Latest / Tomorrow's American Catholic Podcast / A Fellowship of Accompaniment with Marc Greenberg

Transcript

A Fellowship of Accompaniment with Marc Greenberg · Tomorrow's American Catholic Podcast

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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  SPEAKER_02: This is the official podcast of Tomorrow's American Catholic,
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  SPEAKER_02: a journal and publishing platform animated by a central question.
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  SPEAKER_02: Who is Tomorrow's American Catholic,
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  SPEAKER_02: and how is their understanding of themselves,
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  SPEAKER_02: their faith, and their church evolving in time?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: In each episode,
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  SPEAKER_02: we speak with a spiritual practitioner who helps us envision new forms
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  SPEAKER_02: of Catholic culture and ways of being Church.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Our guests come from a range of backgrounds and traditions,
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  SPEAKER_02: and we seek to proceed in a spirit of contemplative hospitality and synodal dialogue
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  SPEAKER_02: where we can learn from one another.
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  SPEAKER_02: We thank you for taking some time to listen with us today.
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  SPEAKER_02: If you're interested in exploring further,
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  SPEAKER_02: You can find additional podcasts as well as our written work at our website,
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  SPEAKER_02: tomorrowsamericancatholic.org.
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  SPEAKER_02: And now on to today's conversation.
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  SPEAKER_02: Mark Greenberg is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Interfaith Assembly
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  SPEAKER_02: on Homelessness and Housing.
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  SPEAKER_02: Since the Assembly's establishment in 1985,
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  SPEAKER_02: Mark has been addressing homelessness through advocating public policy solutions
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  SPEAKER_02: and other strategies in partnership with an ever-broadening network
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  SPEAKER_02: of faith communities,
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  SPEAKER_02: other advocates,
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  SPEAKER_02: housing and service providers,
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  SPEAKER_02: elected officials, and those who have experienced homelessness.
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  SPEAKER_02: In his work for Housing Justice,
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  SPEAKER_02: Mark seeks to include as many stakeholders as possible in a conversation about how,
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  SPEAKER_02: drawing from our inherent spirituality and reverence for life and the environment,
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  SPEAKER_02: we can promote the ongoing evolution of our relationships with each other
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  SPEAKER_02: and our natural world.
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  SPEAKER_02: So Mark Greenberg, thank you and welcome to Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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  SPEAKER_02: You're welcome.
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  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for inviting me.
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  SPEAKER_02: We're happy to have you today and to learn more about your work and the work of
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  SPEAKER_02: the organization.
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  SPEAKER_02: We generally like to start, though,
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  SPEAKER_02: with a brief overview of our guest's background,
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  SPEAKER_02: spiritual autobiography,
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  SPEAKER_02: we sometimes call it,
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  SPEAKER_02: your upbringing,
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  SPEAKER_02: how you became interested in issues of housing justice,
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  SPEAKER_02: influences of teachers and mentors, anything you'd like to share with us.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've thought about this often,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I always wonder how far back do I go in my life experience,
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  SPEAKER_01: but I had some very early experiences that allowed me to understand history.
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  SPEAKER_01: The nature of vulnerability and how people sometimes see each other as the other,
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  SPEAKER_01: it just kind of struck a chord for me very early on.
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  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I then, after some childhood experiences, I attended the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that really blew my mind.
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  SPEAKER_01: It just opened me up to a whole world of possibilities and potential collaboration
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  SPEAKER_01: and connection with individuals.
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  SPEAKER_01: It just made me feel like a universal person today.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it really helped confirm what I always believed about our connections
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  SPEAKER_01: with each other, that in effect, if people agree to do something, we can do it.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's all a matter of agreement.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then it happens.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I've been kind of operating that way since then.
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  SPEAKER_01: So after about 10 years helping to build a family business with my father,
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  SPEAKER_01: feeling that I could leave without it,
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  SPEAKER_01: the business failing, it was challenging working with my father.
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  SPEAKER_01: I took some time to explore and ended up finding my way up to the Cathedral of St.
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  SPEAKER_01: John the Divine in 1980.
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  SPEAKER_01: And established a really special relationship with Jim Parks Morton,
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  SPEAKER_01: James Parks Morton,
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  SPEAKER_01: who was the dean at the time, who I refer to as the ultimate yes man.
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  SPEAKER_01: He would just say, yes, let's figure out how to do it.
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  SPEAKER_01: He invited me to get involved.
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  SPEAKER_01: And my interest quickly moved into the area of hunger and then homelessness.
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  SPEAKER_01: Initially, the objective was...
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  SPEAKER_01: In fact, to bear witness to the crisis of homelessness.
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  SPEAKER_01: I learned through Jim of this incredible network of faith leaders
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  SPEAKER_01: that I had never been aware of.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was born Jewish,
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  SPEAKER_01: I was Bar Mitzvah,
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  SPEAKER_01: but I never really knew that the faith community could be such
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  SPEAKER_01: an incredibly powerful force for change.
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  SPEAKER_01: And through him,
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  SPEAKER_01: I met some wonderful,
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  SPEAKER_01: wonderful leaders of all faiths,
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  SPEAKER_01: or as many faiths as I knew at the time,
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  SPEAKER_01: including Bishop Paul Moore, who was a really incredible worldwide.
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  SPEAKER_01: World-class citizen,
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  SPEAKER_01: just a great man,
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  SPEAKER_01: and Jim Morton and a bunch of rabbis and some imams and Catholic leaders.
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  SPEAKER_01: So initially, we decided we would just, in effect, bear witness to the crisis of homelessness.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was just really becoming visible on the national scene in terms of New York City
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  SPEAKER_01: and nationally.
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  SPEAKER_01: But in New York City in 1982, there were 10,000 homeless people.
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  SPEAKER_01: In 1984, there were 20,000 homeless people.
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  SPEAKER_01: And no one was really talking about it, but it was obviously me that something was wrong.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we decided to go to where homelessness is visible,
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  SPEAKER_01: to soup kitchens,
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  SPEAKER_01: to shelters,
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  SPEAKER_01: to welfare hotels,
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  SPEAKER_01: to drop-in centers, and in effect say, is this what God is asking us to do?
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  SPEAKER_01: No matter what our faith, is this what we're supposed to do as human beings?
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we then,
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  SPEAKER_01: someone called me and said,
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  SPEAKER_01: why don't you go down to City Hall when they're finalizing the budget and do it,
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  SPEAKER_01: stay overnight?
