Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Episode 125: Ann Bischoff, CEO, Star House

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Episode 125: Ann Bischoff, CEO, Star House · ChangeMakers with Katie Goar

0:05
Speaker 1: This is change Makers with Katie Gore finding the right
0:09
Speaker 1: solutions for the affordable housing community.
0:13
Speaker 2: This week's change Maker is Anne Bischoff, the CEO of
0:18
Speaker 2: Star House and Channels.
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Speaker 3: Over two decades of advocacy, policy expertise, and grassroots leadership
0:26
Speaker 3: into empowering youth exiting homelessness, an issue that is very
0:32
Speaker 3: near and dear.
0:33
Speaker 2: To my heart. And welcome to the podcast.
0:37
Speaker 4: Thank you, Katie.
0:38
Speaker 2: It's so good to be here with you. And I'd
0:41
Speaker 2: like to start these podcasts by learning more about you
0:44
Speaker 2: before we go into the details. So can you either
0:47
Speaker 2: tell us a little more about yourself or tell us
0:50
Speaker 2: about your journey?
0:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, sure. I've had the opportunity a couple of
0:55
Speaker 4: times recently to spend a little time thinking more about
0:58
Speaker 4: what influences there were early on in my life. So,
1:02
Speaker 4: like so many of my peers, I never set out
1:04
Speaker 4: to be the CEO of a nonprofit. I never crossed
1:07
Speaker 4: my mind, so that wasn't the goal. So I won't
1:10
Speaker 4: rattle off my resume in terms of my journey, but
1:13
Speaker 4: I do want to start early on in my childhood,
1:16
Speaker 4: there were these two seismic events to me that occurred. One,
1:20
Speaker 4: I was sexually abused by a church deacon and I
1:25
Speaker 4: told my parents, and that event in my life had
1:29
Speaker 4: a profound impact. I learned early on what it's like
1:32
Speaker 4: to be a victim of crime, and I learned early
1:35
Speaker 4: on the power of speaking up and using your voice.
1:39
Speaker 4: And so later on in my life I had the
1:41
Speaker 4: opportunity to volunteer in orphanages and get to know young
1:45
Speaker 4: people who had been victims of crime and hear their experiences.
1:48
Speaker 4: And I say that experience, coupled with my own experience
1:52
Speaker 4: with surviving crime, really impacted the way forward for me.
1:57
Speaker 2: So I decided to.
1:57
Speaker 4: Lean into policy policy and devote my time to that. Initially,
2:03
Speaker 4: so I worked at the State House I learned how
2:05
Speaker 4: bill really becomes a law, and then from there worked
2:09
Speaker 4: with Kids Ohio, which was a child policy think tank
2:12
Speaker 4: devoted to helping decision makers make informed decisions with just
2:16
Speaker 4: the facts. And there I learned how to ask really
2:19
Speaker 4: good questions, how to not make assumptions, how to look
2:21
Speaker 4: for the unmet need, and began focusing on again young
2:26
Speaker 4: people in foster care, children who were making a go
2:29
Speaker 4: of it without often the support of their family. There
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Speaker 4: So I met with the Children's Services director here locally
2:38
Speaker 4: in Columbus, Ohio at the time, and I asked him
2:42
Speaker 4: what are the unmet needs for youth in foster care?
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Speaker 4: He told me, and I thought certainly he would say
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Speaker 4: kids in foster care need, we need more foster parents,
2:50
Speaker 4: or we need more adoptive parents, and certainly we did
2:52
Speaker 4: then and we do now. But his response was, we
2:55
Speaker 4: have two hundred and fifty kids on a wait list
2:58
Speaker 4: for a mentor. Mentoring has been proven more successful than
3:02
Speaker 4: therapy for youth have experienced trauma, and so I took
3:06
Speaker 4: that as my marching orders. I found a friend who's
3:08
Speaker 4: a counselor. We created a mentor program for small kids
3:12
Speaker 4: in foster care so that they could continue on their
3:14
Speaker 4: relationship with their camp counselor throughout the school year, and
3:18
Speaker 4: that was part of the National Royal Family Kids Program.
3:22
Speaker 4: And really got to know young people and their experiences,
3:25
Speaker 4: learned what happens when they age out of foster care,
3:27
Speaker 4: and that changed everything for me in terms of my
3:30
Speaker 4: journey and the trajectory. From there, I heard from youth
3:34
Speaker 4: who would age out of foster care, created a mentor
3:37
Speaker 4: program for them as well, and they would tell me, look,
3:40
Speaker 4: I've got a place to go in a couple of days.
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Speaker 4: But I have nowhere to go tonight. Can you help me?
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Speaker 4: Remember I was a policy wonk. I didn't know what.
3:47
Speaker 4: I didn't know about the adult shelter system. I just
3:50
Speaker 4: knew that these young people, these young adults, were afraid
3:54
Speaker 4: to go to the adult shelter system for fear of
3:56
Speaker 4: being victimized again. And so I started asking questions again,
4:01
Speaker 4: what are the unmet needs or what is going on
4:03
Speaker 4: with this population? What are the opportunities that are available?
