>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

>> Our connection this hour was made with a single question for people who have been homeless.

The CEO of Open Door Mission in Rochester was on her way to Washington for a meeting with government representatives, and she'd been thinking a lot about what works in dealing with homelessness and what does not work.

So her team surveyed 86 people who had needed open door mission services, and they asked only one question have you been a recipient of a Housing First subsidy in the past 1 to 2 years?

Of the 86 people they surveyed, 60 said yes.

For Anna Valeria, this was deeply, but probably not surprising.

Housing first has become popular with a number of organizations that serve the homeless population.

It's a model that prioritizes providing immediate, permanent housing to people without prerequisites, without prerequisites like sobriety first or treatment compliance.

And it's a chicken and egg question.

The idea with Housing First is that having a stable home first will provide a foundation for individuals who can then better address other issues.

But Valeria has said that there is evidence on this, and she wants homeless policy to be guided by more evidence.

This year, Open Door Mission has operated at double their capacity for much of the year, but that is changing in certain ways.

Valeria says there are things they can do and things that they really cannot do.

And this hour we're talking about maybe a kind of tough love that the CEO wants the entire community to experience while working through the challenge of homelessness.

The CEO of Open Door Mission is Anna Valeria.

I was saying before the program, it has been too long and I'm really glad to have you back on the.

>> It's great.

>> To be back, Evan.

>> Thank you and welcome to Kaitlyn Seawright, who is the vice president of programs for Open Door Mission.

Thank you for being here as well.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me.

>> So when was that trip to Washington that you were telling our friend Mike Hennessey about?

>> This was a year or two ago at this point.

Two years, two years.

So it'll be two years in March.

Yeah.

We go every year to to D.C.

with a national network that we're part of for rescue missions.

>> So why that one question?

Why were you asking that population, 86 people?

Have you received a Housing First subsidy in the past.

>> Year.

>> Or two?

Well, because frankly, we hear a lot about Housing First being an evidence based policy and model.

It has become the one size fits all approach that the federal government adopted way back in 2013.

But it's not.

It wasn't a new concept then.

I think it actually originated the the first time it came out was under the H.W.

or the George Bush second Bush administration, and then it became really a full, full blown policy under when in 2013.

So what we know is that what we see every day is just we seem to get people back in our shelter that have just not received the right amount of services that they've needed.

And so even though there's some kind of statistics, there's not enough.

So we said, well, if we're not going to have enough outcomes data out there, then let's at least look at a snapshot within who we're seeing every day and see if we can get some information.

>> So tell me if I'm wrong here.

When 60 out of 86 people say that, yes, I've gotten a subsidy for housing first and I'm back in in your shelter to you.

It says that is not working.

>> Correct.

>> Okay.

And I want to say that I understand the idea of housing first.

I understand the theory of it, the idea that a lot of folks who experience homelessness are not just dealing with homelessness, they're dealing with not everybody, but a lot, or mental health crises, drug addiction you know, all kinds of other issues.

And so before you can deal with that, you've got to have a place to be.

And if we can give you a permanent place to be, that's your place, then you can deal with the other.

I understand the theory of that.

Why doesn't it work in your mind?

>> Absolutely.

And let me make sure that I see this right off the bat.

It does work for some people.

It absolutely does work for some people.

>> But on the population.

>> Scale, our our our point in the in that survey is to say and everything that we've seen, I mean, I've been doing this work for almost 20 years is that it can't be the only thing that we do.

It can't be the only model we we use to solve homelessness.

It can't what we're advocating, what we've been advocating for is housing.

So what we do typically in Monroe County and most districts across the country, they focus almost all of their HUD funding on the chronically homeless population was, which is a subset of the population, homeless population, which is anywhere from 15 to 25% of the overall homeless population.

All of our most of our money goes to that portion of the population.

And with that particular housing model, the permanent supportive housing, housing First model as the solution.

So what happens in any situation like that?

Is that what's left behind are the non chronically homeless population, which is often women, children, families, intact families, youth aging out of foster care.

These are the folks that are being left behind.

And we saw this happen back in 2013 when we watched several programs in right here in Monroe County.

I was on the review board at the time get defunded because we were just shifting our model, and they were the ones who were left behind.

>> Why were they defunded?

>> Because they weren't housing.

>> Because they weren't housing for they weren't permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing.

So these were transitional and emergency housing is less and less funded all the time, if at all.

>> Anything you want to add there, Kaitlyn?

>> I mean, yeah, the permanent supportive housing it it does work for a very specific type of person that tends to be like chronic medical issues that they're fully able to function and just maybe are having, like they're on SSI, they can't work.

Right.

but we see a lot of times people that return are people who are active substance use, active mental health, in addition to women, children, families and all those people that can't be served.

So our transitional housing, we have a women and children's transitional housing.

We're kind of like the only one left.

>> In a recovery program is transitional as well.

And so and there's no way we can't grow those programs because there is no funding out there for them anymore.

>> So if I were, thank God I'm not if I were the congressperson in Washington and you're coming to talk to me would it be logical for me to follow up your points here by saying, okay, let's talk housing first?

What I think Kaitlyn is saying is it can work for a subset, and the subset is not dealing with substance abuse.

maybe not dealing with mental health, but dealing with other challenges.

And we should be viewing this as a tool in the toolkit.

but when it comes to severe mental health, substance abuse issues, housing first, there's enough evidence here that we shouldn't be doing it.

It's not going to work.

People are going to loop back through the system, and there's got to be better ways.

Is that what you're saying?

>> Yeah.

We shouldn't only be doing that.

I think that's what we're saying is that it's not it's not so much.

And I think that we may see if and when, you know, we see a new HUD nofo rollout.

