7. How is solving homelessness so hard? Part 2

Why are we talking about homelessness again? It's simple. The conversation isn't over.

With our homeless population seemingly on the rise and a new law in Florida, there's lots to unpack and untangle. If you haven't listened to Episode 1 yet (Part 1 of this conversation) we strongly recommend you do! Episode 1 provides a great overview of this topic and sets you up to get more out of this episode.

Episode 7 Guests:

• Martha Are, President and CEO | Homeless Service Network and Central Florida Commission on Homelessness
• Kathy, a client of Samaritan Resource Center who was interviewed in Episode 1
• Gwenell Hall, recently retired Case Manager | Christian Service Center
• State Attorney Andrew Bain | 9th Judicial Circuit

From Central Florida Foundation:

• Mark Brewer, President and CEO
• Sandi Vidal, VP of Community Strategies and Initiatives

Visit the First You Talk website.

Visit the First You Talk Podcast on Instagram.

Visit Central Florida Foundation's Instagram.

As our region’s community foundation, Central Florida Foundation serves as a launchpad for high-impact philanthropy. Championing the collective power of head, heart and dollar, we coordinate the commitment and investment of philanthropists, nonprofits, and community partners to target today’s most critical challenges and those on the horizon to truly transform our community. The Foundation also offers expert giving advice, a personalized approach to managing charitable funds, and the capacity to convene collaboration across sectors. Learn more at cffound.org.

Transcript

CFF First You Talk Episode 7 Pt 2

[00:00:00] Laurie Crocker: Welcome to Central Florida Foundation's First You Talk podcast. Here, you'll gain a better understanding of society's toughest issues. At the end of each episode, we'll summarize the main points and offer deeper dive options if something piqued your interest. So, ready to demystify a complex issue and up your knowledge game?

[00:00:25] Let's get started.

[00:00:32] Why is solving homelessness so hard part 2? Hi, everyone. It's Laurie from Central Florida Foundation. I figured I should kind of hop on here in the beginning and explain why we're going back to a topic that we had covered back in October when we first started this podcast. If you haven't listened to that, that's episode one, Why is Solving Homelessness So hard.

[00:00:56] We had a lot of great voices on there, including [00:01:00] Orlando Mayor, buddy Dyer and I also interviewed a few people who are experiencing homelessness. The episode is a really great overview of homelessness. If you're starting from very little knowledge or need a refresher or need to just untangle this really complex topic, I really recommend going and starting your journey here with episode one.

[00:01:22] So we decided to come back to homelessness because the conversation just isn't over. There are a lot of things happening in this space, including an increase in our point in time count back in January of 2024, and we'll talk more about what that even means, what is a point in time count. And then we'll talk a little bit more about an upcoming law that's going into effect October 1st. So, depending on when you're listening to this, it may already be in effect. But we're going to have conversation on what that law means. So long story short, the conversation isn't over. So I hope you're able to take some more insight away on the second episode on homelessness.[00:02:00]

[00:02:03] Martha Are: I read somewhere somebody compared it to, to a basketball game and said that, you know, the homeless system has a really good game of offense. We're scoring the points, we're getting people into housing, we're keeping them there. But we're losing on defense because we're not keeping people out of the homeless system.

[00:02:20] Mark Brewer: So this, this law continues to be complicated as people try to figure out how do you abide by this law? So are we really going to

arrest people who are homeless on the street? If we don't have a place for them to go and we can't help them.

[00:02:36] Gwennell Hall: People need the one-on-one. People need to be seen, heard, and loved.

[00:02:40] When a veteran has this history of basically giving his life for our country, you have to really show a respect for them and you have to engage them in a, in a way that they,

[00:02:59] Sandi Vidal: So [00:03:00] the point in time count happened in January and we saw a really big increase. Over the previous year in 2023, we actually had about 600 additional people found in that point in time count that were homeless.

[00:03:17] Mark Brewer: And that indication happens for a number of different reasons. So this is, this is a time to make sure everyone gets that the point in time count isn't a digital count of homeless people, it's done in a very specific way and it's been done that way for decades.

[00:03:38] Laurie Crocker: If you've listened to First You Talk in the past, you probably recognize these two voices. You're listening to Mark Brewer, President and CEO of Central Florida Foundation, and Sandy Vidal, VP of Community Strategies and Initiatives.

[00:03:52] So how is the point in time count done and well? What is it? According to the US [00:04:00] Department of Housing and Urban Development, the point in time count, often shown as PIT as an acronym, is account of Sheltered and Unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. HUD, which is the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, requires that a certain organization conduct an annual count of people experiencing homelessness, who are sheltered in emergency shelters, transitional housing, and safe havens on a single night. Now, in Central Florida, our organization that is designated for this is Homeless Services Network and you're going to hear more about this organization soon. Now, how does it take place? How does the point in time count actually happen? Well, Homeless Services Network coordinates staff and volunteers to literally canvas the region and count sheltered and unsheltered people. And this year, our numbers went up.

