The Heat Was On: WTU Checks Out D.C.

Today we're sharing our first episode from Theo's summer trip to Washington, D.C., for the National Alliance for Ending Homelessness Conference. Theo attends a thought provoking presentation featuring Melissa Chinchilla and Deyanira Nevárez Martínez: Latinx Houselessness, Understanding and Addressing Double Up Houselessness. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Weedian House.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
And then the final contribution is from my mom, who's
a holistic house yes, and she CONTRICI spoke to the
rubber duckies and what it says, this is a quote
from her. Basic amenities are not a luxury, A place
to bathe, do laundry, a mailbox, and storage for one's property.

(00:24):
It goes without saying safe housing and food, a hot
bath where you can feel the water rising up around
your shoulders.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
And so we've got two rubber duckies here to kind
of represent.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
That luxury of hygiene, particularly in a bath that really
isn't a luxury.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
People took baths long before they took showers.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
In fact, Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm your host,
Feo Henderson. We have some hot topics and hot interviews
to match the hot and humid weather in Washington, DC
when I was there for the National Alliance for Ending

(01:06):
Homelessness conference. But first on House News, our first story
starts in New York City councilwoman Susan Wong was arrested
for allegedly biding a police officer doing a protest against
a houseless shelter being built in a right wing Asian
Community Councilwoman's Wong's district has been slated to have a

(01:29):
houseless shelter. Right wing Asian community activists have been protesting
against the shelter in an attempt to slow construction work.
Right wing community members use three point one to complain
about the construction work. Early in the morning, Wong was
seen and heard yelling there's no public protection. They do
not have a permit. Wong opposes shelters and has been

(01:50):
involved in rallies against proposed shelters for months. Opponents have
used predictable tropes, implying the shelters are too close to schools, stores,
and the subway. In simpler terms, shelters are too close
to house people, using the sad, dishonest truth that we
don't hate the unhoused. This is just the wrong place
and the wrong building. The shelter will provide mental health counseling,

(02:13):
subsidence abuse treatment, and vocational training for a one hundred
and fifty unhoused New Yorkers. Our next story, texs us
to Castle Rock, Colorado. A federal judge has ruled against
the town of Castle Rock, Colorado. They ruled that it
cannot prevent an Evangelical Church from providing temporary shelter to

(02:34):
unhoused people on the church's property. The towns suited the church,
stating that the church could not park r vs used
as residences on site under local zoning laws. There have
been comparable lawsuits by law enforcement and authorities to curb
outreach services in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. In San Francisco,

(02:56):
Mayor London Breed said very aggressive sweeps will kickoff in
August twenty twenty four. This announcement comes weeks after the
Supreme Court decision on Grant's passed, which ruled that the
unhoused can be arrested and displaced without being offered services
or sheltered. Mayor Breed stated the problem is not going
to be solved by building more housing. Thank goodness for

(03:18):
the Supreme Court decision. She also stated the city had
to move from a compassionate approach to one focused on accountability,
and we're going to have to be very aggressive and
assertive in moving encampments, which may include more criminal penalties
and that Sunhouse news. When we come back, we're going

(03:39):
to listen to an exciting presentation for the conference LATINX houselessness,
understanding and addressing double up houselessness. But first take quick
break and we're back with Whedian House. Let's listen in
on the conference session.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Thank you so much for being here today.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
If you are from the West Coast, really appreciate it
extra I feel you, I see you. So we're gonna
we're going to be presenting together today. So this is
it's one presentation and we'll have time for conversation with
Q and A.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
My name is Melissa Chinchia. This is my colleague Diane
ndra Veenis. It's a love me. I call her Dana
for sure you can.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
So we're really glad to be here today and really
thank you for making time to make it this morning.
Before we get started, I want to ask if anyone
was able to make yesterday's plenary session.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, I see somethans joining up. Great.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
So there's a couple of things that Anna Olivia mentioned
that I want to highlight as to keep in mind
as we're going through this presentation.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Once she mentioned housing as a and right. So part
of our.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
Presentation today and the conversation that we're having is starting
to think about how do we define and conceptualize housing
as a human right. And then the other thing she
mentioned was important to expanding our tent, especially as we
face pushback from some of our efforts to end homelessness.
How do we think about expanding our work to incorporate

(05:23):
other voices as we look to build.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
A movement for change?

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Right, So, our title today is LATINX Homelessness Understanding and
Address Addressing doubled up homelessness.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
And we are going to dive right in.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
So I just wanted to start off by giving a
little bit of background information hidden homelessness, including things like CouchSurfing,
doubled up housing living in some standard housing conditions disproportionately
impact communities of color, which frequently rely on networks that
are already overburdened and informal supports in order to avoid

(06:00):
entering the homeless services while the while these individuals are
not calculate and official homeless counts, people that are experiencing
doubled up homelessness are not fully held, so they often
face restrictions and how they're able to use an access
space in their households. Their dwellings may not meet living
standards as determined by local health and safety codes. And

(06:24):
they often do not hold a lease, which makes them
devoid of any rights of tendency. Based on hut's current definitions,
people that are experiencing doubled up homelessness are not considered
to be unhoused. While the current definition does allow for
households that imminent threat of losing housing within fourteen days,
research by the Benioff Institute in California has found that

(06:47):
those that are doubled up on average only have one
day before being asked to leave their household. Furthermore, when
we think about local and national ways of understanding homelessness,
trends really on homeless counts, and homeless counts are only
able to capture individuals that are unsheltered and sheltered at
one point in time, So we're missing a significant amount

(07:10):
of votes. And we believe that an inability to capture
double up homelessness really impacts our understanding of the housing
crisis and it should be a concern to all of
us as homeless counts are used to identify resource needs
at booth the local and federal level. So part of
what I do when I talk about this locally is

(07:30):
I say, when we could think about homelessness as sort
of an iceberg, and when we think about homeless counts,
it's really just a tip of the iceberg. So we're
missing a lot of other folks in our way of
understanding the scale of the problem. So our colleague, doctor
Mollie Richards, she's not able to be here today, but

