 I am the senior director of programs and community engagement here at Mechanics Institute. And thank you for joining us for this incredible talk with Kevin Adler, the author of When We Walk By, in conversation with Emily Cohen. We're very excited to welcome you all to Mechanics Institute. Who has been here to Mechanics Institute before? Who is here for the very first time? Awesome. Welcome. I hope it is the first of many visits to our incredible institutions. For those who are less familiar with Mechanics Institute, we were founded in 1854 with a sculptural center, historical landmark, gorgeous multi-story accessible general interest library, events center, and world renowned chess room. If you haven't checked out our incredible library, chess room, and building, we do tours every Wednesday at noon and we have evening tours throughout every month. So please check our website milibrary.org to find out more about the incredible programs we offer here at Mechanics Institute. For those who are members, thank you very much for joining us as a member here at Mechanics Institute. For those who aren't, there are a lot of wonderful benefits of being a member here. You have full access to our library and services, the chess room, and these events that we do. We offer a tour from five to 15 events per week here at Mechanics Institute, writers rooms, book rooms, classes, all sorts of amazing sessions. We do have Kevin's book for sale in the back. Thank you for those who have purchased one already. If you haven't yet, you are welcome to purchase one as the event comes to a close after the Q&A portion. Kevin will be doing book signing as well. And with that, I'm going to introduce Nico Chen, our program manager, who will introduce our amazing teachers, ladies and gentlemen. Just wanted to thank all of you for gathering with us today for the stuff for Wilkie and Tim the book talk. So let's give a warm welcome to Kevin and Adler, and we are very honored to have as Kevin and Adler, author of the book by, a book that brings to the forefront the people we all can simply refer to in our everyday speech as the homeless. We gather here in a moment of profound reflection, facing what Kevin aptly described in his book as the crisis of humanity with the United States. This crisis is not one of fleeting headlines or momentary shock. It is a deeply entrenched issue that touches the core of our shared human experience. In reading Kevin's book, a project emerges that challenges each and every one of us. How are we all implicated in the ongoing crisis of humanity in the United States, particularly in our interactions with our neighbors experiencing homelessness. This crisis is multifaceted, encompassing economic disparities, social civilization, and growing detachment in our personal and communal lives. It is about people who have become estranged from our societal fabric. Their plight is not just a matter of policy or economics. Their relational poverty has started to fluctuate in our collective world. When we walk by it is more than just a book, it's a mirror held up to our society, urging us to confront uncomfortable truths. It asks us to examine our perceptions, our language, and our actions towards those who have been sidelined by circumstances. As we listen to Kevin's shared insects in his book, let us open our hearts and minds. Let's challenge ourselves to think deeply about our role in this societal dilemma. This is not just a conversation about homelessness. It is a discussion about humanity, empathy, and the kind of society we aspire to be. Today he will be in conversation with Emily Cohen, who serves as the Deputy Director for Communications and Legislative Affairs in the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supported Housing. Prior to rejoining this department in March 2020, Emily served as Mayor London Breeds Policy Advisor on Homelessness, where she focused on local, states, and federal policy to expand and improve the local homeless responses. Before joining the Mayor's office, she was the Manager for Policy and Special Projects at HSH from 2016 to 2019. In this capacity, she managed government affairs at the local, state, and national levels for the departments. Emily also supported the Publications and Community Relations work of the departments, as well as serving as the Deputy Director of the Mayor's Office of Housing Opportunities, Partnerships, and Engagement, which is another academic hope under Mayor Ed Lee. I invite you to lead into this conversation through your careful listening. Through our listening, you'll also engage, reflect, and participate in this crucial dialogue. This conversation is an opportunity to redefine our perspective and actions toward our fellow citizens, or experiencing homelessness. Together, let's envision and work towards a future where the crisis of humanity is met with compassion, understanding and effective action, and after the conversation, we will open up to a human aid. And once again, I want to give a warm welcome to the wonderful candidate, Adler, Emily Cohen. Hi, good evening, everyone. It's a real honor to be here tonight, and to get to ask Kevin some great questions about his book, which I hope you all have an opportunity to pick out. He found it compelling, and I found it well written. He found the intersection of the humanitarian and policy conversations to be critically important as we decide as a community how we are going to prevent an end to homelessness here in San Francisco and nationally. And so I think it's a really timely conversation and a really important dialogue for all of us to be in together. So, Kevin, thank you. Can I just start by asking you some questions? Hi, everyone. This is how my voice sounds. I wore a nice shirt for y'all tonight. Can we walk by and blend a really unique approach to homelessness in the discussion around the person-to-person relational poverty, as well as the broader societal challenge and policy challenge of homelessness? And that's the part of the book I found the most compelling. And I just have to go back to a couple of different sections of it. And so I wanted you to elaborate on why you think it's so important to bridge these two components as we think about solutions to homelessness. Great question. Good to be here, Emily. So, to start maybe with my personal background, maybe maybe this word, because I think that sets some of my philosophies. So, 10 years ago, I could not have imagined sitting in front of an audience like all of you talking about homelessness, let alone writing a book about it, let alone meeting the nonprofit in this space. My starting point was through a family member, my uncle. Uncle Mark, he was on the streets of Santa Cruz for about 30 years. You know, he suffered from severe mental health issues and he ended up dying on the streets of the age of 50, which I only found out in writing this book is about the average life expectancy for a person experiencing homelessness, about 30 years less than what you'd anticipate if they were housed. But, you know, growing up, I never thought of Uncle Mark as a homeless man because he was just a beloved member of my