You’re here listening to Unite and Heal America with your host, Matt Matern. And I’ve got Alison Hurst from Safe Place for Youth as my guest here this afternoon. And so glad to have Alison, have you on the show.

My pleasure, I’m happy to join the conversation.

Well, just let the audience know, I met you a few years back. And I was inspired by the work that you were doing for people who are homeless and, and that, over the last few years, I’ve seen your organization grow. And it’s, it’s pretty amazing thing, maybe you can just kind of briefly describe what safe place for us is and, and then we’ll kind of go back to the Genesis story of how how this all got started for you.

Wonderful. So, in short, we are an organization that is solely focused on transition aged youth youth that are aged 12 to 25, who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. And primarily on the west side of Los Angeles, although we have young people who are coming from all over the county and all over the country, out of state as well but very enrich smaller numbers out of state.

So primarily, we’re focused on young people who are experiencing homelessness. And we are providing a whole array of services from basic needs, showers, food, clothing, hygiene, supports to case management, counseling, education, employment, all the way through to housing supports. So anything a one stop shop for anything, a young person that is experiencing homelessness would meet.

So that’s a lot of stuff that you’re doing. But I I think in the beginning, how did it all start for you? And did you have a background in serving homeless youth prior to starting this organization?

I did not I am. I started because I am also first and foremost, a community member. I’ve lived on the west side in a place called Mar Vista in Los Angeles for 20 years. And at a certain point, my children became middle school aged children, and were venturing out in the community more, and I would go to the Venice boardwalk, because my son was an avid skateboarder.

And soon to discover that we had a large group of unaccompanied young people who were living on the streets in our community. And I was pretty shocked and appalled by this and have never really seen anything on that scale. And started to unpack and unpick, you know what existed because I was at the time I was a garden designer, and knew nothing about this field and was shocked to discuss discover that there were very few resources for young people, especially on the west side of Los Angeles.

On the east side, there were a bunch of service providers doing a great job providing to young people, but on the west side, it was few and far between resources. And quite frankly, service providers didn’t quite know what to do with the young people on the west side. So myself and a bunch of other volunteers began doing what we knew to do, which was that people were hungry.

So we would hand out food packs, and specifically targeting young people to build relationships, and then therefore direct young people to available resources, which at that time, were very few and far between.

So then what was your next step? And that was approximately 10 years ago. Is that correct?

Yeah, it’s a little more than 10 years ago. So the first few years is about 14 years ago, for a few years, we just did that we handed out food packs, you know, it was very, very simple. And then really, what began to happen was exactly how S.P.Y. has continued to grow and become the size it is now and, and and able to provide the level of resources that we are so it’s all about partnership.

I’m sure that you’ve found this in you in your life, you know, partnership is everything. So one of the first steps I made was to to connect with other providers that were doing work related in this field, other providers that was specifically focused on youth and I partnered with an organization that no longer exists will was absorbed into a larger organization.

And just as they were dissolving or which was my my good fortune because the people that worked in that specific use focus program then came over to work at spice. So we partnered for a while, in a church in Venice. And, and then pretty not too shortly after that they they merged with a large organization called Venice family clinic.

And the youth piece of it dissolved and we took a lot of the work on and and the rest was history and, and literally everything we have done since has been built off the back of really focusing on partnership and how to leverage partnership to for the success of VR organizations.

So you know, it’s quite a story coming from just handing out sandwiches and socks and things like that, to kids on the boardwalk on in Venice to now having an organization that is pretty substantial. I believe that you have, what 50 or more employees or 70. Tell us about that. And the type of work that you’re doing now and how that’s evolved?

Yeah, wow. Yeah. 50 employees was two years ago, we’re at 85 employees now. We, our budget is around 7 million now. And we have moved aggressively into housing young people as well. So we have an any given night, up to 100 young people off move to safety off the street because of our housing resources, at the same time, as continuing to do the work that we were known for, which is our street outreach and engagement, our case management and our basic services.