[00:04:55] Let's return to Mark and Sandy's conversation now, as they discuss [00:05:00] what actually might affect the point in time count

[00:05:02] Mark Brewer: But when it goes up. It certainly means they found more homeless people, but there could be reasons for that that you might not think about.

[00:05:17] Sandi Vidal: A lot of things can affect that. I remember one year it rained really hard and so trying to find people who are unsheltered in the rain is really difficult. They're trying to find shelter somewhere and so that year the count was really a lot lower than it had been the previous year.

[00:05:37] Mark Brewer: Yeah and so that changes every year which always gives you that error level of wondering. Is it really larger or is it the way we measured? And I think if we were trying to devise a way to measure today, the point in time count probably isn't the way we would do it because we do have more sophisticated ways to do it.

[00:05:58] I was talking to somebody about the count [00:06:00] the other day and I was saying to them, it's almost like if we were trying to measure people who are commuting to work and we counted all the people that went through the 408 toll on a given day. That would be fine as long as everyone who typically commutes takes the 408.

[00:06:17] If they don't, then we might miss and think we have fewer commuters than we actually do, or we might be in a situation where on a particular day there were a lot more people who took the 408 to get home in a hurry.

[00:06:29] Sandi Vidal: Right, or maybe we had a bunch of tourists who were here that day.

[00:06:32] Mark Brewer: Good point.

[00:06:33] Sandi Vidal: And that's the other piece of it, I think is this year, this past year in 2024, there was really a concerted effort with more volunteers than before.

[00:06:45] So now you have more people counting, it's organized because they've been doing this for a while. So they continue to improve that. They've identified on a heat map now where the pockets of homelessness are. And so they're [00:07:00] better at identifying. Who's homeless versus who isn't?

[00:07:07] Laurie Crocker: So numbers aren't always what they seem, and there are things to consider, such as weather on the day of the count and number

of volunteers, which might affect the results. However, it is still very clear that homelessness is a pressing issue here, and quite frankly, in many places across the country. So what's currently going on?

[00:07:29] What are we doing in Central Florida to alleviate this problem? And are we missing anything? Any other factors that influence our unsheltered population? Let's start in an unexpected place, musical chairs.

[00:07:48] Martha Are: One of the best analogies, you might be able to work this in somewhere, it seems to help people understand.

[00:07:55] Laurie Crocker: This is Martha Are. She's the president and CEO of [00:08:00] Homeless Services Network and the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness.

[00:08:06] Martha Are: And it's funny because Greg Colburn has used it in his book recently, and I remember it from decades ago.

[00:08:11] I don't know why we stopped using it, but the analogy is if you were playing a game of musical chairs and you had ten chairs and ten people and then you pull out a chair and the music plays and the music stops, there's a good chance that the person who was walking with a cane because they had a broken ankle would be the person who would not get into a seat.

[00:08:30] And if you ask them. Why they didn't get a seat. They're going to say, look, I have a broken ankle. Of course, I didn't get a seat. But the reality is they didn't get a seat because there weren't enough chairs. That's what happens with people experiencing homelessness. When we run out of housing, people who have disabilities, very large families, people with inconsistent income.

[00:08:49] People who don't have identification, those people are more vulnerable, they are more likely to be the person with the broken ankle in the musical chairs games, so they're more likely to be out on the [00:09:00] streets, but it's because we didn't have the housing, not because they actually had the disability or didn't have the ID.

[00:09:07] Homeless Services Network serves as the lead agency for the regional's homeless response system. And the lead agency is a term creation of the federal government. Even though we're a non profit, when our community applies for federal funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, known as HUD, when we apply to HUD for funding for

homeless programs through a competitive process, HUD will only accept one application.

[00:09:33] On behalf of the community from one organization, and so that organization is called the lead agency. So with that designation, we are the group that completes the HUD applications and submits on behalf of the region to bring dollars down in the community. We're also then responsible for doing a lot of federal hoop jumping throughout the whole year and accomplishing different tasks that HUD requires. But a lot of the work that we do [00:10:00] is around how do we get people into housing.

[00:10:08] Laurie Crocker: Homeless Services Network, or HSN, uses the Housing First model, which we talk about in episode one. Let's hear Martha talk about why Housing First was not only a more compassionate way of addressing the homelessness problem, but also one that just made sense, and how just because the homeless population seems to be climbing here doesn't necessarily mean the intervention isn't working.