family, you know. I remembered every birthday, guest of honor, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and he even sent me a birthday card every year that he was on the streets. And so it wasn't until after he passed away that I started thinking, gosh, every time I'm in, you know, downtown San Francisco, going to work, going out with friends, I see people who are experiencing homelessness and I don't think of them as someone's son or daughter or someone's brother or sister or some kid's beloved uncle or aunt. I saw them and as problems to be solved, not people to be loved. And so for me, my starting point getting into this work was to go through this personal metamorphosis of going from seeing my unhoused neighbors as problems to seeing them as people, not them like us, right? And the quick, you know, overview to get to where the book became. So I spent a year basically saying the only thing I know about homelessness is I don't know a single thing, you know, kind of a socratic beginning, right? And my way of gathering information and learning more was I invited over the course of the year 24 individuals who were experiencing homelessness to wear GoPro cameras around their chests and narrate their experience of what life is like on the streets. And the premise was simple. I just walked by you, you're still here, what's it like to be you? What do you wish passers-by knew that maybe we don't? And in one of the clips I heard something that changed my life. And it was a very simple quote and I'll never forget it. They said, I never realized I was homeless when I lost my housing only when I lost my family and friends. I never realized I was homeless when I lost my housing only when I lost my family and friends. And over the last decade, meeting a nonprofit miracle message is starting out by doing family and friend reunifications and having now reunited about 800 individuals experiencing homelessness with loved ones. Having now done a phone budding program for folks who don't have anyone to reunite to that has matched hundreds of people around the world as volunteers for one-to-one phone calls and text messages. And also having created one of the first basic income pilots for individuals experiencing homelessness in the country where we're now working with Google.org giving out $2.1 million in direct cash transfer at 750 a month for a year. I've come to think of homelessness as much as a crisis in relationships, not just between our unhoused neighbors and loved ones, but in our lack of relationship with our neighbors. So for me, the starting point isn't necessarily the typical, like, you know, fighting for policies has to result. You can't just kumbaya, love each other, and that's enough. But I do think as MLK, and we just celebrated MLK Day, you know, a quote of his to paraphrase was the crisis in the civil rights movement isn't just public laws, it's in a public consensus. And I think what we've done is we've created this other class of people that we call the homeless. We loop everything and everyone into that class without really getting to know who they are. And quite frankly, how close so many people in this country right now are from experiencing homelessness. You know, one out of every two Americans are paycheck away from not being able to pay rent. And 47% of people say they don't know where they get $400 for an unexpected emergency. And so what we're finding and found through the book process is we ask this question all the time that's really important, why there's so many people experiencing homelessness. But given those numbers, you almost have to ask a second question, which is why aren't more people experiencing homelessness? You know, what's keeping half the country from falling over the edge of homelessness. And what we're finding is family, friends, community, church, synagogue, mosque, relationships, social capital. And that's starting to be fared out. And understood I think more at regional policy levels, the Denver metro area, they just released their report from the pit count and some of the surveys. And it was the number one cited issue was relational breakdown. It's not to say that a whole host of things are going well to get to the point where your housing status and security hinges on a relationship, like that's not ideal. And there's a lot upstream to talk about. But fundamentally, arguments falling out, divorce, death in the family, suicide, double above, triple above. There's a pressure right now on relationship social capital that I think isn't being addressed. And it's also is not only a cause of homelessness, but a potential pathway out of homelessness. Absolutely. And we see reunification with loved ones as one of our as a system, one of our primary ways of moving people out of the crisis of homelessness in our community. And I think that's the exact kind of marriage we're looking for with the human centric relational work and the financial assistance to enable those relationships and some of that transition to happen. So it's really interesting to read about that so much in the book. Can I do a quick survey of the audience on this? Yes. Okay. So show of hands from 2015 to 2019, San Francisco, the number of people who successfully exited from the shelter system into housing. Okay. So I'm going to put, there's three primary causes. One is reunifications, one is supportive housing, and one is transitional housing. Okay. So who here thinks the relational piece was at least 10%? How many think 20% of people going from shelters into stable housing? 20%? How many think 30%? 50%? We're like boiling the water slowly. So the answer is 60%. 60% of successful shelter exits from 2015 to 2019. That's not your message is those may be more home or bound, so the problem solving and 30% was supportive housing and 10% was transitional housing. So I think there's a need to kind of open up the conversation on these avenues that may not be immediately apparent. But when we have a crisis like what we have, I think we need a guessing and approach to any homelessness. What else can we do? Absolutely. I completely agree. And I think one of the things in the book that you talked about was network impoverishment and the real challenge of relying on your social networks to help address your homelessness if nobody in your social network has $100 to spare. Okay. If your entire network is facing some of the same institutional challenges, poverty related challenges that you are, it's hard to rely on one another. