Ep. 188 Robert Marbut - Can We Solve Homelessness?

There is a homelessness crisis in the United States. And yes, we have a conversation around the context of the U.S. currently, but there are a lot of helpful points that will help in different contexts around the world. In this episode, Robert Marbut provides helpful context about homelessness in the United States, discusses the underlying issues that often lead to homelessness like untreated mental illness and substance abuse. He emphasizes the importance of a holistic, trauma-informed approach that addresses these root causes through treatment and not just giving out housing vouchers. Collaboration between different organizations like churches, non-profits, and the government was highlighted as key. Practical steps communities can take include prevention programs, transitional housing with wraparound services, and bringing all stakeholders together with a shared vision of helping people recover and rejoin the community. So join us as we tackle the homelessness crisis.

Dr. Robert G. Marbut Jr. has worked on issues of homelessness for more than three decades, including being the Founding President and CEO of Haven for Hope and serving as the White House’s “Federal Homelessness Czar.” Dr. Marbut has consulted on issues of homelessness with more communities and organizations than anyone else in the United States and has also worked in three different US Presidential Administrations. He is an Executive Producer of both the No Address movie, starring Ashanti, Billy Baldwin, Xander Berkeley, and Beverly D’Angelo, as well as the Americans with No Address documentary. 

Dr. Marbut currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute.

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Transcript

Robert Marbut: 0:00

We have a place for you. It you know you might be a medical doctor, we need that it might be a dentist you need your accountant bookkeeper, we need that to run it. If you don't have a technical skill, but you're just smile, and you're welcome. We need greeters. If you're if you know how to cook if you know how to serve food if you know how to how to help clean the dining room, we need all of that in. So rather than a church trying to establish a pantry and bond to the basement, and not really moving the ball, get 20 People from your church go out Salvation Army every Tuesday night, go help a rescue mission every Sunday night. That's a Go help a haven for hope. That's how we best work together. Let's not compete.

Joshua Johnson: 1:01

Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Our show is powered by you the listener. So if you want to support the work that we do get early access to episodes, Episode guides and more go to patreon.com/shifting culture to become a monthly patron so that we can continue in this important work. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy. It only takes a second. And it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. It really is that easy. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network? Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Michael ware to nice get some and Ryan scoop. You can go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Robert Marmot, Dr. Robert G. Marva Jr. has worked on issues of homelessness for more than three decades, including being the founding president and CEO of haven for hope and serving as the White House's federal homelessness Sar. Dr. Marva has consulted on issues of homelessness with more communities and organizations than anyone else in the United States, and has also worked in three different US presidential administrations. He is an executive producer of both that no address movies starring Ashanti, Billy Baldwin, Xander, Berkeley and Beverly D'Angelo as well as the Americans with no address documentary. Dr. Marva currently serves as a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. Did you know that there is a homelessness crisis in the United States? And yes, we have a conversation around the context of the US currently. But there are a lot of helpful points that will help in different contexts around the world. So don't skip this one. In this conversation, Robert Margaret provides a helpful context about homelessness in the United States. He discusses the underlining issues that often lead to homelessness, like untreated mental illness, substance abuse. He emphasizes the importance of a holistic trauma informed approach that addresses these root causes through treatment, and not just giving out housing vouchers. Collaboration between different organizations like churches, nonprofits, and government was highlighted as a key. So practical steps that communities can take include prevention programs, transitional housing, with wraparound services, and bringing all stakeholders together with a shared vision of helping people recover and rejoin the community. So join us as we tackle the homelessness crisis. Here's my conversation with Robert Marva. Robert, welcome to shifting culture really excited to have you on. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for joining me.

Robert Marbut: 4:10

Thank you for having us on. And more importantly, thank you for caring about this topic.

Joshua Johnson: 4:15

Yeah, well, it's a it's an important topic, because Jesus came for the least the last and last that he came for all people and people needs help. And I need help. But homeless people need help as well, because there's all sorts of different issues. And so I want to tackle it in a holistic way. But as we're talking about homelessness now, I want to start with your story of how you got involved in it, and how the intersection of faith and your advocacy of homelessness started.

Robert Marbut: 4:51

Well, it's a true but sad story. I was a member of a high school youth group at a church and And we had a pretty famous pastor Reverend Lewis abandoned in the Presbyterian denomination and he came in one day and he said I had the I'm gonna weigh oversimplify a short story, not nearly as eloquent as he was, but he does have a great sermon set up today. And we came in and found a gentleman who is experiencing homeless dad at the doorstep of the church trying to basically scratch his way to get in it to warm up. And for us, it's in Tunisia, I think it was in the 20s, which is really unusually cold for us. And the gentleman passed away as Ston at the doorstep of the church. I met both they a tragic, literal story, but also very much a parable of somebody trying to get in for help and get into church. And so he said, we're going to, we're going to change and immediately he started a process of creating what later became known as the San Antonio metropolitan ministries. And that was basically the first major homelessness service agency in San Antonio. And it was sort of designed after the Metropolitan ministries in Tampa. And so that became everybody in our church became involved from that point forward.

