Episode 29: AT THE CROSSROADS

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A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

Show Guests: Charles Lerner, Executive Director and Demaree Miller, Program Manager of AT THE CROSSROADS

Voices of the Community Introduction: Welcome to voices of the community which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members neighborhoods cities and our region. This is George Koster your host. 

Series Introduction: This episode is part of our series exploring COVID-19’s impact on nonprofits and small businesses in San Francisco. We started the series back in April 2020 during the height of the first phase of the Covid 19 pandemic and the Shelter In Place requirements. Over these past nine months, the Covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown have wiped out millions of jobs in both the nonprofit and small business sectors as well as shuttered tens of thousands of small business operations.

The goal of the series is to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits, small businesses, and their staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability. The series of interviews we conducted features voices from a cross-section of organizations that make up the fabric of our community.  Each of them brings a unique perspective on how they and we are dealing with the issues facing our community during the global pandemic and economic depression.

Show Guest Demaree: I do not think of this crisis any of the issues that resulted from it, didn't come out of thin air, nothing here, has happened magically. I think what it's done is accelerate, kind of like what's already been going on. And I think the pandemic shows it. Some people experiencing homelessness and poverty in this city are already very isolated individuals. And I think the pandemic kind of highlights it more. I also think that it highlights how arbitrary, the way we do certain things as a community are, people don't need to be on the streets.  

Episode Intro - Show Host George: In this episode, our featured voices are Charles Lerner the Executive Director and Demaree Miller the Program Manager of At the Crossroads. During the Covid-19 pandemic At the Crossroads staff continues to meet youth where they are - living on the streets of San Francisco. At the Crossroads humanistic one on one approach is all about building long-term relationships with youth to help them move off the street and secure the long term wrap around services they want.

Show Host George: I'm joined remotely via zoom by Charles Lerner, the Executive Director, and Demaree Miller the Program Manager of AT THE CROSSROADS. Thanks for being here, Charles and Demaree also known as D.

Show Guest Charles: Thanks for having us George

Show Host George: I would like to start with Charles to please provide a little background on, AT THE CROSSROADS and the basic service overview what you guys provide for youth in San Francisco.  

Charles: Well, thanks for having us George and, hello to everyone out there. AT THE CROSSROADS is a, San Francisco based nonprofit organization. And we, do many things. but first and foremost, we meet young people where they're at, on the streets of San Francisco who are experiencing housing, instability, homelessness.

We do outreach, we connect with people on the streets. It may entail simply a pair of socks and a hello and a smile. And, for those who are interested in, more intensive services or support, we also provide, counseling and case management to a youth and young adults, around goal achievement, advocacy helping them attend meetings if they're trying to secure housing or other types of services. And there’s a couple unique things about our model. One is, that we tend to connect with young adults in their late teens into their twenties. But we have a long-term model of support. So, we will continue to work with, youth and young adults, well into their thirties.

And we also have an approach to working with youth and young adults that includes. Really an, unconditional non-judgmental, approach, which basically means that clients really, direct us. We follow their lead, and we meet them where they're at it, maybe they're making decisions or doing things in their lives that may not be the healthiest things, from other people's perspectives that does not preclude us from continuing to support them. 

George: Thank you for the overview. D since you're the program manager and you're operating these programs; would you please walk the audience through how you help your clients secure resources?

Show Guest Demaree: Yeah, definitely. So, to kind of piggyback off what Charles said, we do average several nights a week in the Tenderloin, and we distribute hygiene and food supplies to the community at large. And then in order to get involved in our services, we work with people in their teens and twenties. And I think one of the things that kind of sets us apart is that we don't have a finish line.

We have a completely client centered agenda. And I think sometimes with a lot of programs, what you'll see is our job is to get you housing, your housed, we're done. Our job is to get you a job, you have a job we're done. I think we realize, that in anybody's life, there's ebbs and flows. And it's kind of like what happens past that?

You're good now, but what about a couple months from now? So, we, prioritize a long-term relationship and in that it's kind of like a client centered agenda. So, we work with people and they tell us what they want. And sometimes that's, I want to figure out my health care, which means that we're doing advocacy, and we're calling people up and we're trying to link them to resources. Another time it is jobs and housing, in which case we do everything in our power to kind of connect people to the resources needed. And then after we follow up to make sure they can kind of sustain these resources.

