00:00:00.842 --> 00:00:01.750
[gentle piano music]

00:00:01.750 --> 00:00:03.313
- [Ayodele] This is America,

00:00:05.530 --> 00:00:07.840
richest nation on Earth,

00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:11.080
one of only three nations
in the United Nations

00:00:11.080 --> 00:00:13.963
that haven't declared
housing a human right.

00:00:16.060 --> 00:00:18.823
How do you turn your back
when a small child asks,

00:00:20.297 --> 00:00:21.907
"Where we sleep tonight?"

00:00:24.010 --> 00:00:25.720
Cold and dark outside.

00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:27.550
It's a dangerous world.

00:00:27.550 --> 00:00:31.213
How can we turn away from the
evidence of what we accept?

00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:35.113
"Where we sleep tonight?"

00:00:36.963 --> 00:00:38.800
Where are the children?

00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:40.933
Where are the children?

00:00:42.070 --> 00:00:43.910
Do we think about the children

00:00:44.843 --> 00:00:47.260
when the price of life keeps ticking up

00:00:47.260 --> 00:00:50.353
and the wealth don't trickle down?

00:00:51.400 --> 00:00:55.867
Children sleeping on the ground.

00:00:55.867 --> 00:00:58.483
Are your children safe and sound?

00:01:00.195 --> 00:01:03.612
[waves lapping]

00:01:09.703 --> 00:01:12.244
[gentle piano music]

00:01:21.827 --> 00:01:24.910
[indistinct chatter]

00:01:28.390 --> 00:01:31.780
- I grew up with all of my
sisters and two of my nephews,

00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:34.210
but it was always all of us in the house.

00:01:34.210 --> 00:01:37.570
So I had friends, but I did
everything with my sisters.

00:01:37.570 --> 00:01:40.120
- We were in our first shelter

00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:45.090
for about six months before we were

00:01:46.180 --> 00:01:49.030
able to get into transitional housing.

00:01:49.030 --> 00:01:50.560
- Well, we stayed in hotels

00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:54.070
so we always had, like,
a roof over our head,

00:01:54.070 --> 00:01:55.780
I guess you could say.

00:01:55.780 --> 00:01:59.800
COVID was really hard for
me because I'm like a,

00:01:59.800 --> 00:02:01.840
well, okay, well I used
to be a social person

00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:04.360
and I like to be, like,
outside with all my friends

00:02:04.360 --> 00:02:05.230
and all that.

00:02:05.230 --> 00:02:06.220
And then when COVID came,

00:02:06.220 --> 00:02:09.433
we had to, like, stop
being outside so much.

00:02:10.450 --> 00:02:12.490
And then when high school came,

00:02:12.490 --> 00:02:15.160
I couldn't go to high
school for my first year

00:02:15.160 --> 00:02:16.150
because of COVID.

00:02:16.150 --> 00:02:17.500
We had online school.

00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:19.195
We all were doing school at the same time,

00:02:19.195 --> 00:02:20.230
but it was two hotel rooms.

00:02:20.230 --> 00:02:22.090
So two of my nephews were in kindergarten

00:02:22.090 --> 00:02:23.770
in the same class,

00:02:23.770 --> 00:02:27.403
and then I was in freshman year, I think.

00:02:28.330 --> 00:02:29.380
I was just starting high school,

00:02:29.380 --> 00:02:33.786
so it was just, like, a
lot to transition at once.

00:02:33.786 --> 00:02:35.890
- [Voiceover] I am a Black girl.

00:02:35.890 --> 00:02:38.680
I wonder how life will be in three years.

00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:41.290
I hear leaves blowing outside.

00:02:41.290 --> 00:02:42.730
I see roses.

00:02:42.730 --> 00:02:44.560
- [Felicity] I want to open my own shop.

00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:46.000
I am a teenager.

00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:47.650
I pretend to be okay.

00:02:47.650 --> 00:02:48.550
I feel numb.

00:02:48.550 --> 00:02:50.170
I touch my phone.

00:02:50.170 --> 00:02:52.150
I worry about my next meal.

00:02:52.150 --> 00:02:53.920
I cry when I'm sad.

00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:55.480
I am numb to pain.

00:02:55.480 --> 00:02:57.580
I understand how hard life is.

00:02:57.580 --> 00:02:59.500
I say I love my nephews.

00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:00.760
I dream of my future.

00:03:00.760 --> 00:03:02.920
I try to push myself every day.

00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:04.600
I hope to visit my aunt soon.

00:03:04.600 --> 00:03:06.103
I am a strong young girl.

00:03:07.180 --> 00:03:09.160
- She recognizes that she's strong

00:03:09.160 --> 00:03:10.860
'cause she has been through a lot.

00:03:12.190 --> 00:03:14.380
That loss has been hard for her.

00:03:14.380 --> 00:03:16.830
I'm gonna try to do this
without being emotional.

00:03:18.040 --> 00:03:20.470
She's the youngest of four girls,

00:03:20.470 --> 00:03:23.560
so I think she's had to carry a lot

00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:26.950
because she wants to be the protector.

00:03:26.950 --> 00:03:30.160
She wants to make everything better,

00:03:30.160 --> 00:03:31.603
being the youngest,

00:03:33.100 --> 00:03:36.373
which is typically what Mom does.

00:03:37.270 --> 00:03:38.470
She's still dreaming,

00:03:38.470 --> 00:03:41.050
which is an amazing thing

00:03:41.050 --> 00:03:44.770
'cause children and teenagers at this age,

00:03:44.770 --> 00:03:49.770
they're very impacted by
obstacles and life experiences.

00:03:51.070 --> 00:03:53.980
- I think about my life and my future.

00:03:53.980 --> 00:03:56.713
I wanna open a shop and do hair.

00:03:58.810 --> 00:04:03.810
- The housing crisis is not just affecting

00:04:04.270 --> 00:04:07.570
those that are struggling with addiction

00:04:07.570 --> 00:04:09.100
or mental health.

00:04:09.100 --> 00:04:12.340
At any point in time,

00:04:12.340 --> 00:04:15.160
there are so many families
that are a check away

00:04:15.160 --> 00:04:16.420
from being homeless

00:04:16.420 --> 00:04:20.020
or going through certain situations

00:04:20.020 --> 00:04:22.210
that will cause them to be homeless.

00:04:22.210 --> 00:04:26.320
So, looking at everybody as a human

00:04:26.320 --> 00:04:28.300
and not judging, you know.

00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:30.280
Nobody asks for this situation.

00:04:30.280 --> 00:04:32.083
Nobody wants to be here.

00:04:34.150 --> 00:04:36.670
- My parents were victim
of the crack epidemic,

00:04:36.670 --> 00:04:40.450
so my whole life has been
about advocating for myself

00:04:40.450 --> 00:04:41.890
and the needs of my community,

00:04:41.890 --> 00:04:45.400
which was left devastated by that crisis.

00:04:45.400 --> 00:04:48.013
I went to high school at
Castlemont High School.

00:04:49.030 --> 00:04:53.560
Back then there was, like,
racial wars in school.

00:04:53.560 --> 00:04:56.920
There was a police station
on campus, metal detectors,

00:04:56.920 --> 00:04:58.360
and I was always an activist.

00:04:58.360 --> 00:04:59.920
I knew something was wrong.

00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:02.530
But when I started to learn about politics

00:05:02.530 --> 00:05:05.710
and why these conditions
are the way they are,

00:05:05.710 --> 00:05:08.500
I started to organize as a youth.

00:05:08.500 --> 00:05:09.790
And out of that organizing

00:05:09.790 --> 00:05:11.950
we started our own school,

00:05:11.950 --> 00:05:13.420
and that's the school I graduated from,

00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:16.390
School of Social Justice
and Community Development.

00:05:16.390 --> 00:05:17.590
And when I was going to Castlemont,

00:05:17.590 --> 00:05:20.410
I had, like, a 0.6 GPA.

00:05:20.410 --> 00:05:22.330
When I got to School of Social Justice,

00:05:22.330 --> 00:05:23.163
I had straight A's

00:05:23.163 --> 00:05:25.960
and I was able to
actually get a scholarship

00:05:25.960 --> 00:05:27.340
when I went to college.

00:05:27.340 --> 00:05:29.410
I was working at a nonprofit.

00:05:29.410 --> 00:05:32.950
I was doing advocacy for tenants' rights,

00:05:32.950 --> 00:05:37.950
and there was a program to
kind of curb homelessness

00:05:38.500 --> 00:05:42.610
where you could get help with
back payment of rent mortgages

00:05:42.610 --> 00:05:44.590
if you're on the edge of eviction.

00:05:44.590 --> 00:05:46.060
So that was my job.

00:05:46.060 --> 00:05:49.690
I was doing that while being
homeless with my two children.

00:05:49.690 --> 00:05:53.260
It was embarrassing to
admit that you're homeless.

00:05:53.260 --> 00:05:55.900
Like, people know that I went
to college and had a degree

00:05:55.900 --> 00:05:57.760
and I was working two jobs,

00:05:57.760 --> 00:05:59.050
and I couldn't afford anything.

00:05:59.050 --> 00:06:00.550
We were couch surfing

00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:03.460
or sleeping in, like,
really unsafe hotels.

00:06:03.460 --> 00:06:05.320
And when I got back to my office,

00:06:05.320 --> 00:06:08.740
I broke down to now
Councilmember for District 3,

00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:11.230
Carroll Fife, which was my
boss at the time at ACE.

00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:13.660
- Women were coming to me

00:06:13.660 --> 00:06:17.230
in despair around housing,

00:06:17.230 --> 00:06:19.030
and I'm just, like,
"I don't have anything."

00:06:19.030 --> 00:06:20.560
"I've been where you are.

00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:22.540
"And I don't have any money,

00:06:22.540 --> 00:06:26.020
"I don't have resources,
I don't have housing,

00:06:26.020 --> 00:06:27.970
"but I do know how to organize

00:06:27.970 --> 00:06:29.830
"from, you know, years of organizing.

00:06:29.830 --> 00:06:31.930
"So if you trust me,

00:06:31.930 --> 00:06:34.690
"we can get some things done
and you will be housed."

00:06:34.690 --> 00:06:38.535
- This is how Moms 4 Housing began.

00:06:39.893 --> 00:06:43.177
[relaxed pop r&b music]

00:07:07.180 --> 00:07:09.340
- When people think about homelessness,

00:07:09.340 --> 00:07:11.320
I think probably the first thing that pops

00:07:11.320 --> 00:07:15.310
into most people's mind
is tent encampments

00:07:15.310 --> 00:07:19.000
or the people we see sleeping
on the street, right?

00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:20.110
Families are hidden.

00:07:20.110 --> 00:07:24.951
Children are not the
people that we think about

00:07:24.951 --> 00:07:27.760
as experiencing homelessness.

00:07:27.760 --> 00:07:30.520
Three quarters of
children who are homeless

00:07:30.520 --> 00:07:35.230
are actually staying temporarily
with family or friends,

00:07:35.230 --> 00:07:38.320
living in hotels, staying in a car.

00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:39.370
They're moving around

00:07:39.370 --> 00:07:42.130
but they're not in places
where they're easily seen.

00:07:42.130 --> 00:07:46.150
Children who are experiencing
the trauma of homelessness

00:07:46.150 --> 00:07:48.790
carry that with them into adulthood.

00:07:48.790 --> 00:07:51.183
We cannot ignore this problem.

00:07:51.183 --> 00:07:52.780
- Yeah, I just turned 28 in January.

00:07:52.780 --> 00:07:55.570
Actually emancipated out of
the foster care system at 16.

00:07:55.570 --> 00:07:56.680
When I got my apartment,

00:07:56.680 --> 00:07:59.740
I was pregnant with my
oldest daughter, Zha'Riyia.

00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:03.700
And basically I was
struggling a little bit

00:08:03.700 --> 00:08:05.470
but we kind of made it work.

00:08:05.470 --> 00:08:07.870
The rent was affordable
and stuff like that.

00:08:07.870 --> 00:08:12.070
But when I emancipated
out of the AB 12 system,

00:08:12.070 --> 00:08:15.190
I became homeless with two kids.

00:08:15.190 --> 00:08:17.290
I couldn't get the bare necessities

00:08:17.290 --> 00:08:19.420
like, you know, get my hair
done, pay my phone bill,

00:08:19.420 --> 00:08:21.550
because my foster mom
would take all my checks

00:08:21.550 --> 00:08:23.260
and do whatever she does with it.

00:08:23.260 --> 00:08:25.930
And by the time I was
already doing that stuff,

00:08:25.930 --> 00:08:27.010
when I got into the group home,

00:08:27.010 --> 00:08:29.140
it was just a second
nature for me to run away

00:08:29.140 --> 00:08:31.210
'cause this isn't someplace
I want to be anyways.

00:08:31.210 --> 00:08:35.440
And I'm back out on
East 14th or, you know,

00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:37.630
in San Francisco, selling my body.

00:08:37.630 --> 00:08:39.517
And I got into a program called Misssey

00:08:39.517 --> 00:08:42.520
and they kind of helped me
transition out of that lifestyle

00:08:42.520 --> 00:08:44.080
and then through Not For Sale,

00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:45.790
I was already just convinced

00:08:45.790 --> 00:08:48.040
that I didn't wanna do that anymore.

00:08:48.040 --> 00:08:50.080
- Oakland, being a majority
people of color city,

00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:52.420
is not the wealthiest
city in Alameda County

00:08:52.420 --> 00:08:54.160
by any stretch of the imagination.

00:08:54.160 --> 00:08:57.160
So we're always going to be
struggling with resources

00:08:57.160 --> 00:09:00.197
until we get back with the state and say,

00:09:00.197 --> 00:09:02.650
"You know, your white
suburbs all over the state

00:09:02.650 --> 00:09:04.870
"that are so sparkly and wonderful,

00:09:04.870 --> 00:09:07.270
"those have a cost attached to them."

00:09:07.270 --> 00:09:10.180
And that cost resides
in Oakland, California.

00:09:10.180 --> 00:09:12.130
It resides in parts of
Hayward, California.

00:09:12.130 --> 00:09:15.250
It resides in huge swaths
of Los Angeles, California.

00:09:15.250 --> 00:09:19.030
We know where these
concentrations were orchestrated.

00:09:19.030 --> 00:09:20.590
That was not an accident.

00:09:20.590 --> 00:09:23.680
That was through intentional policymaking

00:09:23.680 --> 00:09:26.110
that concentrated people of color

00:09:26.110 --> 00:09:29.110
and the poverty to which
they have been subjected

00:09:29.110 --> 00:09:31.360
into certain geographic areas.

00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:32.620
- I'm housed for the moment.

00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:37.600
I'm working my butt off to
get this Section 8 voucher

00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:40.120
that it's not even gonna be
promised to me within a year,

00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:42.730
so I might be stuck in
the same cycle again,

00:09:42.730 --> 00:09:44.740
either back in the shelter
or trying to figure it out.

00:09:44.740 --> 00:09:46.127
'Cause I'm not gonna be able to pay

00:09:46.127 --> 00:09:49.210
$2,800 a month by myself.

00:09:49.210 --> 00:09:52.480
I can't work two, three jobs to pay rent.

00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:55.240
So we just need more waitlists opened up,

00:09:55.240 --> 00:09:57.520
people getting housed faster,

00:09:57.520 --> 00:10:00.910
and we're in a crisis right now.

00:10:00.910 --> 00:10:02.410
I just feel like if I do get a voucher,

00:10:02.410 --> 00:10:05.680
I'll be able to get further in life.

00:10:05.680 --> 00:10:07.870
'Cause I do wanna pursue my education,

00:10:07.870 --> 00:10:10.150
but I don't feel like I
can do that at this moment

00:10:10.150 --> 00:10:13.240
because my main focus is
work, work, work, work,

00:10:13.240 --> 00:10:15.340
and making sure my kids
are able to go to school

00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:16.600
and they have what they need.

00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:19.210
And it's not what they want,
it's the bare necessities.

00:10:19.210 --> 00:10:21.040
We're trying to do what we need to do,

00:10:21.040 --> 00:10:22.930
we're doing the best that we can,

00:10:22.930 --> 00:10:27.100
and we just need more affordable housing.

00:10:27.100 --> 00:10:32.100
- LSPC is Legal Services
for Prisoners with Children,

00:10:32.380 --> 00:10:36.580
and it started as the
Network on Women in Prison.

00:10:36.580 --> 00:10:40.210
It's just basically advocating to restore

00:10:40.210 --> 00:10:43.303
the basic human and civil rights of people

00:10:43.303 --> 00:10:44.857
that have been incarcerated

00:10:44.857 --> 00:10:47.650
and to advocate for
their families as well,

00:10:47.650 --> 00:10:51.280
because oftentimes it's
hard on the families too

00:10:51.280 --> 00:10:53.380
that have incarcerated loved ones.

00:10:53.380 --> 00:10:57.970
I had heard about a policy
fellowship from my sister

00:10:57.970 --> 00:10:59.900
while I was still incarcerated,

00:11:00.970 --> 00:11:03.570
and when I got out

00:11:03.570 --> 00:11:06.953
I ended up applying for the fellowship.

00:11:06.953 --> 00:11:08.440
People that are formerly incarcerated

00:11:08.440 --> 00:11:10.420
are strongly encouraged to apply

00:11:10.420 --> 00:11:13.270
because we advocate for
people that are incarcerated.

00:11:13.270 --> 00:11:15.460
And now after my first year,

00:11:15.460 --> 00:11:18.310
now I'm a outreach coordinator.

00:11:18.310 --> 00:11:21.520
- When you're living here in the Bay Area,

00:11:21.520 --> 00:11:25.270
a community that over one period of time

00:11:25.270 --> 00:11:28.150
through technology and other industries

00:11:28.150 --> 00:11:31.690
created about 500,000 new jobs,

00:11:31.690 --> 00:11:33.340
but during that same period of time

00:11:33.340 --> 00:11:36.880
only built about 50,000 housing units,

00:11:36.880 --> 00:11:39.490
those new jobs did not
come with the requirement

00:11:39.490 --> 00:11:42.160
that you live 10-deep in a household.

00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:47.160
You know, those new jobs
came with big salaries

00:11:47.350 --> 00:11:48.520
and they were able to go out

00:11:48.520 --> 00:11:50.530
and get their housing needs met.

00:11:50.530 --> 00:11:53.890
And when you have an ecosystem
that's not inclusive,

00:11:53.890 --> 00:11:57.460
you don't have the recycling
of the dollars necessary

00:11:57.460 --> 00:12:00.160
for us to keep up with the market demands.

00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:02.890
So this is not only about, you know,

00:12:02.890 --> 00:12:04.390
doing it for the right reasons.