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  SPEAKER_01: And that sounded like a great idea.
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  SPEAKER_01: So in 1985,
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  SPEAKER_01: We started an overnight vigil in City Hall Park,
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  SPEAKER_01: which we continued for 28 years, one night a year for 28 years in City Hall Park.
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  SPEAKER_01: But in 1988,
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  SPEAKER_01: our fourth year,
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  SPEAKER_01: we had 400 people in a church,
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  SPEAKER_01: actually a chapel of Trinity Church,
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  SPEAKER_01: St. Paul's Chapel, marching to the park, ready to spend the night.
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  SPEAKER_01: A hundred of us were ready to spend the night.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we had this torrential rainstorm.
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  SPEAKER_01: And by the time the morning arrived, there were 12 of us left.
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  SPEAKER_01: Of course,
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  SPEAKER_01: I had to stay because it was my idea,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the folks who were with us,
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  SPEAKER_01: six of them were homeless,
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  SPEAKER_01: and a number of them veterans, and they helped us to make it through the night.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was a very, very cold June 1st in 1988.
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  SPEAKER_01: We built shelters out of the benches.
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  SPEAKER_01: Those days, you could put the benches on their side.
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  SPEAKER_01: These days, they're bolted down.
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  SPEAKER_01: But we built shelters.
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  SPEAKER_01: We got wood and made fires in the garbage cans to stay warm.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then that morning,
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  SPEAKER_01: we had arranged to meet with some city council members,
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  SPEAKER_01: the eight most progressive city council members.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so the 12 of us dragged ourselves in all wet and bedraggled and met with
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  SPEAKER_01: the city council members to tell us what was going on in the budget.
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  SPEAKER_01: Which now I know you don't ask that on June 1st.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have to be aware of policies throughout the year, but I was new to that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they told us what we asked,
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  SPEAKER_01: but then they said,
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  SPEAKER_01: but where are the members of the city council that care about homelessness?
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  SPEAKER_01: That's why we're here.
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  SPEAKER_01: The people you need to talk to are the people who didn't come to this meeting,
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  SPEAKER_01: because we only invited the most progressive members.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the folks who were with us said, well, we want to go back into the park.
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  SPEAKER_01: We want to stay in the park until the budget's over.
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  SPEAKER_01: We want to talk to every other member of the city council.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we said, you know, that could be 30 days outside.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they said, look, some of us already live outside.
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  SPEAKER_01: But we were told, we were just told we can make a difference.
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  SPEAKER_01: And a light bulb went off for me.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, for me,
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  SPEAKER_01: homelessness had been generally a concept,
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  SPEAKER_01: not, you know, personal, individual reality.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I saw these folks wanted to make a difference in their own lives.
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  SPEAKER_01: They wanted to be of value.
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  SPEAKER_01: They wanted to share their truth.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we helped them establish this vigil in City Hall Park.
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  SPEAKER_01: They ended up staying in City Hall Park from June 1st to Christmas Day.
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  SPEAKER_01: 200 days in City Hall Park.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was an incredible presence that they had.
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  SPEAKER_01: They called themselves Homeward Bound Community Services.
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  SPEAKER_01: They greeted other people in the park, totally safe.
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  SPEAKER_01: They established their own security process.
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  SPEAKER_01: Again, a lot of them, a number of them were veterans.
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  SPEAKER_01: They greeted Mayor Koch every morning,
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  SPEAKER_01: and he was very unhappy about that because he really didn't want them to look good.
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  SPEAKER_01: But they did very well.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they, a tremendous amount of stories in the public, you know, in media.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because they were saying, in effect, give us a chance to help ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, we love this city.
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  SPEAKER_01: We just need an opportunity to earn enough to pay for housing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so in working with them,
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  SPEAKER_01: we started to, we found a place to stay when it got cold, but they stayed every day.
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  SPEAKER_01: June 1st, Christmas Day, they were there every day.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was an amazing event.
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  SPEAKER_01: But in working with these folks, I began to get to, you know, know them personally.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I realized,
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  SPEAKER_01: and then working with Catholic Charities,
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  SPEAKER_01: who was members on our board,
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  SPEAKER_01: We initially said we could be more effective public policy advocates if people
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  SPEAKER_01: who are homeless could share their story.
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  SPEAKER_01: If we understood that homelessness was not numbers and budgets, but it was individual lives.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we started to develop a speakers bureau and then we quickly realized,
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  SPEAKER_01: well, these folks aren't homeless because they're not good public speakers.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's not their problem.
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  SPEAKER_01: That would help us, but it's not necessarily going to help them.
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  SPEAKER_01: Unless we found a way to help them to heal.
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  SPEAKER_01: When you speak to people on the street, you realize they're all wounded.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're traumatized.
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  SPEAKER_01: A trauma may have been part of the precipitating factor in becoming homeless,
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  SPEAKER_01: but certainly being homeless is very traumatizing.
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  SPEAKER_01: So people need to heal.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we developed with Catholic Charities this life skills program
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  SPEAKER_01: that includes storytelling,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is very empowering and helps people open up to each other,
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  SPEAKER_01: but also these life skills,
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  SPEAKER_01: classes on topics of importance for their recovery,
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  SPEAKER_01: and then matching up with mentors who help them work on their personal goals.
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  SPEAKER_01: We started with Catholic Charities in 1989.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was since replicated on 12 occasions.
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  SPEAKER_01: Over 2,000 people have participated.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that was really the beginning of my engagement with that population.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so I've gotten to know many, many homeless people, incredible people, unbelievable.
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  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are just most incredible people I've ever met in my life.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's really changed me.
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  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
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  SPEAKER_01: I continue to advocate for public policy change because it's one thing
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  SPEAKER_01: To help people individually,
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  SPEAKER_01: but then why are they in an environment in which it's so hard for them to recover?
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  SPEAKER_01: And so I've put a lot of energy and attention and worked with coalitions
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  SPEAKER_01: on public policy on producing more affordable housing,
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  SPEAKER_01: on helping people not lose their homes,
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  SPEAKER_01: on helping people develop more opportunity for employment,
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  SPEAKER_01: for income, and then helping them to get the services they need to recover.
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  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing this now for 45 years and it's been wonderful.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's really enriched my life.
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  SPEAKER_01: I feel I'm 75.
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  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm doing pretty well because it feeds my heart every day.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's challenging, but we don't give up on people.
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  SPEAKER_01: What we're doing now is really...
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  SPEAKER_01: Very exciting.
