 Hello, and welcome to the Backstory. Tonight in this episode, we are featuring one of the most interesting and exciting projects in Longmont. It's Longmont's Veterans Community Project, a project dedicated to serving a segment of our community that deserves the very best that Longmont has to offer. I'm Tim Waters and as a volunteer for Longmont Public Media, I have the good fortune of hosting the Backstory, which is my opportunity and our opportunity to tell stories about projects of interest and relevance to the community. And tonight is one of the most interesting and relevant projects going on anywhere. It's a project that's dedicated to serving the needs of everyone who ever raised their hand and took an oath to protect and secure this country. And I am blessed tonight to have a panel in this episode of three people who are instrumental in making this project happen in Longmont. So Mark Solomon, one of the founders of this project, and we're going to talk more about Mark, who's now a resident of Longmont, but at the time was a founder living in Kansas City. Ash Willis, who is a case manager and has been on the ground, boots on the ground is probably not the right term, maybe it is the right term when we're talking about a veterans project, has been boots on the ground in this project for a while, even as it's been developing. And the newest member of this team, Jennifer Jen Siebold, who is not new to the issues we're going to talk about, but is relatively new to this project, a long time Longmont resident, but new to the veterans community project and she'll tell that story. Now, the viewers ought to know that Mark is not a, I don't fear considering a veteran, he's active military. He was deployed, got home a couple of months ago, I think early May. Actually, it was late December when I got home. Gee, time flies. Was deployed and was in Africa on a year of years deployment. So Mark's not former military, he's still a current active military along with his business and he can tell us more about that. Ash is also a vet, so thank you both for your service to this country and Jen's father is a veteran. So this is not an abstraction for these folks, this is real time and real important. So, just so happens, we're in Longmont Public Media Studio. So whoever might be watching, I hope some of my family members are watching. Maybe some of our friends. It's live, we're coming to you live from the Longmont Public Media Studio. We have a live audience tonight and the live audience members are going to have a chance to participate in this program. So for anybody who watches this, there are risks that go along with live television and we've assumed them all tonight and we'll see how it goes. So let's get into the story. The story really starts, Mark, with you, right? And I won't provide much of it, but I know there's this back story of who was sitting around mapping out on the back of a napkin what should happen in Hawaii. So get us started with who was there and how did this whole thing get started in Kansas City, Missouri, and then we'll talk about how it gets to Longmont, Colorado. Take it away. So six years ago, a group of combat vets myself included. So I was in Iraq in 2007 to 2008 and then, as you mentioned, just came back from a trip to Africa. So back in six years ago, we were sitting around and determined that the processes and systems that were in place to help veterans when we returned from our service, whatever that looked like, they honestly were difficult to navigate and we wanted a way to be able to say yes to veterans instead of no. One of the other co-founders, he worked with veterans in crisis in Kansas City. So anytime there was a call to 311 was the number that people could call in Kansas City and any veteran's service requests got routed to him. And it would be Saturday and somebody'd say, hey, I'm about to get kicked out of my apartment. I need a couple hundred bucks to catch up on rent. And he'd have to say, well, we'll check on Monday and see if that's OK. Or the dollars are tied to you being homeless. So go sleep in a shelter tonight. We can help you tomorrow, that sort of thing. And he was honestly tired of dealing with that. So we kind of put our heads together and it took the Navy guy, really, to make things happen. The other guys were Army and one Marine. So we kind of put our heads together and figured out, OK, what can we do to say yes to that and that's where this started. And literally, as you mentioned, it was on a napkin six years ago. And now we are a nationwide charity. We're in five different cities in four different states currently. And we're looking for there's more opportunities to expand as we do this. So it's really what it's turned into now is a lot of different segments. One of them is tiny houses for homeless veterans. It's transitional housing. And so veterans can come live with us. They don't have to pay to live with us. And we provide wraparound services that here in Longmont folks like Ash does for us and basically treat the whole person from their pet to them, getting them back into living in society and being a part of the community and connecting not only the veteran with the community but also the community with the veteran. So I tell people all the time that the name has meaning. It's Veterans Community Project. Community is in the middle for a reason. It's an ongoing project and obviously we serve veterans. But having that connection is really critical for these folks. And an idea on a napkin six years ago has turned into a really awesome opportunity for us here in Longmont. There's a federal agency called the Veterans Administration that's dedicated, right, to serving veterans. What's the gap that you're filling here? Why would a group of current and former military see this as a need and step into a void that a federal agency isn't able to fill? So the VA has its purpose and it does a lot of really amazing things. It can't serve everybody in the way that everybody needs. And it is a big organization, right? And so there are some gaps there. For example, I got into the reserves in 2004, still in. And the way that some of the definitions are depending on how long my service in the reserves was for, if I hadn't deployed things like that, I may not be eligible for veteran services even though I was in the reserves for a number of years. It just depends on my length of service, my what kind of service I had, the status of my discharge. And so then it becomes difficult to navigate. So if you go to a specific, let's say I need some help with whatever it is, and I go to an organization that provides that, that maybe gets those federal funds, if they're restricted in any way, then they define what a veteran is. So the first part of going and getting help is, where do I get help from? And do I meet that criteria? Well, it's Monday, evening, they're closed. The second part is that it was sunny today. Well, I'm not eligible for the sunny day Monday services. I'm eligible for the cloudy, or partly cloudy services on Monday. I don't know where all these places are. And so that's another reason why events are being told now all the time. It's cumbersome to navigate. Then add in some of the complications that potentially come from your service, whether it's related to a deployment or other things, mental issues, other things that come up. It becomes really hard to navigate a bureaucracy. So the bureaucracy has its place and it does good work. It's sometimes hard to navigate and there are gaps. And so for us, it was just how do we go in and say yes. So we don't take any restricted federal funds. We do this through the kindness of the community, donations from individuals and companies, and the goal there in partnering with cities and states. The goal there is to be able to help any veteran regardless of their discharge status. All they had to do, as