George: Thank you. I would like to turn back you, Charles, so here we are nine months in, with COVID. Can you, tell us how it's really impacted I mean, especially to D's point, you're actually out talking to people, especially in the Tenderloin, which has been hit really hard with the pandemic. So how has COVID-19 really impacted your operations and your outreach and what do you see out there in the way of more support?

Charles: There are hundreds, well actually, thousands of nonprofits in San Francisco and the Bay area. And I think it's, important, as a nonprofit to really have a mission and, do your work in a way that differentiates you from other organizations, right? And what I think is so unique about ATC, as I mentioned earlier, is just how relational we are, and how we do our work. With a very high level of, I think humanity through a very humanistic sort of lens, which is that every human being deserves compassion, deserves acceptance, deserves someone to be in their corner and support them.

And by the way, certainly does not deserve to be living on the streets, much less dying on the streets. And so, for our team, it was really important to continue to maintain that relational, approach and that's really hard to do through tele services or through the computer. Like people need, face-to-face interactions and so our program team was adamant, that D supervisors, I think even as the executive director of this organization, I wouldn't have been able to convince them to pull back more than which I'm sure D we'll talk about in a minute in terms of some of the restrictions that we've, put on our services.

So, we were very steadfast to continue to offer face-to-face support with that said, as an executive director or a leader of an organization, no one prepares you to run an organization that's essential during a once in a lifetime pandemic. So it was, very very intense that first, few weeks, couple months, as we were getting information in to determine. First and foremost, it is my responsibility as the executive director of this organization to keep our staff safe and healthy, as well as our clients.

So, we had to figure out how do we continue to do work that has such urgency where people are living in survival mode and hanging on by a thread in some cases. How do we continue to do that work while also making sure, our staff stays healthy and I am excited to report knock on wood that we've been able to maintain that balance now for nine months

George: Charles, what would you say over the years that, at the crossroads has been in, operations has been one of the largest impacts, that you've had on, outreach to, our youth population that is finding themselves unhoused living on the streets. I know that you’re a part of the effort by, Mayor Breed to try to eliminate youth living on the street, which is extraordinarily difficult because, over the decades we keep giving lots of lip service to that, but we don't build the facilities. We don't provide all the wraparound support services. So, swimming upstream, what do you feel like has been your biggest impact?

Charles: Yeah, I think D really articulated this well earlier, and he could speak perhaps from the perspective of maybe what the clients are reporting. But I would say, in addition to some very tangible support, so ATC has been very fortunate that we've had a very committed group of, funders, including individual donors in the community, that has allowed us to be able to do some of the things that we've done over the last nine months, which by the way, has included dramatically increasing the level of food support that we provided clients, hygiene materials.

We were providing one-page information, to clients early on during the pandemic. When some of our clients didn't actually know what was going on. We were very early on offering masks and hand sanitizer in addition to doing the work that we typically do. while there might not be empirical evidence behind the statement I'm about to make, although I think we have some, I think that what we have done that I think is so important over the last nine months, as we keep showing up and, I'm really proud of a group of people that are going out on the streets and saying to people even just fundamentally you're noticed.

We're thinking about you, we care about you, what do you need? And we consistently show up on the street’s multiple evenings every week and we have for 22 years. So, I think that first and foremost is, the value that we have always added. And that has been especially important over the last nine months.

Demaree: Yeah. And I'd like to piggyback off what Charles said, consistency is really one of the most important things, I think we bring to the work. Where working with people who have a fundamental distrust of systems would have been told no throughout their lives and who on a daily basis face enumerable barrier.

And I think the fact that we're able to be out there consistently, especially through the pandemic. We were able to kind of rally our supporters and rally our team without a drop off in our services, is really that thing because the consistency allows people to feel safe and it allows people who may not actually have faith in systems to actually go out on a limb and trust us.

