 in the house. First of all, thank you to DreamWeek for allowing us to link up with them to do this event. Last year I did a start security event so this year I want to do something a little bit at home rather than work. I'm actually a start security consultant during the day and then my partner with my community gets up during the evening so it's a lot of fun. And one of the things that happens in Dignity Hill is we actually have five homeless ministries in Dignity Hill. So you can imagine it's a big conversation topic for a lot of the residents there. We have some of the bad occurrences and a lot of the good occurrences but we've realized that we have to become a partner in this fight to solve homelessness. We can't just complain all the time. So we're stepping up now and we're starting to do that. Valerie, do you feel raised your hand? So Valerie Bell is one of our newer residents and it's not often that I bring up a topic to their residents and they say, I want to help. So Valerie raised her hand and said, hey, I'd like to help out with this homelessness initiative. So she is the chair of our newly established homelessness subcommittee. And one thing before we get started is tonight's discussion isn't to talk about the usual topics and we're going to have a short Q&A at the end but mainly tonight we're going to talk about solutions. We don't want to figure out how we continue doing what we've been doing. We want to figure out what we need to do to solve homelessness and become a model city. We've seen Austin or Orlando and Salt Lake City and all these other cities do wondrous things. San Antonio definitely has capacity and skill to do the same. So without further ado, I'll introduce our panel. So we'll start off with Mellie Woosley who is the director of, actually you know what, we're going to do this. I'm going to have everybody introduce themselves. We're going to pass the mic here tonight. Good evening. My name is Mellie Woosley and I'm the director of the department of human services of the city of San Francisco. Brown Brown, senior manager, outreach manager for Haley Boat. My name is Gavin Rogers. I work at President of the Civil Church. My name is Monty McKinnon. I'm a center and police officer. My name is Pastor Andy Gray. I'm the chairman at the Church of the Bridge. My name is Bill Lover and I'm the executive director for the South Alamo Beach Alliance for the Homeless. Can you hear me right now? Can you hear me now? So as you can see, we've got a great panel of experts, a lot of people with experience with the homelessness situation in San Antonio. So we'll hopefully have a very productive conversation and not just a quick chat. So we'll actually start off with either Bill or Mellie. My first question is, how many homeless individuals do we have per night in San Antonio? The January 2016 long-time count of 2,800 sexual homeless either in the Chargers or in the streets. That includes about 650 residents living at the court floor. We'll see if you can hear me. We'll call the prospects for that. There are about 600 people. Just to note, we're going to update those numbers in two weeks. Two weeks from tonight at the one-time count. We're hearing up your another street count. This is a mandated count by the federal government to sustain that by the funding. Another good note in terms of what's happening in the community towards homelessness is that we were successful in upping the funding for the first time. Mellie, 10 years have been used on this last competition. We've netted out about 350,000. The numbers that Bill is referencing, that's really for, that's county-wide, so that's fair county. It's not all. The concept of perception is that it's all in the downtown area. Well, that's county-wide, and we have encampments as far out as 15 and 4 and in the unincorporated areas of Fair County. So, when we talk about that homelessness and that 650 number, how many of that is chronically homeless? I can answer that. As of November 15th, which is the most current number I have, coming out of the service providers and maintaining a data base called the Homeless Management and Prevention System, and we have 418 chronically homeless in the community, both between the state and local facilities and the street. And I think that you want to talk about what the Chronically Homeless Balance defines. Go ahead. So really, chronically homeless is when you have someone who is not just that they're living on the street, but that they've been homeless for a period of time consecutively and really have become trenched in homelessness. And it's that much harder to provide services and do outreach to them. A lot of times they're either severely mentally ill or they're suffering from addiction challenges. And so that population, that's really a goal for us for 2017 is to really impact that population. And that's the population that is the vision that you have in your head of the homeless and also the population that is very, very accessible to a community in the use of medical services and police services and the cleanup that is needed sometimes. And so it's a strong focus because their lifespan is shortened by homelessness and they're the most vulnerable homeless and so they're the homeless that we prioritize our assistance to because it's a matter of really saving the lives. Did you then really impact the definition of being disabled or having a family member disabled to qualify for homelessness? And what do we say disabled? That also includes individuals who have a substance abuse. It's not just physical. It's physical. It also includes substance abuse. So when we talk about caretaking of homeless individuals here in San Antonio, is there a dollar amount that you can allocate specifically to chronic homeless individuals that we spend per month or a year or anything like that? Because I'm sure there's some folks that they don't really care about. I mean they live out and about and they don't really live around the issues that we live around. So the issues of person-to-person contact doesn't affect them. But if they hear a dollar amount of their tax dollars going somewhere it might mean a little more. And don't let me eliminate the rest of the panel. If you guys, yeah, please raise your hands. I can give you a national average number for... The national average is $40,000 a year to maintain homeless individuals. There is shelter on the street. There are some local studies that none may want to mention in the way of the conversation that has just been completed. The numbers in terms of individuals who are high-utilizers might not be just homeless. But I wish that you would like to serve jail services and health care services. I'm going to give this to Ann. I'm afraid of it. Brian, I want to tap in on what you said that individuals out and about might not be affected by the homelessness. Me and my team, we are out at 1.61, 1.604, 1.51, 1.51. I mean, 1.604 and Blanco, 2.81, and 1.604, there's a camp in everywhere. People are all over our city. And they're moving out further and further within our county. And we do provide services for these individuals that hate people. Our outreach team, we try our best to allow individuals to feel like there is a little hope. There is someone out there looking out for us. So hygiene, underguards, whatever they might need if you provide for food, bus passes. So those dollars are being stretched out all over the county. Well, first of all, once you look at your first response and hear what you're working here, do you have the promises that it would be the top dollar that you're running? From a police department perspective, usually a chronic homeless person is going to come in contact with the police department probably, depending on their, whatever their substance, abuse situation is, it'll be two or three times a week. Fire and EMS easily once a month. And to give you perspective of that, we've been looking into these wonders. Just a call, just for a fire truck to come out of the apartment and check on a building at about $500 per truck. They have to transport an ambulance out there to look at $50,000 at a time. You know, we have a gentleman that we've been engaged with from a homeless outreach perspective since about May, May and June time. So we've been able to get in the office street for about four months. And prior to that, he looked back and looked at his involvement with the emergency services for a 12-month period. He probably cost me, near the road, a $45,000 one person. Since our contact with him, getting him into services, he was only contacted for emergency services two times. And so, that's a significant number. We spend a lot of time, my partner and I, it's just us, one team that's out there. Sometimes we spend a lot of time working with an individual, which from our peer group, we get a little bit of criticism for because the normal law enforcement attitude is get it done, get it done, we've got calls, all of them backed up, we've got things you gotta do. So we spend a lot of time with an individual because we see the lot of things in the funnel. We see the cost savings. I spend two or three weeks engaging with this person and taking them to clinics, getting them to a service provider, doing that transportation for them, walking them through all of those processes. But they just are overwhelming to that individual. The amount of man hours that my partner has spent on that person has paid off the dividends of getting them out of me, and how do you want to sort of categorize them? To add on to what Marty is saying, building a relationship is very important with helping someone get off the streets and just swinging by, dropping something off. That's good. When I first started with Haven, they said, Mr. Brown, that's fine and well. We get food and whatnot, but I need a little bit more than food. What they really are looking for is someone to talk to, someone that can relate to them to help them deal with some of the issues that they're having in this cycle of honesty. And building that relationship and spending time with them does wonders. I'm so glad that we don't operate by numbers. We operate by relationships that haven't been over, and we spend a lot of time out there doing exactly what Marty is doing. Sitting on the curb side, taking them to lunch, spending time with them, getting to know them so that they can feel like they can trust us to have their lives over to us So, while we're talking about actually reaching these folks and getting them treatment