Hello, and welcome to Listen Up People, a podcast
of USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
I'm Dr. Eric Rice, professor and associate dean
for research. Homelessness is a serious issue
affecting society, and it's also become a public
health epidemic nationwide. For many people,
the problem appears unsolvable and that the best
that we can hope for is to mitigate it. But my
guest today, unapologetically believe that it
is within our reach to end homelessness. Their
dedicated research and community partnership
initiatives are proving a pathway forward for
achieving that reality. Creating solutions to
homelessness is also a focus of my own research,
so I'm excited to delve into this issue with
my two colleagues. Today I have Dr. Ben Henwood,
who leads the Center for Homelessness, Housing
and Health Equity Research, also known as H3E,
and He is the director also of the USC Homelessness
Policy Research Institute, also known as HPRI.
And our second guest is Dr. Seth Pickens, who
is the managing director of the Homelessness
Policy Research Institute. Welcome to both of
you. Great to be here. Thanks. Thanks for having
me. Diving right into some meaty questions. I
want to ask you something a little more personal
to start which is Was there a moment in your
life or in your career that was the moment where
you said? Oh, this is this is the problem I want
to work on homelessness is is is where it's at
for me because I know you've devoted your careers
to this at this point Yeah, sure. You know, I
don't have that one moment that you're describing
I mean, I think to me it was it was really a
journey, you know where I was trying to find,
you know, what is it that I'm passionate about?
Homelessness is not really the thing that sort
of came to mind. I think early on in my career
as a social worker, I learned about this housing
-first approach to homelessness. And what intrigued
me about it was it was, at the time, this, like,
novel concept that was counterintuitive. It was
really flipping systems, flipping the script,
really, of how we thought about homelessness
services. And the research was just coming out
at the time. This was in 2001 when I was in my
master's program. And it was intriguing to me.
And so I wanted to learn more about it. did my
MSW placement in a housing first program that
was doing the work. And I think just really seeing
how transformational it could be to get people
off the streets and into a safe environment,
I think that was really the beginning for me
of how it started. Yeah, that makes sense. Seeing
those transformed lives is a powerful, powerful
experience. Before I jump to Seth's answer, could
you explain a little bit maybe what is this housing
first thing you're talking about? You're talking
about flipping the script and it's counterintuitive,
but maybe our listeners are thinking, I don't
even know what that means. Yeah, of course, of
course. You know, I think for most people today,
when we think about homelessness, you think about
people living on the streets as if that is something
that just is part and parcel to modern day life.
But the truth is, it hasn't always been like
this. This is a relatively historically recent
phenomenon. And I can remember actually in fifth
grade, having a classmate who was collecting
blankets at the time. This was in Philadelphia.
And Trevor, who was in our classmate, started
the Trevor Project, not the one affiliated with
suicide prevention that people know today, but
this was in the 80s. And the reason he started
that was because... That was the first time we
were seeing people actually living on the streets.
I mean, before that, yes, there was homelessness,
housing, and stability, but not this sort of,
you know, mass amount of people on our streets.