00:12:04.390 --> 00:12:07.060
I tell my white neighbors, look, you know,

00:12:07.060 --> 00:12:11.020
if you don't do this out of a
sense of what's morally right,

00:12:11.020 --> 00:12:14.110
you better be doing it for selfish reasons

00:12:14.110 --> 00:12:18.580
because your economic
prosperity is at risk,

00:12:18.580 --> 00:12:22.392
you know, your environment, your health,

00:12:22.392 --> 00:12:25.000
and the world you're leaving to your kids.

00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:26.680
So we just have to get to the point

00:12:26.680 --> 00:12:30.820
where we start to integrate
inclusion and equity

00:12:30.820 --> 00:12:33.760
into every decision that we make.

00:12:33.760 --> 00:12:36.070
And as we do that,

00:12:36.070 --> 00:12:38.350
we're gonna be really addressing

00:12:38.350 --> 00:12:43.350
the core, fundamental
causes of homelessness.

00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:48.647
[pensive piano music]

00:13:10.030 --> 00:13:11.590
- When I got out,

00:13:11.590 --> 00:13:13.570
I had nowhere to go but my sister's house,

00:13:13.570 --> 00:13:15.280
and she stayed on housing

00:13:15.280 --> 00:13:19.180
but you're not allowed to
have convicted felons there.

00:13:19.180 --> 00:13:21.100
So it's like, I stayed there

00:13:21.100 --> 00:13:24.100
but I didn't want to get
my sister in trouble also.

00:13:24.100 --> 00:13:25.903
So I just stayed there briefly.

00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:27.850
That's one of the barriers,

00:13:27.850 --> 00:13:30.520
or you're trying to get applications

00:13:30.520 --> 00:13:32.260
and fill out applications for housing

00:13:32.260 --> 00:13:34.210
and there's a box sometimes that say,

00:13:34.210 --> 00:13:37.810
"Have you been convicted or incarcerated?"

00:13:37.810 --> 00:13:42.400
It makes it even harder to be
able to get a place to live.

00:13:42.400 --> 00:13:46.805
LSPC, we were one of the co-sponsors

00:13:46.805 --> 00:13:48.760
for the Fair Chance Housing,

00:13:48.760 --> 00:13:51.700
where they can't ask you if you're a felon

00:13:51.700 --> 00:13:54.010
on your application for housing.

00:13:54.010 --> 00:13:58.420
- Residential segregation
begins and becomes manifest

00:13:58.420 --> 00:14:01.180
with the onset of the Great Migration.

00:14:01.180 --> 00:14:04.775
About 6 million Black Americans
leave the Jim Crow South

00:14:04.775 --> 00:14:07.450
and move to the North,

00:14:07.450 --> 00:14:08.920
the Mid-Atlantic,

00:14:08.920 --> 00:14:11.920
the Midwest and the West.

00:14:11.920 --> 00:14:15.760
And so between 1910 and 1930

00:14:15.760 --> 00:14:18.400
you see huge increases

00:14:18.400 --> 00:14:21.370
in measured levels of racial
residential segregation

00:14:21.370 --> 00:14:23.950
such that by 1930,

00:14:23.950 --> 00:14:27.340
pretty much every major
Northern metropolitan area

00:14:27.340 --> 00:14:30.850
has high levels,
moderate-to-high or high levels

00:14:30.850 --> 00:14:33.280
of observed racial
residential segregation.

00:14:33.280 --> 00:14:36.202
Well, there's basically
three forces that drove that:

00:14:36.202 --> 00:14:37.768
restrictive covenants, violence,

00:14:37.768 --> 00:14:41.093
and the third are municipal actors

00:14:41.093 --> 00:14:42.820
and neighborhood associations.

00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:45.730
Importantly, that
happens before redlining.

00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:48.190
Redlining has become a synecdoche,

00:14:48.190 --> 00:14:50.770
it becomes a kind of a stand-in

00:14:50.770 --> 00:14:54.820
for a host of very different
forms of discrimination.

00:14:54.820 --> 00:14:56.110
- Now whether you wanna talk about that

00:14:56.110 --> 00:14:57.580
as the result of redlining

00:14:57.580 --> 00:14:59.800
or something that started much earlier

00:14:59.800 --> 00:15:01.480
in the form of reservations,

00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:03.280
the impact is the same.

00:15:03.280 --> 00:15:04.510
We're gonna send you to some place

00:15:04.510 --> 00:15:05.560
where there's no resources

00:15:05.560 --> 00:15:07.690
and then we're gonna keep you there,

00:15:07.690 --> 00:15:09.370
and then you're going to have problems

00:15:09.370 --> 00:15:11.800
that are expensive problems to address.

00:15:11.800 --> 00:15:15.340
- It was interesting
being on the funding side,

00:15:15.340 --> 00:15:16.930
'cause I had been on the applicant side

00:15:16.930 --> 00:15:18.550
where I was a developer

00:15:18.550 --> 00:15:21.070
asking local government for money,

00:15:21.070 --> 00:15:22.330
shaping those projects,

00:15:22.330 --> 00:15:24.490
trying to get the land-use approvals

00:15:24.490 --> 00:15:28.423
and trying to figure out what's
the best fit for that site.

00:15:29.620 --> 00:15:32.590
But when you came to the
local government side,

00:15:32.590 --> 00:15:33.700
it was a little bit different.

00:15:33.700 --> 00:15:35.470
It was more along the lines of,

00:15:35.470 --> 00:15:37.660
well, where do we wanna build

00:15:37.660 --> 00:15:41.110
and what is the most
important project to fund

00:15:41.110 --> 00:15:43.240
and where's the biggest bang for our buck?

00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:46.270
- When you look at how they decide

00:15:46.270 --> 00:15:51.233
where they're gonna put the
resources for affordability,

00:15:52.270 --> 00:15:53.710
there's some people that believe,

00:15:53.710 --> 00:15:55.420
well, you put it where you can build

00:15:55.420 --> 00:15:58.363
the most affordable housing.

00:15:59.740 --> 00:16:02.260
And so maybe Fairfield,

00:16:02.260 --> 00:16:05.860
you could build a lot more
affordable housing for a dollar

00:16:05.860 --> 00:16:08.530
than you can build for the same dollar

00:16:08.530 --> 00:16:13.300
in the urban core in
Oakland, San Francisco.

00:16:13.300 --> 00:16:14.173
That's true.

00:16:15.040 --> 00:16:17.080
But at the end of the day,

00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:19.000
you're gonna be subjecting those people

00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:23.050
to the isolation of not
being where the jobs are

00:16:23.050 --> 00:16:24.613
or where the resources are.

00:16:25.660 --> 00:16:27.160
You may be subjecting them

00:16:27.160 --> 00:16:30.010
to oppressive commutes every day.

00:16:30.010 --> 00:16:33.730
And that's not only unfair to them,

00:16:33.730 --> 00:16:35.620
but it's unfair to all of us.

00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:37.870
- Prior to the civil rights changes,

00:16:37.870 --> 00:16:40.570
white folks in this country
believed in Big Government.

00:16:40.570 --> 00:16:42.760
They believed that the
government owed them a job,

00:16:42.760 --> 00:16:45.100
that the government should
help them buy a house,

00:16:45.100 --> 00:16:47.050
that the government should make sure

00:16:47.050 --> 00:16:48.940
that they not end up homeless.

00:16:48.940 --> 00:16:52.120
Public housing was originally
built for poor white people,

00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:53.650
and eventually they decided to build

00:16:53.650 --> 00:16:57.790
some segregated public housing
for poor Black people, right?

00:16:57.790 --> 00:16:58.660
But it was not built.

00:16:58.660 --> 00:17:00.340
There were plenty of poor white people,

00:17:00.340 --> 00:17:03.550
and those white people
implored the government

00:17:03.550 --> 00:17:05.170
to help lift them up.

00:17:05.170 --> 00:17:08.350
And through the New Deal
and other changes in policy

00:17:08.350 --> 00:17:11.050
and banking and home-ownership provisions,

00:17:11.050 --> 00:17:13.150
they were in fact lifted up,

00:17:13.150 --> 00:17:14.470
and it was designed in a way

00:17:14.470 --> 00:17:17.830
that completely kept Black
people and other people of color

00:17:17.830 --> 00:17:21.850
from having access to the
same process of uplift.

00:17:21.850 --> 00:17:26.020
So we know what happened,
we know how to fix it.

00:17:26.020 --> 00:17:27.760
It's about the political will.

00:17:27.760 --> 00:17:31.180
- Prosperity can be established for all

00:17:31.180 --> 00:17:34.783
regardless of station, or race, or creed.

00:17:35.740 --> 00:17:40.393
Among these, the right of
every family to a decent home,

00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:44.230
the right to adequate medical care,

00:17:44.230 --> 00:17:46.663
the right to a good education.

00:17:47.967 --> 00:17:51.820
All of these rights spell security.

00:17:51.820 --> 00:17:53.620
- In the early 20th century,

00:17:53.620 --> 00:17:57.250
neighborhoods begin
organizing into associations

00:17:57.250 --> 00:18:00.430
in which they try and
begin regulating land use,

00:18:00.430 --> 00:18:01.750
homeowners and so on.

00:18:01.750 --> 00:18:04.300
So the real estate industry
essentially develops

00:18:04.300 --> 00:18:06.820
an ideology of segregation.

00:18:06.820 --> 00:18:08.260
Municipal government was working

00:18:08.260 --> 00:18:09.280
with the real estate industry,

00:18:09.280 --> 00:18:10.810
was working with neighborhood associations

00:18:10.810 --> 00:18:13.180
between 1910 and 1930

00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:16.000
to create segregation across the North.

00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:18.280
The federal government is
essentially not involved

00:18:18.280 --> 00:18:22.690
in housing at all until the
1930s in a meaningful way.

00:18:22.690 --> 00:18:25.330
When the Great Depression occurs

00:18:25.330 --> 00:18:27.730
and the Roosevelt administration comes in,

00:18:27.730 --> 00:18:29.680
then the federal government
begins to get involved

00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:31.030
in housing.

00:18:31.030 --> 00:18:33.910
- FHA and HUD was created in the 1930s.

00:18:33.910 --> 00:18:38.910
And that 1984, '83 hit to our budget,

00:18:39.280 --> 00:18:40.780
to the HUD budget,

00:18:40.780 --> 00:18:42.760
we never recovered from that.

00:18:42.760 --> 00:18:46.150
And the amount of
funding that was provided

00:18:46.150 --> 00:18:50.800
during the '80s when
they gutted that budget,

00:18:50.800 --> 00:18:53.140
it disproportionately impacted

00:18:53.140 --> 00:18:54.850
the African American community.

00:18:54.850 --> 00:18:59.830
In 2010, HUD cut the home budget by 50%.

00:18:59.830 --> 00:19:02.020
You were cutting housing dollars

00:19:02.020 --> 00:19:05.410
that were flowing to our
African American populations,

00:19:05.410 --> 00:19:09.520
and those are the households
that became most at risk

00:19:09.520 --> 00:19:12.310
and they have stayed at
risk for generations now.

00:19:12.310 --> 00:19:14.470
- The Housing Authority's changed a lot.

00:19:14.470 --> 00:19:16.960
Roughly just about 20 years ago,

00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:19.780
we became what's called
a Moving To Work agency,

00:19:19.780 --> 00:19:23.410
which at that time was, out
of 3,000 housing authorities,

00:19:23.410 --> 00:19:26.980
we were one of 39 that were
selected through competition

00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:28.780
to go into an agreement with HUD

00:19:28.780 --> 00:19:32.440
to create local-based initiatives

00:19:32.440 --> 00:19:37.423
that allowed us to get exempted
from certain HUD regulations

00:19:37.423 --> 00:19:39.070
that weren't working for our city

00:19:39.070 --> 00:19:40.212
and be creative.

00:19:40.212 --> 00:19:43.330
Five years ago, I would've
been sharing that our role

00:19:43.330 --> 00:19:45.550
is to provide affordable housing

00:19:45.550 --> 00:19:48.310
as well as the complementary services

00:19:48.310 --> 00:19:50.890
that offer families
opportunities to make choices

00:19:50.890 --> 00:19:52.750
for themselves that are very positive.

00:19:52.750 --> 00:19:55.690
Now that we've had a national crisis,

00:19:55.690 --> 00:19:58.840
HUD has kind of broken some of the silos

00:19:58.840 --> 00:20:00.940
that used to exist and said,

00:20:00.940 --> 00:20:03.490
"Housing authorities,
now you'll work alongside

00:20:03.490 --> 00:20:05.950
"the previously-funded housing providers

00:20:05.950 --> 00:20:08.740
"to speak to not just helping families

00:20:08.740 --> 00:20:10.660
"who come through the traditional programs

00:20:10.660 --> 00:20:12.310
"find affordable housing,

00:20:12.310 --> 00:20:15.850
"but also figuring out
new paths for housing."

00:20:15.850 --> 00:20:19.510
And so our role as a housing
authority here in Oakland

00:20:19.510 --> 00:20:22.030
is to first make sure that
the programs that we do have

00:20:22.030 --> 00:20:24.730
are provided in an equitable way.

00:20:24.730 --> 00:20:26.230
And in the case of Oakland,

00:20:26.230 --> 00:20:28.150
using housing choice vouchers

00:20:28.150 --> 00:20:31.570
and investing them in
new development projects

00:20:31.570 --> 00:20:33.790
for affordable housing by layering on

00:20:33.790 --> 00:20:35.350
a Project-Based Voucher.

00:20:35.350 --> 00:20:40.150
That investment means that
unit remains affordable

00:20:40.150 --> 00:20:42.280
and within the Project-Based
Voucher Program

00:20:42.280 --> 00:20:45.040
for typically a minimum of 15 years,

00:20:45.040 --> 00:20:47.196
and there can be extensions to that.

00:20:50.350 --> 00:20:52.270
- I robbed a pizza man.

00:20:52.270 --> 00:20:53.950
It wasn't, like, a violent robbery,

00:20:53.950 --> 00:20:56.170
and it was with a fake
gun with the orange tip.

00:20:56.170 --> 00:20:58.420
We burnt it with the lighter.

00:20:58.420 --> 00:21:02.410
We were only 16 and, like, we were hungry,

00:21:02.410 --> 00:21:04.390
and we just took the pizza,

00:21:04.390 --> 00:21:06.160
took the pizza and the soda.

00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:08.920
Didn't even take the
money pouch, you know?

00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:10.780
And for them to certify me as an adult,

00:21:10.780 --> 00:21:13.060
they didn't even send me
to a juvenile program.

00:21:13.060 --> 00:21:16.543
They certified me as an adult
and charged me as an adult.

00:21:17.410 --> 00:21:20.085
It was like, you know, like,

00:21:20.085 --> 00:21:22.420
I know it's not, like,
nothing to joke about

00:21:22.420 --> 00:21:24.400
but, like, we always kind of joke and say,

00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:27.926
"It must've been that
extra ranch that I stole,"

00:21:27.926 --> 00:21:32.380
and, like, that gave me
to be charged as an adult.

00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:35.370
But yeah, I think that's

00:21:36.637 --> 00:21:40.360
one of the main reasons
why I did go to prison,

00:21:40.360 --> 00:21:43.750
just not having anything.

00:21:43.750 --> 00:21:46.870
- My grandmother migrated
here with her seven sisters

00:21:46.870 --> 00:21:48.130
from Oklahoma.

00:21:48.130 --> 00:21:50.320
We have a very large family.

00:21:50.320 --> 00:21:55.280
We did the Sunday dinners
and church Bible class,

00:21:56.350 --> 00:21:58.480
and everybody just kind of came together

00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:59.920
and made everything work.

00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:03.280
My kids were kind of raised
with that large family,

00:22:03.280 --> 00:22:07.210
so when our family was affected by loss

00:22:07.210 --> 00:22:09.040
it was very impactful.

00:22:09.040 --> 00:22:14.040
My grandmother, she passed away when I was

00:22:14.860 --> 00:22:17.830
pregnant with my third child,

00:22:17.830 --> 00:22:20.590
who was my only boy,

00:22:20.590 --> 00:22:22.310
who I also lost

00:22:23.410 --> 00:22:25.270
two weeks after she passed.

00:22:25.270 --> 00:22:27.220
And at that time I had two children

00:22:27.220 --> 00:22:30.250
and I was also going through a divorce.

00:22:30.250 --> 00:22:32.500
I left the area

00:22:32.500 --> 00:22:35.500
and went to live with my
aunt and uncle in New Mexico.

00:22:35.500 --> 00:22:40.500
Six months later,
my older brother passed.

00:22:40.540 --> 00:22:42.770
Three months later, my father passed.

00:22:46.090 --> 00:22:47.360
And I was pregnant with

00:22:48.610 --> 00:22:51.763
my rainbow child, my third girl.

00:22:52.870 --> 00:22:56.962
And in that process

00:22:57.940 --> 00:23:02.500
of being in New Mexico
and then coming back,

00:23:02.500 --> 00:23:05.230
the home that they migrated to California

00:23:05.230 --> 00:23:10.205
and raised my aunts
and uncles in was lost,

00:23:10.205 --> 00:23:14.023
and we lived with my
aunt in North Oakland.

00:23:15.280 --> 00:23:17.740
Shortly after moving back home,

00:23:17.740 --> 00:23:21.103
I think I was home for six months,

00:23:22.150 --> 00:23:23.950
she passed away.

00:23:23.950 --> 00:23:27.250
Then my grandmother who
raised me passed away.

00:23:27.250 --> 00:23:29.320
And losing my job at the same time,

00:23:29.320 --> 00:23:31.630
with all of that hitting at once

00:23:31.630 --> 00:23:35.020
and family trying to,
you know, be supportive,

00:23:35.020 --> 00:23:39.370
doubling up and tripling
up is not easy on families.

00:23:39.370 --> 00:23:42.640
However, going through homelessness

00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:45.640
has also exposed them to things

00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:50.173
that I didn't think that they
would ever be exposed to, so.

00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:53.920
- There was actually
three of us that did it,

00:23:53.920 --> 00:23:56.170
and we all went to juvenile hall.

00:23:56.170 --> 00:23:58.780
The next night, they came
and woke me up at night

00:23:58.780 --> 00:24:00.100
and I thought I was going home,

00:24:00.100 --> 00:24:03.310
and they just took me
down to the adult jail.

00:24:03.310 --> 00:24:05.560
I didn't understand what was going on.

00:24:05.560 --> 00:24:08.860
Now, they left my co-defendants
in the juvenile jail,

00:24:08.860 --> 00:24:10.726
and they were both older than me.

00:24:10.726 --> 00:24:13.190
They were, like, 17, I was 16.

00:24:13.190 --> 00:24:15.970
Like, they didn't have a
reason why they certified me

00:24:15.970 --> 00:24:17.623
as an adult or anything.

00:24:18.610 --> 00:24:21.327
So it was just, like, confusing,

00:24:21.327 --> 00:24:22.993
and I took the first deal.