you mentioned, is take the oath of service. Ash and I both did this. We were willing to give up our life for the protection of the Constitution. We don't feel like any veteran should ever be told no for whatever it is they need. And when they're ready for help, whatever that help looks like or it can be, hey, I need help navigating a system or paperwork or getting an appointment at the VA all the way to, I'm homeless and I need a place to live. The answer should be yes, how can we help? It's interesting having been, many of us, we've interacted with bureaucracies, maybe have been part of bureaucracies in some way. And it is too frequent that the role of the bureaucracy is find ways to say no. And the counter that has to look for ways to say yes, right? With accountability, and as we go in and get into this, it will be, I think, helpful for people to understand what does accountability mean in the context of this project? Because I know it's there and there is an expectation. Yeah, no cost doesn't mean, to the veteran, doesn't mean free. Yeah, right, I know, there are expectations and I think it's important for people. That's part of the backstory for people to know. Who are some of the others from Kansas City in here who were involved in helping make this happen in Longmont? So the quick story there was in 2019, I'm sorry, 2018, Longmont decided that they wanted to attack their veteran homeless population and do something about it and they needed to, they were actually looking at the opportunity of maybe doing that themselves, they just weren't sure what to do. Formed the Longmont Veteran Housing Coalition, a group of concerned folks from the community that wanted to end veteran homelessness. And they realized after a short period of time, my understanding was that they couldn't do that on their own, so they sent folks out and hey, who are we gonna partner with? Scouts. Scouts, yeah. They sent scouts out across the country and one of them, Kevin Malshine, was with HMS Development, so he's a developer here in the community. And he visited a number of places, Kansas City was his last stop. And he stopped by and said, hey, I'm from Longmont and I wanted to chat with you about partnering with us. And at the time, honestly, we were like, what's a Longmont? Basically, we don't have time for this. Wait over here in the corner, right? And Kevin, being a great humanitarian, he did wait, he was patient. He actually went, our headquarters building is about half a block from where our veteran, our BCP villages. So he walked down there and looked around and he said his aha moment was he was standing next to our houses. He said there's just a buzz of activity and volunteers and veterans and all kinds of things going on. And he said, I could live next to one of these houses. And that was sort of where it started. He came back to Longmont and said, hey, we need to partner with these folks. Discussions began early in 2019. I actually started flying out here every single week on my own dime, truthfully, to get this going. And it was an amazing opportunity. I remember my first public media interview. I did that. I don't remember exactly what day it was. I just remember I was walking down the street downtown the next night getting dinner and people had saw my shirt and they were like, hey, we've heard about that. I have not been to a community where more people are as involved as they are in Longmont. People really care here. And so I knew I had made the right choice and we had made the right choice in partnering. Fast forward a few months then about the summer of 2019, we had an opportunity to move my family out here. My son was getting ready to go. One of my sons was getting ready to start high school. We thought we were gonna do that. We're gonna do it before that. So we moved out here in the summer of 2019 and then kind of got the ball rolling. Just before we get into a little bit more of this is that, one, it's the partnership with the town, the city of Longmont, the developer, HMS, individuals, organizations. I mean, there's a bunch to name and I don't wanna do that because I know I'll miss it. Sure, I get that. We could not do any of this without, as it says in the name, it's the community. And we've been invited to over 3,000 different communities at Veterans Community Project. We said, yes, to Longmont is our first expansion and it is in no small part to the fact that the folks that live here are as excited and to have us as they are. There's some really neat things about the project that we're doing that are unique anywhere in the country. It's really just about Longmont and we can talk about that now or later whenever we need. We'll get into more of that. I do think it's important, Longmonters, that you hear that part of the story, that it was the values that Longmonters live out, how we translate those into engagement and our priorities that was attractive. And I think that's an important part of the story that people need to hear and that ought to characterize Longmont going forward. And that's not everywhere. Again, we've had all these invites. What you'll miss though is that we have to have community support. We have to have dollars, veterans to serve as well. We have to have political support and land and infrastructure and things like that. And a lot of communities come and they have this sort of idea of, well, we want to do this, but maybe you guys are going to have to figure it out and we might help you and we may not. The communities that we are in and the communities that we continue to engage with are the ones that are like, we are ready to solve all these problems because we have these issues and we feel strongly about the circumstances. Let me add just a sidebar kind of tangent on that interaction with Kevin Mulch on his first visit because I've heard him tell this story that he showed up. He has used, no, he showed up unannounced, but Kevin's not, I don't think Kevin's accustomed to being disregarded until all the other priorities are satisfied. We'll get to you when your time comes or when more important issues or concerns have been addressed. And Kevin tells the story of being waiting around and it was obvious where the priorities were. The priorities were with the vets that you were serving and a newcomer who showed up, no matter what your interests are, until we have done our job here, we don't want to be distracted from what our priorities. I think that's an equally important part of the story. From a long month's side, to know the values you bring to this project and how you've lived those day in and day out there, here and in the other places that the project's scaling up. No, I will say that in all of our organizations, including New Kansas City, we've grown at the time, there was really just a handful of us. I mean, we started in my buddy's kitchen and mortgaging houses and all that kind of stuff together, right? So we've grown since we've got great talent. I still recommend not showing up unannounced. However, we do have, when people come now, there's lots of things that go with it and Ash will talk about this, but it is customer service based. I don't want people to think that that's it, but it is really focused on veterans. Hey, if you're a vet and you need something, whatever that something is, we're gonna go to work. Well, I'm gonna pivot to Jen in just a minute, but just to more about you, Mark, that you moved your family to Longmont, you've started a business here. Tell us just a bit about you and what you bring to Longmont, your experiences as one who's still actively involved in the military, as long as well as what you do in town. So my family and I are all immigrants. I moved to, as Des Moines and I was, where I grew up in the late 70s. Started there, went to Iowa State and then kind of technology after graduating from college in the late 90s and then the