 Welcome everyone to our panel discussion, The Faces of Homelessness. We are really super grateful that each one of you is here, since we are all an important part of this discussion. And hope that is sponsoring this event, wants to give a big shout out first to the Longmont Museum. The Longmont Museum has donated the space and has donated use of the tables and the chairs and the sound system, and even a playful time when Justin and I were setting up. He donated that. I did not have to pay him to laugh with me. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. And second, we'd like to give a big shout out to the Longmont Community Foundation. Eric is here. Many, if not all of you know Eric quite well. They support our community in so many diverse ways. They have sponsored the food and the drink for this event, and we are super grateful to them because they support us in so many other ways as well. Thank you, Eric. And Longmont Public Media, standing right here, Emily and Steven, they are donating their time tonight to make a professional recording of this panel discussion. So we are super grateful for your time and your expertise and the way you're making it possible for the word that is broken open here to go forward and reach many more people. Thank you. Great, great. Well, there are so many agencies that participate in being part of the solution to this issue that remains in our midst as human beings. And before I introduce our panelists, I wanted to let you know and just remind you how tonight goes. This is a conversation among friends. This is a chance for us to open our minds and our hearts to look at things in new ways, to consider new innovative solutions and possibilities, to draw together in an area and an issue that can be really fraught with tension and misunderstanding and fear. And our time together tonight is to help to allay that experience even if it's just a little bit. So we hope that after tonight you will take the conversation even further. Don't let tonight stop you. Don't let tonight be where you stop with this conversation. Thank you. So from now until about seven, a little after, we have wonderful questions curated for our panelists and I will be randomly throwing them out to our four panelists. Then at seven, we're going to open up the microphone here if you're comfortable for you to ask a question, for you to present a comment or an idea. And I'll just remind you when you come up here to turn this way and smile at the camera. It's not camera, it's not hidden. And if you're not comfortable coming up to the microphone but you have something you want to say, just stand up and I'll be happy to repeat it so that the panelists can hear. Then after we have a few open questions, I'd like to invite up Joan Peck, our mayor. She has a few words to share with us towards the end of the evening. And then at the end, if it's not dark, cold, windy, or too late, we have many of you out there with an action step. As we talk deeply about this issue, these four panelists came up with a whole slew of action steps because it's always nice to know what we can do after we talk about something very challenging. So there are many of you out there with action steps and if the elements make it possible, we're going to invite you to stand up and share your action step. You can also get copies from me and you can also get them digitally if you email me. So we have newsletters signed up there that will go to all four agencies. Are you guys ready to get started? All right, if anyone's comfortable to come a little closer, we won't be asking questions to anybody in the front row. Second row will get the question off the front row. So if you feel a little audacious, come and join us up in the front row. All right. So first I'd like to introduce, you know all of these people I'm sure, but they deserve an introduction because of their devotion in service to our community. And first is Alice Weltenfuss, our executive director at Hope. After contributing to the education system for 30 years, she stepped on board with Hope. She's been with Hope seven years now, or eight years, and she's deeply devoted to being on the front line, working with the homeless, meeting them right where they are. Hope exists that the unhoused may have a home and we offer support to every person that they may live with dignity and freedom. Next we have Shannon Collins, COO of the Mother House, and she brings her advocacy, innovation and care to Mother House after serving as program director at Bridge House and Boho. If you're not familiar, Mother House helps those who identify as women, transgender and non-binary and works with them and their children providing spaces of safety, respect and kindness. Next we have Melissa Green, executive director of the Bridge House. She was a firefighter and she was moved when she witnessed how those struggling with addiction were underserved. She left her job and has been with Bridge House now for seven years. Bridge House offers adult suffering homelessness who are able to work the support, the housing and the opportunity to change their circumstances in a community of care. And then on the end, we have Tim Rakow, I'm saying that right, I know it. Rakow, sorry. My bad for not asking. Executive director of the In-Between. He is a 28-year veteran in the nonprofit sector walking alongside those that are marginalized, bringing an understanding and compassion to the multitude of challenges so many face without support. The In-Between supports families and individuals through these array of challenges with transitional housing and supportive services. So I would say we've got some pretty awesome panelists sitting before us, yes? All right. So we're going to jump right in and I'm going to rely on reading these questions so that I give the nuance. There are so many seen and unseen factors contributing to this community-wide issue. We're here to unpack that issue, to bring a deeper understanding that can be a catalyst for change. Shannon, we have many agencies and initiatives devoted to supporting the unhoused among us. What is a crack in the system that makes moving out of homelessness hard to navigate? This manager is extremely difficult for us. It is extremely difficult for us to navigate all the different systems because all the different systems have cracks in and of themselves that people need to jump through or jump under or jump over and it's very difficult for someone who is in a state of trauma who is just fighting to survive to navigate all these different systems. One of the things we need to do as agencies is to all come together in Boulder County and really collaborate together because we cannot overcome these cracks in the system unless we are all working together and we are communicating on a daily basis. It's going to take all of us to help with this homeless problem in Boulder County. There are so many cracks. So many people have mental illness for different reasons and it can take up to three to six months to get just an intake. That's not an appointment with a therapist. You know, affordable housing, there is none. There's not enough housing to go around for everyone and what there is available is very coveted and there are wait lists that are years long. So it's not as easy as, oh, let's just house them all. There's nowhere to put them. So what do we do in the meantime? That's the big question and that's why we need to all come together and solve these problems of all these cracks that appear. The word crack came up a lot as we were preparing for this panel because whenever we take on a very difficult issue we're not able as human beings to understand all that goes into that issue and how we can meet it effectively as a community. So a crack is an understandable opportunity for us to see it, address it and come together around it and I wanted to invite Melissa to speak as well to low barrier access point. Here's a crack, but maybe you aren't that familiar with that term. Will you share more? Absolutely. So one of the things that we know working with the population is not only are there cracks in the system, meaning that there are not enough resources out there for people to access at a very low barrier status, meaning that they can walk into one door and talk to multiple resources in one place so that they're not having to take the bus from location to location to location which is very difficult. I mean in our daily life when we're out working and running errands and we have a list with five different things to do and they're all in different parts of town we can jump in our car or on our bike or get on the bus it's not that difficult. However for our homeless population they're carrying everything they own on their back they're more worried about where they're going to get some food how am I going to charge my phone where am I going to sleep tonight that is safe. So for us to really be impactful and really start to move the dial on homelessness we really need to start at the very beginning and I think with all the community partners we've identified a lot of the gaps that Shannon was sharing we need a one-stop shop so those folks can go into one building and be able to see a medical doctor right there see a nurse, see a mental health counselor find somebody that might know a little bit more about housing and being able to do those assessments on the same day that they walk into the door and that those that one-stop shop should also have a place where they can store their belongings if they're going for an interview or if they need to take a shower or do they need new shoes because it's cold out and their shoes have holes and you know the water gets in and then we start losing body parts there's just so many different avenues that we need to put into one place so that those that are experiencing homelessness really can have their needs met safely. Thank you. And a scene challenge is the phrase cost of living we all throw that word out there a lot but Alice how can you speak to the challenges of cost of living particularly for those that are suffering homelessness? I brought this newspaper article with me it was out of Saturday's Times Call and the writer the realtor Tom Kalinsky if the article is Colorado Metro's in top 10 for highest price gains and most