And, you know, there's a historical reason for
that that we can get into that has a lot to do
with sort of this dismantling of the safety nets
in our country during the Reagan era. There was
a economic recession. There were demographic
shifts. But all of this came together to really
cause homelessness as we know it. today and you
know we weren't society wasn't really set up
to deal with this problem and so we were very
reactive and we were reactive by you know what
do we do what do we do with these people living
on the streets and so shelters were really the
the main way in which we try to address the problem
right um and getting people off the streets and
you know it's It's interesting because there
was some really good research that was that was
done by a colleague of ours Dennis Culhane at
the University of Pennsylvania Who noticed you
know this was? In the 80s that a lot of people
would go to shelters that because of temporary
disruptions in their life And then they after
a short time less than 30 days they'd leave and
they'd never come back, right? And yet, but he
noticed there was another group of people that
if they were there longer than 30 days, they
often stayed there for a really long time, or
maybe they'd exit, but they'd come back. And
this was a group that we thought of as sort of
the more chronically homeless. And they tended
to have, you know, Increased rates of like mental
illness and other disabilities And so as we struggle
to like what do we do with these folks that are
you know? Living in shelters ending up back on
the streets. They'd get picked up in hospitals
incarcerated Right, we didn't really know what
to do. And we were really trying to push people
into, you know, they need treatment for whether
it's mental illness or addiction. And and that
just wasn't working. It's what, you know, was
coined by by Kim Hopper at the time as this institutional
circuit. And housing first really came along
in reaction to that. Right. And Sam's embarrassed
who actually works works here at our school,
at our center right now. He sort of created this
model, which we now know as Housing First. But
at the time, it was a very fringe idea, this
idea that you would Target these individuals
who had lots of issues and help them move into
apartments hand them keys to an apartment that
that was a very radical idea at the time. But
the rationale was this is what people are asking
for this is what they want and they're probably
gonna be in a much better place to address all
the problems they have if they actually have
a stable safe secure place to live. Fortunately,
Sam had the wherewithal when he was getting his
program together, Pathways to Housing, to actually
study the model. He even conducted a randomized
control trial where people were randomly either
selected to get housing first or to get that
kind of usual care, which in hindsight we call
treatment first. But there was never a treatment
first model or design. That was sort of the default
approach. And that research pretty much showed
that when you get people into an apartment and
you support them that housing stability goes
a long way. And so we were seeing, you know,
upwards of 80 % of people were successful in
the housing first model, whereas the people,
you know, in the treatment first approach, stayed
on the streets in and out in and out of institutions
for years. And so that's, you know, that's really
what we talk about housing first. And, and I
have to say, it's a it's a remarkable example
of where Um, we had, you know This evidence -based
practice research that actually influenced policy
decisions because that initial research that
came out. Um, I think the the The 2004 publication
on housing first, um that that showed those results
You know at 2010 housing first became national
policy in terms of how you address homelessness
so that that is a very short lifespan for you
know research results to get. adopted as federal
policy, which we sure I mean, there's that there's
this joke about, you know, it usually takes well,
not a joke. I mean, it's it's a sad reality that
we bemoan in research, which is that it often
takes 17 years to go from the bench to the bedside,
as we like to say, within health research. So
to go from, you know, six years from this publication
to federal policy is incredibly fast in the slow
moving time frame. And for those of you in the
audience who who may think, wow, Ben knows a
lot about this. Ben literally wrote the book
on Housing First. There's a book that Samson
Barris, Ben Henwood, and Deb Padgett wrote that
is called Housing First, Ending Homelessness,
Transforming Systems, and Changing Lives. So
if you are thinking, wow, this guy seems to know
a lot about this, he is... one of if not the
world's expert in this approach. And before we
dive deeper into that, because I know this is
a rabbit hole that we could spend the entire
time in, I wanna give Seth you a chance to chime
in and talk about what was the experience that
brought you into doing this work on housing and
homelessness? Yeah, I think it's, like Ben said,
I don't know if a thunderbolt went off that said,
homelessness. But there was that kind of epiphany
moment and for me my background is that I'm actually
a pastor by training and I've been a senior pastor
in South LA since 2009. So I got into it from
that angle and homelessness was just one of the
civic issues that we were seeing 10 -15 years
ago. And, you know, they're running a food pantry,
people even let someone sleep in my office, you
know, like kind of pulling together money for
hotel nights for people in a pinch for all sorts
of different reasons. So that was really my baptism
into it. And that was just one aspect of kind
of the larger work. I think maybe that's part
of the conversation. One of the things when we're
talking about homelessness, we talk about silos,
right? So there's like the political side, there's
the real estate side, there's the researchers,
there's the funders, right? And the faith community
has is kind of its own silo. You know, and so
it's operating and kind of doing well and intention,
but there's a lot of very robust conversation
that can in that silo breaking bring insight
and maybe we'll talk more about some of those
specifics. But as far as my own journey. Yeah,
I got an opportunity with the economic roundtable
to direct a project working with. Community college
students, Long Beach City College at a high risk
of persistent homelessness. And directed that
project for 3 years and learned a lot about.