4:06
Speaker 4: And I finally asked the right person, the right question
4:09
Speaker 4: at the right time, and they told me about star House,
4:12
Speaker 4: which at the time was a research study at the
4:15
Speaker 4: Ohio State University. Not a lot of people knew about
4:19
Speaker 4: the program and the good work that they were doing.
4:22
Speaker 4: And from there, the immediacy of access is what our
4:25
Speaker 4: youth were looking for. So I was able to refer
4:27
Speaker 4: young people from the mentor program to Starhouse, got to
4:30
Speaker 4: know the organization, just fell in love because all the
4:33
Speaker 4: things that youth in this foster alumni program that I
4:39
Speaker 4: was part of, they were telling me what they needed
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Speaker 4: and Starhouse either already had it baked into their model
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Speaker 4: or if they had a plan to create housing, create
4:49
Speaker 4: a jobs program that made sense for them. I've been
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Speaker 4: at Starhouse for nine years.
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Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you for trusting us with your
4:58
Speaker 2: early story. And you are demonstrating how you're speaking truth
5:04
Speaker 2: and to an area that's not often talked about. And
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Speaker 2: you just right right off the bat, you walked right
5:10
Speaker 2: up to that line and you're going to You're speaking
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Speaker 2: truth and you're taking your own power back and I'm
5:17
Speaker 2: in awe and respect you for that, because everybody's still
5:21
Speaker 2: learning how to do that, and you clearly have already
5:25
Speaker 2: figured that out. So I'm I know many of our
5:29
Speaker 2: listeners are going to be encouraged by you being so
5:32
Speaker 2: bold and your own story and your own messaging. And
5:37
Speaker 2: obviously you are not just taking your own power, but
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Speaker 2: you are giving that power to other kids now. And
5:47
Speaker 2: we're talking about a population obviously that is vulnerable and
5:51
Speaker 2: exposed to lots of different challenges that other kids are
5:57
Speaker 2: not experiencing. And just kind of making from my own
6:01
Speaker 2: stint in homelessness, it's like, you know, we didn't ask
6:06
Speaker 2: to be in that position. You know, we didn't ask
6:08
Speaker 2: to be living in a tent when I was young,
6:11
Speaker 2: and so you know it was through no fault of
6:14
Speaker 2: our own, but yet you're exposed to other elements that
6:19
Speaker 2: you shouldn't have to be exposed to. And so what
6:22
Speaker 2: Star House is doing? You guys are in Columbus, Ohio, right,
6:27
Speaker 2: but you're giving that power and that voice to kids
6:31
Speaker 2: who are having to make their own way. Now, so
6:37
Speaker 2: tell us about Star House. I mean, how you just
6:39
Speaker 2: mentioned it. You know, what are like, what kind of
6:44
Speaker 2: numbers are you meeting the need for or what kind
6:48
Speaker 2: of numbers are still you can't get to because you're
6:52
Speaker 2: at capacity. Walk us through that now.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, So if you look nationally, just in one year's time,
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Speaker 4: there are four million young people ages fourteen to twenty
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Speaker 4: four who find themselves in a circumstance of homelessness. That
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Speaker 4: is roughly the same size of the population of the
7:08
Speaker 4: entire state of Oregon.
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Speaker 2: And it's happening every year in our country.
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Speaker 4: At our solutions that are working to help young people
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Speaker 4: not just get housed, but keep their housing and prevent
7:18
Speaker 4: chronic homelessness into adulthood. So that's what we're focused on.
7:22
Speaker 4: So let's zoom into central Ohio, just in Franklin County,
7:25
Speaker 4: which is where Columbus, Ohio. The fifteenth largest city in
7:28
Speaker 4: the country exists. There are upwards of ten thousand individual
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Speaker 4: young people in the same age group fourteen to twenty
7:35
Speaker 4: four who find themselves in this circumstance every single year,
7:39
Speaker 4: And the next question is usually why, why is this happening?
7:42
Speaker 4: A lot of people have no idea that there are
7:44
Speaker 4: youth experiencing homelessness anywhere in our country. They think of
7:48
Speaker 4: someone holding a sign on the side of the street,
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Speaker 4: and that's their image of homeless in our country. This
7:54
Speaker 4: is happening to babies and children all around our community.
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Speaker 4: So the top two reasons why they find themselves in
8:00
Speaker 4: the circumstance, as you know, is number one, disconnection from family,
8:05
Speaker 4: hapworn foster care at some point, disconnected from moms and
8:09
Speaker 4: dads at a critical time. Some are pregnant and kicked
8:13
Speaker 4: out of their home for being pregnant, others are kicked
8:17
Speaker 4: out for other reasons. And then we have some young
8:19
Speaker 4: kids who are running away from home. The fear of
8:22
Speaker 4: the unknown, the fear of going and sleeping in a
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Speaker 4: tent site somewhere, becomes less than the fear of staying
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Speaker 4: where they are, and so they're leaving limited rights and resources,
8:31
Speaker 4: especially if they're miners. And then if they're young adults,
8:34
Speaker 4: they don't have the safety net, the support of the
8:36
Speaker 4: proverbial mom's basement, if you will, during that critical critical time.
