San Diego's Codependent Relationship with the Homeless

Today volunteers from around San Diego County hit the streets to count the homeless as part of our annual We All Count in hopes that we can get more federal funding for our region. This caused me to reflect on my 25th year being On Point in this effort to lead folks out of homelessness, while serving our public in a Serve to Solve focused Mission. And so with this in mind, I hope you enjoy reading my perspective on the dynamic of codependency between San Diego and its homeless.

The first homeless program that I ran was a place for chronic street men in 1994 at a rural ranch in Vista. I thought the idea of being far away from the urban environment would be a huge factor in helping these men get healthy. The key however wasn't the serene peaceful location (although it didn't hurt), the key was found in the interactions between the men and the helpers who worked there.

The group who had run the programs before me had created a beautiful retreat center type environment where the homeless would come to escape the rigors of the LA's infamous Skid Row. What happened though in nearly every case was that they became dependent on the programs…they’d live there for a year or two…fall out and go back to Skid Row…then come back and do it over again and again. This happened despite all of the men working various jobs at the ranch and getting a lot of support and counseling.

Why did the men fail? Why couldn't the program, despite the very caring and competent staff and volunteers succeed in helping the men end their homelessness? 

What I learned here would later become the single most important factor in designing and managing every one of the nearly two dozen programs that we have since built at Solutions for Change. 

There is an innate human tendency that is deeply ingrained in the makeup of most people who choose to work in this field that can create a very dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship between the helper and the one being helped. It is hard to see and even harder to talk about for most. It has a name that has been widely used in the addiction recovery field but has recently been more widely applied to social issues where groups (nonprofits, churches, government programs) serve needy clients. The name is Codependency.

The book "When Helping Hurts" is a good place to start if you want to learn more about how this dynamic can be a sneaky and silent killer in any homeless or poverty effort.

Codependency can play out in a one-on-one relationship say between a parent and child, in a church with dozens of volunteers serving many homeless, in a region with hundreds of well-intentioned groups helping thousands of homeless, or in an entire society grappling with what to do with a massive homeless problem.

I believe that the urban core of San Diego is suffering hugely from this exact dynamic. The community fabric here is interwoven with a type of codependent glue that has been well entwined between the helpers and the homeless for decades. Will counting more homeless so that San Diego can get more funding solve this problem? Will building 5000 more affordable housing units for the homeless do the trick? Will getting every single advocate, government agency, nonprofit, church, donor and volunteer to collaborate together on the same plan finally bring us to the promised land? Those are all the things being discussed and focused on but none of them will work for a long term solution. In fact, all of these things will very likely make the problem worse.

Here is why it gets worse...because these things create more dependency and more dependency will ALWAYS create more COdependency. So even though you've got dozens of self described homeless experts down there championing a design of Housing First and centralized coordination, the only thing you'll get is more unhealthy relationships between them and the other helpers and the homeless who will now be dependent, but coordinated and behind a door somewhere. And as soon as the helpers start patting themselves on the back, more homeless will appear, but it won't be just 6,000 more homeless. It will be three times that number. Why? Because the hundreds of thousands in deep poverty (there are 20M nationally) will see that you can be rewarded with a free apartment in America's Finest City if you are homeless.

What is needed isn’t more money, more shelter or more free Housing First units…it is a community-wide intervention. San Diego needs a leader to lead that intervention conversation. Only after that, will San Diego have a real shot at sticking a flag in the ground that says Victory! 

Will San Diego Surrender to The Churn?

 

Twenty-four years ago I was one of the four pioneers who started formalizing the process of addressing homelessness in San Diego which is now known as the San Diego CoC. I used to go to a lot of the meetings like the one discussed in this article published today in the Union Tribune.  

 

Over the next few years I saw that the entire system was designed to contain homelessness...like it was a disease...where the homeless had to be put somewhere and then dealt with. The symptoms of homelessness, which would manifest into the need for food, shelter and even compassionate and emergency social service care, would get addressed. But time and time again I would notice that the food and the shelter and the hugs would only meet the first 5% of what these human beings really needed. Yet this constant cycle, which I later named The Churn, would spin over and over and over.

And because only the symptoms would get met, the real problems would never get addressed and so predictably, the homeless numbers would grow. Seeing this dynamic play out time and time again and then studying it from the funding side and then also the public policy side...it hit me like a ton of bricks. The whole system had operationalized and systematized around an underlying dynamic that I had learned a lot about as a professional in the addiction treatment and recovery field, which I had served in for many years as a counselor before I jumped into the homeless issue.

 

That dynamic is referred to as codependency and it was oftentimes one of the most difficult issues we would have to deal with when helping the addict or alcoholic. You see, the condition of addiction is very hard to progress without codependents, without the spouse, family member, friend or coworker enabling the addict. Of course those closest to the person should care greatly, but through this caring and compassion it is an unfortunate reality that they get locked into and become part of the sickness. There are hundreds of books written on this dynamic and all of them call for the codependent to heal and detach and allow the hurting person to feel the full brunt of their addiction, without "helping" them! Helping, in the traditional sense, actually hurts! By detaching with real compassion and allowing the addict to feel the full natural consequences, positive change can come, and will often come fully and very quickly.

 

Do you see the connection?

 

The Churn is fueled by a fully operationalized codependent system. It's taken on a life of its own. And as we see again, the case now is being made that there is an even more urgent need, so there is a demand for more money, more helpers, more, more more.

So The Churn will now be fed more. See my short video description of The Churn here.