So we have grown tremendously over the last few last 10 years. But it primarily over the last five years, our budget has doubled. And we’ve doubled the number of staff in the last five years. And I would say that the driver of that was both need, of course the need is there.

And the level of advocacy that happened on a more of a countywide level, so that the systems that people that were driving the systems, and both funding the systems rec recognized that it was necessary to have use specific services, rather than having the services for young people into woven with other single adult or chronically homeless services, which clearly was not working, because young people don’t access services in the same way and don’t experience homelessness in the same way.

So yeah, the we’ve seen tremendous growth. And I feel very fortunate that we are able to now provide the level of resources and services that we are to young people, and quite frankly, have changed the way that young people are engaging in services.

Well, I found it to be inspiring when I came and visited your, your place there on Lincoln Boulevard, where there were probably 100 or more us there and engaged in various different activities, from Job Search to dealing art projects, to drug rehab type, you know, counseling to all, all forms of different services that I think helped various people at various places where they were on the spectrum, maybe you could give kind of our listeners a little bit better sense of where you’re, where you’re catching people at and why you provide such an array of services.

I’m glad that you brought that piece up, because I think that has been part of why we’ve been so successful in youth engagement, because we recognized early on and through, you know, partnership and collaboration with other providers, that the way that young people engage is through collaboration and building relationships, collaboration with each other and collaboration with the community and and building relationships.

So we set about to create a space. That was what we call low barrier, meaning we don’t want to put any roadblocks in the way of anybody accessing our services. Now if we were showing our are at our are delivering services by saying, Come on young people come straight off the streets and sign up for, you know, 12 weeks of intensive counseling, I don’t think we get many people taking us up on that.

So we and our team and talk about our amazing team recognize that, you know, young people like to engage in music or art, or simply playing games or, you know, various other activities. And through those activities, they then created relationships with our team members, that then gave them the trust and confidence to then sign up for counseling, sign up for case management start to think about how to get back into school. So it’s really about engagement.

So, you know, the young people that are on all of our streets across the country, and across our county, are disconnected you and they need to be connected back in again. But we must do this in a way that speaks their language. And so this environment that we created, that you just did a great job of beautifully describing where it was vibrant and colorful, and there’s activities all over the place to appeal to individual youth was was our objective was that was a way of capturing those young people in our services.

Well, it sounds like a program a attraction rather than promotion. And sometimes that is a valuable way to approach anyone and you’ve been listening to Alison Hurst, Director of S.P.Y. and we will be back in just a minute with Unite and Heal America I’m Matt Matern, KABC 790.

You’re back with Unite and Heal America with Matt matter my guest again, Alison Hurst from Safe Place for Youth. And we were just talking about how you attract people, young people to come to the center. They’re on Venice, I mean, on Lincoln Boulevard, and the things that you’ve helped accomplish. Now, just kind of giving the audience a little background on the problem that faces LA County, we’ve got I believe, 4,600 plus homeless youth in the county, approximately 23% come from foster care. And your organization has helped house 277 youth just in the last year. It’s a pretty, pretty amazing accomplishment for you all there.

Thank you. Yeah. And you talk about the the almost 5000 youth, that’s a way undercount. It’s our young people are historically really challenging to count. They fly way under the radar. They, you know, they’re often termed as the Hidden homeless and are historically falling into homelessness at a faster rate than any other population. So yeah, that number, we, as providers across the county, believe that the number is closer to around 10,000 young people that are experiencing homelessness at one time or another.

But yeah, we’re fortunate enough that the advocacy around creating a specific youth system was was listened to and acted upon. And around five years ago, the what we call the youth coordinated entry system was created. And my organization S.P.Y. is the lead for the service provider area that we live in on the west side.

So that means that we have a team of folks that are focused on bringing all of the providers together to ensure that young people are delivered services. And secondly, that when there are housing opportunities, that that we have what we call a matcher. That person connects a young person to a residential opportunity. So we are the lead for that on us in our spa, among all of the other things that we do.

