 Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. Major support also includes Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support come together. Ala Israel. All people know limits. Hello and welcome to this edition of Abledon On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the definitely able. I've always been your host, Lauren Siler. Our name is off today. Before we begin our interesting program, we would like to thank our sponsors, Washington County Mental Health and Green Mountain Support Services for funding and sponsoring Abledon On Air. With us to discuss homelessness, the problems of homelessness in Vermont, and also we profile Judy Joy and her accomplishments. We would like to welcome Judy Joy, resident manager of Good Samaritan Haven of Berry, Vermont. And your name, please? Heather Tolman. Program manager of Good Samaritan Haven of Berry, Vermont. Welcome to Abledon On Air. Thank you. And Judy, before we begin, since we're kind of profiling you, how did you get started in homelessness services? Well, way back in the 80s. I was recently married in December of 1985. And my husband and I were working in a school for a multiply handicapped and emotionally disturbed children. And we both loved our jobs, but I saw a sign in my church about Lutheran Volunteer Corps. Lutheran Volunteer Corps. And you make a one-year commitment to social justice, simplified lifestyle, and Christian community. And then you have a lifetime to live it out. So we went, we got accepted and we went to Washington, D.C. in August of 1986. And I worked in a transitional shelter for homeless women who needed extra support, had moved beyond the shelter but needed extra support. And I was there a year. And when our service year ended, we didn't really want to stop doing that work. So I got the job as the shelter manager of Luther Place's Night Shelter, which was in Washington, D.C., at Thomas Circle, which was a shelter for homeless women. And we had 37 beds. And I did that until 1990 when we decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. So we did that and then went back to the shelter and in 1992 moved to Maine to run a shelter for men, women, and families. Is it, since we're talking about homelessness and then we'll get to program stuff, is it being that it's a loving career and you don't get compensated for a lot of things that people do? Is it hard to run a shelter as far as, you know, because people are sometimes stubborn or they don't want to go into a shelter and get help? Is it really hard to run a shelter? Well, it's not hard for me because I absolutely love doing it. It has its hard parts. And for me, the hardest part is seeing how difficult life is for homeless people and how they have to struggle. Even in the shelter, it's hard. When I was an LVC member, Christian community was the hardest part. Social justice we did to our work, simplified lifestyle we did because we didn't have any money. But the Christian community part was really hard. And that was only seven other people. The shelters were all big. The one in D.C. an urban shelter had 37 beds. The one in Maine was a very rural shelter. The number of beds changed a lot depending on what was needed for families. We had a set number of women's beds and a set number of men's beds. But the families were constantly in flux. And we could add beds or bunks or cribs or whatever. Babies too? Oh wait, there were babies. I almost always did my work with a baby on my lap. I kind of missed that. That was really cool. I had a little play area in my office and kids would come in. That was really fun. It was really sad seeing how they got there. But it was really gratifying to help the families move through and become housed. Is it more difficult for children than adults? The children were always happy. Especially the little ones were always happy. The teenagers not so happy. It was hard for them because people knew they lived at the shelter and stuff like that. Or say their school, which is right up the hill, did some kind of big drive for food. And people would bring the food but they would know it was their class. That was difficult for them. But the shelter in Berry, Good Samaritan Haven, has 30 beds. So everybody's living with 29 other people. That's got to be really hard. Don't you think that's got to be really, really difficult? Since you say difficulty, there's a difference. You could both answer this. There's a difference between homeless, chronic homelessness and displacement. There is a difference. What is the difference defined if you can? So the difference, chronic homelessness is having at least four episodes of homelessness within a three-year period. And then displaced is if you've been living somewhere and you are couch surfing, you no longer have your apartment but you're able to stay with folks. And you may just need the homeless option, the Good Samaritan Haven. You may need that just briefly. But chronic homelessness is a series of periods of actual homelessness over a duration of time. But displaced is losing your apartment, having a fight with your ex or having a divorce and needing somewhere to stay before you do find stable housing. That's displaced. But chronic homelessness is several periods over a certain duration of time. With homelessness, are people like stubborn or I don't want help? Are they too prideful? What have you been finding being the fact that you've worked in this field for so many years? I don't think that it's a negative thing for people to be homeless. But I think people sometimes feel that there's negativity surrounding them when they're homeless and it affects their mental health, it affects their physical health. So at Good Samaritan Haven we try to help with any of those things that have caused the homelessness that are the results of