 

I would often stand up in the meetings and say stuff like, "hey guys what if instead of more money and resources what if we changed the way we think about this problem...what if we changed the design?" But the notion of admitting that we were collectively actually feeding The Churn, that we were really codependent and enabling homelessness would be scoffed at and later I would be dismissed as "that guy." Today, those whom I am called to serve nearly all understand this logic and agree with this point of view. But the homeless advocates and their public sector supporters (many whom are surprisingly the same social engineers who built The Churn) still dismiss this theory. Lately they have been upping their attacks on me personally and on Solutions for Change.

Eventually I left the meetings and focused on what I could have influence over which was architecting our own programs based on a redesign. Solutions for Change became that redesign.

Now The Churn is massive. Look at the numbers of homeless. And, the same social engineers are now crying for this new way called Housing First. But look at the change they ask for...they want to take hurting people and move them behind a door in "permanent housing" paid for by the taxpayer...indefinitely. With, and get this....no strings attached.

 

Sound familiar?

 

So now there is a frenzied effort to get over 1000 units of housing where we can pluck the homeless off the streets and move them out of sight. Sounds like an evolved design of the same thing, right? It's a newly fashioned containment design.

 

So back to what we learned two decades ago which was that symptom relief doesn't solve the underlying causes of what got the person homeless. Providing someone a no strings attached apartment where they can continue to use drugs, be dependent and abuse their children is just a refined method of containment. So in my mind, this is San Diego raising the white flag and, very possibly, fully surrendering to The Churn by jumping All-In on a massive codependency operation under a new banner called Housing First. 

If you agree then please forward this to your elected representative. Ask them not to endorse housing first programs for homeless families without also supporting other programmatic options like the life changing services provided by organizations like Solutions for Change. The one-size-fits-all polices and practices coming down from our federal and state government are threatening community based privately led solutions. We need your help!

 

An Evening to Remember with...Our American Heroes!

TRANSCRIPT

Speech by Chris Megison, CEO Solutions for Change

An Evening to Remember with Our American Heroes

Sep 19, 2015 at Jet Source Carlsbad Airport

_____________________________________________

 

Good evening everyone and again welcome to our little hangar! How do you like it? We’ve done some pretty crazy things over the years but never have we transformed an airplane hangar into something this cool! 

 

Tonight we honor our American Heroes - and as we lift them up we are also calling on their warrior spirit to stand with you to lift up Solutions for Change in a battle that we face every day here with our people. 

This is a battle that is personal to me. It became personal when I lost my brother to his fight with addiction. It became personal one night 15 years ago while helping out at a homeless shelter designed for men when a little girl by the name of Jessica pulled on my sleeve and innocently asked me if I lived in the shelter with her and her baby sister and her mom - she asked it in such an innocent way - like somehow it was okay to live on the cold concrete floor of a shelter. And this wasn’t in one of the many third world counties I was in as a Marine - this was right here in northern San Diego. In my city - and that made it personal enough - for me.  

The ongoing causalities of the war on homelessness, with hundreds of thousands of lost, broken and hurting people, can be seen and felt everywhere. What was once a problem confined to single men in inner cities, has now spread to claim some 200,000 children and their parents in suburbs like northern San Diego. And with the US Dept. of Education saying that there are another 2.5 million children who are teetering on the edge of homelessness, now is not the time for a retreat. Now is the time for a full on surge. And tonight we have some interesting people here who know a little something about how to surge - they know how to move forward in the face of enormous challenges - they know what it’s like to sacrifice and serve for the sake of others – Thank you Taya and Clint, Thank you Dick Marcinko, Ed Eaton, Craig “Sawman” Sawyer and thank you to the dozens of veteran and active duty here tonight - thank you all for your sacrifice that you’ve given to each of us. [Applause]

As we look at the damage that this war is dealing, the impacts go deeper than many of us think - they go right to our patriotic core. The impacts claim many thousands of our country’s veterans new and old, those who’ve served and sacrificed big for us, now try to survive on the streets. They try to survive on OUR streets, with their kids - with kids in OUR community.  In the Marine Corps we used a term called UNSAT, which stands for unsatisfactory. Getting an UNSAT meant shame and failure, something that no Marine ever wanted to hear. 

Having 200,000 kids and their parents; many of them veterans on our streets…IS an UNSAT for America! And although we know that we aren’t going to solve it tonight…we are going to do something about it. We are going to bring our best foot forward and we are going to give it everything we’ve got. Tonight, on behalf of the Board of Directors and our Community Leadership Team, I am pleased to announce our next pig push to solve family homelessness, it will be our boldest effort ever in our 25 years of battling homelessness - it is an initiative that we will simply call Mission: Solve Family Homelessness - or SOLVE IT for short.

 

We are launching it before the end of the year, but I wanted you to hear about it tonight so when you walk out of here you know this just wasn’t a really cool experience in an airplane hangar and that it’s all over now. I want you to know that we, all of us here…including the over 500 homeless kids and their parents who are on the comeback trail right now in our programs, our champions…the Issa’s and the Bakers, the Minarik’s and the Kehoe’s, the Horn’s, the Mayors and the hundreds of others who give- our incredible Solutionizer Warrior staff - all of us…that this is the beginning of one of the most important surge’s in our nation. And our goal won’t be to just “deal” with homelessness – our intent is to SOLVE IT, permanently!

The message is that we are all in and that if you are a homeless kid out there living on a cold floor somewhere, or a veteran waking up in a freezing car with your kids, or a homeless mom like Trinity…we are coming for you! And we are coming with everything that we’ve got!!

Thank You and God Bless!

 

News coverage of the event can be found here:

http://fox5sandiego.com/2015/09/20/navy-seal-widow-portrayed-in-american-sniper-helps-fundraise-for-local-vets/

 

What America Means To Me

Special Section of July 3, 2015 San Diego Union Tribune - Honored to be selected as one of a few veterans to share my thoughts of what America means to me, on this anniversary of our great nation's independence.

