Hi, this is steve pomeroy and thank you for joining me for this month's podcast. Today I'm gonna talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart something I'm very passionate about and that is the homeless for the last five years. I've been a volunteer, a blogger, an advocate along the ways of shared with you about my own personal recovery. My journey there as I am in recovery from the disease of alcoholism of which you may or may not know. Many of the homeless suffer from substance abuse and in many cases addiction and also mental health challenges as well. I want to share with you three things that I have learned in the last five years, factual things from my interactions as a volunteer through my research as a blogger and now today as a someone who's going to podcast on this issue. It's not even an issue anymore, especially here in California where I live. It is a crisis. It's interesting. I wanted to share this with you. So I'm gonna read this, I looked this up in the Oxford Dictionary. Crisis is defined as a time of intense difficulty, trouble or danger. The turning point of a disease, when an important change takes place indicating either recovery or death. And I firmly believe that is where we're at, not only in the state of California in L. A. Where I reside, but in our country I'm gonna share with you about my preconditioning and the stereotypes that I had formed as a result of this preconditioning that I've carried with me for decades and when I read these two to you, I hope you notice the similarities in the stigma placed on the homeless that I articulated a number of weeks back in a podcast I recorded about why I was afraid to get sober for so long and one of them was fear and the stigma associated with addiction, alcoholism, the writer and author, vernon Howard put it very succinctly I think, and he's quoted as saying they are the enemy of the way which we are living now I was afraid of the homeless for a long time again, prior conditioning that I believed was right sometimes, I mean people do have poor encounters with homeless people, some people as a result of being homeless have committed crimes to provide for their addiction. Once the addiction, the disease has you in its grips, you're powerless. I talked about that a few weeks ago, they've committed crimes that where they've tried to provide for their families, I'm not condoning that behavior in any way, shape or form. I'm trying to humanize them because they're human beings just like I am as a recovering alcoholic and I certainly didn't want people holding those stereotypes over me, family, friends in my recovery, it would hurt my recovery, it would jeopardize my existence, I need the support of others to stay sober and to live the life that I want to live with purpose and passion, here's some of the stereotypes, a bomb hobo lazy, crazy, sick addict, alcoholic thief and then one I've heard recently they're pieces of ship and I hope they go to jail for what they did again. Many of the same adjectives are used to describe the stigma of an addict, the disease of addiction and mental health does not discriminate and neither does homelessness. So I'm gonna start sharing by sharing with you something that happened an encounter with a homeless person a little less than a year ago I was driving over to U. C. L. A. S. Campus for a class to work towards achievement of the certificate for substance abuse counselor and so on my way over there and the campus is in a nice neighborhood Now it's a big campus that's spread out over many parts of L. A. And Westwood. So I'm getting ready to approach a light. Now I'm gonna tell you the story and it's gonna happen a lot faster than I'm gonna be able to tell you this during this podcast. So as I'm approaching the life the light I see a homeless person on the corner with a sign asking for money. I notice that the lights turning yellow which means it's gonna turn red and in a very short period of time here's what entered my mind quickly this person, he was a male might make me late if I stop he may want to talk to me, could I hand him the money and still beat the red light or just run it and still try to give them the money or throw the money out the window and then a pretty nice part of down turning on the wilshire boulevard. I made a decision to stop and I can tell you I got more than I ever bargained for. He smiled as I gave him a few dollars and that's all I gave him said, God bless you. He noticed I was wearing a sweatshirt, it was in the fall, it gets cool out here even in L. A. He commented on the sweatshirt, it was in Ohio State uh football sweatshirt. I used to live back in that neck of the woods and he started talking about how he liked the quarterback on the team. So we had a nice little exchange, we're talking football, which I enjoy viewing and going to games and I'm a fan. He mentioned that he was trying to get back home to see his family in Arizona I believe. He said Arizona, I'm not 100% sure on that and I can tell you that I'm so grateful that I, I stopped, he was so friendly to me, he wasn't acting unusual. He was very humble, he was conversational and I completely got more than I ever could have bargained for and with this preconditioning and the stereotypes and my own fears, I decided to look up another term in the Oxford dictionary on a social disease. Oxford defined it as defines it as a social phenomena phenomenon viewed as evil or inconvenience. I find that interesting. I often wonder and pray when there's gonna be a time for collaboration where we look for solutions, not who's to blame and hoping that the problem will go away. Thus the slogan of not in my backyard, not in my downtown. Oh sure I care about the homeless, just not here