expensive housing double digit price increase in median single family houses and first quarter of 2022 meets 70% outpacing the 66% of the quarter right before January of 2022 as mortgage rates rose in first quarter affordable housing worsened that that spoke to me that even in the realty world they see what's going on with us when it hit me it was two years ago when I was the shelter director and we're very proud that folks are working on self-sufficiency and they're saving money and they're working they're meeting with case managers and then we help them with first months rent or deposit and we just struggled and struggled and I looked around at all these people who had jobs until COVID hit and everyone lost their jobs but my daughter sent me the floor plan of her apartment and in San Antonio, Texas being a big metropolitan place there's a lot of apartments and this wasn't the best but it was an apartment and it's what she could afford and it was $545 and I stopped and I looked at this and I thought about the dignity of her receiving the floor plan and that she could afford $545 that has gone up to $600 right now and I thought every single person staying at our navigation shelter right now could be in housing with the jobs that they have between the navigation program the safe lot program that we have everyone in our program could be housed and afforded out of their own pockets and so I asked Kimberly if I could share that with you because working here for this long with hope it wasn't until my daughter said this is what I could afford but look what I found and so Tim, you and all of us that serve in the arena of human services are very aware of the effects of trauma but can you help us understand more deeply the relationship between trauma and homelessness? Sure, I guess first I wanted to say thank you everyone for coming I think it's important conversation and I appreciate being up here I didn't want to by any stretch of imagination to pretend that really maybe many of us are certainly my speaking for myself I'm an expert in this area but I certainly have witnessed and walked alongside a whole host of folks over the years and have learned some from that and I think that you know what we often see when we talk about faces of homelessness is maybe an image comes to mind and for those that have very relevant experiences maybe a prominent one comes to mind that you see a person flying a sign on the street corner what have you and so I often hear that there are those that speak to that but it's much more than that and it's obviously more it impacts all populations ages and indiscriminate in its way when we speak around homelessness but all of the folks that are in a situation where they're experiencing homelessness are really living and suffering from significant trauma and being homeless and without a place to be is a traumatic experience and I think if we lead and start with dignity and respect and understanding that the folks that are experiencing these things are in a place where they're experiencing some trauma and we lead with compassion and awareness of that then I think the next steps as to where we go from here and how we solve these things really are baby steps it's a very complex situation a very complex challenge it's not overwhelming and that we can't be about the fixes to say that it's just too big, too complex no there are definitely some things that we can and should be doing and we are doing and I think the two that have already been voiced here that lead the way the external factors are really around yes price points that are adequate and affordable housing on all levels from home ownership to rental situations but also beyond that too external factors are a livable wage and certainly wages are not keeping pace and haven't kept pace for decades those of us that in our fifties are greater we're probably fortunate to if we are homeowners come across our first house that maybe was two or three times the cost of our salary or income that we had today's reality that it's probably ten times what a person's income might be as the initial price point and so it certainly have gotten out of context and so understanding that what was once the case our society back in the 60s 70s 80s isn't applicable today it's a different reality so therefore it needs new creative different solutions for that I think a way to pull that all together is to ask you tonight to consider yourself whether it's yourself or someone you know that has had difficulty navigating this kind of loss in some way whether it's somebody that we've helped that is homeless in our community or whether it's somebody that's in your family or your friendship circles we have many many individuals right in our midst that are challenged on these very levels I remember in 2007 I had dear friends who were single moms who lost their home because of some of the things that happened and didn't have other available resources because they fell through the cracks of having too much to have access to resources so on that note talking more softly and penetratingly about cracks Melissa how would you speak to this multifaceted issue when it comes to city, county, state, federal cracks and what are some of the thoughts that you have about some of the changes that we can bring about together that's a great question and I think you know kind of already sharing my thought on needing a one-stop shop right now there's not a better time than any for us to kind of rebuild the systems that we have in place for those experiencing homelessness there's a lot of interest in those that are on the street you know there's we hear about the camping bands we hear about you know recently trying to say you couldn't live in your car so there's a lot of interest in this in this subject and right now the cities, the state and the government have a lot of dollars that came from COVID that are sitting there waiting to be spent so they have a timeline and they have to be spent by a certain time depending if it's an arbor build back better neighborhoods they have to be spent by the end of 2024 so right now is the perfect time for us to really dig deep and look at the services that we have and build them back stronger so that there is money there for rapid rehousing as Alice was talking when you do find an apartment you have to have the first and last month's rent and the deposit and that's a lot of money and for those that are working or paycheck to paycheck are living in a navigation center they don't have that kind of money sitting in their bank account but we can make those dollars available we can also put these dollars into homeless service providers the nonprofits that are already doing the work you have a lot of experts sitting here that have different niches in the homeless population and there's several other nonprofits out there that are the expert in their particular field we should be funneling money to those nonprofits so that they can build their programs and make them stronger so that our impact is greater and if we can get everybody into one building where they have access to that with the dollars from the government it would be an amazingly new system that would be impactful and we'd see the dial on homelessness start to move in a positive direction so my I guess one of the important stuff I could jump ahead is to really reach out to your policymakers to those that are holding the purse strings and talk about what are you doing with these dollars that are available and how can we put them into our communities great thank you Melissa thank you so pointing into another opportunity raise your hand if you have ever felt that you've been set in your ways about anything ever small big right right right changing mindsets on an individual collective or global level is challenging that is completely challenging because of the comfort and the difficulty that can be involved and so we wanted to give a little bit of a reflection on the mindsets that limit us that reinforce cracks and one of them is our stress in America which has strength and weakness to independence in place of interdependence Shannon how might you speak to this mindset in this whole pull yourself up by your own bootstraps mentality in and of itself is a fallacy no one in homelessness can pull themselves up by the bootstraps I mean even everyone out here we all had help throughout our life to become successful in whatever endeavors that we have chosen to pursue you know no one is an island unto themselves even if you feel like it everyone everyone here we all think oh this could never happen to me I would never allow myself to be homeless my family would never allow myself to be homeless but the statement pull yourself by your bootstrap just allows for that thinking of if you just get a little spunk you just work hard and you focus you can do it you can do this by yourself it's just not true it takes a village it takes all of us to help each other there was a woman that came to my shelter about five weeks ago who I have known about ten years and she was trouble with the capital T but she had completely changed if you want to call it she had pulled herself up with her you know she pulled herself up she was now sober she was reuniting with her family talking to her family on almost a daily basis and looking for employment and this didn't happen just her it happened with multiple agencies multiple case managers multiple people looking out for her including the police and unfortunately it was just too much for her and we weren't able to help her with the resources that we had available and we lost her and I mean she's dead and this week I got an email in a phone call from a case manager in a different agency saying where is this person we've been looking for them because we have housing for them so it takes all of us and it takes all of us watching out for each other and we don't all fall through the cracks because all of us can fall through these cracks every one of us here could be homeless for one reason or another at some point in our life thank you well put and we talked about there being many faces of homelessness and in our discussion a few demographics that you might not think of that we need to be thinking about Alice brought up will you share those so driving here when we were