United to Discuss Houselessness

This week, Theo talks with Becks Heyhoe-Khalil about how houselessness is treated in America versus other places in the west -- and what needs to be done in the States to combat the numerous way the U.S. fails the unhoused on the city, state, and national levels.

Follow Dr. Heyhoe-Khalil's work here:

https://unitedtoendhomelessness.org/

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/becks-heyhoe/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Weedy and House.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
There's a spectrum of what substance use really is that
goes from total abstinence all the way to problematic use.
And if there's no acknowledging those people in between, then
you can't serve those people.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
When you provide these type of equipment to help with
harm reduction, you provide a safe space for people to
be actually able to talk to you about what's really
going on because they don't feel like they have to
hide who they are. And harm reduction, you meet the
person where they're at. I don't tell them what they need,
I don't tell them who they have to be. I

(00:40):
just show up and simply by showing them that I care,
they will start seeing how they deserve to be treated
by other people.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson.
This week we're concluding the ELM series Educate, Liberate, and
Motivate with a new guest, doctor becks Heyho Khalil, who's
going to discuss aspects of houselessness both locally and internationally.

(01:23):
But first on House News, Ignorance alive with power is
the most ferocious enemy justice can have. That quote is
taken from James Baldwin. As we continue to live in
these trying times, it's best to remember this. This connects

(01:45):
with our most recent news that LARSA, the Los Angeles
Homeless Services Authority, has been under fire for poor record
keeping and disappearances of funds. This kerfuffle has been used
as the whipping post by the Mayor and city council
leaders indignantly together, they are using the current news as

(02:06):
the reason why there is so much houselessness. They have
absolved themselves of the Crew Ordinances of forty nineteen as
the impetus for so much displacement in the unhoused community.
They have also neglected to mention the un house who
are languishing in CD motels and enduring Carcero living quarters.

(02:29):
Add to this, the Mayor remains obstrupperous in partnering with
the city's auditor, Kenneth Maheir, so much so that she
refused Judge Carter's prompting that they work together and inescapable.
Fact is that without the controller putting pressure on the
city's ham fisted way, they are a dressing houselessness. They

(02:51):
will be a vacius pr campaign that Mayor bass is
reducing houselessness which does not explain defenses where the un
house used to well. James Baldwood also said people can
cry much easier than they can change. Are we to
assume that the city is changing house business for the

(03:11):
better or can we rightly assume that the people losing
in this situation are the un housed community.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
And that's on House News.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
When we come back, we'll be speaking with doctor Beck's
hey Hol Khalil.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Welcome back to Weediean House. I'm THEO Henderson.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Our guest for this week is doctor Beck's hey Ho Khalil,
who is going to educate us on her experiences on
dealing with young house in two very different places without
for Redu.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Here's doctor hey Hold Khalil. Good afternoon. This is THEO
Henderson from WIEDI in House.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
We have an exciting guest in our studios today that's
going to present another angle of houselessness and how they
are approaching the issue. On my show, we deal with
unhoused people that are currently in house that was recently
displaced and more importantly have experienced and lived experience on
being in house and advocates. We also have people that

(04:27):
have had people that are close to them that were
in house as well. Today in our studios we have
our guests Ms. Beck's, and I'm going to make sure
I get this correctly. Hey hol Khalil, she's the executive
director of United to End Homelessness. I will let her
get her introduction in and we will take the conversation
from there. Thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
Well, thank you so much THEO. You nailed it with
the name Becks. Hey Ho Khalil. I'm delighted to be
able to talk with you today. I've been one of
the Orange County United Way for almost nine years and
I've had the privilege of growing with the organization. When
I first joined United And homelessness didn't exist in homelessness

(05:09):
with twenty five percent of the work I was doing.
And so over the last eight and a half nine years,
this organization's been on quite the journey in terms of
making shifts and strides for how we help our community
address homelessness here.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Well, one of my first questions from off the top
is how did you get involved in houselessness anyway? Because
you know, this is not a field that people just
run to rush through the hills.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Today we're going to really tackle this, This.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
Has got to be some kind of enlightening moment or
aha moment, if you will, So please tell us how
she got started on the path.

Speaker 5 (05:42):
Yeah, happy to do. So. I actually grew up in
the UK and Ireland, so my story sort of starts there.
My father is an episcopal priest. He's retired now, but
I grew up, you know, very much with the belief
and the teachings that everybody should be treated with dignity
and everybody is worthy of love and respect, and so

(06:07):
really that infusion of faith really helped me kind of
understand the world through that lens. That led to me
going to seminary in London, and so I actually studied theology.
So as I was going through seminary, realized I don't
want to work for a church in a sort of
traditional sense of the way, and realized that I wanted

(06:30):
to really work with people who felt misunderstood. And that
was through going through kind of my own journey of
feeling like I had been misunderstood, my own dealings with
trauma that I had experienced earlier in my life, and
kind of you know, working my way through that to
bring some healing and integration in myself. And I realized

(06:50):
that I didn't want others to feel excluded, left out,
and that they weren't worthy of being met with respect
and dignity, and that led me to once I got
my degree in theology, looking to see what opportunities there
could be, and a healthmaiate of mine back in London

(07:11):
worked for a nonprofit or charity as we would say
in the UK that was working with people who were houseless,
and so I started volunteering there. That turned into a
job that turned into me ending up sort of working
with Eastern European immigrants who would come to the UK
who found themselves without a roof over their head, and

(07:33):
also coming alongside a lot of the people we saw
who were struggling with mental health issues. So did that
for a few years before my next crazy adventure of
coming to America, which.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
I was going to say it seemed like all of
this was going into UK and I have just the
quick side note. I have also learned that I've have
listeners from the UK that have teld me there are
stories of being on housing, which is really on inspiring
that they are listening to the show, but also the
fact that they're their own challenges and I wish in
my heart of hearts there is I could create a

(08:06):
satellite show there to highlight the stories there as well.
But we're going to jump to how did you get
into the helping the young house and houses here in America?