Right. So it is a quite a network of different organizations that you interact with in order to to actually get the housing for the homeless youth. Maybe you could explain a little bit more how that looks and who are you working with to house hundreds of youth each year.

So on on the most basic level, we have our own housing. So we have our host Tom’s program, which I know that you you’re particularly interested in, which is essentially utilizing empty bedrooms and people’s residential and their homes to bridge the young person from the street to a more permanent housing solution. So we’ve placed, I think it’s around 18 youth over the last couple of years into spare bedrooms and the average person’s home like myself and yourself as a bridge housing, so we’ve got that parent that that opportunity.

And we also have a program called the nest, which is a program at residential program for young families, young families fall into homelessness at ridiculously high rates. And of course, you know, you bring children into the picture, it creates complexity, even above and beyond a single adult experiencing homelessness. So we have a young families who are currently in our residential program in Inglewood called the nest, we have another program called roots to grow, which is in partnership with our wonderful partner, Venice, community housing.

And we have 20 Young people in two houses two residential houses that are in its transitional housing, so they can stay uyp to three years, the goal is to have them transitioning into a more permanent housing opportunity after, you know, 12 to 15 months. And then last but not least, most recently, a year ago, more than was to the day, just before COVID hit, we launched our bridge home site, which is a bridge, there’s 30 Bridge Home sites across the county that are funded through the mayor’s office.

And ours is in Venice, and it’s in partnership with people assisting the homeless path. And we have 54 beds within 154 bed shelter. And the 54 beds are specifically focused on youth. So we have young people who are moving in there. And it’s meant to be again, a bridge from the streets to a more permanent solution.

Now, of course, the biggest challenge is there are very few and far between permanent solutions. And that’s why as a city and as a county and as a as a country, we need to be prioritizing, you know how affordable housing, which is, of course, the driver for for the number of folks that we’re seeing on our streets, it is literally unaffordable for people to survive, and more, especially those that are earning minimum wage. It’s impossible to afford an apartment in our community if you haven’t a minimum wage job.

But I always kind of wonder at how anybody could survive at a minimum wage job, or even even a job that’s a little bit above the minimum wage, it’s still, the expenses that one encounters on a day to day basis are just crushing compared to that and our cost of living here in Southern California is extremely high.

I just saw a diagram that showed that California needs 3.3 million housing units in order to meet the demand that we have here. So we really have to start building more units very quickly in order to address these concerns. And what what are you doing or what’s your organization doing on that front?

I’m delighted to say that we have later this year, we are breaking ground on our site on Lincoln, which currently is our de services. And we’ve partnered with, again, with our wonderful partner Venice community housing, and they will be developing the site to 40 units of permanent supportive housing, half of which will be for young people experiencing homelessness, and half will be for single adults. And then on the ground floor of that project, we will move back in once it’s developed.

And our day services are what we call our one stop shop, or access services, which are the pieces that you described earlier where a young person can come in and be part of their work readiness program or I participate in substance abuse counseling. So I’m delighted that we are going to be part of those, those 1000s of units that are coming online, but you mentioned something, you know, the message that that we all need to be giving is that we need to be saying yes, in every community to every type of housing, whether it’s and just to kind of give a little bit historical context.

There was very much a move away from an array of housing a bunch of years ago to only building permanent supportive housing. And what we have now we’re seeing is the consequences on our street, which is, you know, the streets are a place where we’re holding are people ready for when they can move into permanent housing because there just is not enough and there will never be enough. So the pendulum has swung back again.

Now we’re recognizing that not only do we need or we in our in our field called interim housing, which is short term housing, to bridge housing, to more transitional housing, which is still relatively short term term, to the more permanent housing, the permanent supportive housing, or a section eight housing, but we don’t have enough of any of it. And so we need to say yes to all of it.

And you know, the consequences that we won’t be able to live and build our communities built off small individual family homes, if we want everyone in our community to thrive, along our commuter belt, our artery roads or main roads, where people are traveling to and from from space to place to place, wherever they need to build up, and we’re going to need to build apartments.