driving here we saw this gentleman that can stay in our shelter but he just has this aura of happiness about him he's over 55 and he has a disability that Laura I know you're going to laugh out loud when I say this when he walks into the shelter it's like we just love him and you know if you have some music on and that's the happy side of homelessness well maybe we'll do a little kumbia right now and and he's worked in Longmont for 30 or 40 years and he should not be homeless he just shouldn't be so more and more we're seeing individuals of age 78 somebody who was 80 and this gentleman and it makes my heart sad that this is also a face of homelessness right now Michelle Wade is in the audience and she knows what what I'm talking about this is now an issue where you're comfortable in your place and you're in Boulder County and you're on a very fixed income and now your rent went up only $100 and you're struggling and maybe there are other reasons for this that add into it that we need to look at but while we're looking and connecting because we all talk to each other and agencies and cities and county representatives that are here but while we're checking into it that person is homeless and that person that person has never been homeless before that's sad to me yeah I think I think that that's a really good point is that we have this new kind of population coming out that have been working in their community 30 40 years they have a home for one reason or another they lose that housing maybe their families not close or all their families passed away their friends are gone we had run a pilot program for Boulder City for a while navigation center off of 30th Street in Boulder and we had the pleasure meeting a man that was in his 80s he had been living in his trailer his family had sold the trailer the person that bought it said you can live here don't worry decided that they wanted to renovate it and use it for rental income so he was booted he came to our facility and because he had income coming in he had never been homeless before he didn't fall into any bucket other than pull yourself up by your bootstops and figure this out you don't have any access to resources other than the shelter that has 50 beds that was really an aggressive shelter to try to move people out of homelessness this man had not been taken very well hadn't been taken care of himself very well so he had some open sores in his feet and he had maggots in his feet so when he came to us he couldn't even walk he was in a lot of pain he was obviously very sick but he was able to stay in our shelter and we were able to bring the nurses in from Boulder Community Hospital just because we were really aggressive and scrappy with and we weren't going to let him just sit on the street we actually did get him housed in Golden West because he had the money to do that but it took us about 8 months to be able to go from day 1 to be in housed because it took that long for our bed to come open to go through the process to get him on the right level of Medicare and Medicaid there's a difference most people don't realize that so that is one of those gaps and one of those reasons that if we would have had a one-stop shop which was what PathTome had we were able to pull in all the resources when we needed them we were able to be successful but it took months of our time and his time being patient with us and I think the joy of this guy is he wasn't as happy as your guy he definitely was not singing in the hallways but his whole goal was to be able to walk around the block but every day as his feet got better he would get his walker and he'd get walking and by the time he left he was able to go all the way around the block so he made me do that with him a couple of times and a couple of the case managers just because we had become his new family, his community and that is what we need to have more passion out there with serving our folks Sure So earlier I had said that homelessness is those experiencing it it's indiscriminate and when we really talk about populations or subpopulations those that are in a situation of experienced homelessness disproportionately affects women people of color LGBTQ communities and veterans those are some areas that we see higher numbers than what is the general population of those experiencing homelessness but I wanted to share on the other side of the spectrum in between we have a young man who is a senior in high school and we house students that are living independently in situations like that he became homeless he was living with his mother she was evicted from the property he was living with her at the time they were living in their car after that for about a handful of weeks along the way he was discovered through the same green valley school district area one of our partner agencies and so he was identified that way and has since come to reside in between but his mother chose to leave the state rather than staying here for whatever those reasons were and he wanted to finish his school and I think he probably recognized that maybe he had a better shot doing this on his own in a different way and so that's the other side of things we're on the front end of life and without not a lot of lived experience what shot does a kid have without a high school diploma and is otherwise a minor when this is your beginning this is your start and we talk about those relationships it takes a village and it's not anybody that's doing it on her own we all had support and need support along the way and similarly with this kiddo there are organizations like ours but others too that serve specific populations that they can come to reside with that opportunity of housing at least a roof of your head then you can start to address and build those cornerstones those building blocks towards something bigger and better and if we don't catch what we're talking about kiddos especially them at this age when there's all kinds of potential in the life in front of them that's the best opportunity that's when we definitely want to get involved and get integrated and become passionate about wherever they may be wanting to go in life because that's our best chance great and so we also wanted to point to a few other hurtful mindsets that just exist in the collective consciousness whether we believe them or not whether we are 100% free of them whether we're still wrestling with them with great adages that are common phrases that hold us back when our solution so Shannon you want to share the first one yes just go get a job so I'm a homeless woman on the corner flying the sign and you tell me to go get a job I'm going to go get a job so my first hurdle is I have a big backpack that has everything I own in the world everything including my birth certificate and my social security card and my ID card if I have an ID card if I have a birth certificate so I can't bring those into anywhere respectively to apply for a job well let's go to the library well they're going to see my backpack and I'm going to have to leave it somewhere with them which I don't want to because everything is in there and plus they're only going to give me an hour of time before they scoot me out the door because I'm undesirable so I don't have anywhere to shower to go to my interview I don't have any interview clothes well go to Deacon's closet but I have to wait until Thursday but my interview is on Wednesday and I don't have any money now to do bus fare because I spent it going to the library and well doesn't just stay at the shelter well the job I think I can get is in a warehouse and they don't care about my background because I'm going to be working at night on the night shift but I can't go to the shelter because it's a night job and it's past 5pm so I have a big backpack I might not even have an ID which an ID to get an ID you have to have a birth certificate birth certificates can take years to get sometimes depending on what state you were born in an ID here is just as difficult sometimes it takes months and months and months but you know what I don't have an address so where is my birth certificate going to go to I don't have a bank account because I don't have any money and I don't have two forms of ID I have an ID but I don't have two forms of ID so how am I going to get a job and then once I get a job I can't sleep because I have this night time job or maybe I have a job that goes just past 5pm and now I don't have any shelter but I have to stay awake because I'm super scared because all these guys over here they might come and bother me they might even try to rape me the meth head down on the other side of the bridge they're making so much noise I can't sleep at night because they're having some kind of manic break so I lose my job because I'm not performing well and I kind of smell and my clothes aren't clean because I haven't gotten my first paycheck I think we got it right thank you yeah Alice you had one your mindset sorry I thought you were moving on to the next question I would have to say all people who are homeless are alcoholics and drug users and I just want to say that while there is a lot of that that we're dealing with when we start uncovering what the deep issues are people who never had their basic needs met by four you have to have those developed by the time you're four years old people who just can't access mental health the mental health needs the way they need them or just go try AA and maybe they did and maybe that didn't work for them but to put people in this square of you're a drug dealer and you're an alcoholic there are so many people out there who might have those issues but there are reasons for it and not all of them are doing those behaviors there are as you know by reading the news plenty of opioid and meth issues with housed people right now that are causing problems across the United States with deaths so we do have a problem in our collective communities on how to help people with the hurt that they're feeling and I would just suggest to you that instead of ignoring people there's not a lot of big things you have to do but acknowledging a person's existence is one that I would recommend we do yes so this mindset is so entrenched that if you're a person who falls into homelessness it's like some weird occurrence and