Bringing research into play as well as like,
we're running the program and evaluating it.
Community college students at a high risk of
persistent homelessness. If they get housing
for solutions, and I didn't even know the term
at the time, but essentially housing support
with other. you know clinical and social service
resources and expungement and all that then they'll
be less likely to be homeless also with employment
pathways so they can earn more income and be
less likely to be homeless so yeah homeless community
college students young adults here's what we
do let's get them jobs now they're in the trade
union now they're in health care now they're
making money and they're not homeless anymore
like that sounds like you know something doesn't
sound like rocket science but it's remarkably
difficult to do i am that's the point i was gonna
say it sounds like something a researcher would
come up with and like everyone's like it's brilliant
right but then so the reality of course is that
somewhere between there there's so much uh psycho
socio emotional stuff just to put it briefly
that it's like I'm homeless today. Now I have
a good job. Now I'm not homeless. There's something
in there. So that report last year was called
the work behind work. And that has unfolded into
this conversation around flourishing and our
flourishing summit, September 11th. Maybe we'll
talk more about that. But the idea that if that's
the difficulty, then let's just look at that.
And we were like, what was the most valuable
part of this experience for them? And there were
two things that were both like 86%. One was the
money to have housing security and not be homeless.
And the other was literally the moral support,
the learning about mindfulness, the networking
that they didn't have before, like all of these
things that are sometimes considered softer.
So we're like, how about if we literally just
do that? So now with some of the work with Homelessness
Policy Research Institute, And when opportunity
comes to work with the guy who wrote the book
on housing first, I mean, come on. So here I
am. So one of the things we're doing is working
with the Department of Health Services, which
is rolling into this new county department this
year, next year, looking at best practices. So
we look at it. Okay. Permanent supportive housing.
Guess what? Some things are going well, lack
of collaboration, lack of accountability, lack
of shared vision. is why it's not just working.
So what if we literally look at that solve for
collaboration? These are skills that can be taught.
Accountability, trust is low, no shared vision.
And so it's actually the same model that the
homeless community college students need and
the county managers and leaders and case managers
and everyone. how you're actually doing, feeling,
how you're working together, you know, is pretty
important. And so sometimes the term flourishing
gets like short shrift, but that's kind of the
journey. And you can see how, you know, the faith
journey kind of ties in with some of that too.
Yeah, of course. Of course. It makes me think.
With this Housing First and the way it enables
people to flourish, you would think that, and
the fact that there's this body of evidence that's
been around for almost 20 years that impacted
policy, you'd think that everyone would be on
board with Housing First. But I certainly know
from my own following of the media and also my
own interactions with folks in the homelessness
service sector community, that there's actually
been a backlash against Housing First. I mean,
Ben, maybe Seth, I mean, either one of you wanna
address sort of what you've seen with respect
to this turning, the tide seems to be, at least
for a moment, the moment, there's a lot of skepticism
about Housing First. I mean, there definitely
is misinformation about what is and isn't Housing
First, so we can talk about that, but I think
at the end of the day, really people are frustrated.
right, that this problem persists. Despite what
are perceived as large investments, especially
in Los Angeles, voters have voted to approve
additional funding for this problem. And yet
we know, in fact, we're involved in producing
the estimates each year. We know over the past
decade, the homeless population has doubled in
Los Angeles. I think the refrain is, if Housing
First was working, why is the homeless population
growing right and and and so people are looking
for someone to blame and and and i think housing
first has become a sort of a victim of its own
of its own success so to speak in that it's an
easy target right it's an easy target to say
that must not be working otherwise this problem
would have been solved and you know the the truth
is is that we've never really scaled housing
first approach to the size of the problem, right?