Speaker 5 (08:16):
That's a great question. So I moved to America in
two thousand and nine to volunteer for a church in
a town called Coastamata in Orange County, so just south
of LA I came out to help the pastor and
his wife with some pieces that they were just struggling with.

(08:37):
I have my degree in theology, if that made sense.
And the other piece of that was that people who
are houseless were attending the church and they weren't. They
didn't really feel like they were equipped to know what
to do with that, and so I was like, oh,
these are things that I could help with. I had
known them through some friends i'd had and I visited

(08:57):
southern California on vacation. That's how i'd met them, and
so I reached out and said, Hey, I think maybe
I'm supposed to come and help you. What do you think?
And then fast forward nine months later, I had given
up my job with the charity. I was working for.
I sold pretty much everything that I owned and I
jumped on a plane with two suitcases.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
So you became displaced yourself. Wow.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (09:22):
So I landed at lax in two thousand and nine
and it has been quite the adventure ever since. So
I've done a lot of different things around addressing homelessness
and working with people who are houseless in our community.
That eventually led me to be in a part of
United Way.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
What was your insights when you came to America and
dealing with young house crisis here?

Speaker 1 (09:43):
What did you see?

Speaker 4 (09:44):
Were there any similarities here conversely or were there contrast
with house listers here and in the UK.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
I think some of the common pieces were some of
the myth perceptions people had around causes all bits, But
that was definitely something that I saw both in the
UK and in America. I think there were a couple
of things that were really jarring to me as I
started to get more involved in how homelessness was addressed,

(10:13):
in trying to wrap my mind around city, county, dates,
federal and trying to sort of understand how it all
worked together. And the first was the lack of a
social safety net for people the town that I worked
in in the UK was very similarly sized to the
town or the city I should say that I worked

(10:34):
in here in Orange County, but the number of people
who were sleeping outside every night was vastly different. The
lack of emergency shelter beds that I found when I
first arrived here in two thousand and nine, compared to
the provision of shelter, it seems like there was an
easier access to emergency shelter in the UK. Certainly at

(10:56):
that time I recognized things may not be the same now,
but that was my experience fifteen years ago. And that
other piece that was really shocking to me would around
children experiencing almostness. In the UK, there's just sort of
a very different approach to it. We have this thing
called a local area connection, and so I knew that

(11:19):
if somebody came to the day center that I worked at,
and if they had a child under eighteen with them,
I immediately needed to call the council or city Hall
if it would be here, and they needed to let
them know that this was the case, and it was
actually the council's responsibility to get that family into accommodation.

(11:40):
The onus was on them to provide albeit a temporary roof,
but to provide that for that family they had a
child with them. So it was really shocking to me
to come to America to realize that that children could
be you know, sleeping outside, children could be sleeping you know,

(12:00):
and cars as that just wasn't something that you really
ran across in the UK. That was one of those
pieces around children. And then the local area connection that
I was mentioning, it was set across the board, so
every borough, every region had the theme criteria for local connection.

(12:21):
You know, you'd been there for a certain period of time,
you had family there, or you had worked there. You know,
it was the set criteria across the board. So the
idea was that somebody could gain their local connection if
they've been there long enough, and that nobody would fall
through the cracks and coming here realizing that there wasn't

(12:42):
that place where people were connected to and they're realizing
that cities and counties didn't have that same sort of
I would say, like accountability to providing care for people
who belonged to their community. And so that was something
that I think I've seen over the years sort of
finger pointing of well, this is not our responsibility to

(13:04):
come here from somewhere else. Will only provide for our residents.
But everybody gets to say what being a resident of
their community is. And so that was another piece that
was pretty surprising to me when I got here.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
You know, I wanted to interject rifle here too, because
that is also surprising, and you're correct about the explosion
of on how children that are out here. And also
one of the other things that is really rarely talked about,
and I try to bring it up on the show,
is the explosion. Like I had received a call about
a year ago from another advocate and she was honestly

(13:40):
alarmed because she was dealing her primary focus was she
was dealing with newly immigrants from Eastern Europe and things
like that, getting them situated. But what she was noticing
in the little course of her work was this explosion
of elderly people that were on house and she didn't know.
She asked, well, is it any aren't saying anything about this?

(14:01):
Anybody noticing that this is going on? Because I think
it's very difficult when you're feeling hearing the propaganda or
the wave of discontent or disdain for unhoused people, it
is always prefaced with their own substances. They're mentally ill,
they don't want help, and you're not getting the layers
or pulling the onion, the peels of the onion and

(14:23):
understanding that's just not true. You know, eighty ninety year
old people, you can't just tell them just to get
a job and you know they're just lazy, they don't
want to work. Or you can't tell a five or
six year old kid to get out there, despite what
the Republican Senatory was saying, you expect five or six
year old to ket a job to be able to
sustain themselves.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
I think that's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
But the point of it is, it's that kind of narratives,
is those kinds of statements permeate the conversation of houselessness,
and it's very hard to dig to that quagmar. Do
you see since that or am I just off base here?