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  SPEAKER_01: An attorney by the name of Norman Siegel came to us when we were doing this vigil
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  SPEAKER_01: in City Hall Park, a pretty well-known civil rights attorney.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I want to represent you to the city in this vigil, which he did.
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  SPEAKER_01: But then about four years ago, Norman came back to me again.
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  SPEAKER_01: We'd been in touch off and on.
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  SPEAKER_01: And at this point, Mayor Adams was beginning to do these street sweeps.
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  SPEAKER_02: I was going to ask you about your reaction to those.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Norman,
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  SPEAKER_01: who had had a relationship with Mayor Adams,
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  SPEAKER_01: he had represented him when he sued the police department for discrimination,
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  SPEAKER_01: wrote to the mayor a I spoke to the mayor and said,
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  SPEAKER_01: you're violating people's civil rights.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the mayor said, well, what do you suggest?
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  SPEAKER_01: And so Norman and Bob Hayes,
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  SPEAKER_01: who's the founder of the Coalition for the Homeless, wrote an op-ed.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then Norman reached out to me.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we came up with this wonderful project that we're just about to sell.
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  SPEAKER_01: Tomorrow night will be our fourth anniversary of this project,
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  SPEAKER_01: which we call the Street Homeless Advocacy Project.
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  SPEAKER_01: What we decided we would do, we'd go out on the street.
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  SPEAKER_01: One night a week,
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  SPEAKER_01: same time,
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  SPEAKER_01: same place,
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  SPEAKER_01: and invite people who are homeless to consider coming in to shelter,
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  SPEAKER_01: to smaller shelters.
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  SPEAKER_01: Most people who are on the street have heard terrible stories about the shelters
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  SPEAKER_01: because many of the shelters are very unhospitable.
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  SPEAKER_01: But there are some,
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  SPEAKER_01: a small subset,
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  SPEAKER_01: about 4,500 of the 25,000 single beds are in smaller settings,
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  SPEAKER_01: one to four people in a room where they get much enhanced social services.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then they're able to move on using the vouchers to housing.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I run one of those four Thursday night sites.
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  SPEAKER_01: Ours is the only one that provides food.
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  SPEAKER_01: We have different faith groups providing meals.
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  SPEAKER_01: We have a Sikh, United Sikhs providing meals on the first and third Thursday.
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  SPEAKER_01: We have a Hindu group from New Jersey providing meals on the second Thursday.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's a Greek Orthodox group that's been doing this for 16 years.
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  SPEAKER_01: That was really the inspiration to me who does it on last Thursday.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then we have a Sufi group that does it on the alternate Thursdays
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  SPEAKER_01: when there are five Thursdays in a month.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's complicated, but we got it all Thursdays covered.
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  SPEAKER_01: Together,
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  SPEAKER_01: we have referred over 1400 people from the street into small shelters
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  SPEAKER_01: the last four years.
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  SPEAKER_01: And our site is responsible for about half of those referrals because we're the ones
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  SPEAKER_01: that have food every Thursday.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other project that we're working on that we've been doing for about two
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  SPEAKER_01: and a half years is helping people with vouchers to get into housing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we have this incredible housing specialist who really knows the system
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  SPEAKER_01: and has all these relationships with brokers.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we've gotten about 35 people into housing from shelters in the last year alone.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we're able to now help people get from the street into housing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we're just about to restart our life skills programs because in the past,
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  SPEAKER_01: we would have these life skills programs,
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  SPEAKER_01: but no way we could really guarantee that at the end of it,
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  SPEAKER_01: they can get into housing.
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  SPEAKER_01: But now we can.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we're working at a site that also has an employment program.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we're so excited that we can help people from the street and really get them back
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  SPEAKER_01: on their feet and provide a lot of the support that they need to really give back.
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  SPEAKER_01: And many of them want to give back.
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  SPEAKER_01: And this is my experience.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'll just go on one more moment and say that is my philosophy,
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  SPEAKER_01: and it's also the philosophy of the guy who runs a place
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  SPEAKER_01: where we operate our housing program,
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  SPEAKER_01: which also has an overnight shelter,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: 200 lunches every day, breakfast at the employment lab, has a medical clinic.
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  SPEAKER_01: We agree that,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: and he's an Orthodox Jew,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: wonderful, lovely man, that every human being is put here for a reason.
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  SPEAKER_01: Each person we meet, God put us here for a reason.
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  SPEAKER_01: And only that person can do that thing.
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  SPEAKER_01: Nobody else can do that thing.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we have to help each person we work with to really find their meaning,
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  SPEAKER_01: to in effect,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: follow their bliss, to really know what God is telling us they're here for.
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  SPEAKER_01: And constantly finding people who are just discovering that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And many of the people who work at this site are formerly homeless.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they're now, you know, it's just an amazing, and it works.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's so great when you see that it works.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just a concept.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a reality.
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  SPEAKER_01: These folks,
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  SPEAKER_01: if they feel valued,
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  SPEAKER_01: they are valued, and they can help others to recover and to get back on their feet.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful thing.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's very impressive.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are impressive, and the stories are impressive as well.
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  SPEAKER_00: The idea of the Speakers Bureau...
