 You know, I got my MPH at UCLA in 19, and I never, I did, here's it, this is the truth. The reason I got my MPH at UCLA is because my mom told my new wife, I only watched my new wife, that she thought it would be a good idea for me to get my MPH. So I did, not knowing what it would get me or where I would end up. Well, and she's the one that coerced me into it. They went from my mom to my wife to me. So the point of the discussion was is that I am now the Public Health Officer for Orange County. I've been doing this for three and a half years, and it's the best job I've ever had. It is a blast. So, let me offer to you, if you're at all interested, that you can shadow me any time. And I open it up to students all the time. Alright, so here's the question. And I want to see some volunteers on this. And Paul's going to write some of the responses down. Who wants to tackle question number one? Why should we, the big W, society be responsible for the homeless? Yes, sir. Because homelessness is not an individual failure as a society to think care of its people. Good answer. Do you all agree with that? Yes. Say it again. Say it again. Because homelessness is not an individual failure as a society to think care of its people. Alright, good answer. Somebody else. One sentence. Yes, ma'am. Because we have the resources, we should use them for the homeless. Is that right? Okay, good answer too. Somebody else. Yes, sir. And it was one of these answers, but homelessness can happen to anybody. We should, you know, take care of... Society. Yeah. This is a big one. Yes. So say it in one sentence as simply as you can. Society should take care of, or should be responsible for the homeless. Because it could be any member of society that experiences it. Okay. Everybody hear that? No, say it again. Now you're going to get it right. Society should be responsible for homelessness because it could be any member of society that experiences it. So it could be any one of us. Yes. Okay. Yes, ma'am. You knew what's going to pick on you, didn't you? Yes, I did. Okay, go ahead. Contrary to popular belief that people are homeless because of their own goals, I believe that our society plays a huge role in creating homeless individuals. Due to their skyrocketing housing costs and the lack of programs to get homeless living out of that cycle. So that's a very good answer too. So we're part with... Let me paraphrase it. Since we're partly the cause for their homelessness, play some role in a society, then we're responsible for that. Okay. Anybody else want to add to the big we? Yes, ma'am. It's like that song, the Michael Jackson song, we're saving our own lives. If you let them go homeless, they'll have to resort to crime and things like that and just damage the whole rest of the community. So it's the impact, the negative impact homelessness would have on society. All right. That was very good. Now let's look at question number two. Question number two. Why should you as individuals take responsibility for the homeless? Watch my lips. Why should you as individuals take responsibility for the homeless? Yes, sir. We live together. Okay. Because we live together. Good answer. I'm going to pick on somebody if I don't see anybody yet. For the same reasons that we as a society accept all the same five reasons. Did you hear that? For the same reason. Okay. Yes. I think it sets that like a micro level like if someone's very passionate about it, they can build it into like... Say it again. Stand up. Tell us who you are. Okay. Not to put you on the spot, but I am. Well, I think it's like at a micro level. And if you're really passionate about it, then you can build it something like this. If you're passionate about it. Yes. Okay. So passion, Paul. So now, let me ask you the question. How do you convert the small W in wheat to the big W? What does it take to convert it? How do you take one individual's passion and make it a societal issue? Come on. People come together. People come together. But what does it take to move it up that level? Yes ma'am. Leadership. Paul. Leadership. Excellent. What else? It takes a lot of publicity because a lot of people don't know that. Let me rephrase that. How about awareness? Publicity. Awareness. Awareness? Yes. Publicity. Okay. So awareness. Yes ma'am. Leveraging existing networks. Very good. So leveraging. Yes ma'am. Partnership of the government to see what there is that we can get them in health care. Partnership, that's the big one. You're right. So you could partnership. So let's summarize. Leadership. Awareness. Partnerships. Leverage. Guess what? You just did all of it. Congratulations. Oh, we're done. We don't really need us to do it. I asked you to write the stuff down. I wish we would have done that. We would. Okay. Let me just, for those who are just coming in. This was a very, very important preamble. And as you just heard, it could be done if we all have the ability to now take those lessons and work on it. But we want to learn more. So we're not going to release you yet. I'm very delighted to introduce Dr. Eric Handler, who is the director of the current kind of agency. And Mr. Colion, who is the executive director of the Illumination Foundation. This is the topic that, as you've been telling, when we came in here, there were maybe five or six people. We have 16 students. But this is the topic that everybody is interested in. We want to learn from the examples. That's great. So here I'll do the first half. And thank you very much. And we're going to have a 16-minute video. And then I'm going to turn it over to Paul. But take a look at the board here. Because what you're going to see is the principles that are going to be detailed in our presentation. So I'm going to, you with the top, what's your name? John, can you