I want to express my gratitude to Joe Tash, freelance writer for the UT for this interview. 

Credit San Diego Union Tribune

Chris Megison

Chris Megison / photo by Charlie Neuman * U-T

*Age: 52

*Residence: Oceanside

*Background: Co-founder, with his wife, Tammy, of North County Solutions for Change, a Vista-based nonprofit group that helps homeless families get back on their feet. Megison also is a Marine veteran.

Question: You served for 11 years in the Marine Corps and have worked with the homeless for more than 20 years. Have your careers reflected your overall American experience?

Answer: As a Marine, you make a pledge. You are going to serve your country and be willing to die for it if need be. (Now) I’ve chosen a different war, I’m fighting a different battle. I’m pushing the impacts of homelessness back. These impacts are a tough, tough opponent. They are kicking down the doors of middle-class America and going into the bedrooms of kids and stealing kids right out of their homes. The kids are innocent. What are they going to do?

Q: You’re critical of some efforts, particularly those of the federal government, to help the poor and homeless. What specifically are your objections?

A: We’ve become expert symptom relievers. We keep feeding people and sheltering people and hugging people, and we expect that’s going to solve the problem, when in fact it’s only managing the symptoms.

Q: Then what needs to be done?

A: What we have to do is go deeper. If you can go deeper with a human being, then you can get to the source, which is multigenerational poverty. There’s a way to solve that. We’re solving it here all the time. It’s education, employment and health-related solutions all bundled into one.

Q: What comes to mind when you think about the United States?

A: We’re the greatest country in the world … (but) we’re losing our way. We’re experiencing, maybe for the first time ever, the crippling of our country.

Q: How are we losing our way?

A: Our country was built on this idea of shoulder-to-shoulder, people-to-people. That’s what made us a great country. We all would work together for the common good, serve for the sake of others. I do believe the people who run the government, they’re all trying to do the right thing. But there’s a thing called unintended consequences. What’s happening is we’re getting to a point where there’s not going to be enough people to pull the cart because so many people are in the cart.

Q: Are you disillusioned about the country?

A: I’m a patriot. I’m so excited about the resiliency of our country. I’m excited, but we’ve got to return to our roots. There has to be almost a revival for our country. It’s shoulder-to-shoulder, heart-to-heart, working for each other, fighting for each other, sacrificing for each other. We’re all more connected than ever, yet we’re all so disconnected.

Q: Who has influenced you?

A: Dr. Ben Carson (a 2016 presidential candidate) and his book “One Nation.” I had dinner with him and his wife last year. This is a guy who grew up right down the street from me in Detroit, and he grew up in deep poverty. His story moved me so deeply. … (He made) this decision, if my circumstances are going to change, I’m going to be the one to make it happen. He went on to become, in my mind and many people’s minds, one of the greatest neurosurgeons in the world.

Q: How does San Diego fit into your viewpoint of America?

A: San Diego is a gem. Like any gem, we have to treat it as precious … take care of the environment, protect our natural resources, keep building the community smart and take care of each other.

Q&A by Joe Tash, a freelance writer in Oceanside.

Is the Housing First Model the Right Design for North San Diego County's Homeless Families?

It is here. In San Diego now and being touted by the homeless policy guru's, the advocates and the self described homeless experts as the best way to "end" homelessness in the United States of America.

For Tammy and me and our team we've seen it coming for years. Our greatest challenge is not found in the deeper and more complex engagements with and for the homeless families we serve. Our greatest challenge is that we are up against a multibillion dollar funded design that enables and underwrites the very poverty, addiction, abuse and homelessness that we are trying to guide people deeper into the root causes and solve.

Here is an example of what I mean.

A homeless mother with two kids who has a history of poverty, unemployment, addiction and abusive relationships walks through a door that says "Help Here".

There are two options.

Option A: Privately funded response. You will get housing, food and professional services for your family. There is no charge initially but in exchange you must get up early five days a week and WORK. Don't worry about not having a job, you will be provided one initially until you get the one that you want. You will also be provided employment related training, education, counseling and a host of health related solutions. Your kids will be provided child care and a therapist should you desire. You'll be assigned to a team of other people who were just like you but have beat their homelessness, permanently. They will guide you and lift you up. This option is not easy, in fact you will be working hard everyday to acquire the skills, knowledge and resources you need to defeat homelessness and poverty, permanently. It is a 1000 day rebuilding partnership called Solutions University that will provide a pathway to an entirely new future. When you are done, you will be off welfare and in your own home, employed full time, healthy and a leader for your family and for your community.

Option B: Government funded response. You will get free housing immediately. That's right, there is no charge. National advocates and government policy makers have figured out that it is cheaper for the taxpayer to pay 100% of your housing than to pay 100% of the negative impacts related to you and your kids being homeless. And there are NO requirements because if there were, the advocates are afraid you won't accept the free housing. You do not have to work. You do not have to attend any classes. You do not have to engage in counseling or any support services at all if you don't want to. You do not have to stop using illegal drugs. That's right. It's your choice to stop or not. If you've been committing crimes, say prostituting yourself, it's your choice to stop or not. You can have your abusive ex boyfriend stay with you if you want. As long as you don't burn the place down or threaten your neighbors, you can remain here.

If you were homeless with two kids and a history of poverty, abuse and trauma, what option would you select? I love that you might say Option A, but realistically thousands today around the country are opting for Option B.

Flash forward five years. Ten years. What do you see? Do you see less homelessness and poverty? Less addiction and crime? Or do you see a new generation of homeless, addicts, criminals and lost souls?