And the few instances where we've gotten close,
we've seen dramatic reductions in homelessness.
So I'm just going to sort of invoke the VA as
a prime example. Sure, sure. I don't know if
our listeners know, but back in 2014, let's say,
when the VA adopted Housing First as its main
approach, and Congress went ahead and approved
appropriations funding to really support and
scale that program, we saw veterans homelessness
in less than a decade reduced by 50%. And that's
an example of like, this is a problem that that
can respond very well to resources when you have
these effective solutions in place. And we saw
that with the veterans in part because there's
bipartisan support. People believe that veterans
shouldn't be on the streets. And so we were willing
to allocate resources. There's never really,
you know, who is the VA for the rest of the for
everyone else who's homeless, right? There's
not there's never been a funding source uh that
that that can really you know scale um the the
solutions we know work to the to the size of
the problem so anyway so that i mean i think
that that makes that makes housing first an easy
scapegoat when you know really the research and
all the work that's been done we know that Lack
of affordable housing is the main driver. Along
with that are sort of all the other inequities
that come along with who gets access to housing,
who doesn't. That's the main driver. And, you
know, I think more recently we've had a 180 on
as much as I talked about Housing First becoming
federal policy in 2010. As of this year, it is
by decree executive order. People are not supposed
to be doing housing first anymore and you know
that that's unfortunate because that unlike the
initial adoption of housing first that was driven
by you know Empirical results. This is really
driven by ideology at this point Yeah, no, it's
it's interesting and I think you know the other
thing that has struck me often is very ideological
is the blaming of Housing programs that are home
that are for people experiencing homelessness
as being somehow responsible for why people are
homeless and i've sometimes thought about it
in the as an analogy to emergency rooms right
like that when this would be like saying. Well,
there's too many people. And the reason that
there's so many people in the emergency room
is because there's not enough emergency room
doctors. It's like, no, people go to the emergency
room because they get in car accidents or they
have their appendix is about to burst or they've
had some other situation happen that drives them
to the emergency room. And yeah, there's some
triaging and life saving stuff that happens in
an emergency room. But the flow of people into
that emergency room has nothing to do with the
emergency room. And so, you know, housing first
is an emergency response to a problem where someone
has already become homeless. It's not a solution
for preventing people from ever becoming homeless
in the first place. And as you talked about these...
problems of, you know, lack of affordable housing,
especially in the major urban centers of the
United States over the last while. I mean, there's
another great book that's out there recently
called, you know, Homelessness as a Housing Problem
by a colleague of ours in Washington. And it's,
you know, another one of these, as Seth, you'd
say, like the sort of thing that only a researcher
would say, right? Like housing is a homeless,
you know, homelessness housing problem, like,
no kidding. But sometimes the dialogue seems
to get very caught up in ideology as opposed
to caught up in what we're actually observing
that this this reminds me of another thing that
i wanted to talk to you you about ben and also
seth which is that. USC and the school social
work has been really involved in tracking and
monitoring the number of people who are experiencing
homelessness in los angeles since about twenty
seventeen and i know that you just had the twenty.
25 homeless count results came out very recently
and there was once again a reduction in homelessness.
Can you speak to both the experience of working
on those counts and also sort of what you are
observing over time? I know you mentioned that
there's been this... Nearly doubling of the homeless
population in the last 10 years, but it's not
all bad news, right? Yeah, right. I mean Look,
I think there's been a lot of discussion lately
because for the second year in a row now our
Annual point -in -time estimates which is basically,
you know once a year the the county is required
to produce estimates of how many people they
think are experiencing homelessness that they
need to submit that information to HUD as part
of receiving federal funding for homeless services.
And since, as you mentioned, since 2017, we've
partnered with the county to produce those estimates
and help collect the data. A lot of listeners
may have participated in the point in time count,
which is actually just a volunteer effort to
go out literally once a year. canvass their neighborhoods
and count how many people they see living on
the streets. We use the data that the volunteers
collect and we pair that with survey data that
our teams go out and we talk to about four to
five thousand unhoused individuals each year.