and creating those relationships, it seems like when they're in a transient state, that's really difficult. You have to chase somebody on the bridge. It's not the most ideal situation when you chase around 650 individuals. Gavin, I'm going to ask you about this as you've kind of spoken a little bit about this, but Housing First initiatives, what are your thoughts on this? Well, I think it's great. I think that one of the key issues is, and Martin Luther King said this when he was talking about poverty, he said, the programs in the past all have a common failing. They are indirect. Each seeks to solve poverty by first solving something else. And I think a lot of programs we have that are really good jobs in San Antonio, I think even Haven for Hope is a very good job serving a specific population that can be affected, but there is a big group out there, that need to be treated differently. And I think the Housing First model is key. It actually took the key of solving homelessness as a key. But to speak about relationships, and this is probably the most important thing as a pastor, and the other pastor here can talk about this, is I believe the best way to really begin to treat homelessness in San Antonio is by relationship. And that does not end up with all the responsibility on the city, or Haven for Hope. When I did a journey where I lived on the streets of San Antonio, 40 something days in 2012, it changed my life. And one thing I learned is we are failing, our citizens are failing the homeless. By the way, we treat them. That means everybody in this room on this panel. We have great services all over the place, from Haven to Hope to Camp. Trinity University calls that level 2 or 3 trauma care. Level 1 trauma care is a basic human relationship between the citizens of San Antonio. And we are failing there by the way we treat them on the streets, by the way we limit them or relocate them continually. And by the way, we even sometimes do charities. I really believe that pushes over that edge. This number that we're getting closer to is we're going to have a really good understanding of how we as citizens treat our friends. And they are my friends. So I think everybody does that differently, but I think the citizens need to take a forward responsibility to understand that they also have a role in eliminating homelessness. Martin Luther King says, power without love is reckless and abusive. And love without power is sentimental and anemic. And I really believe that. I think we have to understand really what it means to love our unhoused neighbors. And that's just my thoughts. I think housing first is a great initiative. I really think that people put people in houses that need a house more than sometimes they need treatment. Maybe they get treatment later but let's put people in houses first so they can have a clean shower. They can go to the restroom. They can have services there that any human shouldn't have. So I think the housing first model and I think there are cities and states around this nation that are a good example of that. I hope our city can learn to take that approach more and more each year. I like the melody for the rest. Absolutely and I think Bill can add on to it. So I would say I agree that permanent housing is absolutely the ultimate goal of homelessness efforts in installing homelessness. We, you know, the city, even Haven for Hope, there are a number of examples of housing where housing first is happening and that phrase has interchanged a lot of permanent housing permanent supportive housing, whatever the kind of permanent housing where an individual has a lease and they don't have a time for them so, you know, there have been a number of efforts recently to expand the availability of permanent supportive housing for the homeless and the increase in federal funding that we've just received that Bill mentioned earlier, that's a direct result of us working very diligently to increase the supply of permanent housing in the community and the additional dollars that we received are for permanent housing. So there are a number of efforts and we continue to expand that. This week, Bear County posted a strategic planning session a charrette. We got a national consultant to come in and help the community and stakeholders work on a strategic plan that has been focused in large part on housing first and this same agency or consultant is working with us on a gap analysis to look at availability of shelter and permanent housing and a mix of services for the homeless and to help us make some decisions around what that mix maybe should look like and if there needs to be changes and so it's absolutely something that the community has engaged in on building everything with Anne. I think you covered it very well. So when we talk about housing first from a neighborhood association perspective, I always have in the back of my mind that the factor of NIMBY is not in my backyard. We have this a lot with half-way houses and they even they're developed about and it's not about political candidates running against this. It's about a community that's telling their political candidates, I don't want this and especially for the east side. So big tip with Crosspoint, I think it was back in 2010 and nobody wanted another half-way house on the east side because we thought we were doing our new diligence. When it comes to a housing first perspective is there any way that you can assist communities that are willing to embrace this housing first initiative or how does that work? And this goes for Bill, Melody, and others. Okay, so Ron, Bill and I we've been the last two days at the Michorette and this is the topic of the discussion with the main one. And this is a interesting opportunity for me or sitting in front of y'all for the first opportunity for this. So it's education. It's education on our part. It's a tradition on their part. It's recognizing that there are a hundred individuals in this room and each individual is having a unique experience right now. And that's the exact same thing that's going on on the streets of San Antonio. You've got 418 product homeless that are having a unique experience in and of itself right at this moment and they have a unique story as to why they're there. So this is a community issue. I'm going to call it a problem issue and it's the result is a community solution. So the knot in my backyard mentality has got to go which is the bottom line. It doesn't matter where in the city we're talking about because it's a community issue and it's going to require a community solution and a community partnership. Housing First is a kind of a label and a catchphrase right now. I feel because we are not truly implemented yet and that's what today was in the last couple of days we've been talking about planning. We're ready to put that plan in action. So with having people go into the housing it's not just that. I want to be very clear about it is a long term plan as a resolution. There's a lot of follow up services that go that are involved with it. We don't want to have unrealistic expectations on the people that have been places in the housing. A lot of them. I know I've been a police officer for 23 years and I tell this story to the elected board. My very first call on my own coming off out of the sub station off of Prair Street was for a gentleman by the name Craig this day through a performance I'm still engaged with Craig trying to get him off the streets. He's still dealing with his addictions and the demons that like him. So this is not a race it's America. It's not a spring. I think one thing you said is not my backyard and that's said in various different ways when you don't want something in your neighborhood but I think it's misunderstanding sometimes the homeless person one thing I learned is that in my time spending at Haven Grove courtyard I spent you know maybe 25 days there as a I don't know what you call the prospect and if I tape recorded a conversation there and took out all the names and identifiers of where you're at and then I went to let's say I want to be like the Alma Heights football game and like the nicest section with all the parents right and I tape recorded that and I took out the names and I replayed it. You wouldn't be able to tell you're at prospects courtyard or you're at Alma Heights football game because we all have problems. We all deal with struggles of love and insecurity and jobs and so therefore we all have the same problems and if we start seeing each other as equals as a common humanity then that's going to push us over the edge understand and not have a fear of different ministries in your backyard or different programs maybe that are spread around the city. I think a lot of people just want the downtown area to handle all the issues and but really we need to work with homelessness all over the city like you said 1604 down to the far south side so Andy I see you lean I think that one of the things that we talk about you know not in my backyard and all those kind of things is that it presents an awesome opportunity also for us and not only does it present its own set of challenges but it presents an equal if not greater opportunity and that is to see and be part of something that allows us to affect another individual in a way that we didn't think is possible and for better or for worse when we get outside of our comfort zones and we get out of the places that we're comfortable are for and no more and I'm not preaching here I'm just saying this is what I've learned and all the time I've been at church under the bridge is that when we get out there we begin to understand just what you said that there's the only difference really besides us and the conversations is that and as Officer Monti and I were talking is these people in survival mode a lot of them in survival mode we don't know what we can do or what can become of them with one the right relationship and maybe it takes more than one and it will take more than one and then two try to get them out of survival mode when they're not worried about what the next meal they're going to get is going to come from where they're going to find the night's warmth and all of those things so I just wanted to encourage and say yeah it has its challenges but the rewards are out of this world and just because it is a challenge doesn't mean that it's not something that we should meet head on endeavor to do you know Jesus had said you know the poor you have with you always so then therefore