[00:10:39] Martha Are: You know what's working well is we've got a great community here. We have wonderful non profit providers in the region who work very, very hard to try and provide the best services possible, but who are also willing to collaborate together and to come together and to figure out how we can work best as a system so that they're fewer [00:11:00] gaps and so that we, again, are as strategic as we can be with the limited resources while we're also trying to identify additional resources so that we can expand and serve more people.

[00:11:11] Always a goal. But the way they've been able to come together so it's less competition and more collaborative is really wonderful. And so because of that, we're seeing really good outcomes. So the programs that we have that work with people experiencing chronic homelessness and permanent supportive housing, you go out two years and we've still got kind of a 90 percent retention rate, people are still remaining stably housed.

[00:11:35] And these are people who sometimes have been living outside for 15 or 20 years. So that's phenomenal work and shows the real success of the model. Where we struggle is that we're in one of the most brutal housing markets in the country, so we're a fabulous community, and a lot of people want to move here, and our community is [00:12:00] growing rapidly, and we have not been able to Develop the housing and transportation infrastructure at the same rate that the community is growing.

[00:12:08] So you look just at Orange County between 2010 and 2020, the population grew about 25%, but the number of housing units only grew 15%. So that's a 10% gap, and that's continuing. You know, that trend is continuing. Osceola County, you see a similar, grew 40, more than 40 percent. Housing units increased only a little over 20 percent.

[00:12:32] Seminoles growth has been slower, but still the same kind of only about half as many housing units compared to the amount of growth. What that means is that we've run out of housing, and so we will continue to have more people who will experience homelessness because we don't have the units for them to move into, and a lot of the available units are at a much higher price point than what [00:13:00] many of our homeless neighbors can afford.

[00:13:03] When our communities experience more people becoming homeless in their neighborhoods or showing up in their neighborhoods, or sometimes they feel like they're showing up without knowing that they actually were.

Neighbors, prior, sometimes folks feel like the intervention is not working. I read somewhere somebody compared it to a basketball game and said that, you know, the homeless system has a really good game of offense.

[00:13:29] We're scoring the points, we're getting people into housing, we're keeping them there. But we're losing on defense because we're not keeping people out of the homeless system. And we don't have as much control over that. Then, in addition, people are unsheltered because we haven't increased our shelter capacity in decades, I believe, certainly since I've been here. So, it looks different when the intervention itself is actually quite successful. That can be hard. People can confuse and think that the intervention doesn't work because they're seeing more people who are homeless. [00:14:00] But the numbers of people who are homeless are really driven by the housing market.

[00:14:04] Many people will believe that homelessness is caused by mental illness or substance use. And those are certainly factors that contribute to somebody being more vulnerable to becoming homeless. But that's not the driver. The driver is actually the housing stock. So, we all know that West Virginia is the home of the opioid epidemic.

[00:14:25] And so you would think if, Drug use was the cause of homelessness. We would see a very high rate of homelessness in West Virginia, but you don't because the population there is not growing and they have more housing stock. And so there's still a need for services, but not as many people are becoming homeless.

[00:14:43] People are becoming homeless here because people want to live here. And it's hard to keep up the infrastructure needed to support the numbers of people who are coming here.

[00:14:53] Mark Brewer: The only way ultimately to solve homelessness is to find housing for [00:15:00] people who don't have it and we have an inventory problem. and so the biggest issue comes back to the fact that we don't have enough of the right people engaged in this. everyone recognizes that homelessness is getting larger, but philanthropy can't solve that by itself. The government clearly can't solve it by itself, but there's got to be a policy solution because we can't manufacture housing in one sector. We need everybody in that circle together. And so I'm, I'm kind of hoping that this year the issues of both housing and homelessness will come back together again and people will begin to think about what are the big things that we need to do in the next five years to solve for this, and the solution is clearly more housing units for the people who need them.

[00:15:44] Sandi Vidal: It definitely is, and I think we've explored, but maybe not deep enough, some of the alternatives to traditional apartments or houses. There's things like small homes or tiny homes, there's container housing, [00:16:00] which may or may not work in Florida because of Hurricane codes and things like that.

[00:16:05] There's been some increased ability to use ADUs or accessory dwelling units, although I don't know how many folks want somebody who's been previously homeless in the US. their mother in law suite and, and not to say that people who are previously homeless are bad or dangerous, but I think there is a stigma that's attached to that.

[00:16:28] Mark Brewer: And it's definitely not in my backyard, right?

[00:16:31] Sandi Vidal: Right. I mean, literally in my backyard or above my garage. So, you know, it's, it's just very close. And so I think that we do need to continue to look at land use. We need to look at how to get housing done quickly and economically because we have seen, you know, certainly the price of housing go up dramatically.[00:17:00]

[00:17:02] Laurie Crocker: So far, we've heard from the independent sector, recall, that's sometimes called the nonprofit sector. And we've discussed government involvement in this space and recall that that's sometimes called the public sector. But as always, it's so crucial to include the voices of people experiencing the problem.