Joshua Johnson: 6:26

It's nice that you as somebody, person, faith and church says there is a place for us to get involved in to put our focus in a lot of times we don't know where to put our focus. But we got to figure out what is the problem here? What is our homelessness epidemic? What are you seeing around the country, at least the United States, what is going on with the homeless population. So

Robert Marbut: 6:56

you got several things in there, let's unwind them or peel the onion back. I think you make an incredible point about the role of the faith community in the world of homelessness. If we go back in history to shortly after the Civil War, the widows, the orphans, the disabled, that it was the Salvation Army, it was the Bowery mission, it was even the Red Cross, which in the beginning had more of a fate tied than it does. Now. Those were the three large organizations that came along and said, there's a place and the US federal government doesn't get involved till 1987 on homelessness. So for about 120 years, this was faith community. And by the way, the numbers was much lower than and that's not all of the story. But but a lot of what the federal government has done is messed up some things. And when you add fentanyl to it, it goes. So a real quick overview on homeless, there's 1.5 million children experiencing homelessness in the United States. That's per the Department of Education. That's probably an underestimation. And there's 1.2 million people experiencing homelessness under the Housing and Urban Development, or the HUD, mostly adults. So he got 1.5 Children, median 1.2 million adults. So that's almost streaming together. Now, a lot of people here at number 650,000. That's what we would call street level homelessness, that's part of the head number. And that is people who are literally living on the street, or in in and out of the emergency facility. And that group is doubling now every five to six years now. And that group, and we got a lot of really good solid research in that. And three fourths of that group have untreated mental illness and they self medicate it. That's our problem. And there's some reasons why behind that, but that's the core problem is the untreated mental illness, and the associated substance use disorder that comes from the self medication. So

Joshua Johnson: 9:10

you're looking at mental illness, you're looking at substance abuse, that are some primary things, I think, maybe how much does affordable housing actually play into that as well. fordable housing

Robert Marbut: 9:24

on street level, homelessness really has very little involvement in that 650. But if you look at the family and children, the 1.5 million under Ed, that's very much part of it. It's what we call divorce economics, where a couple breaks up or they get a divorce. And one single parent on 2000 hours of work in a year is trying to make it and a beach community for example, and you just can't afford it. You need both to parent to parent income to me make it work. And so family and children is very sensitive to to that. And they're also sensitive to fostering adult children and domestic violence and so that seldomly you find one issue only if they're normally interconnected by a domestic violence, you don't want a woman or a child to be continued to be abused. So but they say, I can't afford to get a divorce, I can't afford to leave the church who is beating us up. And that becomes an interconnected issue?

Joshua Johnson: 10:36

Well, it seems like there's, there's a lot of interconnectedness and what we are looking at. So a lot of times we look at symptoms of problems, and we want to just solve the symptoms. So they're like, Okay, we have people on the streets living in tents living in these communities that are not, and they needed, they need a place to live. So we're going to solve the symptom of it. And we're going to give them an apartment. But we're actually not going back to solve the cause of a lot of the symptoms. How do we how do we step back and start to say, what are the causes of the symptoms so that we could start to address some of those issues.

Robert Marbut: 11:25

In when I know being involved and being in the White House at at a policy level, but also an operational level, there's a metaphysical certain tea, that if we don't address the underlying issue, and we give you a house, things actually can get worse, not better. And the death rate in the homelessness world has doubled in the last two years. And a lot of people said, wow, that's COVID. And I said, it never was COVID. When you got into it, what we found out it was COVID, with leaf mighty, that put more people into apartments without treatment without supervision without recovery. And so people with substance abuse got into their own place, and actually got high more. And, and and if you start to get overdoses, some of those are going to sadly end up in death. And unless we treat the core issue in substance abuse or subsidies, all we're doing is gimmicks, and it won't work. And so until you work on the untreated mental illness, the substance is and then the next layer is employment it out if we really need people working, because that's how you pay your your bills. And that's how you pay for your housing. And so we need to quickly move you into an employable situation. And that's sort of that next layer. But if you just give a house or an apartment, and don't treat the underlying thing, not only will it get worse, we now know the certainty the death rate has doubled in under 25 months. We know that now. And so why do we keep doing that at some point the federal government needs to change what they're doing.

Joshua Johnson: 13:12

If we step back and say, the government has their policies, and maybe their policies are are not working in, they're not wrong, but a lot of times we we put our our hope and our faith and policies and governments and that's but there's also other things that we can can do, even if policies are enacted that are different when you were in Santa San Antonio, and you helped start haven for hope. What What were you sensing? What were you seeing? And what were you trying to address there and what was what worked? When you when you put that into place?