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  SPEAKER_00: is really exciting and intriguing because I think most of us tend to think
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  SPEAKER_00: of homelessness as a,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say a generic kind of a thing,
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  SPEAKER_00: but there's no space that goes with it,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know, except, you know, sometimes you see someone on the street.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm just thinking how empowering it must be for the speakers and what an opportunity
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: to develop You said at the beginning of this,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: the nature of vulnerability,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: to actually put that vulnerability right in front of an audience
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: to build compassion.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any particular stories about a particular storyteller, but also audience reactions?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you, absolutely.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: when we started our, so I, again,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I helped create the model with Catholic Charities and I helped replicate the model
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: at different sites.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the sites we,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: one of the programs we replicated is called Panim El Panim,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: which means face-to-face in Hebrew.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we did it in partnership with a synagogue, the rabbi.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then a number of the members of that synagogue became mentors.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And one woman happens to have been a, she is a professor of literature at Fordham University.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And she was so inspired by being a mentor.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then I asked her if she could help people with their story development.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then she decided to take her sabbatical year off.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we together created this book entitled Sacred Shelter,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: 13 Journeys of Homelessness and Healing.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so she edited the stories, but there are 13 stories in there that are incredible.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: There are a number of stories of people who didn't get in the book because,
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: sadly, some of them died before she did the book.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: But these are unbelievable stories, really so beautifully written.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you hear the detail of what happened to people,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: where they went wrong, and how they then found themselves.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So one person that comes to mind,
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: there's someone else who I'm going to look,
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: see if I can find the quote, a guy by the name of Kira.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Who was a Japanese and thought he was the only homeless Japanese person in New York.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's finally doing incredibly well.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's married and found that he had a pension from the company that he had left in Japan.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll try to get to him.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: But this man I'm thinking of now, James.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: James Addison,
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: who is still very active with us,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: wonderful man,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: who is in effect the first among equals of this group called Life Experience
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: and Face Sharing, LEFSA,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: which is a homeless self-help community that before COVID could probably count
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: about 350 people in its community.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: They'd have a picnic in Central Park.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: There are 350 people there.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: They have a Christmas party, about 250 people at the Christmas party.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: But James' story begins with him talking about a difficult childhood
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: where his mother got divorced and ended up with a younger man who was very abusive.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then James was in, I think, elementary school or middle school.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, how come we're not learning about black history?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the teacher didn't, you know, just dismissed him.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he said again, how come we're not learning about black history?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then when he got home,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: by the time he got home,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: the stepfather had already heard,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: you're making trouble at school, beat him severely.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was about 14 years old at the time.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, that's it.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't feel at home there anymore.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: He went next door where the super was into heroin,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: ended up getting involved in heroin,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: ended up on the street, spent many years as addicted and in shelter.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: But he kept in touch with his father.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: He bumped into his father one day.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: His father found him and he said, I want to tell you, you're a grandfather.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're a grandfather.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he was so ashamed.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And his father said, I'm proud of you.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And James said, how can you be proud of me?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Look at all the things I've done.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And his father said, I'm not proud of what you've done, but I'm proud of who you are.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: But when James found that he had a grandchild, it changed his whole perspective.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was committed to getting his life together for that grandchild.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he has now become one of the greatest people I've ever met.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: A man is so inspiring.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's become a Baptist minister, loved by everyone.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Every time they have a meeting, every second Saturday of the month, about 80 people come.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: He greets everybody.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody is important to him.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: A number of years ago, we had every meeting, those meetings as a theme.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: So a bunch of years ago, the theme was Mother's Day.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was the month of Mother's Day.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: They invited every single individual.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: To take a minute and share about their mother or a significant woman in their life.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: There were 120 people there at the time.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was not a dry eye in the place.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: We each gave each other the time to talk about what mattered to us.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the kind of space that James has helped create.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And initially the program was created by a number of,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: by two Catholic sisters,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sister Dorothy and Sister Teresa,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: who are now gone,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: but they created this atmosphere of loving that was really incredible.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Another story about Sister Dara and Sister Teresa,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: about another gentleman who's no longer with us,
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: but a really incredible man by the name of Foster McIntyre, who grew up in Atlanta.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: When Martin Luther King was killed, he was part of the riots.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was 15.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: He was arrested.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was sent to a work camp.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, the guard said to me, I can see that you're a runner.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So he put leg irons on him.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, he was a runner.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: He actually escaped.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Foster.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then he ended up living in the, he said, with the hillbillies.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they made moonshine.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then he would sell the moonshine to the Indians.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So he initially is already an entrepreneur, even at that point.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Came to New York, ended up working, I think, maintenance at AT&T.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Worked for about 10 years, got married, had a child.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: But then apparently someone at AT&T was into crack.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: He left his job, left half his passion for his family, took the other half.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it disappeared within a month.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he was totally screwed up on crack.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he was living in the park near the World Trade Center.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he would say, I was professional homeless.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I would go to a place, I know what you have, I take what you have, and I leave.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he said,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: and I was very happy,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: except at night when the drugs would wear off,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: and I would start to cry because of what happened to me, what happened to my life.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: But he had a mattress and he had a place he could plug in his whatever, his TV.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: He had it all together.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: But these sisters with this lefza group would come and surround him and pray.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: They would pray for him.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he said,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: while they were praying for me to get help,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was praying that they'd leave me alone.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: He said, but I guess their prayers were stronger than mine because I eventually got help.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: He became part of our Speakers Bureau.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing, amazing man.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just a sage.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: We would have these meetings,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: these Speakers Bureau meetings every other week and everybody would share,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: we'd share on a scripture and everybody would share their thoughts and
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: then they'd look over at Foster and he'd say, okay.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he would then kind of Let his heart out.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: He would tell you what he was thinking.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was so powerful, such an incredible man.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: He would say, sometimes I wake up and I don't feel very good.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I just don't like anybody.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like anybody.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to, you know, but he would then go on to tell you.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then he eventually got a job.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's working as a maintenance man at a place,
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: working with people mentally ill.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he said,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: and They would talk to me faster than they talked to the social workers.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of a little crazy like they are.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then he said he had a problem with his teeth.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: He needed to do dentures.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: He was without teeth.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I started to feel like what I felt like when I was homeless.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I started to get back into that mindset.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then one day, some guy left his ring and his watch in the bathroom.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: He said,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: in the past,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I would have been the first person to put them in my pocket and then search