We're going to see that that HUD is now saying, let's bring all of the housing models and prioritize all of the housing homeless subpopulation categories as well.

Because if we're focusing all of it on one population with one housing model, everyone else is being left behind.

And then we wonder, and we have all these conversations about, gee, wow, family homelessness is on the rise again.

We've been saying this for 12 years.

You know, and because there's no there's no federal funding for these kind of programs anymore.

>> One of your predecessors at Open Door, Mike Hennessey, who used to come on this program when he was the CEO there, and Mike should come back sometime.

Mike, this is an invitation for you if you're listening.

you know, we're talking to him on his YSL show.

He was saying that in his view, the kinds of folks who are struggling now to hold down their own apartment that won't magically solve it if you just give them one and say, now deal with your other problems.

Is that too blunt or is that.

>> No, that's that's we we have guys, I was just meeting with the guys in our recovery program last week, and there were two new guys in the program, so I was getting to know a little bit about their backstory and everyone, like everyone who I talked to in recovery program, says this is different than any other program I've been to, because it actually helps me get to the root of my addiction and then and makes me actually face it.

And then not only just face it, but then learn to have the resources to support myself, not just while I'm here, but when I leave this place.

>> So what's I see you nodding there?

What is different about the programs dealing with addiction at Open Door?

>> Sure.

Yeah.

So our recovery program specifically, it's a 9 to 12 month program.

our systems out there do 28 day stays.

Sometimes the max you can do is like 90. and we are a independent living facility.

You can come, you can bring your cell phones, you can live your life just wrapped around with all of the support that you need to stay sober, reconnect with family.

we have a vocational program.

So we allow, you know, the guys to get back into work, paid work do doing all the things that they haven't done in so long with support and so that when they do transition back into the community, they are way more prepared.

and we have an aftercare program that we link them to, to.

So while they're living independently, they can still get that support.

recovery doesn't happen overnight.

It's a lifelong journey and we understand that.

>> And it's not just about sobriety, our outcomes.

We want so much more for our folks than just survival and just sobriety.

It's having a reconnecting with family members, finding a spiritual, physical, you know, support networks around you.

That's why we have them build that early.

But participation in the program is what makes the program work.

So when you kind of put people in housing and just kind of out of sight, out of mind, we're hearing that in community meetings, all, you know, we'll sit at community meetings with other folks from other agencies who really have long, long touted this.

We've got to do the Housing first and permanent supportive housing, and this is what's going to work.

And and they're here saying, well, if no one's participating in services and we wonder why they're not succeeding in the housing, and now all we're going to do is need more housing and we're never going to build enough housing if we're not getting people to the point that they are able to independently graduate from that housing, go back into the community, we're just going to need more.

>> If that's the reality and that's the evidence, then why has the system resisted changing?

>> That's a great question.

Great question.

Well, I think partly because we've built a machine that we can't just that we can't just tear apart right now.

If we did.

So, you know, so some of the concern we've heard and rightfully so, some of the concern we're hearing is when HUD releases its nofo, which is essentially how people apply for funding from HUD in every single community applies.

It's a collaborative application.

So individual agencies do not apply directly to HUD, the continuum of care through Monroe collaborates all the agencies, ranks them in order based on priorities and scoring, and submits a collaborative application.

What is expected to change in the new Nofo is going to be that agencies are going to have to show better outcomes, like show people either participating in services or increasing their employment from increasing their income from employment.

having longer stays in their programs.

So if that, if those, if those outcomes aren't met, then agencies could be looking at losing funding.

So that's the point of concern that we're seeing in our community as well.

Everybody's doing permanent supportive housing.

So what if all of these agencies either lose their funding or it gets transitioned to somewhere else?

Are people going to lose housing?

All of these questions.

These are the unknowns.

We don't really know how that's going to look.

But these are the unknowns.

But what happened and but partly why we're here and getting to answering the question is that back when we changed everything back in 2013, this is the same thing that happened.

So we shifted all the funding from having a little bit more of a diverse portfolio of emergency, transitional, permanent, rapid rehousing, and we condensed it all into this one model.

So that's why we saw many agencies and therefore people lose housing, lose funding.

And now we're seeing the results of that.

It's built over the past several years.

We're seeing the results of that now.

If we do it again, it could be.

And I'll just say it because I question if it's a really good way to do it that drastically.

It could be it could shake things up quite a lot.

And so so what I would say is we can't fix it.

We can't fix it immediately because we could people could lose housing agencies could lose funding.

But so how do we do some sort of strategic, methodical way to ease into a shift where more agencies can apply for funding and more housing models can be prioritized.

>> When you go to meet with Congressman Morelli, for example.

>> Yeah, well, I meet with any.

>> Okay.

>> Congressman in New York, I can.

>> Okay.

Anyone who's going to take your call, right?

Right here in Rochester.

That would be Joe Morelli.

>> Yes.

And I have.

>> Met with.

What are those conversations like?

>> It's a lot like this.

Honestly, a lot of the conversations I've had in D.C.

in the past few years have resulted around raising the awareness of the lack of data in HUD, and I can put it pretty simply here.

So right now, HUD releases its Aha annual housing report and in which they say this is the effectiveness of all of our programs and all of our funding.

what that is what is included in that information is all of the HUD funded programs.

What is not included in that data is all the other agencies and programs that are not receiving HUD funding.

So Baylor University did a study several years ago in which they took like six different cities and looked at all of the agencies providing homeless services, HUD funded or otherwise.

And in all six of those cities, they showed that over 60% of the homeless services that were being provided were being provided by faith based organizations and or non-funded non HUD funded organizations.

So what that means is that HUD is touting and boasting evidence based data, but it's lacking like at least 50% or more of the data that could be out there.

