Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WG Public media.

Doni: Imagine that your bed for the evening is behind a bush in downtown Toledo or at the end of a school day in the middle of winter, wrapping your children still in their winter coats in blankets as they settle down to do their homework in the doorway of a vacant building.

What you are seeing in your mind's eye is a picture of homelessness.

Well, what is the status of homelessness in Toledo?

Talking with us this morning are Michael Hart, executive director of the Toledo Lucas County Homelessness Board and reentry Specialist Larry Thompson.

Mr. Thompson was himself once homeless.

Welcome to the Point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

You can email me at doni _miller@wgte.org.

And for this episode and other additional extras, go wgte.org.

Welcome to you both.

Today, we are so lucky to have with us this morning in our discussion about the status of homelessness in Toledo.

Michael Hart, welcome and we're happy to have you.

Larry Thompson Michael, you are the executive director of the Toledo Lucas County Homelessness Board.

And Mr. Thompson, you are a reentry specialist of I'll tell people a little bit more about what that means as we move forward.

But I want to start with you, Mike, if I can do that.

Is, is homelessness getting worse in Toledo and Lucas County?

Michael: That's a that's a great question.

And really across the country over the past number of years going back to COVID, we saw a lot of people struggle more, facing more evictions, facing housing stability more than we had seen in the past for a number of reasons, which are well aware.

What we did also see, though, is unprecedented investment from the federal government and rental assistance and other services that can support individuals experiencing homelessness.

So we've actually seen the numbers stagnate to some degree, but that does not mean that there isn't great need in the community.

It's, I think, more of an indicator that those resources really had a tremendous impact.

Doni: You know, it's really interesting in my research for this show, articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post and larger cities than ours around the country, talk about homelessness getting worse and talking about major contributors to that situation being difficulty with housing, difficulty with getting the resources that people need to address issues like mental health issues.

We're not seeing so much of that here, apparently.

Michael: No, I mean, we certainly have all of those challenges.

My point is simply that when we have those resources to work with, we can see a huge impact on the lives that we're trying to serve.

But the lack of affordable housing in our community is the greatest need.

I think it's very at the end of the day, we can provide shelter, we can provide supportive services.

But if somebody doesn't have that foundational place to call home, absolutely that's safe, accessible, affordable and someplace that they're proud to call home, then then the rest of building out that individual's life and getting them to a place of stability is very is really difficult.

And so until we build housing and Toledo, about 12,000 over 12,000 units are needed for those who are experiencing extremely low income who may be homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Doni: So 12,000 just for those folks who are identified.

So.

Michael: Yes, affordable housing, that's the gap right now.

The city of Toledo, the county, have put in unprecedented investments in the building, new housing.

We're we're very excited about La Toledo, Warren Commons, the Park Apartments and a number of other projects that are going to bring permanent supportive housing.

What does that mean?

That means that not only do you get a place to go home, but you get all the supportive services that you might need and that might look like substance abuse support that might look like work for workforce development and trying to find a job.

Whatever the individual needs is what we want to put first.

For far too long in our country, we were project centered.

And so what I mean by that is which agency is going to get the money and keep afloat.

Where we want to be is more person centered.

And so it's not about making the project work.

It's making the person's life work and what they need, meaning them where they're at.

Doni: Larry was finding that home.

What changed your journey from homelessness to the life you have now?

Larry: It was a huge significance in how I felt, my ability to move forward in my life.

It gave me a sense of dignity and self-worth and it a sense of that I belonged in the community more that I was more connected to society, that I was more entering mainstream society rather than living on the fringes of it.

And that's what I felt when I was homeless in the Cherry Street Mission, is I just felt a lack of connection to society, a lack of belonging, a sense of belonging.

Doni: That's such an important point.

Can we talk a little bit more about that?

Because I think that's what we need to leave people with today.

If they get nothing else from this conversation, they need to know what it feels like to walk that journey.

Larry: Yes, the mission was very supportive as far as what they offered to help.

For me, it became a I had a choice to look at it.

It could I could either try to escape it with drugs and alcohol, or I could try to make it a way of life.

Or I could choose to see this as a stepping stone and a challenge to move forward.

And so what I did each day is I got up and I made a list of things that I needed to do.

What was my next steps?

What should I do next?

You know, I went down to a bike shop and built a bicycle so I could get around.

I didn't even know Toledo.

And I began to turn each day into an adventure of trying to overcome the challenges.

The next step.

What is the next step I need?

And often that's a challenge for people.

They don't know what the next steps are.

You know, many of them don't have the paperwork necessary to go into the places they want to connect with.