I would say that's like the most valuable thing we have, our community's trust. And furthermore, Charles mentioned it, we've also been able to just ramp up our material support in general, in terms of hygiene, literature on the virus itself and just food and financial support. We've been able to like jump that to a degree to where people can consistently be fed and clothed at least to the fullest extent that we're able to provide.

George: D could you share with the audience, perhaps one of your favorite stories, interacting with, one of our youth members living out in the open?

 Demaree: I was thinking about this actually the other day, like a lot of the things we've seen. And I was thinking about the pandemic and particularly the election that we've recently had. And I feel there's so much global implication. I feel that on a macro level, everyone's feeling pulled, everyone's feeling stressed.

And I think there's actually been a beauty to be found in the field work, with kinda like all these big things going on. It's really nice to be able to talk to people on an individual concept level, where they are people as opposed to concepts, even. I personally worked with people for four years, almost as long as I've been with the organization and they have not been able to get housing, and things just kept falling through for them. And actually, during this pandemic, we were able to get them a place. And they're both in the most stable place they've ever been in their lives. And that's kind of in like a shining light for me in the middle of like everything being as hectic and messy and chaotic as it's been.

George: Thank you. Charles turning back to you, people listening and watching this, how can they help AT THE CROSSROADS? Do you have a special COVID campaign out there? We're coming into our fourth quarter, have a special, holiday, campaign that you're going to roll out?

Charles: There's certainly multiple ways that people can, get involved. The first thing I would just say is, if people are passionate about, and, AT THE CROSSROADS, while we're working with young adults who are experiencing homelessness, housing instability, and when we meet them in the Tenderloin in the city, the reality is, that we work with so many others sort of quote unquote social issues, right?

I mean, homelessness is really the symptom of so many other things that we are working on a daily basis, mental health, substance use, poverty, institutional racism, and oppression. I mean, there's just so many issues that if you're engaged with AT THE CROSSROADS, you're touching in some respect.

So, I would tell people first and foremost to, go to our website, at the crossroads.org to like our Facebook page and just stay engaged. That's the first thing I would ask for people to do. And then if you stay engaged and you're on our Facebook and you're on our website, you'll see, some upcoming, initiatives, a campaign called "A Great City Would Do Better " we are launching right around the time of this, show,  which I expect to be somewhat evocative and, we want it to be evocative and we really want it to be an indictment, not on the city of San Francisco government, but really all of us as a city and as a region we have to do better. I realize people are frustrated and there are a tremendous amount of resources that are being put into the issue of, homelessness, and certainly we don't have time to discuss it during the show, but I'll say that, um, there has to be a better way. There has to be a better strategy, quite frankly, all the money that we're spending, we probably could, pay for everybody's rent that's experiencing homelessness. So, I know this is a simplistic way of putting us, but I don't think we're getting the ROI that we need to be getting, in response to all the resources that are being put in place. So, you'll see that campaign. And of course, like every non-profit, we're going to have an end of the year campaign that we're going to launch here at the beginning of December. So of course, if people want to contribute, you know, that when you contribute to AT THE CROSSROADS, that is leading to either a food box for clients, hygiene materials, it's leading to, people, connecting with these young people in a very, human way that is really about dignity and about compassion and kindness. And so, I just say to people, we don't expect for you to be hitting the streets of San Francisco to show that you care, you can do that through an organization, like AT THE CROSSROADS. So we're really looking to mobilize a community of people who will stay with us and persist with us as we contribute to bigger solutions that will ultimately move the needle on this issue, that it hasn't happened as much as it should.

George: Final question for both of you, I'll start with you D what do you see as some positive things that could come out of the pandemic, and this crisis needs to support our youth and families?

Demaree: I'm a huge believer in common sense. And I do not think of this crisis any of the issues that resulted from it, didn't come out of thin air, nothing here, has happened magically.

I think what it's done is accelerate, kind of like what's already been going on. And I think the pandemic shows it. Some people experiencing homelessness and poverty in this city are already very isolated individuals. And I think the pandemic kind of highlights it more. I also think that it highlights how arbitrary, the way we do certain things as a community are, people don't need to be on the streets.