stand up for me? Let me get a chair in your eyes. Come on over here. Try to relax. What sport do you do? Tennis. Tennis? Were you any good? You kind of shy? Are you the one going? All right, here's my question to you. Can you tell me what the stereotypic, homeless individual looks like? Yeah, that's what I'm asking you. Probably the person I'm calling. So you're saying he's a minority. Yeah, it's a he, right? Yes, it's my stereotype. Okay, then a minority. Okay, so let me, all right, that's fine. John, you don't have to backtrack yet. Okay. All right, so here's my question to you. You ready? Out of all the homeless, nationally, and if you get this right, you get Paul's call. Out of all the homeless, nationally, what percentage of our ten years of age do you want? You can ask for help to us. What do you say? Thirty percent. Thirty percent? It's fifty percent. So when I ask you about the stereotypic, when I ask you about your stereotypic percentage, fifty percent are ten years of age. Fifty percent are ten years of age. Think about that. So when you have your stereotypic perspective, it isn't stereotypic. All right, who am I going to pick on there? I knew that you would do that because I looked at you as prominent and I was never good if you don't want to be picked up. Don't look at me if you don't want to be picked up. Come on up. I want you up here. And you. The one who, yeah, look, back to you. Me? Yeah, come on up here. Paul, this is, you know, they're not friends here. They're also Americans. Okay. Now listen to me. What's your first name? Corey. Corey, what's your first name? Ilona. Ilona? That's a pretty name. Okay. Come on up here. You're married. All right. Yeah. I'm going to have a baby. Sorry. Is this, let's get this on take, because you heard what they just said. All right, so here is what I'm going to offer. Okay, I want you to play along with this scenario. You're pregnant. I'm saying almost that. Okay. Do you have a five year old? Is it a daughter or a son? A daughter. What's her name? April. April. That's really nice. Okay. So you arrived from Tennessee a week ago with no money. From Tennessee? No money, no phone, no car. You're right here in the middle of Orange County. Got it? And somebody says to you, I know a place for you to go. And you go, okay, whatever. They said in the middle of Santa Ana is an armory. What's an armory? You know? You know what an armory is? Anybody know what an armory is? An armory is where they train soldiers. They convert the armory from November to April to accommodate 150 to 200 people. Okay, got it? Well, can you show that slide please? And to show you that I'm not making this up, this is the armory. They all sleep on blue mats that are this big. Come on under. I want to join a lovely couple. So, you see these mats that you have to sleep on? They're blue mats, they're this and they're side by side. 200 people under this one room. The mats are side by side. The armory opens up at six o'clock at night. Are you going to be in the front of the line or in the back of the room to get in? I prefer to find an alternate, I think. There isn't. Don't look like it matters when you're in the front of the line. You want to be in the front of the line? I feel like the front. Why? Because there's probably too many people in front of me in front of the back and I won't be able to get in. Ah, that's one. You have a five-year-old daughter, April. You're pregnant. What kind of people do you think are here? Politicians, scientists, doctors, lawyers? Yeah, not so much. Huh? So you want to let everybody get in the front and choose their spots or do you want to choose your spot? I guess I'd want to choose myself. I guess you would, too. Alright, everybody agree? Raise your hands in the front of the line. Look at that. Okay, so... I'm the woman first, though. Alright, now you're going to have to help ask for some help on this next question. Alright, say it's a clock at night and it opens. Your fed food, which is jail food, but it tastes pretty good. You're allowed to shower at your camp. You came in early, so you picked a corner where you can have your mat on the ground, your mat on the ground. You can watch your five-year-old. The lights go out at 10 o'clock at night. This is what Paul and I saw three and a half years ago. He's a true story. 10 o'clock at night. Do you think you'll sleep through the night? Why not? That's probably going to be loud, but nobody settles down at 10 o'clock at night. Come here a little girl. Do you think you'll sleep at night? Do you think you'll sleep at night? No, you won't. Alright, now to the crowd, to the group here. What time do they turn on the lights to get everybody up? What time? 7.30. 10. 4.30 in the morning. 4.30 in the morning. The lights go on, and you're asked to leave at 5 o'clock in the morning. Now this is a... You're doing great. So 5 o'clock in the morning, this is a cold weather shelter. Do you think it's going to be cold when you walk out? You're going to be freezing, aren't you? Yep. Alright, so here we go. You see all these people? They're going to help you here. You now step out of the armory in the middle of Santa Ana at 5 o'clock in the morning. Where are you going to go? Try to get something to eat somewhere. Where are you going to go? Where are you going to take your 5-year-old daughter? Come on, Dad. You better jump in on this. Yeah, I'd probably take us to McDonald's or somewhere that's open really early and you could get inside. I don't think you heard me real well. We don't have any money. She heard me. And in fact, they give you a sack lunch. You, you and your daughter see you later. We'll give you some food. So now is it dark out or is it light out? Where are you going to go at 5 o'clock? Come on. It's a two-life scenario. Where are you going to