00:24:22.993 --> 00:24:24.700
I didn't know anything about the system.

00:24:24.700 --> 00:24:27.010
Like, my first time I went to court,

00:24:27.010 --> 00:24:28.307
my lawyer came and he's like,

00:24:28.307 --> 00:24:30.760
"You know, you're facing up to 40 years

00:24:30.760 --> 00:24:35.606
"or you could just take
this 2-to-15 years."

00:24:35.606 --> 00:24:36.682
And I was just like, he's like,

00:24:36.682 --> 00:24:38.890
"Your dad's crying, he
wants you to take the deal.

00:24:38.890 --> 00:24:40.123
Like, "You could get out,

00:24:41.153 --> 00:24:42.880
"you could get out in a couple years

00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:44.530
"or you could be facing up to 40."

00:24:44.530 --> 00:24:48.133
So I just took the first
deal that they offered me.

00:24:49.570 --> 00:24:50.711
Pled guilty.

00:24:55.125 --> 00:24:56.650
[plaintive piano music]

00:24:56.650 --> 00:24:59.800
- [Ayodele] Who decides who
gets to live in a place,

00:24:59.800 --> 00:25:03.343
who gets to live inside, who gets to live?

00:25:04.360 --> 00:25:05.515
Who decides?

00:25:06.610 --> 00:25:09.973
How do we turn our
backs on what we accept?

00:25:12.100 --> 00:25:13.896
"Where we sleep tonight?"

00:25:15.550 --> 00:25:17.380
Children left outside

00:25:17.380 --> 00:25:20.020
like there ain't enough to go around.

00:25:20.020 --> 00:25:22.150
Richest country in the land

00:25:22.150 --> 00:25:25.210
cycling legacies of intergenerational,

00:25:25.210 --> 00:25:27.703
intentionally crafted poverty.

00:25:29.050 --> 00:25:30.523
The tribe of the nowhere.

00:25:31.390 --> 00:25:33.670
Uprooted concepts of family.

00:25:33.670 --> 00:25:36.040
No protection for children

00:25:36.040 --> 00:25:38.380
in measurements of advancement

00:25:38.380 --> 00:25:41.320
in this First World civilization.

00:25:41.320 --> 00:25:43.513
Help me understand.

00:25:45.550 --> 00:25:47.375
Don't you think they're human?

00:25:52.100 --> 00:25:55.517
[music continues]

00:26:02.830 --> 00:26:07.827
- The Home Together Plan
essentially put forth some very,

00:26:09.040 --> 00:26:13.540
I think, bold but necessary
goals around prevention,

00:26:13.540 --> 00:26:16.840
around increasing housing capacity,

00:26:16.840 --> 00:26:20.050
and put a price tag with it, right?

00:26:20.050 --> 00:26:23.680
A price tag that I think
most folks may shy away from,

00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:26.170
but it's definitely a realistic assessment

00:26:26.170 --> 00:26:31.170
of what's needed to drastically reduce

00:26:31.178 --> 00:26:33.040
if not end homelessness.

00:26:33.040 --> 00:26:38.040
In that plan, there was systems
modeling that was conducted

00:26:38.200 --> 00:26:40.810
which showed over a five year period,

00:26:40.810 --> 00:26:43.990
at a price tag of $2.5 billion,

00:26:43.990 --> 00:26:47.830
you know, what resources and
infrastructure would be needed

00:26:47.830 --> 00:26:52.810
in Alameda County to make a
deep impact in homelessness.

00:26:52.810 --> 00:26:56.620
It also focuses heavily on the plan

00:26:56.620 --> 00:27:00.580
that was released in Alameda
County, I believe in 2019,

00:27:00.580 --> 00:27:03.460
which is the Centering
Racial Equity Report.

00:27:03.460 --> 00:27:06.290
And that report was released pre-COVID

00:27:07.330 --> 00:27:10.390
and was really the impetus for a lot of

00:27:10.390 --> 00:27:15.070
the racial equity work
that is starting to develop

00:27:15.070 --> 00:27:16.510
in Alameda County.

00:27:16.510 --> 00:27:18.985
- I got the opportunity to work on that

00:27:18.985 --> 00:27:21.526
homelessness report that centered equity

00:27:21.526 --> 00:27:26.050
as their equity advisor around
how to make it equity-focused

00:27:26.050 --> 00:27:28.600
because this is still fairly new work.

00:27:28.600 --> 00:27:31.420
So that report told us
the steps we need to take

00:27:31.420 --> 00:27:35.200
in order to end homelessness
in the State of California.

00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:37.120
I honestly expected to be rebuffed,

00:27:37.120 --> 00:27:40.180
and not everybody necessarily
is comfortable with race

00:27:40.180 --> 00:27:41.860
or with talking about race in this way.

00:27:41.860 --> 00:27:43.510
So we start doing an analysis

00:27:43.510 --> 00:27:44.800
with an outcome in mind.

00:27:44.800 --> 00:27:48.910
For homeless providers, the
outcome has been for decades now

00:27:48.910 --> 00:27:50.290
to end homelessness, right?

00:27:50.290 --> 00:27:52.540
But in order to have no homelessness,

00:27:52.540 --> 00:27:55.180
we have to address
homelessness for Black people,

00:27:55.180 --> 00:27:57.280
and homelessness for Indigenous people,

00:27:57.280 --> 00:27:59.590
and homelessness for other
overrepresented groups.

00:27:59.590 --> 00:28:02.440
You center those who
are most marginalized,

00:28:02.440 --> 00:28:05.530
because if you don't, you
will always have homelessness.

00:28:05.530 --> 00:28:08.590
We don't have the natural,
inherent political will

00:28:08.590 --> 00:28:10.840
in the dominant culture to address that.

00:28:10.840 --> 00:28:11.980
We just have to admit that.

00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:14.800
And that's the definition
of anti-Black racism,

00:28:14.800 --> 00:28:19.180
is where we are particularly
reticent to address

00:28:19.180 --> 00:28:21.370
disparities that are
impacting Black folks.

00:28:21.370 --> 00:28:24.610
Whether it's criminal justice
or housing conditions,

00:28:24.610 --> 00:28:28.930
we as a society are particularly slow

00:28:28.930 --> 00:28:30.520
to address those needs.

00:28:30.520 --> 00:28:32.440
And when you talk about it
that way, it seems doable

00:28:32.440 --> 00:28:33.760
because it is doable.

00:28:33.760 --> 00:28:36.700
That setup, that construct, was built.

00:28:36.700 --> 00:28:39.340
And at the time that it was
built, it was intentional.

00:28:39.340 --> 00:28:44.340
- Kaiser Permanente decided to
relocate their headquarters.

00:28:44.410 --> 00:28:47.920
They were gonna consolidate
all of their obsolete buildings

00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:50.080
into one big, manageable place.

00:28:50.080 --> 00:28:54.640
The CEO asked to have a retreat
to talk about this project.

00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:57.040
This was his legacy project.

00:28:57.040 --> 00:28:58.930
We spent a whole Saturday,

00:28:58.930 --> 00:29:00.970
the first two hours talking about

00:29:00.970 --> 00:29:03.310
what was going to be the environmental--

00:29:03.310 --> 00:29:06.430
it's called LEED,
which basically is a standard

00:29:06.430 --> 00:29:09.254
for environmental sustainability.

00:29:09.254 --> 00:29:10.960
You know, we were debating,

00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:13.810
are we gonna go for LEED bronze, you know,

00:29:13.810 --> 00:29:15.640
silver, gold, platinum,

00:29:15.640 --> 00:29:17.770
based on how much it was gonna cost,

00:29:17.770 --> 00:29:19.570
what it was gonna do to the schedule.

00:29:19.570 --> 00:29:21.670
We debated based on what it was gonna do

00:29:21.670 --> 00:29:23.110
to the look of the building.

00:29:23.110 --> 00:29:26.140
Then after about two
hours of back-and-forth,

00:29:26.140 --> 00:29:27.715
he sat back and he said,

00:29:27.715 --> 00:29:31.120
"Okay, everything about
this project is bold

00:29:31.120 --> 00:29:34.330
"and we're gonna make a bold
statement for the environment.

00:29:34.330 --> 00:29:36.460
"We're gonna go for LEED platinum."

00:29:36.460 --> 00:29:39.700
Every decision we made from that point on,

00:29:39.700 --> 00:29:41.590
we had that LEED scorecard.

00:29:41.590 --> 00:29:43.900
So you know, there's that kind of science

00:29:43.900 --> 00:29:45.340
and intentionality.

00:29:45.340 --> 00:29:49.300
That same Saturday retreat,

00:29:49.300 --> 00:29:51.490
after we talked about sustainability

00:29:51.490 --> 00:29:53.380
we talked about social equity,

00:29:53.380 --> 00:29:57.700
and there was the same
objective and intentionality

00:29:57.700 --> 00:29:59.020
and passion,

00:29:59.020 --> 00:30:02.395
but there wasn't a LEED program
that you could point to.

00:30:02.395 --> 00:30:06.070
That is indication that
we've made a commitment

00:30:06.070 --> 00:30:09.311
to the environment, but we
haven't made a commitment

00:30:09.311 --> 00:30:11.110
to people and equity.

00:30:11.110 --> 00:30:12.760
And as a result,

00:30:12.760 --> 00:30:14.860
when they wanted to hire consultants,

00:30:14.860 --> 00:30:18.430
"Oh we're gonna make sure
that we have people of color.

00:30:18.430 --> 00:30:20.350
"But we have to make
sure that we have people

00:30:20.350 --> 00:30:22.510
"with the right expertise."

00:30:22.510 --> 00:30:24.940
You have a Black guy, you know,

00:30:24.940 --> 00:30:26.920
he's got a sharp company.

00:30:26.920 --> 00:30:28.300
He went to MIT,

00:30:28.300 --> 00:30:30.760
he's got brilliant thinking skills.

00:30:30.760 --> 00:30:32.440
Not a lot of experience,

00:30:32.440 --> 00:30:35.470
but that's okay to me because
this guy is brilliant.

00:30:35.470 --> 00:30:38.170
But then the revolving
door goes, he goes out,

00:30:38.170 --> 00:30:41.050
the white guy comes in and he sits down.

00:30:41.050 --> 00:30:43.450
Not quite as impressive,

00:30:43.450 --> 00:30:46.390
but when it comes to talking
about the mechanical system,

00:30:46.390 --> 00:30:47.620
"Oh yeah, well, by the way,

00:30:47.620 --> 00:30:49.630
"if you do, like, gender-neutral,

00:30:49.630 --> 00:30:52.060
"you know you're gonna lose LEED points."

00:30:52.060 --> 00:30:54.580
That's just because he was in a room,

00:30:54.580 --> 00:30:56.950
he was part of that community

00:30:56.950 --> 00:30:59.710
and he had access to the information.

00:30:59.710 --> 00:31:02.140
Without me sitting there intervening,

00:31:02.140 --> 00:31:03.760
he's gonna get that job.

00:31:03.760 --> 00:31:06.370
The Black guy's gonna be dismissed.

00:31:06.370 --> 00:31:08.560
When you look at the skyline of Oakland

00:31:08.560 --> 00:31:11.740
and you look at all of the
building that takes place

00:31:11.740 --> 00:31:16.740
and all of the careers and
small business and ownership,

00:31:17.140 --> 00:31:22.140
all of those decisions are
being impacted in that same way.

00:31:22.540 --> 00:31:25.120
- Modeling was done in
the Home Together Plan,

00:31:25.120 --> 00:31:27.580
as was done in the Racial Equity Report.

00:31:27.580 --> 00:31:32.563
And so out of that is moving
beyond the conversation

00:31:32.563 --> 00:31:34.030
into implementation.

00:31:34.030 --> 00:31:37.000
What does it look like
to come off of the pages

00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:38.680
of the Racial Equity Report

00:31:38.680 --> 00:31:41.890
and actually concentrate
that in an actionable way?

00:31:41.890 --> 00:31:43.690
- We are not a silo.

00:31:43.690 --> 00:31:47.890
Everything that we do
involves partnerships.

00:31:47.890 --> 00:31:51.910
You literally can see the
layering of how it takes a village

00:31:51.910 --> 00:31:54.700
and a village of funding to build

00:31:54.700 --> 00:31:57.130
one precious unit of affordable housing.

00:31:57.130 --> 00:31:58.450
The development partner--

00:31:58.450 --> 00:32:00.490
and there are some
great affordable housing

00:32:00.490 --> 00:32:02.620
development leaders here in the city--

00:32:02.620 --> 00:32:04.870
they have their own investment dollars.

00:32:04.870 --> 00:32:08.110
They would layer that with
low-income tax credits

00:32:08.110 --> 00:32:10.450
which are issued by our city.

00:32:10.450 --> 00:32:14.400
They may layer those with
bonds that come through

00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:19.400
private financial activities
as well as voter measures

00:32:20.200 --> 00:32:24.610
that provide affordable housing
dollars from our local taxes

00:32:24.610 --> 00:32:26.140
may be layered onto that

00:32:26.140 --> 00:32:29.145
as well as other funding
from other sources

00:32:29.145 --> 00:32:32.680
including private funding
from private investors.

00:32:32.680 --> 00:32:35.470
The Housing Authority
then becomes a resource

00:32:35.470 --> 00:32:37.750
if we, in partnership with that developer

00:32:37.750 --> 00:32:39.798
here in the city of Oakland,

00:32:39.798 --> 00:32:41.997
purchase the land or lease the land,

00:32:41.997 --> 00:32:45.520
just taking that expense out
of the development project.

00:32:45.520 --> 00:32:49.810
We may, through a procurement
and a request for proposals,

00:32:49.810 --> 00:32:54.010
approve the layering of 10, 20, 30

00:32:54.010 --> 00:32:56.680
Project-Based Vouchers into that project,

00:32:56.680 --> 00:32:59.890
ensuring the affordability of those units.

00:32:59.890 --> 00:33:02.800
We may also put capitalized investments

00:33:02.800 --> 00:33:06.490
into the production and
development of the actual project.

00:33:06.490 --> 00:33:08.350
And this is for new development

00:33:08.350 --> 00:33:11.020
as well as acquisition of a building

00:33:11.020 --> 00:33:14.050
that then is rehabbed into
becoming affordable housing.

00:33:14.050 --> 00:33:17.680
- When you come into a
housing resource center,

00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:19.900
if you're referred because
you're on the streets

00:33:19.900 --> 00:33:22.540
and you come into contact with the system,

00:33:22.540 --> 00:33:24.940
we want to capture an individual

00:33:24.940 --> 00:33:26.560
in our Coordinated Entry System

00:33:26.560 --> 00:33:29.710
so that we can make sure
that the outcomes we intend

00:33:29.710 --> 00:33:31.420
are actually taking place.

00:33:31.420 --> 00:33:33.790
So someone comes through that front door

00:33:33.790 --> 00:33:36.220
and we're gonna ask them
a series of questions.

00:33:36.220 --> 00:33:40.660
What the continuum of care has done is

00:33:40.660 --> 00:33:43.480
to raise awareness around the questions

00:33:43.480 --> 00:33:45.070
that we're asking individuals

00:33:45.070 --> 00:33:49.990
to ensure that we are
not approaching things

00:33:49.990 --> 00:33:52.990
through a way that could be
perceived as implicitly biased

00:33:52.990 --> 00:33:57.550
up to being just flat-out racist, right,

00:33:57.550 --> 00:33:59.380
about what we're asking

00:33:59.380 --> 00:34:01.870
and whom we're asking these questions to.

00:34:01.870 --> 00:34:04.300
And just because I'm
asking a person of color

00:34:04.300 --> 00:34:08.740
and a, you know, a non-person
of color the same question,

00:34:08.740 --> 00:34:12.730
it doesn't mean that
those results are going to

00:34:12.730 --> 00:34:13.563
land the same.

00:34:13.563 --> 00:34:15.640
And so really being conscious about that,

00:34:15.640 --> 00:34:18.790
elevating our own blind spots,

00:34:18.790 --> 00:34:22.810
is the work of that Racial Equity Report.

00:34:22.810 --> 00:34:25.090
- My predecessor in the clerk's office

00:34:25.090 --> 00:34:27.130
was the City Clerk Ceda Floyd,

00:34:27.130 --> 00:34:30.970
and she found ways to invite
me into other positions,

00:34:30.970 --> 00:34:32.890
and I took on those opportunities

00:34:32.890 --> 00:34:34.930
and within about two years' time

00:34:34.930 --> 00:34:36.850
wound up being the city clerk.

00:34:36.850 --> 00:34:40.570
And then I served in that
capacity for more than 16 years.

00:34:40.570 --> 00:34:42.850
I found myself with an offer

00:34:42.850 --> 00:34:44.477
from the city administrator to say,

00:34:44.477 --> 00:34:45.340
"Hey, would you like to be

00:34:45.340 --> 00:34:47.470
"the assistant city administrator?"

00:34:47.470 --> 00:34:48.610
And I said, "Sure."

00:34:48.610 --> 00:34:51.160
I was advised that I would assume the role

00:34:51.160 --> 00:34:54.520
until we could find a permanent
homelessness administrator.

00:34:54.520 --> 00:34:58.030
Much of the work had been focused on

00:34:58.030 --> 00:35:02.030
activating and deploying
and implementing what was

00:35:02.030 --> 00:35:04.780
the City's Encampment Management Policy,

00:35:04.780 --> 00:35:07.960
from sort of operations to logistics.

00:35:07.960 --> 00:35:10.120
In the middle of the pandemic

00:35:10.120 --> 00:35:12.370
there were a lot of
conversations, obviously,

00:35:12.370 --> 00:35:15.100
about homelessness and
how it was building,

00:35:15.100 --> 00:35:19.540
how encampments were
settled upon the streets

00:35:19.540 --> 00:35:21.400
and how the conditions of encampments

00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:23.290
were compromising the health and safety

00:35:23.290 --> 00:35:25.330
of the individuals that lived in them

00:35:25.330 --> 00:35:27.580
as well as the neighbors and businesses.

00:35:27.580 --> 00:35:30.910
So you had all kinds of things happening

00:35:30.910 --> 00:35:32.980
in the environment of an encampment,

00:35:32.980 --> 00:35:35.770
and then you had this expectation

00:35:35.770 --> 00:35:39.220
that you as the
homelessness administrator,

00:35:39.220 --> 00:35:40.990
you know, would sort of put on your cape

00:35:40.990 --> 00:35:42.880
and sweep through and wipe an encampment

00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:46.671
off the face of the Earth as
though people were not in it.

00:35:48.340 --> 00:35:51.460
- I met Celeste when I was 13 years old.

00:35:51.460 --> 00:35:54.250
My father was living in Reno.