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Speaker 2: So when a person comes to you, a child comes
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Speaker 2: to you and says, you know, I'm I don't have
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Speaker 2: anywhere to go, and that is their ultimate human need
8:55
Speaker 2: that needs met. They're not able to navigate. Oh, call
8:59
Speaker 2: the seven shelters. Oh apply for a voucher. Oh like
9:04
Speaker 2: that's not in their grasp to be able to do.
9:09
Speaker 2: It's really hard to do. When you're settled and you
9:11
Speaker 2: have all the tools. That's hard enough. So when that
9:15
Speaker 2: person comes to you, what is kicked off by your organization?
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Speaker 4: Yes, And first of all, I will point back to
9:22
Speaker 4: something you said early on about the voices of the
9:24
Speaker 4: young people we're serving everything we do at Starhouse. This
9:28
Speaker 4: is why I love it being sort of brought up
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Speaker 4: in research. Everything that we do at Starhouse is based
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Speaker 4: on the voices of the young people we're serving, listening
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Speaker 4: to them, understanding their experience. We were founded as a
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Speaker 4: federally funded research study at the Ohio State University. The
9:45
Speaker 4: research is all surveys and by the way, if they're
9:48
Speaker 4: compensated for their time to contribute to the research, which
9:51
Speaker 4: is which is really important as well. But they're telling
9:54
Speaker 4: us things like they need immediate access to safety. The
10:00
Speaker 4: I don't know how the system works around the country
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Speaker 4: in every case, but in Columbus we have a homeless
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Speaker 4: hot line, and people need to call the homeless hot line.
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Speaker 4: Sometimes they wait only to be told that there's a
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Speaker 4: weight list. Our shelter here has a wait list.
10:14
Speaker 2: A mile long.
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Speaker 4: Right now, Youth, vulnerable youth especially you are highly susceptible
10:19
Speaker 4: to exploitation and assault and other victimization concerns out on
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Speaker 4: the street must have immediate access to safety. So that's
10:28
Speaker 4: what sets this model apart. By being a drop in.
10:31
Speaker 4: By offering drop in services twenty four to seven, youth
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Speaker 4: have access around the clock every single day and the year,
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Speaker 4: even on holidays, to safety. And then once they're inside.
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Speaker 4: The second thing you've told us from all the research
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Speaker 4: over the years, they need low barrier access. We don't
10:47
Speaker 4: require an idea at the door. Once they're inside. The
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Speaker 4: third thing is they need to feel like they're in
10:53
Speaker 4: control because they don't trust because of the experiences that
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Speaker 4: they've had. So they have complete autonomy they're inside and
11:01
Speaker 4: they can come for as long as they need to
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Speaker 4: between the ages of fourteen and twenty four. There's food, clothings,
11:08
Speaker 4: a safe place to be. And then beyond that, we
11:10
Speaker 4: have clinical services on site. We're seeing people heal from
11:13
Speaker 4: post traumatic stress disorder, and we're connecting them with all
11:17
Speaker 4: the resources they need again not just to get housing,
11:19
Speaker 4: but keep it long term.
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Speaker 2: I can't imagine what they're going through, but you know,
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Speaker 2: in some regards, I remember my own experience mentally thinking,
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Speaker 2: you know, there's got to be something better than this, right,
11:33
Speaker 2: or let me take my own chances on my own.
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Speaker 2: And you know I have talked about sometimes you know,
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Speaker 2: I chose to run away and you're like, you know,
11:44
Speaker 2: I can, I can do this better on my own.
11:47
Speaker 2: And so there's a part that's saying, let me take
11:51
Speaker 2: my own control, because then I'm not going to have
11:54
Speaker 2: to go against the forces of whatever's happening in the
11:57
Speaker 2: foster unit or whatever's happening on the street, whatever. And
12:03
Speaker 2: yet that strength is limiting too because they are children
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Speaker 2: combating this and you but you mentioned the mentorship piece
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Speaker 2: being strong, and and that is like this part of
12:19
Speaker 2: the secret formula for success. How one person is changing
12:24
Speaker 2: potentially their life. Tell us about the mentors here. This
12:29
Speaker 2: this seems like just different than a program or organization.
12:37
Speaker 2: Describe some of that for us.
12:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'll tell you the story starting with talking
12:42
Speaker 4: about trauma and then leading to the solutions that we're
12:46
Speaker 4: uncovered here. Our clinical services director Joe Gores would tell
12:51
Speaker 4: you that when she came to Starhouse as a clinical therapist,
12:55
Speaker 4: she thought homelessness was simply a resource mismatch issue. Okay, right,
13:01
Speaker 4: of course, there's a catch twenty two, and you got
13:03
Speaker 4: to break out of the catch twenty two, get stabilized
13:05
Speaker 4: and move forward. But what she learned is that the
13:08
Speaker 4: vast majority of the young people coming through our center
13:12
Speaker 4: don't just have one trauma one time. They have multiple
13:15
Speaker 4: complex experiences with childhood trauma, current trauma. Homelessness itself is
13:21
Speaker 4: a traumatic experience, but then you add to that assault, right, starvation,
13:26
Speaker 4: all the way down the line, and you see young
13:28
Speaker 4: people averaging on the ACES Scale Average Childhood Experiences scale,
13:33
Speaker 4: a ten point scale measuring these one time traumatic experiences,
13:36
Speaker 4: scoring an average of an eight, a war zone level
13:40
Speaker 4: score on this assessment. And that is the kind of
13:44
Speaker 4: trauma that literally rewires people's brains to distrust, which becomes
13:51
Speaker 4: another barrier that they need to move through. So we
13:54
Speaker 4: emphasize the couple of things at Starhouse that the research
13:58
Speaker 4: has told us search again based on the voices of
14:01
Speaker 4: the young people we're serving. One thing. I love many
14:05
Speaker 4: things I love about all the research, but one thing
14:08
Speaker 4: is there's this finding in nearly every study that we
14:12
Speaker 4: do in partnership with the National Institutes of Health Nationwide
14:15
Speaker 4: Children's Hospital OSU, that says unconditional positive regard. And that's
14:21
Speaker 4: the academic term which most people would call unconditional love.