go? Any help here? Come on. Park? That's a great idea. Guess what? The armory and Santa Ana has a park right next door to it with no trees. And what kind of clientele do you think are hanging out in that park at 5 o'clock in the morning? Homeless people and what else? There are prostitutes, there's druggies and I think I'm going to take my pregnant wife and my five-year-old daughter to the park. Come on, get some help here. I used to leave. Demi, you should be in this car. I should go. I was in the car. Where are you going to go? Where are you going to go? I really don't know. I never thought about where I would go. I don't know. I try to find some place where I would get something to eat, where it's warm, where I could maybe change that situation in the long run. That would probably be something that I would try to figure out. How do you feel as a provider in this situation? I feel pretty loved as a terrible provider. And you're pretty smart, right? You can't figure this out. What are you going to do? At 5 o'clock in the morning? Anything into survival? Yes and no, maybe? Isn't that interesting? You've got to survive and you have to survive. Great job. Thank you. Okay, so three and a half years ago, Paul and I, Paul called me to see this situation. Now listen, out of 200 people here, I saw 50 kids running around. We saw 50 kids. I walked up to a 12-year-old and I said, tell me, in this facility, guess what she said? No. Why did she say no? She doesn't play? There are 50 kids there. There are 50 kids there? She doesn't know any better. This is all she knows. So of course it doesn't bother her. But when Paul and I saw this, we said to ourselves, are you kidding? In Orange County, is this our legacy? We have 50 kids running around in the Armory. I'm going to pick on you. You knew I was. I met you where? In the Armory. You want to tell them what the Santa Ana Armory looked like? It looks like a... Speak louder. It looks like an airplane hangar. It's huge. There's mattresses on the floor. That's pretty much it. Do you want to tell them what lady that we met? Which one? The writer. We met a few people there. One of them was a young woman. And she said she was in the mortgage industry and she was fired. And she was a writer and she just didn't have anywhere else to go. And she was smart. She was intelligent. She was pretty. I never imagined seeing somebody like that in homeless children. It was pretty impressive, wasn't it? Okay, thank you. There was a 16-year-old high school student that was with me and I said, why don't you just talk to this lady for about 5-10 minutes. She went off and the lady showed her her writings and she was going to write songs. And all of a sudden this student comes back to me and she's got tears in her eyes. I go, what the heck happened? And she goes, she was just a wonderful person. No different. Look at the board. No different than us. No different than us. So here's what we're going to do. This is the problem that Paul and I were faced and Paul's going to talk about some of the strategies and solutions we're going to give you and share with you the solutions. But I can tell you for a year Paul and I brought in group after group into the apartment and we said to them walking in and walking out you're not going to be the same person. It will change you and the reason it changed them is because all of a sudden they saw it. They got it. Now here's the interesting thing. People don't think about the children. We're going to show you a video right now. It's a 16-minute video where children who are homeless are interviewed in Santa Barbara. When you watch this video I want you to do the following. I want you to look into their eyes. I want you to look at their face and I want you to think what would you do if that was your kid. So sit back. It's only 16 minutes in the tunnel. It's where it was. Almost a million and a half of our children and our youth live in homeless situations during all of our cars. They live far middle-class and mainstream America. They reside in shelters, hotels, cars and RVs or move between homes and family in some place different every night lose their toys and possessions have to wear the same clothes over and over all the lifestyle is something most Americans cannot even imagine if indeed think of it at all in terms of children and families. Their story is told best in their own voices. Well I'm 11 years old and I've been homeless for about 5 years. I've lived big fields I've lived under trees come out on me under the trees we slept in our car Well my first time when we lived in the shelters when all of our families were there too because they were like homeless too. When they said that we were in the shelter I thought that the shelter would be big and that could be little rooms. And so I just started saying like but people are going to see me going in there because it's getting embarrassing I don't tell anyone I just kind of say like you know yeah my house has this many bedrooms and I don't really say like where I live because I don't want them to think like oh she's poor don't say anything about going anywhere you know I could do some stuff but not a lot I can't always go to the movies I can't always go shopping like lots of people like there's lots of people that have like all these shoes and I'm like I don't have one pair they have like pair of shoes for all their pair of clothes that's kind of crazy I used to live in the shelter and we ate food I used to live in the bedroom like room 7 at home yeah 8 and if we didn't want it we can like serve ourselves sometimes they serve us and there's a free bathroom kind of weird because I don't know anybody there I'm probably staying in the shelter for a month and a week because they kicked us out of our other house they were putting the