And so one of the things that we're trying to do as part of the City Gate Network, which is a national organization of rescue missions, is to say, is to get is to have a very intentional focus on data collection.

So we're doing that at Open Door.

Other agencies are doing that.

We're doing it nationally with our association of 350 organizations to say the data that's out there is incomplete at best, and it's incorrect at worst.

And so we need to be able to say this, all this other stuff is going on.

Emergency works, transitional works, support services work, faith based works.

All of these other programs and models are being are having so much effectiveness and such higher outcomes.

But we're missing all of that data.

And so if HUD were to have to recognize that, you know, and we have, you know, you got the National Alliance to End Homelessness, which is basically HUD's, you know what speaking, you know representative and, you know, and they're they're saying one thing, but there's this whole other set of data that could be out there.

Then we begin to start shifting the narrative a bit and maybe shifting policy.

>> Well, there's something that you and Mike talked about that surprised me a little bit.

I'm thinking back to when I first moved to Rochester in 2003, 2004, some of the early stories I remember covering were the expansion of drug courts.

So that happened in Monroe County, but that also happened in Yates County.

That happened in in places where, you know, you would talk to conservative judges who who were openly saying, I don't think I would have endorsed this model ten years ago, but I see the value of a different approach to individuals who have addiction issues.

And so drug Court became this model, that it didn't really matter.

The political nature of a county or a place.

It was in a lot of places.

I have not kept up on this.

The way you and Mike were talking about is like drug courts gone.

Is it gone?

>> It's gone.

Drug court.

Yeah.

Because.

Not because.

Because through bail reform and other things, drug offenses aren't criminal anymore.

So they're not at risk of going to jail.

The whole point of drug court was to prevent individuals from going to jail.

If you go through treatment, if you go through these certain processes or living situations, you can avoid jail.

But now jail is not really a concern if it's a drug offense.

So that's why we see more of it.

We have neighbors complain to us about, you know, open air drug use around the corner.

And we have to say we don't allow it in our shelter, but we can't control what's being allowed on the streets.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

open air drug use of different kinds, though.

I mean, I think there's got to be some open air drug use that you can not do, right?

I mean.

>> I mean, is it a is it against the law?

Sure.

But, I mean, with bail reform, I mean, you have a lot of people.

>> Not being enforced.

>> It's not being enforced.

>> You're saying it's not being enforced.

>> Drug court.

>> Probably still exists, I think, not to the capacity that it used to, because there was accountability for a lot of things that we currently don't have the accountability for.

And that's not to say I mean, Rochester, there's our city needs a lot of love right now.

And so there's a lot of things happening and some things, you know, are taken seriously.

And then there's some other things that, I mean, just I mean, yeah, yes.

>> If it still exists, then we certainly don't hear about it when before we heard about it all the time it was people would come to our shelter saying, I got drug court tomorrow, I've got to do this.

We do not hear that at all anymore.

and so if it's if it's there, to Caitlin's point, it's in a limited capacity and not as many people are having to go through it.

>> So this fits into the shift you've seen over the last couple of decades that you feel there's less accountability in the system.

Is that fair?

>> Yes.

For sure.

Yeah.

>> we're going to talk in a moment about what the last year has been like, especially, and a new partnership that you have.

We're going to talk about what the future might look like, but I want to also ask both of you if you think that the model that you use, that you feel very strongly about could work if it were secular.

>> Great question.

the short answer is it depends on what you mean by work.

So get so getting people off the street.

Yes, of course that it's going to work talking about full, full life human life transformation fully incorporated back with family job housing, all of that.

I still think it could work.

how effective in long term it is.

You know, again, if when this this is we believe this is, you know, people who are believers that I know if I rely on my own behavior, whether or any sort of man made institution or program or anything, we say all the time, policies don't change people and programs don't change people.

Jesus changes people, and we just provide an environment for that to happen.

Could it work?

Yes, it could work to help get people sober, get people jobs, get people housing.

Yes, all of those things could work on a secular environment as long as support services are part of it.

how fulfilling and transformative it is.

I think becomes the make the nature of a faith based program.

>> Do you want to add to that, Caitlin?

>> Yeah, I mean, I think Anna said that really, really.

Well what we do is, is quite literally half and half.

I mean, half of it is Jesus.

We give the gospel and we we love people the way that we're called to love people.

But the other 50% of that is supportive services.

I mean, we provide case management.

We provide that therapy opportunity, you know, on a counseling level not a, you know, clinical mental health level.

But we link people with families, we repair broken relationships and all of those things are possible everywhere else, too.

>> Yeah, yeah, some of our program participants still go to their outpatient programs and, you know, at Evelyn, Brandon or places in the community.

we provide that foundation for them when they're with us.

>> You know, I don't know if you know, but there's been occasional critics of the Open Door mission over the years.

>> Yeah.

>> And to the extent that there are sometimes the criticism I hear is that it is exclusionary if people aren't going down the path of the gospel, that they could be getting the reforms that they need for their lives.

But you would exclude them, you'd kick them out.

If they're not going down that road.

Fair, unfair.

>> Absolutely not.

>> Absolutely not true.

>> No, no.

No one is forced to convert.

That's the beauty of the gospel, is you don't have to force it on anybody.

So when so what we what we have learned is it's part of who we are and what we do.

So they're going to be exposed to it.

If they're with us, how much of it they subscribe to on their own, or that becomes part of who they are, is between them and God.

You know, we provide the environment.

That's that's really what we do.

So and again, when you're coming to, for example, our recovery program, it is a faith based program program.

We use a curriculum called the Genesis Process.

So that includes emotional, clinical and spiritual aspects of recovery.