00:35:54.250 --> 00:35:56.140
I went out there after my mom passed,

00:35:56.140 --> 00:35:57.940
and my dad and myself,

00:35:57.940 --> 00:36:00.130
we were staying in a motel room.

00:36:00.130 --> 00:36:02.470
We ended up becoming homeless again,

00:36:02.470 --> 00:36:04.060
so we slept outside.

00:36:04.060 --> 00:36:06.700
We slept outside for about two weeks.

00:36:06.700 --> 00:36:09.640
My dad met Celeste's dad.

00:36:09.640 --> 00:36:11.680
He showed my dad how to get a motel room,

00:36:11.680 --> 00:36:13.720
like, across the street
in a different motel.

00:36:13.720 --> 00:36:16.060
So we moved to that motel,

00:36:16.060 --> 00:36:20.050
and I ended up seeing Celeste
and her brother, Lamar,

00:36:20.050 --> 00:36:22.657
at the bus stop to go to school.

00:36:22.657 --> 00:36:24.730
And we just, like, clicked from there

00:36:24.730 --> 00:36:28.243
and ended up just being close ever since.

00:36:29.110 --> 00:36:31.480
We used to spend nights
at each other's rooms

00:36:31.480 --> 00:36:35.438
or they would come to my
room because their motel had,

00:36:35.438 --> 00:36:38.260
like, a, like a lot of, it
was a roach infestation.

00:36:38.260 --> 00:36:40.510
So Lamar would come stay,

00:36:40.510 --> 00:36:42.130
Celeste would come stay,

00:36:42.130 --> 00:36:44.500
and their sister, Angel.

00:36:44.500 --> 00:36:47.470
I have seven sisters all together.

00:36:47.470 --> 00:36:48.820
Yeah, Celeste fit right in,

00:36:48.820 --> 00:36:50.950
and then she's tall like all of us, too,

00:36:50.950 --> 00:36:52.390
so she looks like us.

00:36:52.390 --> 00:36:54.850
So, ever since then we
just call each other

00:36:54.850 --> 00:36:56.170
brother and sister.

00:36:56.170 --> 00:37:00.130
Celeste moved out to
the Bay Area from Reno.

00:37:00.130 --> 00:37:03.460
She didn't really have
anybody out here besides us.

00:37:03.460 --> 00:37:06.340
So when she originally moved out here,

00:37:06.340 --> 00:37:09.520
she was kind of going
through a tough situation.

00:37:09.520 --> 00:37:11.770
The father of her kids had passed away

00:37:11.770 --> 00:37:14.260
and she just was having a rough time,

00:37:14.260 --> 00:37:18.280
so as she tried to, like,
figure out her living situation

00:37:18.280 --> 00:37:20.620
and with three kids,

00:37:20.620 --> 00:37:23.020
I just offered to kind of help her out.

00:37:23.020 --> 00:37:25.870
Initially, Celeste and the three kids

00:37:25.870 --> 00:37:28.480
were kind of staying on and off with me.

00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:32.913
Kemani stayed with me for
a few months afterwards,

00:37:32.913 --> 00:37:35.950
just by himself, while
Celeste was figuring out

00:37:35.950 --> 00:37:37.690
how to get her own place

00:37:37.690 --> 00:37:40.420
and just dealing with
trying to get employment

00:37:40.420 --> 00:37:41.980
out here in the Bay Area.

00:37:41.980 --> 00:37:46.600
Kemani stayed with me
maybe three to five months.

00:37:46.600 --> 00:37:51.600
The next school year he was
supposed to be moving schools,

00:37:51.670 --> 00:37:53.890
but he just loved his
school in Vallejo so much.

00:37:53.890 --> 00:37:58.060
He had friends there, he
had a girlfriend and stuff,

00:37:58.060 --> 00:38:00.872
and he just loved it there.

00:38:00.872 --> 00:38:02.950
But Celeste tried to explain
to him if she didn't,

00:38:02.950 --> 00:38:06.400
doesn't have a house out
in Vallejo, you know,

00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:08.920
he won't be able to continue
going to school there.

00:38:08.920 --> 00:38:13.093
And that used to, like,
devastate him right there.

00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:18.960
She got housing about two weeks
after he passed, I believe.

00:38:19.450 --> 00:38:23.350
- My plan A is to try rapping,
but also at the same time,

00:38:23.350 --> 00:38:26.200
like, get a job to where I
could put things on boats.

00:38:26.200 --> 00:38:27.550
You can rap about anything,

00:38:27.550 --> 00:38:30.400
so I could be rapping but
also working at that one job.

00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:31.780
So as I'm doing that,

00:38:31.780 --> 00:38:35.153
I'm letting them know how
my life is going right now.

00:38:35.153 --> 00:38:38.887
[dreamy hip-hop instrumental]

00:39:00.765 --> 00:39:02.590
- [Child's Voice] I am a lost child.

00:39:02.590 --> 00:39:05.140
I wonder about the meanings of life.

00:39:05.140 --> 00:39:06.640
I hear suffering.

00:39:06.640 --> 00:39:08.105
I see love.

00:39:08.105 --> 00:39:09.700
I want to give.

00:39:09.700 --> 00:39:11.680
I am a passionate child.

00:39:11.680 --> 00:39:13.750
I pretend not to care.

00:39:13.750 --> 00:39:15.160
I feel love.

00:39:15.160 --> 00:39:16.780
I touch the sky,

00:39:16.780 --> 00:39:18.730
I worry about my future.

00:39:18.730 --> 00:39:20.710
I cry because of life.

00:39:20.710 --> 00:39:22.600
I am a wanderer.

00:39:22.600 --> 00:39:24.820
I understand how life goes on.

00:39:24.820 --> 00:39:27.130
I say my appreciations.

00:39:27.130 --> 00:39:30.490
I dream to be a professional
basketball player.

00:39:30.490 --> 00:39:32.830
I hope to cope with my thoughts

00:39:32.830 --> 00:39:34.150
so I don't worry so much.

00:39:35.170 --> 00:39:36.970
I am a legend.

00:39:43.510 --> 00:39:47.620
- Do the methods we utilize work?

00:39:47.620 --> 00:39:49.660
Is there something else?

00:39:49.660 --> 00:39:52.360
As practitioners involved

00:39:52.360 --> 00:39:54.880
with the Association
of Black Psychologists,

00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:57.040
we were able to say yes, there is.

00:39:57.040 --> 00:40:00.550
This perspective called
African-Centered Perspective

00:40:00.550 --> 00:40:04.780
works for humanity in a way that can honor

00:40:04.780 --> 00:40:08.290
the way people arrive at their problems

00:40:08.290 --> 00:40:10.570
as well as their solutions,

00:40:10.570 --> 00:40:13.630
and in a way that doesn't cut
the head off from the body

00:40:13.630 --> 00:40:17.470
because mind-body unity is
nothing new to African people.

00:40:17.470 --> 00:40:22.120
Oftentimes we don't look at our
praxis as being Eurocentric,

00:40:22.120 --> 00:40:23.650
and that's the default.

00:40:23.650 --> 00:40:26.170
We have to recognize it when we are in it

00:40:26.170 --> 00:40:31.170
and just think about how
do we step into the space

00:40:31.480 --> 00:40:33.730
in a way that's not xenophobic.

00:40:33.730 --> 00:40:36.010
- What's critical to understand
about structural racism,

00:40:36.010 --> 00:40:37.810
whether you're talking
about life expectancy,

00:40:37.810 --> 00:40:39.130
whether you're talking
about home ownership rates,

00:40:39.130 --> 00:40:40.360
whether you're talking about wealth,

00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:41.470
whether you're talking about employment

00:40:41.470 --> 00:40:42.550
or educational attainment,

00:40:42.550 --> 00:40:44.440
is that it can be maintained

00:40:44.440 --> 00:40:46.750
even in the absence of racist actors

00:40:46.750 --> 00:40:49.652
to perpetuate them indefinitely.

00:40:49.652 --> 00:40:52.569
[melancholy piano music]

00:41:01.870 --> 00:41:05.328
- When communities, particularly
states and counties,

00:41:05.328 --> 00:41:07.660
get resources from the federal government

00:41:07.660 --> 00:41:09.520
to address homelessness,

00:41:09.520 --> 00:41:11.980
those dollars are very specific,

00:41:11.980 --> 00:41:15.580
the guidelines and uses are very specific,

00:41:15.580 --> 00:41:20.560
and it doesn't encourage
collaboration or coordination

00:41:20.560 --> 00:41:22.330
across county and city lines.

00:41:22.330 --> 00:41:24.100
- You know, there's
people from San Francisco

00:41:24.100 --> 00:41:26.410
and Santa Clara County
living in Alameda County

00:41:26.410 --> 00:41:27.280
and vice versa.

00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:30.160
It's just, it just is what it is

00:41:30.160 --> 00:41:31.870
for a variety of different reasons.

00:41:31.870 --> 00:41:34.450
And so really being able to

00:41:34.450 --> 00:41:38.050
wrap our services around
individuals collectively

00:41:38.050 --> 00:41:42.760
in a way that targets a
collective goal in homelessness

00:41:42.760 --> 00:41:45.700
really should be the only focus.

00:41:45.700 --> 00:41:49.691
- We must challenge the limited,

00:41:49.691 --> 00:41:52.633
and in my opinion arbitrary,

00:41:52.633 --> 00:41:55.840
confines of where the resources come from

00:41:55.840 --> 00:41:58.870
to be more common-sense and practical

00:41:58.870 --> 00:42:01.330
to respond to how people live.

00:42:01.330 --> 00:42:05.530
Our human patterns live
in a society that are not,

00:42:05.530 --> 00:42:09.130
you know, limited by a revenue stream

00:42:09.130 --> 00:42:11.560
or a system that can only serve you

00:42:11.560 --> 00:42:14.710
on this side of the street,
but when you take a right turn

00:42:14.710 --> 00:42:17.410
you can't get help on the
other side of the street.

00:42:17.410 --> 00:42:21.226
That is a fundamental failure
of how our public policy

00:42:21.226 --> 00:42:23.050
has dealt with this issue.

00:42:23.050 --> 00:42:26.830
And a lot of the advocacy
work that we do at All Home

00:42:26.830 --> 00:42:31.000
is to try to break down some
of those regulatory barriers

00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:33.725
around funding primarily, but also,

00:42:33.725 --> 00:42:37.608
even if there are resources available

00:42:37.608 --> 00:42:42.158
that aren't limited by geography,

00:42:42.158 --> 00:42:44.857
our minds are limited.

00:42:44.857 --> 00:42:47.950
The way in which bureaucrats
have had to administer

00:42:47.950 --> 00:42:50.890
these programs for decades,
they're like, "I can't."

00:42:50.890 --> 00:42:52.690
Well, really?

00:42:52.690 --> 00:42:55.210
'Cause you might be able to.

00:42:55.210 --> 00:42:57.490
And when you run into a barrier,

00:42:57.490 --> 00:43:00.160
maybe that's when we then join forces.

00:43:00.160 --> 00:43:03.130
We have the power of
not just your community

00:43:03.130 --> 00:43:07.780
but all nine counties saying,
"This doesn't work for us."

00:43:07.780 --> 00:43:09.670
- When we look just here
in the city of Oakland

00:43:09.670 --> 00:43:11.980
and we broaden to the County of Alameda,

00:43:11.980 --> 00:43:13.960
who are our partners in trying to use

00:43:13.960 --> 00:43:16.030
those emergency housing vouchers,

00:43:16.030 --> 00:43:18.730
you don't have to go down too many streets

00:43:18.730 --> 00:43:21.400
to know that 515 for the city of Oakland

00:43:21.400 --> 00:43:22.900
is not gonna be the answer.

00:43:22.900 --> 00:43:27.900
Just making sure that 515
emergency housing vouchers

00:43:28.120 --> 00:43:32.620
reach the hands, quickly, of
every individual and family

00:43:32.620 --> 00:43:35.890
who could use that voucher
for a stable, quality,

00:43:35.890 --> 00:43:37.420
safe, affordable home,

00:43:37.420 --> 00:43:40.510
and that those vouchers go to
one of our landlord partners

00:43:40.510 --> 00:43:44.380
who is eager to be part of a
process of doing something good

00:43:44.380 --> 00:43:48.460
and ensuring that 515 folks
who are currently homeless

00:43:48.460 --> 00:43:49.990
or at risk of homelessness

00:43:49.990 --> 00:43:54.433
are able to use their unit
as a safe place to thrive.

00:43:55.330 --> 00:43:56.560
It's not enough.

00:43:56.560 --> 00:43:58.990
We have to continue to be brave,

00:43:58.990 --> 00:44:01.060
to be courageous, to be innovative,

00:44:01.060 --> 00:44:05.200
to test current systems and
work together as a collaboration

00:44:05.200 --> 00:44:06.760
to figure out how to make it work

00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:10.060
not just here in the city of
Oakland, but in Alameda County,

00:44:10.060 --> 00:44:12.560
in the State of California,
in this great nation,

00:44:12.560 --> 00:44:15.643
because we are not getting
to enough of the families

00:44:15.643 --> 00:44:18.370
as quickly as all of us wanna see.

00:44:18.370 --> 00:44:21.040
- The vast majority of HUD funding

00:44:21.040 --> 00:44:23.920
went through what we call
the Section 8 program.

00:44:23.920 --> 00:44:26.680
The Housing Choice Voucher
program is what it's called now.

00:44:26.680 --> 00:44:31.680
And that program served
people in individual units,

00:44:31.990 --> 00:44:34.600
which meant that the
person that owned that unit

00:44:34.600 --> 00:44:36.370
was a benefit of that program.

00:44:36.370 --> 00:44:38.800
The landlord received funding.

00:44:38.800 --> 00:44:43.150
Well, those landlords were
mostly middle class people

00:44:43.150 --> 00:44:45.258
who were small landlords that owned one,

00:44:45.258 --> 00:44:47.080
maybe two extra units,

00:44:47.080 --> 00:44:49.522
and that was part of their household's,

00:44:49.522 --> 00:44:51.430
you know, wealth-building.

00:44:51.430 --> 00:44:55.121
The way the tax credit program
works, it's an IRS program.

00:44:55.121 --> 00:44:58.300
Every single year it has X amount of money

00:44:58.300 --> 00:45:01.600
and it allocates that money
down to all 50 states.

00:45:01.600 --> 00:45:05.080
When you bring the tax credit program in,

00:45:05.080 --> 00:45:07.750
we stopped funding all
those small landlords.

00:45:07.750 --> 00:45:09.340
So there's still some
that are being funded,

00:45:09.340 --> 00:45:10.840
but not nearly as many.

00:45:10.840 --> 00:45:12.520
We've stopped funding the small landlords.

00:45:12.520 --> 00:45:15.940
Instead, what we're funding
are the large corporations

00:45:15.940 --> 00:45:18.430
that receive the tax credit benefit,

00:45:18.430 --> 00:45:21.940
and those are the folks that
are now benefiting from HUD

00:45:21.940 --> 00:45:24.460
and the federal government's new program.

00:45:24.460 --> 00:45:29.460
And so that is a clear
demonstration of transferring wealth

00:45:30.010 --> 00:45:32.290
from an individual property owner,

00:45:32.290 --> 00:45:34.690
small, middle class person,

00:45:34.690 --> 00:45:36.730
over to large corporations.

00:45:36.730 --> 00:45:40.240
- The new leadership with the
Biden-Harris administration

00:45:40.240 --> 00:45:42.490
and Secretary Fudge

00:45:42.490 --> 00:45:47.490
starting to reinvest and
reinvigorate strategies

00:45:47.770 --> 00:45:50.200
at the federal level is helpful.

00:45:50.200 --> 00:45:52.458
But it's...

00:45:53.380 --> 00:45:58.090
It's limited, because there's
been decades of disinvestment.

00:45:58.090 --> 00:46:00.910
And I think that the federal government

00:46:00.910 --> 00:46:04.390
has a really significant role to play

00:46:04.390 --> 00:46:09.282
in scaling the interventions
that will really affect

00:46:10.600 --> 00:46:13.540
housing security for millions of people.

00:46:13.540 --> 00:46:17.440
When we think about housing vouchers,

00:46:17.440 --> 00:46:19.360
the Section 8 program

00:46:19.360 --> 00:46:22.180
that folks are maybe familiar with, right?

00:46:22.180 --> 00:46:24.460
That kind of rental assistance,

00:46:24.460 --> 00:46:27.220
that rental subsidy for
people who are earning

00:46:27.220 --> 00:46:30.580
really low wages in
jurisdictions like the Bay Area

00:46:30.580 --> 00:46:33.089
is transformational.

00:46:33.089 --> 00:46:33.922
[gentle piano music]

00:46:33.922 --> 00:46:35.590
- I am Zha'Riyia.

00:46:35.590 --> 00:46:38.230
I hear cars honking their horn.

00:46:38.230 --> 00:46:39.430
I see kindness.

00:46:39.430 --> 00:46:41.590
I want people to be kind.

00:46:41.590 --> 00:46:43.120
I feel happy.

00:46:43.120 --> 00:46:46.660
I worry about my friends at my old school.

00:46:46.660 --> 00:46:50.140
I cry, but not as much
as when I was little.

00:46:50.140 --> 00:46:51.520
I am myself.

00:46:51.520 --> 00:46:54.220
I understand how it feels to be lonely.

00:46:54.220 --> 00:46:56.950
I play with toys to feel better.

00:46:56.950 --> 00:46:59.860
I dream that all houseless
people have homes.

00:46:59.860 --> 00:47:01.600
I help my mom clean.

00:47:01.600 --> 00:47:04.240
I hope all the houseless
people get a home.

00:47:04.240 --> 00:47:05.440
I am kind.

00:47:05.440 --> 00:47:08.290
I wonder why some people are houseless.

00:47:08.290 --> 00:47:12.160
I feel sad when I see
houseless people on the street.

00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:14.230
I imagine that I am at a waterpark

00:47:14.230 --> 00:47:16.205
and I'm not worried about anything.

00:47:17.740 --> 00:47:19.420
- My oldest, she shuts off.

00:47:19.420 --> 00:47:21.370
I could tell she's tired
of being in the car

00:47:21.370 --> 00:47:23.530
or I could tell she was tired
of being in and outta hotels

00:47:23.530 --> 00:47:26.920
and have to drag our stuff
from one place to another.

00:47:26.920 --> 00:47:28.510
And I'm asking her, like, "What's wrong?

00:47:28.510 --> 00:47:30.070
"Like, you know, we, you
could talk about it."

00:47:30.070 --> 00:47:32.020
"Oh no Mom, it's just fine,
there's nothing wrong."

00:47:32.020 --> 00:47:33.970
But you could clearly see
there's something wrong

00:47:33.970 --> 00:47:34.930
with this little girl.