Speaker 5 (14:56):
No? And I think this is something really important to
talk about. People have a lot of misperceptions around what
causes company to find themselves without a home, and there's
just a ton of misinformation around there around that, like
you're saying, and people have this sort of preconceived idea

(15:16):
that they know what homelessness looks like, and they's sort
of the hidden faiths of homelessness that I think the
general public is not exposed to very much. People like
what you were describing elderly people. You know, we know
that seniors are one of the highest groups of people
falling into homelessness across the country, and certainly corn is

(15:39):
not immune to that. Orange County is not immune to that.
We've seen our numbers of seniors increase year over year
in our point in time count, and we're not equipped
as a community to be able to address this a
way that are most effective. It feels like, as a country,
we're trying to figure this out. How do you older

(16:00):
adults who are experiencing almlessness.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
Well, one of the questions that I was giving, and
I think it's apropos to this moment, is how important
it is to invest in houseless prevention. I have been
on a series. My previous episode has been the ELM series.
They Educate, Liberate, and Motivate. In order for people to
understand the issues, they need to be educated correctly or
accurately on the reality of the situation and disabuse themselves

(16:26):
of the preconceived notions that they have about houselessness.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Then once you have bad, then you liberate, and then you.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
Reach out to people that may have had those erroneous ideas.
Then you start to educate and reinforce what you've learned
and also created an ally in to order to help
liberate someone else. But also after you use the liberation
that you motivate your community in order for creating the
mutual aid kind of programs or responses that the city

(16:53):
has fallen way short on in order for it to
be able to reach from community. And once you did
your community, and you go to another work too with
another community that does mutual aid in order to make
it more of a global kind of effort in educate, liberating,
and motivating. And once we have that underpinning done or
I won't say it would never be done, but on

(17:14):
lock it would be easier when there is passing legislation
because once you have legislation and policies to discuss, we've
already did the groundwork. You have people understanding what's going on. Conversely,
Gendine just spouting off half truths or myths about houselessness
and creating more at which we have in our city
right now, criminalization ordnances or ways of demonizing vulnerable people.

(17:38):
And I think that maybe it's going to probably take
more of like ten to fifteen years, But I do
think that maybe that kind of planning and effort would
be in my eyes, a way of helping prevent that.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
But what is your what's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 5 (17:52):
I couldn't agree more. Part of the work that we've
been doing at United States Homelessness recall it changing hearts
and minds, which is a complicated science and art. And
part of what we do is we provide a tremendous
amount of education. So we've educated thousands of people. We
have a course called Homelessness one O one. It's not

(18:12):
a very exciting name, but it speaks to what we do,
and we use that to be able to provide accurate data,
real information, to really help people understand how homelessness is
addressed in our community, to give them some common language
that they might hear being used in this sector, to
break down those misperceptions, buffed the myth, and equip people

(18:34):
with knowledge to make informed decisions. And so our hope
is that those people who are connected to us, you know,
are able to learn and have those conversations with their friends.
When they hear something, you know, around the Thanksgiving table,
it's not quite accurate. They can say, actually, did you know?
Or I recently learned this, And so it's so important,

(18:56):
you know, when I think about where my mind has
been changed, it's not necessarily from you know, being sort
of bombarded with information, but it's from somebody I trust
filling me in on what they learned, what they recently,
you know, being exposed to. And so part of our
work here with United and Homelessness is to really help

(19:17):
create public awareness. So we've done some interesting things. We
have a mural that we have on the property of
a church that's a really cool place. You know. It
says on the side of this that you can it's
most visible from the whatsold homelessness, And so that's to
pull people in and that they walk around the side
of the mural. It's a home, so it's a snapshot

(19:39):
into a home. When the artists did a little couch
so people can sit on the couch and be in
the painting of the living room and take their photo.
And that's a way to get people talking. And so
we try to get creative about how we invite people
into conversation. We host community meetups, conversations around we try

(20:00):
to take advantage of hunger and homelessness, So where to
speak each year because it's in those places and spaces
that we are able to have those both heartfelt but
also data driven and reality based conversations.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
We'll be right back after a quick break, and we're back.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
You know.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
One of the things that when I what inspired me
to create this type of understanding and solutions as myself
is when I was in House. I've been in House
for over eight years, and I remember what the part
of the disinformation or the education campaign that had against
the houselesness where I was staying at there was a
picture of where they have posted where the store owner

(20:45):
literally has to post it saying do not give change
to unhoused people, give it to norn profits. Unhouse people
will use it for drugs, and that was their educational policy.
And the second thing that I also noticed was the
fact of how the information from city leaders and law
enforcement carried on that propaganda and targeting unhoused people, removing them,

(21:08):
sweeping them, and keeping that conversation. Like for example, there
was during the height of the forty one to eighteen
eracial mission that they had. They had police officers going
into schools saying, if you see an that housed person,
called the police. And so this is why it's so
pernicious in ways that people make houselessness so accessible to dehumanize.