But so we don't neglect those things.

Like Kaitlyn said, we provide all of those foundational practical elements of services.

But with the added foundation of faith.

And so but to to say that we would expect people or force people or exclude anyone who's not going that way is is absolutely.

>> Not true.

And it's actually.

>> Quite the opposite.

I think we open our door for for those that aren't following the Lord, you know, I mean, that's kind of what we're there for.

>> Our job is to plant the seed.

>> So you said something interesting, Anna.

You talked about the definition of what works, right?

Like how do we define what works?

I think most people, when they think about homelessness, they think a program is working.

If a person is no longer homeless and won't be homeless again, that's probably the baseline.

and I know it's more complicated than that.

And I think both of you have illustrated exactly the challenge.

Are you sober?

Are you able to hold down work?

Do you have relationships with your family, or are you still estranged from people?

are you able to secure your own housing?

Can you take care of yourself?

all of those things are complicated, but in general let's flip the survey a little bit.

If I took 100 people who you've served in the last five years.

How many are homeless now and likely.

I mean, do you know what your numbers are for people who are no longer homeless and won't aren't likely to be homeless, given the interventions you've had?

>> So that, again, I would go back to that depends on the program.

So so we have six different we have well, multiple programs.

So an emergency shelter.

What I could say is that we're we're going back to we're making our way back to pre-COVID numbers where we're averaging about 10 to 12 people per month, that we're getting into permanent housing.

>> Which is phenomenal.

>> Which is that's what I say.

That's pre-COVID numbers.

It's been hard to do that since.

Since then and our recovery program, you could talk about recovery in cold water.

>> In terms.

>> Of.

>> Our recovery.

>> Program and our cold water.

That's the women and children's transitional living.

the success rate there is pretty high.

I think our graduation rate is somewhere around 75%, which is really well, considering I mean, we're a small program.

and you basically there for a whole year, you know and our women and children's program, I would argue, is probably our, our most successful.

We don't see a lot of women and children enter back into homelessness.

And those that do end up calling us.

>> So we come back.

>> And may have to come back.

but that doesn't happen very often.

the transitional, if it's done well, it really does work.

You don't really send people out until they're ready, you know.

>> Well, sure.

And then, you know, the other maybe the a parallel criticism over the years has been that you're too tough on people with addiction or, you know, you talk, you both talk about accountability and the need for accountability and what it means to truly change your life and give yourself a chance not to be homeless anymore.

talk to me about how you approach issues of addiction and maybe how you think that differs with other approaches.

And, in this area, in the city.

>> Yeah.

>> So it's an interesting view.

I mean, I think open door mission arguably serves probably the most people in active addiction.

We meet people where they're at.

We love them right where they are.

And if you're ready to get off the streets, if you're ready to put something away, we'll support you with that.

If you're not, we'll also support you with that to a degree.

Right.

>> But what does.

>> That mean?

>> Yeah.

So so that's what we say.

We say we meet people where they are, but we love them too much to leave them there.

So if someone's going to come to us in active addiction, they're stumbling into the door, right?

We're going to let them in.

>> Which happens.

Absolutely.

>> Yes.

Absolutely.

We're going to let them in.

Can they bring their drugs with them?

No, they cannot, but they can come in.

They can have a place to stay.

They can have a meal, they can have a shower.

They can, you know.

>> You don't allow for supervised use.

>> No.

Correct.

No, no.

>> Absolutely not.

And and if that's the case then so by letting them in we again we're just planting that seed.

So they have a place to go so that when they're ready they know where to go.

But until they're ready they can also still come back to us every single day.

>> Yeah.

And they do.

And they do.

>> Do you think other organizations are not enforcing accountability enough in this area?

>> I think that, believe it or not.

So we we open door really could arguably be called a low barrier shelter.

in terms of the fact that we do not again, we're not going to allow use in in our buildings.

because that puts not only the guest, but also staff and others at risk.

So it really is a matter of safety.

One of the things we try, really, we're very intentional about is a really good balance of safety and and compassion.

That's, that's really what we're trying to do.

And so but I think that people, people would actually be maybe surprised to know that we're actually probably one of the more low barrier, low barrier shelters there are right now.

Other shelters are probably more strict than we are when it comes to that.

Yeah.

And especially from the perspective of of who's allowed in the shelter, you know, so we are 100% hospitality beds, which means that you do not have to have funding or DHS approval in order to receive a bed at our shelter.

And we're one of, if not, you know, one of the only shelters left that even take hospitality beds because funding has such has been such a huge issue for I mean, funding is more of a barrier than I think other other other other things.

>> So okay.

>> And last point on this, then when it comes to addiction, you don't allow someone to come in with drugs.

Obviously there's no supervised use going on, but if someone is continually intoxicated or high throughout a tenure with you, what kind of intervention do you or what kind of lines do you draw then even, you know they're not using inside your building, but you know they're using.

>> Yeah.

I mean, I think that's a case.

>> Management thing.

You know, I, I was in case management for a long time.

I'm a social worker too.

I kind.

of come across people all the time who are just not ready.

And to me and to open permission, that's okay.

I mean, I think that there are some people, like you said, a ten year really, really long time where we kind of give an ultimatum that just say, hey, like, are you ready to, you know, change your lives.

And, and oftentimes because we're so kind and so gracious, people do.

Right?

You give them that autonomy, you give them that option, that choice.

And as long as they're, you know, taking steps to at least show some sort of internal desire, we support that.

I think naturally, just people want to be on the streets and that's where they're at in their life.

And that's also something that we're not going to refute either.

>> If they're in that place.

Yeah.

Because like Kaitlyn said, if someone's going to continue to do that, that that's the nature of addiction, right?