00:47:34.930 --> 00:47:36.220
She used to act up in school,

00:47:36.220 --> 00:47:38.560
like, her grades were
going down and I'm, like,

00:47:38.560 --> 00:47:39.393
"This is not you.

00:47:39.393 --> 00:47:42.370
"You usually get, you know,
honor roll or principal's list."

00:47:42.370 --> 00:47:44.530
And I just felt like she
didn't think I could help her

00:47:44.530 --> 00:47:47.475
at the time because I could
barely help myself, y'know?

00:47:47.475 --> 00:47:50.867
Since we've been housed, she,
you know, she opens up more,

00:47:50.867 --> 00:47:52.510
she talks about stuff.

00:47:52.510 --> 00:47:54.790
We still have our little differences,

00:47:54.790 --> 00:47:56.653
especially with boys now, but.

00:47:56.653 --> 00:47:57.850
[laughs]

00:47:57.850 --> 00:48:00.217
She opening it up to me and
I really appreciate that.

00:48:00.217 --> 00:48:03.640
And my youngest, we had
a learning curve with her

00:48:03.640 --> 00:48:06.520
because she was in and
out of school for so long

00:48:06.520 --> 00:48:08.260
when we were sleeping
in the cars and stuff,

00:48:08.260 --> 00:48:12.880
and we're just trying to
get her on the right track.

00:48:12.880 --> 00:48:14.230
They say she's dyslexic.

00:48:14.230 --> 00:48:16.330
She writes everything
backwards and stuff like that.

00:48:16.330 --> 00:48:19.540
But I just feel like
she needs more attention

00:48:19.540 --> 00:48:22.390
with her schooling because
I didn't have the time

00:48:22.390 --> 00:48:24.790
to really help her with her schoolwork

00:48:24.790 --> 00:48:26.620
because while she's at school,

00:48:26.620 --> 00:48:28.990
I'm figuring out where we're
gonna sleep at for the night

00:48:28.990 --> 00:48:31.168
and trying to get a job, so.

00:48:31.168 --> 00:48:33.010
- When we moved,

00:48:33.010 --> 00:48:35.800
I think it was after my birthday,

00:48:35.800 --> 00:48:38.680
maybe on April 3rd or April 2nd.

00:48:38.680 --> 00:48:40.720
I did get a lot of presents.

00:48:40.720 --> 00:48:43.630
The Hello Kitty one, it's my favorite toy.

00:48:43.630 --> 00:48:48.532
It has, like, two
microphones and this one box,

00:48:49.510 --> 00:48:51.733
like, where you open it and make music.

00:48:53.080 --> 00:48:56.560
Then you, when you turn it on,
you could talk in it.

00:48:56.560 --> 00:49:00.550
I think I took a picture
of people building a house,

00:49:00.550 --> 00:49:02.560
then I took a picture of Zha'Riyia.

00:49:02.560 --> 00:49:04.420
My house is pretty.

00:49:04.420 --> 00:49:07.660
I like the windows and the door

00:49:07.660 --> 00:49:10.810
because the sun always shines on them.

00:49:10.810 --> 00:49:12.943
I like the ceiling.

00:49:13.990 --> 00:49:16.180
I like the top windows,

00:49:16.180 --> 00:49:17.383
the air conditioner,

00:49:19.270 --> 00:49:21.370
the bathroom,

00:49:21.370 --> 00:49:22.960
my room, the kitchen,

00:49:22.960 --> 00:49:26.243
my mom's room and the living room.

00:49:26.243 --> 00:49:28.540
- Economic studies have been done.

00:49:28.540 --> 00:49:31.390
If we could eradicate racial disparities,

00:49:31.390 --> 00:49:34.600
our GDP would grow exponentially.

00:49:34.600 --> 00:49:36.010
It's simple modeling.

00:49:36.010 --> 00:49:38.290
If you give poor people resources,

00:49:38.290 --> 00:49:40.390
give them access to resources,

00:49:40.390 --> 00:49:45.100
they will spend that money in
your economy, mostly locally.

00:49:45.100 --> 00:49:46.360
- I'm trying not to get emotional.

00:49:46.360 --> 00:49:47.740
It's, like, making me--

00:49:47.740 --> 00:49:50.110
I can't believe I did this
and then I owe my kids so much

00:49:50.110 --> 00:49:53.560
because they didn't ask to,
you know, be here and do that.

00:49:53.560 --> 00:49:56.140
And it's so many times I wanted to give up

00:49:56.140 --> 00:49:57.730
and think, like, maybe
they'll be better off

00:49:57.730 --> 00:49:59.170
in the foster care system.

00:49:59.170 --> 00:50:02.350
But I grew up in it and I
knew where it led me to.

00:50:02.350 --> 00:50:04.510
I ended up on the streets so many times.

00:50:04.510 --> 00:50:06.260
So yeah, I just

00:50:07.330 --> 00:50:09.017
refused to give up on 'em.

00:50:10.557 --> 00:50:14.560
- Mental wellness really
is facing the world,

00:50:14.560 --> 00:50:18.490
walking in the world with
a full sense of competence,

00:50:18.490 --> 00:50:21.490
confidence, potentiality, right?

00:50:21.490 --> 00:50:23.350
And probabilities.

00:50:23.350 --> 00:50:26.440
And if we're not doing that,
then something's off.

00:50:26.440 --> 00:50:29.050
- Black scholars and other
scholars have been saying

00:50:29.050 --> 00:50:31.060
for a very long time

00:50:31.060 --> 00:50:32.980
that how we're being trained

00:50:32.980 --> 00:50:36.760
is not always in the best
interest of our communities.

00:50:36.760 --> 00:50:39.357
- My mother planted these
seeds in my mind about,

00:50:39.357 --> 00:50:42.640
something's skewed about
this thing called psychology.

00:50:42.640 --> 00:50:44.650
And I'm taking psychology classes,

00:50:44.650 --> 00:50:45.640
so I'm sitting in these classes

00:50:45.640 --> 00:50:48.429
listening to these professors
talk about psychology,

00:50:48.429 --> 00:50:49.600
me and this other brother.

00:50:49.600 --> 00:50:52.030
And they would talk, they loved Freud.

00:50:52.030 --> 00:50:54.730
And they would talk about
Freud in this psychology class,

00:50:54.730 --> 00:50:58.570
how Freud had this ego and id and superego

00:50:58.570 --> 00:51:00.970
and that you had these desires

00:51:00.970 --> 00:51:03.610
to have sex with your
mama and kill your daddy.

00:51:03.610 --> 00:51:05.780
And I'm saying, what kind of

00:51:06.663 --> 00:51:08.403
[chuckles] is this?

00:51:08.403 --> 00:51:10.450
And I look over at the brother,
he look over at me, he said,

00:51:10.450 --> 00:51:11.410
"Now this don't make sense."

00:51:11.410 --> 00:51:12.730
So I had the strategy,

00:51:12.730 --> 00:51:15.910
whatever they said,
study it, pass the exam

00:51:15.910 --> 00:51:17.740
and forget that stuff.

00:51:17.740 --> 00:51:19.820
All along my path, it seemed to me,

00:51:19.820 --> 00:51:24.580
there were moments that reminded me

00:51:24.580 --> 00:51:28.600
that this thing they call
psychology is not universal.

00:51:28.600 --> 00:51:30.250
It doesn't apply to all people,

00:51:30.250 --> 00:51:34.030
but they perpetuate it as that.

00:51:34.030 --> 00:51:38.590
- There are some African-centered
theoretical approaches,

00:51:38.590 --> 00:51:40.240
like the work of Linda James Meyers,

00:51:40.240 --> 00:51:42.610
in terms of OPTIMAL theory

00:51:42.610 --> 00:51:45.220
or the belief systems analysis

00:51:45.220 --> 00:51:46.990
or Ubuntu.

00:51:46.990 --> 00:51:50.380
So, there are some definite
theoretical practices

00:51:50.380 --> 00:51:51.850
that are coming from our roots.

00:51:51.850 --> 00:51:54.550
So we have those tools.

00:51:54.550 --> 00:51:57.670
But in the majority of
mental health practitioners

00:51:57.670 --> 00:51:59.473
and how they're being trained--

00:52:00.550 --> 00:52:02.860
this would mean by the dominant discourse,

00:52:02.860 --> 00:52:05.140
who controls the narrative,

00:52:05.140 --> 00:52:07.180
who says here's what you need to know

00:52:07.180 --> 00:52:09.700
in order to be a mental health provider

00:52:09.700 --> 00:52:12.070
and here's the doors you
walk through to get in.

00:52:12.070 --> 00:52:14.710
In those conversations,

00:52:14.710 --> 00:52:17.410
the theories I just
mentioned are not showing up.

00:52:17.410 --> 00:52:21.670
They're not required, and for
most times they're not known.

00:52:21.670 --> 00:52:23.540
I'm remembering one young lady,

00:52:24.640 --> 00:52:26.830
who's European American white girl,

00:52:26.830 --> 00:52:29.740
who really wanted to do very good work.

00:52:29.740 --> 00:52:32.140
And she was working with
a particular client,

00:52:32.140 --> 00:52:33.670
and for whatever reasons

00:52:33.670 --> 00:52:38.110
the child's parent was picking
him up later and later.

00:52:38.110 --> 00:52:39.902
As a Black supervisor,

00:52:39.902 --> 00:52:42.593
I asked her to set up
a meeting with the mom

00:52:42.593 --> 00:52:44.440
and just kind of check in and
see how the work is going.

00:52:44.440 --> 00:52:47.770
And when she came back to me
in the next session she says,

00:52:47.770 --> 00:52:49.780
she said, "Dr. Jackson, I'm so glad

00:52:49.780 --> 00:52:51.190
"because now I understand
what's going on."

00:52:51.190 --> 00:52:53.530
And she said, "Well, she has Tourette's."

00:52:53.530 --> 00:52:55.363
"You know, Mom kept doing this,

00:52:57.190 --> 00:52:59.230
"you know, throughout the session."

00:52:59.230 --> 00:53:01.270
My supervisee just had diagnosed it.

00:53:01.270 --> 00:53:02.440
She knew what she was looking at

00:53:02.440 --> 00:53:04.270
because she'd been taught that, right?

00:53:04.270 --> 00:53:06.250
A lot of times for people of color,

00:53:06.250 --> 00:53:08.700
particularly Black folks,
we get our hair braided

00:53:09.640 --> 00:53:11.620
and it gets a little bit itchy.

00:53:11.620 --> 00:53:13.810
We don't wanna be scratching
in between those braids

00:53:13.810 --> 00:53:14.860
'cause it may flake up.

00:53:14.860 --> 00:53:16.963
So you'd see us doing this all the time.

00:53:18.010 --> 00:53:21.100
She had no-- of course that's
a cultural insider's piece

00:53:21.100 --> 00:53:24.090
she did not know because
of her own lived experience

00:53:24.090 --> 00:53:27.580
so she wasn't, you know, peep
to that cultural insight.

00:53:27.580 --> 00:53:31.646
If I had not been the
supervisor, it's quite possible

00:53:31.646 --> 00:53:35.497
that child's record would
show "mother has Tourette's."

00:53:35.497 --> 00:53:38.380
- So Ibram X. Kendi wrote a brilliant book

00:53:38.380 --> 00:53:41.110
about the narratives about people of color

00:53:41.110 --> 00:53:44.440
that were created to
justify their mistreatment.

00:53:44.440 --> 00:53:46.810
And it's basically a
history of the United States

00:53:46.810 --> 00:53:48.760
and even before the United States

00:53:48.760 --> 00:53:51.910
tied to, what were people
saying about Black folks?

00:53:51.910 --> 00:53:53.710
What were people saying about Latinos?

00:53:53.710 --> 00:53:55.450
What were people saying
about Indigenous people?

00:53:55.450 --> 00:53:59.770
And what was going on when
that mythology emerged?

00:53:59.770 --> 00:54:01.330
A stereotype,

00:54:01.330 --> 00:54:03.760
or he calls them "racist ideas"

00:54:03.760 --> 00:54:04.660
because that's what they are.

00:54:04.660 --> 00:54:07.570
A racist idea is just
any idea that positions

00:54:07.570 --> 00:54:10.390
some group of people below or beneath

00:54:10.390 --> 00:54:11.980
another racial group of people.

00:54:11.980 --> 00:54:13.360
We're all the same.

00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:15.310
There is nothing about our race

00:54:15.310 --> 00:54:19.710
that predetermines skill, talent,

00:54:20.851 --> 00:54:21.910
determination.

00:54:21.910 --> 00:54:26.878
There is no correlation
between ability and race.

00:54:28.540 --> 00:54:31.810
So if there is no difference

00:54:31.810 --> 00:54:34.900
and you see these huge
differences in outcomes,

00:54:34.900 --> 00:54:37.090
what is the variable?

00:54:37.090 --> 00:54:39.340
This is the story we have
to start talking about.

00:54:39.340 --> 00:54:41.770
There is no genetic predisposition,

00:54:41.770 --> 00:54:44.200
there's no "basketball gene."

00:54:44.200 --> 00:54:45.641
Hate to tell the folks.

00:54:45.641 --> 00:54:46.780
That's about opportunity.

00:54:46.780 --> 00:54:48.220
There are certain things
that they have allowed

00:54:48.220 --> 00:54:49.053
Black folks to do,

00:54:49.053 --> 00:54:50.890
and it's mostly all about entertainment

00:54:50.890 --> 00:54:52.780
or backbreaking work.

00:54:52.780 --> 00:54:55.960
So where we have been given opportunity,

00:54:55.960 --> 00:54:58.427
we have tended to excel.

00:54:58.427 --> 00:55:02.470
- I think we have to unpack
the unique situations

00:55:02.470 --> 00:55:05.140
that lead to homelessness
in our communities.

00:55:05.140 --> 00:55:08.770
And then more specifically,
we have to look at

00:55:08.770 --> 00:55:11.560
those Blacks who are coming
out of similar situations

00:55:11.560 --> 00:55:12.610
who are not homeless.

00:55:12.610 --> 00:55:14.410
How are they doing that?

00:55:14.410 --> 00:55:16.810
- But the cause of homelessness,

00:55:16.810 --> 00:55:19.060
of the disparities in
homelessness for Black people

00:55:19.060 --> 00:55:20.080
is not drug use.

00:55:20.080 --> 00:55:22.720
If it were, as many white
people would be homeless

00:55:22.720 --> 00:55:23.920
as Black people.

00:55:23.920 --> 00:55:26.620
Black homelessness is much
more driven by poverty

00:55:26.620 --> 00:55:28.690
and by the rising cost of housing.

00:55:28.690 --> 00:55:30.760
- White children are
far more likely to get

00:55:30.760 --> 00:55:33.850
down payment assistance,
rental assistance,

00:55:33.850 --> 00:55:35.230
and other forms of assistance.

00:55:35.230 --> 00:55:37.000
And when they get assistance,

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:39.880
the amount of the
assistance is much larger

00:55:39.880 --> 00:55:41.590
because of the racial wealth gap.

00:55:41.590 --> 00:55:43.098
Which means that

00:55:43.098 --> 00:55:45.581
when Black families fall
into financial trouble,

00:55:45.581 --> 00:55:47.350
they don't have a safety net to draw upon.

00:55:47.350 --> 00:55:48.610
But white families do.

00:55:48.610 --> 00:55:50.710
Put that in the context of California,

00:55:50.710 --> 00:55:53.080
where housing costs are astronomical,

00:55:53.080 --> 00:55:55.690
two or three times greater
than the national median,

00:55:55.690 --> 00:55:57.730
then it's not surprising

00:55:57.730 --> 00:56:01.090
that you have A, much
greater rates of homelessness

00:56:01.090 --> 00:56:04.960
and B, that experience is
disproportionately Black.

00:56:04.960 --> 00:56:09.895
- The three factors highly
correlated with a violent outcome

00:56:11.170 --> 00:56:15.370
is frustration tolerance
or the lack thereof,

00:56:15.370 --> 00:56:16.280
depression,

00:56:17.320 --> 00:56:20.200
and how anger is mediated.

00:56:20.200 --> 00:56:23.110
When it comes to community impact,

00:56:23.110 --> 00:56:26.860
we see that impact as expressed

00:56:26.860 --> 00:56:28.210
in a number of different ways,

00:56:28.210 --> 00:56:29.530
definitely through violence.

00:56:29.530 --> 00:56:32.800
Besides violence, what we see is

00:56:32.800 --> 00:56:37.210
communities that begin to accept

00:56:37.210 --> 00:56:42.160
this sort of inhumane
existence as status quo.

00:56:42.160 --> 00:56:43.663
And that's very dangerous.

00:56:46.785 --> 00:56:49.952
[melancholy piano music]

00:57:06.820 --> 00:57:09.580
- For whatever reasons
in this unique moment,

00:57:09.580 --> 00:57:12.430
the American Psychiatric Association

00:57:12.430 --> 00:57:15.370
and the American Psychological Association

00:57:15.370 --> 00:57:19.639
have publicly apologized
to communities of color,

00:57:19.639 --> 00:57:21.430
and particularly Black communities,

00:57:21.430 --> 00:57:23.860
because they're owning up on the fact

00:57:23.860 --> 00:57:26.320
that much of their work has been

00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:28.660
perpetuating structural racism,

00:57:28.660 --> 00:57:32.770
either by commission in
terms of what they did

00:57:32.770 --> 00:57:35.834
or by omission, by not doing something.

00:57:35.834 --> 00:57:39.400
- The Association of Black
Psychologists has rejected

00:57:39.400 --> 00:57:42.130
the American Psychological
Association's apology

00:57:42.130 --> 00:57:46.120
of being complicit because
there has to be remediation.

00:57:46.120 --> 00:57:47.500
That if you have harmed Black people,

00:57:47.500 --> 00:57:51.130
how do you restore that
which you've harmed

00:57:51.130 --> 00:57:54.040
back to its wellness and wholeness?

00:57:54.040 --> 00:57:58.660
- When you are basing
your diagnosis on the DSM,

00:57:58.660 --> 00:58:01.060
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual,

00:58:01.060 --> 00:58:05.380
that really gives a "scientific portfolio"

00:58:05.380 --> 00:58:08.500
of when certain symptoms
show up or characterization,

00:58:08.500 --> 00:58:10.690
then it means that you have this illness.

00:58:10.690 --> 00:58:14.110
And when you have this
illness, this is the treatment.

00:58:14.110 --> 00:58:15.700
There's some validity to that.

00:58:15.700 --> 00:58:17.440
I'm not here to debate that.

00:58:17.440 --> 00:58:19.330
I'm here to say that it's not enough

00:58:19.330 --> 00:58:21.910
and sometimes it's the wrong medicine.

00:58:21.910 --> 00:58:26.110
Sometimes our behaviors
are normal reactions

00:58:26.110 --> 00:58:28.180
to abnormal situations.