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that, what you saw in your book, how that breaks down in terms of what we see across different races and different communities. So I thought that your reference of the spark initiative is really interesting. Yeah, that was a lesson for me and Emily and just doing the research that, you know, if you look at specific to African Americans entering into homelessness, the rates of substance abuse, severe mental health issues are much lower. And the earnings, the income, the disposable resources tend to be higher than white individuals going into homelessness. And again, the explanation is because of long standing resource accumulation advantages within the family resources that are available, there's just much less wiggle room for any kind of issue before falling over the edge in the homelessness. If we look at one system in the book that's highlighted, the foster care system, which is often not talked about in some of these conversations as a causal element of homelessness. So the number one predictor of chronic adult homelessness is youth homelessness. Did you experience homelessness as a young person? Foster care youth, a third of young people who age out of foster care by the time they're 26 years old will experience homelessness. And for black young people that goes up to 60%. And so I think when you hear stats like that, I realize that the sometimes when we see in the media and kind of response maybe on like a Twitter conversation, it's more emotional. Like it's not just like give me stats. That's what I need. It's like this emotional visceral thing. But I do think it's important to be informed on some of this information because you can't hear numbers like that and think this is a result of individual failures of human beings. We all make mistakes. We've all but for the grace of God, go out. And we look even state by state, California has fairly comparable mental health issues, you know, per population and substance abuse issues that say West Virginia. But West Virginia has a much lower rate of homelessness. Why is that what the cost of living is so much lower in West Virginia? That's a good segue into my next question about personal attributes that I think many people associate with somebody experiencing homelessness, whether it's a personal failure, substance use disorder, behavioral health challenges. Some of the things that are very stereotypical in the mind of someone who might walk down our street and have an experience and think about it. But that perpetuates a very negative and very narrow perception of the community. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how we as a collective group of people who care about this issue can help change that narrative for the general public for our family or somebody across the table with a Thanksgiving. And instead of throwing mashed potatoes at them as like kind of a more productive way of trying to change the narrative. Yeah, that's a great question. And yeah, and first just really want to acknowledge all of you for being here tonight. It's, you know, what day is it? Thursday? It's Thursday night. It's gotten to the new year. Happy new year, everyone. It could be lots of different places. And just the fact that you show up. I think it's not an anomaly is I think there's a lot of pent up desire in our community to help and make a difference on this issue. And it's just like, what can we do? Where do we go? You know, for me, my starting point really was around feelings of frustration, dealing of helplessness. Like I think that's my least favorite emotions. I don't want to feel like I can't do anything about something. But you know, my work and thinking on this has been really informed by just countless conversations with individuals through the years. You know, there's a chapter on paternalism that they all just highlight. Has anyone had a, did anyone have a chance to meet? Or is anyone familiar with Ronnie the runner? Ronnie Goodman? Yeah, I see. I think you had a couple of, yeah, incredible human being. And he had spent some time in San Quentin. He was released. And he was essentially released into, you know, the streets. And that's a whole another conversation of the revolving door between incarceration and homelessness in our country. And he became a dear friend of mine. And he was very notorious for being blessed, for being a beautiful marathon runner and raising a clean wall on the streets for charity, while also an accomplished artist. And six weeks before he passed away on the streets tragically, he was set up, bless you, to have his artwork presented at PS1 MoMA Gallery in New York at this incredible exhibit. And he unfortunately passed away on the streets. And one day we were having a conversation. And I asked him about his housing prospects. And I said, you know, hey, Ronnie, you know, what are your thoughts about getting a house? Are there anything I can help you with? And he kind of looked at me and he said, well, Kevin, I have housing available to me if I wanted it. Oh, okay. Well, Ronnie wanted to take the housing, like what's going on? And he looked at me very patiently and just said, Well, Kevin, the housing is it's a building and it's in a facility where I know drugs are present 24 seven. And my concern is I have an addiction history. If I get into that housing, there's a good chance I may relapse and pass away. And I would rather be on the streets than in an environment where that potentially is an outcome for me. And I shared that story in part because I had my own extreme judgment and presumption of what Ronnie was going through and what he needed. And once he said he had housing available to me, I put all the, you know, what do you think and why are you doing this as paternalistic. And when I got closer now to actually hear a story, it was it was made sense. It's like, wow, that makes it's reasonable. So I think, you know, they're part of the book, one of the big influences for me in writing this book is coming from the foster care space. And I remember a leading advocate in the foster care space said, you know, if there's one variable that's needed, that's the determining factor of whether someone who's a young person goes through the system and does well versus they fall through the cracks. There's one thing that could make the difference. Do they have someone who goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning thinking of their well being who isn't paid to do so. And I just don't think there's ever a point as human beings that we age out of the need to feel that sense of belonging and so my invitation in this book, I promise you as heavy and the opening we talked about the ways humanity is falling short. And you can think like, oh, you know, it is not meant to make anyone feel guilty. There is enough shaming in this space, there's no guilt in this space. And there should be some very hard conversations on choices that we're making as a community, whether we're building the kind of affordable housing that we need to build, whether we're destituting people who are someone's, as I should say, everyone is someone somebody someone's mom and dad to a lifetime on the streets and in and out of we have to have that conversation. But I also think there's a lot that everyday people can do. And I'm interested, Emily, I don't want to turn the tables, but I'm just interested, like, you know, you're in a hard job, right? Can we just, like, applaud? And talk about this. And I know, I think the numbers, it's like for every one person that the city houses another three people fall into homelessness. Right? So it's an inflow problem as much as anything. How do you, in your work, find hope and find ways that the energy that's pent up around these issues to channel it towards productive ways to