(07:51):
one of the things that she's been doing along with
other scholars, is trying to estimate homelessness using different methodological approaches.
And so Molly herself has used census data in order
to estimate doubled up homelessness.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
A couple of years back, she worked on this at the.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
National level, so she used Sensus data to estimate national
trends around doubled up homelessness.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
And one of the things that her work.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
Bound was that the lat Latino population is more likely
to experience doubled up homelessness compared to others, so significant
reigns have doubled up at the national level.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
And this was in contrast to what we usually see
with point in.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Time counts, where we see that Latinos impath tended in
the past. This is also starting to change have tended
to be underrepresented with regards to homeless counts. So her
work really inspired us to take a look at doubled
up homelessness, but at the local level, so specifically in
Los Angeles County, which has a population that's about fifty

(08:53):
percent Latino and has one of the largest unhoused populations
in the USA US.

Speaker 5 (09:01):
So, thinking about all of these issues, we partnered up
with LTPI, the Latino Policy and Politics Institute at UCLA.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
To author this report.

Speaker 6 (09:10):
LPPI seeks to.

Speaker 5 (09:14):
Elevate issues that impact the Latino community up into a
national conversation.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
As we are very big.

Speaker 5 (09:20):
And growing demographic and so the two of us partnered
with Mollie who authored and is the expert on the
methodology using census data.

Speaker 6 (09:31):
To estimate folks who are doubled up. And so what
is doubling up?

Speaker 5 (09:38):
We use the Richard at All twenty twenty two definition
of doubling up, which means the practice of sharing housing
because of economic hardship and laws.

Speaker 6 (09:51):
So and if you want to know the exact measure.

Speaker 5 (09:56):
What the measure is composed of in terms of the analysis,
we could talk about that after the presentation. But one
of the things that we as Latinas have had a
conversation about around these issues is that for a really
long time, we've also ignored doubling up and we have
conflated it with multi generational healthing, and we do do

(10:18):
generational multi generational healthing. I both my grandmothers have lived
with us. But what we are talking about is different.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
When you have.

Speaker 5 (10:27):
Twelve people in a two pp A department, that is
not multi generational healthing. That is overcrowded, and that is
doubled up homelessness. So another issue that is super important
to the conversation around homelessness and doubling up is that
it is a cycle. Right, So the realities of doubling
up is that it is the most common precursor to

(10:50):
street or sheltered homelessness. And many times when individuals who
have gone from doubled up homelessness into rown homelessness of
straight homelessness, when they come back inside, they come back.

Speaker 6 (11:04):
Into a doubled up victory, and so it's a cycle.

Speaker 5 (11:08):
In addition, as previously noted, people living in doubled up
housing conditions are often staying in inadequate living conditions. These
types of living arrangements can result in high psychological distress
and social strains. We saw the big problems with this
issue during COVID. We are frontline workers. You have one

(11:28):
you have one one unit, twelve people, one.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Person gets it.

Speaker 5 (11:32):
Everybody's going to get sick, and that's why we have
really high locality rates in the latin X community.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
So we also wanted to give a bit of information
regarding what we know generally about Latinx homelessness. So historically,
as I mentioned, there have been lower rates of homelessness
amongst populations, specifically when you look at homeless counts.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Right, and this has been called the Latino paradox.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Some of you have probably heard this term with regards
to help outcomes. It's also been used with regards to
housing a homelessness. So you know, one of the reasons
why folks have stated that we see lower rates of
Latinos experiencing homelessness through point in time counts has been
because of a high reliance on social networks and a
limited use of public services, so folks not entering the

(12:18):
homeless service system. However, as I mentioned, these trends have
started to reverse and we're now seeing that Latinos are
one of the fastest growing populations experiencing homelessness in the US.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
We've seen this nationally. We've also seen this locally within
Los Angeles County. The rates are are I.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
Also wanted to say that one of the challenges with
this idea around the Latino paradox has been that many
scholars and researchers have kind of looked at this as
you know, Okay, we don't have to really concern ourselves
as much or deep in deeply into the experience of
Latinos with homelessness because they are not highly represented within

(13:03):
the homeless count numbers. So you know, it's really been
a challenge in order to get the conversation going with
regards to the experience of Latino homelessness.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
As Dana mentioned, you know.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
The Latino population is experiencing homelessess in different ways that
are not being captured in our current systems. So we're
not able to capture individuals that are living, told people
to a home or taking turns sleeping because they have
no other recourse. So we've started to try to change
this by conducting a new research and work on Latino homelessness.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Today's presentation being part of that.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
We wanted to highlight the vulnerability to housing and stability
among the population. So when we look at poverty rates
among the Latino population, they're twice as high as those
of white Americans. They also experience significant threat birds and
high rates of eviction. The Harvard Eviction Lab found that

(14:04):
both black and Latin X rented in general and women
in particular are disproportionately threatened with eviction and disproportionately evicted
from their owns. And a significant proportion of the population
is also foreign born, which we wanted to know and
being foreign born leads to other challenges.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
This could include.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
Less access and use of public benefits, whether or not
they qualify, because of fear of what use of public
benefits might mean.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
It can also mean a lack of knowledge and how to.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
Navigate our local system, being unaware of one's rights, and
also being afraid to exercise one's rights, which we hear
a lot from folks doing the on ground. Word Latino homelessness,
as I mentioned, has been growing in twenty twenty three
when had released it to annual numbers. One of the
things that was noted was that Latinos are the largest

(14:55):
have experienced the largest numerical increase in people experiencing homelessness,
So this number increased twenty eight percent going from about
thirty thirty going to thirty.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
Nine thousand people.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
Oh sorry, I increased you about thirty nine thousand people between.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
And again, these numbers only represent sheltered and unsheltered counts.
So in order to be captured in these counts, you
either have to be visually counted during a point in
time count and are in our local jurisdictions, or you
have to be identified as sheltered because you've entered the
homeless shelter system and have been form when we captured.