And we use that, really, as the sample to extrapolate
and understand the population who's out there
and the size of that population. And so, yeah,
so the past couple of years, we've finally seen
sort of a bending of this curve where we peaked
out at just over 70 ,000 homeless individuals
in LACOC. continuum of care. That's what we do.
There are four continuums of care in the county,
but three are pretty small and we do the majority
of the county. But those numbers have gone down
and so people are hopeful that the investments
that have been made have been in getting people
off the streets and, you know, and out of homelessness.
Yeah, I mean, it's a huge lift to think that
we're going to solve this problem that's at the
scale of 70 ,000 people a night in just a few
months or even a couple of years. I mean, at
least from my perspective, this investment in
taxpayer dollars that L .A. County and city have
done, you know, it's an amazing thing and it's
exactly what we need to have done. And I think
that folks sometimes are a bit impatient for
results and it's, you know, we're trying to move
an iceberg of a problem, not an ice cube, right?
I mean, it's a huge thing. And another thing
I know that people are really upset about is
really the amount of people who they see visibly
out on the streets, unsheltered, in encampments,
in tents, you know, on the sidewalks. And, you
know, is LA unique in this experience? Are we
you know, worse off than most. I mean, can you
maybe talk to our listeners about just sort of
like what this unsheltered homeless experience
of LA is like? Yeah, well, LA has the dubious
distinction of having the largest unsheltered
population in the country. But we're not that
unusual for any place where housing affordability
is high. You see higher rates of homelessness.
And so pretty much across the West Coast, you're
going to see a lot of unshelteredness. And also,
there hasn't really been an investment in the
shelter system like we we have in New York. So
New York actually has overall more people experiencing
homelessness than in LA, but most of those people
reside in the shelter system, which is quite
expensive to maintain, but there are less people
on the streets. Here it's the opposite. We see
a lot more people, almost three out of four people
experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles are
gonna be unsheltered. Wow. So Seth, I know you've
done a lot of work in the areas of prevention
and driving these systemic changes. So why is
this multi -level collaboration structure at
HPRI between researchers and services that you're
so in part of? Like, why is that so important?
And what are we trying to improve about these
systems when we're developing policies? I mean,
how is this, what's going on for you? Yeah. Just
to put it, I guess, purely Uh, the collaboration
is about getting to better questions. You know,
Einstein says if I had 55 minutes to if I had
an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes.
Making sure I had the question, right? Because
when you really end, of course, with research,
of course, but getting to better questions. So,
yeah, when we are collaborating, when we're convening.
When we're networking, when we're proliferating
research, and that's in addition to. you know,
the actual research that the Institute facilitates,
but that collaborative impact model, which is
a model that some organizations use anytime.
I mean, this conversation, you know, if there
were just one of us, it wouldn't be the same,
right? So you got to kind of put it together.
And that is something that is maybe underestimated.
But when we do that, we come to a lot of fascinating
things like even in this. conversation, there
is an element that hasn't come up yet, but it
has come up in collaborative discussion. And
that is just the nature of real estate. I mean,
we realize real estate is the biggest, it's like
the engine of capitalism or certainly, you know,
maybe it's the transmission or something, but
it's pretty important, right? And it's there
with a profit motive. It's kind of baked in.
L .A. County has a finite area. Yeah. So X number
of people on house, the timeline to build and
the cost to build. So now there are trends like
higher density, which, you know, then now we're
changing the scope of the city. So there are
a lot of things that come up like in response
to the you're talking about some of the federal
attacks on housing first. I think it's fair to
say that wherever you lie politically, there's
a bit of a danger of throwing out the baby with
the bathwater to just kind of wholesale, make
some of these sweeping cuts and changes and stuff.
And so who's teasing out the baby from the bathwater?