rent higher and they knew we couldn't pay it so they kicked us out and then we lived in our car for 2 days and then my mom said we have to go to the shelter well I felt a little bit strange because I didn't know anybody and at first I didn't know why we came here at first oh yeah my friend said that I was here I didn't feel like in rest I was proud of who I am I just care about who I am and what I do a little bit weird but the second time I was here I did it I had a lot of friends and I talked to all the people here it was hard getting there in time because our car always messed up or something because it wasn't a brand new car you know my friends support me because I tell them like my friends some of my friends I really trust about where I live and so I think they helped me the most children are remarkably resilient for the highly mobile life living in crowded and noisy shelters camping moving from motel to motel presents them with extraordinary challenges and too often denies them the opportunity to be a child and grow healthy and secure for these children education is not only their hope for the future but critical to their day-to-day existence school can provide stability security caring adults and the tools and resources to survive as well as a safe place to grow and learn but going to school isn't always easy I could get up, take my sister both my sisters to school and they go to two different schools and they go pick up my brother and he goes to my school so that's a little bit better and then when we go to school I have to like I don't eat so I'm like kind of hungry and it kind of stops my day kind of rough I had like I didn't have any A's or B's I had like C's, D's and like an F because like moving to that was hard because I couldn't do my work because of you know, our homework from people like people there could help us but they didn't understand some of it and then it was noisy so it was kind of hard to concentrate and then we had something to do like be in at a time and then like be in bed at a certain time it's actually kind of hard because you're kind of scared when you move but you're kind of excited at the same time because you lose some of your friends and you make more friends yeah but it's kind of hard to make more friends I've only got a couple friends at the moment so I would then wait no go to a newbie school my sister she would look over us in the bus stop she would drop us off at the bus wait till the bus came and then my sister that drives she's on she's in college she goes to school Monday, Wednesday, Fridays and she would do this there and sometimes when she would be late to school she would just drop us off there and wait till the bus came and drop my mom off there and my mom went wherever because we made friends and then we went to a different school we made friends you like friends, a lot of friends and then when you're in different schools you don't even tell them by or something and then you don't get to know them but they think that you're mad at them it's too noisy when you eat I couldn't even do my homework at the table because sometimes I do it in my room and then it's too noisy actually it was because there were a lot of kids there I was trying to Australia and did my homework I've already missed like 8 weeks and 6 days of school but it would have been 9 weeks but I went to one day in school so what happened was that we just moved right out I didn't even get to go say bye to any of my friends it was pretty really stinking excited a lot of friends that were playing with that on the front of the day usually I make these little pit stops so I can do my homework so I stayed there trying to figure out what school to go it was kind of hard okay we're going to get into this school and then my birth certificate I didn't have I had to get a temporary one let's see I went to Monroe went to McKinley I went to Plantation Fairview Greenfield Vianza not Santa Barbara going fourth grade second high school kindergarten second I was too small for kindergarten so I'm supposed to be going to fifth but I'm going to fourth grade children and youth without a home often have wishes and dreams that are not at all like those of their house peers they take on the burden of the adults in their lives as a priority it's sort of like a game of chess and you make one if you slip up one piece then you're going to lose that piece and it really stinks when you lose your pieces and it's going to be hard to live you got to make your moves wisely and you got to play them good anything else as long as I when I have kids I just support them I wouldn't like them to be homeless like we were but as long as I have shelter over the head and food and clothes I would take care of my kids more than me I wish everybody would quit fighting even when you say it's like somebody who's giving a stack of quid if I had a wish I would pick it get a house because they don't let you play outside if you play and they go talk with your parents they put more money they need to pay I wish for a scholarship to go to college because I know it's going to be hard to do that so my mom won't be bored because we don't have lots of money right now I had a wish for the house we can have a house all of my wish we wouldn't get a house I would go to the same school keep on going there until we have to go to high school then college above all being homeless is not being hopeless as the children envision a future for themselves whatever it wants to be I want to grow up as a little person when I grow up I want to be a book writer to study the offense I want to be a doctor a nurse a girl and nurse they have dresses on a bit when I grow up I want to be a doctor here's our show I really want to be a kinder children, our greatest national treasure and resource cannot