you're not disabled you're not elderly you're not an addict you're not an alcoholic you don't have a minor child you're just a normal everyday person falling you know like everybody's normal everyday but you don't have any of these stigmas attached to you there are very few resources available to you probably my my favorite sarcasm there is you're just lazy you just choose to do this this is what you're choosing to do and as you know Shannon gave you a really good kind of a mindset of what a daily life looks like for somebody that's on the street they are working every second of the day so much harder than we are on our most taxing day we're always, always thinking about am I safe here am I going to have food tonight where am I going to sleep where am I going to start my backpack if I do get lucky enough to have an interview where am I going to find my friend who I know at night we can take shifts in sleeping we talked a little bit about trauma and just being homeless in and of itself is its own sense of trauma because you're living in crisis every second of the day and you're not getting decent sleep so you can't even think clearly I think we've all, especially if you've ever had children, young children you don't have a lot of sleep when they're growing up if that is your constant life where you don't have a chance to relax and actually get down to your baseline they're working very, very hard so there is not I've met a lot of homeless individuals I've met a lot of homeless addicts and I've yet to meet a lazy one that is not a choice that they're making and they are working so much harder than we are and Tim, it's your turn mindset you have to share I don't have a specific one but I think in general leading with judgment is generally naive because you just can't capture or really imagine what the scenarios are what chapters a person has lived to bring in for that point in their life I remember when I had first started as a case manager some years ago at that time my supervisor said, you know, Tim this isn't about you and it might be that that worked for you you picked yourself by the bootstraps we've all had struggles and we've all had certain periods in our life they were harder than other times transitions, what have you but who's to say that we didn't have the appropriate systems in place models that we were able to refer to or that we grew up under or other kinds of resources or people to reach out to but ultimately I think if that's the what a person might suspect is probably wrong and often the first place but I think that's kind of taking it and saying, well this worked for me and I'm just going to apply that same logic and it should work for everybody else it's just very flawed in it because these situations and the circumstances that bring us to that point are so complex and there's so many layers when Shannon was speaking to just get a job and all the other things that have to happen for that to work really ultimately the culmination of that there's so many more things you can add to that you can add transportation, what if you have a kiddo do you have childcare, do you have access to that I mean on and on and on we can go with all the different barriers that come into play but even when you talk about substance use I think we have to understand that people who are well don't use substances or abuse substances that's a mask of something and it's something that you're working through or it's your self-medicating and or often cases your dual diagnosis you may have a mental illness and you're also using to manage that but that's the reality so it's all kinds of different things here so generally just kind of going out and saying something on a limb is probably not the right and accurate statement regardless of whatever it might be yeah thank you, thank you so much and so it comes back to us how can we ask new questions how can we ask better questions that get us more to the heart of some of these issues that we're talking about how can we ask questions that let us draw closer instead of divide us even more another mindset that came up was that social security is enough that program came about when the world was set up a certain way and I think that when that program was instituted with keeping in mind as people get older what they deserve to have after working all their lives in our country we've seen over the years that it may or may not be enough and there are many situations where that actually is an increased stressor with our individuals who've worked long lives and are looking to retire and I would add one in as a philosopher myself would be the Protestant work ethic so looking at some of these founding mentalities and ideas that seem to really harness the genius of America into productivity and success in a worldly way are some of the very mentalities that we maybe need to take a deeper look at how am I still influenced by that how is my city still influenced by that and how can I ask questions about things on that level so so many levels to unpack and we wanted to get to a couple opportunities miss so Shannon coming back to you you named one of the opportunities that has been missed but we're bringing it up so it doesn't have to be missed anymore so I feel it would be very beneficial for our city and county governments especially and even our agencies to have committees or even on our boards homeless people because why are we trying to figure out how to solve problems without talking to the people that are entrenched in those problems we can't you almost have to be homeless to really understand what homelessness is and how much it can affect a person so if we formed committees of 10 to 20 homeless people and we talked to them on a regular basis and got their ideas and what is the main struggles how do we progress politically or what are we doing as an agency that is beneficial or what are we lacking what can we do better I think would be better for the community as a whole Thank you and Melissa you had something to share as well so as we talked and we didn't have a conversation earlier this week about some of these questions one of the things that kind of resonated for me is once we are able to you know potential employment and housing there's a lot that goes into being able to get them a job as Tim kind of touched having a living wage is really important inflation is huge and impacting us all we have to remember that we have to give skills to those folks that have been out of employment world for a while are upskilled those that may be at entry level positions so that they can advance and take their family with them to that next level so that they're not always living in poverty we need to look at how do we help them to advance so one of our facilities houses 44 individuals in Boulder and we had a client that had come out of DOC he had been in there for over 25 years and this is kind of why it resonated as I was walking through the house here's a laundry, here's rewatch TV computer room oh by the way it's free wifi I'll help you connect your device if you have one and I just kept walking and he stopped me and he said whoa whoa he's like what is wifi what is that so it made me really stop in that moment and think the things that I take for advantage every day I can pick up my phone I can turn on my smart TV some people don't even have access to that or understand how to use that type of technology but we're going to put them in a workplace where they have to use a computer just to be able to log in to get their paycheck or to, you know, to take a vacation they have to be able to put that into a system or they have to log in at the beginning of a warehouse to be able to get in and you know they have to remember their ID number and maybe it's a fingerprint and so we need to stop as a community and make sure that while we're rebuilding our systems and putting people back to work that we're making sure that we're also taking them to that next level so that they can continue to advance Thank you and to touch upon what Melissa and Shannon have shared I'm no longer Catholic but when I was in seminary there was a social ethic concept that has stuck with me all my life and that is the principle of subsidiarity and that is the concept that change happens when we keep the power in the most immediate hands possible so touching upon what everyone has shared here and this homelessness issue is a chance for us to look at all of our systems how do we have the people who have the direct experience be the informants in the solutions and that's not always easy right and it's a little bit messy but it can be bring about the most lasting change so alright and I know that with that I see this walking stick out here and I didn't want that to go by without you getting to share that story Thank you so Michael many many years ago felt a lot of shame for not being able to meet the needs of his family and eventually drinking entered his van into his lifestyle and the shame grew because now he wasn't providing for his family so Michael became homeless and he was a painfully shy person and the way our systems have been working in the past is we're getting two people too late so we're not helping out with homeless people who are in their 20s and 30s who have issues and for whatever is holding them back we're getting to people when they're 55 plus and the damage has been done so Michael probably the most gentle person I've ever met said can you and hope and other agencies help me stop drinking and have a place to live and so we worked on that with great organizations in our Boulder County and along my area so as he needed to keep his hands busy and deal with the shame of leaving his family he would whittle on branches the flood of 2013 brought a whole lot of branches to all of us and I would bring him on Michael because that's not good enough okay what about this one so I gave up but he probably put 100 hours into this this particular walking stick and then he got into housing and one day he approached and said I'm clean and I'm living at a permanent supportive housing facility do you think you would hire me and yes after talking to him for a while and it took such courage because he was so painfully shy and at the top of it it says David and David was someone who felt very comfortable