being homeless. We have a counselor connected with Washington County Mental Health who will see people, set them up with case management services, things like that. We have a housing counselor who helps people look for housing, which is really difficult because there's not enough affordable housing, which is really exacerbating the homeless issue. Okay, since you say Vermont and we might go a little bit over, which is fine because it's an extremely important issue. This past week, or this past, the State House in Vermont had an advocacy day for homelessness. Explain about why that was and what's the main problem in Vermont as far as homelessness population. I would say that the vigil and the awareness was to bring attention to the fact that there is a lack of affordable housing for Romaners. And they brought it to the State House to bring political attention to the fact that this is an actual crisis for a lot of folks, not just our under house or not housed individuals. But it brought attention to the fact that there has to be something that has to be done and it's not just hearsay, it's not just round table conversations anymore. It needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed at the political level. Longer the community partners, the housing developers, the landlords, it needs to actually, we need to come up with a concrete solution. Yeah, the new housing development on Taylor Street, for example, that's only one small smidgen. You have 30 apartments there, right? And then down the street and certain and pioneer apartments, for example, there's 60 apartments. So you're only covering a small smidgen of helping people. So what's the big problem in homelessness? Well, I think part of it is just not being able to afford to get into an apartment. The security deposits in the first month's rent and the last month's rent and things like that, most of our folks are earning minimum wage. There's many people who live paycheck to paycheck because most of their money goes to their housing. So if their car breaks down, they're stuck, they can't get to work, they'll lose their housing. If, say, someone has a mental breakdown and has to be hospitalized, their social security stops for a period of time. They lose their place. Your social security will stop if you're hospitalized? It can. If it's a longer period of time, it can stop. Or if you're incarcerated, it will stop. Because landlords won't really deal with incarcerated people, correct? But you could have your own place. But then, through something that might not even be your own fault, you become incarcerated. The court system moves very slowly. So you might be in there for a month or two or three. Your social security will stop. Your landlord's not going to hold your apartment waiting for you to get out of jail and pay all your back money. So you'll lose it and trying to find another apartment at these market rates or even with a voucher is really difficult. I mean, we have people who have vouchers that are having trouble finding apartments. And we're trying to utilize things like social media, our Facebook posts to try to drum up some attention with local landlords. I actually sat with the gentleman yesterday to try to look for apartments because he has the money to find an apartment. There were four apartments in his price range. Out of the four, two have already been spoken for, so they were no longer available. And we were able to obtain an application for the second one, but the third one wouldn't call us back. And I think that's because I verbalized that I was calling from the Good Samaritan Haven. So there's a bit of stigma out there also with some property managers and some landlords wanting to rent to our unhoused individuals. Since you said that, why is there and what is the stigma that people see out there for, especially landlords, that see out there in terms of being housed? I would say I would think that in the past for some landlords they may have rented to some folks that may have not been good tenants. But going forward, we actually are implementing a Good Samaritan Haven in all of our homeless shelters life skills that will teach them how to budget, teach them how to communicate effectively with individuals. So we're trying to resolve those issues, but I think in the past individuals that have rented that may have been transitioning from Good Samaritan Haven into stable housing might have made bad choices. Or maybe they might not have landlord references. Or they might not have the skills to live independently. And we're working on all those things. And as you know, Elizabeth at the shelter, our peer support person, her job is to help people learn how to take care of their space. And we can give people a reference based on how they've maintained their area, how helpful they've been in the house, things like that. We can give those references and we'll support people once they move on in staying connected with them and making sure that they are able to function in their own place. As much as we can, time among the time's constraints. How long is the time constraints that they have? Because I know it's changed over the years. Well, it's a 90 day program now. And we're hoping it to be. When I was in D.C., the shelter was in a church. And my minister started saying that we were a continuum from homelessness to independence. And then Henry Cisneros, who was head of housing and urban development, came to visit the shelter frequently. And he sort of adopted that, a continuum of care from homelessness to independence. And that's really what we're focusing on. Still, even though HUD adopted our little buzz sentence, that's what we're trying to work on, to get people from not being housed to being housed. It's not a fast process. Some people, if they come in and they already