14:25
Speaker 4: So the practice of welcoming people in time and time again,
14:28
Speaker 4: regardless what they said or did last time. There are
14:30
Speaker 4: triggers associated with trauma. That practice works to rewire people's
14:37
Speaker 4: brains to trusts, connect and take the next step toward
14:41
Speaker 4: their healing, which is meeting with a clinical therapist on
14:45
Speaker 4: site at Starhouse, or a case manager working through breaking
14:50
Speaker 4: out of the catch twenty two, getting connected with jobs, education, healthcare,
14:54
Speaker 4: and therapy. And so now I'll talk about the power
14:57
Speaker 4: of those relationships and the therapy practices in particular, we
15:02
Speaker 4: are seeing young people heal from post traumatic stress disorder.
15:08
Speaker 4: My master's is in educational psychology, and I learned that
15:13
Speaker 4: you can learn to deal with PTSD like ab ME.
15:19
Speaker 4: But I never learned until I came to Star House
15:21
Speaker 4: that people can go from having one of the highest
15:24
Speaker 4: post traumatic stress disorder scores that you can have to
15:29
Speaker 4: after a time with therapy, no longer holding traumatic stress
15:34
Speaker 4: disorder diagnosis. It happens when people work through the therapy
15:39
Speaker 4: and go through that healing process, all of the good
15:43
Speaker 4: things start to stick. Relationships are sticking, their jobs are sticking,
15:48
Speaker 4: their housing is sticking. They're set up for the prevention
15:52
Speaker 4: of chronic illnesses into adulthood. So we specialize certainly in
15:56
Speaker 4: saving lives, and we're providing food and clothing and safe
16:00
Speaker 4: place to be. But what we're really going for is
16:04
Speaker 4: prosperity for young people complete healing from their traumatic experiences,
16:10
Speaker 4: because when that happens.
16:11
Speaker 5: We believe you can prevent chronic homelessness into adult and
16:16
Speaker 5: that power of healing is creating a whole individual who
16:21
Speaker 5: then can feed into and heal and create you know,
16:26
Speaker 5: like that this ripple like, then they become whole so
16:29
Speaker 5: they can help another person as well.
16:32
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
16:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, So tell me about the the technical side of this.
16:39
Speaker 2: You partnered. I think I saw with OSU and how
16:43
Speaker 2: did that work or you know, where were they in
16:46
Speaker 2: the process because you mentioned, you know, all the research
16:50
Speaker 2: side of this. We've talked about the heart, we've talked
16:53
Speaker 2: about the person, and tell me about that organizational aspect.
16:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, So we were so fortunate. A lot of nonprofits
17:01
Speaker 4: just getting started don't have this opportunity. But we were
17:04
Speaker 4: incubated i'll call it by the Ohio State University from
17:08
Speaker 4: two thousand and six with that very first research study
17:12
Speaker 4: all the way to twenty seventeen. So they actually brought
17:15
Speaker 4: me on in twenty sixteen knowing that it was time
17:19
Speaker 4: for Starhouse to spread its wings and become independent. The
17:22
Speaker 4: reason we needed to become independent is so that we
17:25
Speaker 4: could apply more of the solutions that we learned about
17:29
Speaker 4: that didn't really operate well under an academic structure. So
17:32
Speaker 4: we became independent in twenty seventeen. But the research that
17:37
Speaker 4: we do is so important that we wanted to ensure
17:40
Speaker 4: that that remained. So we do have two offices at
17:42
Speaker 4: our drop in Center devoted to that ongoing research. They're
17:46
Speaker 4: looking at traumatic brain injury research right now, the first
17:50
Speaker 4: of its kind. Most of those studies are focused on
17:54
Speaker 4: sports injuries or veterans. This is the first of its
17:57
Speaker 4: kind study focused on childhood trauma and the impact that
18:01
Speaker 4: that has on someone, and so we'll be able to
18:03
Speaker 4: apply learnings in real time. Preliminary findings are telling us
18:08
Speaker 4: that when you practice unconditional positive regard, again these therapeutic
18:13
Speaker 4: practices that we offer, you can reinforce the barrier around
18:18
Speaker 4: someone's DNA, and when you reinforce the barrier there, it
18:22
Speaker 4: can prevent the chronic illnesses associated with traumatic experiences long term.