tech bubble burst, not my fault. And then, I kept doing some things. I finally joined the military. It was 2004. I got in as a direct commission officer program into the Navy Reserve. They only accept about 5% of the people who apply and I don't say that to applaud me. That's not it. It's really, I think they got worn down. It took me three years of applying. No, it's pretty selective, I know. Before I got in, it was three years and so I applied in 2002, 2003, 2004 and finally got selected as an ensign in the Navy and then here, 18 years later, waiting for the promotion results. Anybody's watching? But I'm up for commander right now, my Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserves and so it's been an amazing career. I'm the only one in my family to ever serve in the military. We are sort of the quintessential American story which I think is spectacular about where I live and happy to sign up to serve is started off really dirt poor and my parents put themselves back through school. My dad ended up working in a factory originally and then after school became a certified public accountant for the state of Iowa. Retired after 20-something years. My mom registered nurse from cleaning up bedpans to becoming a nurse and all those kinds of things. So my sister, brother and I all went to school. We all dropped out of college at one point. We all went back. We all have two degrees. Actually, my brother has a third because he's a jerk but it's just, we've done really, really well and for my family and I, one of our lessons was, just always pay it forward. No matter what you do, you make sure that you look around and figure out, okay, who else needs assistance? We had a lot of really friendly folks that helped us get where we are. Everybody says bootstraps. You can't actually lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. That's not a real thing. So nobody does this without, again, it's back to community. You can't do it without a community of people. So my background is that which is why this was, when somebody came to me and said, hey, you're a vet, I'm a vet. We wanna do something to be able to say yes to vets. The answer is, okay, how do we pay it forward? Well, I don't know who defined good luck as the intersection of opportunity and preparation. I believe that's a very good definition. No wonder you've had good luck and are gonna have a lot more of it, right? Jen, welcome to this conversation. Tell us a little bit about you, right? We just heard about Mark. What do you bring to this project? You're not new to the issues, you're new to the project. Give us your background. Yeah, so I've worked for about the last six years specifically in the arena of homelessness in a variety of capacities. I've been a nonprofit for about 12 years, but that last six years or so I've been really focused on first, I worked in Adams County Shelter Services. That was a project that was really interesting because it was one of the only shelters at the time that was housing families alongside individuals and kind of trying to say yes where we could as well in allowing service animals. A lot of people don't know that that's, those are some barriers people face when they are looking to get some help that really, it separates families and we didn't wanna do that. And so I was there for several years and then I transitioned into a completely different side of homelessness, which was more the advocacy education side, but through an employment program. So I was at the Denver Voice for the last three years working with individuals who were experiencing homelessness, a lot of them chronic homelessness. And really that program was about low barrier entry to employment, making sure we could get people back to work and then saying, okay, we're not gonna worry about your ID and all those things, we're gonna fix that stuff later, we're gonna work on getting you working fast and then work on all those other things later. So this project really drew me because it kind of brought together both of those worlds in a really amazing way. I've always been drawn to programs that are really centered around high accountability, but also realizing that everybody's situation is different and there's gonna be a lot of things thrown at somebody and we can't put one way of solving that into place and be effective. So I'm really drawn to this because I was excited to see it come to my community. One, I've been commuting to the downtown Denver area to do this work and I am a Longmont resident. I've lived here for 25 years. I've been commuting to work for 10 years in a different community. So I was really excited to see this here where I live, but also something that kind of combined that holistic approach to really looking at the individual. And then the other thing is I do come from a military family. My dad served for 15 years in the army. My grandfather for 25. So I grew up in that environment. I'm really, those are very important men in my life and I've seen them kind of struggle with some things too. So it was very personal at that level, but also really what I think is an amazing approach to bringing together housing solutions, but also looking at all of those other elements that we're dealing with. It is fun to hear the part of the story about a long monitor, a local, leaving town to do this kind of work. It gets to do it in your hometown. Yes, it's very exciting. Wouldn't it be great if everybody got to do that? What you love to do in the place you'll love to live, right? I wish we could say that was true of more people, but I'm happy that it's true for you. Thank you. You've been on this job for how long? Just about a month. So first impressions, what are your first impressions? Well, I have to say, I mean, I was excited about this as soon as I started meeting the people involved. Everybody has just an incredible heart and passion, but also, I mean, they just clearly get things done. And that was one of the things that was really exciting to me. I've done some nonprofit consulting and things before and one of the challenges in this arena is sometimes you're very limited in what you can do. That's hard for me. I want to be able to say yes as well and operate and really saying this is we want to help people and let's find whatever way we can do that. So that was one of the reasons I was drawn in the first place as I started having conversations with VCP. And I mean, I think that's really helped you. I have an amazing team here. We have an amazingly supportive community. So I'm very excited and there's a lot happening right now, so just kind of excited about what's to come in the next few months. We want to get into what's coming in the next few months. Talk a little bit about what you're learning, right? First month on the job, steep learning curve. What are you learning? Yeah, I mean, I think I'm really trying to absorb a lot from the program side and understanding how Ash and Steve do their work. You know, we spent some time in Kansas City as well, just kind of talking with people who've been involved a long time, getting a little bit of the history, but also knowing that we're all growing, changing, expanding, kind of just getting everybody's little piece of their understanding. One of the things I saw when I was working in Denver is the population I was working with there was largely veterans as well, so I'm not new to the homelessness issue. I am relatively new to specifically serving veterans, but I saw there that we had like 20% of the group that we were serving in Denver that was also veterans and so just kind of learning the unique challenges that they might face. I mean, I like you, I'm somewhat surprised at the limitations of the VA. I think community members are surprised by that. I've seen it to some degree with my father and his own experiences, but I think just the way that our case managers navigate