[00:17:22] So as I prepped for this Episode I reached out to Zaynab Portway, the executive director of Samaritan Resource Center, which is a local nonprofit that works directly with vulnerable populations to see if she could help reconnect me with any of the individuals I spoke with last year for episode one. If you've listened to that episode, you might remember Kathy, a senior citizen who with her dog pinky by her side, sat down to chat with me.

[00:17:47] She shared with me the last several months of her life getting banned from the Orlando airport, keeping her living situation a secret from her family and sleeping under I-4.

[00:17:53] Zaynab was able to connect me back with Kathy a [00:18:00] year later and told me she was sheltered at the moment. But within the week it took me to set up the call, things had changed drastically, further underlining the instability of those trying to get out of homelessness.

[00:18:28] Kathy: Hello?

[00:18:28] Laurie Crocker: Hi, Kathy? [00:18:29] Kathy: Yes.

[00:18:29] Laurie Crocker: Hi, Kathy. It's Laurie. We had spoken about a year ago now for that podcast.

[00:18:37] Kathy: Right. That's what I was told. How are you doing today? [00:18:40] Laurie Crocker: I am well. How are you?

[00:18:42] Kathy: Oh, I've had better days. I'm, I'm having a, a housing issue right now. I was set up with pad split. People purchase homes, they divide them up to rooms, and then they, they will lease out rooms.[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] And so I, I, I had a room. I had wanted to, I tried to leave a message for the man that is the, they call him a host, but he oversees a number of homes, and I found out the other day, he, that the one that was over the house that I was in, He actually oversaw 90 homes in Orlando. I was not allowed to leave him a message because the portion that on my, on the app, I didn't have, they had messed up something in the app for me and I didn't have the ability to leave him a message.

[00:19:41] So I called into customer service a number of times, try to talk, trying to speak to the ladies there. And I kept getting reassurance the last couple weeks. No problem. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. Yesterday I got a message. The host had not [00:20:00] made agreement regarding my proposal and that if I if I didn't pay that they were going to go ahead and evict me.

[00:20:08] And I told him, I said, you know what? I said, I had already set up a plan because I had wanted to kick the day out a couple of days until till today. And then I was going to go ahead and pay. So I'm just getting the screws put to me all the way around. So now I've got all my stuff packed up. I have to find another place to live.

[00:20:28] I have to find transportation to move my stuff.

[00:20:31] Laurie Crocker: So are you and I, where, where is all your stuff right now? Where are you?

[00:20:36] Kathy: I'm over at samaritan Resource Center.

[00:20:39] Laurie Crocker: Okay. Yes. Okay. Mm-Hmm. How long have you.

[00:20:42] Kathy: And all my, my stuff is in my room. I, I, I packed it up twice now, but it's in the, in there and I have to be out tomorrow, otherwise, they tell me they're gonna evict me. And then, and then in, in the text they sent, they said that if I got an eviction. That it would keep me from getting a car and a place [00:21:00] to live, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:21:02] Laurie Crocker: Were you still going to the Samaritan Resource Center?

[00:21:05] Kathy: Yeah, for services, yeah. They there's three groups that they do a week here.

[00:21:12] And I, I, I participate in those groups. I get a lot out of them, but I like to participate in them as well. And so I, you know, it's Monday, Thursday and Friday for the groups that, that, that I go to. And the other days of the week, they don't have the group. So, you know, I'll go up here and partake of other services.

[00:21:38] They have a a food pantry up here where you can get food and sometimes there's some other stuff going on, but primarily that's why I come up here.

[00:21:46] Laurie Crocker: And the last time we spoke, you had shared that your Children didn't know of your situation. Is that still the case?

[00:21:55] Kathy: Yes, ma'am.

[00:21:56] Laurie Crocker: So you haven't talked to them in the past year.

[00:21:59] Kathy: [00:22:00] I spoke to my my eldest daughter about a week ago, and we have texted a couple of times. The youngest one, I haven't heard from her. But my situation is I feel I feel very ashamed of my situation, and I have started going back to the therapist, which I see as something positive. I'm going to try to get to where I want, my goal on Sunday is to go to mass.

[00:22:32] It's important to me.

[00:22:38] Laurie Crocker: My conversation with Kathy continued long after this, with her sharing with me that she just wasn't sure where she'd be come this weekend, and she was hoping to get enough food to get her through. After we ended our call, I couldn't help but think about how difficult it must be for elderly experiencing homelessness and trying to navigate an app to secure and pay for housing, and what a learning [00:23:00] curve that must be when you're also worried about food and other basic necessities.