Speaker 6 (15:32):
So what did we do in a why?

Speaker 3 (15:35):
So?

Speaker 6 (15:36):
In order to figure out these numbers, we talked a
little bit about the methodology.

Speaker 5 (15:39):
In terms of the quantitative side, we use census data
to determine examine patterns of double dout homelessness in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
We use the same.

Speaker 5 (15:50):
Methodology used in the Richard at All twenty twenty six.

Speaker 6 (15:54):
Study, but narrowed in on LA.

Speaker 5 (15:58):
We did this in order to gauge the efficacy of
existing support systems, be able to paint a comprehensive picture
of homelessness in the LATINX population in LA, and access
alignment between assess alignment between.

Speaker 6 (16:12):
The services available and the needs of the community. And
so we also did a qualitative component of the study.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
So once we've seen the numbers, we talked to service
providers to see how this was playing out in terms
of the services that folks are accessing.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
So in terms of our quantitative findings, and again, if
you are interested in the methodological approach for this, I'd
recommend looking at Molly Richard's article where she specifies how
she approached this analysis using census data. So with regards
to the quantitative findings, we found that on average, around

(16:54):
over two hundred thousand individuals lived in doubled up conditions
and this is both Latino across racial ethnic groups. We
found that the LATINX population was more likely to experience
doubled up homelessness. So about seventy seven percent of the
two hundred over two hundred thousand individuals were identified as

(17:17):
a being of Latino ethnicity. Doubled up rates among LATINX
renters is about six percent, and you can see in
contrast a white non LATINX it's about one point three
percent the rate so quite low in comparison.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
And then the other thing I want to point out
is that we.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Know, the LATINX population is very diverse. You know, sometimes
people do identify racially, other times they may not. And
when we look at the racial breakdown of the LATINX
population with what's available in the census data, we see
that the highest rates of doubling up are also among
American Indian Alaska Native folks that identify as LATINX. We

(18:04):
also found that with regards to immigration status, and a
lot of the literature has shown this before, is that
foreign born Latinos are more likely too, sorry, foreign born
non citizen Latinos are more likely to experience doubled up homelessness.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
But I do want to note that non foreign born
Latinos are not far behappy.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
So foreign born population about seven point two percent rate
with regards to renters, and then if you look at
the non foreign born it's about six point three percent,
so not far behind with regards to that. And then
the other thing we wanted to look at was how
did doubled up homelessness How did the spread of doubled

(18:47):
up homelessness compare to the homeless count numbers. So this
map here shows the darker colors show where there is
a higher concentration of doubled up Latin X households. So
you'll see here we call them spots with their service
planning areas within Los Angeles County.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
So you'll see here that Spot four and SPA six have.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
The highest concentration of individuals experiencing doubled up homelessness. And
then the chart on the side of the map shows
the share of individuals in the pit count that are
Latino by service planning areas, So you'll also see that
the highest concentration of Latino's experiencing homelessness.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Also are in SPA four and six.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
So the patterns match with regards to high counts of
Latino's experiencing homelessness and high counts of Latino's experiencing doubled
up homelessness. So this kind of goes back to Data's
point around book cycle patting folks experience doubled up homelessness
and holmlessess in general, it's and oftentimes of cycle, So
there might be something happening.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
There with black folks being captured in the point in
time cap.

Speaker 6 (20:03):
So here I'm a qualitative research versal.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
This is my bread and butter, and this is where
I find the really interesting. You know, patterns that's there happening.
And this also brings up something that came up in
the plenaria yesterday, and that is a conversation that we
have to have that is going to be a difficult
conversation about scarcity of resources, right, And that came up
in the interviews we did with service providers, right. So

(20:31):
there was no surprise that the definition of homelessness was
one of the biggest things that came up when I
spoke to service providers, because that's how.

Speaker 6 (20:41):
They determine eligibility, right.

Speaker 5 (20:44):
And so the majority of service providers are using that
definition of homelessness, and funding that they're using is tied
to that definition, right, And so we have somebody there
telling me, well, it varies depending on the funding stream.
Most use the federal definition, which is quite literal, that
is living somewhere that is not fit for human habitation

(21:07):
and or living in a temporary place, or fleeing domestic violence.
So that doesn't say anything about how many people are
living in this situation. It doesn't say anything about you know,
there is a difference between being indoors and not right,
but when you're indoors with fifteen people, that's.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
A different situation. But that does not address this, right,
And so.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
We had folks who you know, talked about wanting to.

Speaker 6 (21:38):
Help folks as much as possible.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
Right, So we have folks on the ground trying to
figure out, Okay, how are people eligible, what are they
eligible for?

Speaker 6 (21:46):
Maybe they're not eligible for this federal.

Speaker 5 (21:48):
Funding, but there might be local funding that they can access.
And so there were also though in Here's where the
scarcity conversation that are Ego was talking about yesterday is
that there's concern over expanding the definition. Because if resources
are a pie, and we are talking about maybe expanding

(22:10):
one of those slices, it means that it's taken regroup
this from another part of the pie, right, and so
there's concern that there's a finite amount of resources, and
so we have to you know, essentially pick the most vulnerable.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
If you will. Right.

Speaker 5 (22:26):
So, if you're a service provider and you have a
client that is on the street versus a client who
is in a two bedroom with fifteen people, you're trying
to figure out how do I, you know, how do I.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Make these decisions?

Speaker 5 (22:41):
So the issue here is that we need to expand
our pie.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
We need to you know what was it.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
We spent billions and I'm sure I contributed quite a
bit of money to that lipstick situation.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
So it's trying.

Speaker 5 (22:57):
To expand the pie so that we all so we're
not fighting for the same resources, right, And so then
there was also a view that doubled up homelessness is
a secondary issue, that it's not necessarily related to homelessness directly.
And so here we have a service provider saying, well,
I guess they could be, but they if they that

(23:20):
means they're not really in need. We're trying to get
the help, get the people off the street, so if
they're already living with someone, it lets us know that
they have.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
A place to go.

