that's our best uh way around it. And that's what Pathlight Home believes is housing is the answer for over shelter. Now we go into our halftime segment. Uh, and this is where normally we'll be answering questions from uh our audience. So please feel free to send in some questions and comments. We've set up a specific email for this. It's questions at pathfighthome.org. And we'll answer all of your comments, all of your questions, or as many as we can get to in this segment each week. Um, next we're gonna go into inside the playbook, and this gives us a little look at behind the scenes of the homeless service network. So, what we're gonna do this week is we're gonna define a term for you. The term that we're going to define is housing first. It has some lots of uh speculation out there, lots of different ways people have tried to define it. We're not arguing one way or the other here uh in this segment specifically. What we're really doing is we're just looking for a definition. So Danny's gonna go ahead and uh give us a definition of housing first.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Sure. So housing first and Pathlight Home has been doing this for over 30 years, and that's our model is housing first. Uh housing first is an evidence-based approach to ending homelessness that prioritizes providing people with stable permanent housing as quickly as possible without preconditions such as sobriety, employment, or participation uh participation and treatment programs. Uh what this is is that we provide housing um and then all the other supportive services that come with it. So we want to have you in a stable place uh with a roof over your head and then provide all of these other services with mental health, substance abuse, um employment, um, training. Um so it's it's having you uh in a safe place.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Right. And uh over the years, the re what the research shows is that this has been the most effective way to be able to end homelessness long term for people. Uh it doesn't necessarily, like I said, we just talked about in the last segment, the shelter. Is that certainly a temporary solution to get people off the streets? But if you want a long-term solution, what we've found at Pathlight Home is that housing first works, is getting people stable in housing and then providing those support services, as Danny said, really helps them long-term maintain that housing. Um, and then for the final segment of our halftime, uh, I want to go to our quote of the week. Uh, this quote is about homelessness, and I think this one's uh relevant, uh particularly today, because a lot of people have some myths and misconceptions about how people become homeless and you know what happens, things like that. Uh a uh colleague of ours, uh his name is Mark Horvath. He hosts a podcast called Invisible People. I would recommend it to anyone. It's a fantastic podcast. Uh he does a lot of interviews with experts in the field, things like that. He said, and I really love this quote. He said, if making bad decisions caused homelessness, then everyone would be homeless. I don't know about you, Danny, but I've made a few bad decisions in my life.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

I've made some as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

And I didn't become homeless because of them, thank goodness. But uh I can certainly see where some decisions might lead people closer to homelessness, but it has to be more than just bad decisions.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

Yeah, I I agree. I think what you said earlier, uh this quote because of what's happening right now, uh, there's so much stigma and and just negativity and th like you said, if bad decisions are caused by homelessness, then I mean everybody be homeless. So I think this is what this podcast is gonna do too, is we're gonna educate people on those myths and and the stigmas and and and once they start asking questions, every question is is good for us to answer. Absolutely. Yeah I think this is a perfect start. Um I agree.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