[00:23:05] Have you ever heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? It's a theory in psychology that is a Five tiered pyramid of human needs at the bottom of the pyramid taking up the most space is physiological needs or Basic needs this includes things such as breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing and sleep. Basic needs like these are at the bottom meaning that before you can achieve anything else in this pyramid, these needs need to be met.

[00:23:32] After basic needs are achieved, one can then achieve safety and security, which includes health, employment, property, and family. Can you achieve health, employment, property, and family when you do not have clothing, food, shelter, and sleep? This argues that no, you probably can't, or it's going to be really, really hard.

[00:23:51] After these two levels of the pyramid, we get to the higher level needs, such as love and belonging, self esteem, and the highest level, self [00:24:00] actualization. Which includes things such as morality, creativity, acceptance, meaning, and purpose. So when we're discussing homelessness, we're actually trying to help people achieve the second level of Maslow's hierarchy, safety and security.

[00:24:14] But as you heard, some of the things Kathy was dealing with on a daily basis was making sure she had enough food. That she had shelter, and finding a place to sleep if shelter wasn't available to her. How can she, on her own, figure out housing when her most basic of needs aren't met? And this isn't to say that those who are experiencing homelessness are also feeling the pull to achieve those other, higher level needs all at the same time.

[00:24:39] If you want to learn more about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, even in the context of your own life, this will be linked on this episode's page at cffound.org/podcast along with all the other resources. From this episode, now let's learn about a specific group of individuals within the homeless population.

[00:24:58] Veterans. [00:25:00] According to HUD's 2023 annual report, there were over 35,000 homeless veterans across the country with about 20,000 being sheltered and 15,000 being unsheltered serving veterans, those who have put their life on the line for our country, requires a unique approach. As you'll hear from Gwennell Hall a recently retired, Christian service Center case manager, who through a recent grant had a new focus on homeless veterans, many of whom are chronically homeless.

[00:25:38] Gwenell Hall: Currently, I'm working with SSVS, which is Supportive Service for Veterans and Families. Our goal is to try to get them housed first and then case management, which means provide support for them. Because when you're not in-housed for over five or even two years, to 10 years. It's [00:26:00] very challenging to make that transition.

[00:26:02] You're not used to paying bills You're not used to engaging with people. You don't really understand leases. There's a lot that goes into that And it's not a very easy transition. Right now, We're trying to start off with 25 and I think that's very important because people need the one on one people need to be seen heard and loved and when a veteran has this Transcribed history of basically giving this life for our country, you have to really show a respect for them and you have to engage them in a way that they feel that they're in control of their destiny.

[00:26:37] And that's a challenge because unfortunately, many of the places that are housing them are in low crime, high crime, low income areas, and they feel a little offended by that. We just got the grant, and one of the things that we're finding obstacles with is that with renting apartments, you need two and a half [00:27:00] times your income.

[00:27:01] If you don't have two and a half times your income, up to three times the income, it's very difficult to house them. Let's say, for example, if an apartment is $900 of one bedroom, $900. In order for you to get in that apartment, you need $2,700 a month. And so, if you don't have a job, or if you have not gone to the VA and gotten your benefits, or gotten a Social Security Disability or SSI because of whatever reason, it could be a array of reasons that you have not done that, you are not able to be housed as quickly as we thought. Like I said in that conference, you have to be on the front line to understand the barriers that we're facing as case managers. Right now, I have a young lady that I'm working with and she has the potential.

[00:27:47] She got a job offer letter. She has a son. She's been at the coalition and it's still challenging because she doesn't make The three times of rent with affordable housing, I think [00:28:00] what the general public doesn't realize they said affordable housing, affordable housing, most of the time, the waiting list is up to two to three years.

[00:28:07] And so that means two to three years. That means that we're going to use these monies that are the federal government given us. That means we really need to put them in hotels or transitional housing. But you have. So many people and so little places to put them in. So it's very challenging for a case manager to really be out there and really want this and, you know, looking and searching and talking to leasing offices and apartment complexes.

[00:28:38] But until we get apartment complexes that say we're going to waive the income barriers, they would have to waive it. And that's a relationship of trust. It's a lot. They need someone to walk them through it, and of course, there's more them than us. And that's what social workers, case managers, that's what program managers and stuff [00:29:00] like that.

[00:29:00] It's more them than us, so we can't have that one on one. You know, when you become a case manager, you have the gift of multitasking. And sometimes when you do that, you seem like you're uncaring because someone is pouring out their heart to you or they're, they're challenging to you and you're thinking, okay, keep talking.

[00:29:18] I heard this before, but what about you over here? And sometimes It can seem like you're not engaging, you're not paying attention, you're not making them a priority, but because there's more of them in every situation.

