All right. Hi, this is Leslie and I am the host of the Why Not Today podcast. And this
podcast is to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, Why Not Today? I started
this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Cain, who often said, Why Not Today? I am
based in Reston, Virginia, a plain community outside of Reston or outside of Washington,
D.C. And in my full-time world, I am actually sales director with Mary Kay, but this has
been a fun adventure to meet new people and share Why Not Today stories. So thank you
for joining me. Today I am excited to have my guest, Joe Meyer, and he is from Shelter
House, which we will talk about in a minute. And I always like to talk about connections
and, you know, you never know where you are going to meet somebody. And because of Mary
Kay's involvement in, we have a charitable foundation involved in domestic violence.
And I went to a chamber event, met somebody named Jolie, and I don't even remember her
last name. And she said, Oh my gosh, the Mission of Mary Kay is in the line of the Shelter
House. Now, I never heard of Shelter House. And we'll talk a little bit more about that
too. But then she connected me to Danny, who worked at Artemis House, who then connected
me to Joe, and we've done lots of things together. And so I'm super excited to have Joe to kind
of share his story, but also share the story of Shelter House and the courage that goes
along with having hard times in your life. So welcome, Joe, and I'm excited to have you.
And so why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of fun fact that nobody
might know about Joe.
Cool. Well, Leslie, thank you for having me on the show. This is a great opportunity for
me, but also for Shelter House and the people that we serve and just getting the word out
around homelessness and domestic violence and, you know, how people can get involved.
And also if people need help out there can, you know, can reach out to us too. So I really
really appreciate this opportunity on different levels. But as you said, my name is Joe Meyer.
I'm the Executive Director and CEO for Shelter House, which is a private nonprofit here locally
in Fairfax County and now Loudoun County serving both counties there. I grew up in the Western
Pennsylvania area just outside of Pittsburgh and went to a small school called Super Rock
University, which kind of could be a fun fact in itself.
People hear the name of that school, but Super Rock University, I was a social work major
and always knew I just wanted to help people, which is kind of how I got to do what I'm
doing today is knowing that I wanted to help people influence people as much as I could
knowing, knowing now, not knowing then, but knowing now that, you know, I am a person
of privilege who, you know, I have different platforms. I have a voice that some people
may not have, especially when we're talking about people that have experienced in domestic
violence, marginalized populations, people of color who do not have those voices. I need
to step up and make sure that I use my voice for those people who can't. So I really enjoy
what I do enjoy the people that I work with, the populations that we're serving. As I mentioned,
I want to be of influence to people, but I've learned over the last 21 years of doing this
work, the people that I'm working with are actually influencing me. I have not learned
more through all my years than when somebody walks through these doors, who needs help.
And we talked, you know, we're going to be talking about courage. And when I was reading
about the podcast and some of the questions, you know, kind of some of the courageous things
that I've done, I just shook my head and thought that the things that I have seen, the stories
that I have heard, I have done nothing courageous compared to the people and the courage that
people have had to come just by coming to our doors and asking for help. So I know I'm
talking about that. Let's start with what does courage mean to you?
Yeah, courage is something to me that it's going into something that is an unknown. Walking
into a situation that you just don't know what the outcome is going to be. It's about
being brave. It's about overcoming something that, again, you just, you don't know the
outcome. Yeah. Okay, love that. I'm actually making notes of this because I'm going to
start creating some courage cards with everybody's definition of courage, because everybody's
different, which is really cool. So yeah, so, you know, I mentioned that I met you because
of my involvement in domestic violence. And then you can't we did a couple of events together.
And I really got to her stories and became passionate about the mission and was on the
board of directors for sheltered house for a couple of years and enjoyed that. And but
I really liked being in the house houses and doing things. And my big aha was like living
in Reston and there is shelters right near where I live. And there have been my entire
life and had no idea and the awareness and not they want to divulge information about
where about some things. But you know, there are shelters close by and people that you
run into all day long that are in tough situations if you have no idea. And so, you know, yeah,
we've we come from privileged world and some of the stories we've heard heard and no domestic
violence I know was one of the causes you guys work on and also homelessness and is
interesting with the domestic violence and things you've shared. And I know Danny shared
with me one time about human trafficking and how prevalent it is in the area. And actually
Todd Carter who was on here before his daughter did a fundraiser for her birthday in high
school. And they asked me to come do some pampering for the girls and share a little
about shelter house. And it was interesting when I talked to the high young high school
girls about human trafficking. And I remember never forget one of the girls whipped her
head around and said not in this area. I'm like, Oh, my goodness, yes. So we need to
have that awareness. So why don't you talk about shelter house, the mission, courage,
maybe some stories of people that have been courageous because, you know, part of this
podcast I want to get out the message like how can we help and how can we get involved?