some of those challenges is that's definitely a learning curve for me and I'm just very impressed at the work that BCP's doing. So this will be a little more abstract kind of question about learning, but I'm guessing that there's a lot, over time you'll have more of an answer to this, but a lot you'd like us to learn, right? The rest of the community, even in your own learning curve, and I know because we've had a chance to interview Mark, even this is the third, actually third kind of iteration of a backstory on the project from one of your very early visits here with Chris Stout and Kevin was part of that with Bonnie Fenley when we were still doing it as a podcast. So there's a lot for us, the rest of us to learn. Give us some signals about the things you'd like us to be learning along with you as we move along. Yeah, I mean, I think in terms of serving individuals, I really hope that people ask questions about what are the things that veterans are facing and why is this project so important, what's missing in our community? And I think sometimes we put labels on things, homelessness in general gets a little bit of a label put on it, we kind of put people in categories. I think for me, the big thing is understanding individuals challenges and really asking the questions about that and being open to having conversations around that in our community. I'm also learning a lot in terms of just actually building this community and that's a big learning curve for me as well. I think just asking the questions and really that's, I think Longmont is super involved in a wonderful community that does that and gets involved in ask questions and is a part of helping us to tackle those things. So I mean, that's what I would encourage people to do is just stay connected, ask questions and be a part of our community. So part of what we need to learn is that we still have a lot to learn about homelessness and generally about the specific needs of this segment of the community. When people talk about homelessness, because I'm in this conversation myself frequently, we kind of just generalize the entire population of long runners or residents of any municipality that are housing insecure or homeless and the needs are so different and what people bring to those needs is so different that we really do need tailored responses or personalized responses and that's part of what we get to do. There are some things that distinguish this project from other veterans outreach projects across the country. Can you talk about some of those things that distinguish or differentiate this one from what you might see someplace else? Yeah, I mean, I think there's several components to it and I think that the tiny house portion, that's one of it. I mean, that's obviously a very unique way to kind of tackle a problem that has been a problem for a long time. But I think there's so much happening outside of that too and the work that Ash and Steve are already doing in Longmont on the case management side of things, really we're looking at the whole person and so whether it's, you know, there's a more immediate need than housing for some beds and let's look at that first. Tapping into all those community resources, I know Ash works with like 45 different community resources so we're very connected to other support services and the experts in those areas because we're not experts in a lot of those areas. Just navigating it is a big part of her job and I think, again, it just comes down to looking at that whole person and so for some people that does mean navigating VA services for others, it means going somewhere else and tapping into other community services and you know, I think it's amazing that someone can stay in the tiny home village for up to two years that for a lot of people just solving that initial, I don't have anywhere to go, it's really stressful to live in that every day and it's hard to like make it to a job on time and worry about appointments and navigating all these other things so for a lot of people that doing that first is gonna be really important but I think the thing that I think is really unique about this is we do look at every individual's needs and really tailor it to what they need in the moment and what they're gonna need ongoingly. So people who are watching this, maybe some who will watch this for the first time or learn about it for the first time, will have heard about the tiny home village, right? The Veterans Community Project Tiny Home Village. I still get questions as I interact with folks around town about where is that and when are we gonna see stuff coming out of the ground? And so give us an idea, right? We're gonna start to see stuff coming out of the ground. What are we gonna see? I'm relatively new to this project but I've been hearing rumblings as a Longmont resident for a long time too, right? And I think these guys have been here kind of waiting and doing the work alongside the community to get this going for a couple of years. So it's exciting to actually see some things happening. We do have a, we poured slab on our foundation of our community center out there this week. And my understanding is we'll have framing that starts going up. So you'll actually see things start to go vertical which is very exciting. All the work that's been put into getting here, it's gonna be exciting to see some things happening. And in about six to eight weeks we'll have tiny homes actually going up and that's a big part done in partnership with the community. So individuals watching this program can actually come out and help us build those which is really exciting. Listen to that Longmont. There's gonna be a volunteer opportunity here and we'll talk more about the timing and the specifics of that. But you made reference to a community service center. So there's a slab that's been poured but you're actually, we're gonna see behind Home Depot on the west side of town south between Rogers and Nelson Road, right? We're gonna start to see some framing coming out of the ground on a community center. Right, and that's the residential community center. So that's where individuals who are living in the village will do their one-on-one case management. It's where they'll gather for community with other residents, participate in classes that we might have there, people coming in from the public to potentially again community partnering with us and bringing some things in. So that'll be a really active kind of hub for that community. And that will start going up first and then you'll start seeing the homes coming up. Our outreach center will continue to exist and that's the work we're already doing on Main Street but that'll be more central to those. So be a little more specific on Main Street and Main Street and 12th. Main Street and 12th, yep. We're in the Old Briarwood Hotel for a long time residence there. It's a Longmont Housing Authority building now. So we're in the front part of that building and yeah, it's pretty centrally located in Longmont Bay and in an old part of town. So... What should people know as they start to see these tiny homes come out of the ground? I know that there's particular consideration given to design, configurations based on what you know about what the needs of the residents will be. Can you talk about that? Yeah, and Mark can add to this but that's one of the things I thought was really awesome too because we were founded by combat veterans I think there was a lot of thought put into exactly one, what does an individual need when they're staying with us but two, what are some of the things we should be conscious of? So they are really trauma-informed design. There's thought put into the fact that veterans often will want their back against the wall and wanna see the visible entrance in the room. The windows are only on one side which I think is partially for that purpose