Speaker 5 (23:34):
And so kind of seeing it as a secondary issue,
not as homelessness.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
And I'd just like to add that just a little bit.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
You know, some of the stories that we've heard from
providers before have been I had to ask them to
sleep on the streets in order for me to actually
note that they were experiencing homelessess, or I had to
ask them to enter the shelter system in order for
me to actually provide them resources, because if they had
somewhere to go and had not spent a night unsheltered

(24:03):
or sheltered in the homeless service system, then they did
not qualify for resources. So we do hear stories like
that where folks are finding themselves in a hard place
where they know that someone is in a situation that's
not livable, but they cannot seem to help them given
our current definitions and guidelines for providing.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
A systems, We're going to take a break and we
will be right back.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
We're back, but so we want to talk a little
bit about some recommendations that came out of this work.
I'm getting that, remember, so you know, one of the
things that we think is important that we're currently not
doing is tracking doubled up homelessness, right and this could

(24:55):
be using measures such as the one that we've presented
on today, but it can also be reporting the number
of people that come in to seek services that do
not qualify for services because they're experiencing double up homelessness.
We've also seen other folks, like individuals in Minnesota that
when they confect their point in time count because the

(25:15):
region that they're counting and measuring, especially in the tribal communities,
is smaller, they actually know all individuals that are experiencing
double up homelessness, so it is important that we start
to track and to measure the extent of this issue.
We also the other thing that we want to emphasize
with regards to the LATINX population is the importance of

(25:39):
these prospector partnerships and these can be things like, you know,
partnerships with legal aid and immigration advocacy, because again we
do see a large foreign foreign population currently.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Within our system.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
We oftentimes have partnerships with folks working on housing and eviction,
which makes a lot of sense given the field. But
we find that another fact with regards to the Latinal
population can be immigration sets, whether that be head of
household or mixed status family, and there are questions regarding
whether or not folks qualify for certain services or what

(26:13):
that means. The other thing we hear a lot is
that because folks don't know where to go, and also
because there tends to be and I think this is
across many populations, there tends to be a distrust of
government that individuals are self identifying as experiencing homelessness in
organizations that are not traditional homeless service providers and that

(26:35):
may not know how.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
To properly connect people to resources.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
So locally we've started talking about the importance of rethinking
how we do outreach and including outreach well with organizations
that have a reputation in the community as being trustworthy
and as serving.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
The local community itself. You know.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
The other thing with this work is importance building staff
capacity and uplifting culturally specific practices. This could include things
like thinking about how trauma informed care would apply to
someone who has migrated and costs many boundaries in order
to be where they feel that they currently are. This
can mean understanding cultural dynamics around family and gender.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
As it pertains to the Latino community.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
And really helping folks with regards to language access as well.
We see this as a huge problem within Los Angeles
County where folks are not able to access information in
their language of preference, and with the Latino population, there's
also a lot of diversity with languages, whether that be
indigenous languages or folks that are on legal Spanish speakers.

(27:42):
And then another thing that I mentioned during yesterday's plenary
was the importance of community organizing and building a movement.
And so we've begun to see locally very few but
a couple of organizations that are homeless service providers starting
to invest in community organizing work, which is really important.
So building community power so that folks are able to

(28:03):
come to the table, share their experiences, and advocate for
policy and program change is really critical. And then I
wanted we wanted to show this here which really talks
about you know, I think one of the important things
with this work is how do we bridge build, how
do we bring other people on the people?

Speaker 3 (28:23):
As I mentioned the LATINX community.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
If you look at the proportion of individuals that are
likely to experience doubled up homelessness, we see that the
folks that identify as Native American have a higher rate.
With regards to Native American and rural communities, we have
seen doubled up homelessness be an important issue for these
communities as well. And one of the things that has

(28:49):
happened will happen last year is that Senators Tina Smith
and Cynthia Lumis they've asked Secretary Fudge to clarify the
definition of homeless business. And this statement, which is not
represented in full, it begins to ask the question of
what it means to be housed. So an example that's
given is like, if there's sixteen people living in a

(29:09):
two bedroom apartment, is that being housed? Does that not
meet the definition of experiencing homelessness? According to HUT, the
state of Minnesota, which has a large Native American population,
has been tracking doubled doubled up homelessness on tribal lands,
and one of the things that they've been doing as
a way to advocate is that they've been sending these

(29:31):
numbers to HUT along with their point in time count,
even though HUT does not ask for these numbers. So
just something for us to think about when it comes
to advocating.

Speaker 5 (29:40):
So Doca Chinchilla talked about some system level recommendations. We
also have some policy level recommendations that we put in
our report, and they have a lot.

Speaker 6 (29:52):
To do with resource allocation.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
Right. One of the things that we really wanted to
do with this is start a conversation, because if you
don't recogniz eyes or if you're not talking about an issue,
then you're also not putting it in your budget, or
you're not also you're not allocating any resources towards it, right,
And so in terms of resource allocation, we're hoping to

(30:15):
assess metrics beyond the point in timecount for evaluating local needs,
so similar to what we're doing and adding census data,
maybe adding some mcinne vno data from your local fool board,
trying to figure out how to better do how to
better count the folks that are experiencing this. So also
resource development, so new and enhanced resources tailored to the

(30:39):
unique challenges of doubling up, Ensuring resources for housing aid
are accessible to all, regardless of citizenship status, which is
an issue that comes up with this population. And streamline
the work permit process for recent immigrants and refugees, which
has also become an issue in this conversation. And then

(31:00):
maintaining robust funding for affordable housing initiatives and enforced tenant
rights and protections, so future research.

Speaker 6 (31:10):
One of the things that we are.