You know, Social Security cards, birth certificates, IDs and these type of things.

So I'm currently working with the Northwest Ohio Reentry Coalition where we can put something together that shows them step by step, what's first?

Where do I get this?

What's it cost?

Where is this place at?

You know, and the other thing is it can become overwhelming when you look at everything at one time and you say, there's so much that I need to do, where do I start?

So if we can simplify this and make it look as, you know, let's get through this stage, let's take this step.

And I think it's important to not only help people, but can we instill a sense of of value and self-worth in the individual?

Doni: Well, how do you do that?

How how many people do you estimate in Lucas County have a mental health issue that contributes to their homelessness?

Either one of you.

Michael: The that right now our point in time count, there's about 700 individuals at any given time experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness.

And I would say about 60% or more have some kind of barrier that might be related to substance abuse, it might be related to mental health.

And there's a lot of challenges.

And I think what's important is that those conditions don't cause homelessness.

The lack of a home does.

But but homelessness might expedite underlying challenges and problems.

And I wanted to say something to your point.

All of us in this community are most of us are closer to being homeless than we are to being millionaires.

Excellent.

And now we can get into the fine points of what the definition of homelessness is.

But most of us have been closer to that housing instability and probably don't even realize it.

And so it goes back to treating everybody in our community like they are our neighbor.

We don't call the people.

We work with clients, we don't call them even people experiencing homelessness.

We call them our neighbors because they are they live here.

They live in our community.

They're part of our community.

And having that relationship, building that relationship, I think is important.

In my experience.

When I get to work with those who have experienced homelessness for a long time, it takes building rapport, it takes building trust first, right?

And that's the key thing.

And part of building trust is not saying, Hey, you have to meet this standard to get this resource or you have to be sober for this amount of time in order for us to give you housing.

It's saying however you are, wherever you're at, we're going to meet you there and we're going to walk with you along the way.

Doni: What do you think the major barrier is to getting people from being unhoused to being in homes?

Michael: I think Larry kind of hit the nail on the head.

It is a mind numbing Lee complicated and complex pool of resources.

I mean, to get a voucher, it's a 23 page document and that takes time.

It takes time to go to all of those offices.

It takes time to understand how you fill out this form or that form.

It takes time to get a birth certificate and you have to have a birth certificate to get an I.D.

and so there's this cascading effect.

So it's really just navigating those resources.

One thing we did at the homelessness board, we saw individuals just waiting to get to shelter if there was no beds available.

Well, what's happening?

What are we doing to help in that time?

So we created a program called Housing Problem Solving.

And it's real simple.

What do you need?

What do you need right now?

Can we prevent homelessness or can we make it as brief as possible and actually work hand in hand with you?

Create referral partnerships with our partner agencies so it's not just, Hey, go call this agency, Larry, good luck, but we're going to walk with you.

We're going to connect you directly to that partner and try to get you those resources.

Doni: So it's such a good information.

And Larry, it sounds like you went into this situation with the determination to get out of that situation, which which I think is probably pretty rare.

Larry: I believe it was.

I I noticed a lot of people carried that sense of hopelessness and helplessness where I was at.

Doni: And I think the system actually I'm sorry to interrupt, but in a system that seems sometime to be designed to encourage that feeling of hopelessness and helplessness and that amazingly soul numbing sense of loss of dignity.

Larry: Part of our identity is related to our personal environment.

You know, it's just a natural process.

And so we can begin to identify ourselves with that sense of homelessness rather than the potential that we all have within us to develop.

And so but I think one of the major factors for me is, you know, I think in my book I talk about that life is all about relationship.

So do we develop relationships beyond, like you were saying, just fill out this line.

Fill out this line.

Can we help these people step by step, understand and walk them through this journey and more as a mentorship or partnership, you know, rather than just come into the office and formality and and can we see that?

What?

Do we have follow ups?

Why did you start with the process right here?

You know, what are you doing?

Are you ready for that next step?

Doni: You know, it's such a tough process, though.

Such a tough process.

Hold that thought that we're going to go away And we'll be right back.

I want to pick up where where you left off.

We'll be right back in just a moment.

Jaden: I'm Jaden Jefferson.

And on this week's edition of On Point, we are asking people about an issue that has plagued our community and communities across the country for decades, and that is homelessness, often ignored and often not talked about enough.

So what could be the root cause of homelessness here in Northwest Ohio?

Man: I think it's so many faceted thing, but the first thing that comes to mind is a lot of mental illness, a lot of drug addiction.

I think is a big cause.