achieve their wishes and goals without support the responsibility for their future lies with all of us life has not given them an easy road but just one caring adult one simple act can make a difference in the life of a child first time I was homeless was well 6 I was not able to get a house because of all the evictions that are on your record we all got each other there's a lot of homeless kids in this world that need education or else it's going to be hard for them to survive in their life yes sir there's a heart breaking story so I've seen other heart breaking stories the issues there where are you going to go because I'm sitting here going okay okay okay where are the parents that's part of the issue what's going on with the parents and stuff here's the interesting thing what the hell did they do to deserve this situation regardless of the parents what did they do to deserve this situation that's not the question that's the question that's what I'm saying and what's interesting when you look at these kids bear with me we'll get you to your answer but bear with me look at this you look at these children you look into their eyes which one which have the most impact on somebody tell me which child so they want to share yes there's a reason they're homeless but it doesn't matter because as long as he has a mother it doesn't matter okay yes he also understood about perpetuating the cycle and so if it isn't the children's fault and they're innocent then that's where society and education has to come in if you have an opportunity to change it in order because otherwise it will just continue the cycle correct yes sir normal kid for sure and he doesn't deserve this exactly I think it was the girl in high school she wanted to go to college but she realizes unless she gets help there's no way she can achieve that she knows the way out she doesn't have the resources so here's the situation you've got these kids you have 50 children in the armory any one time there's two armories one in Fulton and one in Santa Ana so let me just fast forward and then I'll turn this over to Paul fast forward in the past two years the small way which was Paul and I got the big way to say this is unacceptable to have children and families in the armory for the past two years during the operation of the armory there wasn't a single child or family in the armory people gave money to put them into programs into motels memory peep for you not a single family or child was in the armory so when you walk in and say what can I do as an individual that's just one small but for us huge accomplishment they don't have to be subjected to that environment which is honestly horrific so now let's get back to our couple who has no place to go you've got a child on the way you don't have health insurance you have no money you have no cell phone and you've got no car where the hell do you go so small we which is Paul we'll tell you how we got to the big Paul my name is Paul Leon director of lumination foundation but prior to that I was a public health nurse and I'm the one who called Dr. Annard and said you've got to see this when we first walked into the armory in that picture we had saw the Santa Barbara film that you guys just saw first and we're thinking wow Santa Barbara has it bad and little did we know that Orange County much worse we found out with the problem like you were saying and we'll tell you what we did for the problem but you know our problem was we were living in Orange County and when we found out how many children homeless children there are in Orange County we just had to step back they were currently as of you know less than a month ago 17,000 homeless children in Orange County the number just like grabs you 17,000 and so when we heard that I was like I don't even see 17,000 kids when I'm going by schools where could they all be and we'll tell you that in a second but what had happened was when we started looking at different numbers we realized that California taken guess where we rank in the nation for homeless children percentage wise we are number two in the nation per population of homeless children and in California alone we have the most per population out of all California we have 47% the next closest place is Oakland and they have 23% all these numbers by the way are on this kidsdata.org so here we are in Orange County California and I work for the public health department we're going like hey we've got homeless kids out here we've got kids in backyards like these pictures here that are living in backyards they're living in touch shacks yet we have the least amount of funding out of any county in California and one of the least in the nation because guess what everybody told us Orange County housewives you guys they're $45,000 no watches you have the Kedashians you guys don't have any homeless kids it became real to me when I came to this backyard and what happened was the armories are you know Dr. Anner forgot to tell you they're only open during the cold weather months they closed so our first question was okay we're doing a pretty good job we're bringing medical services we're doing what we need to do as a public health department in the armory but what do we do when they leave and where do these people go a lady called me up and said hey go to this backyard and say N-A-N and most of the kids are there so Dr. Anner and I walked in there one evening and it was about oh seven, eight o'clock he's talking like usual playing with his phone and I'm actually working doing blood pressure, getting you know immunizations doing what I could do as a public health nurse this little girl who happens to be sitting right here comes up actually her mom came up to me and said you know my daughter's not feeling good and every time Dr. Anner and I came in there