I completely agree. Um, and that takes us out of halftime. And now let's take a break and we'll be back with the final half of our podcast. Hey everyone, it's Carl Falconer, your favorite host from your favorite podcast, the Home Team Podcast. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Pathlight Home. Pathlight Home is a 501c3 nonprofit organization in Central Florida. We primarily provide housing to individuals. We have 560 units of housing that we provide to people who are experiencing homelessness. But we also provide employment resource centers, mental health services. We have a drop-in day service where people can come in and do laundry or get meals, all in preparation, hopefully, to get them into housing eventually and off the street. So there are lots of things that we do at Pathlight Home. We'd love to get you more involved with us. Um, one of the big questions people ask me when I'm out is what can I do? Uh, really, there's three things that we'd really love for you to do with Pathlight Home. Number one, obviously, we need funding, so you can go to pathlighthome.org and you can donate there. Number two is volunteering. We'd love to have volunteers come in and help us with any of our projects. And then number three is come take a tour with us. Come here to our facility and set up a tour 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. So thank you for your support. We appreciate it. We love you being part of us helping the community and everything that we do. Thank you. Welcome back to the home team podcast. We're into our third quarter now, which is the football drive. Yes. Okay, here we go. A little bit more fun. This week's NFL player of the week and we'll try and keep these as up to date as possible. They might not be exactly in the week but they'll always be relevant to an NFL player or former NFL player who's done some really good thing with homelessness or housing and really tried to make a difference in our community. This week's NFL player of the week is former NFL player Jordan Jenkins. He donated not one but two houses to support homeless veterans in Columbus, Georgia. Jenkins, who's a Georgia native, played college football for the Georgia Bulldogs. He went on to play for the New York Jets, Houston Texans, and Las Vegas Raiders before he retired in 2022. On August 22nd of this year recently, Jenkins sang the praises of the Plumber House or sorry, Plumber Home, which is a nonprofit that combats veteran homelessness and offers transitional housing to local vets. So heeding his own advice because he was basically talking them up, talking about how great they were Jenkins put his money where his mouth is and he looked for ways to help. He soon learned that the house next door to the plumber home was for sale so he bought it for the organization. Then he learned that a second house on the same street was up for sale and he purchased that residence as well again for Plumber Home to be able to house more veterans who are experiencing homelessness. So we give our shout out this week to uh like I said former NFL player Jordan Jenkins um you know give him one of those bulldog roof roof roof roof roofs or whatever something like that. Yeah um he did a great job and and we really appreciate his his contribution.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

Yeah I'm excited to see how many other players are helping with homelessness.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Absolutely because they don't get the credit right I mean you hear about all the negative things that NFL players do but you very rarely hear about the positive things that are going on in the NFL hopefully we can find some more of those things to highlight in our I think veterans uh working with veterans is important to us as well just with a nobody left behind program.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Absolutely so yeah that's great story.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Absolutely and as an army veteran myself it definitely you know warms my heart to see that people are really helping out our our veterans. And now we'll go into our weekly football recap or in this case what we're going to do is we're going to kind of look ahead um so this week what we're doing is Super Bowl predictions. Oh yeah here we go all right all right who you got for the Super Bowl this year Danny so I have as hard as it is for me to say I have the Philadelphia Eagles no you can't do that Danny You cannot pick your mortal enemy it's in the Super Bowl it's my pick it's my pick and then they're going to be going up against the Baltimore Ravens that's who I pick I think I think they're going to repeat.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

As much as I would love my team to make it to the end uh yeah I think it's you're letting down Cowboy Nation out there Danny.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