but also to provide privacy so that your neighbors aren't looking right into your home. It is someone's home and we want it to feel like home. So, and I think for those of you who haven't seen the model I would encourage you if we're out in the community we do bring it to community events and I know we'll be at the rhythm on the river. We'd love for you guys to take a look. I think everyone's surprised when they step into it it really does feel like a home and I think that's what we want. We want it to feel like home. There are tiny homes and then there are tiny homes and these are tiny homes that were designed with the purpose or considerations in mind. There's not just some standard blueprint. Right. We also did this. It's housing with dignity was really our goal so they got, you know, granite counters, tile backs, glass, wooden floors. All sorts of things went into this. More than absolutely the trauma-informed design with the bed in the back and things like that. Above and beyond that it's a really nice place to live in. So we've got folks that go from homelessness to a really nice home. That should, in my opinion, be the standard. It shouldn't be like, well, this works because it's sheltered. It's way more than sheltered. It is their home. Even though it's temporary for them, it's their home. It's fully furnished. It has a bed and, you know, again through the kindness of the community it's fully furnished. It's got the quilt on the bed from an organization here that does the quilts for us. You tensils and plates and things like that. And actually when they leave they get to take all that stuff with them and then we have volunteers that come in and donors that will help us out to the houses again and we set it all up and we do it again. I want to be, before we finish I want to go come back to this and be more specific about the kind of what's the list of things that people ought to know about that the project needs, that it's easy for the community to provide if they just know what you need. But that said, there are buildings coming out of the ground without programming and without personnel like Ash. It's only structure, right? It's the heart of that, right? The programming that really matters. So let's talk about, Ash, what have you been up to here? You've been at this for a while. We're waiting to see stuff kind of out of the ground but you've been doing this work now for two years in town? I'm a year and a half. Year and a half. So tell us about you, about what word did you bring to this project? Why are you in this project? And let's talk about what you're doing in this project and we'll come back to the issues of accountability and what that means in this project, et cetera. Sure, so I'm an Army brat and joined the Army when I was 17. I turned 18 in basic and wound up marrying an Army brat. There was a friend of mine in middle school and it's just the Army has been my entire life. So it wasn't so hard for me to transition into a role-serving veteran. Initially I got into this, I had backgrounds in publishing. I never thought that I would be in this type of role but I was hired on as a community health worker for mental health partners initially. And they needed a female veteran who would be able to engage with the population. And I was like, okay, I will give it a try. We'll see how it goes. And I fell in love with not only being in the community and helping people, having the opportunity to build a program from the ground up and do that problem solving of like, okay, how do we help people? Was so incredible. And I think I was in the position for a month or two at most before BCP was coming to Longmont. We had this great meeting and I was like, oh no, I need to go. I need to make- It was a calling. Yes, I was like, okay, I need to make myself indispensable. So I had my Rolodex of all my veteran contacts that I could provide because I was like, I want to help you guys. This is incredible. And however I can help, I want to volunteer, I signed up to volunteer. And then when I was brought on, I was like, this is it. Like I am thrilled to be able to look at, okay, what is Kansas City done? How do we adapt that for the needs of Longmont and Northern Colorado? Because there are a lot of things that are different between the villages and having the opportunity to just talk with people who are working in Kansas City. What has worked for you? What hasn't? And make it to where it works here with our team and our community has been incredible. Give us examples of the kind of work you're doing. You don't have places to house vets yet. No. That'll come hopefully by Christmas time or Thanksgiving. But you've been at this for a while. So give us an example, an idea of the kind of work that you're doing now. And there may be some signals there or ways for people to help as well with the programming and services. We, before we even had the Outreach Center, Cammie, Cadwell and I were, before that, Sean Anderson and Cammie were running around trying to find veterans where they were. We didn't have an office. So we were working from our cars, from parking lots. We were driving to meet veterans all over Northern Colorado because they couldn't get to Denver for services, especially during the pandemic. It was really difficult. People don't have money to get to Denver on the bus or they have a service animal and they can't do it. So we were able to serve people that way. And now that we have the Outreach Center, people are starting to know that we're here and that's the biggest thing is having people understand we exist and we're here to help. So we're working with partner agencies and building all these relationships, homeless solutions for Boulder County and Built for Zero is one of our biggest partners. We will be talking about human services and volunteers of America. For anybody that is eligible for VA services or eligible for SSVF, we wanna make sure that they get connected to the right people so that they're getting their needs met and we're gonna be working with the case managers. So we're open to co-case management. Hey, whatever you guys can do that we can't do, awesome. If there's something that you guys don't do or a veteran's no longer eligible for your program, send them our way. That way the needs are getting met a little faster too because things go a little bit slow when you're working with, if you're working with one agency they can only provide one thing but if you're working with multiple agencies who can get you covered on all sides, that has helped move things along a little bit faster, I think. So it sounds like you've been real intentional about not duplicating or replicating efforts, finding where the gaps are, filling those gaps and then coming in behind if services have run out for somebody who still needs them. Absolutely. We mentioned earlier accountability. I know that's a big part of this project. You don't take a federal dollar, which is important I think for people to be reminded that this is totally based on the fundraising or the gifting, the investment that communities are willing to make. But regardless of where the money comes from there's a high level of accountability, a recipient or beneficiary, a vet who is willing to work with the project. There are expectations. Talk about those expectations. We definitely want somebody to be as transparent as possible. Like if we're very real with the veterans that come in and they need help, we're like, hey, we wanna see your bring statements, we wanna see what the issues are because something may on the surface seem like, okay, the Band-Aid fixed, we could fix this, but are you going to be having issues next month? What are the problems that made you come here in the first place? So we wanna make sure that, hey, is there a substance use problem here? Are you drinking a little bit too much? Or did you just have a