And where do you need help? And yeah, there's definitely a need so sure. Well, I certainly
appreciate this opportunity because there is such great need right now, especially right
now coming off of a global pandemic, where people have been not able to escape their their
abuser for several years now with the work from home, with people being isolated. We
are seeing a rise in domestic violence right now. It may not be cases of domestic violence,
but we're seeing a rise of people now fleeing domestic violence because of just being isolated
inside the home with the abuser. So shelter house, we were we were created back in 1981.
So just over 40 years old and we were kind of our foundation was around helping families
who are experiencing homelessness and we started down in the Falls Church in the seven corners
area started our first shelter in 1985. We were a very small organization in 19 in 2007
is when Fairfax County opened up a new shelter called the Catherine Handley family shelter
and it was a family shelter we were awarded the contract to operate that. So again, I
just want to kind of fast forward through all of this of how we, you know, kind of the evolution
of shelter house and what we have seen and some of the best practices that we have used
in order to make the impact that we have been in the community. And then of course get to
some of the stories. But it was in, you know, through constant assessment of what is causing
homelessness in our community. There is a there's a lot of different reasons why people
become homeless. Their homelessness is not the issue in itself, right? It's all of the
all of the contributing factors. There's mental health, there's medical, there are people
going through a divorce, there is alcohol and dependence on substances. There is just the,
you know, being being a victim of poverty and growing up through the system. And then
there's domestic violence and we had we saw that nearly 50% of the people who were experiencing
homelessness had some type of domestic violence history in their background, whether they
were currently experiencing domestic violence, whether they were a child witness to domestic
violence, or whether they grew up in a home around, you know, with with domestic violence.
And it was at that time, where we saw those direct parallels between domestic violence
and homelessness. And in 2010, we were awarded the contract to run Artemis House, as you
mentioned before, Artemis House being the only 24 seven domestic violence shelter in
Fairfax County, which is crazy, which is great. Yeah, we have about 85 beds for for people
experiencing or people fleeing domestic violence. And that that actually increased when we took
over the contract in 2010, we had 37 beds and now we're up to 85 beds. But you also look
at a county that has over a million people in in the county. And you're looking at the,
you know, a statistic that they say, you know, about one in four women experienced domestic
violence in their lifetime. And we have 85 beds in the county. So where the need is right
now, like I said, we have 85 beds that we have slated for victims of domestic violence
for people fleeing domestic violence. And I will tell you right now, we are over double
capacity right now today, in our domestic violence shelters, we have people in hotels
that we are trying to just get out of dangerous situations, life threatening situations, you
know, preventing homicides, we just had, you know, not we, but you know, the community
just suffered one in Falls Church, a couple days ago that you probably saw on the news,
a domestic violence homicide, we are here, this is, you know, this is why I really appreciate
this opportunity, Leslie, because we need to let people know we're here. And if people
don't, right, and if people if people know we're here, you know, you can you can see
us on shelterhouse.org get all the information call 911, you'll not 911, you'll get directly
routed to us if you're, you know, talking about a domestic violence situation. But there's
a lot of ways to get to us. And it's just making sure that people are aware that there
are services out there for people experiencing and people fleeing domestic violence for us.
Yeah, and you just never know, and it's not a demographic, it's not an age, it's not a
color, it's not a ethnicity, it's every but you just never know. And I was actually, because
of my involvement, I'm so grateful that I've been involved with you and listened to you
and we had a couple events I mentioned, that you came and spoke and just the awareness.