I am but that's my prediction and I'm sticking to it I'm going to stick to it trying to be unbiased I like it you know but still there's there's no way I'm not picking the Packers there is no way it's going to happen. So my Super Bowl prediction this year um is a little bit out of the norm I would say uh I am picking the Buffalo Bills from the AFC I think this is their year. I hope they get over that hump finally and get to the Super Bowl. But my NFC pick is a little bit uh I would say a little bit more out there. I'm picking the Los Angeles Rams to play the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl. So hopefully we'll see uh I know Matthew Stafford the quarterback for the Rams has had some back issues if he can get those worked out I think the Rams have a pretty decent team this year. Even over my Bears. This is this is our first year with our new offense first year with our new head coach we'll take getting in the playoffs and going deep. We don't have to go to the Super Bowl this year. Not that I wouldn't love that but you know we'll we'll see where it goes. All right now we're going to do a little bit of fantasy segment uh fantasy football for some of these out there. Now Danny is not a fantasy football player uh because he'd just pick all the cowboys that's all they do you know so I'm gonna I'll know a text I got from you this weekend you weren't very happy with the pick you got so that's exactly right even though I don't understand it you know I'm in a couple of different fantasy leagues and I texted Danny this weekend that I actually got Dak Prescott the quarterback for the Cowboys in both of my fantasy football leagues. Yeah so I'm riding with the Cowboys this year at least to some extent my text back to call was congratulations question mark I didn't know that was a good thing or a bad thing we'll see how it plans out. Anyway um so we're gonna I'm going to pick a fantasy football player of the week and uh what I'm looking for is a player who uh will outscore their projection so this week I'm picking Joe Flacco the Cleveland Browns quarterback who is at home versus Cincinnati he is projected to score 19 points this week but I think he'll score well over 24 points which basically will be a boom for him and I think he absolutely can do it. It's a weak Cincinnati defense Joe is a veteran and they're at home so I I think he's got all those things going for him. I I think he'll make that pick. So if you got Joe Flacco and you don't have another quarterback who could score more points than that put Joe in there. Give him a shot. And then I want to do my fantasy flashback um what I'm gonna do is each week I'm gonna pick a fantasy player or fantasy uh uh you know uh segment or fantasy portion that scored um during in the past so this week if you had Matt Ryan aka Matty Ice uh from the Atlanta Falcons in week one of 2013 you would have probably won your week that week he led the Atlanta Falcons to a 3734 overtime victory over the New Orleans Saints with 448 passing yards and three touchdowns. Not too shabby that's a good game I think in most weeks I would probably win your league. I mean it's a you're doing pretty good there. Yeah you get a lot of bonus points for that no doubt so like I said the fantasy flashback goes to Matty Ice and uh his week one performance in 2013. Uh next segment is our local football teams to watch. So Danny and I each peek uh each picked a local football team to keep our eyes on to look at and to watch throughout the year. We'll be giving updates of course on how they're doing and and things like that. The local football team that I have picked to watch uh this year is Jones High School. Right now they're ranked number one in Orlando number eight in Florida and number 47 in national ranking they're a pretty powerful team and so I think they're gonna do pretty good. I I think they're they're looking good. Apparently their quarterback wide receiver uh duo is uh is a pretty good duo so we'll keep an eye on Jones High School.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Danny who do you got so we are a Boone family. My daughter attended Boone High School so that is my team uh so far they're 2-0. All right oh nice very good 2-0 uh they're ranked 24th in Orlando okay and in Florida they're 108. Okay. We'll get better we'll get better but they're 2-0 uh that's good and they have a game February I'm sorry September 5th against Olympia.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

So we'll see how that goes fantastic great great great so those are the two teams that we'll be watching uh this week of course and we'll give you updates on them and where they're going each week and then finally for our our final play of the third quarter we're going to do a lock of the week each week where we're going to produce we're going to pre be predicting the home team that will win each week in the NFL and so I'll go first on this my lock of the week this week is the Denver Broncos playing at home over the Tennessee Titans. I started I think with a pretty good pick for lock of the week I think this one's pretty safe Denver's a pretty good team Tennessee's coming off kind of a rebuilding season and hasn't been doing too well lately. We'll see but uh yeah I think Denver will get it done this week versus Tennessee at home. Who do you got Danny?

SPEAKER_03 32:45

So uh this is another division game so it's the Giants against Washington. Wow so I'm picking Washington on this interesting week with Dallas versus Philly and Giants Giants versus Washington Wow I am a from New York but my heart is not with the Giants so a New Yorker rooting for Dallas isn't that insane so picking Philly in the Super Bowl. I'm all over the place see what kind of I'm unpredictable what's happening here what is this but yeah I'm picking the commanders for the for this game okay fantastic great we'll see how our locks of the week pan out uh that takes us into the fourth quarter um you're again listening to the home team podcast and we're in the final stretch here uh now we're gonna go into our homelessness MVP of the week and each week we'll pick someone or an initiative or something that's happening uh that stands out in the homeless service world so Danny take it away sure so the MVP of the week is the 407 Connect bus uh so this program is designed to provide a safe overnight sleepy accommodations to 42 individuals um at a time uh 407 could will consist of two custom fabricated buses uh these individuals are connected resources at the Christian service center who is overseeing uh this new program uh it's an overnight uh shelter if you want to call it on a bus that will have security and and staff on board yeah uh it's an insulating controlled uh bus that's gonna sleep 19 to 20 uh people uh it uh has a security space with lockable doors uh storage compartments for belongings which is always an issue with um those experiencing homelessness is having belongings and making sure that they keep those belongings uh and part of this is to uh get people off the streets and they are expected to connect more than 400 individuals to permanent housing over the next three years so MVP to Christian Service Center 407 connect and the city for working with Christian Service Center to um provide these buses so I think we're we're gonna see a a change in how um homelessness is addressed with these buses I think.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Yeah absolutely and for those of you out of the area that's the city of Orlando and this is uh 407 is our area code here so that's why they called it 407 Connect it's in Central Florida and the idea is for them to move this bus around to different locations as a mobile shelter correctly and as Danny said they have all the supportive services the the security all those types of things and ultimately trying to get people into housing which again is the ultimate goal of what we're trying to do because we don't want people to end up back out on the street.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