(21:29):
I always say, if you can dehumanize the individual, then
you can criminalize them, and these efforts to do that.
It's reassuring to see the counterweight. It also motivated me
to create Waiting your House, Living on the Street to
talk about it because I was getting tired of these
kind of harsh.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Or horrible takes about houselessness.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
But it's also very important to have a counterweight against
the education or misinformation that that's being spread as well,
because it's very pernicious. Most recently, I don't know if
you ever saw this, but I grew up on Er
the show R and one of the things that bothered
me when I was in the house and I was
looking at some of the reruns. One episode had Frank Form,

(22:12):
a retired cop, run out of unhoused person that was
sleeping in the hospital because it was cold, and then
he was trying to stay warm, so he takes the
stick and it threatens the un the house throws him
out and tells them he does to come back or
he's going to get jacked up. The other thing is
like they had reached and found the under house person
that was a frozen They called them a bumstickle, And

(22:34):
I sell how it permeates through the conversations and and
also in the media that we ingest that without even
challenging it or without even thinking about it. If they
had said the inward or something like that, or some
obvious offensive slur, we would have probably picked up on
it and been pushing back or writing to the producer

(22:55):
say don't say that, or we don't approve of that,
or whatever it is. But if you escape the radar
or people's pushback is using those kind of statements, which
also fortified my efforts in understanding like we need to
really do the education, the liberation and motivation kind of campaign.
But you know, anything to add on that conversational point.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
As you were talking there, I was just reminded of
there had been some efforts around having people who are
house recognize but that being a part of hate crimes
and being a group that could be protected, and I
know that that's been a conversation. I know that that's
not something that's moving forward, but I think as you

(23:37):
were sharing, that's where my mind was going to. And
also with that, anytime I think about that, I think
about the fact that people who are without a home
are much more likely to be a victim of our
crimes than they are to perpetrate a crime. And that's
a classic example of misinformation that is out and fear
that is unfortunately, you know, allow to evolve and corrode

(24:02):
and adds to those misperceptions. And so I think, yeah,
you're of right, we don't have the language or we
don't have the mechanisms in place in an organized way
to be able to call those things.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
Out, which also kind of puts to my next point,
and one of the questions is how it permeates not
only through the media, not only through our teach talk shows,
not only through our movies that we love, but it
also jumps toward the legalization of how we can dehumanize
and criminalize human beings, which is why I'm going to
access what is your view on the Grants past ruling?

Speaker 5 (24:37):
Oh, I mean, we cannot arrest our way out of homelessness,
you know, I've worked alongside many people and law enforcement
in my different positions that I've held both in the
UK and here, and I haven't met a single law
enforcement offer so that believes that arresting people experiencing homelessness

(24:58):
is going to solve problem.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
Which is kind of hard to because you know, for me,
I've been on house and I've dealt with the police officers,
even the nicest police officers, going to arrest you, and
which I have a harder time grasping because if they
believe that, then why are they so held bent on
doing it or going into schools and telling kids that

(25:20):
are on house here in Los Angeles and about their parents,
making them feel like they have they are criminals to be,
you know, like for example, what's going on with the
Trump's situation with them going up the schools and hospitals
displacing people and even though they may not agree with it,
but they're okay well disenfranchising whole scales of people. And
it's the same with unhoused people. So I don't know

(25:42):
what to say about it, because if they were so
against it, why don't they speak out against it? Just
because you know, we've had a historical president where if
some people were saying they were just doing following orders
and that following orders were genocidal and it was very
harmful to whole group of people that just was trying

(26:03):
to exist, from the disabled, from the LGBTTI, from if
you were Jewish, I mean, or African American. It's like
we've had the historical lessons. Why do we keep repeating
the same thing. But that's I'm getting above it. So
Grant's past ruling for those that are just listening in,
is a ruling that was the counterpoint against the ruling

(26:25):
from Martin versus Bois. Martin versus Boise was a circuit
court ruling to rule that it was cruel and unusual
punishment to penalize a human being for existing because they
don't have a home. What's the Supreme Court Grant's past ruling,
which was in Grants past Oregon, was the impetus for
the Supreme Court justices to say that it is not

(26:48):
cruel or unusual for the police and law enforcement and
city officials to hunt down on house people, criminalize them,
forced them into solutions that will not aid them in
any ways whatsoever, but will create an atmosphere environment to
demonize unhoused people, create the same propaganda that has been

(27:09):
pernicious in our society that unhoused people don't want help,
or they are mentally ill, or they are drug addicted,
and they deserve whatever they get from the city and
from the law enforcement. This is put into practice most recently.
If you look aground the country, Let's say, for example, Fremont, California,
they have now an ordnance which you aiding and abetting

(27:31):
unhoused people. If you feed them or give them shelter,
or give them clothing or things, you can be seen
as a criminal and could be you know, penalized and
criminalized for it. It's also like for Santa Monica, now
they have passed. Unhoused person could not have a pillow
or blanket to stay out here to survive, or you
have like in Tennessee, it is a felony for unhoused

(27:55):
people to be lodging in state facilities. And so it
goes on and on, and most recently, before I came
into the studio, I was reading from one of the
people that were dealing with the promonent on housed community
where a cop was gleefully saying Trump is coming after you.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Guys, and I can't wait to get rid of you guys.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
So this is the reality that when you hear people
talk about unhoused people, they don't mention these conversations. They
always mentioned on the negative of the unhoused community, but
they do not talk about what was the underpinnings of
what's behind the curtain. Like in The Wizard of Oz,
the wizard is pretty evil, but and they're not really
showing that.

Speaker 5 (28:35):
Yeah, we are in very challenging times right now. And
I was going to use the word from twenty twenty
unprecedented time. Yes, right now. And you know, we know
that criminalizing homelessness doesn't solve anything. It kicks the can
down the road. It will only increase in poma. It

(28:57):
will only result in resources being years ineffectively. And I think,
you know, there's so much research, there's so much proof
around what solves homelessness, which is a home in case
anybody who is listening is unsure a home in what
will go homelessness, And we know how to do that,

(29:18):
but the system hasn't been adequately resourced to be able
to do that for the amount of people who are
in need of that. And you know, as you were talking.
It reminded me there was a couple of different threads
going off in my mind. One coming back to the
importance of homelessness prevention. You know, our I think our
our system at one time had a lot of focus

(29:41):
on prevention, and then we sort of shifted and put
a lot of focus on you know, housing opportunities, and
we need both. So we need to we need to
be able to help people who are currently unhealthed, and
we need to help keep people who are risk of
losing their home housed. Those are two pieces. And then
and just coming back to unfortunately, it feels like a

(30:04):
lot of people want they want the quick fix, and
so that sense of if I can't see it, then
it's if I can't see the thing that I perceive
as a problem, if it's out of my line of sight,
then it's gone. It's dealt with because I don't have
to personally deal with it anymore. And that's just not true.
You know, we need to work together to have real solutions.