We need your discernment now. There aren't many pushing back on this model. If we wait much longer, it will be too late.

Excuse me Ma'am...

Humor me for a few minutes and follow along with this satirical example of a woman who is on her way to work one morning and has this exchange with a homeless person who has been living on the street....


Excuse me ma’am. As you know I've been living out in front of your house on your sidewalk these past few years. You've probably figured out by now that I am addicted. I know that there is treatment for my addiction but I’m just not ready yet and frankly as everyone else here on the block knows, you can’t make me help myself. I know I've been costing you a lot of grief and money to deal with all my problems like when you have to call the police or the paramedics. Or how about that time I got really drunk and scared your kids to death…I am really sorry about that!


But the advocates and bureaucrats have figured out this great new way for you to deal with me. You and the other neighbors will save a lot of your taxpayer money and you’ll get me off your sidewalk forever! Here is how it works. Instead of me costing $30,000 to $50,000 a year in police and paramedic intervention expense this new way, so say the advocates, will only cost you $10,000 to $15,000 per year. All you have to do is pay 100% of my rent, pay all my utilities and buy me the food I need and do that for as long as I need it! But here is the really great thing…I don’t want you to expect anything from me in return, like getting a job or addressing my addiction because if you did, I wouldn’t do it and then I’d still be in front of your house causing you all that grief! And here is the really great thing, I’m going to be your neighbor! It will cost you far less to just pay all my living expenses then it would be for me to stay homeless in front of your house. 

So what do you think? It is a great idea right? But even if you don’t think it’s a great idea, the government thinks it is and they are going to do it whether you like it or not. Howdy neighbor!

Get ready San Diego. This new government program to give the homeless free no-strings-attached taxpayer subsidized housing is coming to your neighborhood soon.
 

It is happening right beneath your noses, cloaked in the designer clothing of helping our homeless veterans, then our chronic homeless, then… As one of my formerly homeless friends who rebuilt his life the old fashioned way (hard work) said this week; "if America were to go to a free socialized housing model, where do you think our government would start so that it could get everyone used to the idea?" Good question.

Thanks4giving Homelessness a Solution!

It's Thanksgiving and as many of you are undoubtedly doing, here I sit reflecting back on my life feeling grateful for all that I have. I have an amazing wife who still loves me and who I am still very much in love with after 20 years. She has me thoroughly convinced that despite all my flaws she still sees me as her best buddy and soul mate. I have kids who even after the paybacks that my mom warned me about still see me as their daddy who love them bunches (I know you really do!). I have friends who are still around even after I've messed up more than my share of things. And I am most deeply grateful for the people who have joined me (or is it that I've joined them?) on this journey to solve family homelessness, one family, one community at a time.

And I am grateful that after 22 years and tens of thousands of hours of connecting with people around what works and what doesn’t work when considering the problems and solutions related to homelessness that I still have the energy and the desire to keep going. I've had so many points where I had every reason or excuse to just give up and go work in a “normal” job. Whatever that is. Yet here I am…still believing in the dream that Solutions for Change can revolutionize the way we see, feel and act on homelessness.

So here goes again in my true fashion of using a holiday to offer my point of view when it comes to solving homelessness.

Those who follow my blog have heard me say many times that when it comes to homelessness I believe that we as a society have unintentionally created an underlying culture of ENABLING which in turn has created quite the monster. This monster in its present form is costing us about $200 billion a year to keep contained.  When you dig a little deeper into my logic you notice that I make a case that this monster has been expertly cloaked in some very cool looking designer clothing.  And as you peel back the collar you’d be surprised to see the wording on its designer label.  Since it will make for such a perfect focus for my next blog, you’ll have to wait until then to learn what that word is. Or you might ask one of my Solutionizer colleagues and they may slip it to you. But I digress.

This enabling dynamic has so pervaded our society over so many decades that it has now taken on a life not unlike that of a deadly cancer. This is where some of you scratch your heads and ask yourself, did he just say that homelessness is a cancer that we’ve created from our own enabling? I’m using multiple analogies here to illustrate a point but let's follow the analogy of cancer for a minute to see if I can connect the dots.

Although there is no cure to cancer there are measures that can be taken to contain it or arrest it or to slow it down. This is what we have done with homelessness. We've built elaborate programs, processes and systems that try and contain it, arrest it and manage it. In other words, even though we don't believe that homelessness is a cancer, our collective actions as a society treat it just like a cancer. And therein lies the entire problem.

Just like we've done over the past decades with real cancer (such as when we think of chemotherapy and radiation and the like) we've built elaborate responses and systems based on a design of containment, all done obviously out of compassion for wanting to alleviate suffering and save lives. Those systems are massive, costly and involve hundreds of thousands of people who are employed in positions that essentially are solely employed because of cancer and its impacts on people and society. They are there to "help" the best way they know how. For the most part they are working in a system that they truly believe is doing good things for people, and if you were to ask them if they wanted to see cancer cured, surely they would say yes, even knowing that their jobs would be eliminated.

The similarities to homelessness are strikingly the same. For decades now we’ve heard that we will cure (end) homelessness. Yet in the meantime we are engaged in systems and processes that use massive, costly and reactive containment strategies. Hundreds of thousands of people work in the field yet if you were to ask them if they wanted homelessness cured (ended) they would all say yes, even knowing that their jobs might all end.

Here comes the big ah'ha moment... There literally is no cure for cancer (yet) but there is a cure for homelessness (now). This is where some of you do the fist-pump and think that I am going to say, housing is a right and that we should provide housing to every single homeless person regardless of their situation. This is where you think I'm going to advocate for the government being the center of the solution and every person should get government subsidized housing, even deeply subsidized as in FREE housing if they so need it. This is where you think that I'm championing the Housing First and Rapid Rehousing movements and HUD underwriting these policies lock, stock and barrel.