18:27
Speaker 4: So this is powerful research, not the kind of research
18:31
Speaker 4: that sits on a show for just finds its way
18:33
Speaker 4: to a journal article, but applicable findings that we apply
18:37
Speaker 4: every day, and we're excited to be able to share
18:40
Speaker 4: it with more and more organizations around the country as well.
18:44
Speaker 2: I hate to say this, but a lot of people,
18:48
Speaker 2: I mean, there's this myth that has to be debunked
18:50
Speaker 2: about well they're not going to change, or well what
18:53
Speaker 2: can you do, or well you know the intervention wasn't
18:57
Speaker 2: early enough, or you But yet you're proving that wrong
19:03
Speaker 2: with research based facts that says, yes you can rewire
19:06
Speaker 2: the brain, yes they can heal, and I think that's
19:10
Speaker 2: what's phenomenal is like you're doing the twofold approach. You're
19:13
Speaker 2: confronting that myth that is wrong with evidence that's proving
19:19
Speaker 2: that there are techniques to work through that healing process
19:23
Speaker 2: and that life correcting moment. Yeah, the beautiful thing is youth.
19:28
Speaker 4: Youth are empowered and they understand what's happening and the
19:32
Speaker 4: power of therapy and moving through. We've seen this phenomenon
19:36
Speaker 4: over the past several years where we went from I
19:39
Speaker 4: think it was forty five percent of our youth we're
19:41
Speaker 4: choosing to meet with a therapist or a case manager
19:43
Speaker 4: and she's twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen when I first started,
19:47
Speaker 4: and more recently it's up to eighty nine percent. And
19:50
Speaker 4: so I went to Jill or clinical services leader, and
19:55
Speaker 4: I said, what is going on in these numbers are
19:57
Speaker 4: so high And she said it's gen z. She said,
20:00
Speaker 4: they're more comfortable talking about mental health, accessing okay, and
20:04
Speaker 4: then telling their friends about it. And so we have
20:06
Speaker 4: a whole new referral to the program now. And so
20:09
Speaker 4: that's why we have the information now about how the
20:13
Speaker 4: healing that's taking place when we use em dr I
20:17
Speaker 4: movement desensitization of cognitive bhabal therapy and all of the
20:21
Speaker 4: best strategies.
20:23
Speaker 2: My sister has a couple of counseling centers that she started,
20:28
Speaker 2: and a lot of it was birth from her own,
20:32
Speaker 2: you know, our own shared experiences early on, and so
20:36
Speaker 2: I'm sure when she listens to this, she is going
20:39
Speaker 2: to just be like jumping up in her seat hearing
20:44
Speaker 2: what you guys are doing, because that's a lot of
20:47
Speaker 2: her world too, where she sees it working and she
20:50
Speaker 2: sees that reprogramming. Another thing that I wanted to talk
20:53
Speaker 2: about was another innovative thing that you guys are doing.
20:57
Speaker 2: You just bought I believe it was as in a
21:01
Speaker 2: vacant church and you're going through the conversion process, so
21:05
Speaker 2: you're expanding. Tell us a little bit about that project.
21:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's tell you and I'll answer the question you
21:11
Speaker 4: asked early on that I kind of drifted away from
21:14
Speaker 4: my rabbit trail is the numbers we're seeing and why
21:18
Speaker 4: we are plant in the process of purchasing that second
21:22
Speaker 4: drop in center location. So last year twenty twenty four,
21:25
Speaker 4: we served sixteen hundred and six individual teenagers, young adults
21:31
Speaker 4: and their small children. Seventy eight small children. Of our
21:33
Speaker 4: guests last year as well, that is nearly double the
21:37
Speaker 4: number that we served just three years before.
21:40
Speaker 2: And while we have a.
21:40
Speaker 4: Fourteen thousand square foot facility, half of that is a
21:44
Speaker 4: warehouse and a lot of it much of it is
21:47
Speaker 4: a gym. So if not for that full length gym,
21:50
Speaker 4: we would be at capacity. Our unique service to our
21:54
Speaker 4: community is zero youth turned away. And the way we're
21:57
Speaker 4: people to do that is by you know, having enough space.
22:00
Speaker 4: And so we are in the process. We're in contract
22:04
Speaker 4: on an old church, convent and school on one property.
22:09
Speaker 4: We'll convert that into a second drop and center, certainly
22:12
Speaker 4: to meet the unique needs of young people in that
22:15
Speaker 4: region of central Ohio, but also to offset any capacity
22:19
Speaker 4: issues because we can't turn young people away. They're too
22:22
Speaker 4: vulnerable to be left on the street.
22:25
Speaker 2: Why do you think Columbus is a unique community to
22:32
Speaker 2: be making this model work.
22:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's an interesting question because we're in conversation with
22:38
Speaker 4: a couple of other communities and we're learning, you know,
22:42
Speaker 4: the difference of developing and unique communities there.
22:46
Speaker 2: Because it's not a given, is it.
22:48
Speaker 4: It's not. I will say early on in the early
22:53
Speaker 4: two thousands, when we came on the scene. There was
22:57
Speaker 4: very little known about this population. There were people in
23:01
Speaker 4: the community saying, we might have a few kids out
23:04
Speaker 4: there living on the streets, but there can't be many.