divorce? Do you need connection to mental health services? Have you been to a doctor recently? We wanna make sure that the person is taken care of, not just whatever the need is that they came in for. We wanna look at, okay, what else is going on with you so that we can make sure that you're fully supported and getting connected to where you need to. So if they're transparent with us, the more we know, the better. Well, and I've heard Mark in other conversations talk about the rare occasion where somebody might wanna try to game the project or game the system and how the project deals with that, calling people to account with the values and the discipline they learned in the military. That that's part of the experience, that there's something from that experience that can get called forward again and be activated. There's one of the things that, Ash and I, if that comes and says, well, you don't understand. Okay, tell us what we don't understand, right? I mean, we've been there, done that. I was in Iraq, I mean, we deployed. We get all this, right? So one, that helps take that excuse away. Not everyone who works at VCP is a vet and that's okay. We all understand those sort of where people are coming from and then being able to attack that. And Ash is very, she minimizes honestly the work that she does. She sounds so, it's like, oh, it's, you know, just we do the little bit of this and little bit of that. Oh my gosh, I mean, these are salt of the earth people that every day are listening to issues that people have. And she is one of the folks that will just, she's not quitting until she solves that problem. And that, again, is partnering with other agencies. That means coming up with our own solutions. Affordable housing is an issue here. Ash has already helped house a number of veterans. And so we're working directly with some property managers to find solutions to, I'm not sure I want to take that government voucher for this person. Well, if we provide accountability, Ash, provides accountability, goes and visits that person while they're living there. They have a job, they have all these things. She will make sure that they don't, whatever, mess up the place or do things that would impact your other folks in the community that you have management over with that work. And so she literally is building these relationships with private organizations as well as public organizations to just solve a problem. Hey, I need to house somebody. Here's how that's gonna work. Somebody needs a mattress. That was one of the first things we did. A vet and her son moved into an apartment and didn't have beds. And so we just go to work and make sure that that happens, right? I think that's another important part of the story. You don't have tiny homes yet and yet you've housed or have helped get housed a number of veterans through the partnerships with other services or other agencies and helping vets work through whatever that bureaucracy is and meet those standards and providing the kind of scaffolding they need to get where they need to be and understanding what those expectations are. Once they're there. Well, last year we helped house 22 veterans. This year we've helped house eight veterans. So think about that, Longmont. That's 30 people who are housed who wouldn't be before we have the tiny homes constructed. Yes, and that's what's really exciting is that we're gonna be able to continue doing this through the Outreach Center. So if somebody's not eligible for the residential program or they're just not ready for it yet, that doesn't mean we're not gonna help them. We're still gonna be able to work with them through the Outreach Center to make sure that they get their needs met. Yeah, so when the tiny homes are constructed, I heard Jim make reference to the two years. Talk about what that experience is like. What if somebody needs more than two years, less than two years? What if somebody has a family? What if somebody, you know, what are the permutations of this that you can help make work? Yeah, it's definitely gonna be on an individual basis. It's because, again, we are looking at the person. It's not just boxes that we're checking. Like, okay, you've got that, you've done that. Okay, you're good to go. That's not the case at all. We wanna make sure that if it's a little longer than two years, then it has to be. If you're working towards your goals, if you're continuously making progress, and it's just not time for you to leave yet, that's fine. If you just need six months and you are good to go, we are happy that you were able to transition. It doesn't matter what the timeline is really. It is, are you working toward the goals that you've set and are you ready for permanent housing? Yeah, I've heard Mark talk about that experience in Kansas City and the variability in the lengths of stays and what happens to vets who are, when they're in that setting with the kind of scaffolding they need. And some people needing longer than others, but the stories that he shared about families being reunited and vets being reconnected with their kids and all of that is inspiring. And I know that's happening in real time here, even before we have a tiny home. And as Jen mentioned too, it's like, I think people don't realize that, again, everybody assumes that homelessness is one monolithic group and that homeless vets are another sort of version of that. 20 to 30% of all homeless populations are veterans. So any given night in the United States, there's 40,000 veterans sleeping on the streets. That's the ones that are sleeping on the streets, not the ones that are couch surfing right now about to end up on the street. And our attitude is that these tiny house villages all over the country can solve that problem. It's unacceptable, it's just not insurmountable. We can go after that. And so it's really that focus on they can stay as long as they want, as long as they're making progress. They just have to be willing to say, okay, I'll deal with the accountability. We also have in our community of houses, and we've seen this work in Kansas City, we have 49 tiny houses there. And for us, it's a shipmate, for my army friends, it's a battle buddy. You're battle buddy, you're a shipmate next door to you. It's barracks style living without the barracks, right? So somebody in their tiny house knows that you're supposed to be going to your doctor's appointment at eight, and it's 740 and you're not out the door yet. They'll come knock on your door, right? The case manager isn't there first. Your shipmate next door is gonna come knock on your door like, hey, why aren't you up for your appointment? So we have a lot of group accountability from just the residents that live in the community above and beyond that then. So you've got veterans helping veterans, which by the way happens out on the street. And you're talking about that. People feel like, oh, if you're out on the streets, then you're just, you're flailing around. And there are some people with missions. There's a vet in Kansas City that helped us build some of our first tiny homes a few years ago. And but he refused to move into one of our tiny homes because there were still folks living on the streets. And his job was to make sure that they were safe. And so he had lived on the streets for almost, now it'd be about 20 years. And his job was just to make sure. So there is a lot of compassion. There is a lot of purpose to even folks that are living on the streets. And part of Ash's job is to make sure that they understand that they can still have that purpose. We just don't want them living on the streets, right? And so like I said, she understates honestly a lot of what she does. It's a lot of hard work. And this is really where the rubber meets the road and it's with our case management. So I want all of you to talk about your best hopes for this project. And just