Because there is a lot, like I said, there's
a lot going right. And there's a lot of people
You know, making these efforts. So this is again,
what kind of took us in the collaborative and
I don't, you know, but what took us was to this
idea of flourishing. So many people are understanding
the importance of well -being. And like I said,
sometimes it's kind of considered lightweight
and stuff. Sure. Really too. I mean, the work
we've done and we're working with community based
organizations that administer public, you know,
permanent supportive housing. and they're hungry
for this conversation. Then even maybe on the
other side of the aisle, but whether it's liberal
or conservative, the idea of employment, the
idea of safety, the idea of dignity, and the
idea of these teams who are working. There's
armies in LA alone, thousands of people of clinicians.
How many clinicians, case managers? you know,
researchers, you know, just unsung heroes, frontline
people, mental health, county are all working
on this issue. So you take those thousands of
people, whatever kind of like the, the zeitgeist
mental health, happiness, trust, teamwork, mindfulness
is among us working on this issue. Oh, sure.
Sure. It is the results. So, and it is, it is
expensive to build housing. So this idea of flourishing
is like, maybe it's more efficient and effective
to build up people even as we're building up
the housing. HPRI, like you said, there's a lot
going on, not even that we're responsible for
all of it, but a thought hub, a clearing house,
a collaborative partner, a networking linchpin
has been something that was thought up. This
makes me think of for a second that HPRI, we
haven't really talked about, what is this? And
I think I'd love to, if you could maybe give,
I don't know, Ben or Seth or both of you kind
of give a little bit of a description of what
this institute is and what its mission is. I
think it's a really important thing for our listeners
to understand. Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna
chime in because I was wondering if people were
following along There's a you know, a homelessness
policy research institute at usc There's our
you know research center on homelessness housing
and health equity research And so if I can just
provide a little bit of context, please, you
know both both of these entities came about around
the same time, but they have very different sort
of origins and uh and sort of purposes and so,
you know, i'll just start uh Eric, with the research
center that started here at our school in 2018
-2019, really grew out of, and as you know, the
work that we were doing here at our school. When
I came to USC in 2012, I was working with you
and Suzanne Wenzel and Harmony Rhodes, really
top scholars in the field looking at this transition
that people had from off the streets into permanent
supportive housing using housing first. And in
fact, the National Institute of Health funded
what we call the transition study, where we actually
followed people over the course of the year and
to see what changes we observed in terms of their.
They're kind of their health or their behaviors.
Um, and, and, you know, and, and so that, that
really was an opportunity for us to work together.
Since then, there's been a lot of work that we've
done both in the, in the, uh, doing research
on supportive housing. So that includes some
of the, the projects related to, you know, this
is an aging population. How do we support. adults
who are coming off the streets into housing.
They have accelerated aging. How do we help them
live independently now that we've put all this
effort into getting them a home, right? So there's
that. We have a study funded by the National
Science Foundation to look at can technology
better support people in supportive housing.
So we have multiple. Yeah, and you also, we also
worked on that one project that was one of your
first. Really big grants that was on on how are
youth like young adults who are in these permits
for housing? How are they doing? I mean you've
really I mean the audience that doesn't know
I mean not only did Ben literally, you know,
literally not figuratively write this book But
I mean, he's really been working on lots of different
angles, you know, youth, aging adults, you know,
sort of the more, I guess, you know, typical
sort of, you know, folks that are sort of our
age, you know, middle aged folks who are who
are in housing. But I mean, you know, you've
been you've been doing a lot of different stuff
with a lot of different populations and really
was a big emphasis on as Seth was saying this.
Flourishing and well -being and health. It's
not just a focus on hey housing is good unto
itself But housing makes people's lives better
Yeah, and that and again and I appreciate that
and that was really enabled by you know Your
expertise with the the young adult population
experiencing homelessness so we so we could do
that work But you know all that is to say in
when we started the research center. It was really
an acknowledgement that We're doing a lot of
work here. We'd like to, to house it, you know,
together, given this focus, uh, not just on this,
on the, on the housing side, but like, as you
said, I didn't, I didn't even really think of
myself as a homelessness researcher when I got
here because quite frankly you know I thought
that was the easy part addressing the homelessness
and it was really like you're saying how do we
help people you know um flourish once they they
move into housing and so it was really you know
I was I was a health services researcher but
but As we mentioned, you know, there is work
to be done to understand just homelessness. And
that's why we got involved in the homeless count.