Robert Marbut: 13:50

In a lot of what we learned from doing haven for hope we've applied into the no address interactive study guide, or in essence, a Bible study or a small group for it'd be an individual could be a church, small group or a church. And some of what we've learned is we need to an in gauge homelessness, not enable homelessness. That's one of the things that haven for Hope talks about it is done. We've done that in our book, I have a theme that I use and I know it sounds so maybe superficial, but it is actually profoundly deep. In America now we're making it really easy to get high and hard to get treatment. And we need to reverse everything about that and make it easy to get treatment and hard to get high that that's in faith community. That's in the how you handle somebody in the street intersection. And how we deal with policy and it is street intersection. I can't tell you how many people I know totally well intended well well than did who Give five or $6 out every week out the window. And would you go up to an intersection and have somebody who's high, give them a nickel bag of meth, or give them some fitness straws or foil or some cursory agent precursor agents for fentanyl, we would never do that. But that's in essence, what we do when we get money out the window with funding the alcohol, we're fine funding the fentanyl we're funding the prostitution. And so I get people want to help I get there sort of. It's somewhere between a guilt feeling to make you feel better, or you literally want to help in the truest sense of the word. But go give money to a Salvation Army that's doing well go give money to a rescue mission or a haven for hope, in in Kedah $250 check to a well run organization, but don't get money out the window that funds those bad habit. And most of that money going out the window are people of faith, to be honest. And so we I use the term smart live I hate the term Tough luck, but but I think God gave us a brain and a heart to work together. One other let's let's work them together.

Joshua Johnson: 16:16

Take me back then into haven for up. So if you want to engage homelessness, you said, we as a community decided we don't want to just hand out money to people and have them try to figure it out themselves. So what are the practical steps that you entered into, to help people get from their underlying issues, whatever they were, that resulted in homelessness, back into rehabilitation, and moving back into community life with a home

Robert Marbut: 16:51

in it starts on intake, even before your walk inside the haven for Hope door, we know arresting you and putting you in jail won't work. There's no treatment programs there. Likewise, on the other extreme, we're not gonna let you hang out in a park bench and hang out in the park or on the street or the riverwalk or in front of the Alamo and just hang out, we know you won't get treatment there, you'll get treatment when you come into a facility into a program. So get go, don't arrest, but also don't like a Hangout get you into a 24/7 program. Let's start there, get you into programming. Then the next layer is we know so much what happens on the street is trauma generated. And so there's a term in the service industry and the faith community in the clinical community called trauma informed care. So we start with trauma informed care. What are your unique issues? What are Roberts uniques issues? What should we do to address those so that we take care of the the mental health behavioral health issues, we reduce the substance use because we don't need to self medicate? And we get your job ready? And then that gets you into the have the proper IDs? Do you have your social security card? Did you lose it? Did you trade it and sell it and you go through a lot of other layers? Do we need to take care of your dental care, because you've been on the street for three years, you haven't brushed your teeth in literally three years. So we there's both pain involved, you can't eat as well at sight. So you'd go through all those layers. And we help work beside you to help that transformational process to occur. Where now you have a job, you have your finances, you're making better decisions, and then you make the point we all need help. None of us are perfect that met we all stumble, we all do. But how do we how do we help come beside somebody and do our best to help foster an environment that they transform and recover in through the use of treatment and trauma informed care? Their job ready?

Joshua Johnson: 19:12

Oh, I know, one of the things that's that's hard within the church is that we we think that a lot of the services can be done within the walls of the church. But a lot of people actually don't have the expertise and trauma informed care within the church. How can how can the church partner with with others that are doing some holistic care, trauma informed care so that we could actually help because we're mind body spirit? So there's that this the spiritual side needs needs help. But so does the the minds and so does the body and so does this whole response. How do we work together partner together with the church and with other organizations and people that are doing this type of work?

Robert Marbut: 19:57

That I think that's the core question that That's sort of your your, you know, ring the bell, call it a warder, what's your action item, whatever term you use, and in one of my co writers, Dr. Jordan, the LA mission also the and Douglas center of the famous Douglas entertainment family. She wrote a whole chapter in our book about that that issue in her her thing is, we everybody has a time talent or treasure, you know, the old you know, I'm going back 4050 years, we have a place for you. It you know, you might be a medical doctor, we need that you might be a dentist, you need your accountant bookkeeper, we need that to run it. If you don't have a technical skill, but you just smile, and you're welcome. We need greeters. If you're if you know how to cook, if you know how to serve food, if you know how to how to help clean the dining room, we need all of that in so rather than a church trying to establish a pantry and bond to the basement, and not really moving the ball, get 20 People from your church go help Salvation Army every Tuesday night, go help a rescue mission every Sunday night. That's a Go help a haven for hope. That's how we best work together. Let's not compete, Max Cato talks that we had some videos in our book. And he talks about let's stop competing and start collaborating. Let's start working together and coming along each other. And let's develop those skills and expertise to help provide the best environment for people to succeed. The