And I think we had Sheriff, can Kate at one event to and just sharing that you do awareness
like you would think in Northern Virginia and this elite area that that wouldn't happen
and like the human traffic and I remember Danny told me they went into two neighborhoods
in Great Falls, which had a very affluent area, two houses in the same neighborhood and pulled
out girls. And that's just scary. So I think, you know, that awareness letting people know
and you just never know who it's going to be in the homelessness too. I know somebody
a very middle class, successful family, everything was good and the husband became an alcoholic.
And he was homeless for nine months and living out of his car and most people didn't know,
but you just never know. So we don't want to judge but we want to be able to give people
access and know how to help people. And, you know, people do survive and come out and I
know you guys have a lot of resources to help people. I know the Mary Kay involvement that
we have a charitable foundation that helps fight domestic violence and cancers that affect
women, they've given over $50 million to fight domestic violence and they did training with
us saying, as consultants going into women's homes to be aware, and actually had a campaign
where they were putting help lines in an empty lipstick tube. So women could, you know, if
you notice, and I actually had an instance, I think I reached out to you about that I
was just talking to some friends and I just sensed this woman was having some issues and
I could tell it may not have been physical, but it was definitely a mental thing. And
then a couple weeks later, her friend that I had met her with called me and said, I'm
looking for a place, a friend's looking for a place and I'm like, is it such and such?
She's like, how did you know? And I'm like, because of my awareness, I was a pick up those
things. So why don't we talk about some courage, some things you've seen not to scare people,
but people that have done courageous things and then come out the other side and been
successful. Yeah, so, so again, Leslie, like you said, it's not to scare people. This is
real. You know, this is real life with real people that are that are coming through our
doors and I will say kind of two separate examples of this. And first is, you know, probably
what most people will think of are the people that are coming to our doors, people that
are picking up the phone and calling us saying we need to get out of me, me and my children
need to get out of this, this abusive relationship. And that's happening every single day. There
are courageous men and women who are coming to us. We don't just serve women experiencing
domestic violence, we also serve men who are experiencing domestic violence. The majority
are are either single women or single lead or single lead families by by women. So I
would say every single one of these women that are coming to us are courageous. We've had
people come to us through the through the police department, who are trans transported
by the police department who go into the homes we have very close relationships with the
domestic violence detectives within Fairfax County Police Department do partnerships
with them. But I will say, we have, we've also been notified of people who are roaming
around the streets, who have been sheltered in their own home, who did not speak the language.
And this person actually was found walking around rest in, having no idea where to go.
And this individual lived lived in quotes in rest in for more than five years, outside.
We finally got outside walking around, had no idea where to go. Didn't know the area,
didn't speak the language. We finally found out through the the police department's help
that she was a victim of domestic violence, that she was being held against her will.
She came to us at Artemis House, and she was in our shelter now this is not a typical case,
but she was in our shelter for over a year. Because that's how much help she needed.
He had zero life skills. She came into a place that she had no idea where she was going.
She had complete strangers trying to help her. She didn't understand the language you
talk about courage. It would have been very easy to go back to the lifestyle that she
was used to, which was being held against her will. That's where domestic violence is
so challenging sometimes. It's because of the power and control that the person who's
doing harm has over the victim. Where the victim is so manipulated that they feel like
this and co-co-co-coheres that this feels like the way of life.
That's their reality.
And that is their reality. So the courage that people have to stand up for themselves
and their children to leave that situation, where so many times the person that is doing
harm has financial control over them. Over 90% of domestic violence cases, it starts with
financial abuse and mental abuse. And then it comes to physical abuse. So when you have
lost the control of finances, you never had control of maybe the decisions that you're
making. Then you start having children. Now you have a family to be able to up and leave
for the betterment of yourself is extremely difficult and extremely courageous. And that's
why I defined courage the way that I did because I can see the people that are coming to us,
coming into a place that they have no idea about. They have no idea what the shelter looks
like. They have no idea if they're going to have a bed to sleep in, which they do. They
have no idea what they're going to do for food. They have no idea what they're going
to do for the kids for school. It's all the unknowns of leaving your house, leaving the
abuse to go where you're fairly stable. Even though you're being abused, there's stability
there because of the kids school, because of the food on the table, because of the financial
stability. But again, it's not healthy. So the courage that people have to leave that
situation come to us and have a life free of violence is just so courageous.