We we have other projects just related to like
street medicine and understanding how do you
bring care to the streets. So that's all that's
all research that's sort of housed in our research
center here at the school. It's it's more I don't
want to say traditional research, but it's funded
by the traditional institutes like the National
Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health.
HPRI has a very different origin story in the
sense that it was developed initially at the
Price School of Public Policy. Just last year,
it became a joint institute, now at Public Policy
and the School of Social Work. It's a collective
impact model where the goal is not necessarily
to produce that research that I was just talking
about, but it's to support researchers to do
that work and to have a collective impact to
like, what is the body of research that's happening
here in Southern California? And how do we translate
that into effective policy? And so there's this
recognition that we need to convene. researchers
together, along with policymakers, along with
the people working in the field, along with people
with lived experience. And that is, that was,
you know, why HPRI was developed to sort of have
that convening function. You know, they're much
different goals and purposes, but they are very
complementary to one another. And as you're describing
the center, it makes me think of something that
Seth, you said at the beginning of our conversation,
which was that you're really interested in breaking
down these silos, right? And so with your role
in the HPRI, what do you do to convene these
groups of people, break down these silos, make
an impact? I mean, what's your day -to -day way
of tackling these problems? That's a great question.
There's the reactive side of it, and then there's
a proactive side. That might be one way to frame
it. Reactive is literally just within USC. There's
street medicine at Keck. There's the dentistry
school that stuff going on. There's other research
institutes publishing things and wanting to make
connections. And that's just within USC then
similarly across research and policy. So. You
know, the emails are coming in, we're seeing,
you know, events that are happening where, you
know, can making connections, we're being invited
to speak and share. So that's like, just just
the reactive side. The proactive side has taken
a few forms. The main one is periodic convenings
or regular convenings. There's a research committee,
there's a data gaps committee, there's a race
equity committee. Each of them have their own
sub direction or agenda or network within the
network of questions, conversations that they
are solving. This idea of flourishing, we are
convening summit September 11th at USC. where
we will be having these cross silo conversations,
civic leaders, policy, AI, medicine, health,
even well -being best practices. So there's space
to innovate. There's a lot of evidence that improv
will help people. work better together if they
spend an hour kind of playing a game and kind
of learning how to do that. And so there's a
lot of science and research to back that up.
So we're inviting folks to do that and try it
at the summit. So these are frontline workers.
These are county managers, leaders, property
managers across permanent supportive housing,
asset managers, people with lived experience,
privileging their voices in these kind of ivory
tower and city hall conversations. And that's
a real, that's a really important thing. I mean,
I think. This is something at least I struggle
with in my own work is the The real the reality
that I am not somebody who's experienced homelessness
I care very much about this this problem but
giving people who have it had this experience
of voice in these Spaces is such an important
thing and it's great to hear that you're you're
doing that I mean Do you have mechanisms that
you like you have a formal board of those folks
or how do you do that? Yeah, people call them,
you know, in other organizations, community advisory
boards. But on, I mean, on several of our committees,
we really do endeavor to have that voice. It's
not just like one community advisory board, but
all the way through because, yeah, what good
is it? if I've never really, really been homeless.
There was a moment there, senior year of undergrad,
that we don't talk about that, but I was never
really homeless to really be serious and sincere.