Then us, then we have to kind of, if I go to this apartment complex, how many people that I can fit into this apartment complex, I go at one time, I can have six people here and then let's see if I can house all six of them.

[00:29:46] It's a very heart breaking thing when you have to tell a veteran, Oh, we got to go somewhere else. It's challenging for them to say, well, you told me this. Why did you tell me this? You're just like, [00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Laurie Crocker: So trust can easily be broken.

[00:30:02] Gwenell Hall: Trust can easily be broken because most of our veterans feel like they shouldn't have to jump through so many hoops.

[00:30:09] And I mean, the average American says that too. We didn't realize that you had to jump through so many hoops to get the assistance that you really, justly deserve. It's a system that Of course we can do better, and we work within the system we have, but it is disheartening to tell your veteran that, okay, can you stay a little longer in your tent?

[00:30:36] Laurie Crocker: Another issue that Gwennell shared with me is that the grant they received is what she called a reimbursable grant. This means that the non profit must front the money needed for a program that a grant would support, with the government reimbursement coming sometimes months down the road. Non profits often have cash flow issues. with this grant structure being one of the reasons for it. However, many community [00:31:00] partners and philanthropic organizations such as CFF have been working to try to alleviate this growing problem.

[00:31:13] Sandi Vidal: Well, I say all the time, we outsource our biggest problems to nonprofits and under resource them to solve those problems. Obviously, they're not solving them in a silo alone. And oftentimes, government funding comes into the equation. The challenge with government funding is Oftentimes, it's really more of a payment for service.

[00:31:34] So when you think about a payment for service, you generally don't pay for that service until you receive it. And so a lot of those grants are on a reimbursement basis, which means you have under resourced non profits who now have to keep every receipt, every log of mileage, every payroll record, which obviously they should have anyway, but how it relates to that particular grant, and they have to put that in a [00:32:00] report and send it off for several people to look at it. And many times it's, you know, whether it's 30, 60, 90 or more days to get reimbursed, that can become a serious cash flow issue for some of these nonprofits.

[00:32:16] Mark Brewer: You know, one of the things that we're thinking about at the foundation is how do we bring together people in all three sectors

who are doing this work and might be able to do it more innovatively if they had capital to do it.

[00:32:31] And then the second piece is, the whole reimbursement thing is transactional, it's not performance based. So if we could move some of that funding to a performance based, in other words, the outcomes of what you get done with the money versus how did you spend every dime of it, that would solve some of that.

[00:32:46] And then we of course have looked at strategies to provide. Short term low or no interest loan strategies to people who we know they're going to get paid. We just don't know when, so it becomes a cash flow issue and sometimes we [00:33:00] can solve that. So if you think for a minute about getting a reimbursed grant from the state or from even local governments if it takes them six months to be able to process that, We know you're gonna get the money, we just don't know exactly when, six months, nine months, however long it takes them to do it.

[00:33:21] So if we could provide loan capital at a low or no interest rate to people who are waiting on that capital, we can process the loans at a low rate without a lot of risk and get capital into the hands of people who need it. Close to immediately rather than waiting the six months during which time, by the way, they're not providing the same level of services.

[00:33:43] So this whole concept that you could go out and do something really amazing and then I could pay you for it, but you have to find some way to pay for all the amazing things you're doing until I pay you. That's kind of a crazy, 19th century strategy to things and this would give us the [00:34:00] opportunity to make the nonprofit sector in that space more innovative and more entrepreneurial and give them the chance to look more like early stage companies who perform at much higher levels but they get quicker capital for doing it where right now we're looking at it like it's a transactional service and we'll pay you when we get to it.

[00:34:20] Sandi Vidal: Right, and I think in some cases, the government does have the ability to give those dollars up front. Obviously, you have to account for them as you would any other grant. And so, part of it is really looking at the system as a whole and saying, you know, is what we're doing working? And if not, What can we do to change that?

[00:34:42] And I think sometimes government is slow to do that because there are so many hands in the pot. There are so many layers of bureaucracy, and I

don't know if all of those layers really realize how difficult it is for [00:35:00] nonprofits to be able to provide that work while they're also trying to fundraise for their budget so that they can keep people and not have high turnover, not, not be able to make payroll and those types of things.

[00:35:16] Laurie Crocker: Finally, let's take a look at a new bill going into effect in Florida on October 1st. Again, this might be already in effect depending on when you're listening to this episode. Just as a reminder, we aren't here to tell you what to believe or how to feel about anything we talk about.

We're here to share with you information that will help you to shape your own informed opinion.

[00:35:39] So with that being said, to fully understand this new law and its potential consequences, we decided to speak to a legal expert.