You can imagine. I'll say this. And then the second part of that that I really want to
get to that I want people to understand are the people that work for shelterhouse. So
many of the individuals that work for shelterhouse have experienced homelessness or domestic
violence. So many of them are still dealing with the trauma. The PTSD that they have experienced
in their lifetime. And that's why I say I come from a privileged life. I come from a
intact family able bodied white male where I need to make sure that I use the privilege
that I have first understand the privilege that I have and also be a voice for people
that haven't had the same experiences that I've had. But I also need to learn from the
people who have had those experience. And the people that come to us that work for us
that have have real life experience and that lived experience in domestic violence and
homelessness are so valuable to this organization, because they know what it takes to get out
of the situations. They are sometimes still dealing with the situations that that they
were brought through. So when you come to it when you know when we're talking about courage
and talking about the courageous acts, the people working for shelterhouse, I again,
it's still it's why I do what I did. I've been doing this for 21 years. It's why I do
what I do. Because the people that are working for us, literally the heroes that are working
within our communities to pull people out of these situations out of homelessness and
out of dangerous situations to get them back on their feet.
Right. I had no idea that people working there had were affected by. But that makes total
sense that they're passionate about it. But I can only imagine the triggers and yes. Yeah.
So scary, just and I know one time you came and spoke at an event and this kind of stuck
with me and talking about, OK, how can we help as a community? Like, what are some things
we should look for and be able to connect and help people? Because I know it can be
a scary situation. And if you're a domestic violence situation, the attack around my wife,
how do you refer pretty much controls and people have a hard time getting out of the
house out of situations? They're checking their communication. And how do they find out how?
I guess, you know, we talked about one time, as I mentioned at an event and you're like,
OK, if somebody is next door, a neighbor is shooting somebody, you would call the police.
But if there's a domestic violence situation, we don't always say something. So share how
people can identify, see what we should look for and then how we can help people.
Yeah. Yeah, I always used kind of that story around, you know, if there is a person experiencing
homelessness who is sleeping in your backyard, what would you do? And typically, you know,
typical person would say, well, I'm going to pick it up, I'm going to go out and try
to help the person tell them, but you can't stay here. They don't leave. You're going
to call the police. If your next door neighbor is experiencing domestic violence, we typically
don't call it domestic violence right away. They're having marital issues. Right. Even
though in the back of our head, we know or we are expecting that this person is being
abused, whether it's mentally, whether it's physically. And what do we do in most cases?
We don't say anything because it's within their four walls. It's marital issues. Let
them deal with it. We don't want to get involved. And that's the last thing that the persons
that that people want. We need to recognize the signs of domestic violence. If we are
working in our companies, our coworkers, if we're leaders within our companies, we have
to understand what the signs of domestic violence are. If you have employees or if you have
coworkers who are high performers and all of a sudden are starting to come in to work
a little late, or they're just shutting down, they're not talking, or during conversations,
when you're talking about the fun weekends or the things about your spouses or about
your boyfriends, and they shut down and they don't talk about any of that. If you know
that they're married, if they, you know, if you know, if they have a boyfriend, we, there's
there's signs, you know, within just markings on people. We need to be able to ask questions.
We need to be able to, you know, for instance, one of my neighbors came to me and said, you
know, Joe, I was with one of our other neighbors. And we were at the grocery store and, you
know, together and we were in line together. And she had to pick up the phone and she had
to call her husband to tell her how much the bill was going to be so he could transfer
money over to her account. Wow. He said, is this normal? And you don't live, I mean,
we live in a very affluent nice neighborhood. Yes. Yes. And anytime they were out, she
had to ask permission or he had to know where she was. So this was so so my other neighbor,
she was picking up on this. So again, when it, you know, when we're talking about abuse,
we're not just talking about the physical abuse of people, it starts way before that.
And this individual was being abused. And it started with financial abuse where she
was not allowed to have any money in her account beyond what she was sending on on that. So
it's signs like that. And you know, we were very grateful that she, you know, that my
neighbor was able to pick up on that. And then she was able to talk to her and just
ask her questions. We don't want to be invasive, of course, but we want to be able to ask
questions. We want to be able to open our doors. It's simple things like I'm not sure
I, I'm not sure exactly what you're going through, but our doors open for you.