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: for them.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: But he gave them back to staff and we helped him get his dentures.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it was such a self-awareness of this man.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And man, everybody loved Foster.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Such an incredible man.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So these are wonderful people that I've met.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Just incredibly inspiring.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: When you think about what they've been through and how they made it,
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and how they then were there for others.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Many of us would not be able to make it given those circumstances.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just have such awe.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I stand in awe of these people.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: When I hear these stories,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Mark, what keeps coming back for me is your idea of moving from concept to reality.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, as Barbara said, this puts a human face on things.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it's inspiring for us to hear the interweavings of not only Catholic Charities,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: but these sisters and the Catholics.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: There's a Catholic presence there,
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: creating these spaces of faith sharing, prayer,
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: and also the places to be listened to,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: which is sometimes,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: in this type of work,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: maybe the best gift you can give or among the best gifts is to give people
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: a listening ear that aren't listened to.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Can you speak about this idea?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm very intrigued by it.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: When you do your policy work,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: in addition to your front lines,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say ministry work,
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: you want to include people who've experienced homelessness
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: in these policy solutions.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Why is that so important?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know sometimes in,
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: for lack of a better term,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: charitable causes,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: it can be like, well, the experts are going to hand down the solution.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what we've determined.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Why is it so important for the group to have all these voices at the table?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let me say also that,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: and my friend George Horton,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: who just recently retired as the head of the Office of Social
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: and Community Development at Catholic Charities,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: he and I really helped start this program together.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's still a dear friend.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he and I talk about the idea of accompaniment.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we call our program Working People with Vouchers.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: A fellowship of accompaniment.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because one thing that I learned in learning about these vouchers,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: the vouchers had been developed recently,
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: and they were kind of developed imperfectly,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: and it was so difficult for people, even with a voucher, to get into housing.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke to two women who had gotten into housing with their vouchers,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: and they said it was such an ordeal, it was almost not worth it.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that we have this program designed for all the details,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: but the people are hanging out there to dry.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: The process is totally opaque.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're in a shelter.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is all over.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: They're getting things stolen.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're getting whatever is happening.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: They're losing their place.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're losing their communication.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't know what's happening.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so we initially developed this program to help accompany people
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: and create community for people while we're helping them go through the process
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: of getting housing.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: So accompaniment is key to walking with people.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're not alone.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And not only are you not alone, I mean,
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: you're not only alone because we're with you,
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: you're there, you're not alone because you're with each other.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: One wonderful story, and then I'll talk about the advocacy piece.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: So a woman that I,
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: one of our first members of the fellowship,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: before we actually had our housing specialist,
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: which now makes it much easier to get people housing,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: but this is a woman by the name of Magalie who had attempted suicide.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And she had also checked herself into the hospital a few times to prevent herself
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: from attempting suicide.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And she speaks openly about feeling that she she's of Haitian descent,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: speaks openly about her depression and that she feels she's suffering from
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: a generational hex.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, whatever the truth is, that's what she feels.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And she's been to jobs and she's been depressed and she's quit jobs.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: But she's also been very responsible.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: She's I mean,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've helped her when it was she moved to her apartment and I helped her
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: when it was cold.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I found a heater in my storage and I brought her the heater in the middle of
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: the coldest Day I could ever imagine.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: But got her the heater.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it was hot, she said, I need, you know, it's hot.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: I need an air conditioner.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I said, won't you borrow?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I can't borrow.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: I said, well, you can borrow from us.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we loaned her $350, got her the air conditioner.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, and I'll pay you back.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And she paid us back.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then about a month or two ago, she asked for money for something else.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I forgot what it was.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I said, fine.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, I'll pay you back.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I forgot about it.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then I get this $100 and our cash out from her.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: So she reminded me that she's very responsible.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Then we met this guy who has a voucher.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's homeless, has a voucher.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, he had his voucher with him.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: He had his paperwork with him.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: He showed it to me.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: He said he's had the voucher for three years.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: She's had to continue to renew it.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he hasn't been able to find housing with the voucher,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: but he's been keeping that voucher current.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, well, you have to come and see us on Tuesday and we'll help you get into housing.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so We got him to a shelter,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: and I've been in touch with him by text,
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: and I realized he didn't have any money for transportation.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, well, do you have a bank account?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, do you have a WhatsApp account?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a Cash App.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I asked Natalie if you would help him to set up his Cash App account.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to me, you're two angels.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a woman who's struggling with demons.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Who offered to help him.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he said it took a long time.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: It must have taken hours.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: She was patiently on the phone with him for hours helping him to set up that Cash App account.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so now he realized he's not alone and she's not alone.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And she can now be of assistance to others.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it just warmed my heart to know that Magalie,
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: who was having such difficulty, was there as an angel for this guy.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now hopefully we'll have him on Tuesday and we'll start the process.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: So In terms of advocacy, let me just say this.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been doing this for a long time.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: We did an event in 1988,
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: and I was working with a friend,
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: a wonderful Lutheran minister who worked at social services at one of
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: the wealth hotels downtown.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: We had this whole public policy agenda that we were promoting.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Richard Virgil,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: wonderful man, said, Mark,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: these are all well and good,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: but the people I work with would have no idea of what you're talking about.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized, yeah,
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: if the people we're trying to work with Don't have any idea of what's going on.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: They can't be part of the solution.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So what I've been doing,
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: every opportunity,
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: actually with LEFSA,
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: almost every second Saturday of the month, I'll go and speak to them about policy.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll talk to them about what we're doing, what we're working on.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: The deputy mayor came and spent a day with us.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: The borough president came and spent the two hours with us.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm always updating people.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they want to get engaged.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them do get engaged.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them have been more involved.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I keep them aware of the fact that we need them.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: We need their voices.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: We need them to be, you know, to be educated and to be engaged and to speak out.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they've done it.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And many of the people who've been through our program,
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know, again, we've graduated probably 2000 people.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably known about 750 of them.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Many of them are now engaged in other parts of the work.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: They're out there as leaders in different agencies.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not that.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if anyone is a director except for James.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: But they're out there as members of different organizations doing work in whatever capacity.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: The program that has been most active because the woman,