one data point. You mentioned 49 homes, tiny homes in Kansas City. We're going to see 26 homes built here. Kansas City a little bigger than Longmont. So proportionally, we probably are going to provide. But I know that's not the full range of services or housing options. But I know you have high hopes, best hopes for this project. Who will share some of your best hopes long term? Yeah. So I have huge hopes, of course, for this. I'm so excited about it. I really would love to see our success, the success that they had in Kansas City, obviously had a trickle effect. It had just everybody wants a village in their city. And I would really love to see what we're doing be successful so that they see, oh, we can do this for not just veterans. We can do this for the general population as well. Because we know that Denver Metro is very much high on the homelessness issue. There's a, they're behind New York and LA for the highest homes in this population. So I would really love for us to kind of be that little shining star. Oh, you want to be the change that you want to see in the world. Absolutely. I want them to be able to go, OK, they're doing it. Let's do what they're doing. But general population. I mean, I can echo that. Definitely, I'm working in Denver for many years in the homeless population. I would like to see some examples of what's possible when people say, we're going to get this done. We're going to do it as a community and come together as opposed to saying, we can't do it. And here's the reasons why. I'm really excited that long months behind us in that. For me, a lot of the thing I've seen, it is kind of these misconceptions, too. And I really hope that we're a part of breaking down people's misunderstandings and misconceptions. And that we're creating some dialogue in the community for people to understand what people are really going through. And that it's not just this box experience that a lot of people think it is. Hopefully this conversation helps to encourage some of that. Yes. I mean, I would like to see us be some, to be that voice for people, too, and to create the dialogue in the community for people to understand. And then, yeah, again, not just veterans, but also understanding what other groups might be going through and how this might be replicable. If I may just sum that to you. First off, for VCP, it's world domination. I mean, tiny houses everywhere for homeless veterans so that there's no one sleeping on the streets. Above and beyond that, though, there's a really unique thing going on in Longmont, if I can mention really quick about this is literally and joking, tended groundbreaking. What we're doing here is that HMS, the developer, has donated land. So we now own land here in Longmont, 2 and 1 half acres of land. They donated all of the sewer, water, electric infrastructure for us on that land, as well as land for Habitat, by the way. So Habitat for Humanity, St. Brain, has also made. It's an important another part of the story. Yeah, absolutely. So the developer believes that they're building a subdivision, the developer. And it's going to be 457, 459 housing units total. It'll be. It's the Mountbrook development on the west side of Longmont. So it'll be condos, single family, and townhouses anywhere from their hoping to be in the upper twos, 300-ish thousand for condos all the way to $900-plus thousand dollars for the single family. And there'll be two pools in the tennis court and all those sorts of things. You expect high-end amenities in a high-end community. The Kevin and the development company, HMS, they feel like another amenity in every community should be compassion. So again, they put their money where their mouth is donated land, sewer, water, electric infrastructure for our 26 tiny houses. And so our veterans will have access, for example, to the pools and to the tennis courts. We are a part of this Mountbrook subdivision. This is the only place in the nation where we have, as part of a high-end planned community, homeless people living as part of that. So again, it's groundbreaking in terms of that. In Kansas City, we did. So my background is real estate. And so housing is important to me. Also, I look at the values of things, right? In Kansas City, we had the land that we had. It was about five acres of land. Retail on that land would have been about $40,000 a city donated it to us with $500 was a donation. We paid $500 for it. We helped with the city, put in sewer, water, electric infrastructure, built our tiny house village. We have had it re-appraised. It's over $1.5 million. That was pre-pandemic numbers. So I'm sure that now as the United States gone up or higher. So that narrative is we moved homeless folks to an area of Kansas City and re-raised the property value of the property that they're on. Not only that, we found out that an adjacent property sold for more money than they would have paid previous to us being there, and the owners of the investors of the property next door came and said, we should have bought this before you guys came. So we not only raised the property value of the property we're on in Kansas City, we raised the local property values. Now here, the developer basically said, in a sense, hold my beer, we're gonna have this. And now we're putting homeless folks as part of a high-end subdivision. The folks that buy lots initially are gonna be able to come help us build houses, things like that. So it is literally between the partnership of the community of Longmont as well as the developer. Everybody's sort of like, we're putting our money where our mouth is and we're gonna make this work. Only planned development in America where a village for homeless veterans designed into the development as part of the project. I mean, that's an important factoid, right? Now, we have some studio audience members and I want to invite the audience members. If they have a question, there's a microphone right over here to come and ask. And if not, that's okay as well, but I don't wanna shut you out of this conversation, please. Wow, I'm so glad I came tonight. This is amazing, you have my utmost respect and appreciation. And I came tonight as a representative of two organizations that work together to provide services as we say for both ends of the leash for homeless pet owners and their pets. And how do we and other organizations who wanna offer, who have things to offer, how do we get involved? How do we, who do we talk to and say, here's what we do, do you have a gap we can fill? Great question. That was one of my questions. You asked it better than I could have, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I think you're a perfect example of the types of organizations that our case management team is already working with. So connecting with them and being sure that we know what you do and how we can help one another is really important. And I think that having pets is a really important thing for a lot of us. And I think for a lot of people that might be experiencing homelessness in general, but certainly for a lot of our veterans. And that's one of the things that I think is amazing about living in the village is yes, they can have their service pets with them. They're family members like anybody else. But I would say, you know, being connected with our case managers and I think there could potentially be opportunities for groups like you to come into the community center and really talk about what you're doing in the community too and be involved in that way when we have people living there and are having them participate at that center. I don't know if there's anything you would add, Ash. But tomorrow, somebody could come to the office at 12th and maybe. Yeah, there are outreach authority, yeah. So yeah, I would say, you know, immediately connecting to our case managers even well before the village is open. But