Speaker 5 (31:12):
Doing this work, which is often something that you find
when you're doing research, is that we've got some answers
and then a whole lot of other questions, and so
specifically around funding issues because currently our system we have
that federal definition and so sometimes service providers will say, okay, well,

(31:35):
but this funding comes from Melic, from the County of
la or from the city, and maybe we can use
it for these folks and so then creating a system
where folks can figure these things out a lot easier.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
Right.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
The LATINX experience with homelessness is really nuanced, and part
of the issue is that sometimes people don't self identify,
right Because even though I know a couple of sisters
who work with really rich people in Orange County being
their nannies and then travel to la and have nowhere

(32:14):
to stay. Sometimes I have to stay their car or
couch surfing their siblings homes, they don't assign that title
to themselves, right, And so maybe if they're filling out
a form, they're not going to identify themselves as that.
Maybe it's because they don't see themselves as on house.
Maybe it's also because there's a huge cultural stigma to
being unhoused in the LATINX community.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
And so trying to.

Speaker 6 (32:39):
Work at the system level using.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
Culturally appropriate, you know, resources for folks that can get
at some of these nuances and stigmas.

Speaker 6 (32:51):
And we're currently working on a paper.

Speaker 5 (32:54):
On the intersection of the immigration system and the homelessness
service system, because this is really a huge issue that
came up when we were talking to service providers because
there's not only the oh, are they eligible based on
their living arrangement, there's also are they eligible if they

(33:15):
are undocumented or residents. And one of the things that
we found is that sometimes folks who are eligible for
the funding do not want to see it because while
they may be residents or citizens, there is someone in
their house who isn't and they do.

Speaker 6 (33:34):
Not want to call attention to that.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
And so also.

Speaker 5 (33:37):
Something that we already know from the literature on immigration
is that undocumented status feels over to your family members
even if they're not undocumented, right, And so there's that
fear of the public charge of whether if sometime down
the line you may have the ability to readjust your status,

(33:57):
that taking assistance.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Would come back to you at that point in time.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
And so one of the things that I thought was
really interesting about that is that during the Trump administration
there were some.

Speaker 6 (34:10):
The public charge rule was made a lot more strict.

Speaker 5 (34:14):
When Biden came back, if the Democrats were back in
the White House.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
They changed it back.

Speaker 5 (34:21):
That freaked people out because that it's really easy to
just change. It's like, I, you know, even if right
now it's easier or I'm not going to take it
because someone else comes back in and they can change
it right back, and then I'm not eligible, and so
they'll just stay away and not want to use assistance
that they're eligible for. And then refugee status that also

(34:44):
came up, Like I mentioned folks on the service provision side,
when folks are processed, they end up in a community,
they can't work, and so then they end up getting
wrapped up in all of these systems and so clarifying
those things.

Speaker 6 (35:01):
So these are some of the future research questions that
we are going to hopefully be looking into. And we
had some questions pretty for you all.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
So we have some time for conversation and we were
hoping to one hear from the audience but also allow
you all to ask us any follow up questions that
you have.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
But to start off, we just really.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Wanted to understand whether or not you all are seeing
doubled up homelessness as a challenge in your vocal region,
and whether or not your region has done anything to
address or track doubled up homelessness. So if anyone's willing
to share, we'd really appreciate hearing you all.

Speaker 7 (35:44):
Good morning, Timpagna. There we are Latita. My name is
big heart woman. My government name is Rachel Parker. It's
good that you're here. I am an eral member of
the Maha t I'm located in Omaha, Nebraska. I wanted
to comment, thank you for your presentation. I wanted to

(36:07):
comment about the tribal communities. So Mairas is literally like
an hour away from Omaha, and we see that so
much and so like culturally, there's nothing wrong with that,
you know, but I think Honey needs to get it
right and quit count h and count couch.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
Surfing as homelessness. You know what I mean.

Speaker 7 (36:28):
And I love that you got the point that you
brought up about your pit counts. So our community indigenous
people we have is higher than black individuals, but yet.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Nobody talks about them.

Speaker 7 (36:42):
So where we're located, right in the center of the
country is a hub.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
For human trafficking.

Speaker 7 (36:47):
I have to share this because it's relevant to the
m m I W M MIP movement that is currently
going on. The three highest the three events in the
country that helped the highest rates of human traffic the
key are the super Bowl, the College World Series, which
is located right in Omaha we just had, and the

(37:09):
Berkshire Hathaway Conference.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Does everybody know what that is? Do you know who
wars uff?

Speaker 4 (37:14):
It is?

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Okay, he holds that conference.

Speaker 7 (37:17):
So two of the events in our country happen, I
will tell you in our community, it is the It
is the unhealthed Indigenous women and men and boys now
that are coming up missing, and you never hear about
it on TV when we hear about it on social media.
I am the only one in our CEOC in the

(37:39):
rooms that I go into where leadership is my position.
With our company, Reimagine, I am the training and lived
Experience director, So it is my goal to advocate and
to represent Indigenous people.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
So I thank you for mentioning us in this presentation.
I really do.

Speaker 7 (38:00):
I just wanted to elevate that, you know, these are
the things that we see in our community, adding natives
to send separate numbers to the PICOW. I've been to Minneapolis.
My brother did street outreach up there. It is something
else to see. You see people doing fetanam right on
the street. You see people doing fetanam right on the buses,
and the Indian community is right there.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
You will have to walk through that to get to
the Indian communities in Minneapolis.

Speaker 7 (38:26):
So I just want to elevate that because even here
I don't see very many people like me.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
It's interesting. We got to do something about that.

Speaker 8 (38:33):
We will thank you, thank.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
You so much for Jay. I really appreciate it. Appreciate
you Jerry listening.

Speaker 9 (38:42):
I appreciate that I can talk about a failure. I
work in South la and you know, obviously there's a
huge doubling up this year. If you drive to work
in South Play, you're doing swaalom through the streets of
all the dope park cars. But we tried to do
a pilot of doing upstream.

Speaker 10 (39:02):
From from stray homelessness to try to find people who
were going to be homeless or likely to be homeless
in the next next year or something like that. And
and we found some measures, which is very difficult.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
So I'm thrilled to hear about this.

Speaker 11 (39:17):
But yeah, we uh we yeah, ours was a failure
because we just couldn't figure out a way to identify
those specific people to help. And we and I think
it's pretty obvious that, you know, the relative cost of
solving someone's housing problem when they're on the street is
much more expensive than if they're already housed.