People don't need to be sick. I think it's a result actually a lack of empathy, as a system and to kinda emphasize what Charles said earlier. I think the number one thing people need to do is stay engaged because I also think when this pandemic inevitably reaches its conclusion, the issues are still going to be there.

We're still going to have people that are isolated. We're still going to have people that are sick. And I hope that we can take some of this momentum and more than anything it's evidenced that we're all very connected. That we're all one entity, and I hope that we kind of keep those lessons and we realize we're only as strong as our most vulnerable

George: Charles, same question for you.

Charles: Yeah. I don't think I can articulate a response better than the one that, D just made. The issue around homelessness and housing and stability in the Bay area, is the most pervasive social issue that we face, obviously, maybe minus COVID rarely, it was really the acute kind of a social issue right now that we're trying to overcome.

But ultimately this is the social issue of our time and it is, on the forefront of people's minds. I do think that chronic homelessness there's a solution to it and I do believe that if we create the right strategy, bring the right people to the table with the right approach.

And we persist together. I think that we can eliminate chronic homelessness. Homelessness can be acute short term, but then we've got to get people off the streets, and we'd have to get them off the streets permanently. So, this is a solvable problem, contrary to perhaps how it feels to people.

So, we just gotta put one foot in front of the other and, keep at it and not give up on it. And I would just say to people who have the privilege, that all three of us certainly have on the phone and many of the listeners have, I always say to folks that, if you're feeling hopeless, imagine how hopeless the people who are experiencing this feel. So, we have an obligation to not give up hope and we have an obligation, a responsibility to, keep forging ahead and trying to find the right solution.

Demaree: Yeah. And the solution, I'd go out on a limb and say, I'm not the most intelligent person in the world, but if you want to end homelessness, you give people homes. And I think that because of a way of thinking, we have, I think we're putting a lot of band-aids on an issue and we're pouring a lot of money, like Charles mentioned into temporary solutions. When really the science has shown that we can do it like other places have done it. You give people homes. And I think we have to stop assuming that there's flaws in individuals, as opposed to, they just need resources, like, the rest of us.

George: Thank you, Charles and D for sharing, all of the really wonderful work AT THE CROSSROADS, going to make sure that all of the listeners and viewers have your contact information website, social media, so they can continue to follow AT THE CROSSROADS and get engaged in and support your work. Even if it's remotely, it's from afar, to your point, you know, you don't have to walk the street and help, but you can help by helping other people and enabling. D's team to reach out to, the un-housed youth in our community.  I really appreciate everything you guys do,

Charles: Thanks George 

Episode Outro - Show Host George: We just finished listening to the voices of Charles Lerner the Executive Director and Demaree Miller the Program Manager of At the Crossroads. In San Francisco's 2019 homeless residents count there were an estimated 8,000 people experiencing homelessness. Of the 8,000, 1,200 are Transitional Age Youth ages 18 to 24. One in ten people aged 12 to 25 will experience homelessness in a given year. The City of San Francisco has set a goal to reduce homeless youth by as much as 50% by 2023. Half of the homeless people in San Francisco first experienced homelessness before the age of 25.

At the Crossroads is working with the City of San Francisco’s Rising Up Initiative program in partnership with the department of homelessness and supportive housing to ensure at the crossroads clients will have in-depth unconditional support. The Rising Up Initiative plans to serve 500 transitional age youth who are un-housed and to prevent another 450 young people who are at risk of becoming homeless. To find out more about at the crossroads go to at the cross roads dot org

Series Outro: We hope that you enjoy the insights, points of view, and personal stories from the voices of change-makers and their nonprofits and small businesses featured in this series. To find out more and get engaged with the nonprofits, small businesses and staff members, featured in this series please go to my web site george koster dot com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to the extended versions of these interviews and to listen to the entire series. After listening to these stories we hope that you will consider making a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members.

Series Credits: I want to thank my associate producer Eric Estrada, along with Mel, Michael, and Lila at the San Francisco Public Press and KSFP. To listen to our next episode in this series and to our archived past shows which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities, please go to george koster dot com. While you are on our website please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one. Please subscribe to Voices of the Community on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or where ever you get your podcasts. Follow us on twitter @georgekoster and please email us with feedback and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco and thank you for listening.

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