Joshua Johnson: 21:41

story of the Good Samaritan, what does that have to do with the way that we start to engage people in homelessness? Can you take us through that story and what how that reflects our engagement. I

Robert Marbut: 21:53

think that's an incredible story. And that's the story that in the Bible study, we did a reverend Brandon Thomas and I co wrote that. And if you look at the I've heard that we probably have all heard 30 sermons on that over the years. And most of the sermons to start with the superficial, which is you have two clergy who basically walk across the street on the other side in the void. And then you have the Samaritan who engages and what's the person and I helped some meets them there. and such, and that's where most of the sermons in. But if you dig deeper into that into the next two or three verses, it says that that gentleman is going to come back next week and check it the innkeeper and says, If I need to give a little bit more money to balance up, I'm going to do this. So it's not a superficial one time it. The story also talks about the importance of follow up the importance of coming back in being with the person and also talks about expertise, which you were talking about the second. And that since the end, cheaper is the expertise. They know how to run a hotel, I don't know how to run a hotel, they know how to run a hotel, and you're partnering with possibly even a secular person, maybe yet wait. Yeah, the story is purposely I think they to make us think more broadly. It's just my interpretation. And so the Good Samaritan talks also about the need to get expertise involved, and to work with others. And so it to me, it's one of the most powerful stories of the Bible is you keep pulling the onion back and you keep learning more. It's not just you avoid the prejudice, or the maybe, you know, there may have been some other cultural things going on. At that time. You don't know, again, you don't know the race or ethnicity of the person. And I think that's probably the power of the story because it says it doesn't matter who you are, or who they are. You don't pass the person you engage the person. Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 24:10

You know, my wife and I lived in work in the Middle East for for many years worked with Syrian refugees. And so they were were, in essence dealing with a lack of, of housing, they didn't have their home anymore, they had to move to a different different place. And so they moved first into a refugee camp where there's, you know, a bunch of tents and so you move there and then people got permission to go outside of the camp and find their own apartments and things within the city. And there's all sorts of underlying issues to figure out how to how to work with these populations, which were are pretty similar to our homeless populations. Except for there's a lot less there were a lot less substance abuse issues and mental illness. But I think that good Samaritan still already helped me a lot because we know that as the Samaritan kames comes over, he bandaged his wounds he helps people is that a relief situation where there's an immediate need that we have to address right here, get them the stable, to get them on their feet a little bit. And then we could go in to put them on the donkey, go to the end, give them to the innkeeper, hand some money over and said, Hey, I'm gonna pay you some more money when it's needed. There's this development side that we need to start to work with as well. How do you navigate with homelessness, that the relief and development angles of this issue because there is something that needs to happen right away, to help people get on their feet, and then the development moving forward? I

Robert Marbut: 25:53

think you have to first take the long game approach that that this has said, and again, also from the parable, let's don't make this a one and done, let let's stay with the person throughout the process. Because as they developed stability as they start to respond to treatment, you now have different order of needs. Yet we're now like, how do we have a car to get that person to work? Or how do we deal with transportation to get that person to work. I remember one of the earliest stories, we added haven for hope this person was thriving, doing really well. And then they went into work in a warehouse. That's just that was their passion. And the person used to run a forklift. And but they learned to do the forklift, never with all the proper safety and such. And we found out to get him into this really important, I think it was the heb grocery store chain, he needed to get a certificate to be able to, you know, free insurance at all. And it turns out, there was no organization around that would help them get a certificate. And I think it was a $500 training program and to get certified. But that person once they got it got like a $58,000 job with all sorts of overtime on top of that, and they suddenly were making more than a college professor was, but it was nobody would help them with that certificate. And that was their unique need. And everybody has that unique knee. But the other thing, let's let's also remember the value of the faith community is also rebuilding just relationships and community and and working with the brokenness. That's also all part of that sustainability. It's not just financial sustainability, it is sustainability of faith. I always think the reason why we're encouraged to go to a house of faith every week, is to recharge ourselves to remind us we're not on this all alone. Were with other people. And sometimes you might energize them, sometimes they might energize you.

Joshua Johnson: 28:06

You know, one of the controversial things about you when you were appointed into the White House, is that for the people that said housing first and people that want housing, and you said housing fourth, because there's other issues that we need to take care of. there was miscommunication or misunderstanding, I think on on both sides. And I think what we're dealing with in here with the story of the Good Samaritan, you actually have transitional housing or you have a you have shelter for somebody, and there's some development work care. And then you could get into some long term solutions, long term housing, can you just go into the difference between what you were saying with, you know, housing fourth, and then that the housing first population and what's going on? And why are people misunderstanding each other?