23:06
Speaker 4: We're Columbus, We're all these Fortune five hundred companies and
23:09
Speaker 4: all these universities. You know, we're doing okay, And then
23:13
Speaker 4: we come on the scene and we say, hey, look
23:16
Speaker 4: they're At the time, the estimate was a couple of
23:19
Speaker 4: thousand youth every single year who are CouchSurfing, disconnected and
23:23
Speaker 4: trying to make a go of it, and we need
23:25
Speaker 4: to support them now to prevent chronicle business into adulthood.
23:28
Speaker 4: So the difference I think that it makes to be
23:34
Speaker 4: in Columbus is when you make the case of people
23:38
Speaker 4: listen to the facts, they listen to the details, and
23:42
Speaker 4: you can't deny that the need is here at this point.
23:44
Speaker 4: And we're so fortunate to have leaders in our community
23:47
Speaker 4: that when given the facts, they want to step up
23:50
Speaker 4: and support and help make things happen. So we've got tremendous,
23:53
Speaker 4: tremendous support from all sectors of our community here.
23:58
Speaker 2: Fortunately, using your policy hat, as you talked about your
24:04
Speaker 2: expertise there, if policy makers were looking for a solution
24:10
Speaker 2: for unhealthed and housed youth. What would you say, maybe
24:15
Speaker 2: the three things that they need to do on a
24:18
Speaker 2: more macro national level. I mean, you guys are doing
24:22
Speaker 2: what you're doing in Columbus, right, but there are so
24:25
Speaker 2: many other cities that need to have the push to
24:29
Speaker 2: get going. So what would you recommend from a larger
24:33
Speaker 2: national scale to make that happen.
24:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say, again, four million youth every single year,
24:41
Speaker 4: and if we support all four million of those young
24:45
Speaker 4: people into adulthood, ensuring that they have the right access
24:49
Speaker 4: to careers and opportunities for affordable housing, that will save
24:53
Speaker 4: taxpayers billions of dollars over the course of those young
24:57
Speaker 4: people's lives. So we must step in and provide the
25:02
Speaker 4: pathway that these young people need to prosperity and sure
25:07
Speaker 4: fire housing and the way to do it. There are
25:09
Speaker 4: so many organizations around our country that are doing good work.
25:12
Speaker 4: So I don't want to make it sound like storehouses
25:14
Speaker 4: the silver bullet. We have all the answers, although I
25:16
Speaker 4: do know that the types of services that we have
25:19
Speaker 4: work for this population, and that's immediate access to safety.
25:23
Speaker 4: First of all, I'd say go out to the streets,
25:25
Speaker 4: so we go to them to the tent site, soup kitchens,
25:28
Speaker 4: college campuses, libraries, make sure that they know about the
25:32
Speaker 4: resources that are available. For every one person, we find
25:34
Speaker 4: out they're three more, followed by word of mouth, and
25:37
Speaker 4: then the immediate twenty four to seven access is what
25:40
Speaker 4: people are looking for. We've been out there on national
25:43
Speaker 4: news and we've had people from all over the country
25:45
Speaker 4: reach out to us wanting to learn about this model,
25:48
Speaker 4: and every single time, they're looking for the immediate access,
25:53
Speaker 4: the breaking down of all the red tape, to just
25:56
Speaker 4: get into the door and get into a safe circumstance
26:00
Speaker 4: ants where you can breathe about to begin moving forward.
26:05
Speaker 4: And then flexibility is really important with this population. We
26:08
Speaker 4: don't have a twelve week program. We don't have demands
26:11
Speaker 4: that people have to walk through to get services and
26:13
Speaker 4: to move forward. We make everything available in a one
26:16
Speaker 4: stop shop and we have all the team members on
26:19
Speaker 4: site available to coach them and walk them through the
26:22
Speaker 4: process on their own unique timeline. From there, we have housing,
26:28
Speaker 4: so we have a unique housing model as well that
26:31
Speaker 4: was birthed out of asking good questions and doing the
26:34
Speaker 4: research listening to youth. We took an old Motel six
26:38
Speaker 4: and turned it into efficiency apartments. Yet but more importantly,
26:43
Speaker 4: all the resources on site that a young person needs
26:47
Speaker 4: not just to get housing, but keep it baked in
26:49
Speaker 4: with full time staffing. So there's on site access to jobs, education, healthcare, therapy,
26:54
Speaker 4: case management, laundry facility, food pantry, and we're finding that
26:58
Speaker 4: youth have the space to get the traction they need
27:02
Speaker 4: to sustain their housing long term. One young man came
27:05
Speaker 4: in from the drop and center into housing, was able
27:08
Speaker 4: to complete his high school diploma with education resources that
27:11
Speaker 4: we have on site. Then he completed his real estate license,
27:15
Speaker 4: and then he went on he didn't need us anymore.
27:17
Speaker 4: He got his own apartment and we were able to
27:19
Speaker 4: connect him with mentors in the real estate space to
27:22
Speaker 4: help him get that traction as well. So it's a
27:25
Speaker 4: pathway and it's hard work, and you have to have
27:28
Speaker 4: team members committed to it to take their time with
27:31
Speaker 4: a young person and walk them through the whole process.