(30:27):
I'm pushing people who don't have anywhere else to go
from one jurisdiction to another jurisdiction, ticketing people for sleeping
outside when there isn't anywhere else for them to be
or punishing people because somebody perceived that they didn't accept
services without asking the question, well, what were the services

(30:49):
that were being offered where their services actually appropriate to
the situation, where their service is actually going to lead
to permanent resolutions helping them get a roof over their
head to restart our life. There were so many threads
in what you were saying, they are well.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
I was going to also point out to one of
the threats that I was thinking when you were saying,
also the evaporation, the quick short term empathy. I would say,
if there is a valve, it shuts off. La had
unprecedented fires most recently, and to that end, there was
such an outpouring of support and donations for a recently

(31:31):
displaced At the same time, the mayor of the city
was implementing sweeps on displays on house people that were
not affected by the fire. They were still sweeping on
house people still sendings a message to Nimbi's and everyone
else that your houselessness, your state of displacement is punitive

(31:51):
and it is erroneous, and he should stay on the
course of criminalization and basically erasing you of your human Conversely,
when the recently displaced unhoused, they were giving out this
outpoint of support. But there was conversations with other mutual
aid groups when they were finding out that people were

(32:12):
not being magnomenous of allowing some of the resources that
may not because this fire victims were getting it that
they could also share with unhoused people that are on
the street as well. They took their their donations, their
blankets or whatever way once they heard that they were
trying to help everybody instead of just a select accepted

(32:34):
portion of houselessness. Because one of the things that I
have faced and I've hear even sometimes with unhoused people,
which really sometimes aggravates me because of the fact that
this worthy or unworthy unhoused. I was like, you know,
houselessness effects us all. We all going to face the cold,
we also go face verbalization. And there is no good
person that deserves help conversing. They're not a bad person

(32:58):
that don't deserve helping, they deserve to be mistreated. And
I think that's a very big metaphor, and it's a
snapshot of how our elections voting cycle of people voting
against their own interests or investing in their own which
I call investment in their own oppression. They were okay
with people hurting other people, but when they started hurting them,
then it becomes a shock, or it becomes you know,

(33:21):
they rail against the system and they want to think
a Kumbaya's situation should be applicable, but not understanding that,
you know, without everyone getting the services and getting the help,
we are hurting ourselves. You know, the arc of the
moral university is long, but it bends to a justice.
Doctor King would say, but he also says that we
are inexplicably linked by our destiny with our injustice. We

(33:45):
cannot state, you know, we we need help, and then
we said the hell with everybody else. You know that
that just doesn't work. But what is your insights on that?

Speaker 5 (33:55):
The divide or the line that cats strong between who
is worthy of help and who is unworthy of help,
as you say, is not necessary. I'm struggling to find
exactly the right words you know, to.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Say about that I gave a powerful It's unnecessary, it's harmful,
and it's divisive.

Speaker 5 (34:17):
You know, it doesn't unite us towards solutions where everybody
is treated with dignity, where everybody's humanity is valued. And
I think that's probably some of the philosophical differences that
we see and approaches to addressing any sort of societal problem,
And we definitely see it when it comes to helplessness,

(34:38):
but it's not it's not helping us move forward. When
I think about, you know, how you sort of convince people,
or you know, how you help people be part of
bringing about proven solutions for homelessness. Some will respond to
the heartfelt messages. Some will respond to that recognition of, oh,

(35:00):
like what happened up at LA, that realization that actually
any of us could find ourselves without a home at
any moment in time through no fault of our own
at all, and people can quickly forget that. You know,
some people that will stay with them. Others will struggle

(35:21):
because it's easier to put blame and say that somebody
is without a home because of things that they did,
and then that means that they can distance themselves from
having to be involved in creating solutions. Now, when you
start to dig deeper into that, we uncover systemic issues.
We uncover, you know, issues around gentrification, we uncover issues

(35:44):
around systemic racism, We uncover all kinds of things that
are system problems that are complicated to address, and I
think a lot of people get either they don't want
to know, because if they know, then they should be
a part of solutions. So if they can plead ignorance,
it feels a little bit safer. And then sometimes I

(36:07):
wonder if THEO if people are too afraid to realize
how close to homelessness many of us are. We did
a pole with UCI here in Orange County and we
found fifty five percent of people who were pulled knew
somebody who was currently experiencing homelessness or someone who had
experienced homelessness. That's over half the people in Orange County

(36:30):
are actually have a personal connection to somebody who was houseless.
But I think that's still it tells me there's something
to tap in through there. But how we tap into that,
I think we need to be careful because people are
afraid of well, if it happened to somebody, I know

(36:52):
it could happen to me, and that fear can cause
people to retreat.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
When I speak at UCLA and I speak about issues
that are houselessness, and I speak about you know, people
being in the house. There was a student raised his
hand and the class was shocked. It says, well, I'm
going to school and I'm in house. I'm sleeping in
my car out here on the parking lot. So it
is not that far fetch, just not that far. And
I think sometimes that is so important for people to realize.