sleeping behind the senior center in Longmont and I think one anniversary my husband and I instead of going and having a nice glass of wine we're like well we gotta go check on David and David and Michael were next door neighbors they both became housed in this facility way too late in life and Michael is no longer with us nor is David but they're here with me in spirit great symbol about how we walk through life together right and all of these stories and insights that everyone is sharing here on this panel refer back to a quality that's worth hearing Tim speak a little more about because you spoke so penetrating about relationship the influence of relationship when it comes to this issue and health and healthiness yeah I mean I think that the key we found in those of us working in this field is that relationships matter and it's really ultimately about that and where we can drive change or at least if nothing else partner with folks with other people keeping in mind that those who are experiencing homelessness are the experts of their own destiny exactly where they want to go maybe just another steps and comprehend all the complexities to get there but generally speaking have a plan and a vision for themselves because where they're at is not what they want so working alongside folks aligning with where they're at listening to where their hopes and dreams is the work that is the most important and that takes time, patience and investment and so it's not something you can just hurry your way through but that is a key piece I think and so I think most agencies that quality agencies that do good work understand that it really starts with relationship and folks that come to our doorsteps probably have had a lot of conversations and had to justify their existence over and over again with many people throughout their lives especially if they've lived long enough or have been part of any system if you want to call it that and so it would be natural really for people who have some resistance or to be cautionary with those steps of building relationship but in time when you can start to build trust and there's a recognition that I'm here for nothing more than just to support you and where you would need to go and like to go and if we're authentic with that then I think over time relationship starts to happen and then change can begin in all kinds of great things but it really is about relationship and I was going to just offer if I could Kim, that we talk about opportunities I do think that Longmont is better positioned than many municipalities we have I think strong support in our government systems City County certainly we have a plethora of agencies that are doing good work but I think to me keeping in mind in the back of our minds that these kinds of investments are investments in our community and they're important so folks who are experiencing homelessness are not cast off they're integrated in our lives all the time and I know because we work with a lot of folks at the in between but we have all kinds of people at the in between that are probably checking out at the grocery store they're probably the ones who brought your food if you ordered it last night through your app they're bringing your food that way or they may be the person who is providing the landscaping service for you at your home or for your neighbor or what have you and again you know on and on and on there are the working folks who are contributing otherwise just don't have a place in the community in way of housing but they should and they deserve it no more than no less than the rest of us I think so and another reflection question you can tell I'm a big in participation raise your hand if you have ever in your life been embarrassed by a weakness that you had maybe you wanted to hide it and not let somebody know that you weren't able to do something or you failed at something or right right and think of the courage it takes to be in a society that's fairly punitive and somewhat harsh-minded in many ways towards individuals experiencing weakness so we have an opportunity as well to work with ourselves and recognize that the times we have felt embarrassed those are the exact same feelings that those standing beside us have felt as well so we're getting close to the end of our first hour and I want to invite the four of you to contribute anything else that came to you after our meeting on Monday something you really like everyone to hear and think about yes when talking about solutions I think about every possible solution for homelessness that you can think of needs to be considered at the city and county level so we have a problem with homelessness because of obvious situations that we've talked about but every possible solution let's do it you have a great idea contact your city and your county reps and let's stop creating ordinances and rules and laws that push people away let's come up with some solutions and back the people who come up with those solutions thank you that's just right I think it's important to remember that there are so many reasons somebody falls into homelessness it's a loss of a job it's a loss of a child it's some kind of trauma that happened there are just so many reasons that somebody can land homeless there's double that to get them back out of that bucket and we need to be aggressive and scrappy and we need to think outside the box because we can do this, we can truly change the dial on homelessness if we band together and we're not afraid to try new things Shannon and Tim anything you want to say to wrap up this first hour sure so I was just going to comment on what you said about solutions and you know being at the city and the county level is I know in Boulder I can't speak to Lama but I know in Boulder there are laws surrounding dogs that protect them more than they do human beings and to me that's really sad let's see a lot of things I guess when we are talking about T steps to moving forward we can't talk about solutions to homelessness without talking about housing inventory or the lack thereof and so the other pieces are all important and integral to the process the supportive components that we've been speaking to and understanding what brings a person to a situation like that but obviously the severe lack of inventory and this is a nationwide trend so we're not unique here in Lama we're not special about us in that way however what is special about us I think again is that we have a lot of good will and people in the right places and decision makers with an interest in doing something so I think to the point that everyone's already been saying maybe I'll just reinforce the concepts of being innovative, being creative considering different solutions to expand housing it doesn't always require a 60-80 unit building there are lots of opportunities that can happen and those are usually much more palatable in a given community because there are going to be those who are not in my backyard the Nimbies but workarounds are being creative, there's certainly been some on the planning and zoning society of the city of Lama discussions around ADUs, accessory dwelling units and being more creative of those kinds of things to add capacity so the solutions are many and yeah we should probably exhaust our options or at least have many more discussions with the right people in attendance and audience to expand on that but yeah I think that's just we've only begun I think the discussions and we need to do just a lot more of that can I say something tonight? so I'll share something a little private is I live in a foreplex that looks like a normal house and my landlord you know I've been there quite a while almost a decade and he has unknowingly helped three different individuals get out of homelessness because his rent is way far below market value and just that alone has helped three individuals right there I don't need to go any higher in my you know in what I'm charging my my renters great wonderful well now we can open up the microphone I'd like you if you're comfortable to come up to this microphone and you can turn it right to our panelists to pose any question that you may have that's on your heart and mind that you've longed to bring into a safe space this is safe here we're all friends and if you have a comment if you could keep it to about two minutes if you have something you really want to contribute so come on forward hello I'm Emily Hagen and I am a resident in Longmont and I have felt the impacts of affordable housing myself so I love that your landlord keeps the rent low one of my first ideas about housing was to give incentives to people who keep the rent low by having businesses in the community pour in some of their resources so that people could draw out a prize for keeping their rent low and that sounds kind of small but when you said that I thought it could help and so that's the kind of partnerships that I think we need to do when the Chamber of Commerce thinks that our center is an enemy that's probably not going to help but if the Chamber of Commerce says oh we can put our businesses in front of everybody who are housing owners and developers and we can share what we have with people who are doing something good for our community then they get something like a really nice dress at one of our boutique local places or a nice dinner out and it helps keep the rent affordable so that's my first random idea I have a whole proposal about it I wrote in the middle of the night so I'll send it to you if you want but that's one thought the other thought that I've had is that mental health is actually stemming the cost of not having mental health facilities to have homelessness and I don't know if you know and I know that this is putting you on the spot but how many mental health beds do we have in the city of Longmont okay good okay so I googled it briefly while I was here in there 51 at LLP something someplace but there's really not enough there's not enough in Colorado so if we have this grant that can help us to figure out how to have more mental health beds that will help my big dream right now is to have a place that would be helpful for women specifically because they are so vulnerable in terms of their own bodies being targeted specifically so that there would be a mental