it's how we handle the poor that we have with us always that really separates us many parts one body this body can't function without it can't walk the way I need to walk without them everybody has a partner I get over the boundaries and the back pattern and all of that stuff and put our special pride to the side and start working together so when we start working together we can resolve the big issue and that's a lot of these brothers and sisters out there on the streets that really need help and they cry out for us to help them and we just been walking by they're a vital part some of the some of the best people that I've met here in San Antonio since I moved here from Chicago have been homeless people and some of the some of these people have some of the greatest gifts that they can offer our society and we're not tapping into them just because of the way they look because of the way they might smell the way they present themselves if you just take the time to just tap into what's inside of that that chest that chest that heart find out what they got going on inside you realize that these individuals are no different from you or I so when we talk about utilizing and either one of y'all can hold on to when we talk about man that could go on to three different tangents but I'll go on to this one now so when we talk about creating these relationships and actually tapping into these people when you mention 650 countywide churches we have in Fair County and I wonder so we got a few mega-churches and I wonder if some of these mega-churches and I appreciate the food pantries I appreciate the blanket drives but if they could actually save some lives I mean this how's the first initiative we could start with our churches we've got a couple churches that get tax dollars and they won't even assist us as neighborhood association I just want a table man I don't want the food or anything I'll provide the water so at the end of the day I'm wondering if we could is it too far-fetched to have some of these big churches even some of the smaller churches foster one homeless individual or the bigger churches just give me five just take five what do you think about that well I think that the church could have a much bigger role in solving homelessness beyond some of the normal services that they always seem to do when I talk to churches about protecting housing I hear the phrase all the time recently that the church is not into the housing business from churches that are just frayed to engage this and I would just tell them to read the Bible that the church is in the housing business all throughout the Old Testament the New Testament I think that the church can take an active role into providing good housing for those in need especially the ones that they have relationships with if you said it's divided up that number is doable solving this number is doable and we all know this we all see this we all might believe in how it's going to be happening in different ways but it's a doable thing and the church needs to understand that aside charity that they are an active part of this community and they can engage this city in very active ways and not be afraid to do something as crazy as provide housing for the homeless and that's my hope I hope they can really understand that and really take a biblical approach to solving homelessness and it's not just homelessness you know one of the things that I would like to be able to do is I would like to see the church get into some areas that exceed just homelessness like how about trying to find some people jobs you know how about trying to have somebody in their in their congregation or someone that can put them to work you know mowing yards or working at one of our blessed and one of our board members that Cub owns a lot of the Little Caesars and he puts a list up every week of the job openings at all the Little Caesars throughout town and the guys can come by and look at it it's got the name of the manager and their phone number and they can call and try to get in and get an interview these are the kind of things and even more that I would like to be able to do I was telling Bright about a gentleman that came to me and he sat with me and said that he had moved from Chicago kind of a friend there maybe from your area on and he had he had came down here and he couldn't get a job and he couldn't get a job because when he was 18 years old and spent seven years in prison he's 55 years old and he said I come here and I can't get a job because when people ask on the application if I ever been committed of I committed a felony I have to answer that and say yes he said pastor I'm not even the same guy I was when I was 18 years old there are things as a church there are things as a community that we can do and we can do it and make an impact in these people's lives too they're not the only going to be the ones that benefit from this and I think that this I'm not so obtuse to believe that the way that people are impacted and people are changed is as a pastor we give them the gospel and love on them but it's one relationship at a time and one day at a time one of the things I love to hear is someone come from coming in and talk to me and the next thing I know they're hanging out and they've gone from calling me pastor to calling me dad and that's kind of funny but I also I was like that's weird but I get to understand that that's a term of endearment and it's that relationship and I want to see the church do more than what we do maybe we have a group that we work with day labor or something to try to get these folks and pay them every day there's got to be a way that we as a church can be involved and do the things that we should be doing and not just necessarily counting on the community to do it things but if we as a faith community can do that that would make a whole big difference and enormous difference in people's lives and our own and we might see things change and it wouldn't be like Gandhi which says you know that I love your Jesus but your Christians not so much so we've got incredible faith based community here in our community and really what we're talking about here is having conversations amongst each other and not two dimensional conversations three dimensional conversations it's not just about they're homeless and we're talking about homes but that's not it they have lost their executive skills to do many of the tasks that we take for granted so help is a very general broad term we can stick somebody in a house when was the last time they paid the bills when was the last time they had to get you know a scrub to clean their floors or their sinks or to take care of the food that they've had to make sure it doesn't spoil so there's a lot of teaching that needs to go along with the housing so you know in my travels across this city there's lots of churches those are buildings those are properties that you know get used on Sunday Wednesday nights here and there in the daytime mainly but those are great opportunities to have satellite programs that are able to benefit this community so maybe even some of the larger churches if they want to open up their gymnasiums or their larger meeting rooms to have families or teenagers or any kind of different segment of this population where they can crash out on the floor this many nights out of the week and the people in that area know they have a safe place to go to out of the elements each individual church may not be able to do everything but they can pick one thing and do it extremely well a coordinated effort throughout the community faith based community of doing these efforts and doing these things really well we can wipe this issue out and just to add to that and I really appreciate the comments because one of the things during the last budget process city council actually initiated the creation of a faith based initiative in the city and added a position of faith based liaison more in the process of hiring that position we'll have someone on board next month and she will be tasked with doing exactly what you all are talking about and that's coordinating with between local government between nonprofits and faith based organizations to harness the resources of the churches and not just to address homelessness but really to address issues of human services and to improve the leveraging of those resources between all the organizations that are putting time and dollars in effort into addressing homelessness, domestic violence crimes against children so really I think these ideas are very appropriate and homelessness is sort of an obvious first starting place for this role so that's very helpful I wanted to add for the conversation with some systems changes that are coming to San Antonio being sponsored through the South Alamo Regional Alliance for Homeless which we call CERA so I'll spare you that long title and we'll just refer to it as CERA one of the initiatives that has shown nationwide to be a success in conjunction with a lot of other things like Housing First called Coordinated Entry and that system just kicked off in San Antonio in June and we're in a pilot phase it primarily involves currently about five of the major service providers including the Haven and what that system does is it gives an upfront assessment for an individual or family that is homeless and then recommends it to the best provider of services that fits their needs the client has choice if there's more than one opportunity for a service provider they can choose their provider we're coupled with Housing First and we talked about this in the charrette for the last two days at length it's had dramatic impact on particularly chronic homeless individuals who have been on the street for years an example, a statistic from Houston our neighbor to the south they had 5,000 chronic homeless individuals primarily living in the downtown area around the baseball parks that are downtown they reduced that 5,000 figure to less than 500 over the last 60 months now looking closely at that model in Houston they've done a lot of things right over there with the homeless population they've aligned their resources the service providers are aligning their resources when I say service providers I mean agencies that are focused on providing homeless individuals services so that's their business case management housing I think we could affect that same model and if we brought the power of the faith-based community into that coordinated entry process and incorporated