We’re going to multifamily units, because there’s no way we can continue with this kind of sprawling suburb, and, and hope to ever overcome the crisis. That is our biggest crisis right now, which is surviving on our streets.

Why I agree with you. And I was just talking to head Senator Wyden kowski on the program a few weeks ago. And he is the author of a bill that passed a few years back, which allowed homeowners to build a second kind of mother in law unit on their property. And after that passed, there were 1000s of units here in Los Angeles County that went forward and were built out. And obviously, we need 1000s and 1000s. More, but at least it was a start.

And I think it’s something that could and should snowball further so that it helps the homeowners, they could maybe get some additional cash flow, and it helps our community so it has more housing. And as you mentioned, that host Homes program, where a stipend is given to a homeowner who takes in a homeless person.

I had talked to a number of state legislators, and they were interested in the idea and hopefully we can maybe get it on the legislative agenda in the coming year. And that program. Again, it’s not the total solution to the problem, but it’s a potential solution for some people. And even if it helped 10% of our homeless population.

That’s a huge dent and it takes it frees up a lot of resources for other parts of our solution. I couldn’t agree more. It’s our biggest resource that have empty bedrooms. I mean, we have, you know, one and two people living in four or five bedroom houses. It’s our biggest resource. Right?

We can easily solve the problem just by having 100,000 plus people say yes to that. We’d have we’d have the problem solved now. I would. Why don’t we take a break now and we’ll be back in just a minute. My guest Alison Hurst for a Safe Place for Youth. And you’re listening to Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern on KABC 790. We’ll be back in a minute.

You’re back with Unite and Heal America. I’m your host, Matt Matern. And I’ve got Alison Hurst from a Safe Place for Youth on the show today, thanks, Alison, for being here, and sharing with the listeners, what’s going on, on the ground in our streets. And the work that you’re doing, your organization is doing to help relieve this problem.

And I applaud that work and encourage everybody to engage in it. Because it’s not going to we’re not going to solve this problem without people like ourselves jumping in. And that’s one of the things I really inspired by you as to seeing the genesis of your story of just being Hey, a mom in the community seeing this going on and, and jumping in and saying hey, how can I help this problem and over that 14 year period going from just a volunteer with no facility to a organization with $7 million $7 million dollar budget and 85 employees and, and housing 277 youth is an amazing accomplishment.

And I believe you had said to me at some point that you had 103 of the youth find employment over the last year which is also an incredible accomplish0ment. I wanted to turn your attention to the the issue of race and and how it plays out in In the homeless community and the inequities that you have seen, and how we can address that.

Yeah, I’m glad that you asked that. So, I’ll start with this statistic, you know, 40% of the folks that are on our streets are black, while only 6% of the population in California is black. So there’s no denying that there are racist systems that are driving inequities in our community, from incarceration systems to, you know, just how we have kept people of color out of the housing market, not been able to move up the ladder and home purchasing with redlining. And pre that uprising, earlier last year.

This was talked about, and there were forums and spaces, and it was recognized, because it was undeniable to us as providers, you know, a S.P.Y. around 75%, the young of the young people, we serve up bipoc.

And but it is exert accelerated, quite rightly into the direction of, of the conversations, we need to this needs to be our main focus why what is driving that number of young people of folks of color to homelessness and what what are the systems? What is the juvenile detention system doing? What is the foster care system?

And what is their their involvement in driving those numbers. And that is where I have put in most of my focus now being part of those groups to, to kind of unpack, and then at the same time thinking about within our system within the homelessness system?

How do we continue to ensure that the people within those systems look like the people who are receiving services, and in addition to having good representation of people of color within our organizations, but also ensuring that people empower within those organizations, our people are bipoc people, because I don’t think as a country, and I think of the homeless services, as a microcosm of the rest of of our society, until we allow people of color to have power and be in those spaces dictating the shifts and changes that need to happen within our systems, nothing’s going to change, it’s going to continue to drive people of color to poverty, to homelessness, inequities within our education system.