Jaden: So what do you think is the root cause of homelessness in northwest Ohio?

Woman: I mean, honestly, I feel like there's a lot of different reasons and a lot of different things going on, whether it's our like the drug and alcohol system, Government probably plays a role.

Education, social life, culture.

I really can't pinpoint one answer, which probably makes it hard.

You know, you can't just solve one thing and fix homelessness.

There's a lot of different routes, there's a lot of different avenues, and they all need to be taken care of a little bit at a time.

What do you think is the cause of homelessness in Northwest Ohio?

I'm going to have to go with lack of legislation towards like we put Band-Aids on the smaller issues, but we're not looking towards the bigger issues that are causing it, like lack of employment, lack of aid towards people who need financial care and other topics like that.

Jaden: On point this week I'm Jaden Jefferson.

Doni: Remember that you can connect with us on our social media pages.

You can also email me at doni _miller@wgte.org and again for this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

I want to ask a question and one of the things that we heard when we asked people, as you might have seen, as we ask people around Toledo, what the causes of homelessness actually are, some of the folks said that the city just isn't doing enough.

The county is not doing enough.

What do you think, Michael?

Michael: Well, I love this question.

And not to get too far down the track, but homelessness didn't really even exist in our lexicon in the United States until the 1870s.

So this isn't a problem that exists in nature.

It's something that we've created.

Doni: Created, and.

Michael: Really where you see modern day homelessness come to rise is in the early 1980s, institutionalized in the state hospitals, right?

Major cuts to the Social Security Act, major cuts to HUD.

You saw the budget for HUD from 1960 dropped from 29 billion to 17 billion in 1990.

We stopped building public housing in our in our country.

The AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, the criminalization of people of color.

All of these things compound to where we are today.

And at the end of the day, it comes back to the fact that we as a society, as an American society, have chosen that it's acceptable policy driven.

It's policy driven.

We can solve homelessness.

There are other communities in the country who are doing a great job of making homelessness rare, brief or non-recurring.

We can do that too, in our community, and we're we're putting the resources to play.

I think the city government, the county government have done an excellent job and are very committed to making sure resources are available to build housing to help those who are experiencing homelessness.

We need more from our state government.

Right now.

The federal government is doing a lot, but we need that to be consistent.

We need real investment in the people's lives and we need to build housing.

So yes, there is a great challenge, but we have to realize that some of these problems are bigger than what our community can solve.

But what I admire about the Toledo community is we don't let that knock us down.

We do the best we can with what we have.

But yes, I believe this is a manmade problem.

Doni: Yeah, absolutely.

I would agree with you.

You know, in in the opening, I mentioned briefly about a family with children doing their homework in the winter time in of in the doorway of a vacant building.

And that is something that I actually saw in not here in a in a larger city.

This young woman had her three children bundled up in blankets in the doorway of a downtown building.

And they were doing their homework.

And it was about 6:00 at night.

And it rips your heart out.

It just rips your heart out.

How do you begin to build the trust with with that woman who whose city has resources?

But she decided instead that she would go to that doorway with her three children.

What made developing that trust easier for you?

What made it happen for you?

Larry: Oh, it made a huge difference when I you know, there's a lot of stress, uncertainty and anxiety with homelessness.

And I was terrified when I went into Cherry Street Mission and someone came walked up to me, one of the staff, and they put their arms around me and said, I love you.

You're going to be all right here.

And I just felt a lot of that stress fall off of me.

That point.

I felt like I was going to be okay.

I needed to hear that.

I needed to hear that this is a safe place.

You're going to be okay here.

I think a lot of people choose tent cities and things.

The people I've talked to because they don't think it might be a safe place.

They're afraid to be around groups of people.

So they isolate themselves in the tent cities.

And I've I've those people have a huge I have a huge burden on my heart for those in those tent cities, because there's so much help available.

They can get fed today.

They can get something to eat, they can get house today, they can get clothing, you know, and they're not reaching out for it because they're they don't feel that.

Maybe nobody said that to them.

You'll be okay.

Doni: Here.

They'll be okay.

So let me ask you this.

So you were released from prison?

Yes.

Found yourself without a home?

Larry: Yes.

Doni: You made the decision to go to the Cherry Street Mission.

Can you share with us what you were feeling when you made that decision?

What did that feel like to you?

Larry: Again, it was a lot of anxiety because it's unknown what's going to be there, Who's going to be there?

What would I have to go through in an environment like that?

So just the sense of a homeless shelter was extremely terrifying.

Doni: Terrifying.

Larry: You know, all my family had passed away and I had spent 16 years incarcerated.