make a difference? I'm supposed to be asking the question. No, I appreciate that. And, you know, I've been in the field when I started working in homelessness. It was actually almost exactly 20 years ago, 20 years ago this summer. And I was sure I would not have a job doing this after the 10 years we were going to solve this. I was going to put myself out of work, have a whole other plan B involves my bicycle and flowers that I'm going to deliver to people. But I just I recognize a lot of the people in your book from San Francisco. There are folks that I knew from my mostly it's my time as a direct service provider before I started looking for the government. But those are the people who I get up in the morning thinking about those are the stories and the lives and it is that personal connection to people who have lived this crisis and who have survived this crisis that drive me and that kind of give me the strength to you talk a lot about nimbies in your book. You know, I lead our community engagement work for the department. I work with folks in the public who have very visceral, very strong anger towards people. And because I don't have as much personal trauma associated with homelessness, I've never experienced homelessness. I can use that privilege to go out and fight for what we need in the community. And so that's that's what drives me to do what we do. But it is certainly that human connection with folks mostly who have come through homelessness, but also I've lost some clients and some friends in this crisis and they're very motivated. Well, maybe this is a good opportunity to open it up to the audience. Not sure if we have a process for the service. If you are interested in asking a question, just let me know and contact with me and I'll pass the mic over to you. Thank you for being here and talking about this. I have a couple questions just about like a couple homeless, all right, a couple homeless tropes that I hear talking with with other people. My wife and I moved to San Francisco from the suburbs about six months ago. And so are seeing some of this for the first time up close. And we talked to other people, they asked us about it, our friends back in the suburbs, you know, well, gosh, you know, you can imagine the questions asked about homelessness in San Francisco. So what what what feeling I get when when when sentiment I hear is homeless people are dangerous. Is there is there data about this in your book or elsewhere? Either of you maybe can answer this in terms of, you know, that trope and what you know, what are the chance because if I want to go and I want to help someone out or buy the meal or just encourage them or whatever, what how dangerous is it to engage with this person given some of the reasons for homelessness? And the second one, you can answer one or either of these. The second kind of trope is that if we help homeless people in San Francisco, just more homeless people are going to come to San Francisco. So it's sort of this Sisyphean task. And because of the climate here and whatever in the liberal government and good people like yourselves who are working hard to help a homeless, it's just going to attract more homeless from all over the country. Is there any evidence that that is true or not true? Is our homeless population overwhelmingly homegrown or are people coming from other parts of the country who are homeless are likely to be homeless because because we provide well first welcome. We're glad you guys are here. Welcome to San Francisco. And the same question is is an interesting one because there's such a visceral image. I think it's so many people's minds, but it's incredibly important and I was glad to kind of reference this in the book because I say all the time in community meetings that homeless people are far more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators of the price. And if and when people experiencing homelessness are engaged in violence or criminal activity, it's most often against one another over some sort of turf issue or some sort of spat within an encampment we've seen. But you know the vast majority of people with mental illness are safely housed. The vast majority of people with substance use disorder, many of whom are in my family are safely housed. And there is not a people experiencing homelessness are not inherently more violent or more unsafe, just like people experiencing a mental health challenge are not necessarily more violent or unsafe in the community. They need to have services and treatment. And so definitely the data indicates that people experiencing homelessness are not more dangerous, but I know that it feels very chaotic on the street. And you know just when I walk over here I have people around me, I have some guy talking to himself very angrily and very very loudly and it it unnerved me. He was walking very very close. And you know I can see how that can make people feel uncomfortable, but there's a difference between uncomfortable and unsafe. I'm going to focus mostly on homelessness because I think the broader conversation is you know the situation on the streets right now in this city is not acceptable right. The level of drug dealing, drug use, lack of any kind of intervention solutions, my views on this have shifted dramatically as a result of the families of people experiencing homelessness who are often the biggest advocates for something to be done because this is no quality of life for someone to be living and dying on the streets. So with that kind of as an aside you know Emily's right with that data you know I try to I have not experienced homelessness personally so I try to lift up the voices of folks who have in the book as much as I can. One individual in particular you know comes to mind he reminded he was the first person in my 10 years of doing this work that really reminded me of my uncle Mark you know and he had suffered from schizophrenia, had some severe untreated mental health issues and in some ways kind of hit the stereotype of what we think of as someone who's experiencing homelessness. It's worth mentioning that a lot of homelessness is invisible, we're not seen, there's a lot of women with children, mothers, that's an invisible side of almost young people youth homeless seniors is one of the largest and fastest growing groups of people experiencing homelessness but I asked them just point blank you know what do you wish people like me knew that maybe we don't about your experience and very softly he looked at me and you replied I just wish people knew that I was so much more of a threat to myself than I would ever be to them you know it reminds me of a sign that I saw that was the most heartbreaking sign I ever saw on the streets and it was a guy not even holding it up it just kind of was slouched against him and it said very simply at least give me the finger where a middle finger in your face is preferable than what you're currently experiencing which is being totally ignored and dismissed and other eyes so I refuse personally to allow the horrendous situation that disproportionately hurts our unhoused neighbors more than anyone else in the