where there's gonna be a time of collaboration between society, capitalism, philanthropy and government versus spending an inordinate amount of time on deciding who's to blame for all this. Like in the unfortunate circumstances that played out in el paso and Dayton Ohio where lives were lost, lives were taken. We're still learning more about this and our politicians couldn't even agree on a day of mourning and instead chose to dehumanize the victims and their families and point the finger finger. I still pray about that every day. So here's what I want to share with you what I've learned about the homeless. And this is factual information. Many homeless are victims of toxic relationships including emotional sexual and or physical abuse. Not everybody that's victimized by that ends up homeless. But many do a statistic that I came across when visiting the covenant house here in L. A. That is a national organization Working with homeless teens, 25% of the teens that enter their doors were victims of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, another statistic 80%. Now this is just in general across the country, 80% of homeless teens have substance use substance abuse problems, addiction issues. So we're talking about not only the result of being homeless but a genetic predisposition which does exist in the genes to addiction and mental health. It doesn't mean that it's gonna play out for someone's offspring, it also means that it won't not play out either environment. And abusive relationships are the main contributors to substance use disorders and mental health. Now I ask you, are these people that choose to be homeless. Is that a choice a genetic predisposition environment, abusive relationships, trauma can create a lot of mental health challenges such as depression and P. T. S. D. To name a couple that can lead to substance abuse which can lead to addiction and if it's left untreated it can lead to a whole bunch of other problems, not only for the individual but for society. When poverty is down and homelessness down in a state a city a country, crime rates are lower. That is factual information. Some people actually believe that homeless people prefer to live on the streets. That might be true. If you grew up in a toxic environment and were abused emotionally sexually physically. Were victims of sex trafficking and forced prostitution fell prey to addiction and mental health that was being untreated. You might want to choose to live in the streets too because you feel safer. Trust is very important for these people to be able to have the courage to come off the streets and to get some help. It was for me to have the courage to say yes and come back to treatment for alcoholism. I had to have a certain amount of courage and trust to make the effort trust trauma and then I'll leave you with a few other thoughts here. What about the ones that are born into homelessness? Another fact, a child is born into poverty every 33 seconds, every 33 seconds. So think about how many Children during this podcast were born in the poverty, is that their choice? Should we not provide for them? Another fact, in addition to the homeless population, which is rising daily here in Los Angeles, Over 4.2 million single mothers are at risk of being homeless. They define at risk As being making less than or equal to $22,000 per year for a family of four. I don't know how many families could get by on that, especially in the city is expensive as it is to live in Los Angeles or anywhere for that matter. And because of those numbers for single mothers which have been blogging about the past couple of months, that puts another million five teens at risk of being homeless. Those are the facts. In summary, I'm gonna leave you with a few things that I've, I've learned in the last five years and don't forget when I was afraid to stop and talk to that person and give them money. I've been volunteering and working with the homeless for years and it's been a blessing and an amazing experience. And these places these missions and shelters are filled with compassion and empathy and love and support unconditional support. But they can only take it so far, which I'll be talking about in the future in terms of longer term care and solutions for the homeless and the at risk we're talking about millions of lives, homelessness is a human issue and it does not discriminate based on color. You could be a man, a woman, a child, a veteran, a student, a business person. Just like addiction and mental health. It does not discriminate ignorance is bliss. I contributed to that and it leads to dehumanization and with that fear it begets emotional bias in our decision making from a political perspective, a lack of support for long term solutions, wellness, mental health, mental health, their overall well being society. We need more volunteers, donors and it influences the way we vote, emotional bias and dehumanization leads to social acceptance. And then the two positive things I want to leave you with acknowledgement of this and increasing our awareness is empowering. We have a voice if we're a registered voter, we can vote, we can volunteer. There's other ways to get involved and because of that society has the power to do something about this. Thank you for listening and following me, believing big change. I appreciate all your support and I look forward to speaking with you about this crisis as we move forward and work towards solutions to empower these people. So they not only have the ability to survive and provide basic needs for themselves, but to move beyond that and thrive in our society. Like many of us have the opportunity to do day in and day out. Thanks again. Talk to you soon and God bless.