Robert Marbut: 29:02

And I think in some circles, it's a misunderstanding. In some circles, it's what do you value? The Housing First is an extension of the harm reduction of movement and it is to way over, simplify it, it says, we're going to give you a voucher, we're going to get you in a housing first. And and then we'll work on anything else later that that that's it. I come from a treatment and recovery model that if we put you into a place without treatment and recovery, if you have a substance abuse, you're going to die. And we know that that death rate has doubled in the last 25 months so we know that's not working. And by the way, when housing first was put out in 2013. If you looked at all the federal government it said it would end all homeless and 10 years, it would end family homelessness and under five did veteran homeless and six it would end chronic Homelessness, I think aid, none of that happened. And I'm not surprised it didn't happen because you need treatment. In order to get recovery, it would be like taking somebody who has a heart attack, we're going to take him to the ER. But they don't see a doctor, they don't see a nurse, they don't get a task. They don't get medicine, but they're in the ER, they got a roof over their head, they went into the waiting room, but they didn't get the other. And so that's why I use the term housing. Fourth, you need to engage, you need to assess you need tree, then you need to house. And there are a lot of people that I'm here in Washington the last two or three days, and they're people that were sort of on the housing first train in the beginning, because it sounded good. But now that it's now been 10 years, it did not end homelessness, it actually increased homelessness, people are now realizing treatment and recovery are part of it. And we're very, very careful. The group that I work with, that says housing is part of this. It's not not housing, it's part of it. But it has a part of a holistic treatment program. And if you do that, then it will work and it will stick. I want the housing to stick when a person gets house not just churn and people fall out of the program because they're not ready for it.

Joshua Johnson: 31:27

How do you then help people be safe, and that while they're in the either, you know, treatment first before they get homes, when I know that a lot of a lot of places, there's a lot of violence. And there are a lot of there's a lot of theft. There's things that are happening in encampments, and homeless encampments. So while that is happening before they get housing, how do we keep people people safe? And how can we say you know, we're going to not have the violence in those places.

Robert Marbut: 32:03

In in encampments are some of the most dangerous places in America. There. I go into, probably every week I'm in two or three encampments on average, and their guns, their knives, what could possibly go wrong with guns and knives, when you have a lot of meth and fentanyl, in the encampment I met literally, I don't I'm not joking. I mean, you got an upper and a downer it in, in three fourths of the people are on some sort of substance. And then he got guns, knives and chains. And in now you're starting to see very aggressive dogs. When I talk to city managers and police chiefs, I always ask them, when I sit down, I start asking really weird questions. And they all go like that doesn't have that. I go in your account minutes. Do you have a lot of dogs now? Are they increasing? And they're like, oh, yeah, I said are the size of the dog going from sort of terrier tight? You know, sort of alarm system to pit bull shepherds have begun to go Oh, yeah. So the more number of dogs you have, and the bigger you to dogs you have is a sign of violets. And then I'll ask him, is your male female gender mix changing in the cabinets? Are they becoming more male oriented, and less female? And they go, Oh, yeah. And I said, at about six months, you're going to lose control of that encampment. Because that means that you're getting bigger, aggressive dogs is becoming more violent that women are leaving. And they're in my mind, how can the wealthiest country in the world now allow these attachments to continue, and the violence to continue the domestic violence, the sexual attacks, the knives since it's such, how do we allow that is is a it's a society where and I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. It doesn't make sense to me to say we're gonna allow cabinets to exist, or there's some cities who are creating a cabinets, they're saying, here's our designated encampment area. And they never do well, that there's nothing about an encampment that helps a person get out of homelessness, period. And it hurts the individuals and it also hurts the fabric of the community. So we need to get people into treatment. We need to get people in the appropriate level of housing. We need to move through the treatment program so that people will one day be self sufficient. But allowing encampments to exist is to me one of the nastiest things that I've seen, and I met with mayors who say, Well, that's our like, it's almost like a Containment Zone. I hate Eat that term. But that's a term they'll use. And I'm like, This doesn't make any sense to me at all. But

Joshua Johnson: 35:07

I think there's a lot of good things that help us engage this crisis now, and and get people into treatment, move them forward to SAP for some long term care. So as people are engaging that way, what can we do for the long term care before homelessness happens with people? How can we start to build community engage community through through faith based initiatives or the church and recognize what are these issues before they get all the way down the line into homelessness? How could we start early