health facility that's close to a women's shelter that would help provide both of those needs and so maybe we won't get a doctor and all of the things they might need but if we could deal with mental health and shelter I think that would be helpful so okay the shelter is good we're done the other thing I know is that people who really have this stuff their backpack and they have no place to put it it would be great if we had lockers in the parks that were large lockers or maybe by that field where the U-Haul building was that are in the ground you can't pick them up they're really solid lockers that people can store their stuff in with not money but like you have at the YMCA those just codes and you put those in public places so that people can go get a job they can go get a place to take a shower or whatever okay and final thing those restrooms where there's a timer that helps that they don't stay in the restroom forever so that helps make sure that people don't live in the restrooms but they clean themselves have you heard of this kind of restroom you know what I'm talking about okay I think we need at least five of those in Longmont so those are my ideas I am a pastor in Lyons and Lafayette and I will soon be in Lafayette and Louisville I've heard that these people who are here in our community need more resources and we can do it so let's use all that money that the state and the county gives us and target it to people who really need it the most out the gate with innovation who would like to come up next yes come we're allowing me to be her interpreter and can anybody hear me I have thought so much about this when this discussion was going to happen and sorry I lost my mom two years ago on Easter Sunday I brought her home to die but prior to that what few people really know is that she ended up in a rehab center and at the end I was not able to work I was really sick and I'm disability and a friend took me to the rehab center I live in Lafayette but this idea, this comment can be even for Boulder and Boulder County and the social worker said well we can just take every asset that there is if she can't go home it will just take everything and that will also include the house the social worker what happens to her daughter oh we're not concerned about that we're concerned about the client here in the nursing home so as it turned out they weren't able to take the home that did not happen but I spent many many years worried as someone with a limited income trying to finish their college education what was going to happen with a family that is interdependent on each other and I heard that word mentioned a couple times and it's almost seems like it's been a nasty word in our culture to be interdependent and they never quite got that the social workers and I really really wish that there were social workers that could come into play when they see that there are vulnerable people and assist assist not just the the elderly person that is in the assisted living or the rehab but step in before we have a major crisis and it all just came together and I thought why don't we have this families help each other all the time because we're family but then I saw how vulnerable I was to homelessness and how I crossed my fingers five years hoping that we didn't have to lose everything and I would much rather have my mom still here but there were some very hard times and people did say that to me when I said just go out and get a job go find an apartment and I was on the waiting list for five years and then right when I brought my mom home with hospice they called oh your voucher came up thank you for sharing your story and I'm sorry for the loss of your mom but you identify a huge gap in our system again your mom had her home she had work, she had income you had your disability but it only takes a very small bump in the road to knock off an entire family and that's a generational loss so it's not going to go that doesn't go away quickly and it breaks my heart to hear whoop how families are put into the situation of you can either have your loved one having medical care in a facility or you take them home and they don't receive any care because you're going to lose a house you're going to lose a bank, you're going to lose everything that's you know going into that household and you're right families take care of families and we need to extend that broader as a society and as a community we need to take care of each other and there's no reason why we can't make the systems protect everybody that is out there in suffering because when we put a family into homelessness it takes a long time and a lot of resources there's a lot of trauma invested to get them back out of homelessness so if we can prevent it on the front side we will do so much more benefit for our community and keep ourselves healthier and happier and with that the mental health side right there's just not the support for that and Emily you talked about it as well we might have 51 beds in Longmont but that bed can only be held for 72 hours if they're put on an M1 hold but then they can't get in for an assessment and if that person needs medication that could be 6 to 9 months out and when they do meet with that counselor the first time it's going to be on a zoom or a Skype call and I know that I've been on a lot of zoom calls and it's very hard to make a connection and I'm sure it's not going to share everything that has me hurting that day with somebody on a screen so in general we just need to do better as providers as a society as a community we need to let go the stigmas and start taking care of each other who would like to come next talking about the 50 my name is Denise talking about the 51 beds that Longmont has I have a mentally ill son that's 31 years old now and oh I'm sorry so my name's Denise and I have a 31 year old mentally ill son and obviously he didn't know even told me the other day he says mom I didn't know what was wrong with me very intelligent but just didn't fit into society and ended up using the drugs and selling the drugs but the point I really want to make is the fact that we don't have a place to even help them get better and you all know that he's he's taken himself to the hospital and said I need help well what's wrong with you do you have a plan and a time in a way that you're going to kill yourself if you don't you're going back home you're on the streets you're out so he would maybe be contemplating suicide whatever his feelings were and they would call me in the middle of the night because I was his contact and they would say oh yeah we're going to have so and so from so and so talk to him and we did find him a bed eventually oh we found him a bed hmm well where's he going well he's going to Colorado Springs now this was from Longmont to Colorado Springs for a 72 hour hold which wasn't even enough I'm like wow so here he gets in these transport ambulances or whatever they have and you're scared to death already and you're going down I-25 and then you go to another strange place and then in 72 hours they're just watching the clock you're out you need to bed I mean if you have a heart attack if you have any problem I don't recall them looking for you a bed why is mental illness of the brain an illness put aside when it has so many repercussions in our society and our life my son has 75 stitches up and down his arms he went to Centennial Peaks and in 72 hours they said he wasn't ready to go and I said really do you think you could help him a little bit longer well they kept him two more days and he was still furious in his manic state of whatever it was that he did that with that he didn't even want to come to our house because his brain was just not there exactly so his brother flew in from California and his dad and nine brother we went to the family meeting at Centennial Peaks on day three and he didn't even want to come home and I couldn't handle him if I wanted to because he was still furious and that mixed up when you do that to your body and you look at it so I said well what's going to happen to him and the social worker said well we'll just give him some money and he can go to Denver on the bus and find some I mean literally that's all I mean if people don't understand really what's going on it's going on it's bad and to think that he's taken himself to the hospital police in Longmont know us coronosis that's a plus right you always want to know all the important people in town because your son you call and you say hey my son isn't doing well today and he left the house and I just want you to know what he's wearing if you see him walking around town and if he's doing something that you don't like can you please help continue in the core group in Longmont I probably need to talk to the the police department to say how helpful they've been to my family that's all I know to vouch for is that they've done well they check up on me they got me counseling like it's just that mental health it's just different it's not like broken foot or a heart attack or you know we're just going to push you over because you look okay so you don't really have this broken arm but it's how thank you just to talk about mental health I mean there are no good answers except that they're so overwhelmed that there's nothing to say we had a client last week who had a complete and utter melt mental break and she had just been gifted a car and believe that the battery acid in the car was seeping through the dashboard and the cars and medals were trying to get into her body and was just becoming completely hysterical in the parking lot and we decided to call the mobile crisis team and they came they said there's absolutely nothing we can do for you they have to be actively suicidal which means literally splitting their throat I mean we're talking they're half dead already or they have to be actively homicidal before we can do anything for them that is such a huge gap I mean we have all dealt with mental illness on a regular basis and that is the one thing that will keep people down in homelessness I see this more often becoming a routine thing where someone is released from jail, prison treatment center, mental illness facility whatever it is and they've gotten sober, they've gotten on their meds and they're mentally stable