[00:35:53] State Attorney Andrew Bain: So my name is Andrew Bain, and I am the state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit in Florida, which means that I cover two [00:36:00] counties, one of them being Orange the other one being Osceola. So think about Disney World. That whole section of all the Disney parks and going all the way east to almost a coast where we have some very rural areas, including Orlando.

[00:36:14] We have Kissimmee, we have a lot of large municipalities inside of my circuit. My main job every day is to be the chief prosecutor for the circuit. So I am what you call the second half of law and order. So when you have law enforcement that goes out and they do investigations, they make arrests. My office then takes over the case to decide whether we're going to prosecute it or not.

[00:36:37] And so that is my main job and that includes a cumbersome things of a lot of different resources. I have an office of around 400 employees and around 163 prosecutors. I say close to being the second largest state attorney's office in the state of Florida right now.

[00:36:56] Laurie Crocker: House Bill 1365 or HB [00:37:00] 1365 for short, is a new law going into effect and pertains to unauthorized public camping and public sleeping. The law prohibits counties and municipalities from allowing public camping or sleeping on public property, unless designated by DCF or the Department of Children and Families.

[00:37:20] It authorizes counties to designate public Property for such uses for specified time periods. It also requires counties to establish specified standards

and procedures related to such property and authorizes DCF to inspect these designated spaces. Finally, it does provide exceptions during specified emergencies. So, if you're like me and not a lawyer, that can feel like a lot of legal jargon. So that's why we're having State Attorney Andrew Bain on here to break it down a little bit more and tell us what does this actually mean? What is it? What is it not? And help us understand some of the potential consequences [00:38:00] of this law going into effect.

[00:38:02] Also going to encourage you here to look at our show notes and hop on to our podcast website for this episode specifically to the resources section where we always link to different materials, resources, items talked about here. So the bill will be on there, so you can access it and read it on your own as well.

[00:38:27] State Attorney Andrew Bain: So if you talk to the people that wrote it and the people that voted for it, it was their attempt what they say to make the municipalities and counties do something about the homelessness problem that we are dealing with right now. And so, what they decided to do was to say, "Municipalities you need to build, have a shelter and if you don't have space for a shelter, you're going to have to do 1 of these encampments". And encampments have certain regulations that go along with them and you can't [00:39:00] allow any unlawful encampments out and about in your community. Otherwise, someone in your community can sue you about having this illegal encampment. And so, there's limitations as to the time of the encampment can be, which was 1 year and the legal encampment. And then there's another section. Again, it talks about the types of things that need to be, that happen at the encampment.

[00:39:25] So they need to have showers and need to have mental health resources. They didn't have a drug treatment, those type of things that services that need to be available to the people that are inside the legalized encampment. There's restrictions on where the encampment can be located. It can't be located next a the residential area.

[00:39:42] And so, and it's some other restrictions, so they can't build one right next to your house. And so there's, all these things that they consider, but there are several other things they did not, and so that's kind of where the problems then arise. It's going to affect every homeless individuals [00:40:00] because the person sleeping on the ground in the walkway and the sidewalk, we used to call it camping, on a cardboard sheet or something could be considered an encampment.

[00:40:10] There's really no definition as to what an encampment is. It doesn't say that, you know, it has to be a group of tents. It could be one tent. It could be

one person. So since the law is very vague in that respect, pretty much anybody's subject to being a problem for the city or the county and so you saw the city, you see the county passing ordinances outlawing certain things and then that subjects that person to arrest.

[00:40:37] And then, so there's a lot of, you know, they'll come through and you see the City of Orlando, see Orlando police department. come remove the person off the sidewalk, because they're violating an ordinance to not allow them to stay and obstruct the walkway and then, you know, which increases, you know, the jails and activity at the jail and ultimately at some point increases the caseload that [00:41:00] comes into my office because, you know, they get arrested for a non ordinance violation, then it becomes a criminal case, which is something that we have to deal with.

[00:41:11] Laurie Crocker: For clarification, I asked the state attorney, does this bill criminalize homelessness?

[00:41:22] Speaker 8: So the bill itself doesn't criminalize homelessness. The problem results in what the response is from the counties and the cities is going to be. So the response from the counties and the cities are like has been so far as we've seen to pass new ordinances, pass new criminal violations, and then subject that person to arrest. So it's not the actual bill.

[00:41:48] But when the bill then creates a scenario where, okay, if I'm a city and I don't want to be sued because then I have to pay the attorney's fees, the court fees, I have to pay all these, all this money, and there's [00:42:00] really no limited number of how many lawsuits I can get about the same person, the same encampment, you know, I, well, we don't want to spend the taxpayer dollars.