Robert Marbut: 35:45

in prevention is the best I'm old enough, maybe you're not old enough to remember that old Pennzoil commercial, you pay me a little now or by the engine later. It really is it prevention is the most genuinely faith oriented program, because it says let's avoid the horrible trauma that we know will happen. Let's let's deal with the little trauma now. And so prevention is the best thing you could do as a person of faith, that's the most productive, it at a policy level. It's also the most cost effective, and it's the best for the community. So whether you're judging it on finances or community or the individual community of homelessness, it is the best to prevent that from happening in the first place. And most of our anecdotal research, it's a bet you save, it's about $1 prevention for$8.72 hours after a person becomes homeless that starts experiencing homelessness. It's about an eight to one benefit. So you want to do prevention. Another thing you've talked about a couple times, transitional housing is outstanding transitional housing, with supportive services is by far that that bridge that gets you out of the emergency shelter, but gets you going. Maybe you're not totally have everything going but you're going to aid meals, you're going to allanon you're doing your job training, you're may have some daycare involved, whatever. Transitional Housing is fabulous, but specially with rich supportive services. Unfortunately, the federal government in 2013 said we're going to stop funding that and transitional housing before 2013 was very as a policy was really good. And the federal government said we're going to cannibalize that money out of transitional services. We're going to cannibalize wraparound services. So before 2013, the federal government require you that wraparound services after 2013 they said we're going to take that money away from both those programs, services and transitional so we can pay for more vouchers. And that was I just kept thinking then faithlyn penny wise pound foolish. It may have sounded good to let's get more vouchers, but then you found out nobody was getting treatment. And so the death rate, skyrockets, homelessness skyrockets. So we we, whatever the housing is, whether it's small housing transition, you know, the tiny house movement, which I think has a lot of merit to it, if it accompanies wraparound services, transitional housing, and then long term supportive housing. If you really have robust services with the housing, we know what works. And if you just give a voucher away with no rules and no wraparound services, we also know it's not going to

Joshua Johnson: 38:52

work. You know, I live in Kansas City right now. And we have we actually have a pretty high homeless population, especially compared to our population and our size of the city. But we also have some really good services and nonprofits working things. I have a friend that runs river of refuge, which is transitional housing, which is right down the road from my house. Right down the road from my you know, one of my pastor's houses is tiny homes for for veterans and people that were experiencing homelessness, and now there's some houses there, there's some and then there's some more services. How can how can those nonprofits, how can the churches and faith based organizations and and other organizations work together with the local city governments within Kansas City here? How can we all work together? And not just all like, Hey, I have my thing over here. You have your thing over here. What does it look like to engage the governments and city services with nonprofits and churches

Robert Marbut: 40:00

It I was in your community twice last year in map with a couple of your pointed officials, I think couple elected I went out saw the encampments went, went to the couple rescue missions, the Salvation Army, I think I went to the, I don't know the name of the one you did with the veteran, but I went to a veteran program that sounds like the one you're describing. So I think it was that insight in, here's what I know. And just going around the country, this problem has gotten so bad, we need everybody helping. We need everybody in the boat rowing the same way. We need faith community, we need the secular community. We need the government. We need the appointed, we need the officials. We need conservatives, liberals, we need everybody working together. And that's the if you look at San Antonio, haven for hope we have 198 agencies now ballpark, that are under one campus. And that is the federal government is on the state governments on the city, the county special districts are on faith communities on secular communities on and we all work together. And when we were designing led building, I had one faith organization and one governmental secular organization that four days before they were moving in said, we can't live in because they're with that group at them. Both groups have literally we shuttled between the two boards, they were having meetings same night said we can't move in there that he you know, those are snake handlers. I mean, I literally was told that on one side, and I was told the other group was the devil. I can't You can't make this up. So I said, How about I put a door between your two programs and it literally we put this Dorian cost $250 salt all the problems. And and then now they get along fabulously and they work together. And they both claim each other admitted it's very funny. But at the beginning, we needed a door to quote separate them. And in it, it again it it's sort of a true story, but a parable. We need everybody working together at Emmet, this problem has gotten so we have lost San Francisco, we have lost Portland, we're about ready to lose Seattle, they're actually fighting back. They're starting to show some optimism. LA is lost for the most part, Honolulu has parts loss. And I look at Kansas City, I went out to some of your encampment. There was one person's place I went out that down by that park area on that Boulevard. And we went in this guy has electricity. He has running what sewage but he has running water in he has cable. And he and I'm like the most elaborate thing I've ever seen. But this is unhealthy. It's an unhealthy environment. There was a shooting there the like two days before we got there. There was a rate there like the week before we got there or I went in. And I'm like, we're just tolerating these cabinets. And then I asked one of the city officials I said, Tell me about this encampment. And they basically said, since the citizens don't see it, we allow it to happen because we don't want it sort of out of sight out of mind. And as long as it's not on the main street. We're going to tolerate it here. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 43:41

yeah, that's sad. That's sad. Well, I think that's a big, that's a big hope that we could actually bring people together and collaborate work together to solve these issues and problems that we all need to, to get going to do this and to engage this problem. You know, what you have done here with the no address that the study guide? There's a documentary coming out, there's a film coming out, there's a novel there's there's all sorts of things. Why? What is your your major hope? As these things start to roll out? What are you hoping that people will get from this?