So that's and that's what we're there for.

We're there to be if it takes, you know, ten times or 20 times of them coming back and forth to us to get to that point that they're like, okay, all right, I'm ready.

Then then that's what it takes.

That's why emergency shelter is difficult to fund.

And maintain.

And place.

We've tried to buy a new building twice, which we can't.

>> Attributes to the.

>> Numbers like the increase.

Right.

The year that we're going to talk about that we've had the increase is is we understand that there are some people who are not ready.

So you have those people.

In addition to the homelessness that's now also happening for the one timers, the first timers, yeah, the situational the unique guests.

Yeah.

So that's what attributes to it too.

>> Well, when we come back from our break, we're going to talk about what comes next and what this year has been like for the Open Door mission, which has been operating at almost double capacity for much of the year, which is a challenge enough.

And then I saw Gino Fanelli story about a partnership with Madonna della Strada, and I thought, now this is strange bedfellows.

You never know who's going to end up working together.

We're going to talk about what that means and how that's going to work going forward.

We're talking to Anna Valeria, who is the CEO of Open Door Mission, Caitlyn Seawright, the vice president of programs for Open Door Mission.

And we're talking about the state of homelessness and what they frankly think.

We have learned enough of regarding evidence, what works, what doesn't, and what should come next.

And we'll talk about it on the other side.

I'm Evan Dawson Tuesday on the next Connections, the president of Alfred University, Mark Zupan, joins us in the first hour, he's been writing about the value of higher ed at a time when more Americans and more students are questioning its value in the age of A.I.

We'll talk about that and more in our second hour, investigative journalist David Cay Johnston joins us talking about a lot of things, including what the judge in the Comey trial should do and not do.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola center, supporting residents to become active members of the community, from developing life skills to gaining independence.

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Org.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Anna Valeria is the CEO of Open Door Mission, and spent some time recently sitting on a bench talking to some folks.

I mean, that's a short way of saying.

>> 24 hours.

>> For 24 hours, 24 hours.

What were you doing?

>> So it was part of a national for World Homeless Day on October 10th.

We partnered with City Gate Network, and we had about 70 to 100 CEOs from rescue missions across the country take 24 hours sitting on a bench.

It happened to be a very, very cold night.

and so we're out there from 3:00 pm on Thursday to 3 p.m.

Friday, and we had almost 30 interviews.

So that was some were planned ahead of time.

We invited all of our elected officials.

We invited and and then we had time open for people to just show up.

And I think the best part about that whole experience was the diversity of conversation that happened.

I love that we're, you know, we're having this conversation with you.

I just think so much more this needs to happen.

You know, I sat and talked to, you know, my my friend Rachel Barnhart, who, you know, her and I are good friends, longtime friends.

But we you know, we see things a little differently on a lot of things.

>> Do you.

>> Think and but, you know, when it comes to the issue of homelessness, to be able to sit there and say, okay, you, you know, how do we figure this out?

Because we all really do ultimately want the same thing.

It's a matter of how we get there and what the long term plan is, you know?

And so I think to have so many conversations, some with people who are really more like cozy on the bench with us and some are like, oh boy, you know, what am I getting into?

It was just, I think we need more of those things, I really do.

I think there's so much more than that we have in common than we realize.

>> I've never met anyone who works on homeless issues in this community who doesn't have an amazing heart, who is absolutely dedicated to it.

you know, that has been the sister Grace model.

I mean, people who truly believe in the cause and want to help people and to start with, it's a challenging, challenging realm to be in.

So a lot of love for that.

But did you learn anything in that 24 hours, Anna, that you go, you know, this is a new perspective that I needed.

>> I yes, actually, because you made me think of that when you mentioned earlier no supervised drug use.

They had a conversation with Stephanie Forrester from recovery.

Recovery always who they're they really do a lot of the harm reduction focus.

And and we have pretty you know, we've been pretty vocal about the fact that we don't really support safe injection sites and things like that.

but so I was able to have that conversation with her and really learn kind of the, the motivation and the intent behind people who are really focused on that in, in the front lines.

And it was a good conversation in terms of understanding that they are really trying to encourage people to get help.

Sometimes the misconception is that we're just kind of acknowledging and condoning and supporting the use.

But there but she was coming at it from a perspective of, well, this is if this is happening now, but we're still out there trying to make sure that they have access to beds.

If they if they're ready for it.

>> So that's interesting.

So I don't I doubt it changed your mind on supervised use.

But you understand what they're saying is we are trying to be the conduit to to ending the use entirely.

Yes.

Which is important.

But in general with supervised use, which has been debated in many cities across the country.

Why do you oppose.

>> because the one study that one of the early studies that was done from this, it was up in Canada somewhere, was in the first year that they had done they had a supervised injection site.

There was something like 300 overdoses were prevented.

But of those 300 overdoses, like 60, it was like 60 of the same person, like the one person was like, or it was the 60 something.

It was like the same person or the same like dozen people were the majority of the.

So it was multiple overdose preventions.

But really the same folks being having to needing that service or needing that support.

And so what the way we see it is, it's not necessarily that we oppose having an option to obviously, to prevent overdose.

We just want we we don't want survival and just not dying to be the best that we can do.

And so that's why it was so helpful to talk to Stephanie, because that's kind of the way we see it.

And I still I do believe that, you know, because we do want more because like we said, it's not just about sobriety.

It's not just about housing.

We want to see true life transformation because every single person we see who's battling like this is just feels completely hopeless and feels devastated.

They're broken.

So it's so just being sober isn't going to necessarily solve that.

And just having a roof over your head isn't going to necessarily solve your hopelessness.

So we want people to experience complete life transformation.

And unfortunately, it just takes more than that.