So I’m really glad that you asked that question. It’s, it’s it is, it is the work and so much so that we, earlier this year, changed our mission statement to to explicitly call out racial and social inequity, and how, how that plays a part in why we even have to exist, like the goal, the ultimate goal for me and my organization, is to do ourselves out of business. That’s our ultimate goal. We don’t want to need to exist because we’ve built up all of these other structures and systems. But we are very far from that, as you know.

That is unfortunately true. I was I was curious as to the foster care system, because that does seem to be a big driver into the homeless youth problem, and probably into homeless individuals in general, that roughly 23% of the homeless youth population comes from foster care, which is a alarmingly high percentage, given that I assume foster care only accounts for maybe one or 2% of total kids in in how they’re raised.

Yeah, it’s it’s always historically, since data has been collected and Youth Services been a big driver, in fact, you know, we’re recognizing as we build our organization, that our the way that we are accumulating data, we need to really look at how we’re asking those questions because we know that other agencies in other parts of town, they’re getting a much higher number of young people who are stating that they’re from the foster care system.

And I the number that we have that we that we have Show is really youth that were involved in the system in LA. But we know that so many more were involved in the system in other states, and an output aren’t eligible for the, for the services that former foster youth are, if they were homeless within our state. So yeah, it is a huge driver of system involved youth is a big part of, of who we are serving.

And so much so that we work very hard with one of the big funders, which is the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to have fund a what we call a system liaison position, a person who is working with DCFS and their, you know, their departments to, to ensure that people are not rolling through their system, and immediately falling into our system.

You know, our system, the wholeness system, picks up the pieces of the other systems that are failing, man, that that so we as providers, and and thought partners right now, I like thinking about how do we how do we move upstream to to stem the flow of folks that are coming down, lack come into, and, you know, we know, I don’t have the exact statistics, but we know the vast majority of the young people that we’re serving, who go on to be parents, who then fall into homelessness worse system involved.

So there’s huge correlation from, you know, related to trauma and how, how, when, you know, you’ve been through a system that is so traumatizing, how do you how do you then work with that person to build the skill set or the resources or the resiliency needed to overcome what is a very challenging thing to overcome? Just poverty?

Right. And I would imagine the same or worse can be said from the juvenile detention system and what kids experience when they go into that system and how they, you know, their path forward upon leaving is not a good one.

Absolutely. And, you know, we have a system in this country that is just simply unethical. It is you when we’re trying young people, and putting them in adult jails, and, and, you know, is just an it’s not a world I know, a tremendous amount about it does definitely collide with our world. And I know some great people that are working on restorative justice snapping, we’ve made great strides in the county of late recently.

And I hope that work continues because it is it has the trauma that is caused by placing young people in detention for minor infractions, and, and then not only in a juvenile system, but trying them as adults at such a young age that the trauma is, at times, you know, absolutely impossible to recover from.

Well, I know that on a much different level, we’ve seen cases and kind of helped you and other organizations out with, with youth that had tickets from, from various police organizations for being out in public and minor offenses, but they get on their records, and they they are hard to expunge and things of that nature, which it it doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but it’s an impediment to employment, it’s an impediment to getting a home just perpetuates poverty, essentially, it locks you into to that to your and narrows your options down.

You know, it’s it just doesn’t serve any purpose. And I’m really grateful for your team. And we’ve been working with a nonprofit law firm called Beth Sadek, for many years, and public council as well. But we’ve been working on providing ticket clinics and, and working with some young people who’ve been on the streets and, you know, got 10-15 tickets, and it’s just impossible for them to ever pay the charges.

It’s impossible. You know, that system alone for somebody who is housed, who has access to a computer is a challenge to navigate. But add to it that your own house do you have no way of kind of collecting meal on a on a unabIe kind of consistent basis. So it’s just impossible.