have a voucher, might be quick. If someone comes in needing it from the ground up, needing their ID, needing their social security, needing whatever it is they need, help with finding a job, any of those things, it's not a quick process. So if someone comes off the ground running and goes to appointments and does things, they'll get out quicker? They will get out much more quickly. If they are doing what they need to do to move on, then they will get out much more quickly. Maybe not within 90 days, though, because of the housing market. It's just so hard to find a place. Since you said program director, what exactly do you do? Oh, program director. So currently I am trying to do a lot of outreach. I work collaboratively with the Department of Labor, Vogue Rehab, Capstone to try to bring in folks and individuals that will educate our current population. Either that be last week we had Margaret Ferguson from Capstone come in and she instructed our folks on how to build financial muscle and what that would look like. How do you budget on a budget? How do you prepare meals under a certain amount of money? So we're trying to educate. I'm trying to bring in programmatic stuff in the form of education for folks. They may not have gotten these skills prior to entering the Good Samaritan Haven, but we really want to ensure that when they're getting part of the transition is giving them information that they potentially don't have. So programmatically I'm focusing on that. I want to focus on repairing our relationships or building relationships with property managers, with landlords, trying to dissolve some of the bias out there of the population that we serve. So that would be my focus. I do some grant stuff. I do reporting numbers and stuff like that. But mine is to meet with our guests to make sure that when they enter they are they go through a individual service plan process. I'm trying to implement that at 60 days we touch base with them to see what have what sort of strategies have been successful. What are some of their accomplishments and talk about what can we do in the next 30 days before they transition to make them more successful. So that's currently what I'm doing. There is a lot of other odds and ends, but that's what my focus is right now is really building relationships. What happens is there a small smidgen of is two questions. Number one, is there a small smidgen of people that what happens is after 90 days 90 day mark comes and they haven't found a place. So if they are actively really working hard they're engaged with our housing navigator. They're actively involved Washington County they attend events they're being good community partners they're being good roommates. And they're really showing engagement and they're working hard we provide extensions for those individuals that are close to securing housing. The last thing we want to do is ruin an opportunity for someone to secure stable housing by making them without a shelter without a home. So we try to provide with that criteria an extension for those individuals and we do the best we can with that extension. And since now what is the percentage of people with special needs that are homeless or not having housing? And is it a double-edged sword if a person is homeless and disabled? It makes life more difficult for sure. Makes life more difficult for them. And we try to add the extra supports. To give them say if they need a little more education or a little more support. We'll try to help them work on that. We advocate very strongly for our guests. And if we see that they can use a little extra help we'll try to say somebody is maybe has a language barrier. We'll hook them up with some English as a second language classes. Or if someone is lacking education we'll hook them up with the ability to gain maybe their GED or whatever they need from the adult education programs. We try to hook people up with the services. We can't reinvent the wheel and do all of that. But we try to hook them up with the services that are available in the community. And there's lots of services for people available. And we also try to keep our relationship active with Washington County. So we meet with them at least weekly. We have our staff that actually comes in and he's a therapist. So he'll assist people with regulation and just an open ear to have a conversation with. But we also have regular meetings with Washington County to talk about what are their services that they offer. We talk about individuals around the table to say how can we as a group best serve this person that's struggling with mental health issues. Can they be because of their mental health issues. Can they get case management. Can they be screened for one of our CSP vouchers where that would provide a case manager in the household for those individuals. So we collaborate a lot with Washington County and our partners to figure out how we can best serve a wrap around program for the individuals. That may be struggling with some homelessness and some mental health. As far as services and programming, I understand that Good Samaritan, you guys provide meals to people within the house, within the shelters. How does that work? Is it completely donation or how does it work? We are extremely blessed, I feel, to have the support of so many wonderful people. We get almost every night of the week, we get a meal donated. And when you're cooking for 30 people, that's a lot of mouths to feed. So we have a couple of families who do it. We have a good number of churches who collaborate on bringing meals. Someone will do the main course, someone will do the dessert, someone will bring the salad, things like that. And we have a lot of meals that come in. I also have, through Vermont Associates Senior Employment Training Program, a wonderful