(37:20):
For example, when you go and get your fruits and vegetables,
there are people that are picking that that are living
out on the streets because they can't afford the housing
out there in Oxnart. They're literally unhoused, but they are
picking our fruits and vegetables. And it doesn't mean that
there always are documented, but they are. Also that means
that people are literally can't afford the rents that's going on.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
So when you're eating your.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
Salads, you don't realize you have a direct link with
someone that's been picking it, that's been living out in
the elements, or out in the rain or out in
the heat wave giving you those foods, or the other
facet of there are you going in for your pumpkin
spice latte. I had one of my guests on my
earlier shows during the early years that was housed working

(38:04):
at Starbucks that you don't know and because when you
don't know, it's easier to make the snap justice, it's
easier to put the distance. But sometimes we do need
that uncomfortable moment used as a biblical term, the Jonah
in the well environment or the road to Damascus.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
We need those things.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
It may be uncomfortable, but we need to be confronted
with a reality sometimes and it does may cause paralyzation,
but it also may also cause enlightenment, which is very
important for the education process to happen. As an educator myself,
I understand the light of comprehension.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
It shows a lot of things.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
It shows empowerment, It also shows fear, it shows confidence,
and it also shows nervousness to step out from ignorance
because ignorance creates a delusion or illusion of security, of safety.
It's safe to be ignorant. I don't have to be
held accountable because I'm ignorant.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
I'm safe.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
I don't need to say anything that's going to be
empathetic because I don't know all the issues. That's why
when you hear people I don't get into politics. But
this whole world is political in many respects that you
are ingesting or you're involved in Just because you choose
not to turn the lighter comprehension or understanding and enlightenment
on doesn't mean the world is in complete darkness. It's

(39:25):
still going on. I'll get off of my soapbox, but
that's my point. So we'll finish this conversation after the break.
Welcome back. This is Steele Henderson with Weedy and House.
Here is the rest of my conversation with doctor Hejo Khalil.

Speaker 5 (39:46):
Before I joined United Way, I used to work for
a church, as as I mentioned earlier, and I used
to do a lot of teaching around around homelessness. And
one of the things that I would always say is
the homelessness could happen to anybody, Yes, And I found
that myself a few years later. I actually had to

(40:07):
leave an unsafe marriage and I found myself with my
dog and my suitcase standing in the middle of the street,
not knowing where I was going to go. And you know,
to go from homeless advocate, church employing to I have
no idea. I don't know what is going to be next.

(40:31):
And when I interviewed for United Way, I was living
in a friend's spare room. I was very fortunate that,
you know, I had a friend who had a guest
room who took me and my dog in. But you know,
I spent probably about nine months after I had to
leave that situation really uncertain about what the future held

(40:51):
for me. And as I was interfering for the position,
you know, really coming well, I guess it wasn't the position.
I've had a lot of different tradition the original position
I didn't have, you know, a permanent address that was mine.
And that experience drives my passion to address this because

(41:15):
in an instant, everything that you thought was safe, secure
or stable can be taken away from here.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
And also one of the things I will tell you,
when I had encountered my sustained issue of house justness,
I was an educated and I had a medical emergency.
Nowhere had anyone had told me that I would be
engaged in a long stent of housessness or have what
created about it. I would have like, what, You're crazy,
There's no way this would have happened, And it happened

(41:43):
to me. It was like when the first time, first
night that I was literally on the street, I had
no more money to stay at any fleabag hotels, and
I didn't want to overstay my welcome friends.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
I just basically walked the.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
Streets in a state of disbelief, fear, and exhaustion because
I didn't know where to rest because it's like it
takes everything out of you. For me, I didn't just
want to just break down and never coming back. And
that was for me, like in my mind and my
body because it was like so much was going swirling

(42:16):
in my head. And when I went to the hospital,
they just sit down in the waiting room, which is
why that episode resonated with me. When I seen that
guy on the show was talking about homeless helpers that
you know, they didn't they don't understand the world that
you have to navigate or the world how it is

(42:36):
because of the misconceptions or the misinformation that has been
said about on House People.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
And it really humbled me, and it definitely.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Scared the hell out of me because like damn, I
you know, I'm literally these people that are talking about
I'm literally these people that I believe that was not
worthy of the time, the empathy and the attention that
was giving. And then really that was my turning point
to try the really understand, Okay, if this can happen
to me, and I'm a college educated person, and I

(43:05):
have work experience, a sustained employment, and I've lived in
the places from places to place. This can happen to anybody.
You don't have to be such a good person. You
don't have to pay taxes. You're not like those other people,
you know. You know how they always make that statement, like,
I'm not like those bad people. I'm trying to do something.

(43:25):
They're just out here just enjoying living in mansions on
the street and just having a twenty four hour party,
which is nuts in itself, But you know, I digress.
But I think you hit on a point that I
think is very very important for the people and the
fires to understand that they're navigating a new world, but
also understanding not thinking about the consequences. When we have

(43:49):
talked about criminalizing on house people, now we are going
to be criminalized because we were okay with criminalizing or
hurting or demonizing some other community, and now we're part
of that community. I don't know if that makes sense,
but I feel it has a strong link to that.