I have one last question that I wanna throw to
each of you. What is, from your perspective,
one of the biggest misconceptions about homelessness
or people living with homelessness that you would
like to dispel? To put it briefly, it's probably,
an assumed dichotomy, like there's an us and
a them. There's like, you know, thank God I work
in this office and thank God I have a washing
machine and thank God I'm not homeless. And then
them with their, you know, addiction and bad
roll of the dice and mental illness and like,
but literally this is what one of the things
that comes out is like a parallel process where
If a case manager is there to facilitate change
in a person's life, accountability would hold
that they must be endeavoring in some sort of
change of life, some sort of improvement, so
that there's some sort of us and them that's
really baked deeply in the conversation because
of financial realities. But that's something
that we could take a closer look at. Yeah, I
know that's really thoughtful. And Ben, what
about you? What's a misconception around The
experience of homelessness or people experiencing
homelessness that you would like to see Yep,
leave the dialogue Yeah, I mean I look I I agree
with Seth and i'll just sort of go back to the
the data and what we know and you know, it it
is true that there's a a misperception and in
fact, uh the uh Trump administration's executive
order made the claim that you know the majority
of people on the streets are criminals, have
mental illness, are addicted to drugs. I don't
know anywhere where that data supports that claim.
And if you just look at the information we have,
yes, while there are higher rates of, say, addiction
and mental illness in the homeless population,
it is not the majority of people out there. There
are a lot of different misperceptions. People
claim that the reason we have such high rates
of homelessness here is because people come for
the weather. They like Southern California and
they move here to be homeless. And people are
not upwardly mobile and decide, hey, where's
the best place to be homeless? That's not what
happens. People end up homeless where they grew
up where they live and where they've experienced
misfortune. Look, I get it. I think one way to
think about that question, you know, because
it's like, well, you're saying that. But what
about what I see on the streets? Right. And sure.
I think it's worth pointing out, you know, and
some people have described it as like a game
of musical chairs. Right. And in this case, we're
going to talk about housing. If there's not enough
housing, like literally just not enough, it means
someone is going to be without a home. And then
the question is, who is more likely to be that
person, right? And that's why we tend to see
people who have additional challenges are the
ones who end up homelessness. But that doesn't
explain why they're homeless, right? The reason
they're homeless is there is just not enough
of a very basic need. And until we change that
equation, we're always going to have the situation
and see that. I will just add one other point
that I do think we need to start having a real
conversation around homelessness because, you
know, there's sort of the camp. And look for
I am among this camp that feels like we can solve
this problem. We can end homelessness. Right.
And then you have the people that are like, no,
it's because of people's failings. That's why
they're homeless. There's nothing we can really
do about it. I mean, neither one is right. I
mean, I think both both. extremes have their
points, but if we're not going to invest in sort
of the basic needs that our society has and have
enough affordable housing, we will have this
problem. There's no getting around that. And
then the question becomes, how do we manage it?
And how do people get access to water and bathrooms
and trash pickup? I mean, nobody wants to go
there and talk about it. But if we're going to
have encampments because we don't have any place
for people to go, then what are the policies
to manage that? And that is not, I mean, I get
it. That's not a conversation that wins politicians
any votes, but it's one that we need to have
because this problem is going to persist if we
don't sort of change the way we're going or decide
we're going to have this real conversation and
figure out better ways to deal with it and manage
it. Well, Ben. Seth thank you both so much that
was a great way to take us out. And we've really
just scratched the surface in terms of all the
vast amount of work that you all have done. Problems
as big as homelessness don't get solved overnight.
If they were something that we could have solved
overnight, we would have done it. And as you
said there at the end, Ben, there's some real
challenging dialogues and societal investments
that need to be made. In the meantime, you want
to learn more about Ben and Seth's work, please
check out their websites. So there are two. One
is h3e .usc .edu. That's for the Housing, Homelessness,
and Health. And then there is the hpri .usc .edu,
and that's for the Housing Policy Research Institute.
And if you have any questions for our guests
or want to support the sort of transformative
research that goes on here at the School of Social
Work, you can email us at ListenUp. people at
USC .edu. And I just want to thank you both so
much again for your time and more importantly
for the passion and dedication that you bring
to this work and making people's lives better.
Thanks. Thank you. It's been great.