27:33
Speaker 4: And when you do, they come back and they tell
27:36
Speaker 4: you the difference that it may it made, and it's
27:38
Speaker 4: a beautiful thing.
27:40
Speaker 2: I was just going to ask you if there was
27:42
Speaker 2: some type of I hate to say storytelling, but some
27:47
Speaker 2: type of testimonial, That's what it is and that you
27:51
Speaker 2: like to talk about in changing public perception and really
27:55
Speaker 2: helping garner support for your mission. Is there some type
27:59
Speaker 2: of testimony all that. I'm sure you have a.
28:01
Speaker 4: Ton holpless, countless stories that I could tell you, but
28:08
Speaker 4: dispelling the myth. One thing is the idea that people
28:12
Speaker 4: are homeless because they don't want to work. That is
28:15
Speaker 4: not true. If you look at our data, you've you've
28:17
Speaker 4: been with us for ninety or more days, seventy nine
28:19
Speaker 4: percent of them are obtaining employment. The trick is keeping
28:23
Speaker 4: it and so we've created a program Star Works that
28:25
Speaker 4: brings the jobs to them. They can work when they
28:28
Speaker 4: can when they can't work, there's no penalty. So what
28:31
Speaker 4: I would encourage people to do is go to our
28:33
Speaker 4: website Starhouse dot us slash c bus cbus c us
28:41
Speaker 4: see us. There's a video there of a young lady
28:46
Speaker 4: named Cale, and she's given us permission to share the
28:49
Speaker 4: video of her experience while she was at Starhouse, she
28:54
Speaker 4: came to us and she'll she describes in the video,
28:57
Speaker 4: the circumstance of homelessness isn't something you have to do
29:00
Speaker 4: wrong to fall into life, just sort of happens, and
29:03
Speaker 4: you find yourself in this catch twenty two and it's
29:06
Speaker 4: really tricky to break out of that catch twenty two
29:09
Speaker 4: without the proper supports. And so that's where Starhouse stepped
29:13
Speaker 4: in for her. She was connected with a group of mentors.
29:16
Speaker 4: Since then she's moved on, she's married, she's got a
29:18
Speaker 4: good job, and most recently she published an illustrated children's books. So,
29:24
Speaker 4: oh wow, those sorts of experiences. And like the young
29:27
Speaker 4: man I shared who got his real estate license, these
29:30
Speaker 4: are the experiences of young people. They want to move forward,
29:36
Speaker 4: they want relationships, and it is one of the most
29:39
Speaker 4: beautiful things when after someone comes in looking forlorn, just
29:44
Speaker 4: having lost hope, getting them connected and to the point
29:47
Speaker 4: where you see that big smile in their face and
29:51
Speaker 4: the weight lifted off of their shoulders. These are resilient
29:55
Speaker 4: young leaders who want to be advocates for their peers.
29:59
Speaker 2: What would you tell someone listening if they wanted to
30:03
Speaker 2: make a difference, what's one small thing or one step
30:07
Speaker 2: that they could take today? I mean, real quick, I'm
30:10
Speaker 2: thinking they need to go hear the words of kal
30:14
Speaker 2: What would be another thing that they could do or
30:19
Speaker 2: make an impact? On.
30:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd like to say there's a place for everybody
30:23
Speaker 4: if you have a little bit of time or a lot.
30:25
Speaker 4: So if you have a little bit of time, if
30:27
Speaker 4: you're in the Central Ohio region, you can come volunteer
30:29
Speaker 4: in our warehouse, sorting through clothing or getting to know
30:32
Speaker 4: some of the other opportunities for volunteering elsewhere. Look into
30:36
Speaker 4: your local community and see what opportunities there are for
30:40
Speaker 4: teens and young adults experiencing homelessness. Perhaps you could be
30:43
Speaker 4: a mentor or make a donation. I'm encouraging everybody. Given
30:48
Speaker 4: the circumstances for nonprofits in our country right now, a
30:52
Speaker 4: lot of us are facing financial cliffs for the first time,
30:57
Speaker 4: so I encourage you to look into organizations meeting this need.
31:01
Speaker 4: If you've already given, give double what you gave last year.
31:05
Speaker 4: That's one of the most important things that you can
31:07
Speaker 4: do in this economic uncertainty that we're living in right now.
31:12
Speaker 2: What does Columbus what what do they when when people
31:18
Speaker 2: come into Columbus, what's the what's the thing that they
31:21
Speaker 2: say about your city? And I got a reason for
31:23
Speaker 2: asking this.
31:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I was fortunate to have lived in two cities.
31:28
Speaker 4: I moved here from West Palm Beach where I went
31:29
Speaker 4: to high school. And uh and and I would say
31:34
Speaker 4: about Columbus. Columbus is innovative and open to collaboration. And
31:42
Speaker 4: you know, in Starhouse's circumstance, we had over ninety social
31:45
Speaker 4: service partners last year. Our housing model is a joint
31:48
Speaker 4: ownership model, so there's a lot of openness to working
31:52
Speaker 4: together to make things happen. And when you have innovation,
31:56
Speaker 4: creativity and collaboration, you can go further faster toward a solution.
32:02
Speaker 4: That's one of the things I love about our community here.