Speaker 5 (44:07):
I think that you know, the people who who lost
their homes in the fire, you know, I hope that
that experience as people are recovering from that, as people's
lives are rebuilding, and for those for whom that rebuilds,
you know, And I don't I don't want to minimize
anybody's lost because I can't imagine what that's like to

(44:27):
for your home to you know, have been decimated in
that way. But I hope that that experience might perhaps
result in some empathy and compassion for their fellow neighbors
in LA who also have you know, have found themselves
without a.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
Home and also have more empathy when when you see
police officers throwing away and house people's things that have
been out there for sustained period, understanding the attachment to it,
understanding the emotional connection, like when they start throwing away
their wheelchairs and I d ease over there ashes of
the family members and things of that that they understand

(45:04):
these were human beings with connections that what they were
trying to hold on to, just as people that had
a structure that they called a home. And like I said,
you know, I noticed the drawback of empathy and also
the financial support, which draws made to my next question
is which are views on the federal funding freeze?

Speaker 5 (45:23):
Ah, Well, if you don't mind the you just you
said something that sparked something. Okay, good, that's okay, yes,
but we're talking about people's belongings. One of the first
things that I did in Kasa Mesa was I created
a storage center. It was called the Check and Center.

(45:43):
So it was a place for people to store their belongings.
And this was you know, when the Boys Ruling was
was the one in place going back to two thousand
and well, and it was the first storage center in
Orange County and it round for a number of years,
you know, so for probably five or six years, I

(46:05):
got to provide that service. That had a team of
volunteers we helped run this place there. It wasn't glamorous,
it wasn't exciting, but it was so meaningful to provide
a storage bind for people to keep their most precious belongings,
you know. And so for years I got to witness,
you know, items that as people were you know, taking

(46:27):
their belongings out of whatever, whether it was a backpack
or a bag and putting it into into the storage bin.
And as you said, it's photographed, it's id, it's medication,
it's you know, a warm clothing, a sleeping bag. It's
things that are needed for safety. It's sentimental things that

(46:48):
all of us have the whole, deep, deep meaning and
provide our sense of belonging and identity and our connection
to our family and our loved ones. And to have
those things be stripped away from you and disposed off
without your consent is deeply damaging. And so I just

(47:08):
wanted to touch on that THEO and we can come
back to your other question.

Speaker 4 (47:14):
Well, I also want to point out to why I
made it a point of there was a couple of
people that I've interviewed that had lived and had families
and had or had children that had passed away, and
they had their ashes, and they were waiting for a
place to stay so they could be able to put
them at rest or put them in a more of
an appropriate type of setting, and that was just discarded

(47:35):
like trash. And that emotionally and reason that I pointed
out because it really emotionally affected, like you said them,
because it just made it this statement that the city
is saying loudly that your belongings doesn't matter. Your trash,
Your memories are trash. Your belongings, your memories of your
child or your your family members. Ashes are trash and

(47:58):
they're going to be discarded, and you going to accept
the services or you're going to go to jail.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
I mean, that was the impact. That's the message.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
No matter how they try to dance around and they
talking about that, they're empathetic. That was the message that's
been brought. But I agree, let's let's talk on the
federal funding phrase and see if there is anything you
could be said done on this kind of ridiculousness.

Speaker 5 (48:19):
But please, yeah, I think you know, there's there's so
many things that are happening at the federal level of
the minute. There's you know, it's it's fast moving, it's
ever changing. It feels like, you know, every every day
there's a new story that's happening, and so being able
to follow great organizations like the National Alliance to End Homelessness,

(48:41):
the National Council for Nonprofits, the National Low Income Housing Coalition,
and Funders Together to End Homelessness. Those are entities that
are found to be incredibly helpful as somebody, you know,
in my position trying to sort of distill what's happening
at the federal level, understand where to help call people

(49:02):
to the advocacy you know when to say, hey, now
it's a really good time to call your representative, to
write those letters and helping to sort of be translating
what's happening on the national level. So what might potentially
impact for Orange County. I've been on our Continuum of
careboard for the last four years for Orange County. That's

(49:24):
a budget of about thirty five million dollars of federal funding,
so smaller than LA but certainly not insignificant. There's definitely
a lot of concern in our community, a lot of concern.
You know, through through my position in a way, we're
connected to about forty five different agencies that are addressing homelessness,

(49:45):
very very serious concerns about how to help people pay
their rent, about you know, what's going to happen if
if funding doesn't come rut all these programs. So yeah,
a lot of concern, a lot of need for advocates.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
Wow, I could say, you know, there's so much. I
won't say the war never ends, but the movement nothing.
And in the way we have to continue to keep
up despite the funding freezes, the information or disinformation that's
going on. We must continue to do what we need
to do or what we have to do in order
for us to repopulate the conversation and people with more

(50:26):
accurate ideas on how unhouse people are on house, I think,
and it's more important. It looms larger because of the
climactic catastrophic events that are going on, like the freezing
in North Carolina where the displaced people were displaced during
the floods. Now we're living out intents, and how the
city is trying to remove them and create the same

(50:46):
grants past kind of horrors for them as they did
with unhoused people that were not affected by the floods.
And then we have to understand the cold with the
chills and the northern climbs in the Midwest than how
they're removing on house people and families are giving them
a short timelines and things of that nature. And then
conversely here in Los Angeles, you know, we got now

(51:10):
people that are displaced. Famou has packed up their things,
thrown them to the you know, the winds and rains
of heaven, and now they are going to have to
navigate a world like the current on house that have
been navigating it for some time. They're going to have
some crash course lessons on what it's like to be
living from a moment to moment and having to live

(51:34):
by your wits. And this is you know, this conversation.
House business is not going to go away. Catastrophic events
are not going to stop happening, and we need to
stay stay the course. I think I covered all of
the questions I wanted to cover it. Did I miss
anything that you wanted to add?