they would jump on us all these kids because he had given candy from public health officers so they would see us coming and they'd be like all over us and I noticed she was laying down on a cot so I walk up to her and I go you know oh you're not feeling well until you get said yeah so I take her temperature and her temperature is 104 degrees and we're in this backyard she's sleeping on one of these bench along with 60 other kids as young as two day old so I take her temperature and it's really high and her little friend sitting next to her and she said I don't feel good either Paul so I take her temperature and hers is higher so it was like it was yesterday so I'm talking to her and I'm going give your daughter I don't know give her this much every six hours give her some more until I get here in the morning and don't let her go to school as I left it was almost surreal I'm driving home I get my car and it's about 55-53 degrees it's really misty out and it's cold I turn on my heated seats and I drive home to my house in San Clemente and I walk upstairs and my wife goes hun is at you and I say yeah and she goes do me a favor put Coco in the garage because it's too cold for her to be outside I stayed awake that whole night and thought about these two little girls and thought what did they do as Dr. Hannah said to deserve this and I knew at that time when we saw one year old two days old on apnea monitoring machines we've seen the most horrendous things you could possibly see I knew we had to do something and just talking about we could tell you hundreds of stories I remember we were at the army one night and we go to the bathroom Dr. Handler and I and actually they published this in the paper and it really got an uproar because we're going to the bathroom and he goes oh the guy that was just in here stuck a needle in his pee pee are you guys going to do that he was shooting up in the bathroom in a nine year old's stand so we immediately went back to the town and said we've got a problem here man we have all these kids in these armors we got them in the backyard and their answer to us was it's a huge problem we don't even know what to do so amazing because the things that you put on from a public health department standpoint of you and a public health point of view we actually just did by mistake I was an MBA student I wasn't a public health student and I just briefly wrote down out of a public health journal the definition of what public health is and you'll see that we were able to connect everything we did just like these tests of saving we had no money we didn't have the community behind us because no one wanted to hear it we had this huge problem and we had no resources and I remember they told Dr. Handler it is leadership without funding and that was one of our favorite we just sat there and looked at each other and said what are we going to do we started just talking to anybody that would listen this is probably our 200 presentation we started to say here's what is out here at the same time we knew after our first presentations that people wanted to throw money at the problem said here's some money and we knew money wasn't going to help us so we started going to the families and I started out UCI students and I grabbed a family that was case management and I was saying let's put you in a motel and then we can work with you and kind of handle your problems and then next time I go see you you're not going to be somewhere else that started three years ago since then too much has happened I can't really tell you about it but it's on our website we started with about $50,000 started our foundation with the help of the MBA school and now our budgets are going to be about 2 million could go up to 5 million we have taken a hundred and 53 families off the street and they are now in stable housing 55 of them have graduated and the number one thing that's really really more important than anything at this time this year this following school year we will have 86 students that stayed in the same school for the entire year and when you think about that you have to think about the numbers wow we have 22,000 kids but 86 of them stayed in the same school for an entire year last year we had 56 56 they had accolades from school they all brought up the grade point average their behavior started to improve everything started to improve and I wish I could sit there and tell you wow it's a magic bullet we just started doing these things but basically I could tell you in a paragraph what we did was we stabilized the parents and we said look we need to talk to your children we need to find housing we will help you pay for your housing and we believe in you we believe that you can make it we believe that if we help you with some of the benefits you're eligible for medical, mental health, counseling that you will change your way we are first 28 families they had bipolar many of the moms were bipolar we had paranoid schizophrenics our first Christmas in that location we had a young lady lighter hair on fire and run through the motel since then we had nothing but stability we had people that have actually graduated our program we currently have more mental health we have more people that have suffered from drug admissions than most of the other shelters in Orange County and the way we did it was by we leveraged what we could use mostly students and volunteers we paid for the instructor and then got all the students for social work, for nursing for medical students we used the existing resources and we connected everybody who would listen to us and we didn't want to reinvent the wheel we were able to get incredible partners like Pacific Live, St. Joseph Hospital Kaiser, currently I think we have about 70 partners and if you go to our website we we began