streets I don't want that to cause me to lose my own humanity in the process so I what I do is I bring socks I got a backpack full of socks I can give you a pair of socks if you like they are a great conversation starter and getting out and got tens of thousands of pairs we also have hotline cards got one there I saw good job sir we also have these hotline cards that miracle messages uh and the phone number is super easy it's 1-800-MISS-U 1-800-MISS-YOU so someone's interested in reconnecting to a loved one it's not for everybody right or getting matched with a friend as a volunteer for phone calls and text messages give them that card they can call our hotline so I think wherever you're at you know as a starting point doing something and if it's not talking to someone on the streets that's fine you know you can do a bit of group go out visit a shelter joining a phone buddy program getting matched 20 minute 30 minute calls text every week just doing something is so critical even if it's making eye contact smiling acknowledging someone's humanity you know the last little step is this I can I can kind of get a feel for the audience are you all fellow nerds and dorks like me or am I the only one I see one fellow they're two they're all in the back they're variously taking notes as the front row it's like extra so two little factoids experiments that really shaped my thinking on this so neuroscientists that Princeton and Duke did some research and they were doing it on the medial prefrontal cortex so it was a part of the brain that activates when we see a person compared to say like an inanimate object and this part of the brain was found not to respond when we see someone that we perceive as an extreme outgroup in our society including people experiencing homelessness the parts of our brain that activate when we see each other in this room do not activate when we see someone experiencing homelessness the implications of that a few years ago the new york city rescue mission did an experiment where they had individuals dress up to look homeless as unsuspecting members of their very own families walk by does anyone want to guess what happened not a single person recognized their own mom or dad brother or sister or a son or daughter husband or wife as they walked right by them on the streets and I think I am then left asking myself a question and I put it forward to all of you would you recognize your loved ones if you walked by them on the streets for me the answer is probably not so what I try to do is everything I can to get to a place where maybe it's not my loved one but that's someone somebody and how do I see them accordingly that's very quickly answer your other question about 70 percent of people experiencing homelessness in san francisco were most recently stably housed in san francisco and that is consistent across most major cities all big cities have a flow in and out we know that people come looking for opportunities looking for a variety of things but the majority of homelessness is homegrown as you said yeah and I think the UCSF was the most recent source of that I think they found statewide 75 percent on the average county by county uh are from the county were once housed in that county and 90 statewide of people who are homeless in california were once housed in california so at some point our homeless neighbors are are and were and will hopefully eventually be our housing so it is it is very much a homegrown issue to raise money for castle charities and most of the programs are for homeless families and uh man with a tragedy and it just seems like it is more than housing no okay uh so i'm just okay um there's a study in the 1990s saying that a third of the homeless people they really don't want to have the services nor the housing because that's their lifestyle they like the way it is which is different than what you were saying you know they don't want to go into a um space with a lot of drug issues but what i read was you go to housing that forbids and people don't want to go there it's just becomes that's not your life um so for the rest of the two third of the people if they want to go into housing government either support by government all of them profits wouldn't be able to get housing and support it to housing well i'll share a few things on that so there was a survey or in san francis a survey a few years ago in san francisco done of people kind of asking for charity on the street you know handhandling and in that survey 97 percent of people said that they were offered housing they would take it so 97 percent now within that when people were asked how you spent the money that you received from hand handling i think you'll have to check the book for the exact number but it's like 85 percent used it on food some kind of food security i believe it was about a third that had some kind of substance use issue and use some said they used some of it on some kind of substance what i put forward is when we think about substance abuse which is a major issue we see it on the streets and there is a conflict with unsheltered chronic individual homelessness and untreated substance abuse the biggest issue between housed and unhoused substance issues is really one of access to treatment you know because we have an opioid crisis in this country right nationwide it's not just among our unhoused neighbors but oftentimes we talk about substance use as if it's a cause of homelessness it's much more of an effect of homelessness where people who are in a traumatized state not i mean housing is the best form of medicine right but can you imagine who here felt grumpy showing up today i'm the only one you felt grumpy no you're just saying what did you say and you're like no i feel good fresh is easy i felt grumpy coming in today okay maybe i slept one or two hours less last night right i got tossed in turn i didn't you know i shower if i didn't have enough time to you know shake whatever it is like and i'm still in a like i was in a foul mood i feel great seeing all of you just like that but i was in a foul mood earlier today and i had all the things i need for my mental health right i hope i have i'm stabilized i can't imagine one night let alone for 10 minutes an hour being on the streets the way people are treated this and and and not just a mental health you know but it's also physical health you know my partner is an emergency medicine physician at ucsl and she has people who come in with horrendous you know conditions you know standing all day shoes socks getting wet wearing the same pair so at some point what happens is you see a level of self-medicating right that's happening to numb the pain i don't think whether you're doing this before becoming homeless or this is something that happened once we became homeless addiction is a disease and i think we don't treat it as a disease and we need to but you know housing right now there's just not enough housing available full stock we have a nationwide shortage of seven million units to meet current demand and so my belief in san francisco one of the issues i've seen in you know and what may disagree but you know that's our