Right? And you just just harkening back to my youth and getting tickets or whatever things like that when you have the resources of a fan. way to draw upon, it’s far easier to deal with those things. And it’s all it’s everything from having somebody who can help you navigate it as a parent to having the monetary resources to having somebody who gives you a car to give you a ride to and get it taken care have to, as you said, having an address to Have you received the envelope from the DMV, or whoever it is who, who may have given you a ticket.

Well, we’re gonna take our break now and this is Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. My guest again, Alison Hurst from Safe Place for Youth, we’ll be back in a minute.

You’re listening to KABC 790. This is Unite and Heal America with Matt Matern, my guest, Alison Hurst from safe place for us. And just wanted to talk again, about what we can do as a community to, to address these problems, because we clearly have the resources available to to do this and to solve these problems. And I think that it’s it takes everybody being engaged.

And I know that I’ve kind of put my toe into the water, in part because of seeing the great work that you’re doing. But wanted to address that Alison for us, and how you see people can get involved in this.

Yeah, I am really super happy brought that up. Because I think we can use you and your company as an example. You got behind the issue, you heard more, you, you unpacked what the issue was about, you figured out what piece and what piece you couldn’t be involved in, and you focused on the piece that you knew you could have an impact with.

So and knowing that there are, you know, that hundreds of 1000s of other people with resources that can join this fight, you know, that’s not going to be resolved by one organization or one system or one government system. I mean, it’s just not, that’s not going to happen, it’s going to take each and every one of us to at some point come to the resolution, that these are our neighbors, these are our community that young people, and the single adults and the families that are falling into homelessness are our responsibility.

And, and the solution is housing and resources. And the impact impacts all of us. It’s the impact is not just with the folks that are experiencing homelessness, you know, we are all impacted by that outward expression of homelessness, you know, we are walking through the streets witnessing the degradation that that folks are are experiencing on the streets and, and how, you know, the deeper you fall into homelessness, how that impacts your mental health and well being and your, your participation in substance abuse.

You know, it’s it’s an recognizing that until we address that none of us can be well, it has to be all of us, it can’t be just some of us. And you know, that, that everybody I truly believe and I think I am an example of that everybody in our community has something to offer, whether it’s time by coming to, you know, make pack lunches, or whether you’ve got money and you can give money, or you can employ someone you can give somebody a chance who potentially has a record who you can you can imply and overlook some of the challenges.

Or if you’re a if you’re a property owner, accept, you know, somebody or a new tenant that doesn’t necessarily have all of the things that, you know, landlords tend to look for now, you know, and and also, if you’re a neighbor, and you hear that somebody wants to open more residential units or housing of any kind for our unhoused members, to say, yes, I want this in my neighborhood, because I don’t want to continue to walk through the streets and seeing folks in that environment and really, their lives are being destroyed before our eyes. And that kind of the, the juxtaposition between what what most of us have in our, in our, in our houses in our lives with those that are on the street that have nothing.

That’s well said. And I guess one thing that struck me as you were talking was the the mental health aspect of it and that I’ve read that If anybody, even the most mentally healthy person was out on the streets for seven years, they would develop some form of mental illness.

So I think that the sooner that we address these problems, we, we address the cost of this as a society as well. So you look at the cost of having thousands and tens of thousands of people develop mental illness, while they’re out on the streets, is going to have a cost for us as a community. So if you’re even looking at it, just from a bean counting perspective, it has an effect on everybody.

And we, of course, there’s a human component to it as well, but it it spreads and metastasize is it. And as you said, it just leaves less room in our mental health facilities for other people, if if we’re pouring in people from having suffered homelessness, so if we can solve that problem, we solve all kinds of other problems that are related to it.

Yeah, and you raise a good point, when we think about it’s how we, as a culture, start to think about mental health and wellness, and how we did stigmatize it. And, and think about how, you know, what are the what are the the determinations of health? Like, what, what are the pieces that everybody needs to be able to access access to be?

Well, you know, good food, shelter, access to, you know, getting enough hours of sleep every night, you know, all of those things are denied people on the streets, completely denied. And so there’s no, there’s that that is the reason why their mental health further spirals.