Sorry to disappoint some of you. All of these things, in my opinion accelerate us to a very steep and dangerous cliff. The hidden danger in all of these strategies is that they are all based on the exact same thing that got us into this mess to begin with...do you remember what that thing was? It’s ENABLING. And just because it’s suited up in the most amazing new designer suit you’ve ever set your eyes on, all chic and sexy looking, underneath it is still enabling. It is the same social monster all dressed up in a different look.   

There is a much better way, a much more sustainable way, a much more compassionate way and a much more American way to address a cure (a solution) to homelessness. Do you know what it is? I’ll write about it in my next blog. Until then HAPPY THANKSGIVING! If you’d like to sound off on your own ideas and solutions I’d like to hear them. I especially would love to hear your ideas on how you would fund your solution outside of the government funding it.  Thanks4Giving homelessness a solution!

Chris Megison

Solutions for Change

President and CEO

The Homeless Merry-Go-Round Named Denial

Matthew T. Hall of the Union Tribune just did an editorial: Ending Homelessness in San Diego? Nice Try. After reading it I couldn't help but do a fist pump. Here we have someone examining the obvious and bringing up some very valid points that many homeless advocates don't want to hear (as his interviews with them point out). Yet dozens of experts and advocates who told us that we would "end homelessness" in ten years, eight years ago, are the same ones who are saying we will end it now in 2015 or 2020. What's changed? Anything? It's hard to tell because this merry-go-round spins with its own force making it difficult to get clarity.

Matthew grabs onto the merry-go-round handles and causes it to slow down some, giving us a glimpse of what's on it and what's causing it to spin. Here is what we see:

• A massive system of enabling. A system of "compassion transactions",  underwriting the destruction of human beings, and eroding the social and economic fabric of our community, all in the name of mercy.
• No one wanting to admit that this is what we've done because admitting it would mean a very painful process of self examination and accountability
• Expert "symptom management" operators terrified at the prospect of being put out of business
• The homeless themselves scoffing at the idea that we will end it
• Upon closer scrutiny, the merry-go-round's energy source is its investors, its funders, both government and private. And the thing is that it can't spin without money and so we collectively, oddly enough, are the ones spinning it because its our tax dollars.
• Enabling breeds contempt and creates monsters which must then be slayed or contained which now means...
• ...we need more money, more programs, more people to contain the problems, which means

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND  SPINS AND SPINS AND SPINS

It's an endless churn.

The answer? STOP the merry-go-round. Abandon the old play book. Redesign using a new play book. Now imagine walking into a Padre game without having to step over and around 85 human beings.

It can happen. Homelessness can be solved (much different than the word end) by developing more, better and faster access to solutions that take a human being AND a community deeper.

This short video provides one example of why, what and how we can do this:

Changing Attitudes. Rebuilding Lives.

The Imperative - I'm Going In!

This Memorial Day weekend reminds me of a simple Imperative that those in the military live by. When it comes to family homelessness we could learn something from this principal.

The harsh impacts of homelessness will hurt hundreds of thousands of innocent children this year. How many thousands of those kids’ futures will be permanently damaged? 20 years from now what will the real cost of this be? Despite billions of dollars thrown at this problem every year, hundreds of plans implemented, thousands of organizations and countless community heroes helping the homeless, communities around the US find themselves mired in the impacts and constantly making moves trying to manage those impacts.

Despite what feels like standing up to the aggressive nature of homelessness, the results speak for themselves. 483,000. Wrap your head and heart around that number and then cry like I cry. That is the number of children who will be in the "churn" of homelessness in America this year.

Why? Why can't we make the right moves and push back the impacts against the onslaught that is hurting our kids and destroying our communities? Do you think we are outmatched? That we just can't win it? That we are doomed to lose our kids to this relentless hidden enemy? I don't know about you, but my guess is that if you are reading this article, that you might be like me...

You might just get fired up enough to do something "crazy" like what the people at Solutions for Change are striving for every day. You might even get 'epically pissed' (yeah, I have a 15 year old) and declare an all out IMPERATIVE. The people in and around the Solutions for Change camp have been having this conversation all week. We know how to solve family homelessness with and for the families and communities we serve. We have figured it out through our Solutions University - 1000 days to a permanent solution.

But how do we go in after 483,000 homeless kids?

As a Marine I was trained to never, ever, ever leave a fellow Marine behind. We would go back in there and we would do everything in our power to get that person. It was an imperative...an attitude so deeply imbedded in us that it wasn't a question of "if" it was how and when and what it was going to take. We just did it with one phrase:

I'm Going In!

I want you to know that we, as a civilized society, can and absolutely should be GOING IN after our homeless children. It is not "if" we should go in after them. It is how, when and what will it take. Damn it, we just need to stop all this "I'm trying" and just do it. Trying is lying.

It is my commitment to you to use whatever skills, knowledge and resources which I have accumulated in my 21 years of leading initiatives and programs to advance this imperative. I believe that this is also an imperative which is growing within the hearts of the people whom I serve at Solutions for Change, both those who work, give and volunteer alongside me, and those who are in our programs on the courageous comeback trail out. Could it be your imperative? Will it?

The more hearts that are engaged and who believe in the imperative, the more lives we will save. It is that simple. Through the Solutions for Change organization we've been making moves and defeating homelessness for over a decade. We don't make moves just to make moves...you might see our Pawns and Knights, but our moves put homelessness into Check and then Checkmate. And for those of you who aren't familiar with our model, we fight and defeat homelessness by moving families off the welfare rolls and into jobs, higher education, health related solutions, and back into the community as rent payers and helping others as community givers.