Speaker 10 (39:37):
You can, you can you know, just do the moving
cost and there's not the whole engagement fees. So this
is definitely you know, we're talking about huge iceberg here.
You know, hundreds of thousands of people. I think it
was six hundred or two and twenty five thousand people
in in La County. And that's that's uh, that's next
week's IT camp, right, I.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
Mean, basically, thanks so much for sharing. I'll just add
that a lot of the times we're thinking about prevention
programs where some efforts have moved towards predictive analytics and
using data systems in order to see who might fall
into homelessess based on the predicted pattern, which there's some
benefit to that, right, but we're also missing a lot

(40:20):
of folks that never enter the system. So LA County
a couple of like a year or two back, they
released some data regarding individuals that had passed away while
experiencing homelessness, and one of the things that they found
is that a significant proportion at a significant proportion of
Latino population that we're experiencing homelessess in that past while

(40:41):
on the streets, had never had any contact with the
county system. So you know, we have to think about
different ways to reach the population, including partnering with agencies
that know.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
The community well can help identify folks.

Speaker 5 (40:56):
And one of the things that I want to end
that yesterday when we were at the Culinaria and you know,
people were announcing.

Speaker 6 (41:03):
Like, oh, homelessness came down this much and this much.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
I saw in the audience that folks from those areas
were like really and part of what most of the
work that I've done, I've done in Orange County, California,
and one of the things that we talk about is
that the county will go out and say, hey, we
brought homelessness down by one thousand people, but then they
don't talk about the fact that nine hundred and fifty

(41:27):
people died on the street that year. Are you really
bringing it down or are you just killing your unhoused folks.

Speaker 7 (41:33):
It's really kind to hold built agencies and and everybody accountable.
Why can't we address the outfit in the room. What's
wrong with saying I messed up? Let's get it right right?
I mean, what's so hard on that we see it
in our clc I'm in rooms with leadership and none
of them want to hold themselves, and that's why we
were formed. ORC was formed because frontline and lived experienced

(41:53):
folks were sick of it. And so we go in there,
guns and blazes, and I'll tell you, as an Indigenous woman,
I go on for those rooms and I speak my
mind and I'm considered angry.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
I'm gonna say what it is. If I was a
white woman, i'd be strong. I don't shut up.

Speaker 6 (42:12):
But the reason I bring that up is because we
need to be clear about our numbers. Right now, we're using.

Speaker 5 (42:16):
Predictive analytics and doing all these things, and we really
got to talk about what numbers we're using and why
and what we're not using and why.

Speaker 12 (42:26):
All right, good morning, and not much of a question,
more of a comment.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
So I'm brainning.

Speaker 5 (42:31):
I'm from Arlington, Virginia, so literally right across the bridge.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
My previous job wasn't affordable.

Speaker 12 (42:37):
Housing, and the amount of doubling up that was happening
within the Latino households was it continues.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
To be appalling.

Speaker 12 (42:47):
Arlington is gentrified quite a bit in the last decade,
so a lot of these families are now having to
move out of Arlington, Yet they're the ones who are
working in the food industry in the county and they're
having to move further out, limited transportation, food deserts, so
there's not as much accessibility for them. I think we

(43:07):
are definitely not at least to my knowledge, this is
not something that.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
Is on anyone's agenda.

Speaker 12 (43:14):
But there's definitely preventive measures that need to be put
into place to address this. Because some of my kids
that I worked with, there was men also living in
the unit and it was a single mom. They would
set up plywood so that it would be like a
little room for the person and it would be three
dudes plus a mom and her three kids.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Not good.

Speaker 12 (43:38):
So thank you for bringing this to like, because I
don't think it's a topic that's disgusted.

Speaker 5 (43:42):
Enough, and especially when it comes to affordable housing and
those like they're also violating the terms of the least
and so also putting themselves in you know, risk of eviction.

Speaker 8 (43:56):
And I wanted to answerst some of your questions plus
will ask good questions from Portland, Oregon. For a long
time I worked in Clacken's County organ and every single
account we.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Also counted doubled up. So we asked that and we
tracked it. We didn't send it.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
To HUD, although we did put it in our NOVAH
application just to try to get.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
That those numbers in there.

Speaker 13 (44:17):
Somehow, it was very hard to try to communicate that
to the pubble because the pit count was being talked
about and there was doubled up, and then there was
the SCHOOLIAISE, homelesschool AAISE on count, the McKay Vento account
and that got conflated with the double dup, so that
made it really tricky to convey it clearly to the public.

(44:40):
And then also we have significant local funding that doesn't
have the same HUG definitions or restrictions, And I'm wondering
if you had advice on how to set eligibility criteria
in order to get the right population into programs, because
we've set it in such a way that I think
so broad that actually opens the door to almost anyone

(45:04):
who's staying with someone else not on the lease, and
I think that didn't get quite to who we were
trying to serve. So if you have advice on eligibility
criteria that we can set to draw on those folks
into coronerance, that would really be helpful.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
Thanks so much for sharing that.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
Yeah, I think that's a that's a great suggestion, maybe
as a future research is really defining what it would
mean to experience double up homelesses. The definition that Molly
Richard uses looking at census data includes like, you know,
doubling up because a loss of income, not being able
to pay for housing. So like kind of looking at

(45:42):
the reasons why doubling up occurs.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
But I think that one of the things that I've
been asking people.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
To do to reframe this conversation is, you know, we've
historically asked people are you homeless? And then we've said,
if you're homeless, your ex yfe you have experienced x y.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
I see. So what if we ask people said, are
you housed?