man who's my food services coordinator. And right now, he's in the shelter cooking up a storm. It smells very good in there right now. He's making food for Saturday night for the men who live at the Heading Shelter. Saturday and Sunday night for the people who live at the Bethany Shelter. And Sunday night for the people who live at Good Samaritan Haven. That poor man has his work cut out for him today. But without him doing that, it would be more difficult. We get lots of food donated. People just will drop off what they think we might need, or they'll call in the past. Yeah, bags of coffee, you know, whatever people think we might be able to use, they drop off. And that's just amazing. It's all the paper, detergent, all the bags, all of the above. And I don't want to forget, I don't want to cut you off, but Judy also had set up this year. Heading has extended hours this year. And in the past, we've struggled with how do we feed these individuals because there's no meal provided in the community for those folks. So Judy advocated for a couple of years to get the shelter open. So now our folks do not have to open. We've extended the hours from seven to seven. In the past, it was nine to seven. And there was a two-hour gap from when the library... Nine a.m. It's seven. It's seven p.m. Seven p.m. to seven a.m. is when the shelter, Heading Shelters, open at Heading Church. In the past, it used to be open only from nine p.m. to seven a.m. And that gave... That was kind of a struggle because the library would shut closed down at seven. And that's where the majority of our overflow folks will stay to be warm. So that left a two-hour window for folks being out in the elements before they were able to seek warmth. So Judy fought for many years to get that open. So now we have that... And the Montpelier Shelter as well. The shelter's open from eight... It's from eight to eight-third... Or it's from eight-thirty to eight. Eight to eight-thirty. Eight to eight-thirty, yes. Yeah, because City Council, when I understand, City Council Montpelier fought with the... Well, not fought, but like, helped with the help of you guys. Gave support to open the shelter, I think, a week early or two weeks early. It was actually two weeks early. Yeah. And they donated the money to make that possible. But we now have seventy-seven beds of shelter. And they're all full. And we keep getting calls. Every day we get more calls. The need is so huge. The need is huge. More and more people are looking for shelter. It's really difficult. And also that Montpelier, within the City Council, that they have a homeless task... Homeless task force, from what I understand. How does that work within the... I have no idea. I don't go to that. Do you go to that? I don't go to that, no. But I do know that they did work really hard on collaborating and making sure that the word got out with us and with just... Because we don't serve all of the under-unhoused folks in Montpelier. There are still folks that are couch-surfing. We're still staying outside and sleeping back. So we can't reach all of those folks. So there's been a really strong... And it's a shame, actually. It is a shame. But the homeless task force did a really great job at getting out the word to those folks of the meals that would be provided around the holidays. So they did a really great job on collaborating, creating a couple fliers that they could pass out to individuals that we provided our guests that information but they got out there, they went out, they went out and went and did outreach and provided the information to ensure that everyone was aware of where they could get a warm meal around the holidays. So I think they've done a great job at working together with us. I think they're really doing an amazing job trying to support homeless people. Yeah, and it's just... Exibility. Do you guys know the numbers or do you know a little bit about the numbers of how many homeless people there are in Vermont per se? Because I know those numbers change. They change and it's hard to capture because we're not... There are, again, there's a huge... You can't be everywhere. Some of the folks refuse to provide us with information for us to capture. So we do a lot of outreach in tents and things of that nature but they don't always want to engage. So we can't capture the actual number unless they are willing to... We utilize a homeless HMIS system. Which is what? It is a homeless management information system and it's a database where we... All the homeless filters in Vermont that do an intake process they will actually upload their information. So we're able to have numbers and create numbers of actual homelessness through that database. But if we're not reaching those folks that do not want to engage, from what I hear, there's a large population of individuals who are still unhoused, homeless, that we can't even grasp the numbers. So we do the best we can with folks that engage and we can get an accurate number of those individuals. But I think it's a larger percentage of people than we can print out with a report. Yeah. So a report is done once a year and I believe it's nationwide and it's called a point in time count or the pit count. And they try to capture everyone who's homeless and then they can publish a report. Last year was not a freezing cold night. So there were less people counted. So it makes it look like homelessness is going down. When you said freezing cold night, did you explain what you mean? Some people were out. They didn't go and say the motel stays are counted in the point in time count. But if it's not really, really cold, people are not going to get a hotel stay. I wanted to bring that up. I know that there's a wonderful agency with a barrier for money. They don't have much services. And sometimes they