32:05
Speaker 2: And that's what I was noticing, the way that you
32:08
Speaker 2: have partnered people who have come alongside you. I mean, yes,
32:12
Speaker 2: you guys, as an organization and a nonprofit can go
32:15
Speaker 2: it alone, but you guys have really unique partnerships. And
32:19
Speaker 2: that's kind of a Columbus thing too. I Mean there's
32:23
Speaker 2: something about that city that is willing to tackle the
32:28
Speaker 2: hard thing in the room, willing to talk about the
32:31
Speaker 2: hard thing in the room, and really trying to solve it.
32:33
Speaker 2: But you guys are doing it with partnerships. Can you
32:35
Speaker 2: talk about some of.
32:37
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, yeah, it's people call it the Columbus way.
32:41
Speaker 4: So it's nothing new, nothing unique to to star House.
32:46
Speaker 4: You're absolutely right. I mean, I think in the early
32:48
Speaker 4: two thousands, the trends here was Okay, here's an issue,
32:53
Speaker 4: we form a commission to solve the issue, and then
32:56
Speaker 4: you created a report and then you follow the steps
32:59
Speaker 4: to do that. And there's still a lot of that
33:01
Speaker 4: going on. In Starhouse's case, there's a Youth Partner coalition
33:06
Speaker 4: and so that all the organizations in town that are
33:09
Speaker 4: serving this population we get together once a month and
33:11
Speaker 4: we talk about the issues. We're talking about ways that
33:14
Speaker 4: we can share services, share facilities, and I think for
33:18
Speaker 4: in this economic time now, that sort of conversation around
33:22
Speaker 4: the country is going to be more more important than
33:25
Speaker 4: ever before. We must share, you know, to move forward
33:30
Speaker 4: in serving this population well.
33:32
Speaker 2: And I really appreciate you taking the time. I am
33:36
Speaker 2: encouraged by what you guys are doing, and I really
33:41
Speaker 2: like that you're tackling a problem with the solution that
33:46
Speaker 2: can be replicated too, so you know, we don't have
33:50
Speaker 2: to resign ourselves to this whole shoulder shrug what can
33:53
Speaker 2: be done, because you guys are now showing exactly what
33:58
Speaker 2: the opportunity and the potential is for every single one
34:01
Speaker 2: of those individuals and those kids who need stability and
34:05
Speaker 2: who need that acceptance and they can relaunch their lives.
34:11
Speaker 2: You know, I was able to relaunch my life by
34:15
Speaker 2: the difference that one person had in our life. And
34:19
Speaker 2: that's what you are bringing to the table, a group
34:22
Speaker 2: of people who are united. They're the one person, right
34:27
Speaker 2: just making a change. So anything you want to close
34:29
Speaker 2: this out on, and I sure would.
34:31
Speaker 4: We are in replication mode and so we're of course
34:35
Speaker 4: replicating here in Central Ohio, but we're also in the
34:38
Speaker 4: process of advising some other communities on how to create
34:42
Speaker 4: a Star House or a program in their community. So
34:44
Speaker 4: if people are interested in learning more, you know, just
34:48
Speaker 4: want to see what's possible in their community, encourage them
34:51
Speaker 4: to reach out. My website is listed there by my
34:55
Speaker 4: name Starhouse dot us. If you want to reach out
34:58
Speaker 4: to me directly, just put slash and a and at
35:01
Speaker 4: the end of that and you can contact me.
35:02
Speaker 2: Do you have a big annual fundraiser you want to
35:04
Speaker 2: tell us about.
35:06
Speaker 4: Absolutely, we have a couple of things going on right now.
35:09
Speaker 4: One is the capital campaign for the south Side Project.
35:14
Speaker 4: We'll call that Star Out south Side. We are at
35:16
Speaker 4: seven million dollars so far toward that ten million goal,
35:20
Speaker 4: and we have a two point five million dollar match
35:22
Speaker 4: thanks to the Walter Foundation, the Wolf Family, and a
35:26
Speaker 4: truly anonymous donor. I have no idea this person is,
35:29
Speaker 4: and so we encourage people to contribute toward that. Our
35:33
Speaker 4: greatest need right now is day to day operations funding.
35:37
Speaker 4: Just like nonprofits all across our country, we're not immune
35:41
Speaker 4: to the economic circumstances out there, and so we are
35:44
Speaker 4: working now to fill in a one point five million
35:46
Speaker 4: dollar gap in our operations funding that needs to be
35:51
Speaker 4: filled in. This is urgent for us right now to
35:54
Speaker 4: ensure that we can sustain twenty four to seven operations
35:58
Speaker 4: you know here two four. So encourage people to take
36:01
Speaker 4: a look at Starhouse dot us slash donate yes at the.
36:05
Speaker 2: End, Okay, thank you so much and I appreciate it,
36:09
Speaker 2: and God speak to all of you who are doing
36:11
Speaker 2: such great work.
36:12
Speaker 4: Thank you, Katie. I appreciate the chance to chat.
36:15
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Change Makers with Katie Gore. To
36:18
Speaker 1: find out more about Katie, go to quadel dot com.
36:22
Speaker 1: That's qu A d E l dot com. This has
36:27
Speaker 1: been a production of Forbes Books Radio