[00:42:09] Fighting lawsuits. Well, we can just arrest the person and then that may solve the problem and which we all have realized that that's not going to solve the problem. And so we have to find different methodologies to fix what's going to be the outflow of the law.

[00:42:29] Laurie Crocker: With this going into effect, I had to wonder, is there a plan for October 1st for our cities and counties?

[00:42:41] State Attorney Andrew Bain: I'm trying to get an answer. I'm actually trying to set up a meeting with some commissioners and some other government partners, to discuss that very thing. So, and I want to be assured at

least as the state attorney is that we're not going to go just run around and arresting and [00:43:00] disrupting every homeless camp that exists.

[00:43:02] There's, you know, significant issues with doing that, and there's all types of things of reason why not do that? You know, if we're going to set up an encampment, then one of these official encampments, the legal ones. What additional regulations are you guys going to put in place, for instance, even at the Christian service center, like no, like weapons aren't allowed.

[00:43:23] That's, that's a big thing for me. We can't have these types of encampments where you have drugs, alcohol, and weapons. Like, so those, obviously those things can't be in place. Additionally, are there children going to be living in these encampments? And that's another issue that is going to arise because not only is it like, you know, we do have a large homeless children population in our, in our local locale we also have, for instance, I have, I have designated, I have camps where I know, that I know exist, that have sex offenders in them, because they can't find shelter either, and so they live in these encampments. I know where [00:44:00] they are, they report there. We check on them at those locations.

[00:44:04] But now, are we moving them to the same camp with the children? So there's. You know, then they're in violation of certain, some of them are going to be, they'll be subject to arrest at that point because they're in violation of like, just to lanceford and things like that, lungsford, I'm sorry. and so, we are, there's so many things that like, I need to have answers to that we don't have right now. And so, I'm looking forward to those conversations to figure out. Kind of, you know, what's the plan? What are we going to come up with to address this issue and, you know, kind of how can we move forward in protecting our community while also, you know, making sure that we're not going to dehumanize people in the process.

[00:44:46] Laurie Crocker: And finally, I asked the state attorney his thoughts on solutions and specifically about the concept of a homelessness court.

[00:44:58] State Attorney Andrew Bain: So that's one of the biggest things [00:45:00] I've been pushing, it's a type of diversion to divert the cases from actually, when they get to the jail. So you may arrest the person technically, but we don't put them in the system. We kind of divert them. They wanted, they choose to this court to get them services, try to get them some kind of shelter.

[00:45:19] We have to get them provided for and, you know, doing those sort of things. So there's a lot of things that go along with doing that. We talked about

substance abuse treatment. We talked about mental health treatment. We talked about, you know job training, traditional housing, which is a big, you know, it's a big problem. And so, being able to combine all those things together to deal with the issues. So then there's some temporary issues, food insecurity, you know, transportation and all types of different things that kind of fall into those sectors. So that's, those are conversations with you know, multiple local partners, both government and private, they're going to have to kind of weigh [00:46:00] in on making that a possibility.

[00:46:05] Laurie Crocker: As we close up this episode, as promised, here are three takeaways you can take with you into your day. Number one, the point in time count is an annual count of our region's homeless population. This is required by HUD for funding, and the lead agency, in our case, Homeless Services Network, leads this effort.

[00:46:24] This past January, the point in time count showed a rise in our homeless population. However, it's an imperfect system with the amount of volunteers each year and the weather on the selected night, playing into the results. Number two, the housing market and the lack of units at an attainable rate is a massive contributor to our homelessness population growth.

[00:46:44] In order to strengthen our defensive game that Martha Are mentioned earlier in this episode, we have to figure out our housing crisis. We encourage you to listen to episode two to learn more about this issue area.

Number three, House Bill 1365, is a [00:47:00] new law for Florida and prohibits counties and municipalities from allowing camping and sleeping on public property.

[00:47:07] With a lot of unknown variables and questions to be answered, no one is really sure what the consequences of this bill will be.

[00:47:22] Not ready for the conversation to be over? Neither are we. Find us on Instagram at First you talk and keep the conversation going.

[00:47:33] Mark Brewer: Thank you for listening to the podcast, First You Talk. As an engaged listener of this show, we encourage you to check out our podcast website at cffound.org/podcast to learn more about the complex issue. There you'll find more context to the voices that you've heard today, links to any supporting materials mentioned during the episode, and resources to help you explore additional [00:48:00] perspectives to draw a fuller picture of the issue at hand. Through curiosity and collaboration we can all make our community an even better place to call home.

[00:48:15] Speaker: This episode of the First You Talk podcast was recorded in part at the Winter Park Library and edited by Diligent Mixing and Media. A special thank you to our guests, Martha Are, Kathy, Gwenell Hall, and State Attorney Andrew Bain.