Speaker 4 (46:04):
And then we define what being housed looks like and
that could be something like, you know, being on a lease,
because being on a lease means that you have rights,
or it can mean that you have access to certain
types of amenities that would be considered.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
As part of being fully housed.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
For example, do you have access to a kitchen creating
do you have access to the indoor restroom? So kind
of beginning to think about the quality of the house
of housing, and I will say that part of the
conversation we're having today is about starting to push ourselves
as a nation to think about what is the standard

(46:41):
of living for our community. You know, we're the richest
nation in the world. We have tons ofbody spent on
paper towels and limpstick and you know, we you know,
but yet we think that having people twelve people to
a room.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Or having folks that have to go outside to use the.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
Restroom or that do not have access to a functional
kitchen is okay, and that that means that you know
that that doesn't follow by them.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
As un housed.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
So I think I would ask everyone to think about
the question of what does it mean to ask someone
are you house?

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Instead of asking someone are you host? And starts to Livia.

Speaker 5 (47:18):
I think there's also an outreach component to it and
kind of bringing it back to that like movement and organizing,
looking at how to actually talk to this community that
you're looking right and so as someone with a community
organizing background, are you on Spanish language radio? Are you
going to the Catholic churches? Are you letting people know

(47:41):
that this is available? That's also I think important conversation
and I think.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
We're at time when we come back we're going to
get further insight from presenters Melissa to Chia and Dianeda
nevardis Martinus right after this break, Welcome back to Whedian House.
We had a very stimulated conversation on the topic of
LATINX houselessness. Here are more of their foughts. My name

(48:09):
is Steve Henderson, This is Whedian House. This is State
tue on the National Alliance for Homelessness Conference, and we
have two dynamic speakers that gave a presentation today. So
I'm going to ask them some questions and we can
take the conversation from there. So let's introduce ourselves.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Hello, my name is Melissa chinciam Is Martinez.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Excellent, So let's ask the obvious question because you did
mention UCLA. So how did you guys start it off
in this research.

Speaker 5 (48:38):
Yeah, so we both are PhDs and we've been doing Yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
The doctors are in we been doing this research.

Speaker 5 (48:50):
For quite a bit of time. Yesterday when they were asking, oh,
how long you've been doing it, we will kind of
looked at each other because it's been about ten years
for both of us. Right home, we've been doing homeless
homelessness research and so I actually started doing this research
because I started working with informal settlements on the US
Mexico border called colonias, because I grew up in a colonia.
And as I've been looking at informal housing in the

(49:11):
United States, because that research has traditionally looked mostly at
the global South, We've come up with a typology of
what it looks like also in the US, and that
includes the colonias, but also folks who are unhoused. And
so that's how I kind of ended up doing work
with menhouse folks.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Look at you, doctor, how about you?

Speaker 4 (49:31):
So you know, I first started doing research around homelessness,
specifically around veteran homelessness. So some of my work is
around veteran homelessness and the HUDBASH program, which is a
permanent support of housing program specifically targeted towards veterans. But
in twenty eighteen, I specifically, you know, I have the
opportunity to do some local work around Latino homelessness. And

(49:54):
one of the things that I learned was that no
one was doing the work in the area of Latino homelessness.
So this was another report done in partnership with the
UCLA's Latino Policy and Politics Institute, and what we did
was try to understand recent increases in Latino homelessness in
La County and what was being done and what were

(50:14):
some of the challenges with addressing Latino homelessness. So that
work really evolved to some of the you know, the
work that we were discussing today and also partnering with
Dya and talking to her about potential projects to do.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
But yeah, it's been a process. Well, not a lot
of people are doing the work.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
We kind of found each other because we were both
looking at these issues and have continued to do work together.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Well, you know, it's so awesome too because now when
I it gets me excited too because it's because I
live in Los Angeles and I know, you know, what's
going on with the veterans over there in the Westwood area,
how they're being displaced the places. So it's in this
ongoing thing. There's the veterans that were staying outside of
the Veterans Hotel and the Nimbi's and I covered the

(51:02):
story and they went over there, yeah, a Veterans role
and they ran them off and they packed them into
tiny sheds on the campus where they're This was.

Speaker 6 (51:10):
Our conversation her breakfast yesterday.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Yes, and so it's again the soccer continues because a
lot of the allocation and the property was for veterans
to have housing. But what is going on is that
they're selling or subleasing to other places. Of course, UCLA
private schools and other places over the baseball stadium, if
I remember correctly. So these things they intertwined, but I

(51:35):
also wanted to bring the things back to what I
really think is impactful. What you guys do is talk
about double housing, a double up houselessness because of the
fact that it's not a conversation point that's really hit
the lexicon of our communities. Because I grew up listening
to people saying, wow, it's so good every other thing

(51:57):
especialist I'm African American. They will say cultures, they could
all live together in one house and da da da
da da, but we can't even live you know. They
used to use that as a pejorative as we were
sold devices, we were sold hostile to each other, that
we couldn't come together. But with examining the conversation a
little further, it is not necessarily where we were bad people,

(52:19):
but it's also horrible to have the situation at a
rich country day we get in that we have this
kind of doubling up, and we're thinking that's going to
be a socide of the accepted. Any insights on this, m.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
H yeah, I mean the issue of doubling up, like
you're saying, oftentimes the idea has been oh great, well
you have someone to stay with, and but there hasn't
been as much conversation around what that actually looks like,
including you know, not only what it looks like for
the individual that's staying doubled up, but the whole household

(52:52):
as well, because oftentimes what we see is that when
individuals double up there, the whost household is often also
in financial strain. So if you look at I mean,
other work's been done around public housing and residents and
their networks, and there tends to be a draining of
resources that happens when someone is seeking resources from another

(53:12):
low income household or individual.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
So that's something that happens.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
And then also the experience for the individual that's staying
in you know, whether that be CouchSurfing or doubled up
in another type of manner with the whole household. I mean,
you hear stories where people experience a lot of anks,
like mental health issues because of what that looks like.
You know, we hear stories of folks being like I
heard the mumbling when is he gonna leave? Like you yeah, yeah,

(53:41):
they like when I came home, they looked at me like,
oh god, he's here again. So and then eventually deciding
to leave the whole household and experience street homelessness because
of the shame and the just like feeling like a
burden onto family or friends.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
That's that discuss too. When I got ill and ahead
my stroll, I started doing couch surfing, and I can
tell you maybe I jumped the gun. I was too
hyper sensitive, but I didn't want to stay overwhere my welcome.
And that is a real reality and it definitely does
do with your mental.