rapid conversation um maybe a little bit i don't ten years ago when i started this journey the city it felt like the city took a very hard line black and white view on housing it felt like it was permanent supportive housing or shelter system now the question that i always ask with housing is would you want to live there would you want to live there because if you can't say that you want to live there you cannot expect not even force you cannot expect someone who is another human being to stay there long term for me speaking for myself here many congregate shelters i would not want to live right i i there's many shelters i've been in some in this city some elsewhere i don't feel safe can't bring your stuff you can't bring your partner you can't bring your dog you have to be in by a certain time out by a certain time that wouldn't work for me i'd rather be on the streets now is that a choice sort of but it's because i have a really bad set of options right so as i i've been excited over the last few years because i've seen the city starting to actually build tiny home communities looking at interim housing transitional housing Emily's going to talk more about this problem solving but i i think we need is anyone have an improv background or a theater background in here i can tell you know a couple a couple lesbians in the room right i was most likely to win an Oscar was my high school class phase i'm still waiting what did i get nominated i don't think i do but you know there's a there's a philosophy in the improv world and it's yes and yes and we spent way too much time i believe in the homeless services space fighting over this piece of the pie when it's like yes and we need that we need this we need this service we need that type of housing so Emily what are you i completely agree in response to your question we absolutely don't have enough of anything you know we have nearly 8 000 people experiencing homelessness our community on any given night probably 20 000 over the course of the year we have 3 000 shelter beds we have the most supportive housing because we didn't have a black and white approach to this for quite a long time but most of our housing could you slow down and ensure sorry yes good for us back here thank you of course we have 3 000 shelter beds in our community to meet the need of 8 000 people each night we have more supportive housing in this community than per capita than any other city in the country that is great that means we're solving homelessness for people every single day but i have thousands of people waiting for a spot mat and you know i've been working with those experiencing homelessness for about 20 years and i can say i can remember two people who've told me they don't want housing everyone else wants housing they might not want the housing we have to offer and not everyone wants the services we have to offer because they may or may not meet them and so i do think you know we just face a challenge of not enough and that's why i'm a yes and sort of aircraft um because we do need more supportive housing we know it works it's evidence based it works very well and it needs to be better we need shelter because i've been working you know we disown shelters a lot especially congregate shelters but they're full they're full we need them because we need those beds for people and we need to keep adding options tidy homes safe parking we're going to open our first sober living supportive housing program this coming year and we just need to have more diversity in our portfolio and more options for people so they have there's something they can say yes to whether they outreach worker is talking them face-to-face and making that initial offer we have people here here we'll go with you and then for 40 years i've been talking to tenants on the phone uh or in person and these are people who are at home but it's like a tornado or a series of forces that are making so careful people call us i'm trying to figure out who they are what got them actually talking to us and then by every direction how actually i can figure out how we can help them and we didn't kind of have to break down or be moved to a family but certainly uh a lot of it has to do with the simple thing is your landlord and how you deal with your landlord when your parents were your landlords and uh you don't know how to deal with no landlords because you don't have the experience doing that so all these things are so complicated and i hear you're talking about uh people who actually ended up you know falling overboard i can say that the issue of of all the people trying to help with this really attorney intervening in this nuclear family failure and i think we's never forget that if you don't have that in your background it's very hard to do that everybody else is trying to deal with trying to get a person who's on the streets back into the sense of security that they have thanks for your comment and and maybe the area that i flag that i think is most aligned kind of where i would probably see eye to eye quite a bit is among the disproportionate number of lgbtq young people who are experiencing homelessness so i believe nine percent of the population in the united states uh young people identify as lgbtq plus 40 percent of the unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness are lgbtq plus and so when you hear a number like that that disproportionality a lot of times it's because the situation at home may not have been safe for them to kick out that kind of person is that nationwide sorry yeah yeah thanks a lot yeah and one of actually others i want to you go with question i'll make sure uh how are we doing on time we will have about eight minutes left so we're gonna have rory ask one question and glenn ask one more question and we're gonna create did anyone not have their anyone else have questions we do rapid fire okay well here we'll start with these two and then we'll do rapid fire lightning round the last few okay i want to make sure you get your questions so you want me to say this real fast what's your name sir my name is rory hi rory and i'm a recently retired location manager for motion pictures based in san francisco and since you have to hold it when you're madonna or something okay can you hear me can you hear me can everybody and since the the 70 1970s throughout my career something always took us to one particular region in san francisco that's never changed since it's maybe a piece of the conversation and this is really i'm i'm looking at you too but it's to anybody in the room why does the 36 blocks of the tender will never change and i'm particularly looking at you because that's a good question why does what is it because it's a phenomena like no other that i know that i can go there i i can go there take you to an alley and it hasn't changed since we shot there on pursuit of happiness right yeah i appreciate the question and i don't have a perfect answer to it i do think you'll other communities like li skip row has faced similar challenges i think there's a long history of concentrating i mean there's some great tours of the tenderway that you should take from