breaking the cycle because now instead of having grandmothers who have their kids running around having their kids and then having their grandchildren running around the streets we at least stabilized them and then the number one number one thing to me which really makes a difference as far as even attempting to handle this problem we have currently about 74, 75 child-bearing women of that age in our program they've been there two years through our program and our graduate program we have had one pregnancy one so when we first started out of those ten women eight of them were pregnant so like I said I wish we could come up here really well as a master bullet it took time, it took effort and it took the same things that you guys were saying we had to bring in the community we had to use volunteers we had to bring in mental health we had to bring in nursing but as a whole every aspect of these children's lives have improved and yeah we don't have kids in the armory and we still have a huge problem ahead of us but we found in many ways we figured out the formula and we can actually create more motels and more places for these people to come but we need more partners, we need more volunteers and like I said if you would have asked us three years ago if this would have been possible we would have said no so what is this and is there a licensing for how many kids? this is the Isaiah house it's a family that lives in Orange County and they open up their backyard and to answer your question no you don't need a license you can open up your backyard and let people stay there however we have all the kids now most of the kids come up through our program but that's a great question because a lot would happen a lot of people would say what happens to social services what happens to child protection you have to pretty much either use drugs in front of your children or molest them or leave them alone for long periods of time for the county to be able to take them otherwise they won't even come out to you and talk to you about it maybe you think there's abuse so people always all of a sudden say hey about regulation does the county take care of this? we are the county we are the public again I know an hour is just such a short time to tell you all the stuff that we learned but hopefully we passed out some brochures then you can go to our website and we have a sign up list here if you guys want to find out more or volunteer because I tell you almost everything that you guys said in our program here's the take home message what is public health? you're going to get your master's in public knowledge so what? your job is to find out where there are gaps and how to fix those gaps what are the things that you need to be involved you have to have passion you have to have leadership and through that you create awareness that's what it's all about it's that simple let me give you one example how many here have heard of the group MIA how do you know MIA? under God and I'm the one master stand up this is an incredible group why don't you tell them about MIA so MIA is a UCI School of Medicine organization that provides tutoring fitness education education for these kids at the Illumination Foundation's motor home and we also volunteer with Kaiser doctors and nurses and we have a mobile clinic that stations around armories that they mentioned and other areas around Michigan so it's UCI undergraduates it's UCI medical students and what's interesting they went what the heck are we going to do about this problem how can we help I said I can't answer that point you have to figure out what's best what resources you have to bear and the medical students formed this group called MIA Medical Initiative Against Homelessness recruited undergraduate and graduate students and we were able to secure for them $15,000 to help them with their effort and it's an incredible organization so I would suggest that if you're interested in getting involved you can stay here with me you can help sign them up the bottom line here is is the starfish story that's the small we the story is two people are walking along the shore and thousands of starfish watch the shore and one kid keeps on floating one starfish back in the ocean at a time and his friend says what are you doing with thousands here the starfish is going to be a different not only did we touch people's lives Paul and I but they touched us we were touched as much as we touched them Paul and I never ever worked with the homeless until we came here shame on us this is going to be our legacy shame on us and you all can make a difference so what we're going to do for the last five minutes is open it up to any questions you might have yes a couple I'm just like if you said it but I missed it your program has addressed how many kids not actual kids over 300 we've had a total come through our program is about a hundred and I think 64 now roughly because they're graduating every day so great so so is your program stable so that you can introduce and do the same that's number one number two is is it something because waiting for two people to come along who are also necessarily you have that leadership maybe the two don't go together it seems like it needs to be scaled up and organized and I'm just asking you the question your opinion I'm not saying you know the answer are we a county as a county are we a society and somewhere you didn't mention it here but I think it was on your website or I saw it somewhere we have more millionaires in this county do we have do we have the social where the right word is just say this is a great program we need to tax ourselves to set up something like this so we can scale it do you think people will do that to answer your question first of all yes this is scalable but I've got to also mention