And when we as a community put the impacts of homelessness into checkmate what we are really doing is completely reshaping the future for a once homeless kid. Reshaping futures for many homeless kids.

How many homeless kids’ futures do you want to completely reshape? 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 483,000?

If it is an imperative for us "impossible is nothing" folks at Solutions for Change, and then YOU make it an imperative, and then YOUR friends make it an imperative, and then their friends make it an imperative...

Reimagine that.....that is what Generational Transformation looks like.

Happy Memorial Day.

Chris Megison
Founding President and CEO
SOLUTIONS FOR CHANGE



Put Godzilla Back In His Cage

Over the past five months since 2011 began, the impacts of homelessne­ss have kicked down another 128,462 bedroom doors of America's children, claiming more causalitie­s in a battle that we as American's can win and absolutely should win. Astonishin­gly, in cities across America we act as if the best we can do is open a winter homeless family shelter for four months. Then when the shelters close, like those in San Diego did this past few weeks we go back to reacting, managing the impacts with symptom relief programs, and trying to contain the impacts with services. Do the impacts of homelessness just slow down for the spring and summer months while we plan on opening the doors for next year's winter shelters? Of course not. This battle plan is obvioulsy so deeply flawed that it would be laughed out of any war room. And yet we just keep showing up to the fight, year after year, with a pitchfork.

It's like we have accepted defeat and have already submitted to the ruin of hundreds of thousands of our children’s futures. And boy we can sure blog about it. Everyone who has anything to say about homelessne­ss has a blog nowadays.

We do a great job about blogging about what works and what doesn't work, all the while writing more stories, attending more meetings and launching more "comprehen­sive strategies­". I wish I was a cartoonist for the Union Tribune. Picture Godzilla with a yellow wristband that says "Impacts of Homelessne­ss" thrashing undeterred through our suburbs. Now glance down....th­at's all of us with pitch forks and axes chopping at his toes.

A big part of what needs to happen, what MUST happen, is that we must allow ourselves to see the impacts of homelessne­ss on our children as dangerous to them as if a band of terrorist enemies were ravaging our neighborho­ods. Until we start treating this as a real threat, with a real battle plan to push Godzilla back into his cage where he belongs, more innocent lives and more precious futures will be damaged.

Chris Megison
Solutions for Change

President and Executive Director
www.solutionsforchange.org

What Homelessness and Linus Have In Common

Many who are mad about the homeless problem in San Diego and around the nation are mad because we keep throwing billions of dollars at it yet the problem gets worse. I can't blame them. If you read articles about homelessness in almost any online newspaper today you'll see many bloggers who people refer to as the "haters". The haters don’t know why the homeless problem gets worse so they blame the homeless themselves calling them lazy and other names. But these judgments against the homeless are ill placed. The reason why we are failing is not because the homeless are addicted, mentally ill, or just plain lazy. It is because of how we as a collective community of non profits, churches, governments and people respond to addiction, mental illness or laziness among those that are homeless. Our attitudes and actions are largely those of containment...treating homelessness like a disease that has to be contained...managing the symptoms instead of dealing with the root causes. This battle plan of containment has failed. It has failed the homeless and it has failed all of us. Yet we cling to it like Linus clung to his blankey.

Because slinging shelter beds, soup bowls, motel vouchers, water bottles and safe parking lot zones is simple...and it makes a lot of people FEEL like they are doing something. But what they don’t understand is that the something that they are doing is really making the problem much WORSE. They feel like they are helping but in reality they are enabling the problem to grow into gigantic uncontrollable form...which then creates more of a need...which then creates more containment opportunities. It creates a bigger blanket to be dependent on. If we change our attitudes and actions, if we can abandon the old battle plan of managing the symptoms of homelessness and redesign around a new plan based on the core values of solving this problem for BOTH the homeless person AND the community, homelessness is beatable. We can defeat it but it will require leadership that is willing to abandon the old battle plan and redesign around access to permanent solutions. Or, to use the angle of this story...it will require us to give up the familiar, well worn and now very big, gnarly, smelly blanket.

Police Intervention and the Homeless Issue

I was recently asked to share my views for an out of town newspaper article about the value of social service engagement in contrast to police intervention tactics. This made me really think from the police officer's view about how he or she must feel when dealing with the impacts of homelessness in their city. So I offer my thoughts...perhaps not what you would expect from someone running a "social service" type agency. I'd be interested in your thoughts on the matter.

It’s a trust thing.

How many times have we collectively, as a nation of homeless service providers, made promises that we are going to end homelessness? We are great at issuing intentions but when it comes to delivery on those intentions we haven’t done a very good job, have we? As a collective body, we can come up with a million excuses, some of them very legit that help to explain why, but what I am simply saying is that we’ve issued promise after promise to end homelessness and time after time we’ve failed to deliver on that promise. And we rarely admit it. We just go on to the next plan and the next one and the next… That is a really bad business model. The result is that we as a nation of homeless service providers have conditioned the public to believe that despite what we say, that homelessness can’t really be solved, that it will never really end.

The good news is that every day I see more evidence that shows me that there are some leaders out there in the fight to defeat homelessness who are abandoning the old battle plans that have failed us as a people, failed our communities and failed our neighbor - the neighbor that we call “the homeless”. These failed battle plans; the “containment system” of managing the impacts of homelessness through shelters, soup kitchens, free housing (Housing First designs) and servicing the homeless are being shredded and replaced with bold new thinking and audacious new strategies primarily fixed around the transformational housing model like what Solutions for Change has adapted. It’s not happening fast enough, but it is happening and it is mainly occurring through these almost rogue like social entrepreneurial insurgency operators who are daring to move people around outrageous visions and models (oh my) of actually solving homelessness.