00:58:28.180 --> 00:58:29.920
If you don't know that,

00:58:29.920 --> 00:58:32.920
then you're just treating the behaviors,

00:58:32.920 --> 00:58:34.210
then you're medicating something

00:58:34.210 --> 00:58:35.770
that doesn't need to be medicated.

00:58:35.770 --> 00:58:37.780
- So the difference
between white psychology

00:58:37.780 --> 00:58:41.890
and Black psychology is that
our lowest common denominator

00:58:41.890 --> 00:58:45.160
is group, is family, is clan.

00:58:45.160 --> 00:58:48.370
Their lowest common
denominator is the individual.

00:58:48.370 --> 00:58:51.910
Here in Oakland today, in those compounds,

00:58:51.910 --> 00:58:56.500
in those captive moments,
these little tent cities,

00:58:56.500 --> 00:58:58.630
there's still family in there.

00:58:58.630 --> 00:59:03.160
We as African people were
homeless for 400 years.

00:59:03.160 --> 00:59:05.290
It was called enslavement.

00:59:05.290 --> 00:59:06.940
That was not our home.

00:59:06.940 --> 00:59:11.918
But in that vulgar
condition of enslavement,

00:59:13.180 --> 00:59:14.300
we had family,

00:59:15.160 --> 00:59:16.780
and that was the difference.

00:59:16.780 --> 00:59:20.620
And that family was the healing balm

00:59:20.620 --> 00:59:23.140
that helped us get through that moment

00:59:23.140 --> 00:59:25.510
to reestablish a home.

00:59:25.510 --> 00:59:27.670
- If we could eradicate racial inequities,

00:59:27.670 --> 00:59:30.280
we would live in safer, more thriving,

00:59:30.280 --> 00:59:34.690
more healthy, more
collaborative communities.

00:59:34.690 --> 00:59:39.130
When you have huge differences
in economic opportunity

00:59:39.130 --> 00:59:42.370
is when you have very
serious social problems.

00:59:42.370 --> 00:59:43.420
And it's interesting to me

00:59:43.420 --> 00:59:47.290
that the Kerner Commission
told us that 52 years ago.

00:59:47.290 --> 00:59:49.300
They predicted where we would be

00:59:49.300 --> 00:59:51.670
if we did not do something
dramatically different

00:59:51.670 --> 00:59:53.740
after the uprisings in the '60s.

00:59:53.740 --> 00:59:56.140
Everything they said
then is still true now,

00:59:56.140 --> 00:59:58.840
except the country decided
not to implement any of it.

01:00:01.478 --> 01:00:04.395
[melancholy piano music]

01:00:11.350 --> 01:00:13.100
- [Ayodele] "Where we sleep tonight?"

01:00:15.100 --> 01:00:17.653
What's this lack of compassion say?

01:00:18.730 --> 01:00:21.253
If we can turn away, what's it create?

01:00:22.510 --> 01:00:23.980
How's anyone safe

01:00:23.980 --> 01:00:26.710
if this is how the world's made,

01:00:26.710 --> 01:00:29.983
if this is how the privileged behave?

01:00:30.820 --> 01:00:32.590
What do you expect

01:00:32.590 --> 01:00:34.423
to rise from the pavement,

01:00:35.710 --> 01:00:37.480
from the thrown away,

01:00:37.480 --> 01:00:40.690
not valued because they can't afford rent?

01:00:40.690 --> 01:00:43.180
Lucky if they got a tent.

01:00:43.180 --> 01:00:45.400
Shanty town child

01:00:45.400 --> 01:00:47.380
sleeping couch to couch,

01:00:47.380 --> 01:00:49.690
in a car, by the bus station,

01:00:49.690 --> 01:00:51.103
in the richest nation.

01:00:52.420 --> 01:00:56.203
In a cold, dangerous, dark world,

01:00:58.600 --> 01:00:59.510
who decides

01:01:01.990 --> 01:01:03.760
who lives, who dies?

01:01:03.760 --> 01:01:04.960
Who decides?

01:01:05.830 --> 01:01:06.853
Don't look away.

01:01:08.200 --> 01:01:10.513
Don't look away.

01:01:13.360 --> 01:01:14.193
America,

01:01:16.570 --> 01:01:19.540
this the testament, the story.

01:01:19.540 --> 01:01:21.700
Money over people.

01:01:21.700 --> 01:01:23.170
Don't care where you sleep.

01:01:23.170 --> 01:01:25.693
Don't care if children eat.

01:01:26.920 --> 01:01:27.883
Don't look away.

01:01:29.500 --> 01:01:31.903
Thrown away alive in America.

01:01:33.820 --> 01:01:34.900
Don't look away.

01:01:34.900 --> 01:01:36.583
"Where do we sleep tonight?"

01:01:39.430 --> 01:01:41.890
Tomorrow's always determined

01:01:41.890 --> 01:01:44.290
by the actions of today.

01:01:44.290 --> 01:01:46.693
Don't look away.

01:01:50.920 --> 01:01:52.750
- When people talk about
affordable housing,

01:01:52.750 --> 01:01:54.520
they're typically talking
about two different things.

01:01:54.520 --> 01:01:55.353
On the one hand,

01:01:55.353 --> 01:01:56.500
when people are talking
about affordable housing,

01:01:56.500 --> 01:01:58.990
they're talking about housing stock

01:01:58.990 --> 01:02:01.450
that's available to people
at very low incomes.

01:02:01.450 --> 01:02:03.070
Other people are talking
about affordable housing,

01:02:03.070 --> 01:02:05.500
they're talking about the
median price of housing.

01:02:05.500 --> 01:02:08.740
In California, the median
house is about $800,000.

01:02:08.740 --> 01:02:12.640
So, you can reduce the median
house value in California.

01:02:12.640 --> 01:02:15.610
Most housing stock, even the
lowest-cost housing segment,

01:02:15.610 --> 01:02:18.220
would not be affordable to
people at very low incomes.

01:02:18.220 --> 01:02:22.060
- So I think the affordability
crisis has to include

01:02:22.060 --> 01:02:24.820
homelessness, because
if we are making sure

01:02:24.820 --> 01:02:28.930
that people who are on
SSI can afford housing

01:02:28.930 --> 01:02:31.540
all the way up to working families

01:02:31.540 --> 01:02:36.340
who are floating between
couches, working two jobs,

01:02:36.340 --> 01:02:40.840
but still unable to afford
housing in their communities,

01:02:40.840 --> 01:02:45.340
then we can address that continuum of need

01:02:45.340 --> 01:02:46.900
with the right solutions.

01:02:46.900 --> 01:02:49.630
But if we are not even acknowledging

01:02:49.630 --> 01:02:52.540
that homelessness is a housing crisis

01:02:52.540 --> 01:02:55.540
and that people who are working

01:02:55.540 --> 01:02:57.760
still can't afford to live here,

01:02:57.760 --> 01:02:59.293
then we're missing the point.

01:03:00.220 --> 01:03:02.620
- Most of the families that I see

01:03:02.620 --> 01:03:04.840
have parents that are working,

01:03:04.840 --> 01:03:07.000
and they're working full-time,

01:03:07.000 --> 01:03:09.850
sometimes two jobs, three jobs.

01:03:09.850 --> 01:03:11.800
If there's two parents in the family,

01:03:11.800 --> 01:03:14.680
they're both working, oftentimes,

01:03:14.680 --> 01:03:18.970
and their income can just be not enough.

01:03:18.970 --> 01:03:21.610
Our society is not set up

01:03:21.610 --> 01:03:25.390
to support all levels of need.

01:03:25.390 --> 01:03:30.340
- I think it starts with making
that courageous commitment

01:03:30.340 --> 01:03:34.210
at the state level, counties
then being held accountable

01:03:34.210 --> 01:03:37.660
for distributing those
resources to their cities,

01:03:37.660 --> 01:03:39.370
to the entire ecosystem

01:03:39.370 --> 01:03:42.700
surrounding those of our
neighbors who are unhoused

01:03:42.700 --> 01:03:44.870
and those who are just on the brink

01:03:45.910 --> 01:03:47.683
and tracking our progress.

01:03:48.760 --> 01:03:50.590
Hold ourselves accountable.

01:03:50.590 --> 01:03:53.440
- The Point-In-Time
count is an annual count

01:03:53.440 --> 01:03:56.950
of homelessness in any given community.

01:03:56.950 --> 01:04:00.340
One of the things that
I can say for certain,

01:04:00.340 --> 01:04:04.210
having been in the driver's
seat of the Point-In-Time count,

01:04:04.210 --> 01:04:06.490
is nothing is foolproof.

01:04:06.490 --> 01:04:08.800
I think that's just, you know,

01:04:08.800 --> 01:04:13.000
the fluidity of homelessness in general.

01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:18.000
But in addition to that,
I think a lot of context

01:04:18.658 --> 01:04:21.642
is lacking in HUD definitions
of what homelessness is.

01:04:21.642 --> 01:04:24.610
If I'm not allowed to count you,

01:04:24.610 --> 01:04:26.830
and you're couch surfing, right,

01:04:26.830 --> 01:04:28.720
but technically you don't have

01:04:28.720 --> 01:04:30.640
a nighttime fixed residence

01:04:30.640 --> 01:04:32.140
and maybe it's not just you,

01:04:32.140 --> 01:04:33.940
you might be with your children,

01:04:33.940 --> 01:04:36.640
then yes, you essentially
have fallen through

01:04:36.640 --> 01:04:38.620
the cracks of our count.

01:04:38.620 --> 01:04:43.620
And in many ways that adds
to a level of inaccuracy

01:04:43.900 --> 01:04:46.360
when we think about the
totality of the problem.

01:04:46.360 --> 01:04:50.500
- We need to face the
fact that we as a country

01:04:50.500 --> 01:04:53.380
haven't said that we think
a roof over someone's head

01:04:53.380 --> 01:04:54.940
is a basic human right.

01:04:54.940 --> 01:04:56.230
We just haven't said that.

01:04:56.230 --> 01:04:57.340
Before the Affordable Care Act,

01:04:57.340 --> 01:04:58.600
we hadn't said that we thought healthcare

01:04:58.600 --> 01:04:59.800
was a basic human right.

01:05:00.778 --> 01:05:05.778
And so I think we need to face
our values, or lack thereof,

01:05:05.920 --> 01:05:07.813
as it relates to our humanity,

01:05:08.980 --> 01:05:10.480
and then we need to work from there.

01:05:10.480 --> 01:05:14.260
And I think trying to skip
that step makes it where, yes,

01:05:14.260 --> 01:05:16.420
you're going to have,

01:05:16.420 --> 01:05:19.060
"Well, we need to sprinkle
the resources evenly around

01:05:19.060 --> 01:05:21.520
"so that politically it's acceptable,"

01:05:21.520 --> 01:05:23.230
and you won't make a dent,

01:05:23.230 --> 01:05:25.870
and you definitely won't
overcome any disparities

01:05:25.870 --> 01:05:27.490
or create any equity.

01:05:27.490 --> 01:05:28.323
- People in the beginning

01:05:28.323 --> 01:05:29.998
when we first started
doing this work went,

01:05:29.998 --> 01:05:32.110
"What's equity? How will you
know when you get there?"

01:05:32.110 --> 01:05:35.110
Well, because outcomes
will be just and fair,

01:05:35.110 --> 01:05:39.640
and we will have people of all
ilks thriving in this society

01:05:39.640 --> 01:05:42.430
and all the people who've been
held back will be thriving.

01:05:42.430 --> 01:05:44.680
And so I just start explaining
all of that to them.

01:05:44.680 --> 01:05:47.500
We basically break it
down and build it back up

01:05:47.500 --> 01:05:49.030
so they can see it differently.

01:05:49.030 --> 01:05:51.280
Fortunately, social change
doesn't need everyone,

01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:52.540
it just needs enough.

01:05:52.540 --> 01:05:54.250
That's all that happened in
the civil rights movement.

01:05:54.250 --> 01:05:57.490
Everybody was not on board,
and most of them weren't sure

01:05:57.490 --> 01:05:59.230
that those changes were a good idea.

01:05:59.230 --> 01:06:01.660
When I look back and I
think about my people

01:06:01.660 --> 01:06:03.250
and their enslavement,

01:06:03.250 --> 01:06:06.160
there was much resistance
all during that time.

01:06:06.160 --> 01:06:07.900
So it was no light matter

01:06:07.900 --> 01:06:10.120
to think that you were
going to free yourself

01:06:10.120 --> 01:06:12.100
or your children or your wife.

01:06:12.100 --> 01:06:14.140
The reason I tell that story

01:06:14.140 --> 01:06:18.190
is the audacity of those
Black enslaved people

01:06:18.190 --> 01:06:20.320
to think they were gonna take on

01:06:20.320 --> 01:06:23.950
the all-powerful agricultural South,

01:06:23.950 --> 01:06:27.340
something that had nearly
kept the country from forming

01:06:27.340 --> 01:06:28.450
in the first place.

01:06:28.450 --> 01:06:30.310
They knew what they were taking on,

01:06:30.310 --> 01:06:32.200
and they did it anyway.

01:06:32.200 --> 01:06:34.510
It starts with a small
group of determined people

01:06:34.510 --> 01:06:36.370
who just don't stop.

01:06:36.370 --> 01:06:38.830
- Housing justice is racial justice.

01:06:38.830 --> 01:06:43.030
We aren't just talking
about the fundamentals

01:06:43.030 --> 01:06:44.860
of having a place to live.

01:06:44.860 --> 01:06:47.798
We are talking about
Black and Brown people

01:06:47.798 --> 01:06:51.430
who have been excluded from housing

01:06:51.430 --> 01:06:53.710
in their communities for decades

01:06:53.710 --> 01:06:57.100
being able to thrive, not just subsist,

01:06:57.100 --> 01:07:00.250
not just get by once
they have the housing,

01:07:00.250 --> 01:07:02.980
and I think that's what
the movement is about.

01:07:02.980 --> 01:07:07.471
- Part of it is really leading
with our values that says,

01:07:07.471 --> 01:07:09.372
yeah, it's an emergency if a
child is living on the streets.

01:07:09.372 --> 01:07:11.590
We have to drop everything
and do what we have to do.

01:07:11.590 --> 01:07:13.180
It's gonna cost us more upfront

01:07:13.180 --> 01:07:15.313
and we'll figure out the rest later.

01:07:16.270 --> 01:07:20.740
And in this capitalist society,
people think that's crazy.

01:07:20.740 --> 01:07:21.940
That is flat-out crazy.

01:07:21.940 --> 01:07:23.590
You wait till you get the money first

01:07:23.590 --> 01:07:25.450
and then you can implement things.

01:07:25.450 --> 01:07:27.220
That is a big part of our problem.

01:07:27.220 --> 01:07:30.760
And so I think leading with
our values is important,

01:07:30.760 --> 01:07:33.970
and also kind of putting our
money where our mouth is.

01:07:33.970 --> 01:07:38.890
- We spend, annually, $20 billion a year

01:07:38.890 --> 01:07:41.320
on the California Corrections Department

01:07:41.320 --> 01:07:45.107
to incarcerate folks in
the State of California.

01:07:45.107 --> 01:07:49.000
$20 billion annually.

01:07:49.000 --> 01:07:53.320
If we were able to secure
$20 billion annually

01:07:53.320 --> 01:07:55.990
to address homelessness
and housing insecurity

01:07:55.990 --> 01:07:57.880
across the State of California,

01:07:57.880 --> 01:08:00.850
we could eliminate
homelessness in five years.

01:08:00.850 --> 01:08:02.590
- From my personal experience,

01:08:02.590 --> 01:08:05.560
just being incarcerated itself,

01:08:05.560 --> 01:08:09.070
just, there's a lot of
barriers when you get out.

01:08:09.070 --> 01:08:10.600
Originally when I was arrested,

01:08:10.600 --> 01:08:13.990
I was 16 and I was homeless then.

01:08:13.990 --> 01:08:16.060
I did eight years then.

01:08:16.060 --> 01:08:17.950
So even when I got out,

01:08:17.950 --> 01:08:19.390
I never paid for rent before.

01:08:19.390 --> 01:08:21.460
I was only 16 when I got locked up.

01:08:21.460 --> 01:08:22.990
So...

01:08:22.990 --> 01:08:25.630
going down and coming
out with no experience

01:08:25.630 --> 01:08:27.910
of having a house or a job.

01:08:27.910 --> 01:08:29.650
My first jobs were in prison,

01:08:29.650 --> 01:08:32.590
so it made it even harder,
getting out of jail,

01:08:32.590 --> 01:08:33.727
trying to figure things out.

01:08:33.727 --> 01:08:35.323
And now I have a felony.

01:08:37.600 --> 01:08:39.560
- From a two-floor skyline

01:08:41.080 --> 01:08:43.100
an abandoned house talked to me.

01:08:44.586 --> 01:08:47.110
It said young man, you are heroic

01:08:47.110 --> 01:08:48.313
and 10 years old.

01:08:49.270 --> 01:08:51.040
Among 20 generations of friends,

01:08:51.040 --> 01:08:53.020
your friends will free fall away.

01:08:53.020 --> 01:08:54.010
They will free fall up.

01:08:54.010 --> 01:08:55.960
They'll free fall the walls
with fifth grade speed

01:08:55.960 --> 01:08:58.570
to industrial paint
behind secondhand fences.

01:08:58.570 --> 01:09:00.610
Young man, use quick knife tones,

01:09:00.610 --> 01:09:02.890
be bone and brass, be last laugh music.

01:09:02.890 --> 01:09:04.270
You are always leaving,

01:09:04.270 --> 01:09:05.890
always one change of
clothes from the door,

01:09:05.890 --> 01:09:07.090
a life in escape.

01:09:07.090 --> 01:09:09.070
Two-floor skyline says
you the guide that dies

01:09:09.070 --> 01:09:09.910
in the middle.

01:09:09.910 --> 01:09:11.650
The friend more blues than skin.

01:09:11.650 --> 01:09:13.780
The face that cheap hotel
schizophrenics can place

01:09:13.780 --> 01:09:15.520
with their 90 mile per hour right eyes

01:09:15.520 --> 01:09:16.720
among dry heat killers.

01:09:16.720 --> 01:09:18.850
Once children, three feet high and roaming

01:09:18.850 --> 01:09:20.740
and repeating and aiming at cotton mirrors

01:09:20.740 --> 01:09:21.760
that hang on breathing walls.

01:09:21.760 --> 01:09:23.980
You are 10 years old, tagging along,

01:09:23.980 --> 01:09:26.320
yawning at well-lit violence
whistling two shot songs.

01:09:26.320 --> 01:09:27.220
You will be useful.