Yeah. And just a simple question like that. I'm not accusing anybody of anything, right?
Because people can get very defensive of their person who's doing harm to them also. But
we can just simply say, you know, I don't know exactly what you're going through. We
are here for you. And we're going to leave our door open for you. Yeah. But again, it's
just it's, it's the signs. It's the it's, it's the non accusatory way of approaching
somebody just to say, I'm here if you need me. Yeah. It's also we know, we know so many
more people that have experienced domestic violence than we even know we know.
Right. Well, and I say one out of four. Yes. So scary, like you're in a big room and like,
all right, look beside you and
Yes. So even for people who have experienced domestic violence or a child witness domestic
violence, because that's a big one too. So many of the people that come to us have been
child witnesses of domestic violence. And now they are victims of domestic violence
also. Again, our staff, our staff that come to us, they were not abused, but in, in their
childhood, they were a child witness domestic violence. And that sometimes is even worse.
Yeah. You know, they say, and it's true that you know, the physical harm that people do
to you, you can heal from the mental harm that people do, you will not. So we have to
you know, our mental health around, around everything right now, mental, we're talking
a lot about mental health. But when it comes to the, you know, the, the trauma that people
are suffering from through abuse is, is just extraordinary. We have to be able to as business
leaders, as friends, as co workers, as family members, we cannot ignore what is going on.
You could always call our, our hotline. And again, you can go to our website at shelterhouse.org.
And, and, you know, get the number and resources.
And we'll share all your how to connect with you and the organizations.
Yes, please.
Yeah, it's awareness. It's, you know, and I know the events we did together were so
good and people were just amazed at what they heard. And I think getting the word out and
letting people know that there are resources and, and then how can we help, you know, by
identifying, but then also resources to help the houses. I know Christmas time, I do a
program called adopt mom and I've donated things, but really sometimes if I have extra,
I hold on to them because I've literally been into Artemis house, walking over piles of
stuff. People are so generous, but then in February, you know, people kind of forget.
So being able to help, I know one event that we did was, and this was just eyeopening that
food stamps are, I know I called snapped out does not color any cover any feminine hygiene.
Right.
I like, and we're, I was talking to a friend like they don't cover diapers, baby formula.
So I know we did like a tampon drive one time, you know, simple things that you don't think
about that people could use. One of the things when I've been into the shelters doing makeovers,
one thing the ladies have always asked and now I've prepared is they want the mirror
that I give them and like a simple thing like a mirror. That's so simple and easy. But if
you think about it, when you leave with nothing, but yourselves and the clothes on your back,
like simple things that we take for granted.
And it's, it's about and what we really try to do is around dignity and getting people's
dignity back to them. And as you mentioned that that mirror, it gave me that image of
dignity where somebody can look at themselves again with what you all have done, you know,
on Mother's Day, you all come through, you know, on Mother's Day and do the gifts and
the makeovers and everything on Mother's Day for us. And I know that the people who are
coming to our programs really enjoy that. But being able to be made over and just have
some of that makeup on and be able to look at themselves in that mirror is the dignity
that they need.
We just had an amazing event yesterday with Fairfax County Sheriff's Department and Sheriff
Stacy Kincaid, who is just amazing. She did shop with the sheriff yesterday with the kids
and our mentors. And they went to Target. They have a pizza party and they go to Target
and Burke for a couple of hours and they have 35 to 40 deputies work with 35 to 40 of our
children who are in their shelters. And they each have $250 and they shop with the sheriff's
deputies to go around to get school clothes, to get shoes, to get supplies, to get all
the things that they need for their first days of school. When we're talking about dignity
and being able to walk into school with a new pair of shoes on, to walk into school on
that first day with new clothes on, it just, you know, it takes the burden off of the parent
to say, what are we going to do for our kids? But it also takes the burden off of the child
who's walking in the school who may feel different already, but they don't have to. They have
that dignity of walking in on that first day with new stuff.