Speaker 5 (54:14):
Hell that were trying to recover from a stroke, that's
not what you want doing. And we have seen some
really extreme cases. So for example, in the Central Valley,
they found like one house with forty people living there
that is insane, and what people were doing is taking
churned sleepings. Half of the house would work at night,
and then half of the house would work during the

(54:36):
day and they would take shifts. What that also didn't
take into consideration is the children that lived there who
weren't able to access the facilities because there was always
someone getting ready to go to work or coming home
from work, and they take priority, right, and so then
they were getting sick, they were getting ut I s,
they were having all these stress I'm sure from just

(54:56):
so many things going on and not having access to
your own back through right.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Not only that, being a kid is like, you know, kid,
is this normal thing running around.

Speaker 5 (55:06):
Quiet because there's someone sleeping and like, and I'm sure
people getting frustrated because the kids were playing and they
couldn't sleep right, and so all of these things are
are you know, And and one of the things that
we do want to say is, you know, we do
do multi generational housing, but that's not this.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
And I was going to say, you know, we we
did try to do much generational housing, but sometimes, let's
be real, like, at least in my family, somebody primarily
gets on my nerves, so I don't so, you know,
so I'm sure that they may be the case of
what they would make it these say is like okay,
if you if you bet on you know, okay, so
you don't. We don't want to sleive with her. But

(55:46):
the point of it is is that this is the
conversation that really we should be talking about more, shouting
it to the rooftops and understanding what the difference is
between multigenerational housing and not using it as a blanket
to obscure the realities of what's reliferanty.

Speaker 5 (56:00):
Yeah, put resources into helping people need assistance, right.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
And I think to one of the things I want
and I won't hold you along. You guys had to
get an excellent presentation, But I think in closing is
that the fact that we as a community allocating the
funds because we keep hearing this stuff that there is
a shrinking we be fighting resources. I went to another
presentation and they did say we do have the funds.

(56:26):
They are deliberately shrinking and taking the funds away. So
I think too, like, you know, what what we could
do as a society, and what we do to do
to plug in is to start organizing. Give us our
dayn money back so we can be able to do
this so we don't have this excuse that we don't
have the money. We did have the money. We have
What was it say, eight hundred billion dollars in medicaid

(56:46):
and we are there having to only have like a
three percent usage. If they go past the three percent,
then you know, then all help bus is loose and
all of this. Then people have to do these contortionist
acts and bump into other people's sources. I mean, I
think that's ridiculous. You know, we don't do that three
percent when we're doing investing moneys over in other places
like Gaza. But that's another another conversation.

Speaker 5 (57:10):
One of the things that you know, we've seen, especially
in places like LA is that people aren't willing to
invest in this. They vote to, you know, try and
solve this issue and put money into it. And what
we need to do with that money is housing.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Yes, we want.

Speaker 5 (57:24):
This is one of the conversations that I have a
lot is that programs are great. You know, assistance for food,
assistance for healthcare, those are all great, but they don't
solve homelessness. They solve hunger, they solve you know, food
and security or health issues, but not homelessness. The only
thing that solves homelessness is housing.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
And I think dignified housing. I want to clarify it.
I always keep saying it because everyone because I live
right now in oursro we have very restrictive or oppressive
type of environment we have where and I think that's
the key to it. Dignified house.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
Yeah, and I'll just add that, I think the first
question is what are our values and priorities as a
nation and as a people, right, And then I think
the other piece of it, as was mentioned during the plenary,
it was like, how do we build the tent bigger?

Speaker 3 (58:12):
Right?

Speaker 4 (58:12):
So, as was mentioned during the presentation, part of the
conversation is also about building the tent bigger. And we
have historically seen homelessness as like, oh, it's the what
we can see on the streets, and we have a
lot of people that think like, oh, homelessness doesn't affect me.
So part of it is reframing the way that we
think about homelessness, where homelessess is not just like you know,

(58:34):
what you see on the street, but it's a lot
bigger than that. It's that whole iceberg that we need
to capture. It's workforce housing and people being able to
live and work in the same area. It is quality housing.
It's a lot bigger than what the eye is able
to see.

Speaker 5 (58:48):
Things whenever I tell people like, literally most of the
un house folks that I've ever worked with have jobs.

Speaker 6 (58:54):
Yes, and they're like, what, like.

Speaker 5 (58:55):
Yes, some of them have too, and they still cannot
afford the.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
I remember a few years ago, I don't know, I'm
around a pandemic, they did a story about Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara's an expensive place, and they were showing that
the people that were working, like nurses and other provisors
were literally living in their car if they couldn't afford
the rents in there. So it's a reality that you
know that you will be very surprised that many on

(59:22):
House community members are employed, people doubly employed, and still
can't afford the rent. So it's not a matter of
lack of ingenuity or lack of will to work. It's
one of the things that which I would close this on.
It services the rent that you pay here on earth,
and one of the things that a society, as a
moral society, we must create a better service to our

(59:44):
fellow human beings and creating dignified living, quality of life
and living examples. I thank you all for stopping by.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Thank you so much. To Melissa Chinchia and Dianita Nevadus Martinez.
And that wraps up this episode of Whedian House. This
is the first episode from my trip to DC. Stay
tuned for more interviews and presentations from the conference. Please
like and subscribe, and if you would like to be
on Median House and share your story, please reach out

(01:00:16):
to me at wiedianhows dot com, at Whedonhouse on Instagram,
or Whedonhoust gmail dot com. Thank you again for listening
and may we again meet in the light of understanding well.
Whedianhouse is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted,
and created by me Theo Henderson, Our producers Jbie Loftus,

(01:00:38):
Dailey Fager, Katiefischal, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam
Wand and our loco art is also by Katiefischal. Thanks
for listening.