into the system properly I would be out of a job in a very short time now I'm not necessarily looking for that but I'd love to be in that situation to go until upper management the city council or the county commissioners that we've cut homelessness on the street to zero and that's our objective in this community amongst the service providers that are affiliated with the coordinated entry and Sarah so that's a solution that's on its way adding this new relatively I mean I just thought about this with Brian when we met to get ready for this presentation and luckily over the last two days I've been making some contact with the faith-based community and I think our organization is a perfect facilitator in conjunction with our current partnership with the other partners with the Haven and the city and the county to try to make this work and I'd love to see it work in your neighborhood we have to start it small we had a small community that has success in this area I guarantee you there's other neighborhoods that feel just as passionately about you about their quality of life and for our friends who are homeless so we talk about coordinated entry there's a big word there, coordinated what we've seen as neighborhood residents is somewhat of a silo effect and that's just in our little neighborhood there's a silo effect among ministries that don't really communicate among each other that well I'm not saying they don't talk to each other but it seems like there should be a stronger coalition among them what is your view from a city perspective or county perspective on that silo effect is that something that we're just imagining or is that something that we actually need to address and fix if I can just quickly comment on that before Mel says it we don't have a silo effect just based on community we have silo effects in the entire service delivery community and it's a lot of it's driven by resources and funding streams one of the challenges that Sarah's facing is trying to align those services and having a collaboration rather than a silo effect and we're making some good inroad and I'll give you the example of our veteran initiative where we had an entire community come together towards reducing the veteran homeless population and Mel can correct my numbers but I think in January of 2015 we had 1600 plus we're now down under 300 we used a variety of techniques and services corporate support coordinated entry support collaboration between healthcare community and service providers for homeless that's the kind of model I think that we can implement and if you add to the faith I just can't imagine the power of that coalition sorry Mel I think that's a good way to respond to that it is a matter of coordination and I would say actually I work in a lot of areas in the early childhood arena and senior services our department does a lot of works with a lot of different populations I would say the homeless coordination is probably the best one that we have in large part I think because the federal government mandates that we have this continuum of care and requires anyone that's receiving federal funding to be part of this system and that's pretty uncommon you don't see that with other federal funding and so because of that we do have agencies that work together very well the silos occur exactly the reason for the reason Bill said because there's a lot of different funding sources there's competition for funds and resources but because we do have this continuum of care that serves as a backbone organization really we're a lot farther along and really in the mental health arena we're very coordinated very well it feels messy sometimes it does seem like it's silo but I would say the coordination is above average about three or four weeks ago the Boston Globe actually profiled the San Antonio community their spotlight group their spotlight reporters on our mental health system and showed that it's really one of the best practices in the country and that's due to our county it's due to San Antonio police departments efforts around mental health training for the officers and so yeah I would say we are doing really well but I understand the perception of silos but the veterans group was a great example of how we can create a working coalition we've housed almost 2,000 veterans who were homeless and that's impermanent housing that's not shelter and so it's we've accomplished quite a bit there I'll tell you my frustration level went way down since the first day of doing outreach for Haven folk I was the only one and it did get frustrating to try to get some services and some connections and all of this stuff but now it is much easier it's a lot lighter it's burning it's flowing people are getting it organizations are getting it and it's truly I open in to see this happening because we can put even bigger dent the more we work together the more we can resolve so yeah it's been pleasant working as of late so the next question I have is actually regarding the veterans homelessness so when we were walking around talking to folks about the veterans homelessness initiative that we just had done a lot of the folks came back and said it's eliminated so apparently there's some skepticism over yeah so I'm going to let y'all explain that and talk about that so you can tell everybody now well really a lot of that is in definition and so the it was the mayor's challenge to end veteran homelessness and the idea is to effectively in veterans homelessness and what that means is that homelessness among veterans is rare, brief and non-recurring it doesn't mean that you have zero homeless veterans and really you know potentially there's not a finish line because there are new veterans that are coming into the system daily and the idea is that we have a system in place where we can rapidly house veterans as they become homeless or if they you know homelessness recurs then we have the systems in place to either prevent that ideally or to very rapidly get them back into a permanent housing situation and so there still are homeless veterans and there will be homeless veterans but we are the feds set four goals really and that's you know based on how long it takes you to house a veteran how long or how many days it takes you to house a veteran how many veterans there are homeless compared to how many that you've housed we're still meeting the goals of that so we've always been very clear about that we have met the goals of the federal government and effectively ended veteran homelessness and we did that with a number of partners including really Sarah and Haven for Hope and Sam Ministries and the National GI Forum, Family Endeavors really and even our corporate partner USAA was instrumental in helping us do that and so we can even though we had our press conference and we declared that we had effectively ended veteran homelessness we still work on it every single day and so do all of the partners and so like I said there's no finish line we're going to keep at it but we absolutely have impacted this tremendously just to add on to that statistics show that we were getting about 50 new veterans identified every month in our community that were not previously identified as homeless so this is a continuing effort to sustain the gains we've made over the last two years and pay attention to the details the objective of the Sarah staff not objective that their executive director forced on them but one they see is achievable is that no veteran will spend more than 72 hours on the street and we will eventually go to zero veterans in the homeless state so that's an objective that they're working very very hard every day and looking for partners to help us accomplish that so if you've got an interest in a veteran issue and a veteran homelessness issue we'd love to talk to you I'd like to just affirm what has been said to this point being the Ron and I being the boots on the ground out there engaged with the veterans it really is a day in, day out thing we're a tourist town we're a military city we are constantly having people coming in by trains and automobiles and even on foot I think the important thing to take from it is the fact of our commitment the commitment level of all of the services and service providers that we are constantly staying engaged when you're talking about homelessness you've got several different systems in place where you are addressing needs you know you're putting them into shelters to get them an emergent situation right then going into transitional living to get them from a shelter to a permanent solution so we are constantly engaged in that constantly engaged with these people a lot of times kind of the juggling act or a lot of times I don't run how do you feel sometimes I feel like I'm that guy on stage with all the plates spinning and I'm running back and forth keeping them going because we get them engaged and the veterans attached and connected to family endeavors, GI form VA whatever the case may be and we get them started and we get them rolling and we stay in constant communication with the provider and we're just waiting for that phone call to say we've got the spot go get them now we've got to go back and find them so we're staying engaged with our providers engaged with our clients and trying to keep them matched up so that once we know hey take them to apartment so and so at this location we can go get them and say let's go and thank you Melody for answering that I don't mean to put you on the spot but we're here to shut down rumors too so how important is our education system when it comes to homelessness in San Antonio what role do they currently play and how do you each wish they would play and I know our school districts are very poor right now so don't give me thinking of putting something else on them but I'd like to know what role do they play in solving this issue one of the things that I have been thinking about and wanting to do is to go in to the high schools and just do a presentation on choices a lot of young individuals make a lot of bad choices and they think they know it all but giving them some visual to understand that some of the choices that you're about to make can land you into a situation such as this is eye-opening to them so giving them the education on choices that you make can land you into homelessness and you can be living in a situation like this by not being defiant you know listen respect treat people with with dignity you know things of this nature just giving them an