Speaker 5 (51:51):
I think the last thing that I were just to
add if I can. It's just something that came out
in the twenty twenty four point in time count here
in Orange County that I that any time I get
a chance to kind of underscore and highlight it, I
like to. I think one of the myths that's out there,
you know, is that people don't want help, you know.

(52:11):
And if I could get rid of the term service resistant,
I would. And so there's the perception, right that we
have a homelessness crisis because people who are unhalped they
don't want help, they don't want to access the resources
and a just not true. B what are the resources
that are being offered? And see what I was really
excited about that got highlighted here at our community. They

(52:35):
looked at a couple of emergency shelters that are here,
and they had seventy two percent of people the almost
three quarters of the people in these two emergency shelters
had completed all of their paperwork, you know, to be
enrolled into the coordinated entry system. They had done every
single thing that had been asked of them, produced the documentation,

(52:58):
filled out forms to the surveys, all of that, and
only one out of twelve was ever connected to a resource.
That doesn't actually mean that one out of twelve was
actually able to have their housing crisis results. And I
think that's just really important to highlight that our systems

(53:19):
are extremely compligated. They are difficult to navigate, and there
are not enough resources to help permanently resolve somebody's helping crisis.
Somebody being able to act as an emergency shelter is
not the thing that their housing crisis being resolved. And
people are engaging with our system. People want to be

(53:40):
able to get off the streets, but our system doesn't
have enough resources to do that at the rate that
is needed. And that I think is something really important
for people to remember.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
And if I may add, I use the example to
particularly with law enforcement, that's a safe example that you
had a medical revergence, and you go in and you
tell the doctor your symptoms and they're not listening to
that system. They says, you need to get your leg
cut off, and you don't need your leg cut off.
But you keep explaining to them that this is what's
going on. It's not my leg, it's my stomach and

(54:15):
my heart. I'm thinking of having a heart attack, and
they're giving all kinds of resources. Well, we're going to
cut your right leg off and you won't be able
to walk. We'll do this and that and that, and
you keep explaining, and then you know, they asked, we
we need you to sign in to have your leg amputating,
and you just walk off and say no, you're not
helping me. And then it's well, you know, you take
the AMA against medical advice, your service resistant. So now

(54:38):
you're in the system that you go back to another
hospital that got you in the system that you were
a service resistance.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
They don't even look at you or evaluate the scope
of what you need.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
They says, well, you left another hospital because you didn't
want your leg cut off.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
We got to cut your leg off off.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
But and then it finds out later that you didn't
need your leg cut off and you needed, you know,
life saving certa to save you from my cardiory function.
And that is the long and short of it of
how when we say when people are service resistant and
things of that nature, we need to listen and understand
it is not that it is because if we don't

(55:15):
listen to what the symptoms are and why that people
don't want to join shelters or short term solutions because
some of the people that love to want to live
on the street.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
They don't want to go through the hoops again.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
They don't want to face the disappointment, They don't want
to give the stress, or they don't want to deal
with the stresses of shelter life or stresses of staff
abuse or whatever. They just rather depend on themselves and
the circumstances that they're involved with because they create, which
I did myself, create a reality that I can navigate
that's going to give me mental relief and physical relief

(55:49):
instead of me having to be on tenter hooks living
in an environment that I don't know what's going to
jump out at me and I have to navigate and
I don't what may have the copings feels to do so,
so I don't know if you have anything else to
add on that I do.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
As a matter of fact, I do, yes.

Speaker 5 (56:11):
So in twenty twenty three, there was a survey down
of people who were experiencing unsheltered homelessness here in Orange
County and our community, and some of the key findings
from that were people that actually, I want help, I
want to resolve my homelessness, and that was you know,

(56:32):
and it was sort of really funny to me that
that was lifted as a key finding off the survey,
the fact that that needed to be stated, but it
needed to be stated. The number one key finding of
the survey was people experiencing homelessness do want help. And
then one of the other pieces that were really discovered
and here is that safety and respect were some of

(56:54):
the key things that people, you know, really wanted to
make sure it would be in place when accessing services,
which is the same for any of us. I don't
want to go somewhere if i think I'm going to
be disrespected, or if I know a friend of mine
went there and they were disrespected, I don't want to

(57:15):
go somewhere if I think that I'm going to be
unsafe and so when it comes to accessing services, just
for what you were saying around safety and respect are
just so important and our system, our homelessness system, needs
to take that seriously. People are telling us what it
is that they are looking for that would help them

(57:37):
in terms of accessing some of the services that we have.
We need to listen.

Speaker 4 (57:42):
I couldn't say it better myself, and I wanted to
thank you again, miss hey Hook Khalil for joining us,
Thank you very much for your.

Speaker 5 (57:48):
Tex very happy to be engaged. Thank you so much.
I really enjoyed our conversation.

Speaker 4 (58:00):
Thank you so much to doctor jo Khalil. You can
follow her work and learn more at the links in
the description. This is the final installment of our Educate, Liberate,
Motivate series. To conclude, it is my hope that my
listeners will go back to previous episodes to listen, to understand,

(58:23):
and be able to create better solutions for these difficult times.
Thank you for listening, and may we again meet in
the light of understanding. If you have a story to
share on the air, please reach out to me at
weed and How's at Gmail or we at house on Instagram.

(58:43):
With that, thanks again for listening. Weedian Howes is a
production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted, and created by
me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie loftus Ayer, Katie Official,
and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Wand and our

(59:06):
local art is also by Katie Official.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Thanks for listening.