>> Are you hopeful that the new administration's border policy at the southern border is going to at least stem some of the flow?

Are you seeing any evidence yet?

that drugs in the community are going to be different or lower quantity?

>> I think it'll take time to see that effect.

but certainly it's a step in the right direction.

are we seeing less use and less influx?

No, not at all.

But again, I think that's going to take time.

>> Okay.

Is it plausible that in the next few years you think that there will be less fentanyl out there, less?

>> Absolutely.

>> You think so?

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

That's pretty straightforward.

Do you think there's anything happening in this community that would reignite the conversation about supervised use, or do you think it's we're moving away from that as a community?

I'm not about what you what I'm talking about what you're hearing from policymakers.

>> in the local community in New New York.

I do not think that conversation is going away.

>> I don't think it's going away.

Okay.

No.

>> I think there's probably more like.

Support, maybe the wrong word, but there's going to be more opportunities for, like, harm reduction, I think for sure.

>> In general is harm reduction a term that you think is either the wrong term or the wrong approach.

>> You know?

I don't I don't know that that I would say that, but I, I think that we use terms like harm reduction, housing first, evidence based as kind of nice ways to put really complex issues that that we're just, you know, we put nice labels on things to make it feel good and sound good.

But there's just a lot more depth that we have to explore.

>> So harm reduction is a lot of different things.

Yes, but sometimes it is.

We've been talking about supervised use that would fall into that category.

Others in general, do you think the tools that folks who are in favor of harm reduction are pointing to are tools that you say are not the right ones to use?

Is that a fair description?

>> Say that.

Say that one more time.

>> Harm reduction is not just one thing.

>> Right?

>> But in general, it's a series of tools that look to mitigate harm for someone who people are worried about dying.

And in general, do you think that the tools that are used by people who favor harm reduction are the wrong ones?

>> No, not necessarily.

Some of the tools are are highly effective.

It's really just a matter of, again, what we don't want to do is replace, because I think one of the things that we've seen, similar to the housing issue is if the focus on harm reduction mitigates or eliminates or even reduces our focus on recovery, actual recovery, getting into beds, getting, you know, drug court, bringing drug court back, some of these things that really because sometimes yes, it absolutely does take pressure for the right kind of for for someone pressure may not work.

Pressure may force someone further into addiction.

But for someone else, pressure like drug court or jail or getting treatment is effective.

So again, I think we don't want to just put all of our focus on one model in any area that we're talking about here.

We have to look at the spectrum of models and apply all of them.

>> So let's talk about what the last year has been like and what you're going to do next.

Here at Open Door Mission, when we talk about double capacity 50 beds or so, is that right?

50 beds.

Did I say that number.

>> 50 official beds.

>> 50 official beds.

But you've had 9100 people.

>> Up to 140.

>> 140 in warming center season, which is like cold months.

>> Okay.

And so what is it like in those moments and how do you draw the line and, and can you can you stay around 50 going forward.

>> So we've made some moves.

>> What was the big you looked at each other like who's going to.

>> It's kind of like where do we begin?

Yeah.

>> Because I think you said it.

Well I think it's like, yeah, we realized, okay, we eventually have to say no at some point because it's not who we are.

We're open door mission, right?

>> Because we don't want to turn anyone away.

Contrary to what anybody thinks, we do not want to turn anyone away.

And we really haven't.

And especially in winter months, especially when it's cold, we don't want to turn anyone away.

So that's why we would have if we run out of beds, if we run out of beds, we put folks on cots.

And when we ran out of cots, we put folks on chairs.

And, you know, and that's what we would do.

but the problem is, is that when you have 140 people in a 50 bed shelter, at best it's survival mode, that's at best.

So forget about getting people into treatment and getting people in effective case management.

>> Or even knowing people by name.

>> Or just being able to have the staff manage properly.

It is just about survival.

And so we, you know, we had the health care systems dropping folks off to us that we just were not equipped to handle.

They continued to do that.

folks that are have extremely high levels of medical, physical, you know, addiction, mental health needs all of those things that are coming to us.

And when you put all of those, I mean, it's going to it's going to bring out the worst in any of us.

If we're in a crowded room where there's there's just no outlet and no focus and no one is able, you're just surviving.

It's going to bring out the worst qualities of any one of us.

And even in our best day.

So take that and add trauma and addiction and mental illness and physical limitations and put everybody in a room in the winter with nowhere to go.

It's just it's just a recipe for disaster.

And we've we've been pleading for help with every single elected official I've ever, you know, that that I've met with over the past couple years where we've tried to get other buildings, but you've got zoning and regulatory issues.

And so it's just, it's so we finally said enough is enough.

We have to figure this out on our own.

And so we were able to we kind of did a phased approach where we moved all of our men over to 156 North Plymouth in a different environment.

So we moved our offices out of there.

We converted offices into bedrooms, built showers, and so it's more of a hybrid congregate slash non-congregate setting.

So you've got rooms that are two beds and you've got rooms that are six, but at least it's not this big open area.

warehouse kind of setup where it's, you know, folks, just a whole floor of bunk beds.

So it's a little bit more private, a little more personal, and so we moved all of the guys over there.

We were able to prepare that.

We prepared them for months.

So they knew this was coming.

Folks who could move on moved on.

Chelsea, our case manager, did a fantastic job.

If anyone had a DHS approval, we could put him in a DHS shelter.

And then so we moved everybody over there and that's been going great.

The guys are like thrilled to be even just shaking up the environment a little bit for some of these guys that have been with us for a while, was enough to kind of get some of them motivated for the first time in a while.

Little things like that can go a long way.

And then that led into our partnership with la Madonna, which I know you're going to get to.