So and again they'll be providing all the case management on site and all the other services that the the wraparound services that they need. Yeah absolutely that's a great one good good bid good bid and now we go to our homeless fumble of the week where uh an initiative a provider someone in the community something happened that wasn't so positive so Danny take it away with our fumble of the week sure so shame shame to the Howard Johnson by Wyndham on International Drive just recently about two weeks ago they had their water shut off due to the owner's non-payment to the utility provider uh then during the inspection the fire department found that the building's fire alarm system was not functioning um and it was a serious and immediate life safety hazard so they evicted uh 60 families roughly about 200 people um who were living there in long term pay by week arrangements uh this included child families with children individuals with disabilities older adults on fixed incomes and other housing insecurity uh many of these residents paid their rent in advance and they were just blindsided by the eviction um multiple tenants expressed feeling deceived and distressed uh that just that just gets me mad uh but on the positive uh several local groups the coalition for the homeless the Christian service center homeless services network um healthcare center for the homeless and community legal stepped in to offer shelter intake support food toiletries uh the coalition placed five families into bridge housing so that was a a great thing um and some individuals received temporary shelter um the motel just so we're uh clear with everyone is is independently owned um so it's not by Wyndham hotels okay but shame shame that's not that's not a good fumble and and that and that leads to kind of one of the bigger issues to talk about and we might dive into this later in in later episodes but homelessness looks a lot of different ways and people paying week to week or month to month at a hotel or an extended stay they're right on the cusp of homelessness and something like this happens or they can't make their payment one week or something happens and they immediately fall into unsheltered homelessness unless they have the support of all the providers like you said.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

And luckily in this case they were able to help some people but it was a real scramble I talked to some of the providers and and it was very short notice and there were a lot of people who needed placement or a lot of people that needed shelter even for one night and so that's that's just poor poor management poor you know all the way I I think it shows also the partnerships that we have how they mobilize together in just these crisis absolutely and and absolutely it's and they just work together to try to solve what's happening.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

But yeah it it's really horrible how 60 families from one day to the next were displaced.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Yeah great all right and now we're on to our final play uh the final play uh we'll we'll talk about kind of a call to action or we'll talk about what you can do in the community and so our final play this week is for you to look around and let us know how homelessness is or is not affecting you in the community today. Danny just as a side note when I was thinking about this final play one of the things I did is I counted how many people I saw on the streets on my drive into work today. And all I saw was one which is absolutely fantastic. I kept thinking to myself you know people talk about the visible homeless and and people out on the streets but they don't talk about how often they don't see people out there and that's because of the work that we do. So anyway uh so I want people to look around I want people to send again send it to questions at patholitehome.org that's our email let us know how homelessness is or is not affecting you in our community. We'd like to know we'd like to answer some of your questions hear some of your comments and then we'll bring them up again on next week's show. So uh that's it for this week uh to learn more about pathlight home please go to our website at pathlighthome.org and check out the ways that you can get involved to make our community a better place to live for everyone we want to say thank you um thank you Danny for being a great host with me or co host yes and uh we appreciate it and we hope to see everybody or or hear everybody's comments and uh hopefully you'll tune in again next week thank you thank you