and then they're released and they go to a shelter and they have this gap in their services meaning okay well their doctor was at the jail now they have to find a new doctor who will prescribe them their meds and there's this gap and they don't know how to navigate this gap themselves sometimes and so they will get all their medicine and that's the worst thing that could happen because now they're unstable again and they're probably going to go back and use again and then they're right back where they started can I add to that and just to be clear that when they come out of a facility if they were sent out with medication they're given either three to five day bridge so they need to find somebody that's going to prescribe those meds and it goes back to having six to nine months before you can see that but on the flip side of what happens with that is you call a crisis unit which has a police officer and some kind of mental health worker with them if they can't take them because they don't have any reason they're not suicidal in that particular moment meaning they're physically damaging themselves the only other option is is to criminalize that behavior so in order for them to be taken someplace they can be safe which would be jail which we all know is not an ideal place for somebody to go that's a mental crisis they end up having a big criminal history behind them and if you look at that criminal history it's all very minor and it's things like trespassing you know acting crazy in the park scaring the neighbors, harassment yelling, belligerence and it really just goes back to they needed some help and support around their mental health and somebody to see them and listen to them and have that their best being taken care of and we miss that beat so we end up criminalizing mental health and homelessness and then that creates a whole other basket of just chaos for them to navigate through well talk about just breaking the complexity of the issues open even more and I have a question because a couple of the stories we talked about caregiver, duress, emotional and financial how might any of you speak to that and how we can understand the support that's needed for those that are in caregiver roles or simply the really good friend that's the one person that somebody who's suffering from mental illness might trust at hope, excuse me at hope what we're learning is that when we try and connect with families of individuals who are homeless and have some severe mental health issues then we get to see just the impact over 20, 30 years that that mental illness has affected that family to such a degree that even if they wanted to figure out how to accept their child, their adult child back in their life they know that they just don't have the capacity anymore because there was no respite 10 years ago, there was no respite 20 years ago when I was a special ed teacher we worked with a program where parents had the availability to have a respite weekend once a month and that was the saving grace of being able to move forward of dealing with a severe developmentally disabled child and when I think about these families that I used to be like what's wrong with this family that they won't take their son back until they started telling me their story they are forever changed because of the family member so it is a problem we don't have a crisis center here in town our hospitals end up being the crisis center it's a serious problem I just had a memory of the movie you've got mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and Meg Ryan has this one point where she she says such a great statement because all along Tom Hanks is saying oh it's not personal it's just business and she said I don't get that and I think that that's coming forward very strong for me is that it is always personal everything we're talking about is personal and the stories in your own life these stories maybe not in magnitude or maybe in ways that have resolved and we're talking about unresolved issues but we all have the same stories we're all on this healing process there's always been a moment in someone's life when they were in true need maybe even just emotionally maybe you were 8 years old and you were crying and nobody held you it can be as simple as that we've all got our stories to relate here that can help us get really close and intimate to help personal this is as a human species and the commitment then that is part of what it means to be human I believe who else would like yes come Kim you're a gifted facilitator I never thought I'd hear romcom anything like this so thank you so much so I just I just wanted to say to the panel I'm Eric and I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your stories and and I have to share with you one of the things that I hear at the foundation all the time is that well if we provide such great services others are going to come here and then we're going to be overrun and I'm just saying what I hear and people tell me so what would be your response to that I'm just curious I think we have to stay professional on that one but you know honestly I think that that myth has been debunked meaning the systems were torn down during COVID there weren't access to as many services because we had to be you know six feet apart and certain you know agencies couldn't no longer offer day services and for whatever reason you know a lot of services went away but we didn't see homelessness go away we didn't see the encampments quit growing we didn't see them disappear we didn't see them get smaller it's the opposite in fact so even though we don't have as many services and that if we build it they will come it was a great movie it was a great line in a movie it's not it's not in fact true what we're doing is we're just not serving the folks that need it we're leaving the most vulnerable of our population to fend for themselves without any resources and that that is just probably maybe I should have shared that with you know some of the thoughts of you know they're lazy and pulling themselves up but the more robust services that we couldn't put in place that is how you change homelessness and that is how you impact those that are living on the streets it doesn't matter if somebody came from Colorado Springs up here it doesn't matter if they came from Wyoming here they are here in our community they're not going to go away they're going to have police out they're going to have a mess they're going to have fire they're going to be in the hospital they're going to be in our courts they're going to be in front of our storefronts we have to serve the people that are in our community regardless of where they came from I recently asked some of my staff this exact question what their response would be and it was so what? thanks for that prompt Eric one of the things we actually did talk about when we gathered prior to when they would come is also a fallacy too and you know there's always an element of some truth or grains of truth of anything when we talk about you know I don't give any money to the person on the street corner they're just going to use it for drugs there's an element of all of that that is true sure but that's again if we go down that path of over generalizing or just assuming that that is always the case that's where again we're flawed so you know I think what we can see there are many agencies by the way do have some criteria around establishing residency and things like that and so there are agencies that operate like that and so if you just showed up yesterday from you know Florida you may not be able to get services at some some agencies due to that residency requirements so some of the safeguards are in place for those kinds of things should it matter you know that's certainly a comment that's worth you know having conversation around but by and large when we see that it wasn't Longo, LHA, Longmont Housing Authority once again brought up opportunity for those who are eligible to sectionate vouchers and when we see that we have well in Alibertos here this evening you know I don't know in the end what our final numbers were compared to the numbers of vouchers that were given out it speaks to the need you know the need is vast and so when we do have supports in place you know that need was already there and so it's there's not enough resources for the vast need that is there so I'm not sure that I necessarily get caught up in thinking we're going to spend all these resources and then people are going to come from everywhere around the country they're already here you know really I don't know if this answers your question but 8 out of 10 women and transgender individuals at my shelter are running from domestic violence and I'm not going to turn someone away who came from Illinois running from their abuser and I'm not going to tell them you can't be here you need to go back to Illinois where your abuser is there's just no way I'm going to do that and I think we need to change our mindset we need to change the way that we view this and the way that we discuss these issues but instead of being afraid of what others think or having those there's a lot of conflict there's a lot of different beliefs and different opinions we just need to be trend setters and we just need to pave the way and lead by example so I think as a policymaker start to make the right changes other people will follow and it's okay to have those difficult conversations we encourage those but putting things into action is much more rewarding than just having the talk so I think if you're a trend setter and you're just making those policies and you're implementing them people will follow suit and I think that there's a lot of people that are waiting for somebody else to start something it's sometimes hard to have be the voice in the room that speaks up there's a great saying that says you need to say what you need to say even if your voice shrinks and that's how I view the work that we do I would like to add that we have reunified last year 2021 18 people who came here and realized they were running away from someone and a lot of our organizations will help with this to reunite people with family and friends we call first and 18 people who are like you know the grass is greener in Colorado right and we reunited