>> Okay.

But what you're doing there is that sustainable?

>> No, absolutely.

>> Not sustainable.

>> No, it's a temporary.

>> It's a temporary thing because we finally said we have to set our capacity and keep it that way.

And the entities and the agencies that are designed to help the people that need a higher level of care will need to step up.

>> And when someone shows up and you're at capacity, you're going to tell them what.

>> We are going to hopefully send them somewhere.

That's that's the goal.

Yeah.

Okay.

And but we but we've been setting this up for several months so that like we're meeting with one of the health care systems next week to say this is what we're doing.

So this is, you know, we need you to be prepared for that.

>> Well, the executive director of the center for youth was here a few weeks ago.

I'm sure you know Elaine.

Yep.

And so obviously, they're dealing with a youth population, but one of her views and I don't want to misrepresent go back and listen to the exact tape, but she feels like there's fewer beds than there used to be.

And this is a community that needs more beds and more support in general.

Yes.

for the adult population, more beds needed.

>> Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we're looking at the next what we're hoping to do is to convert two of our floors that are 80 West Main Street location into what's called homeless Residential Facility, which is essentially a city code term.

But it's the accessibility of an emergency shelter.

But the services and flexibility of stay of a transitional program.

And so but we're looking to build 80 to 100 beds for that, which will again be our way of saying the system is broken.

So we're going to rely on the community to help us make help us make that happen, because we need transitional housing.

If, if, if folks were prepared to go from emergency shelter, deep, profound trauma, whatever that may be, into permanent supportive housing and be successful, this would have worked, and it's just not.

We have spent so much money as as a country, as a state, as a county on this solution.

And the problem is only getting worse.

So we have to revisit, we have to reopen, add more emergency beds, because emergency beds are oftentimes the stepping stone to get folks into that next level of care, whatever that may be, whether it's a residential program or clinical, and bring back transitional housing.

Because if again, if people could go from one to the other, we wouldn't have much of a problem anymore, considering how many units we've built and how much money we've spent.

So we are kind of in a place once again where we've had to say, all right, well, if the system isn't going to get it and the community is not going to get it, then we're going to have to just kind of do it in our own little bubble and make it, you know, we were I don't mean bubble.

I mean in terms of we work collaboratively, collaboratively with everyone, but do it in on our own because we can't change the systems yet.

>> And we didn't decrease any of our beds from last year.

We just actually capped at our beds.

Yeah.

So we went from 52 beds at 210 to 52 beds at 156.

And if anything, we actually also added 30 more for our women.

>> Yeah.

And and we have the capacity and we still have the space set aside for additional beds for the warming center season.

So we'll add another 50 beds for that.

>> When we heard earlier, I think earlier this year that sister Grace was in hospice you know, a lot of people know sister Grace and her work over the years.

And of course, you guys do.

I doubted Anna that you're in sister Grace.

Politics are that close.

But I also think that you both want to see this community healed.

Yes.

And people healed.

You have different approaches to doing it.

That said, a lot changed.

Sister board's role changed after a 2022 stabbing at the House of mercy, and someone killed and and now there is a an organization called Madonna della Strada that you're partnering with that people said like, wait, isn't that the sister Grace thing?

And are you sure that's open?

They're partnering together.

So I'm sure some people were surprised.

Do you want to tell me about this story and what you're doing?

>> Yeah.

So shortly after sister Grace left house of mercy, actually was when we started working together.

So this we came a long way from one of our first introductions since.

I mean, I've known sister Grace since I've been in the field, but one of the first times I met her, after I became CEO at Open Door, I invited her over.

I think it was the first time she'd ever been to open door and invited her over, and.

And she said, Anna, I just don't understand why you won't get arrested with me.

You know?

And that that was one of our first conversations about, well, sister Grace, there's other ways to, you know, make change happen and make it effective.

And but yeah, so we so I have, I, I have incredible admiration for sister Grace, regardless of the politics.

Again, we both want the same.

We both want to see the same thing.

We have the same calling, and we're obedient to that calling.

And that much we have in common.

And that's.

That's all I need for that.

And so shortly after I was talking with her, someone who was continuing to support her, who was also a donor of ours, and it kind of started as just some quiet, behind the scenes support, like just giving them, like he's saying she really wants to continue to do this work.

How do we do this?

So it was really just kind of guiding them on how to, you know, kind of get things going.

And so it was really just a lot more behind the scenes.

Then I was like, all right, well, now we're ready to have a space.

And they were operating out of a house.

They were just renting.

And and then it turned into as we were continuing to, to hit our dead ends and figure out what we were going to do.

It finally, kind of this happens a lot at Open Door, where I was like, oh, the answer is literally right in front of us because we were like, we need to shift how we're doing things.

They need a place to live for a while, you know, so she can continue her her legacy, whether she whether it's from her bedside or from heaven.

And, you know, and so we we found a way to make that happen.

So as soon as we started talking about this, we were it was it was probably over a year ago that we were like, all right, this is the building.

This is the plan.

We just got to make it happen.

So of course, when she became ill, we wanted to really make sure that that we, you know, moved.

so she could be there to see it.

So we were able to sign the lease together and you know, and get things open.

Just two weeks ago now, I think.

Right.

It's been open for two weeks.

Yeah.

>> What's your capacity there?

>> 20. and with an additional five.

So 15 to 20 is the normal capacity.

They're only operating out of the first floor.

And then they can add an additional five during warming center season.

>> Okay.

And how is it going for the first couple of weeks.

>> Really good.

Really good.

We're providing one meal for them a day.

They're using volunteers to do the others.

They've got everything on the first floor.

Their style, their model is that kind of open bed bed.

layout.