And I came to a town that I wasn't familiar with on top of that.

But one of the things that was important for me is understanding that when I when there was a block or road roadblock of some sort, that it wasn't an impasse.

Right.

And understanding that, okay, that I'm either going to go into a challenge or being in the middle of a challenge or coming out of a challenge, my adult life, whether I'm homeless or not.

So can I say my challenges are average and this is currently my challenge process, you know, and also have a sense of gratitude, you know, rather than complain about where I was at or the steps I was at, I merely looked at them as stepping stones and was thankful for a place to lay my head.

Thankful for the food that was given to me.

And, you know, many of them light up when you walk up to the table and talk to them.

So I still go down to the Cherry Tree mission today and sit down with the people that recognize me and say, How are you doing?

However, I have one guy that says, like you were talking about.

He said that he had housing being prepared for him.

And I show up two months later and he's still waiting for the housing.

Right.

And it's almost ready.

So I don't know if some of this is how some of this can be stuff can be overcome with such an immense number of people they're trying to help.

When I went to get a bicycle at one facility, he showed me a stack of papers like this.

He said, There's 70 people ahead of you, you know.

And so what I decided to do was go down to Toledo bike shop and say, What can I do to build a bicycle?

I don't have any money.

And they said, We'll build some children's bikes for a couple of days and we'll give you the parts and the tools and you can build your own house.

And so, you know, that's what I did.

And not only was I able to help the community, but provide my own.

Doni: And provide your own transportation.

What do you guys say to the critics who say people are homeless because they want to be not only do they want to be, they they certainly could have made different choices.

It's not our problem.

Michael: I would say.

Have you ever talked to somebody who's experiencing homelessness and have you ever looked them in the eye when you're walking down the street and said, hello?

Have you ever built a relationship with that person?

And what do.

Doni: I get from that line?

Michael: You get to understand that they are people, just people, period, and people who are going through a hard time and they don't need your judgment because you don't know what they've been through to get there.

You can't possibly know.

And I have met on the street.

My office is on Madison Street right across from St Paul's.

So I meet those our neighbors all the time just walking on the street.

And they may be somebody who had been working full time, get paid $16 an hour.

You know, a kid got sick, miss work, and now they're homeless.

Doni: That's right.

I'd like to tell people a little bit more about that.

I mean, you I think the average person would be surprised to know that folks who are homeless can be fleeing domestic violence issues.

It's not it's not that everyone on the street has a mental health issue.

Life happens, right?

Some of the major issues that result in homelessness that you've seen with your neighbors.

Michael: I mean, those issues include transportation and instability to get to the workplace.

So you're losing your job.

You're not able to pay your rent.

It can be, you know, a landlord who, you know, didn't give grace when rent was missed and, you know, not being able to avoid an eviction.

You know, I have one client in particular, one neighbor in particular, who we've worked with.

And it's a story that I'm proud of.

This individual had been homeless and experienced homelessness for seven years, and prior to that, she was married, but her husband died in her arms and kind of consumed by grief, became to face a lot of mental health challenges, was unsheltered on the streets for a period of seven years.

We built relationship by.

She came to my office and we'd have a cup of coffee and I learned a lot about that individual and the vibrant life that they had lived and still can't live.

And now they're housed.

Right.

And it was building that trust and that relationship and treating them like they're a person and just talking to them like a person.

Not every conversation has to be about the situation.

Doni: Right.

Absolutely.

Michael: What about the weather?

Doni: You know, there's so much to talk about.

We're going to run out of time.

Sorry.

No, no, no, no.

Larry: I can say something about Larry.

Doni: Yeah.

Quickly, Could.

Larry: You?

Yes, that I've I've met people at all levels of education and job experience and levels of life in the Cherry Street mission.

So we often stereotype them as incapable, the people who've always been there.

And that's not the case.

Doni: No, absolutely.

What would you say in closing, in just a few words?

What would you say to those people who are watching this show who want to know how they can help?

Larry: I would say come to the missions offer.

If you have a men's group or something, come there and share with these people.

Come and help them to understand they have value, dignity and worth and get to know some of them.

Employers can reach out to these places and give assistance.

Doni: Absolutely.

Thank you for that.

10 seconds.

Michael: Money.

Money.

If you have money, give it to any of the providers we work with.

We've got shelters.

We've got all kinds of folks and every dollar counts.

Doni: Thank you so much.

Thank you as well for joining us today to discuss this very, very important topic.

And I will see you next week on two point.

Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WG Public Media.

This program was made possible in part by viewers like you.