01:09:27.220 --> 01:09:29.800
You'll be behind alone
flying on a nephew dragon

01:09:29.800 --> 01:09:31.240
from a $20 family in the sky

01:09:31.240 --> 01:09:32.890
that calls itself just more soil

01:09:32.890 --> 01:09:34.120
around walls that are just walls.

01:09:34.120 --> 01:09:36.220
Except these walls suggest
you make wives outta highs

01:09:36.220 --> 01:09:37.053
in currency.

01:09:37.053 --> 01:09:40.180
Here the air is polite to
sleepy glass and bullying walls.

01:09:40.180 --> 01:09:41.780
Young man you will come to admit

01:09:42.910 --> 01:09:45.520
that sometimes suicide is power

01:09:45.520 --> 01:09:47.650
because some people
live stronger as ghosts

01:09:47.650 --> 01:09:49.540
and sometimes the afterlife empties

01:09:49.540 --> 01:09:51.880
billions of souls into objects
like playground bullets

01:09:51.880 --> 01:09:52.930
in abandoned door frames.

01:09:52.930 --> 01:09:55.090
Even broken glass will
prove it has voice too.

01:09:55.090 --> 01:09:56.950
There are 24 hours behind your back.

01:09:56.950 --> 01:09:58.150
Look over your shoulder right now.

01:09:58.150 --> 01:09:58.983
Can you hear it?

01:09:58.983 --> 01:10:00.730
The sound of drums
punching themselves out.

01:10:00.730 --> 01:10:01.960
The sound of piano parts learned

01:10:01.960 --> 01:10:03.550
in between assassination attempts.

01:10:03.550 --> 01:10:04.570
Be bone and brass,

01:10:04.570 --> 01:10:06.010
be bone enough for two souls.

01:10:06.010 --> 01:10:07.060
Be invincible again.

01:10:07.060 --> 01:10:09.220
Suffer red-eyed accidents,
professional fingertips,

01:10:09.220 --> 01:10:10.750
gifted victim, six in the morning beer

01:10:10.750 --> 01:10:12.160
the first month of probation,

01:10:12.160 --> 01:10:13.000
the shout at the wall.

01:10:13.000 --> 01:10:14.665
See these words that shouldn't be home.

01:10:14.665 --> 01:10:15.790
Look behind you again.

01:10:15.790 --> 01:10:16.960
Be invincible again.

01:10:16.960 --> 01:10:18.850
Be windward, be a sad machete.

01:10:18.850 --> 01:10:21.490
Be her son, be a thief, steal this back.

01:10:21.490 --> 01:10:24.010
Laugh too long and never look away.

01:10:24.010 --> 01:10:27.181
The afterlife will
empty and walk you home.

01:10:31.120 --> 01:10:36.120
- Having chronic stress is
leading to toxic stress,

01:10:36.220 --> 01:10:38.470
and that leads to changes

01:10:38.470 --> 01:10:43.470
in a child's brain development,
in their overall health.

01:10:43.619 --> 01:10:47.200
As they get older, that leads
to chronic health issues

01:10:47.200 --> 01:10:49.300
that can last for years and years,

01:10:49.300 --> 01:10:51.850
even after they become stably housed.

01:10:51.850 --> 01:10:54.790
- I struggled for a minute,
I was in and out of shelters.

01:10:54.790 --> 01:10:58.270
I remember one shelter, it was...

01:10:58.270 --> 01:10:59.800
East Oakland Community Project.

01:10:59.800 --> 01:11:02.290
They housed me, but they
stopped paying my rent.

01:11:02.290 --> 01:11:05.680
So, I was forced to move to Arizona.

01:11:05.680 --> 01:11:08.590
I think I was 24 at the time,

01:11:08.590 --> 01:11:10.900
and I lived in Arizona with my sister.

01:11:10.900 --> 01:11:14.110
Everything was going
good for about two years.

01:11:14.110 --> 01:11:16.630
We ended up having our
issue and falling out.

01:11:16.630 --> 01:11:20.680
Came back to Oakland in
2020 during the pandemic

01:11:20.680 --> 01:11:21.880
and I was homeless again.

01:11:21.880 --> 01:11:25.030
But this time I wasn't in a
shelter, everything was full,

01:11:25.030 --> 01:11:28.573
and me and my kids were
stuck sleeping in cars.

01:11:29.680 --> 01:11:30.590
And...

01:11:31.720 --> 01:11:33.250
I'm gonna get emotional, I'm sorry.

01:11:33.250 --> 01:11:34.083
But...

01:11:35.620 --> 01:11:37.120
when we were sleeping in the cars,

01:11:37.120 --> 01:11:40.311
I tried to make it as fun
as I could to distract them

01:11:40.311 --> 01:11:42.728
that we were sleeping
in cars in West Oakland.

01:11:42.728 --> 01:11:45.340
So I put up a movie for them,

01:11:45.340 --> 01:11:47.030
we'll have snacks and stuff like that.

01:11:47.030 --> 01:11:48.880
And I did that for about six months

01:11:48.880 --> 01:11:51.460
before a shelter came available.

01:11:51.460 --> 01:11:53.470
- I was at a shelter with my mom.

01:11:53.470 --> 01:11:55.840
That's how I met my friend Kalaya.

01:11:55.840 --> 01:11:58.300
I liked moving into the new house.

01:11:58.300 --> 01:12:00.400
I liked the way they looked.

01:12:00.400 --> 01:12:02.200
They were all so cool.

01:12:02.200 --> 01:12:03.040
I like school.

01:12:03.040 --> 01:12:06.280
I like to read "Diary
of a Wimpy Kid" books.

01:12:06.280 --> 01:12:08.620
I feel happy when I'm walking
around my neighborhood

01:12:08.620 --> 01:12:11.860
'cause this store is,
like, right by our house

01:12:11.860 --> 01:12:15.250
and, um, we can get ice cream sometimes.

01:12:15.250 --> 01:12:18.820
My favorite memory was
when I was with my cousin.

01:12:18.820 --> 01:12:20.710
I was in Arizona.

01:12:20.710 --> 01:12:24.550
We went to the waterpark
and we went swimming,

01:12:24.550 --> 01:12:27.250
and then there was,
like, this water slide.

01:12:27.250 --> 01:12:30.790
A big thing about having
my own house is that

01:12:30.790 --> 01:12:35.790
we have our own space and stuff
and we can do what we want.

01:12:36.730 --> 01:12:39.370
- A shelter had became
available in San Leandro,

01:12:39.370 --> 01:12:43.420
so I ended up moving to
a shelter in San Leandro.

01:12:43.420 --> 01:12:45.970
It was a relief 'cause we
weren't in a car anymore.

01:12:45.970 --> 01:12:48.490
We had a stable place
to be for the moment.

01:12:48.490 --> 01:12:51.190
I ended up staying there for about a year

01:12:51.190 --> 01:12:53.230
and I ended up being housed.

01:12:53.230 --> 01:12:55.120
I just got housed in April.

01:12:55.120 --> 01:12:58.195
So, we moved to High Street

01:12:58.195 --> 01:13:03.194
and it was a relief to be housed.

01:13:03.194 --> 01:13:05.860
But during the process
of not being housed,

01:13:05.860 --> 01:13:08.830
it was hard trying to
get my kids to school,

01:13:08.830 --> 01:13:10.090
trying to find a job,

01:13:10.090 --> 01:13:12.130
because I sometimes didn't know

01:13:12.130 --> 01:13:14.860
if I was going to be able to
stay at the shelter or not.

01:13:14.860 --> 01:13:16.330
I became really depressed

01:13:16.330 --> 01:13:18.460
because why is this happening to me again?

01:13:18.460 --> 01:13:19.450
When I was in Arizona,

01:13:19.450 --> 01:13:20.920
I was making a cool amount of money,

01:13:20.920 --> 01:13:23.860
but it wasn't enough money
to afford my own place.

01:13:23.860 --> 01:13:26.620
I was always stuck in
the middle somewhere,

01:13:26.620 --> 01:13:28.780
and it's like I'm trying my hardest,

01:13:28.780 --> 01:13:30.880
I'm trying to take care
of both of my daughters

01:13:30.880 --> 01:13:35.560
and get a job, but I'm
falling short somewhere.

01:13:35.560 --> 01:13:37.990
Some days I didn't even
wanna get out the bed

01:13:37.990 --> 01:13:40.720
to go look for a job because
it's like, it's no use,

01:13:40.720 --> 01:13:42.250
because even if I do get a job

01:13:42.250 --> 01:13:45.820
I'm not saving enough
money to get my own place.

01:13:45.820 --> 01:13:48.578
- There's a level of
desperation that families

01:13:48.578 --> 01:13:52.353
who don't have community
support or family support

01:13:52.353 --> 01:13:56.203
who have to rely on the
homelessness response system

01:13:56.203 --> 01:13:57.520
to come into shelter,

01:13:57.520 --> 01:14:01.060
and what that trauma feels like for them

01:14:01.060 --> 01:14:02.410
and for their children.

01:14:02.410 --> 01:14:04.960
Many of those folks are working already.

01:14:04.960 --> 01:14:06.376
They're doing all the things

01:14:06.376 --> 01:14:08.560
that we say they are supposed to

01:14:08.560 --> 01:14:11.020
to be self-sufficient in our society.

01:14:11.020 --> 01:14:16.020
And so when we saw through
COVID the childcare tax credit

01:14:16.720 --> 01:14:21.430
that allowed families to
have access to childcare,

01:14:21.430 --> 01:14:23.170
the rental assistance dollars

01:14:23.170 --> 01:14:26.050
that were administered
through the CARES Act,

01:14:26.050 --> 01:14:29.680
those stabilizing forces for families

01:14:29.680 --> 01:14:32.320
allowed them to actually stabilize.

01:14:32.320 --> 01:14:36.640
- Every administration,
there's tax cuts on the rich

01:14:36.640 --> 01:14:37.930
but increases on the poor.

01:14:37.930 --> 01:14:39.688
So if that continues, I mean,

01:14:39.688 --> 01:14:41.721
you're gonna get what we're seeing now,

01:14:41.721 --> 01:14:45.040
which is wages not keeping
pace with inflation

01:14:45.040 --> 01:14:46.930
since the '70s.

01:14:46.930 --> 01:14:48.130
- In the period of the Great Recession,

01:14:48.130 --> 01:14:51.100
2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,

01:14:51.100 --> 01:14:53.290
Black wealth essentially collapsed.

01:14:53.290 --> 01:14:54.640
If you include home values,

01:14:54.640 --> 01:14:57.310
it's something like a
disparity of $700,000.

01:14:57.310 --> 01:15:00.730
If you exclude home values,
it's about $180,000,

01:15:00.730 --> 01:15:01.930
is the wealth gap.

01:15:01.930 --> 01:15:04.900
The Federal Reserve has
projected that by around 2050,

01:15:04.900 --> 01:15:07.480
Black net wealth in the
United States will be zero.

01:15:07.480 --> 01:15:11.650
So in some ways,
structural racism is worse

01:15:11.650 --> 01:15:15.070
as we move deeper into the
21st century, not better.

01:15:15.070 --> 01:15:18.380
- I think overall it really took us

01:15:19.840 --> 01:15:24.840
about five to six years to get,

01:15:25.412 --> 01:15:28.695
like, a permanent housing
and housed in a home

01:15:28.695 --> 01:15:31.894
and in a neighborhood that...

01:15:34.660 --> 01:15:37.030
was not too far from
actually where I grew up.

01:15:37.030 --> 01:15:38.590
So...

01:15:38.590 --> 01:15:40.720
that's where we are now.

01:15:40.720 --> 01:15:45.720
Felicity does have chronic asthma

01:15:46.180 --> 01:15:48.220
that has typically been controlled,

01:15:48.220 --> 01:15:51.040
but up until the last three years

01:15:51.040 --> 01:15:55.715
she's been hospitalized
once every six months

01:15:55.715 --> 01:15:58.540
for uncontrolled asthma.

01:15:58.540 --> 01:16:03.190
- I often see kids whose
asthma will get exacerbated

01:16:03.190 --> 01:16:04.840
and they'll end up having asthma attacks

01:16:04.840 --> 01:16:08.290
and end up having to be seen more often,

01:16:08.290 --> 01:16:11.170
whereas they may have
been in better control

01:16:11.170 --> 01:16:13.180
for their asthma if they
were staying somewhere

01:16:13.180 --> 01:16:17.380
where they had control over
their living situation.

01:16:17.380 --> 01:16:22.380
- They create these
temporary housing situations,

01:16:22.570 --> 01:16:23.600
and...

01:16:24.820 --> 01:16:27.670
they think that people are
supposed to just accept the fact

01:16:27.670 --> 01:16:29.780
that they're under a roof

01:16:31.390 --> 01:16:33.970
and they may not have running water

01:16:33.970 --> 01:16:38.650
or they may not have proper ventilation.

01:16:38.650 --> 01:16:42.760
And I worked a lot with
programs like Asthma Start

01:16:42.760 --> 01:16:45.790
that would advocate that
no, they can't move in here.

01:16:45.790 --> 01:16:47.740
This doesn't have proper ventilation.

01:16:47.740 --> 01:16:49.390
This has mold.

01:16:49.390 --> 01:16:51.040
It was definitely a fight.

01:16:51.040 --> 01:16:53.080
I wanted them to know that isolate

01:16:53.080 --> 01:16:54.970
and then being quiet about it

01:16:54.970 --> 01:16:59.590
isn't gonna help you
get to where we are now,

01:16:59.590 --> 01:17:04.571
in a house that is big enough
for us that we can call home.

01:17:12.520 --> 01:17:15.310
- It really affects children's ability

01:17:15.310 --> 01:17:20.050
to concentrate in school,
and their mental health.

01:17:20.050 --> 01:17:23.050
And I know for even my son,
he wouldn't walk.

01:17:23.050 --> 01:17:26.080
He didn't walk, I think it
was like maybe 15 months.

01:17:26.080 --> 01:17:29.590
He didn't walk until we
moved into Mom's house.

01:17:29.590 --> 01:17:31.150
We were staying at different hotels

01:17:31.150 --> 01:17:32.860
and if you know about children,

01:17:32.860 --> 01:17:35.837
they pull up first and then
they try to take a step.

01:17:35.837 --> 01:17:37.990
They, you know, get fearful, kind of pause

01:17:37.990 --> 01:17:39.250
and then, you know, they learn.

01:17:39.250 --> 01:17:40.570
He wasn't able to do that

01:17:40.570 --> 01:17:42.640
because we didn't have a place to live.

01:17:42.640 --> 01:17:46.330
So, it's so essential for your children

01:17:46.330 --> 01:17:49.198
to get that basic start
of just having shelter.

01:17:50.590 --> 01:17:53.410
- Traumatic events can happen

01:17:53.410 --> 01:17:58.410
in a way that actually
changes the cellular structure

01:17:58.840 --> 01:18:03.100
so that genes that normally
would not be expressed

01:18:03.100 --> 01:18:04.300
get expressed.

01:18:04.300 --> 01:18:06.220
And when that happens,

01:18:06.220 --> 01:18:09.520
we're going to see expression of

01:18:09.520 --> 01:18:13.750
genes for depression,

01:18:13.750 --> 01:18:16.780
a tendency towards PTSD,

01:18:16.780 --> 01:18:18.970
post-traumatic stress disorder,

01:18:18.970 --> 01:18:21.670
and other stress-related disorders.

01:18:21.670 --> 01:18:25.795
So, we understand the harm.

01:18:25.795 --> 01:18:27.400
We do.

01:18:27.400 --> 01:18:31.360
The resources are a
matter of prioritizing.

01:18:31.360 --> 01:18:35.203
But in this country that
has so many resources,

01:18:36.310 --> 01:18:41.295
still, we can't seem to muster

01:18:42.220 --> 01:18:43.930
the will.

01:18:43.930 --> 01:18:46.012
- Five years ago, when
we first started doing

01:18:46.012 --> 01:18:48.550
street medicine, the vast
majority of our patients

01:18:48.550 --> 01:18:51.940
did have a mental health condition

01:18:51.940 --> 01:18:53.170
plus substance abuse,

01:18:53.170 --> 01:18:54.550
the vast majority.

01:18:54.550 --> 01:18:56.293
That is no longer the case.

01:18:57.640 --> 01:19:00.695
You will have a mental health condition

01:19:00.695 --> 01:19:02.380
and a substance use problem
after living out there

01:19:02.380 --> 01:19:04.090
for a certain period of time.

01:19:04.090 --> 01:19:07.870
But there are a number of people who were

01:19:07.870 --> 01:19:10.345
dumped out of our prisons when we decided

01:19:10.345 --> 01:19:12.190
prison overcrowding was a problem.

01:19:12.190 --> 01:19:13.930
Okay, that's good, we
wanna decarcerate people,

01:19:13.930 --> 01:19:16.180
but then with no way to get a job

01:19:16.180 --> 01:19:18.460
because you've created so
many barriers to employment?

01:19:18.460 --> 01:19:20.560
These are structural issues
that need to be addressed,

01:19:20.560 --> 01:19:24.430
and one thing that we will
not do is normalize this.

01:19:24.430 --> 01:19:28.072
- Just because you made a mistake

01:19:28.072 --> 01:19:30.220
doesn't mean you should
be excluded from housing,

01:19:30.220 --> 01:19:32.890
or once you're incarcerated
and do your time

01:19:32.890 --> 01:19:34.960
you shouldn't have to keep doing time

01:19:34.960 --> 01:19:37.900
or have barriers like housing

01:19:37.900 --> 01:19:41.980
because a lot of reasons for
people being incarcerated

01:19:41.980 --> 01:19:43.960
come from not having housing

01:19:43.960 --> 01:19:46.540
or not having, like, adequate things

01:19:46.540 --> 01:19:47.680
to take care of their self.

01:19:47.680 --> 01:19:49.840
So, you know, the only
thing that's gonna come

01:19:49.840 --> 01:19:52.600
from denying people housing,
denying people rights,

01:19:52.600 --> 01:19:55.840
is just more crime, so it's like--

01:19:55.840 --> 01:19:58.630
It's just the system feeding itself.

01:19:58.630 --> 01:20:00.730
- I used to think that
the system was broken,

01:20:00.730 --> 01:20:02.260
but I believe that it's designed to do

01:20:02.260 --> 01:20:07.060
exactly what it's doing,
which is keeping masses poor,

01:20:07.060 --> 01:20:09.760
keeping people frustrated,

01:20:09.760 --> 01:20:13.360
because that keeps power
concentrated in a few hands.

01:20:13.360 --> 01:20:14.740
- You can't fix a machine

01:20:14.740 --> 01:20:16.510
if you don't know how the machine works,

01:20:16.510 --> 01:20:19.360
because we have this
dominant narrative that says

01:20:19.360 --> 01:20:21.610
that the conditions that people
of color find themselves in

01:20:21.610 --> 01:20:22.443
are their fault.