don't consider you really homeless if you're in a hotel. Let's say you have to pay out of your own pocket. But sometimes economic services would give or in the past, they have given 28 day stays or a month of staying. And you're considered homeless. If you're staying in a motel paid for by economic services, which is statewide, if you're paying on your own you're not considered homeless. That's my point. But has that changed since all of these shelters have opened? Are motel stays more? I think motel stays are down. And that was the idea of the funding being given to emergency shelters. A number of emergency shelters got that funding so they could open up the winter warming shelters. And it's still there's still a lot of homeless people. It's still a lot of homeless people. Okay. A place where people can turn for help at Good Samaritan. Well, they can call us. Is that what you're asking? Yeah. They can either stop by or they can call us. We're at 105 North Seminary Street in Barrie. Or they can call 802-479-2294. Someone there pretty much 24 hours a day. 24 hours a day. And what are the hours of the shelter in Barrie? The night shelter opens at three in the afternoon and the savings time it's dark by four. And we didn't want people walking in ice and snow in dangerous conditions in the dark. So we open earlier and we close at seven in the morning. But say today it was only like one or minus one. So we didn't send people out in the cold. So you make exceptions based on the weather. And one of our guests made breakfast for everybody, which is really nice. That's a good thing. Future goals of Good Samaritan going forward? Ending homelessness. I was going to say. We were supposed to end it in 2020. Is there an extension of that? Well, that was kind of the dream of a group called Vermont Interfaith Action. It was called the 2020 vision. And they wanted the vision was to end homelessness by 2020. It didn't really happen. But they're working on it. And there's good people really working hard to end homelessness. We'd like to all be out of work. It's probably not going to happen very soon. Okay. Homelessness is the last question. Homelessness is a global issue, not just local. Yes. What are some things that America should work on or the nation should work on in terms of homelessness? I know compassion is one. Compassion is huge. And understanding, being understanding of people's situations. I would love there to be more single room occupancies. And what's that? Single room occupancies are where like say a room in a rooming house where someone can have their own bed and maybe share a bathroom or have their own bathroom. Share a kitchen. Would that be the city? Well, I don't think it would be considered permanent housing. And lots of the big cities have taken over hotels and turned them into single room occupancy. And when I was at NDC some of the some of the bigger agencies were opening up single room occupancies. And I think they're good because they give people community and support in addition to a place to live. They're not out there in their very own apartment all by themselves. They still need to go into a shared kitchen and a shared dining room and maybe eat with other people and not feel so alone. That's hard sometimes when those things are hard but you have to be with other people. But it also can make it easier because there's other people that are to support you and you're not just all alone. There's so many layers in what can be done to end homelessness. And if people were committed to working on those layers I think it might happen. Your opinion on that? I would say a combination of empathy and unbiased. I feel like there's a lot of bias around homelessness and how people have gotten themselves unhoused. I think there's a real strong unaccurate bias of why people are homeless. And blame placing. I think if we could get past that and just remember that these individuals are actually human beings at the end of the day then that's just the humanity piece of it. But we have all kinds of options and affordable options to solving homelessness. I love that Washington County just released their first tiny home as a solution in the area for unhoused. Norwich University. They contributed this small house. So that's a cost-effective way to house folks. We have houses that are empty. We have spaces in downtown Barrie that are empty that can be used as places to keep folks warm. There are many, many solutions. I just feel like it needs to it needs to be addressed and kind of not brushed under the rug. So we have to pretend like it's not a crisis. And being homeless sometimes homeless people or people that are homeless would go into an I think I'm saying it right an unhabitable situation or a building that's been condemned to try to live there that's not good either. It's not safe. And the people on the building usually don't like it. But if they would fix their building up and rent it out so people could afford it that might be a partial solution. Well, I would like to thank you for joining me on this edition of Ableton on Air. For more information on Good Samaritan Haven you can go to www.goodsamaritanhaven.org or call 1802 479 2294 That's 479 2294 Again www.goodsamaritanhaven.org Again I'm Lauren Seiler and this puts an end to this edition of Ableton on Air We would like to thank our sponsors Washington County Mental Health and Green Mountain Support Services Again, Arlene couldn't be here today. See you next time on this edition of Ableton on Air and also we would like to also thank our sponsor Isbrill as well. Thank you and good day. Major support for Ableton on Air Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. Major support also includes Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together. Ala Isbrill All people know limits.