Recovering from decades of executing a failed battle plan is going to take time. As it is now when I say that we are solving homelessness to the police officer, the elected official or the churchgoer, among many others, it’s like I can hear them say to themselves, “yeah right, here we go again, I’ve heard this one before”. As someone on the front lines battling the impacts of homelessness I know that it’s up to me to deliver on promise. Do I like it when the police officer intervenes into a homeless situation using law enforcement as their primary option? No I don’t because I know that there are so many other effective ways to deal with the greater underlying causative factors of the problem. But I can understand it. I understand it because for decades we’ve said to the cop wait a sec, I’ve got this one. Only to watch the impacts of homelessness on communities explode in the cops face.

It’s going to take time to gain the trust of the police officer, the elected official, the faith community and with the public in general. If our national leaders insist on making promises like “ending homelessness” then I’d recommend that they find a way to deliver on that promise pronto because their words mean very little to the cop, the elected official or the churchgoers at this point in time. Make promises that we can keep, and watch our relationship with law enforcement and other community partners take a huge turn for the better.

Mercy vs. Compassion Transactions

Have you noticed the increase in compassion transactions for the homeless lately? It's everywhere you look in the media now. Is this really mercy? I don't think that mercy for the homeless should be defined by how many soup bowls or shelter beds or care packages are given out. Of course every homeless person out there needs and appreciates those things. They will smile and you will smile and you will both feel good for awhile. You'll go home and they'll go back to trying to survive. It's not mercy. Call it a transaction of compassion. Because that is what it is. You give. The homeless person takes. You fill an immediate and urgent need. They are grateful. You feel good. And that is it.

Giving of yourself by doing these things is a wonderful thing...and it's immediate. By all means, you should keep doing it because in the absence of access to permanent solutions, temporary fixes and services are better than nothing. But no matter how you rationalize it, it's still a compassion transaction. You do it with one or with one hundred homeless people and that's it. Done. Easy. And that is why we do it...why the thousands of people in churches and groups all over the country do it. Because solving the real causative factors of why the person is homeless to begin with is just too darn hard. But what if...

What if your community had more (better and faster) access to permanent solutions such as permanent supportive housing. What if the "homeless" person could wake up from a nap on a blustery winter afternoon in their OWN little studio, cook a nice hearty bowl of soup for themselves (you can bet if they can survive on the street, they can cook for themselves) and be out of the churning cycle of shelters and services that were endlessly managing the symptoms of their homeless condition. Would that be true mercy?

I think that it would. And I invite you to believe in this way as well.
What if instead of slinging soup bowls, shelter beds and care packages you decided to be part of a long term plan, a real vision with real legs that got shoulder to shoulder with people to SOLVE their problem? What the homeless and the people in your community really need is a shoulder to shoulder partnership that gets out of the rut of the endless churning cycle of managing the symptoms and into real long term solutions such as permanent supportive housing. This, in my opinion, would define your actions as hugely different, very potent and truly merciful.

- Chris Megison

Much More To Be Thankful For On This Thanksgiving 2010

On this Thanksgiving Day 2010 I find that there is so much more to be thankful for than past November 25ths. It’s a strange revelation actually because a quick inventory of “stuff” reveals much less. A housing market crash that makes my house worth half of what I bought it for. A flood that caused black mold (which my insurance didn’t cover) causing us to live out of a hotel for the past couple weeks. A car that we just paid off that broke down in the middle of the desert that put a big dent into our family reserves.

On the top of my list always is God’s Grace. For without His Grace, I would be an aimless wreck. It has led this sinner to a life divinely navigated through calm waters or hurricane winds, I right myself true north in His hands.

My health, my wife and best friend and my children who favor me always despite my imperfections. My job and the people who I share my passion with at work. The people that I get to know and build relationships with though my work gives me blessings so immense that at times I am brought to my knees with overwhelming gratitude. The love that is exchanged through the interactions of compassion and kindness overfills my cup. Indeed my cup runneth over.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Chris Megison

The ONEKind Foundation Walks to Solve Family Homelessness!

Imagine an organization started by kids who raise awareness and get others involved and motivated to help other kids recover from homelessness. Imagine that these kids move hundreds into action to walk for a cause and a solution to defeat family homelessness in your community. That organization is called ONEKind and this year they have chosen to support North County Solutions for Change. WOW!

I’ve seen a lot of very inspiring things over the course of my work at Solutions for Change but this is at the top of that list. RBV High School students Lauren and Jacqueline got up in front of all of the Solutions for Change parents tonight at and announced that this year for their 3rd Annual Walkathon on Saturday December 4th at the track at Rancho Buena Vista High School in Vista that they were walking for the families and kids of Solutions for Change. If you were in that room tonight you would have been really inspired. It was a special thing to be a part of!

There are a few different ways that you can join in and help:

1. Sponsor me for $7, $14, $21 or $70 bucks. Every $7 increment you give will pay for one LOCAL San Diego homeless child for one day off the street and in a home. It’s super easy…JUST CLICK TO DONATE SECURELY.

2. Join my team called Just Solve It Baby and Be a Walker Solver with me - Just click here, fill out the form and you are in! Come out and be part of the fun and we will walk together!

3. If you dont like me (there are a couple of you out there still :) or you want to start your own team so that you can lap my sorry ass (will be easy to do) then you can START YOUR OWN TEAM.

4. Ask others to help by FORWARDING THIS PAGE and asking your friends and family to join in by either donating, joining the team or both!