education on some of the choices that they make can be detrimental to their lifestyle and what they're doing so that's one of the things that I've been wanting to do is to get out into the high schools and talk to some of the juniors and seniors about choices we we partner with the San Antonio Independent School District pretty closely in terms of looking at statistics of homeless children we the HUD definition of youth runs 18 to 24 which is kind of counter-intuitive when you realize that most high school kids are younger than 18 but we do have a significant student homeless population at least at San Antonio ISD recent statistics that we gathered for a youth HUD grant indicated there's well over 600 during the year that are unaccompanied that means they are not accompanied with an adult under the age 18 and enrolled in the San Antonio Independent School District there are literally hundreds more of students couch surfing amongst family members or friends the youth problem the profiles that we're starting to look at in our community are really kind of scary and I will tell you that in that 650 we may have I think our youth count this year at the January pit count was 11 so we were able to find 11 kids on the street that night unaccompanied by adults that self-identified as homeless but in the roles and the statistics that are kept by the McKinney Vento which is a legislation that requires school districts to maintain statistics and to identify homeless kids there was over 600 factor into the fact Alamo Heights also reported we were able to gather that they reported zero Southside had a fairly decent count Northeast and Northwest had hundreds of kids so we've got a hidden youth population out there that really needs to be addressed because this is the next generation as I've been repeatedly reminded by my McKinney Vento liaison friends this is our next generation of chronic homeless individuals these kids are being sex trafficked they're very resilient in terms of trying to survive met a young lady that had been released from the Bear County Jail I don't want to get into a lot of anecdotes but this is a horrendous story she had been abused from an age of 11 by family members at age 14 a pimp turned her out on the street and wouldn't allow her to use contraceptives so she has five children she's getting out of jail and going through the Bear County reentry center with five children at age 24 that all of this kid is 14 no skills no support we're trying Sam Ministries put her in their family dorm and are trying to get her stabilized the only asset she had was the dress on her back and the five children were clean, beautiful kids probably if you saw them on the street would never imagine they were coming out of that environment but that's not particularly unusual story to hear as people are coming through and what's happening to our youth is they get exposed in these situations to additional drugs the abuse acre and there's a distinct population that are being thrown out of their homes rejected by their families for two reasons that I'm aware of for two primary reasons their sexual orientation or if they get pregnant I have two children of my own I can't imagine ever telling them they wouldn't be welcome in my home but that happens regularly the other reason I hear is because the family cannot afford to take care of the older children so they tell them to go take care of themselves because that's what happened to the parent I think Andy has a whole crew of these kids that come by and see my friend Diane Talbert on a regular basis there's 25 or 30 kids that you feed every day over there that have been rejected or have somehow fallen into homelessness so when you say how important is education community I think they're struggling with solutions I think we need to do a better job of profiling what that population is of looking for solutions that's going to be a big issue I think by facing this down the road I've cheated on this my daughter is in NHS and I've invited the school down to church under the bridge to help serve and then I will purposely have them go out among the congregation and with a picture of tea or kool-aid or something like that to refill cups and I've already talked to some of these folks to get them to catch some of these young ladies and young men and set them down and talk to them and let them ask them questions and find out just what Ron was saying so that they understand hey this idea that you're bulletproof it'll never happen to you it can happen to you and let's listen to somebody who can tell you about it I like it, if we can catch them before they get to be out on the streets that's our best chance of an intervention and changing what's going on so they don't fall into that place and get them around and so they come out here let's look and let's let you see somebody and talk to someone that's walking this and maybe they can tell you a different way to go than the way that you think you should go as far as the school system where they fit into this puzzle and I guess my personal feelings on what I would like to see them not necessarily I wouldn't like I don't like to call it stepping up to the plate but I think I would like them to reconsider is every school has your school counselor does anybody remember going to your school counselor for counseling? does anybody ever remember going to their school counselor for any kind of social advice direction or services you know exactly I mean I didn't even know who mine was you know and half the time if you were going to them it was for you change your classes it was for academic scheduling or planning for going to college or whatever so my take on it is as far as the school districts place in the in this equation or their role I would like to see kind of discuss to maybe revamp is let the school counselor be a counselor you know if they have training on social work or I said case management but if they are more aware of the resources that are available to them through Sarah through the Haven for Hope through the different providers if they have a resource guide that they're tapped into then they are a resource to these children and then creating that environment like that where these children feel comfortable coming to they know that they first of all school is supposed to be a place of safety and supposed to be a place of knowledge so why are they why are we not spreading that knowledge and having that knowledge afforded to them through the resource of the counseling department within each school and Bill you guys helped me one of the things I remember hearing from the pit count that we've done at Cub was you know there was a worry that if they identified themselves as homeless or if they were in a car or something like that that they were going to be taken away from their family there's got to be a way that we can do something that's going to help keep that family unit together so that they'll identify so that we can get them because if they don't want to tell us because they're afraid that what little family unit they have is going to be disbanded it's counterintuitive and it works against us can I can I tap in on that you know we are out all over the county like I said it used to be one now it's five of us three of us we worked 1604 area and we engaged with families at Walmart that you wouldn't believe living in their cars and that's one of their barriers is I don't want to lose my family unit I don't want to you know go where you want me to go because they're going to take my kids away from me and what we have been informing them that is that when you come over to Haven and it takes weeks to just get them to consider coming but when we offer this service we let them know that it's just a procedure when you go over and go in the intake your child is not going to be necessarily taken away from you we trying to keep you together so they have to let the agency know that hey got this family and it's like an alert you know okay so you do your part there's no need to worry there's no if you address what you need to address you're going to be fine the first and foremost is the safety of the kids to let me give you an example to go out into an encampment and you know it's a family out there and to see a mother take a newspaper wrap it up like a diaper and then cut a hole into an HEB plastic bag two holes pull it up and tie it together that's a diaper because they're afraid to reach out and get services because they don't want their child to be taken away from them that's heartbreaking I go home a lot in tears I go home a lot heavy because I see this stuff and for us to knock those barriers down that hey it's okay we can get you the help that you need and you don't have to worry about being separated or taking away from your unit we're taking the whole unit we're going to get you some help to let them know that like I said it takes time but to let them know that and to encourage them to move forward is a job and past society has been a negative first thing that happens I gotta call CPS for these kids but you really need to let individuals know about certain programs that do hold families together to keep them together Kevin do you want to say anything the youth minister he wasn't ready for me to call his name yeah well no we were at church from the bridge one time I think we were actually taking it to the streets at your location I had a girl named Abby she's a sixth grader and it was kind of a similar experience that you were talking about and we encouraged our students to go out and to eat among the homeless and serve the homeless I always say to people who ask me how can I help those in need or how can I help those in homelessness and I say when you when you give a sandwich to a homeless person that you think is in need the city lets you give that sandwich away but if you're not allowed to eat if you're not allowed to eat the sandwich then the relationship is the most important thing and the student came up and she went up this man the big guy she was kind of nervous and she walked up to him and all she said was do you want to drink the water that's all she said and she said yes and she started pouring in the water and a 20 minute conversation took place and that was with a 6 year old girl what about us when we go up to somebody when we go up to them the relationship we've said this multiple times can change their life so don't be afraid to look past insecurities our judgments and that's what we need to teach our youth that