I love seeing that event. And I was actually, I was listening to the radio this morning
and they were talking about going back to school and advice for kids and parents. And
one person wrote in and it was, I want to find it, but she had a poem basically, but
it was like, you know, when, as kids going into school, you know, go there to learn not
to judge, not to compare, you know, if the kid comes in and wears the exact same pair
of shoes every day, who cares? And, you know, if their lunch is different, then don't judge
and be friendly. And, you know, it starts there and it starts educating kids. Well, we
could talk forever and ever and ever and ever. And speaking of Sheriff Kincaid, I just love
her and how connected she is. And like, I've met her once or twice, but she would not know
me walking down the street, but we're connected on Facebook. And every year on my birthday,
she sent me a private message, wish me happy birthday. Like, I need to, I need, maybe you
can connect us and get her interview her on here, because I think she would be a great
person. So what encouragement would you have for someone to be courageous or say, why not
today?
You know, I would, why not today? One, you may not see tomorrow in so many ways. You may
not get tomorrow if you don't do it today. And so many people who have come to us, who
have made the life changing decision to get help, whether it be help because of an abusive
relationship that you're in help because you're on the verge of homelessness, help because
you have suicidal ideation help because you need, you know, the mental health help. Or
just decisions that you've been holding off on, you may not get tomorrow if you don't
today.
That is so true. And that's why I'm living by this motto. So I always try to say, what
is your connection, my dad, and people read that question like, I never met meet your
dad and not necessarily ever met him. But I always like to wait till the end to see,
okay, all the places you connected. Well, obviously, giving back to community, which
was a big part that he was invested in, especially the resting community, which you're doing
such a big thing with. But so I know before you're at shelter, you're at Embry Rucker
shelter. And my dad was very involved with that. And actually, I think somewhat instrumental
in getting that going. And of course, Embry Rucker was a good friend of his member as
a kid, seeing him and he was he had a church that he ran at Lake Ann. It was almost like
God. And then the Kate Hanley shelter, you're part of that. Of course, Kate Hanley was a
friend of my father's also and he was connected with her and the community. And then kind
of a fun connection for us is I remember one of the first times you spoke. And my friend
Teresa, who was actually a guest on the podcast, a month or so ago, she I was talking to her,
she's like, what are you doing with Joe? I'm like, what do you mean? What am I doing with
Joe? She's like, I'm like, how do you know Joe? She's like, he was my next door neighbor.
You hung out with them. I'm like, Oh, my goodness, I never put all that together. So small little
world connection. You just never know. And so I'm grateful for all that we've been able
to do. And I may share as part of this post, I think I mentioned to you before I started
that my help with the community and with Shelter House and Adopt-a-Mom, I was actually
honored with Best of Rest and Award several years ago. And you spoke on the video or a
big part of the video talking about Shelter House and everything we've done together. So
make sure that with that. So yeah, so it's been great to have you on. As I said, we could
talk forever and ever. And you know what I'd love if you have somebody that's gone through
the system on the other side, that it wouldn't be a confidentiality thing or somebody that
I'd love to be able to share their story. There's actually a story of somebody Mary Kaye. Mary
Kaye actually did a PBS special about domestic violence. And they did it in English and Spanish,
but there was a woman that thinks she was out of Virginia Beach and was in a domestic
violence shelter. And through her, Mary Kaye director was able to flee and go to California.
And she was in a shelter there and had no money, but she had a Mary Kaye business. And
so she would literally go to do an appointment, have that she had no car, the taxi would take
her, she'd stop at the bank to cash her checks from whatever she sold to pay the taxi to
get home before her kids got home and was able to through Mary Kaye and the help of
a shelter earn a car, buy a house and it's a huge success now. So you just never know.
That's right. Yeah. So thanks again for being on and we will share your information. And
I'll have you send me info so people can connect with you. So it's great to have you on and
of course see you. It's been a long time since I've seen you. I guess I saw you for a minute
at the cornerstones event, but thanks again for sharing your story. Thanks everybody for
listening. You can find us on Spotify and iTunes and everywhere else. We release a new
podcast every other Saturday and have not missed one yet. I'm excited about that. And
we're working on a website and we're going to have merchandise cups and t-shirts because
we're going to start a movement that says why not today? So thanks again, Joe. It's been
a pleasure to chat with you and let's get some help for Shelter House and awareness out
there. Thank you, Leslie. You're welcome. Thank you.