Robert Marbut: 44:21

We have five products under the media products under the no address, umbrella. And in we have, I look at it instead of sort of five different things I actually think of it is one is the interactive Bible study, which you can get on Amazon now. Or you could go look us up and get a group sell for your church. That's about how does the faith community, readdress reengage, as in many ways, the faith community exited the field after being the only people on the field for 120 years? How do we do smart love? How do we work? So that's the Bible We'll study that we have the Americans with no address documentary and that's for wonky world you know that's for my old White House friends that match for the Capitol Hill staff that in Austin Texas and your your to your on the overlap to state capitals there for you austin texas Sacramento and so the Americans would know address is walk yet which what is wrong with our policies? What can we do to fix it? And then they know address main movie or that the ad triple full release that stars Billy Baldwin Beverly D'Angelo, Xander, Berkeley Ashanti in said, and that's for the general public that's for what can the general public do? How can we get engaged and we have a soundtrack, but that a novel with that. So those three products are for the general population to we need your help, we need you to engage, we need your time, talent and treasures. And we all need to be working together. This problem has gotten so bad and most of America. Everybody needs to help. You know, I spend most of my time I don't want to work with them. I don't want to work with them. They don't know this. They don't know that. If you get doing that you will become Portland, you will become San Francisco. And sadly, some people in San Francisco are starting to do some things. But they're 20 years too late. And I don't know. I think it will take a really long time to recover that city. So if you're in a city that's not there yet. You there's great hope. San Antonio is doing it well. Pinellas County in Florida with just west Tampa, they're doing it well. Then they're small places like Fort Smith, Arkansas, they had a four mile walk and Kaplan along the river, you go there now. There have been they've set up a program. River Center for hope and they've set up this really cool program there. And you know what? That encampments gone it, you might see a tent here tent there, you might see two or three people on the street. But but they had this huge in cabinet not unlike some of what you saw in Kansas City down on the river, or your part by your boulevards area there. They don't have encampments anymore. You might get one or two but not like they used to. And so the good news is there are some communities of all sizes have figured it out. And the thing they figured out was we needed everybody's help. That happened. It either I know that sounds sort of pollyannish. But it's true. If you get to such a bad mass. We need everybody that helped to get this done. But you need everybody coordinated, you can't be going off in different directions. We need to be collaborating, not competing, working together, and it can make a

Joshua Johnson: 47:59

difference. So it sounds like so it sounds like what you you did in San Antonio, you're able to be the one that collaborates and brings other organizations together. How can we find those types of people, the collaborators, the ones that that bring people together organizations together to coordinate Where where are those people coming from?

Robert Marbut: 48:24

Every community needs one person is a collaborator or one leader of a group you if you don't have somebody bringing that collaboration together, it doesn't work. So you need that. You also need a business leader. I know that sounds sort of strange, but you want to it when you can get a business leader, but they nonprofit leader with a government official, like a mayor or a county administrator, and they all say we're all have different backgrounds. We may not look the same, we may not come from the same part of town, but us three are gonna get work as a team. And in San Antonio. We had Bilbrey he who was the chair of Valero Energy, and later new star energy. We had a great mayor, Phil Hardberger. That time he was Tommy Lee's Jones father in law in San Antonio. And so at then you had me sort of on the nonprofit mechanical side. And the three of us got and I can't take it. There's nothing that three of us had in common. Until we started to agree. We all need to work together. Then we added the faith community with Reverend Lewis bindon. And then he brought the faith community of all faiths, and suddenly you had business faith agency and government all on the same team all working together. And we Nobody said are you conservative, you liberal, Republican or Democrat? We just work together And San Antonio has had the when in year we're going to year 15 of a 15 year reduction in homelessness. And are we perfect? No. Is there still some homelessness? Yes. But a 70 80% reduction of homelessness, and people graduating and getting out of homelessness, that helps the people that helps the community that helps everybody, Scott.

Joshua Johnson: 50:27

So if somebody wanted to get together and start to collaborate and bring these people together, and then to have a call to action, how could how can people is there a way to say, I want to, I want to host a screening of the no address movie, and then afterwards, have a call to action afterwards and move people into some engagement. Absolutely.

Robert Marbut: 50:52

And you can go to no address movie.com. Or if you've typed in, I think we got so many hits. Now if you just type in no address movie, it will come up. And there's a place to sign up there. If you want to be we call it the 500 movement to try to get five other communities organizations to get you do exactly what you know, start with the red carpet screening, get the Bible study, get the small group study, see the documentary, and and then start working together. And that sort of started that we do that. So you can go on our site and find that information. When the documentary comes out, I think it's really going to help a lot of policy people just dig in. Because a lot of documentaries tell you what the problem is. And they don't tell you what the slit solutions are. We spend the front end of the movie saying here's the problems, here's what's not working. And then we show you six or seven examples, a big small. And to me, one of the coolest examples we got this is when you say we turned you on to a group turned it on the head is John Hopkins University is secular, one of the best medical programs in the world wet top three or four in the world. They put a clinic inside of a rescue mission of faith community, right in the middle of downtown Baltimore that had the highest I think overdose rate at that time, 15 years ago in America. And there may have been highest in a certain bracket of city size. And they took that on. And you got John Hopkins the science and medicine, you know, sort of can't get better than them. And then this helping up but which is part of the city gate network Rescue Mission Network, the old GOP unique Gospel Rescue Mission Network. And these two who you would never think work together. One built the program inside the other. And they talked about how they work together. And they right now John Hopkins, the best clinic, John Hopkins has outreach clinic is right on the rescue mission, they have the highest attendance and highest success rate. So again, let's work together.