nervousness we've all felt we're at the side of the road and somebody's asking us for money we're really not afraid to give away our dollar dollar is easy to give we're really afraid to make icons and that's what we need to teach our youth and so I really encourage our students to dive full head of steam into this relationship with people that might be a lot different from them and that's not just the homeless that can be about race or any other issue surrounding our community and I think that's the most important thing we can teach our youth at least in the way I do in the role I have I think that applies to the adults as well because we're afraid to be vulnerable we're truly afraid to be vulnerable with our homeless friends or with our unhoused neighbors and we're vulnerable and not just we sometimes teach charity as hierarchy we're the giver, they're the taker it's just like hierarchy but really it's it's horizontal we're all in different places and different issues then we're able to transform change transformation happens in a relationship not through a dollar bill or even to be fair to the language but it's through love and that's the most important catalyst and that's what we try to teach our youth from the very very very early age I got three little girls, seven years old I can't go anywhere without them saying daddy are you going to stop and help them are you going to give them something like you said it starts early and if you're teaching them early it'll resonate later on in life and the more we have and the hard work the more we can stay on top of this homeless issue and whatnot and give people some hope so I was talking to my wife the other day and it sounds like it's on topic but I'm going somewhere I was talking to my wife the other day and I had mentioned I'm used to high school any Cherokees or hurricanes in the room no Cherokees where is my squad so I was telling her that we had to wear uniforms so some kids that would wear the polo the actual polo thing a lot of us would wear the chaps could have had a polo shirt a generic polo shirt and I told her it was kind of embarrassing when you had to wear the generic clothes most of us were wearing them anyway you know the kid with the nautical is going to look at you crazy I can't imagine self identifying as a homeless person when I'm a student when I'm a high school student you shun away from just wearing something that's cheap but being homeless is a totally other level now to add on to that and you mentioned it on the second go bill we're going to talk about this being LGBTQ being part of that community in addition to being homeless I just want to highlight a wonderful program that we have in our community that's located over at the Haven for Hope called Thrive Youth Facility and there are I think 15 transgender kids over there all of them if you talk to them have their own unique and interesting story but if you interact with them you'll find that there's not much difference their sexual orientation their gender identity is different but their thought process is the things that make them happy are the same things that you and I have now I will admit to being a young man homophobic and I'm actually very ashamed of that period of my time but in my maturity I've found that people are people regardless of their religion, their race their gender identification and we have a faith based community that sometimes is biased against those kinds of choices or those kinds of identities too that when we ask for faith based support we've got to also understand that the value system is not all this year so that's going to be a difficult issue now I would like I made sure that before Thrive just got a $350,000 grant and part of our competition and that $350,000 will go towards helping those LGBT identified kids gain housing for up to two years if you're not engaged if you are in the LGBT community I would suggest to you that you take a look at Thrive or some of the other LGBT oriented organizations in the community because they need your support all the HUD money comes with a match requirement of up to 25% up 25% of the grant so Thrive has to raise $85,000 and they're relatively very small they are a very small organization another success story in this arena is the COC was successful in competing I think for about $200,000 for HIV and AIDS for housing dollars for those populations so I don't know how far you wanted me to go on this I don't have statistics on the LGBT but if you look at the national statistics about 40% of the youth in experiencing homelessness are identified as LGBT in the south it's over 50% and what other really sad statistic to see a young Ron help me out 80% of females in homelessness are raped so if you see a young female with need help and she's in the 17 to 22 year age group it's a good possibility she hasn't already been raped she will be in the next few days the other good possibility and maybe Monty can talk to this can be trafficked in some way either as a panhandler or in some other more abusive way and as a faith based community leader and I'm ashamed by sometimes churches use the opportunity of outreach to have a theological view about something like the LGBT community poverty is a theological issue when it comes to poverty itself we use poverty to stand on another theological view and use that is wrong we are all equal in the eyes of God and this outreach whether gay straight black white anything in between and so the churches need to realize that their outreach is not a theological pedestal there are only theological concerns in the person who is made in the image of God so keep educating your faith leaders if they somehow use that I will challenge them that's very quick when we open up the thrash door I'm the pastor I've already had before and all I got was Pastor Brown what are you going to do about what do you mean what I'm going to do about I'm going to love them I'm going to welcome them with open arms I'm going to preach the word to God they're going to know there's a lot of love in this service and they are welcome they are wonderful individuals I've been blessed by a lot of them coming into the service and being a part of the service and I just want to I want to share something with you that I shared with Brown since we've opened that door it's been about a year now hasn't it Jay five individuals have come to me and told me that they have changed their lifestyle from listening and being a part of the word and all I do is preach love I'm not there to beat you down I'm not there to hellfire and brimstone you I'm there to lift you up as Jesus would lift you up and show you love period I had those questions come to me because of me being a United Methodist pastor I love everybody everybody so you know if we just exhume love and not look at who they are, what color they are how they wear their clothes how they go about their lifestyle the bottom line is that they're homeless and they need our help and that's the approach that we we take across the board Braun and I work hand in hand out there in the field we're both wearing our work clothes this is how we go out there I got out of the uniform a year ago to go out and to talk to people because I want to be I don't want to be intimidating I'm intimidating by my size alone you know just walking up to somebody you know both of us we're both over six foot you see that's coming at you what am I going to do so it's just having the mentality of love I always preach that I'm still a policeman I'm still looking for accountability but I'm looking for a compassionate accountability okay from a law enforcement perspective you know last 100 years the mentality was you arrested away you write tickets to get it away or you move it along we've been doing something different this year 2016 was a turning point in this community and whether it's the lvgdq or youth being marginalized by your faith or whatever the case may be we don't we don't get into that we look at you as a person and that's how we approach you as a person and we want to hear your story and we want to hear what your needs are we prioritize your needs and we start attacking the problem based on the priority of your needs as far as I guess kind of the question that you asked as far as the self identifying and kind of in the school setting I just want you to understand the challenge that's a significant challenge just the social challenge of being amongst your peers and being a middle schooler a high schooler that's just a pivotal time in your life to begin with you're homeless now and you're living in the shelter and you've got all these issues going on so there's a lot of families and a lot of youth and the LGBTQ community that's living on the Hagan campus so the school bus shows up there about 6.45 in the morning because all those kids are the first kids that you pick up by the bus because then they go and pick up all the other kids and those other kids don't know where this first group is coming from so that's how the system is designed to try to keep them anonymous and to keep their lives as private and as their own as it can be so guess who's the last one to be let off of us too so imagine being a single parent homeless I've got two kids and I feel like I've got it together I feel like I'm struggling with my two boys you know it's getting up and being on the bus by 6.45 and probably not coming home until after 6 o'clock in the evening and you've got homework and you've got all your other responsibilities and everything it's a true struggle but that is what the resiliency of people and the compassion that needs to be afforded to them as far as giving them not we don't give anybody a free pass but we try to understand their situations and try to we're not going to be able to walk in their shoes but we can just walk alongside them and do the best we can so last question I don't like doing things like this without leaving with some marching orders so I'm going to go by each one of you and we can start with you Melody what can neighborhoods do and not just neighborhoods but neighbors residents, citizens whether you have a neighborhood association or not what can we do to solve this problem I think it's a lot of what we've already talked about this evening and that's reaching so one being accepting and understanding I think it works both ways we have to understand that a neighborhood has a quality of life they want to live in a peaceful setting and sometimes the homeless traffic or the things that are