01:20:22.443 --> 01:20:25.120
We even internalize that
belief about ourselves.

01:20:25.120 --> 01:20:26.920
Because the history of why it was done

01:20:26.920 --> 01:20:28.510
and how it was done
and by whom it was done

01:20:28.510 --> 01:20:30.820
and when and where it was
done has been withheld,

01:20:30.820 --> 01:20:32.470
we made up a story about it

01:20:32.470 --> 01:20:34.960
and it's a "blame the victim" story.

01:20:34.960 --> 01:20:38.140
Now we know that human
beings develop themselves,

01:20:38.140 --> 01:20:39.760
their lives, their families,

01:20:39.760 --> 01:20:43.110
they make their choices, if
you will, their life choices,

01:20:43.110 --> 01:20:48.110
in context and relationship to
the available opportunities.

01:20:48.130 --> 01:20:49.570
In other words, you can't choose something

01:20:49.570 --> 01:20:51.010
that's not available to you.

01:20:51.010 --> 01:20:54.564
- If we had the resources
and the political will

01:20:54.564 --> 01:20:56.860
to tell the truth about history

01:20:56.860 --> 01:20:59.890
and why Black people are the
majority of the population

01:20:59.890 --> 01:21:02.400
of homeless individuals in Alameda County,

01:21:02.400 --> 01:21:03.970
in the city of Oakland,

01:21:03.970 --> 01:21:05.770
then we can start to get to some answers.

01:21:05.770 --> 01:21:07.690
And I plan on doing
that through legislation

01:21:07.690 --> 01:21:09.070
that I'm working on,

01:21:09.070 --> 01:21:11.110
but I also understand that legislation

01:21:11.110 --> 01:21:13.780
is not the silver bullet
to address these issues.

01:21:13.780 --> 01:21:18.040
We need federal, state,
county and local answers

01:21:18.040 --> 01:21:19.150
about what's happening.

01:21:19.150 --> 01:21:21.430
That looks like reparations, right?

01:21:21.430 --> 01:21:22.400
That looks like

01:21:23.290 --> 01:21:25.660
an acknowledgement of how municipalities

01:21:25.660 --> 01:21:28.660
and private industry and
banks and insurance companies

01:21:28.660 --> 01:21:31.690
have created the conditions
that we are experiencing today.

01:21:31.690 --> 01:21:34.510
It looks like, how has law enforcement

01:21:34.510 --> 01:21:38.144
criminalized homelessness,
has criminalized poverty.

01:21:38.144 --> 01:21:39.850
So it takes an honest assessment

01:21:39.850 --> 01:21:42.370
in not divorcing the past from the present

01:21:42.370 --> 01:21:45.310
so that we can do
something about it today.

01:21:45.310 --> 01:21:47.110
- None of the policies that we have

01:21:47.110 --> 01:21:50.470
can actually zero out
the racial wealth gap

01:21:50.470 --> 01:21:52.480
aside from reparations.

01:21:52.480 --> 01:21:53.446
Dr. Darity at Duke,

01:21:53.446 --> 01:21:55.870
who is the leading expert on this topic,

01:21:55.870 --> 01:21:59.170
says the only entity
who can give reparations

01:21:59.170 --> 01:22:00.550
is the federal government.

01:22:00.550 --> 01:22:02.500
And so there's different
harms to be remedied.

01:22:02.500 --> 01:22:07.500
Reparations is a very worthy policy goal.

01:22:07.570 --> 01:22:10.660
- I believe it looks
like funding education,

01:22:10.660 --> 01:22:13.785
funding housing,
funding all of the things

01:22:13.785 --> 01:22:15.560
that we need to survive,

01:22:15.560 --> 01:22:17.620
not just one lump sum of money.

01:22:17.620 --> 01:22:21.160
That doesn't change the
systematic and structural things

01:22:21.160 --> 01:22:23.980
that keep us in the
predicament that we're in.

01:22:23.980 --> 01:22:28.480
Those are the things that
reparation looks like to me.

01:22:28.480 --> 01:22:31.663
- I think the larger challenge
with reparations is this.

01:22:32.680 --> 01:22:36.820
If structural racism is
a set of interlocking

01:22:36.820 --> 01:22:41.140
and interconnected patterns
across American society--

01:22:41.140 --> 01:22:44.080
interconnected markets,
structures of housing,

01:22:44.080 --> 01:22:46.450
healthcare delivery, so on and
so forth, all these things,

01:22:46.450 --> 01:22:47.890
labor markets--

01:22:47.890 --> 01:22:52.450
then cash payments to zero
out wealth disparities

01:22:52.450 --> 01:22:56.830
will not necessarily end
those patterns, right?

01:22:56.830 --> 01:23:01.002
And in fact, within a few
years or within a generation,

01:23:01.002 --> 01:23:03.970
while there may be a reduction
in structural racism,

01:23:03.970 --> 01:23:05.650
it could continue to persist.

01:23:05.650 --> 01:23:08.290
- All I've ever known my
whole life is survival.

01:23:08.290 --> 01:23:10.420
I've always been stuck in survival mode.

01:23:10.420 --> 01:23:11.560
I'm stable for the moment,

01:23:11.560 --> 01:23:14.320
but I feel like I'm always
repeating the same cycle

01:23:14.320 --> 01:23:15.880
no matter how hard I try.

01:23:15.880 --> 01:23:19.030
- I had to start all over
and pick up the pieces.

01:23:19.030 --> 01:23:21.190
And so then when I moved to Oakland,

01:23:21.190 --> 01:23:22.120
I couldn't find anything

01:23:22.120 --> 01:23:23.860
because I had an eviction on my record.

01:23:23.860 --> 01:23:26.890
It was just this tumultuous
relationship with housing.

01:23:26.890 --> 01:23:30.850
Researching, I found out how
evictions impact Black women

01:23:30.850 --> 01:23:35.650
in the same way that mass
incarceration impacts Black men.

01:23:35.650 --> 01:23:37.630
And then, you know, just
trying to find housing

01:23:37.630 --> 01:23:39.880
with a child, it was hard.

01:23:39.880 --> 01:23:42.040
So a lot of the things that
I learned about housing,

01:23:42.040 --> 01:23:44.110
I learned through my
own personal experience.

01:23:44.110 --> 01:23:47.350
I've dealt with homelessness,
I've dealt with evictions,

01:23:47.350 --> 01:23:50.200
I've dealt with landlords
or some slum lords

01:23:50.200 --> 01:23:54.130
who didn't supply heat
or proper electricity

01:23:54.130 --> 01:23:55.480
and all of these things.

01:23:55.480 --> 01:23:58.030
So, it became a mission of mine.

01:23:58.030 --> 01:24:00.913
Oakland really shaped
me into who I am today.

01:24:01.766 --> 01:24:05.216
[gentle piano music]

01:24:16.450 --> 01:24:17.950
- I am funny and smart.

01:24:17.950 --> 01:24:19.300
I am cool and brave.

01:24:19.300 --> 01:24:21.640
I am pretty, I am always happy.

01:24:21.640 --> 01:24:25.510
I hope everybody gets a nice
and warm house and stays safe.

01:24:25.510 --> 01:24:28.390
I feel bad for the homeless
because they need to eat.

01:24:28.390 --> 01:24:31.060
I wonder how the
houseless people get food.

01:24:31.060 --> 01:24:34.300
I hear a girl laugh at me
because I am houseless.

01:24:34.300 --> 01:24:37.180
I want the world to know
that meanness is not funny.

01:24:37.180 --> 01:24:40.630
I hope that people know it's
very hard being houseless.

01:24:40.630 --> 01:24:43.780
I pretend that we have our own home.

01:24:43.780 --> 01:24:47.740
I play with my toys and
watch TV to distract me.

01:24:47.740 --> 01:24:51.190
I understand that life is hard to survive.

01:24:51.190 --> 01:24:52.023
I am strong.

01:24:52.023 --> 01:24:55.060
I hope everybody gets a nice house.

01:24:55.060 --> 01:24:57.433
I am nice, friendly, cool and brave.

01:25:00.760 --> 01:25:05.760
- If I truly understand
my African rootedness

01:25:05.800 --> 01:25:10.240
and the connection between you and I,

01:25:10.240 --> 01:25:12.190
the generations to come,

01:25:12.190 --> 01:25:15.700
the ancestors who were already
here and all living force,

01:25:15.700 --> 01:25:19.034
then I'm gonna draw upon
that as I'm living this life.

01:25:19.034 --> 01:25:22.930
That will help counter, 'cause
the more I see the fullness

01:25:22.930 --> 01:25:24.673
of who I am as an African person,

01:25:26.170 --> 01:25:28.450
the less I'm dealing with those demons.

01:25:28.450 --> 01:25:31.660
- So let's figure out how we
take those practical strategies

01:25:31.660 --> 01:25:35.470
that are in our ancestral,
traditional memory,

01:25:35.470 --> 01:25:37.240
and bring them to the current time.

01:25:37.240 --> 01:25:41.290
It is really an intentional
strategy that we have to rescue

01:25:41.290 --> 01:25:43.750
and then replicate it and then apply it,

01:25:43.750 --> 01:25:45.400
interrogate our memory

01:25:45.400 --> 01:25:47.290
and then imagine how we should be.

01:25:47.290 --> 01:25:49.720
- What we did was brought
a new face to homelessness.

01:25:49.720 --> 01:25:51.820
It looks like people who works two jobs,

01:25:51.820 --> 01:25:54.100
it looks like people with degrees.

01:25:54.100 --> 01:25:56.560
You just cannot afford to live here.

01:25:56.560 --> 01:26:01.560
- Part of spiritual wellness
is mental health wellness.

01:26:01.810 --> 01:26:04.900
That we can't pray certain things away,

01:26:04.900 --> 01:26:07.540
that the divine needs us to step into

01:26:07.540 --> 01:26:09.670
more than praying it away.

01:26:09.670 --> 01:26:11.950
The divine did give us a will.

01:26:11.950 --> 01:26:14.650
- Our way forward is creating

01:26:14.650 --> 01:26:18.580
a societal response to homelessness

01:26:18.580 --> 01:26:21.910
that is not about the
individuals experiencing it,

01:26:21.910 --> 01:26:24.910
but is about our society's failure

01:26:24.910 --> 01:26:28.120
to respond to this basic human need.

01:26:28.120 --> 01:26:32.290
And that can be motivating
for everyone in our community,

01:26:32.290 --> 01:26:36.040
because it doesn't just affect
the person who is unhoused.

01:26:36.040 --> 01:26:38.380
Homelessness affects us all.

01:26:38.380 --> 01:26:41.080
- When you have an opportunity

01:26:41.080 --> 01:26:44.950
of walking a family through
their new apartment building

01:26:44.950 --> 01:26:47.080
after they've been perhaps homeless

01:26:47.080 --> 01:26:49.000
or in a less than quality unit,

01:26:49.000 --> 01:26:53.170
and you see that smile,
that look of relief,

01:26:53.170 --> 01:26:56.230
that look of, "Oh my gosh, this is real."

01:26:56.230 --> 01:26:58.570
What a home provides--

01:26:58.570 --> 01:27:02.950
the stability, the safe
place, good health is there--

01:27:02.950 --> 01:27:04.780
it also supplies you an ability

01:27:04.780 --> 01:27:06.610
to be part of a larger community.

01:27:06.610 --> 01:27:09.951
And you see them now taking great pride

01:27:09.951 --> 01:27:12.760
in being able to say, "This is my home,

01:27:12.760 --> 01:27:14.410
"and this is my community."

01:27:14.410 --> 01:27:17.320
That is what a home means for all of us,

01:27:17.320 --> 01:27:19.300
and it's extra special when you realize

01:27:19.300 --> 01:27:21.700
it's a home that you
worked hard to make sure

01:27:21.700 --> 01:27:24.158
that it was accessible to a family

01:27:24.158 --> 01:27:26.920
who otherwise might not have
gotten on that waiting list

01:27:26.920 --> 01:27:29.440
or that the unit hadn't been produced

01:27:29.440 --> 01:27:30.940
because we weren't there to provide

01:27:30.940 --> 01:27:32.133
the subsidy for development.

01:27:32.133 --> 01:27:35.800
That is the "why" we do this work.

01:27:35.800 --> 01:27:39.100
- We have established
at least a candid part

01:27:39.100 --> 01:27:42.187
of the conversation about race
and equity here in the city.

01:27:42.187 --> 01:27:45.520
And it requires that we
recalibrate our thinking

01:27:45.520 --> 01:27:48.910
so that we can get the kind of
outcomes that we are seeking

01:27:48.910 --> 01:27:51.670
about helping those
that are most vulnerable

01:27:51.670 --> 01:27:53.020
in our community.

01:27:53.020 --> 01:27:55.780
It can't be adopted only at a local level.

01:27:55.780 --> 01:27:58.240
I need to get my county and my state

01:27:58.240 --> 01:28:00.640
also committed to equity in the same way,

01:28:00.640 --> 01:28:02.860
in the true way that equity works.

01:28:02.860 --> 01:28:04.060
That's the path forward.

01:28:04.060 --> 01:28:05.170
And I'm hopeful.

01:28:05.170 --> 01:28:06.760
- We're doing phenomenal work

01:28:06.760 --> 01:28:09.910
and really, really
making a concerted effort

01:28:09.910 --> 01:28:12.790
to solve our individual problems.

01:28:12.790 --> 01:28:14.290
But collectively,

01:28:14.290 --> 01:28:17.200
I mean, we could really get
to the heart of the thing

01:28:17.200 --> 01:28:19.630
that I think collectively
all agencies want,

01:28:19.630 --> 01:28:23.770
which is for individuals to
truly attain self-sufficiency.

01:28:23.770 --> 01:28:25.690
Well, we're not gonna
do that independently.

01:28:25.690 --> 01:28:29.140
It really has to be the whole
package to accomplish that.

01:28:29.140 --> 01:28:30.610
- If the old solutions weren't working,

01:28:30.610 --> 01:28:32.017
we need to stop doing that

01:28:32.017 --> 01:28:33.610
and we need to try something different.

01:28:33.610 --> 01:28:35.350
And we need to invest in the people,

01:28:35.350 --> 01:28:37.060
we need to invest in the community

01:28:37.060 --> 01:28:39.640
and we need to have solutions
that are led by the community.

01:28:39.640 --> 01:28:40.630
And that is doable,

01:28:40.630 --> 01:28:43.720
I think that we're living
proof that that is doable,

01:28:43.720 --> 01:28:46.360
and that's what makes me hopeful.

01:28:46.360 --> 01:28:48.130
- Mandela Station has been

01:28:48.130 --> 01:28:51.970
really a product of a lot
of community engagement

01:28:51.970 --> 01:28:54.211
and it's ongoing engagement.

01:28:54.211 --> 01:28:56.650
It doesn't stop, you know,

01:28:56.650 --> 01:28:58.480
when you get your planning approval.

01:28:58.480 --> 01:29:01.630
It doesn't stop when
you start construction.

01:29:01.630 --> 01:29:04.000
It doesn't stop when you
turn the building over.

01:29:04.000 --> 01:29:08.530
Greater groupthink intelligence
is always a good thing,

01:29:08.530 --> 01:29:10.240
and those things give me hope.

01:29:10.240 --> 01:29:14.650
- It is not about taking how
we understand psychology today

01:29:14.650 --> 01:29:17.617
and adapting it for that group
or creating an alternate one.

01:29:17.617 --> 01:29:19.540
No, no, no, no.

01:29:19.540 --> 01:29:21.580
It is, pull up the table.

01:29:21.580 --> 01:29:23.770
Western psychology, Eurocentric psychology

01:29:23.770 --> 01:29:25.480
has a seat at the table,

01:29:25.480 --> 01:29:29.050
but Black psychology,
Indian psychology, Native--

01:29:29.050 --> 01:29:31.030
all of 'em sit at the table as well too.

01:29:31.030 --> 01:29:33.760
My science is just as
good as your science.

01:29:33.760 --> 01:29:36.340
- Every child deserves
a safe and stable home,

01:29:36.340 --> 01:29:39.220
and I hope that our society recognizes

01:29:39.220 --> 01:29:41.860
that not only is that a right

01:29:41.860 --> 01:29:45.610
but it's also an essential
and important piece

01:29:45.610 --> 01:29:47.620
to helping our community be

01:29:47.620 --> 01:29:50.383
the healthiest and strongest
community that we can be.

01:29:51.490 --> 01:29:54.520
Having a living wage is a part of that.

01:29:54.520 --> 01:29:57.853
Having affordable housing, I
think all of that is important.

01:29:58.870 --> 01:30:02.170
- I think it's important for us

01:30:02.170 --> 01:30:05.110
to first believe that
homelessness is solvable.

01:30:05.110 --> 01:30:07.750
That gives us a baseline to fight together

01:30:07.750 --> 01:30:12.190
for that movement of creating a society

01:30:12.190 --> 01:30:17.050
where we are all pushing
for housing as a basic need.

01:30:17.050 --> 01:30:21.049
So when resources become
available we first evaluate,

01:30:21.049 --> 01:30:22.390
what's our housing goals?

01:30:22.390 --> 01:30:25.570
If we were able to make
those kinds of commitments

01:30:25.570 --> 01:30:28.510
over the next generation,

01:30:28.510 --> 01:30:32.385
then homelessness will become
what we believe it should be,

01:30:32.385 --> 01:30:35.260
which is rare, brief and non-recurring.

01:30:35.260 --> 01:30:37.270
- It's really about whether
or not we wanna believe

01:30:37.270 --> 01:30:40.810
the story that we've been
told about what is possible,

01:30:40.810 --> 01:30:43.030
or whether or not we
wanna write our own story.

01:30:43.030 --> 01:30:45.070
We are the people who are
here now, we're up to bat.

01:30:45.070 --> 01:30:46.450
What are we gonna do about it?

01:30:46.450 --> 01:30:49.180
It motivates us to challenge ourselves

01:30:49.180 --> 01:30:51.040
to write a different page of history,

01:30:51.040 --> 01:30:53.980
ao when they look back
on us, on our time here,

01:30:53.980 --> 01:30:55.900
they can say, "This was a movement time.

01:30:55.900 --> 01:30:57.850
"This was a time when people stood up.

01:30:57.850 --> 01:31:00.040
"This was a time when people
tried to make it right."

01:31:00.040 --> 01:31:01.720
So political will is up to us.

01:31:01.720 --> 01:31:04.000
Not us alone, but from us.

01:31:04.000 --> 01:31:06.280
If we don't fight for it,
we won't have it.

01:31:06.280 --> 01:31:08.255
But if we do fight for it, we can.

01:31:10.346 --> 01:31:12.929
[relaxed r&b music]

01:31:53.139 --> 01:31:56.556
[music continues]

01:32:31.649 --> 01:32:35.066
[music continues]