i could give historians i could give them to you there are movies there that these tendering historians of it really get into the structural causes of it yeah the reason it's called the tenderway the cops would get a tender one if they turn the fly down and what was going on like that's how it got its nickname because cops were taking backs and just was like in the 30s right i'd like to challenge that yes your your your answer to that there are services in the tender line that they take you to other places there's a brilliant community there but there are services and you can't get out of places there's a brilliant community there that i mean some amazing people um in there and sometimes i think that why that that that it is a place where there's a community so there's a gravitation to it and i i would say the that the tenderloin is also a muscle surrounded by everything else that is treated very gently and untouchable and i think that's a better metaphor for what's going on in that community because it's a little part of it is frozen time and i just really wanted to hear your perspective i think your perspective on it's just as valid and important to hear so appreciate that but i asked the question it was my question sort of containment zone sort of policies around the tenderloin i don't think that exists as much anymore but now there's a very very high concentration of poverty there is a very vibrant open drug market there is there are behaviors that are not tolerated anywhere else in the city and there's a police station in the middle of it yes there is and there is one of the i mean there's it's a little Saigon there's the best bombies you're ever going to eat right like there's a maze and things in the yeah next question we will need to continue to the next question all right i'm going i live in western uh south market um over the years i've gotten to know a number of what you might call a neighborhood homeless uh my first name and some of them have been enough i'm anxious to read your book these five people not half of them are gone the family the family relationship is all fucked up and so they've been in and out of their family homes so what is the consequences so they stay on the street since it's been really cold they've managed to figure out a shelter to be in but they've been around for years and they barely survived a federal overdose so what should we have a talk about so is there something that could be said about people who do not have the normal family now oh absolutely i mean helpful many many of our unhoused neighbors there's a huge overlap between it's called aces you know the adverse childhood experiences aces score and homelessness you know the more traumas you've had early in life the higher likelihood that you will experience homelessness as an adult and the longer periods of duration that will be so this piece on relationship social capital like you're coming from an environment where there was trauma and abuse and like they didn't get what you needed you're already starting you know what's the opposite of starting on first base right like starting in the dugout outside the ballpark what we found is there's also a side to many of our unhoused neighbors where even if they do have loved ones who are looking for support they may not be the mom and dad of the nuclear family an aunt an uncle a classmate friend and the number one reason why people don't reconnect is they say i don't want to be a burden i feel ashamed yes i feel like i don't want to hurt the people i love most and therefore i'm going to hold them at a distance when i ask someone if they want to reconnect and they say yes but they change their mind before we the number one response literally i've heard this probably 30 or 40 times verbatim i can't i feel dirty so there's a lot that we have to do for folks who are either not have loved ones to reconnect to or who are feeling so ashamed of themselves for being homeless that they choose to distance themselves if you walk into shelters look at the bulletin boards sometimes it's filled with missing person flyers come home please we love you we miss you we get messages every day from family members all across the country looking for their missing relatives who's in los angeles san francisco we've done about 120 of those and you don't want to haste that for unions but it's it's hard it's hard so what what i found is showing our unhoused neighbors the same kind of love and respect that we want ourselves it's not going to replace being family but family can also be a chosen to our phone buddy program we have you know folks who come very well and our you know societies you know top you know they run this company or they're in this venture capital firm like this part of you know since san francisco and they feel like they're getting as much from the unhoused neighbor as they're giving why well maybe they don't have the financial resources but you know in bruce's case his father passed away and daniel was the first person who called them to check in and daniel also had his dad passed away a few years ago and they can talk about that and be human together so part of what my call is is finding ways to just be in relationship with our unhoused neighbors and do what brian stevensson calls getting proximate i actually think we have to get relational and get to know people by name um and then the other piece we haven't talked much about tonight but it's a big part of the book is the basic income it was the direct cash transfers so i was a skeptic on basic income i was like what is this thing and seven hundred dollars a month how much is that going to do we had uh heard from our volunteers there that were in our phone wedding program they said hey you've asked me to be in relationship with this person we trust each other now we're good like we talk all the time it's very hard for me to be on equal footing as a friend when my friend doesn't know what they're going to do for food tonight or they don't know how they're going to get gas in their car and get to work on one day because 45 percent of people experiencing homelessness have jobs and have some kind of employment and so can we give them money to do something so we raised initially $50,000 right all individual donation uh we selected 14 individuals from our phone wedding program $500 a month six months no strings attached within six months two thirds of those unhoused individuals were able to secure stable housing they used the money better than i could have used it for them and so i'm a big believer now having seen people self-resolve their situation it doesn't mean they're moving into you know a really nice single family home in this part right it's maybe doubled up it's getting into an s ro it's moving in with a loved one it's being eligible for senior housing but i think we need to invest in our unhoused neighbors as neighbors by giving them both the relational support and the income support that for me is required for a basic level of dignity i couldn't agree more and we the city is actually doing this now which is pretty innovative learning from our friends and stopped it but we do have a basic