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: we started a program for people coming out of prison.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And my dear friend,
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: who I started it with,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: has been keeping it going even through COVID because she was doing it remotely.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to her recent graduation at Union Seminary and I met a woman.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: She told me that she works at Goddard Riverside Community Center.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now every morning she sends me a greeting.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning, Mark.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: But she's active, helping other people at Goddard Riverside.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: She's a graduate of our program.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're all over the place.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing the people I see.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you one other thing, which is really fascinating.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was wonderful for me.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was at a rally in City Hall.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was actually, I think, about establishing a national voucher program.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we're at this press conference.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And behind one of the cameras,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: not holding camera,
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: but in the audience, in the group, There's a guy who looked familiar.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I went over to him.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: I said, you look familiar.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do I know you from somewhere?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: He said, yeah, Mark, John England.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: I graduated from your program in 1983.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And here's a picture of the certificate in my phone with your signature on it.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: It changed his life.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: He became an advocate.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we affirmed him enough to say you are worth doing something, making a difference.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Stand up for yourself.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: It just blew my mind.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know what strikes me is,
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: like you talk about,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: you hear it all the time in various cities, you got to do the sweeps.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of an attitude that we've got to solve this problem for us.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: The homeless are problematic to us as opposed to an approach that these are people
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: that have struggles and we need to help them work with them to solve problems.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then they can help us solve problems.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we don't see them as an asset.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: We see them as a deficit.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when you, but,
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: and so let me just say that,
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: so we've been doing this,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: street homeless, this SHAP, Street Homeless Advocacy Project now for four years.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: We just, again, tomorrow night is our fourth anniversary.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually having the celebration at the Office of the Department
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: of Homeland Services with the commissioner.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: She came and saw us for this new commissioner last Thursday.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a really hot night, but she came and she saw what we did.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the pictures really look like a street party because everybody's just so engaged
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: with each other.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: This was the night that the Sikhs, United Sikhs were there.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And she actually helped us get some people into shelter because these days,
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: since the cold snap,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: when about almost a thousand people came in from the cold,
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: the vacancy rate in these small rooms is much lower.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: So where in the past we would have,
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: one night we referred 16 people in one night to these small rooms.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now we may have five and we may only get two or three in,
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: but she helped us get,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: four or five in because she made calls and kept pushing and, you know, finding.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: But What we really want to do, when we set up these tables, it's amazing what happens.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people are all together.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: The people serving and the people being served, we're all like one community.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: People passing by, they see what's going on.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a joy.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: It really is a celebration of mutual support and honoring each other.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it changes people.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: One story,
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: this young man who was there one night arguing,
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: and I'd seen him before, He's arguing for no reason.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I walked up to him and turned out he was very disturbed.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: He said to me, I know I'm on a list that everybody has and no one will tell me I'm on the list.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then he went on to tell me that he had a very difficult childhood.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: He was abused as a child, was treated like a clown as a child.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's true or whether he thinks it's true, very, very disturbing.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the night, he said to me, this is the only place I feel safe.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's there every Thursday.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: First one online, no longer ranting, no longer having the sign on his chest, no arguments.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: A few months ago, I saw him and I said, your beer's getting low and I like it.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: He said, well, no, actually, I'm feeling a little depressed.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the way of protecting myself.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then a few weeks after that, I had a problem with my tooth.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think I didn't have my tooth in.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had my denture.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm sorry, you know, I look like this.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting my denture fixed.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Mark, don't worry about it.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Who you are is Who you are in your heart and who you are will live on even
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: beyond your life because of the work you do.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine this man who's so disturbed, has that sense of himself and of me.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was really touching.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's just so moving to me that I can be a place for him to feel safe and
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: for other people to feel safe around him, for him to feel safe around others.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredibly powerful what happens when you're just kind to people.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder, Mark,
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: if we have a new administration with Mayor Mondani,
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: and I think he's got some plans for housing, affordable housing, et cetera.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's your feeling about that?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: What insights do you have?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me say, I think he's great.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's done some incredibly powerful things,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: and I think he's been doing them in a very disciplined way.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: He's come out with a very aggressive and impressive housing plan.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's got some very good people on his team.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know a number of the people on his team.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: I approve all of his decisions.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's done some great work, again, in housing development.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's done some great work in tenant protection, you know, in going after bad landlords.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: He was forced,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: in effect,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: to come up with a more generous plan for housing vouchers,
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: which I'm very pleased about.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: But he hasn't yet formulated a plan for street homelessness.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I understand from the commissioner that he's in the process of doing that.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that he's very methodical in the things he's done.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's really taken on one thing at a time, tried to do it very fully.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping we can be part of his plan because I really think
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: that setting up these tables around the city not only would help with homelessness,
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: but I mean,
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: particularly if we get more places to send people,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't help if you say, can I help you?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: But then you can't help them.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it'll help in changing the way the public views homeless people,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: the way homeless people view others.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think it can really help in terms of, you know, this community safety initiative.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, some of the people that we have at our table, we prevented them from being violent.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no question about it.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: We've helped people feel at home and safe.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they've found that people are listening to them.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really hoping, and I would love to see, you know, 40 or 50 tables all around the city.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've spoken to members of council who would like to see it in their neighborhood.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just, this is something I'd love to see.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a way of bringing the city together,
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: helping, again,
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: as my dear Buddhist friend,
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Bernie Glassman used to say,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: a way of reducing the distance between ourselves and those who suffer.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what we need to do.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Can you talk a bit, Mark, just building on that?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because you might be going between these worlds where you're on the front lines
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: and preserving that compassionate heart.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you're also going to the halls of power,
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: as it were, you know, these kind of big institutions within the city.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: What's it like to be moving back and forth between those worlds?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: And how does one keep the compassionate heart for people that are involved in this work?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: let me say that I've determined that there are people
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: who have much more direct influence than I do.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's not my job.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: My job is to help connect people with each other.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And to really maintain really respectful,
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: loving relationships with people who I know who have access to power
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: and just supporting them.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing who they are and supporting them.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, you'll see behind me, actually up here, City of Yes.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Mayor Adams, though,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: despite his faults,
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: and he had many, sadly,
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: he made some very foolish mistakes in terms of campaign finance and management.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: But on housing, he did some very good things.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: One of them was this thing called the City of Yes.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: And another one was the four ballot initiatives that got passed, which together...