happening in the neighborhood are disturbing that we have to understand that as providers but at the same time we're asking that the neighborhoods try to empathize understand what is happening in the lives of the homeless and offer the help that Brian is asking for and this panel is asking for to provide those services and also provide ideas I think we've talked about a number of ideas tonight that can involve neighborhood residents and churches and we need to act on that and we can't do it by ourselves there's not enough organizations and not enough churches and that takes the entire neighborhood and so that I think is the first part is to accept that people don't become homeless because they're lazy or they don't have anything better to do or it's romantic to sleep under the stars it's not they become almost entirely because they've been traumatized at some point in their life either through the military system the foster care system or abusive homes and we have to address those issues and so I think listening and understanding where it's coming from is really the first step for neighbors and communities to begin to provide and connect and help with that solution come together as groups, communities in different areas work out what your specialty gift will be toward the cause of ending homelessness and supporting individuals out there that are in need come together with those special gifts to be intentional about being a part of the solution because there's no one in this room who doesn't have anyone homeless in their family if you think down the line you got somebody, some cousin some nephew, some brother or sister who's experiencing some sense of homelessness so we need to start using our special gifts and our special task to be a part of the solution and work together as a man of faith I believe that Jesus was homeless that it says in Matthew that he had no place to lay his head the foxes had their dens and the birds had their nests and the son of man had no place to lay his head and we start seeing homeless people like Jesus are in the image of God we'll understand, like you said, trauma care, every homeless person has experienced trauma that's the most important thing to remember and that we're all responsible for treating that trauma care, not just the city there's a tremendous burden because sometimes we fail as citizens see ourselves as actors and as doctors for trauma care and then we have level 2 and level 3 all over the place so we need to realize our role in that and I hope that when you do find a homeless person to care for you're doing it because you really love them not that you're just trying to get them out of your neighborhood I hope the city spills the same way that they're trying to love these citizens and not just displace them to other places I know that's not the goal but we really want to love and so I really see that step and that is to us to realize that each and every one of us here play a role in trauma care for the homeless and I'll end with this love must be sincere hate when it's evil, cling to what is good be devoted to one another in love, honor one another above yourself be joyful in hope and patient in affliction share with people who are in need my favorite line is this, it's two words practice hospitality so I think you know we kind of highlighted at the very beginning of the discussion with the young lady here who said what can I do stepped up, she's asked a question what can I do it's like I said earlier this is a community issue that is going to require a community solution whether on said every person in this room has a gift and whether it's big or small it doesn't matter, I see people that are involved in many different aspects of our city and they're on lots of different panels but then I see other people in this room who you know if they go and talk to one group and maybe some organization that they can relate to and offer their gift to them and say just use me I mean you know there's over two million people here you know and it's not a city thing, it's not a county thing it's not a north side south side, east side, west side downtown it's a community issue we are a community of people we're all living together we're all existing together and we need to help each other out and that's the bottom line is if every person we just do connect and engage with their church or to provide a service or the service providers that are already established and just come to them and say you know I'm here, where can you use me what is the need for this organization and if they don't have anything that fits your gift you know sometimes a gift is just being a body that's able to move boxes around or to hand out water or to hand out hygiene products whatever the case may be just don't stop I'm the scout master and my son's boy scout troop and we are one of my goals for the troop is to teach the boys to be service minded service-oriented we do a lot of service projects for the environment for the community for individuals and I try to mix it up so we're not just doing the same thing over and over or we're not just doing one thing try to instill that service mentality within them so just don't let your gift sit on the shelf offer your gift to the community I think Bill and I got the tough one now because we've got all the great thinkers that have gone before us what am I going to say here I think I agree with what everyone has said raise their awareness be aware be involved look for a way that you can be involved and as a man of faith again there's a scriptures and Jesus says they say well when have I done these things and Jesus says well you've done it to the least of these you've done it unto me and so find some place that you can be involved it doesn't have to be a big thing it's giving somebody a cup of cold water talking to a loving on them and seeing how they are and taking time to see how you can have an impact on their life truly make an impact on yours I came to church in the bridge 12 years ago invited by a friend of mine and I got there and I'm like oh this is cool this is nice but it's not really something I thought I liked at the time people didn't look like me they certainly didn't smell like me and I went to crazy about what was going on and the more I hung out and I went there a few times the more I realized I went there I was thinking I was going to bless them and that was not what was happening I was getting blessed and then I began to the hunger not because I was doing something that I was scratching my itch but because I knew that I was beginning to make an impact and they were making an impact in my life it's amazing how you think that you go out to bless somebody but you're the one that's being blessed and that 12 years ago that's something I've stayed and I imagine God calls me home we get involved in our communities even with the little things we love up, we love in and we love out and let God do the rest thanks Andy we end on that I describe my job as a social engineering project manager my background is more of an accountant I worked for the IRS for 32 years most of that time I was revenue the last 7 years I had the good fortune to be reassigned to an outreach program that the IRS was starting to outreach for tax credits into the low income community and I had the opportunity to form community coalitions and collaborations from Laredo to Brownsville to Austin I became a complete fanatic of improving the lives of the low income individuals I've studied it for when did I first meet you in the mid 90's Melody's been a great mentor in teaching me about systems and how systems come together our private industry and government can work together with that background I would challenge you to this San Antonio has a lot of neighborhood organizations neighborhood associations I would challenge you to look for an opportunity to maybe engage either a faith based organization or some other non-faith based organization and develop a model that would work in your neighborhood to solve the problem that you see with the home I assume since you're here and I want to thank you for inviting me that you have an interest in resolving the issue whether you have sympathy or you don't have sympathy you have two I see two of the greatest community Samaritans in the audience here who can help guide you on how to be an advocate for an individual homeless person and I would challenge you to create a model in this neighborhood association that we can take and replicate in other neighborhood associations you don't have to have a city representative or a staff support we are engaged with virtually every major homeless service provider in the community if we're not we will certainly reach out and fill the gap that you might be entering into but if you started here in this neighborhood association you've already identified a chair for the subcommittee you've got a great leader in Brian and I would offer my support in terms of trying to find a solution to at least one homeless individual that doesn't fit the standard model we're going through that we've been trying for year after year after year our goal is not to treat homelessness our goal is to end homelessness I think 2016 I think your neighborhood association could be a leader in this effort okay so we are at 740 I'm gonna take two questions from the audience alright gentlemen in the hat and you young lady I think we all want to hear the ladies question yes can you hear me yes I am I am the lady of our apartment and I have my own non-profit we feed people on the west side for about two years and a half without participating would help everybody I think it's very good what you're doing very good um um we give our food we give our clothes and our biggest bump in the head is our TDCG individuals coming out of TDCG and they don't have nowhere to go and we have been hitting our heads trying to open them to some sort of halfway house or something but we haven't been able to do it so that's the biggest issue that we see I see on the west side because I live on the west side a lot of homelessness I just got released from TDCG I don't have nowhere to go you know and I don't know what to do we offer them work resources because we have we're linked to the very county reentry so we kind of help them in that area the workforce commission has also helped us out but it's just the bumping on the wall of the the housing that's the only thing that's kind of you know holds us back because we feed them we close them everybody I know not