it's not only us our name is Illumination Foundation because we really wanted to be advocates to eliminate the problem we knew that if we showed light on the problem that more people would help and something as simple as me the group of medical students that got together and non-medical students anybody that wanted to join I can't tell you how many hundreds of kids they tutor and they go there Thursday, night and Sunday and you think well we have 17,000 homeless people we start multiplying we've seen how much we've grown and how many people are helping now but not only us we kind of put pressure on other non-profits to do the same thing and I know Mercy House Oregon Rescue Mission families forwards a lot of different groups a lot of churches that become involved now a lot more people I don't want to say they didn't know about the problem I don't know they knew about the extent it kind of forces you to say come on now we're the highest in California and the second highest in the nation it forces people to kind of take a look at it and I think Dr. Hanner said the best out of anybody and because there was a lot of people that said yeah I like kids and stuff but you know I'm busy I got my boat in Newport Beach and Dr. Hanner said wow one day the kids were all running crazy and he said these little kids are cute now but when they're 18 and they got a gun in our face they're not going to be so cute and so it is a systemic problem it's a society problem the amount of pressure that we see on these children 80% of them live with trauma post traumatic stress syndrome every day so I mean you know we can go on and on and tell you they're the sickest they're the malnourished they're like the grid so our one thing is that this problem is huge but we also talked about that when we were in Newport Beach one time is that if we really as an Orange County and we had everybody involved and we wanted to wipe this out we could do it in two months if we had everybody on board but obviously it hasn't happened yet and it probably won't happen tomorrow but by us getting a few people and you keep you know getting this grassroots movement and I never understood two things one I never understood grassroots I've seen it work now and I never understood public health even though I was a public health nurse I had no idea what the hell I was doing but you see we ended up just because of the need we filled it and a lot of people moved about this yes I'm just curious how you've raised so much money is it five million dollars like? ah that's an easy one awareness and partners because we took the small weed and made it a big one and when you shine a light on the problem people can't walk away not that the county and other people were not doing things with the issue but when you have a joint outcry of people saying this is unacceptable it forces you into action so who's the biggest tendering well the biggest we've got private people and we also have the county so it's a true partnership it's a private public partnership so give me a second what was the first thing California was number one Texas and you know so weird because I just found out last night because I kept thinking why Texas and why Texas anybody got an idea all you masters of public health Katrina I didn't even dawn on me I thought are they just because they're big and they have more kids they have more displaced homeless kids in Texas than Louisiana and Georgia but it's crazy when you go to this site and you look at because it gives you a national number you see like Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and California is like right there and you're thinking how the hell could we and Orange County is the highest in California you're thinking how could we do that you know how could we be that high I know it's past the one o'clock in the morning one last story to show you that the reason we're so passionate is we love what we're doing and I love telling this story remember the Isaiah house with the backyard there were like 75 children in the backyard it was a summer day and it was hotter than you can imagine Paul called me one afternoon he says I have this vendor in a very shady part of Santa Ana that will sell us cheap ice cream like a popsicle and I go okay Paul I said listen I'm a public health officer I'm responsible for the health and safety of $3.2 million $3 million people and I go where do you want to meet he says I'll be outside and he picks me up and we go to this shady vendor and we bought at which is our own money 50 popsicles and at that time too Paul was complaining that as usual he was hungry so we had one of the popsicles so we had now 49 I'm a pediatrician I know children I was going to put the 49 popsicles on the tray walk into the backyard and then distribute one by one to all the kids each one of those popsicles what do you think happened when I had the tray 49 popsicles and I walked into the backyard they were attacked they didn't last 30 seconds I was gone in a flash and I'm going boy that was just a smart plan that I've tried to implement the kids loved it and I'm just about walking back into the house when a 7 year old kid comes up to me and he says can I have one? 7 years old and I'm going oh how am I going to get out of this and I said you know we had all this ice cream but he ate the ice cream true story when the kid walked up to Paul asking for ice cream Paul was trying to barter with him by offering a gay array but fortunately there was a woman who did have an extra popsicle and gave it to him the point of the story is the following if this journey wasn't a pleasure and if the journey wasn't rewarding we wouldn't be doing it it's best because we are taking the lead and we are making a difference and we're bringing people together to do that so thank you very much