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Made it much more likely that we can develop affordable housing in the city.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And one man who was really behind both of those efforts,
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: wonderful man who I've gotten to know,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: a man by the name of John Mengeon,
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: who was the head of housing for the city planning department.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And also was on the group that developed these ballot initiatives, which passed.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now John was not,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: and let me say again,
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: many of the people from the Adams administration did not follow through,
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: did not end up in the Mamdani administration.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: So he found people who were really good.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't take people because they happened to be there.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: There are a number of people who are no longer there.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: But John He's now nominated him to serve as the head of something called the Board
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: of Standards and Appeals.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Board of Standards and Appeals is this, I haven't heard it until about a year and a half ago.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's this board,
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: this kind of magic room where you can go and say,
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: we would like to develop housing at this site, but the zoning rules don't allow it.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: But we feel it would make a difference.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's appropriate to the neighborhood.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's a need for And can we do it?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And John has been nominated to serve as the chair of that Board of Standards and Appeals.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he'd be great because he really wants to see housing work,
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: but he's not going to shove it into neighborhoods.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: He wants it to work with neighborhoods.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's just a great man.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: But now I understand,
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: and I just learned this weekend,
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: that there's some resistance in the city council to affirming his nomination.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned about it this weekend.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in touch with John and he wrote to me and said, Mark, can you help with this?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: I feel really honored that because he's a man who potentially has great influence,
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: but he's just such a decent human being.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know who he is.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell his heart.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he's saying, is there any way you can help?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm actually having a conversation in a half an hour
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: with another advocacy group that's been very supportive of the City of Yes.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, so for me, I think my value is almost like finding the leverage points.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't like winning by beating people over the head.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: I like helping to convince people that this is a good idea.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: To gather people together and say, look, John is going to be a fair leader.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: We need to all be a little flexible, but we can do it if we can trust each other.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the key.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: In working with good government, if you could work with people you can trust.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Most people are not used to that.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Most people don't believe anything you say.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: But we now have an administration I think that we can trust.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to help people understand that.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And let me just say that the same people who are opposing the City of Yes and
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: who are opposing the ballot initiatives are opposing John.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the city approved both of them by pretty good margins.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: But the city council didn't approve John, didn't approve the ballot initiative.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: The city council It's afraid of losing some of its influence because
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: a city council member,
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: you know, used to be able to say no and it would be no to a housing development.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now you can't do that as easily.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to help a dialogue,
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: a public dialogue that encourages people to consider what is best
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: for us collectively and will not hurt our neighborhoods.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, again,
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: I find when I work with homeless people,
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, I'm encountering their suffering, but it makes me richer.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: It fills me.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think the same with neighborhoods to say, yeah,
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: maybe your neighbor will change a little bit,
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: but you will change lives for the better, you know, as people.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: As I said in my testimony, and actually it was wonderful.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was a testimony on City of Yes.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: I gave the testimony, I think, 930 at night.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as I gave the testimony,
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: John texted me and emailed me and said, what a wonderful testimony.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, really wonderful.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what I said was, for many people, they are afraid of change.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I said, for people who are homeless, change is what they want, what they need.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: They need change because they're living in a shelter, right?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: So change,
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: we need some change if we're going to open our hearts to those who are struggling.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: I read an article recently about, I think it was Finland.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what they did,
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: as I understand it,
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: I may not have this all right,
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: is places that they had typically used as shelters and so forth.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: The government saw fit to convert those to actual housing
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: that were Was afforded people in a non-transactional way.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we are going to give you this apartment.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not dependent on whether you are addicted or not,
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: whether you're employed or not, whether you're suffering from mental illness or not.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there were basically no questions asked in that regard.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then provided them with a steady income.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the statistics were unbelievable about the way in which these people who mostly
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: by conventional wisdom, you'd say, well, they're not going to go anywhere with this.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: It really did wonderful work.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wonder with the climate here in the United States where any whiff
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: of anything that's socialism,
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Whether anybody's open to look at some of these cases in other places.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and what you're referring to is what we call the housing first model,
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: which in effect says you don't have to be worthy of housing.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone needs housing.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: A basic human right.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can go on from there.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: How can you work if you don't have housing there?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think the number we looked at 10 years ago is probably around the same.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: At least one third of the adults in shelters are working.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's not that they're lazy.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are working two jobs.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm Met a woman.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we saw a woman this past Thursday,
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: our housing team, who's been working, who's living in a shelter.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's working two jobs now.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: She's working one.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: She's homeless, taking care of a sick mother.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: And she's just looking to get it.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's this woman's working damn.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: And she just needs a break because we know housing is so expensive.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's why your point of,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: and back to the Catholic perspective, I mean,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: if people took their faith,
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: whether it be Catholicism or Judaism or any faith,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: seriously,
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: we would acknowledge that we're all one family and that we have an obligation
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: to help those who are in trouble.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then if we even looked at it in a more self-serving way,
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: help them to help themselves and then they can help us.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think it's sad that that's not where we're coming from as a country
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: because there's a kind of mean-spiritedness here now.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think that this idea of having tables all over the city
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: where people can encounter the other can change that.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think we can change things in our heart.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's said that the door to the human heart opens from the inside, right?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: People have to decide to change.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can't force them to change, but they can want to change.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: They say, well, I feel so much better helping someone else.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can afford to.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: They'll be better off.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have to think about them suffering and doing nothing.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly,
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: I attended this Buddhist conference on Western engaged Buddhists
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: and wonderful people.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: French Buddhist who had been written up because of his ability to hold his breath
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: for who knows how long, just really amazing biological tasks.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: But he said,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: he talked about what's called, he said, there's something called compassion fatigue.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: But he said,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: but I think if you're really engaged with somebody,
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: you may get tired, but you don't get fatigued.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're fatigued by standing next to them and saying, oh, I wish I could do something.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: I feel so terrible.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're there helping them, you're not fatigued.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: You may get tired,
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: but you're empowered because you're doing something,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: not watching something that you're helpless to affect.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the way I feel it.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's so empowering.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: You see these people and they're back and they're helping you and they're helping others.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when we roll up with our car, with our chair, with our tables and People run to the car.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: They want to help set up the tables.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: They want to be sure not to get in each other's way to help us.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: People want to be of use.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: We all have that need to be of value.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're robbing people of that opportunity if we treat them as if they're helpless.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: It reminds me of the story of the loaves and the fishes,
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: the idea that in these moments of Desolation where there's no more hope,
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: that's when the community comes together and everything gets multiplied
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: and those graces are multiplied.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a really powerful image.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it happens as you see it all the time.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's a miracle every day.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: It really is like a street party we have.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, I feel so blessed.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't have to do anything but just go to, I'm like, I'm the maitre d'.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just go out there and everybody else has a good time.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I could give them a suggestion here or there,
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: but mainly it happens on its own is people feel naturally that way.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: When you give them permission to be loving and to be caring and to be kind
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: and Most people just, they know what that's like.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: They just say, wow, I can be myself.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I know we're kind of coming towards the top of the hour mark,
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: but we did,
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: I did want to touch on something of great interest to our journal,
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: which is the interfaith aspect of your organization.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's right there in the name.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: And just kind of an open-ended question,
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: if you could talk to us about,
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: I guess,
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: how that interfaith piece came about and what you've seen flower from
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: that collaboration.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: And let me say,
