Today’s guest is Dr. Teresa Smith the CEO and Founder of Dreams for Change, an organization that helps those currently in and prevent others from being homelessness.  We will be discussing preventing homelessness through a systems perspective, quick iterative program model and deep rooted understanding of the people they serves.

Teresa began her work in homelessness in 2007.  She soon started to discover a new type of homelessness, first timers who just lost their jobs and homes. She started to realize their anti-homelessness systems didn't support these particular individuals because many of them rather stay in cars than at shelters.  She became curious about how to help these particular people. Then through research and some help from others, the concept of safe parking came up.

She spoke to a group of other nonprofits she was working with about the safe parking concept, and they did not receive it well. Stating how they never tried it before and were worried about a host of other things. She decided to take matters into her own hands and try something new.

She quit her job and started the Safe Parking Project.

Teresa dove into homelessness because she believes everyone should be able to grow and thrive and unfortunately not everyone has that opportunity. She wanted to make a change and decided on a systems approach rather than a clinical one.

She shares how many people focus on one element of homelessness such as providing food, or hygiene, which is helpful. What she focuses on is the system of homelessness, how it's a community issue.  See identifies the elements in place that comprise the homelessness system.

Teresa discusses the biggest challenges regarding homelessness which are a gap in wealth, low wages, and high cost of living.  Housing cost are skyrocketing and wages are stagnant.  People are having problems with living on a basic budget, which include food, transportation, shelter and so on.

The gap in wages also makes growing a business difficult. Minimum wage jobs are a huge part of business and people can't afford to live at that base salary.  This leads to fewer workers at that level of income and business are shutting down because of it.

Dreams for Change looks to tackle homelessness by helping others build assets. They look to serve those who are homeless and/or have a high likelihood for being homeless. Safe parking is their initial program because it's a last asset many people have before they end up on the street. An asset that can help with other issues such as getting people to their jobs.

Working with people who live in their cars is much more cost effective, when looking at it as a systems approach. It’s much more expensive to get people out of complete homelessness when they don’t have their car as an asset.

Social workers help the homeless connect to the resources necessary to obtain housing. They look at affordable housing options and provide financial education so they can maintain their housing long term and not fall into the cycle of homelessness.

Dreams for Change also helps people with their resume, job coaching, link them to job opportunities, disability benefits, filing unemployment, etc.  They look at all potential sources of income for this population.

They even take advantage of programs like rapid rehousing, which provides 6-12 months of assistance with rentals, including deposits. The average cost to move into a new place in San Diego’s is $5,000 which often holds a lot of people back from having a home. Receiving that deposit is a much cheaper answer than having to manage chronic homelessness.  Also sometimes people just need a good place to sleep so they can get grounded, and engage fully at work.

They work with many key partners in the community. They don’t want to be an expert in everything, but they want to know what is going, other potential resources and who can help. As an example, they currently have a big influx of families.  They bought in family educators to get these families more support.

We talk about how starting a nonprofit can be damaging to the people you are looking to serve. If there is another organization already doing that work, starting another nonprofit can take away the resources from that original organization. Instead, look to see how you can help and add to the existing organization. Let’s elevate people who are already doing great work instead of competing.  If you really want to start your own nonprofit, look to see where's the gap between need and service.

Dreams for Change was continually told by the homeless that it takes an immense amount of time to get food. They did research to check to see how much food is accessible for the homeless and discovered that there is only a meal to a meal and a half a day for them. This showcases a gap in a need and service.

They surveyed many of the homeless and learned people were not applying for food stamps because there weren't many place to spend it on. They started to ask the question of how can they address the problem in a sustainable way. They came up with starting a food truck for the homeless.

It brings a new level of dignity to the homeless because now they have food choices and are a customer. The menu was also built around what is important to them and what they would like, such as a steak burrito.

Then they started to think about how to leverage the food truck and came up with the idea to turn it into a training program. This ties into their assets building approach, where employment is a key for ending homelessness. They go to classes, learn soft skills, customer service, financial education and so on.

One of the largest anti poverty/homelessness campaigns is called the Earned Income Tax Credit. If you have worked and earned a very low to moderate income you can get a credit up to $8,000. This credit is meant to help keep people housed. In San Diego alone $20,000,000 in credits do not get claimed. People are not filing for a variety of reasons such as concerns about not earning enough money.  Regardless they may still be eligible for some tax credits.

When you are homeless the first step you need to take is just ask for help, even if you don’t know where or how, even if you feel scarred. You may not find answers at the first place you look, but keep searching until you find something. There are groups of people who can help you, don’t feel afraid to ask. Do not feel shameful for your homeless, there are many people who have ended up in that situation just like yourself.

If this mission is something you care about, start by doing research on the topic and find how to connect the mission to what you are passionate about.  Find a group of people who align with your passion and start connecting with them. Then see how you can fill a need that connects to your passion.

There are many approaches to solve community problems. It can be complicated but it doesn’t have to be intimidating.  Everyone can have an impact on these issues.

Dreams for Change

Thrive San Diego - Earned income tax credit

Rapid Rehousing

Music by Blazo, Introducing