only the homeless but everybody in general so in hoping to get together with you maybe we can come together full circle I can feed them and close them and you can do this and somebody else can do that you know so we can get rid of this homelessness there's no need for it there's no need for it but yes that was I do want to say that if any of the panel has anything yeah there you go y'all got your own mic I got mine I'm ready to jump on it especially being the law enforcement in the room that you bring up a very very significant piece of the puzzle is for the individuals that have been accused of crime they've gone through the justice system they have they have done their accountability I mean they have paid their debt the way the society is it but yet have they they come out and they've got they feel like they have no rights no voice a lot of times they don't have any identification it's been lost and everything and they're just it's just an insurmountable struggle to recover or to rebuild a life that was was gone either by a tragic incident or a tragic decision that they made but if they've you know they've gone in they've done their time so the kind of efforts that we're making now is we have really the county has done a very good job in my opinion of building the reentry facility they've partnered with Haven for hope so that as they're coming out if they identify and then they ask them they either self identify or they're asked as they're exiting if they are homeless or not if they have somewhere to go then they will take them straight to Haven to at least allow them to have a place of safety and a place of warmth and a place where they can get clothes and food and everything right then and there it's not at 2 o'clock in the morning or is anybody going to go at 2 o'clock in the morning you know so that is something that has happened now and what we have developed as a service one of the very first things for y'all that don't know which I'm assuming most of you do not most of y'all have not heard of the hope team am I wrong? we've been in existence for a year now and it stands for homeless outreach positive encounters one partner and I one of the very first things that we identified not just for that segment but for homelessness across the board was ID recovery is a significant issue how are you going to get a work if you don't have an ID a lot of services how can you access the services if you cannot prove who you are there's lots of different issues some services have housed children so if you're a sex offender that creates a lot of issues and that's really one of the big ones that affects from a service program perspective they just have to be mindful of so we created a program where I guess let me back up a little bit to get a birth certificate you need an ID to get your ID to get your birth certificate to get your social security card you need both those others so which came first the chicken or the egg wrong? so what we did is we went to the police department and said that this is ridiculous we need your help I went within my own department and I said look we've got an ID section that does background checks for the community that identifies them that any person in the community can go and get a job with why can't we do the same thing for the homeless community and really what is it costing us to do it not much it's not at all so the department in the city agreed well we've got several things going on the police department we verify your identity through fingerprints so you walk away from our ID section with a letter and you're a photo booking photo or some other type of photo that puts your face with them it is certified and notarized so with that we take that as your identification and we can go to vital statistics and get your birth certificate even if you're born somewhere else in the state so now with your birth certificate in hand and this identification letter from the police department it took a little doing but I paved the way with DPS where they will accept that as your identification and now you can get your ID back okay and then once you receive those then we can go over to the social security administration and get your social security card there are other forms of identification that the social security administration will accept currently they will not accept our letter because it's federal policy and we're working on we're communicating with the social security administration and I'm making efforts through senior reporting's office to assist us with changing policy with that so that they will accept local law enforcement as a verifiable means for identification it's really ridiculous some of the things that they accept for identification but they won't accept the police department's verification so those are the things that we are doing and it's for the whole homeless community but it also goes very specific to the population that you're talking about so we work in fact I just this is an ongoing project my partner and I I've been on the part of 23 years he's been on 24 we're meeting groups that have been around for 30 years and that we never even knew existed in services so what as part of this collaborative effort and this communication effort that is trying to be really truly established here in this community is something that is going on right now is what I personally have been trying to do is connect the emergency services to the homeless network which don't just provide services to the homeless they also provide to low-income and other just anybody in need because part of this key component here is prevention and diversion we really haven't discussed that tonight but that is something that's going on right now it's definitely in the discussion it's in the mix and it's in the equation we're trying to prevent and divert as well as recovery so what's going on right now and it is basically just a community team effort I tell you during outreach and when we find someone who's just been released from jail and we hear those same stories about I don't have any ID hold on a minute we got somebody that can help you get that so that's a great resource to help individuals dispel that load and make it out of jail this is a sign of the state and the committed specific funds to us now that we're facilitating through Sarah but we're actually able to the additional problem is always the fund and so the problem we saw is I can get you this letter I can prove you are who you say are let's run over here it's over here it's $23 over here it's $11 over there it's $16 let's go over to CAM and get you a check from them they're going to cut a check and we're hobdobbing between all the different service providers trying to scrounge to get the funds for this and all in the meantime we've got the poor homeless person who's traumatized by the very nature of being homeless and homelessness in and of itself is a crisis situation and their heads spinning and it's overwhelming a traumatic experience but now we've got a funding source where they come to us and the word is getting out and these people are coming to us it feels like they're starting to come to robes now but we're going to go through all that money believe me and then we'll come back and be asking for more you know the the ID recovery program the problem you found this is an issue that he wants to address he says in his last speech the National Cathedral it's alright to tell a man to lift himself up by his own bootstraps but it's cruel to ingest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself up from his own bootstraps and these are the things we've got to find the boots we've got to find the IDs sometimes it's a home cooked meal at Maverick Park sometimes it's alert sometimes it's a house sometimes it's a teenager who's just been on the streets in sex traffic and she needs a safe family to go to where are the boots we've got to provide the boots we just can't thank Lofi we have to be direct and I love that because that is a direct response to a need that was hurting the homeless community so we've got one more question about the permanent housing as far as I know if you have permanent housing if you try to get somebody permanent housing you give him an apartment but you guys said before that a homeless person might not know how to clean everything and take care of it have you thought about tiny houses like it's done in other places because you could for too many bucks you probably could put up 600 tiny houses plus shower facilities those cafeterias so I think for this price putting 600 tiny houses for 600 people we cannot build a apartment for this price so are you guys actually trying to build a community of tiny houses so that we can put 600 people up right now instead of finding apartments that maybe takes the next 10 years well I can tell you there have been initiatives and I know that you've toured in Austin I know Sarah's toured I think it's Fissions and Loaves or something like that I can speak on what's going on here I direct a new organization called 1213 Ministries which is based on practice and hospitality and we just bought property to build small, small, small homes to provide the same resource and in the train people how to live in them some of them have shared kitchen some of them have shared resources but getting people safe small housing is a great way to do it I think that's an initiative that many people are looking at but the city is doing but I know there's non-profit organizations looking at the model like in Austin and seeing how they can apply it here in San Antonio I would just add we have looked at the village in Austin it's right out right outside the city lines in the county I think that's one option there has to be numerous options to solve the issue there's so many different populations within the homeless community we need a lot of different solutions and the small homes the homes the place in Austin is a combination of small homes and trailers so can trailers be an option they have the shared resources shared bathrooms shared kitchens there's just a whole spectrum of housing that we need to look at as a solution that's absolutely one of the ideas that should work for we can house 80,000 college students at UT in small spaces I'm pretty sure we can handle 650 alright well that's it y'all give a round of applause for our panel tonight for caring enough to spend your time out here tonight please be safe going home feel free to chat here for a little bit you gotta go home thanks everybody