they're with families and friends and they're still successful so maybe some people are hearing that people are coming here for resources while there are some people realizing that if someone could just help them get back to family and friends I don't want to belabor this but there's also the flip side of that conversation too or that argument in that we're also losing people too in this community who are I don't know what from here means if you're born here an indictment on whether or not you belong I don't think that is the case Colorado is famous for its transplants that come from everywhere else but regardless of that there are people to our community due to the affordability issue around housing and so we have those who otherwise may call Longmont in the surrounding area home or want it to be but can't so there's another side of that too that retention of people who are residents of this area is also a problem for us I've got a question that comes at a different angle and that's this influence by the notion it's better to give than to receive I think that's really deeply in our culture there's a lot of awards built in if you have that attitude it's better to give than to receive and yet it's when we don't receive what we need that sometimes we become hardened to the ability to receive I was working in a shelter when I was 19 in Santa Cruz and I was doing intake and we had like these agencies resource everyone had risen up with all these resources people could get education for free and cars and the community had rallied back in the 80s and I was doing intake with a man who had become very bitter against the system and it seemed from the outside that he just wasn't being grateful right he just it's right there he's just not grateful for what all we have behind that face and that attitude was a person that had been deeply hurt at times of truly needing support and not receiving it and I'd like to invite any of the panelists to speak to that that giving and that receiving and how hard it's hard for I think any of us to receive sometimes maybe a compliment you know on a much minor level how might you speak to that the way it influences the work we do I think sometimes it's hard to even ask it's not so much as receiving but it's hard to step up and ask and if you've been on the street for a while people don't generally see you they look past you they see the sign they see the dirt they see the smell they see the problem so it becomes even harder to step up and ask and that's where it goes to you know Tim kind of shared the relationship part is we have to keep having positive engagements with folks that are needing services so they can get to the place where they're comfortable enough to even ask and I think before they can receive anything they have to be in a safe enough space where they can ask for it and they are the experts of their their future they know they have all of the answers you just need a space that they can also share those and ask for help to get to that to that point that's a great that's a great point worded it so eloquently Thank you Any other questions or comments or contributions John may I give you the microphone Hello this has been very humbling to listen to I was thinking about when you were talking about the myths the thing that I've heard is from people is well why don't you just do this and because that would be their one solution a very simple solution to an incredibly complex challenge so I every time you mention something I could comment on it the one thing I do want to tell you is that I care very deeply about this issue and I was on a call today where the county was going to made an ordinance but we got that stopped so again it was criminalizing for me it's criminalizing homelessness so there are a lot of things that we can do and the city manager and I have been talking about a lot of things what I had brought to him right after I got elected as I went to campus to the point that this panel was making is that in Longmont we give people a list of where they can go for certain services well if you're mentally ill you're not going to be able to figure out do I go on Kaufman street do I go over to Martin street where's the hours center I have no transportation I've got all my stuff in a shopping cart and it is so overwhelming it is so demeaning so my vision is that we have a campus where all our services are in one building which is what we really need but until someone has a place to lay their head and they know that that is there for them it's really hard to address anything else in your life and when Shannon was talking about the girl the woman that needed a job etc the one thing she didn't mention was food because all day long you have to figure out where you're going to get food how are you going to eat are they going to let you in do you stink it's very difficult so we are working on this and as I mentioned before I met with Longmont United Hospital because what city manager and I both know is that we need beds in this community and are there beds that the city can lease in Longmont United Hospital because it isn't full is there a floor we can lease is there because to the point of discharging people after 72 hours when they are not capable of being discharged and where do they go we've had people in Longmont discharged from hospitals that have died under trees because they were not ready they weren't well and their wounds hadn't healed there was no one caring for them so it's very important that we have a place where a person can stay for a week but the answer and this is to me and I totally get this the operating costs of doing that who's going to pay for the nurses who's going to pay for the case workers the mental health and to that end I did make a motion that we put so many dollars every year in an ongoing ongoing basis for mental health unhoused and addiction so that we have some dollars it isn't going to be enough but it is something along with other things the other thing I really want to do is to buy a shower truck because to the same point you don't want to go into an interview if you've been sleeping in the same clothes for a week or if you it just is too overwhelming there are a lot of issues so anything that we can do the discussion is ongoing we're going to have a big meeting with city staff in a couple weeks to address some issues some not issues some suggestions as resolutions to see if the staff thinks it's a good idea if our legal department it's a good idea if the city managers think it's a good idea and then if they do if they edit it for us and figure out what will work then we will take it to the service providers and say do you think this might be a little way that we can make a difference so we're always working on it any ideas like they said any ideas please bring them because it is overwhelming we'll never get rid of homelessness and like I told the the doctor when we were at the hospital because people think that we will get over it I said isn't that what the good Samaritan story was all about that person they helped was homeless so it's not something we're ever truly going to solve but we cannot stop working on it and trying so thank all of you for coming thank you guys I learned a lot and just breaks my heart so thank you thank you Joan hopefully in this discussion as we're learning from each other one of the many takeaways is the realization that you are the greatest asset to this issue it's you while it may be daunting and it may seem overwhelming and you may seem powerless to be an agent for sustainable change you are the greatest asset I've written a lot of grants for hope over the past two years and our greatest cost is what our staff because our staff are the way we make the difference in the work we do and way back in the industrial revolution when you saw the spreadsheets what happens equipment was put as an asset and people were considered a liability so we have the chance to change that by recognizing that each one of us is an asset as well in being a cause for change here so we have on that note we've got some action steps so there are many of you that got a tiny little piece of paper out there if you're willing and courageous I want to invite you to stand up with that piece of paper these action steps came forward from our panelists here I also have a hard copy of all of them on one sheet and you can also email me and I'll send the digital copy just to remember there are practical action steps that we can be doing that help shift and lead towards change that's lasting so if you have your action steps stand up and if you're comfortable coming to the mic come to the mic otherwise just shout it out from where you are entertain the idea of a low barrier hub as the right door for anyone who is in a need of housing perhaps on site basic services would exist with immediate navigation of rapid rehousing for families and individuals talk to your local policy makers politicians about what they're doing to support homeless providers how can we better serve the unhoused population low barrier service options one stop shop better better funded resources support efforts to expand and create additional below market retail inventory for all subpopulations such as elderly working families get to know a homeless person yeah nice consider involving your churches to any extent small or large to assist with the issue or to invite non-profits to speak on the subject of homelessness to smaller groups and I would add one thing to that I served on the board of the in-between and we had a situation where a church actually donated some land where we were able to build housing for some senior homeless people so it's all kinds of possibilities with your church thank you for sharing that thank you service providers start to communicate in real estate city and county stakeholders to rebuild the system so that we better meet the needs for those seeking services well it's been an honor to be able to be the moderator of this discussion and to be one of many and let's give a round of applause for these amazing panelists willing to sit up here and please stay around a little bit we've got a little bit more time and there are lots of sweets there's fruit and brownies and cheese get yourself something more to drink too thank you so much