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: I went on a ride with my friend Isaac,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: who runs the place, that multi-service center.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he's, again, in OrthodoxU.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we were talking about this and also talking about the kind of evolution of
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: the different faiths as we live in this world where we all are very aware
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: of each other.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's no longer that town.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody is Catholic or that little village.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's doing it.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're now very aware of the values.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Of each other's faith and the values of faith and the values that we have in common.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: And also,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think the limitations of our own particular,
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: very restrictive scriptures,
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: but only I see them as guideposts to pointing us where God is calling us to,
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: and who and So I have been incredibly inspired by so many different teachers.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, working at the cathedral,
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Jim Morton invited all these amazing, wonderful people to come and talk with us.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he told me that someone said,
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know, sometimes these words in our scripture are very arcane.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: And someone once said to him, you mean you can really say that?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, no, but I can sure sing it, right?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, we have to understand where God is calling us to, and just use the words as guides.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I've been so blessed to meet so many incredibly inspiring spiritual teachers
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: of all different faiths.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was just saying to Isaac,
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was, no,
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was saying to someone else,
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: just actually the guy who we were helping,
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: who we met, who helped place and who Magali helped.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: I told him about,
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had an encounter with a man,
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: a Sufi sheikh,
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: From Sri Lanka,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: by the name of Bawa Mahayadin, who had emerged from the jungle, the forest.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: And no one knew how old he was, but no birth certificate.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: But when I met him,
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: which was about 25 or 30 years ago,
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: maybe 40 years ago, he was supposedly 80 or 90 or 100 or 100.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's somewhere old.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he was actually ill.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: He was in bed.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Some people have been waiting to see him for days,
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: but when people told him that I worked with homelessness,
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: that I worked at the cathedral, he invited me to come up and see him.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: And not knowing the difference between Catholic and Protestant and whatever,
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: and thinking I was a priest, he said, well, he said, so you're a priest.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: He said,
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: even if you become the Pope and you live in the Vatican and you die,
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: you have no home, but God has a home inside of your heart.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to find a home inside of God's home, inside of our hearts.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always so meaningful to me.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Catholicism and all these faiths speak to the same thing,
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: that God is living within us and we have to be at home in that reality.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have to Present God out of all these things point to the same thing.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I've recently, again,
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: gotten much more connected with the Eastern folks,
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: with the Sikhs and the Buddhists and the Hindus and the Sufis,
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: but they're all so joyous in helping serve the Hare Christians.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's all about service to them.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let me say that I think that Western religions have gotten a little bit comfortable here.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: We know what we're doing.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: We can go to church.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: We can do the right thing.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: And don't bother me about justice.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm busy, something else.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think maybe these Eastern faiths can help remind us of what it is we're all about.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: I really think so.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: And let me not to say that.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: The Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church and the,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know, Presbyterians, particularly are very social justice minded.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we need each other.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: We need each other to remind us what we're about because we can get so caught up
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: in our own particularity that we forget the larger context.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel very blessed that I'm able to be that bridge to bring people
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: of different faiths together and say, look what we're doing.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you relate to that?
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that who we are?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's the stuff that makes us different.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the stuff that makes us the same.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what I'm about.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we together in all this?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Where do all our faiths lead us?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: I have to say, Mark,
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: you exude a kind of joy that is so refreshing because so much
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: of what we hear is just so discouraging and or angry.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: And to see the light that you carry and clearly you bring to your work is so refreshing.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: It really is a blessing.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: I feel so blessed.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said,
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 75 and I feel like I've been saying,
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that my fourth quarter is half as good as the Knicks.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I really, I feel, I feel fed every day.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: I feel fed every day.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a blessing.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine how, you know, what my life would be like if it were different.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what an opportunity to make a difference because for me,
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: so you invest a little bit of time,
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: invest an hour or two and you've now changed someone's life.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: What a great return on that investment.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: An hour of my time is changing someone's life.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Who would not want to
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: do that?
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's probably where the internal strength and joy comes from.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: It feeds off of itself.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in that last meditation,
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: and thank you for that, that quote from your Sheik friend was beautiful.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: You almost spoke or speculated this idea of Tomorrow's American Catholic,
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: which is generally how we like to tie the threads of our conversation.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe in lieu of that,
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_02: could you talk a bit about just your hopes for the organization,
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: your hopes for some of these immediate pressing concerns with homelessness and
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: the unhoused population and just where you see,
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, the next few years of IAH going?
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as I said,
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: my real dream at this point is to try to bring these tables all over the city
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: to have an interface between different faith groups.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: Different political, I mean,
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: city council and community boards and neighbors and just having everybody kind
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: of find some common ground that is spiritual and social and connected.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever makes sense for them to say, this is a place I can feel at home.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think we're at a moment, not only in our city, but...
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Really more broadly in our country,
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: in our world, where people are struggling with what is value?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: What are we here for?
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Are we here to be as rich as we can?
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or are we here to be rich in our hearts?
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: And people often think that that's not possible because I have to worry about my day to day.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I know that if we,
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that people can find a way to follow their heart
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: and still feed their stomach.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we can.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we trust that there is resources there.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: That we can open people up with resources to say,
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be part of this world where we all have enough.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we can.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: I realize that culture is so powerful.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: If we can change the way we view ourselves, the way we view our culture, so much can happen.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: The hearts of so many people can be opened by seeing ourselves differently,
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: seeing our collective values being expressed differently.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just know that's possible because I can see it.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can see it.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I know other people are yearning for it.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: one thing I learned,
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: interesting talk about Israel and Palestine,
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: and this gentleman was saying that even when we have one predominant narrative,
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: there are other narratives that exist very fully in our consciousness,
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: even though they're not predominant.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the narrative of us supporting each other,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: caring for each other, respecting each other, that's a real narrative.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that we necessarily think is a dominant, but we know what it's like.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: We understand what that is.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not foreign to us.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not the thing we're doing,
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: but it is something we can very easily tap into when it becomes,
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: oh, that's possible.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: I can do that.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I really hope that we can say, that's the one that I want, that I understand what it's like.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: And now we can all relate on that.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: We all know what that's like.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: We can all be part of that.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: I just feel that.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're closer than we've been.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: one other thing that this wonderful Benedictine monk who I met at the cathedral,
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: wonderful man who just turned 100, July 14th turned 100, Brother David Steindlrast.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, of course.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he talks about pain with the grain and pain against the grain.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: And pain against the grain is when we're hurting, but it doesn't solve anything.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: It makes us weaker.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Pain with the grain is pain that brings to a stronger place, to a better place.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we're now going through a very intense period of pain,
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: but I think it's growing pains.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're seeing what we don't want.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing who we don't want to be.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we'll move through this.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think we'll move through this to a place where we are refreshed and healed.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: as they say,
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: the heart's strongest in the wounded,
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: in the broken places, which I think will be stronger.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: I do believe it.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I'm around to see it.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I am.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think I will be.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Mark.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's hopeful concluding words.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like we're at a moment of change and horizons are opening, it seems.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a very useful metaphor to hold in mind with the grain and against the grain.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for that and for all you've shared.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: And thank you most importantly for living out what you've shared
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: and giving us some tools and templates for how to follow in that way.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, both of you.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's good to be with you, both of you.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was our pleasure.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: God bless you both.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 56:33
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• 56:38
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• 56:58
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