Joshua Johnson: 53:12

Yeah, that's fantastic. Robert, I have a couple little quick questions I like to ask at the end. And so the first question is, if the speed round, just just to if you'd go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give? Oh,

Robert Marbut: 53:29

gosh, be more patient more forgiving.

Joshua Johnson: 53:33

That's, that's great advice for all of us. We need to enter into that. Is there anything you've been reading or watching lately recommend

Robert Marbut: 53:42

it right now. I've been reading a lot on recovery. And I've read several different books on recovery, and the importance of trauma informed care. There have been several books from a wide spectrum and such. And and I've been reading a lot about harm reduction, which the more I read about harm reduction, the more I'm worried about it, and it sounds so good, is it's a great moniker. Harm reduction is against harm reduction. But it is it really goes against I know I said this before, but I really believe it. In our country, too many places are making it easy to get high and hard to get treatment. And we got to turn that on the head and we got to make it easy to get treatment hard to get high. And the harm reduction books that I've been reading, talk about oh let people drag up let people go do this. Let people do that. And it's just not working. And and so I've been I try to always read about 30% outside my my my core area of expertise. And I always try to read my opposition because I want to understand has normally it's well intended. You know, I don't think there's, and I think I've met people who really believe in it. But at some point, you have to start saying Does it work? You know, did on this end in 10 years it didn't. It's drugged, overdose increasing or not it deaths are doubling now, fentanyl has changed the game. And if you if when when we moved away from treatment, and 2013. And then you add fentanyl, which really hit most of America about four years ago, it's just made everything worse by not having treatment.

Joshua Johnson: 55:39

That's a whole other conversation. But we need to figure out what to do with Big Pharma as well. Yeah, we can figure that out. Let's

Robert Marbut: 55:48

be honest Purdue pharma, we feature a person in our documentary, who started out through addiction at Purdue pharma, and then it then he went to the street to get his his sourcing. And I'm old enough to remember when I thought Angel Dust was the worst drug we had ever have. And PCP and then we went through k two and spice and black tar coke and crack at the math, and then organic opioid, we're now in a synthetic opioid in the form of fentanyl, that is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and, and EPA not 5%, not 50% 50 to 100 times that's 5000 to 10,000% increase of the potency, two grains of fit no pure fat, though, will kill most anybody, a third grain will kill everybody. And and if we don't get a handle on that, if we don't get a handle on treatment, we're going to have much bigger problems than what we're talking about today in the world of homelessness, this is affecting all aspects of our society.

Joshua Johnson: 57:02

Now, as we talked about this, and people feel overwhelmed that this problem is too big. What can little me do? What would you say for for people listening? What is your call to action? How can we step in with some hope that we can actually engage this? Don't be afraid, step into it? Because it's important, what would you say to people?

Robert Marbut: 57:27

The best advice I've heard to that question came to me from maxima Cato, and we got him to sort of quote a little part of it in one of our videos, which is no one person can solve all of this, it and don't take the world on that. That's God's job. But every one of us has a role to play. Every one of us could serve a meal, every one of us could welcome a person at the door. Some of us might have a technical expertise, like to county to help an agency operate better. So each of us has a role to play. But let's not take it on ourselves. Because you can't, we shouldn't be replacing God or taking on all the world's problems. But if we all lean into it, and bring our expertise, bring our passion, we can do it. And you can look to some cities and some programs that are in the middle of the middle of horrible San Francisco, go look at the White House at Salvation Army. I met if there was ever a place, you could say this won't work. You would say if San Francisco and this White House and Salvation Army, what they're doing there is just mind boggling how they're being so successful. It's so the good news is, there is good news. And we all can help to add together, don't get overwhelmed. Don't try to solve everything. Don't try to solve everything. Just try to work help there. And if we all start lining up, I guarantee you we can make a difference. We can put a dent in this and reverse the increase

Joshua Johnson: 59:08

our fates. Robert Well, thank you so much for this conversation. It was enlightening. To figure out what actually is the problem? Where are we headed? Why do we have such a crisis? What are the underlying issues? How can we help solve those and then give us some practical steps to engage well, this crisis and collaborate together, work together and not try to do it individually and alone and know that yes, we all have a part to play. So let's step in with two feet and say I'm going to be there with you side by side with everybody else to solve this because we are a community and we need to bring others in that are right now on the outside of community. We need to bring them back in at and help and come alongside because we're all the image bearers of God We all have dignity and worth and value. So, Robert, thank you for this conversation. It was fantastic. Well,

Robert Marbut: 1:00:06

that was so well said what a great summary. And most importantly, thank you so much for caring about this topic. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you