You can contact the ONEKind organizer Lauren King directly at lauren.king808@gmail.com in case you have any questions directly of her. These students are really excited about this. Let’s show them that their efforts are not landing on deaf ears. This only takes 3 MINUTES YET YOUR INVOLVEMENT WILL INSPIRE THEM TO BE THE CHANGE MAKERS OF TOMORROW.

Thank you!

TaylorMade Golf and 16" Guns

Was having lunch with Mark King, the CEO of TaylorMade-adidas Golf yesterday, when it hit me. I think it was right about the halfway point of munching down the yummy turkey sandwich that Britt had kindly brought up from the Taylor Made cafeteria.

The feeling reminded me of a moment in time while serving as a Marine, assigned to Battalion Landing Team 3/3 aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Fredrick. We were there to protect U.S. interests as part of a bloody civil war raging on in Beirut, Lebanon. On October 23, 1983 the sudden bombing of our U.S. barracks killed 241 Marine and Sailors had jarred us all into a surreal reality - we were fighting something much more devious and dangerous than we had thought. We were committed, and motivated and passionate to stand up to this threat. But despite all of the ability and talent and the resources we had, the burning desire and passion we all had could only do so much. We wanted so badly to do something. Some of us got to go ashore and fight back with our Marine counterparts but most of us were stuck floating off shore, watching all the action and feeling insignificant.

Then one day the Battleship USS New Jersey, sitting close to our starboard side, unleashed a massive projectile from her 16 inch guns. This was, we later learned, the first time that a 16 inch gun was fired anywhere in the world since 1969. We stood there in awe of her power. It felt like the whole sea jumped back 50 feet. One by one she fired off 11 of those projectiles and every time she fired one off I felt this incredible relief, this deep knowing that someone, that something on our side was delivering the message that I wanted to deliver, that all of my fellow Marines standing there with me needed to deliver, but couldn't.

That is the same feeling I got yesterday as I listened to Mark King, the CEO of a global company, talk to me about how he and the employee's of TaylorMade Golf are going to help equip us with the "big guns" so that we will be able to turn up the heat even more and stand up in a bigger and bolder way to this threat on our children and our families.

I thought 2010 was a banner year for us in terms of our impact around changing attitudes and rebuilding lives....but it isn’t anything compared to what 2011 will bring. The partnership with TaylorMade-adidas Golf fires off a redemptive and a glorious warning shot across the battlefield of homelessness here in San Diego and beyond. Indeed this is a very good thing.

I also heard Mark acknowledge yesterday that the threats on our children and on our communities are too big for one battleship, even with those massive 16 inch guns. We need more big guns. More boots on the ground. More investors willing to equip solutions driven organizations like ours with the resources needed to defeat family homelessness. Mark said in the documentary taping yesterday that Solutions for Change has the vision, the model and the plan that people in every community in America want and need. Mark concluded with these words: “This is what people have been searching for, to be part of a purpose driven movement that solves the problem. I hear people around me expressing a sense of relief that this is finally the right battle plan with the right attitudes and the right generals. All that is needed now are more people to get involved who want to solve this thing."

San Diego's Winter Shelter Merry-Go-Round

Will San Diego ever get unstuck from the containment trap that it has crafted around itself? Containing the impacts of homelessness and managing its symptoms using shelters and other temporary services hasn't worked, can't work...will never work. Spin it, shake it, bake it any way you want but until you abandon the old battle plan all you'll have is a spiffy system of controlling and managing the impacts of homelessness. You'll never break free. Hint #1: Government can't fix hurting people or rebuild broken lives. Hint #2: Move your community capital around a vision of defeating the impacts of homelessness...stop being wimpy. Stop meeting and planning and meeting and planning and meeting and....Just solve it baby.

Hey dude, are you Tri-Morbid?

Tri-Morbid. How aweful sounding. That's the new description for a homeless person who has a lot of issues. If you've been reading the Union Tribune lately you've seen the controversy. Here are some random thoughts in response to a recent story about the survey that was conducted which classified 118 homeless people tri-morbid.

The impacts of homelessness on the community of San Diego and its people can be defeated, but these impacts are gaining momentum and are stronger now than ever. Not because of a shortage of money, or people that care, or because you don’t have enough shelter beds or feeding programs. And certainly not because you’ve performed or not performed the best surveys ever….The impacts of homelessness on the great city of San Diego are crushing you all because you continue to use a battle plan that simply CAN NOT win. It’s a battle plan designed at its core to FAIL. It’s a battle plan based on serving instead of solving, on managing impacts instead of addressing the causes of those impacts.

In a simple nutshell (very simple) you are getting your collective asses handed to you because you are deploying massive amounts of community capital using the WRONG intervention and engagement strategy directed at the WRONG subgroup of homeless. The intervention and engagement strategy for a homeless mentally ill person is entirely different than the intervention and engagement strategy for an active addict which is completely different than the plan for someone who lost their home and job due to the recession.

There are communities across the nation that are aligning their resources, money, people and leadership around winnable battle plans. Before San Diego can solve its homeless problem you will have to change attitudes. There are two camps: the help the homeless camp and the don’t help the homeless camp. I would recommend that you start working on developing a third camp. It’s the camp where the other two camps can join in and work together towards one unified goal: defeat the impacts of homelessness. Solve it for the homeless AND solve it for the community. Stop doing one at the expense of the other.

Concert with star power plan to assist local families in need - SignOnSanDiego.com

Concert with star power plan to assist local families in need - SignOnSanDiego.com

Stand Up!

It's coming and its coming big! 21 days from today hundreds of people from all over Southern California come together to stand up to the impacts of homelessness on America's children. Countdown to the Finding Our Way Home Benefit Concert with Christopher Cross starts right now. Are you in? Buy now!