um basic income or direct cash transfer program for young adults in the homeless system it's a partnership with many different entities and we're studying it and there are all these evaluations that are going on which you know i decided often about an evaluation for one of these projects the other day and i was like i don't think i need to pay researchers to tell me that giving people living in poverty some cash is going to help their property but if it's going to convince more people to invest in this we'll sign off on doing this evaluation like it feels a little silly to study this because it's so basic but at the same time i think we have a lot of convincing of people to do that universal basic income or direct cash transfer and empowering people and trusting them they know what's best and they know what challenge they have better than any social worker or and what i've just heard from someone who you know emily's wearing many hats but as a city official that's an incredible statement to make that is that five years ago you would have heard very few people made that so i think thinking about if that's the case and we both agree how do we go from a very top down system that is paternalistic and assumes we know what's best for our unhoused neighbors versus what they know what they need better than we do you can't have one of the other it's yes and still like you have to have services but i i'm i'm excited i know you okay we're lagging around the last two and then i'm we're going to answer it in 30 seconds or less with a short little reading here because i know this this reading it's going to answer your question you know i don't know your question so yes lightning round okay thank you so much for this great talk and i'm looking forward to the book um so you've cited research all night and i'm wondering if there is still research that you feel like needs to be done or do we know all we need to know to resolve this crisis it's on this page okay there we go okay next question anybody want to add another question give me a moment this one is i used to have an office just a block from here and it seemed like there's a lot of questions for our feet and an answer to what you said about you know why well as your dog wouldn't but why was homeless having like a two-in-a-half office about being down the hall would be great and i'm wondering what the city is doing to you know convert the city surplus office space into that's our house my question is really simple what is the non-profit thank you yeah what is uh it's called miracle messages and so that's where you're kind of called by there you go here we go kisman so that's not on this page you got me it might be um i'm gonna read from the page and i'll just say my kind of closing if you'd like to learn more get involved now and then i'll close with this reading and then i'll stay out here to sign books so i run the non-profit miracle messages i started that in honor of my uncle it started with one person walking down the street going up to people experiencing homelessness do you have any love ones you'd like to reconnect with it turned out the first guy i met hadn't seen his family in 22 years i sat down with him on market street he recorded a message posted it online found his family turned out he had been a missing person for 12 years and we were able to get a reconnected within a few days and that was the first reunion we now do the phone buddy work we have a wait list of unhoused individuals waiting for volunteers we don't have that volunteers if you have 20 minutes or 30 minutes a week we'll train you give you a phone number you don't have to use your personal device number we'd love to have some of you get involved as phone buddies if you want to be a digital detective how many here have teenage sons or daughters or has had three going out with on friday or saturday night what's their phone name okay you have the skills as a digital sleuth that we need that's how we find love ones and help people reconnect that's a way of volunteering and then of course uh if you'd like to support our basic income work that makes a big deal we are having a big event on february third at the city club san francisco there's a few tickets left you can get on our website and learn more about our work on february third saturday okay is that okay thank you and then i'll sign the books so here is this page here page 212 uh in times of crisis in the early morning hours of wednesday april 18 1906 a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck along the san andreas fault in northern california the epicenter just two miles off the coast of san francisco the massive quake caused a conflagration that destroyed some 28 000 buildings in san francisco leveling more than 500 blocks in the city center more than 3000 people died and about 80 percent of the city was destroyed in the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fire some 250 000 residents of san francisco were displaced establishing makeshift camps and park areas and burned out ruins of buildings for a short period of time more than half of the city's 400 000 residents experienced homelessness in response the city did not pass anti-camping ordinances law enforcement was not mobilized to raise tents and confiscate belongings local residents whose homes withstood the brunt of the disaster did not join together to form anti-survivor not in my backyard protests instead city officials and local residents rallied together to help as winter approached the city built 5300 small wooden cottages for those still in need of housing while the army housed 20 000 refugees in military-style camp camps formed playgroups for kids and dining halls for individuals and families which became the centers of social life tenants paid $2 a month toward a $50 price of their earthquake cottage many assembled in golden gate park after paying off their new home the owners were required to move their cottages out of the camp leaving earthquake cottages scattered throughout san francisco to this day in an early example of scattered site housing in june two nine okay in june 1908 two years after one of the most devastating disasters in american history the last camp closed 250 000 unhoused survivors had been housed this is what we're capable of when you look at the crisis as a crisis it's much more akin to an earthquake and a wildfire a tsunami a flood than anything else we can talk about tonight except we don't see it that we're not posting with hashtag san francisco strong hashtag this we're saying well what did they do are they to put that this is the point we have a breakdown of systemic proportions across our service systems across society housing income and quality incarceration family breakdown relational all that added up it's a disaster and until we treated the camp to how we would respond and the good news and positive note to end on if there were god forbid another earthquake or wildfire or flood i guarantee each of you and all of us who aren't here tonight would know exactly how to respond you know how to respond as you need to discuss but we got to look at homelessness in the same way thank you