I think there's a lot of long-term opportunity to be involved. An incredible, like very, very important to know. Dogs are always welcome. So if anybody has a pet and they want to come into the outreach center, please. And cats. Please bring your pop, because we love them. All right, any other questions from the audience? We do have another question. Yes. So when these homes are built, how do you decide who goes in them? Are the people going to have a Colorado connection or are they just here? Or it seems like it's a really gnarly issue. Oh, yes. So the process is very complicated to get on, like, by-name lists and everything to try to get a voucher and get housing. But we're gonna be working with partners. We're gonna be working with veterans that are already engaged with us. But we don't have a wait list because people tend to go, oh, okay, I got a tiny home. I'm not gonna worry about it. We want to make sure we're working toward those housing goals now instead of waiting for the homes. But we'll be doing housing assessments to see if they would be a good fit for the village because we want somebody who's going to be motivated and they have goals and they just, they have that sense of community, they need that, that would be a perfect fit. So we'll be working with our partner organizations and saying like, hey, who are you working with that fits this criteria? Who do you think we should be talking to who would be a good fit for this? And so we're definitely gonna be talking to community partners and with the veterans that we're currently working with throughout Reach Center. So it's, how likely is it that a vet would say, here's what I need and part of it is housing? How likely is it you would say, sorry, we're just out of housing? Well, he would never say that. I think that's, I think people need to know that's part of the answer. Oh yeah, absolutely. It's, you're looking for ways to say yes. As gnarly as that issue might be, the commitment is to say yes and help find what they need. It's not about the 26 tiny houses. 21 of them, by the way, will be individual units. Five of them will be family units. So again, we'll have families there, which is something we learned from Kansas City of the 49 tiny houses there. There's only four family units. So we've actually increased the number of family units based on the need. But yeah, it is, it doesn't matter if all 26 are taken. Ash is not gonna say no to someone who needs housing. We've worked with individuals who are very hard to house. We've had people with felony assault that we were able to find housing for. We have people with evictions, people with pets. And if you have an eviction and a felony and a cat and you have the disability, so you need a first floor apartment. Like those barriers are, they add up and it does make it more difficult, but we don't say no. We still work to find any angle that we can. How can, who can we talk to to find a way to get you housed? So if there's anything we haven't covered, now is the time to cover it. What do you wish I had asked that I haven't? I would say, I would love for Ash to talk a little bit about the V-HOT program because that's something we didn't touch on. I mean, we touched on, there's a number of things happening outside of just the tiny home village, but that's an exciting piece of programming that we'll be launching this summer as well. Take it away Ash. Sure. We received a grant for a veteran homeless outreach team and so we got a van in Kansas City, our lovely family out there. Got us a van, got it, ADA compliant and we are going to start going into the rural areas and mountain communities and we're trying to find community partners now. So if you live in rural areas of like Weld County, Larimer, Morgan, Logan or in the mountain communities and there is a need for us to come out and we can do housing assessments, we can try to get people connected to resources because we have had veterans who were living in the mountains and they're disabled and they just got to an age where like, I can't do this anymore. Like I need housing that has running water so we've worked with those individuals. We wanna be able to go to them because everybody doesn't have the ability to come to our outreach center and get them connected with their local resources, get them boots and coats if it's in winter, get them sunscreen and first aid kits if it's in the summertime and that's what they need. We wanna make sure that we're getting the needs met of people who are a little further away from services and they're not able to access those readily. So we're gonna be hopefully having some community partners who are like, yes please come on outreach with us or please use our parking lot, we'll set up an event, we'll get the word out that you're gonna be here so that we can help serve veterans all across Northern Colorado. That's part of a strategy for scaling what you're learning and what we can do and what we can help other communities do. Anybody who watches this who says, how do I help? Where can I weigh in? Where can I contribute? No matter what I have to contribute, whether it's picking up a hammer and pounding a nail or anything else, providing transportation, what's the answer? Where do they go and what are the kinds of things that you need? It's easy, vcp.org, right? And then there's a tab for a long month, there's donate, that's one of the, every organization's gonna tell you, charitable organization's gonna tell you that donations are key. That's absolutely the case, right? So in order for Ash to be able to do, to say yes to a vet, she's gotta have those dollars so that she can say, okay, we're gonna spend them on this or do this or whatever. So that's one is vcp.org, go to donate or you can volunteer as well. And volunteering for us is, there's so many opportunities. You can help at some point, maybe need help writing a resume or helping a vet budget or taking them grocery shopping or building houses or touring people through our tiny house model that we have, we had volunteers this weekend at a tiny house show in the Denver area that was basically people would come in and tour the house, we had volunteers that helped us with that. So there are a million different ways to volunteer. What I would say is, please don't think that, well they probably don't need whatever I have to offer. Throw it out there and let's see, again, we're an organization who's designed to say yes. So come at us and let's see what we can do but vcp.org is the best way to do that. The veterans get cool shirts like these? Are the volunteers get cool shirts like these? Volunteers can purchase shirts. Okay, we're gonna purchase that. Yeah, absolutely, we have them available for purchase. All right, any other questions I haven't asked you want me to, do you want to make certain when we get a chance to answer? We do have a Facebook page and we put a call to action today that I know it's a huge ask because everybody's hurting right now but fuel cards, $25 fuel cards would be really helpful. Fuel cards, real time, personal helping to bring things out of the ground, writing checks, providing transportation. You're gonna say yes and you'd like folks to respond to that. All right, I am so grateful that you gave up part of your evening here to be with me tonight and tell the story. This is one of the great stories in Longmont and it's such a great reflection on you and it's a positive reflection on the community and if we could solve just this part of the homeless problem in Longmont, we are miles ahead of where we've been. So, to the audience that might have listened to this or watched the recording, a month from tonight, the end of July, July 27th I think is the last Monday of the month, we're gonna be back here in Longmont Public Media Studios and we welcome you. Thank you. Thanks, yeah, fun for me. I don't know about for you, but yeah.