So yeah, it’s it’s definitely something that we as a culture, need to think about, what are we? What do we want for our culture? What do we want for our community, and it’s something that my organization is very much involved in, we just hired a bunch of what we call community ambassadors, through the Department of Mental Health.

And they’re not, you know, clinicians, or psychiatrists, which clinicians and psychiatrists are amazing. But they’re not needed to do this kind of engagement piece where, you know, it’s really about creating connection, and caring connection, and a, and a sense of being kind of seen and heard. And that’s what these community ambassadors have been hired to do.

I think, you know, trying to give the listener a little bit of the mind’s eye picture of what it’s like going in Alison’s organization at S.P.Y., and having been there, I could see, I can tell you that there are lots of us all over there. And there is a lot of joy there, there’s a lot of acceptance and love. And I think that that’s what you have emanated.

And that’s kind of at the core of who you are, and what is so attractive, that kind of mom energy to those homeless youth that they just feel that somebody cares about them, that somebody loves them. And that’s for somebody who is out on the streets, it could be very easy to feel that nobody cares about you, and nobody loves you. And that, that, to me, is the energy that has driven your organization to just blossom in the way that it has.

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. It’s, you know, it’s all about love. And I think we we have got so clinically focused, and, and, you know, the way that we deliver services to folks who are mentally ill is all about, you know, clinical work and really, what promotes wellness is connection and love. And that’s what it all comes down to. I think we’re afraid to talk like that because it feels a little mushy.

But I think it’s so it’s so important. It’s hard to it’s hard to fund love. That’s what I found. It’s that, you know, the very beginning was you know, money was not pouring out to fund love. And I think as people started to see the impact of of ensuring that people feel seen and loved that you know, more and more organizations, funders, individual people see the value in that. So I’m glad that you brought that piece up.

Well I thought in the in the simplest of things that the kids had access to some warm food, some socks, some shoes that you had available for them some clothes, a shower, a place for them to just be themselves and say in a say quite literally a safe place for you, for them to just kind of decompress because the streets are not a very safe place for you. So, you know that that is an magical thing for you have created this oasis for for those kids to land.

And then from there, they get engaged with a case manager, they get opportunities to see counselors, they get employment, they get housing, and they get their lives back together, which is the miracle of, of what you do. And I think that’s that’s priceless. And maybe you can just kind of end the show talking about what the transformations that you’ve seen in some of the youth that you’ve worked with.

Yeah, you talk about miracles, and to get to do this job every day. And see the transformation that happens before your eyes, when somebody has access to a space where they’re safe. So they get enough sleep, access to healthy, regular food, access to people that love them, access to somebody that’s going to help them put together the building blocks to go back to school, or get employment or retain employment, and then maybe eventually get a set of keys to their own front door.

It is it’s been an absolute joy and a wonder, to see how people who have been held down so firmly move up and thrive. It is it’s it doesn’t matter how many times you see it, it’s as awesome every single time. And it’s all inspiring every single time. The the incredible innate resiliency, that that we see in young people.

And, you know, I often say to folks, I you know, all of our unhoused street community need resources and need support. But if we do not start with our young people, we are perpetuating this system, because they are the ones that end up becoming chronic chronically homeless. They’re the ones that ended up again experiencing homeless. If they experienced homelessness for their families, they then end up experiencing homelessness.

So we’ve we’ve got to look at breaking this cycle of poverty and homelessness. So yeah. And we know how to do it. We know how to do it. We know we know it’s about housing. We know it’s about creating spaces for people to belong and heal. And we know we have the resources. You know, we’re one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And we have the resources. It’s about the willingness to want to do it and take responsibility for our unhoused community members.

Well, thank you again, Alison, for being on the show and encourage everybody to look, as you said, to see how they can contribute their gifts to help solve this problem.

And so you’ve been listening to Unite and Heal America with your host, Matt Matern and Alison Hurst from Safe Placefor Youth. We look forward to having you back next week.