And we've been very, you know, good about making sure that it's there's a process to follow and, you know, so but they get to do things the way they want to do them within the limits of safety and structure, of course.

And it's so far it's going great.

We were just having conversations this morning about that.

>> So.

so, so far so good.

>> So far so good.

>> Okay.

let me get some feedback from the audience.

Sam says, could you ask your guests about what we hear on the street, which is that the shelter is occasionally a dangerous place and that there's a shortage of caseworkers and services.

>> mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so any so well first of all we have security at our shelter.

So we have on site security now shelter can be considered.

I wouldn't necessarily dangerous.

>> Yeah.

Dangerous isn't the term dangerous.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah I mean is there a, a cause for concern being in any setting with a lot of people.

Sure.

But, we haven't really had many incidents.

and.

>> Yeah.

And then definitely because certainly because of the over capacity.

Yes, absolutely.

Case manager because we have case our staffing plan is built for our expected capacity.

It's not built for 2 or 3 times capacity.

>> Yeah.

And case management in general, you know it can be over overused like people may may assume that their case manager is able to do many things where really case management is quite limited in their ability a their education, b their ability and, and what they're able to navigate.

And so it can be quite overwhelming for a case manager.

And you put a high case load on that.

You know, it's we need more case managers in general everywhere.

>> Roger says I had a brief period of homelessness.

I hated it, but I managed to find the resources to get an apartment and a good job.

The VA has an excellent shelter program, and I hope that civilian shelters try to identify veterans and refer them to the VA.

>> Absolutely.

We have a great working relationship with Nick Stefanovich.

We, him and I collaborate all the time.

whether he has a veteran who's in need of our services, which has come, you know, from either that's come in the form of hotel placements or food or clothing or and certainly if we have veterans, if we have identified veterans, we definitely send them to, to.

>> That's quite that's one of our first identifications.

>> Yes.

Yes.

Because we know they they do an excellent job over there.

>> Roger.

Thank you.

Patrick says being able to witness and engage with stability is an important function regardless of anything else.

you've got to be able to turn people on to stability.

And for those with the homeless struggle, the one thing they lose by showing up at the shelter is the autonomy of the streets.

However, the autonomy of the streets can be a double edged sword.

>> For Patrick.

It's a great point.

Yeah, we've seen that a lot.

I've gone out and done street outreach to folks in the freezing cold, subzero temperatures, and when offered a shelter bed or even a hotel placement, they'll pass and I'm okay.

I'm going to stay right where I am.

>> mm-hmm.

Joel writes in to ask joining in late, have you spoken about Housing First?

We're short on time.

I'm going to try to summarize what I think the open door mission is.

And you're going to we'll close with this because it's important.

It's where we started.

Joel.

in general, they feel that Housing First is overapplied.

Not that it can never work, but that it often doesn't for a number of very specific reasons that they've seen the evidence for.

They see a lot of people who need the services of Open Door Mission, who have been in that Housing First system, and it hasn't worked for them.

So they cycle back through the system with homelessness because their other needs have not been met, and that the theory might be good at heart, but it often doesn't work.

It can work.

It's never not.

It's not that it's never worked, but it's overapplied.

And it has made the system very narrowly focused on how it tries to address these issues.

And as a result, we see less of a focus on not only open doors, approach drug courts, other accountability measures, et cetera.

How did I do?

>> Excellent.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

>> Great job.

Now are you going to have colleagues calling me to tell me that that's wrong?

>> No.

>> No, no one's going to tell me that housing.

>> Not that.

Oh absolutely.

You're going to have lots of people calling you, telling you that's wrong.

>> A lot of.

>> People who work.

>> On homelessness are.

>> Going to tell me that.

>> What Open Door Mission said on the show is not true, that Housing First works?

Yes.

Why is there disagreement about whether Housing First works?

>> Again?

I think that we take that that statement out of context because our our disagreement is not with the model as it is.

It's with using a one size fits all, fits all approach to homelessness.

We don't do that in any other area of our life.

Right.

Like if you, you know, take that education, health, anything.

We take one size fits all approach.

It's a disaster.

So we can't do the same thing with homelessness.

And because we're focusing all of our funding, all of our funding is on 25% of the homeless population at best.

And one particular housing model.

So many of the homeless population is being left behind and there's not funding available for agencies.

So you're seeing shelters closed.

That's like Elaine was saying, we've lost shelter beds.

Shelters have had to close because the funding is just not there, let alone transitional housing, which is actually one of the most effective forms of housing to get someone from a place of trauma and clinical need to a place of true human flourishing.

>> More transitional, less immediate, permanent.

>> Yes.

>> Yes, yes.

And the music means we have less than a minute.

But where do you want people to learn more about you?

And if if people are hearing this and want to support in any way, where do you want them to go?

>> Open door mission com.

>> What do you need most right now?

>> Underwear.

>> Hygiene.

>> We do.

We're getting into that season.

Winter, winter winter weather, winter weather.

>> Can people drop.

>> Off 80 West Main Street?

Yep.

Someone will get your items out of your car and they will walk it in for you.

And they will greet you with a smile and give you a receipt if you need it.

>> And be.

>> On.

>> Your way.

Money.

Everybody needs.

>> Money.

>> Volunteers need money.

Yeah, we just said there's no funding for this, so we absolutely need money.

>> Yeah.

Anna Valeria is the CEO of Open Door Mission.

Caitlin Seawright, the vice president of programs.

Thanks for sharing your story.

Come back when somebody calls me and says what they said was a bunch of hooey.

Come back on with them and.

>> We will gladly.

>> Be back.

>> Okay.

You're welcome.

>> We're here.

Thank you for.

>> Being here.

>> Thank you from all of us at Connections.

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