Offence is Taken, Not Given
Push envelopes. Blur the edges. Provoke. Grab people’s attention through irreverent comedy. At the most recent National Alliance to End Homelessness conference I got called “gonzo”, “brilliant but irreverent”, and “troubadour of disruption”. All in a day of work for me.
On the days when I have my A game, two things will happen: a large volume of people will go out of their way to tell me they are inspired, feel challenged, energized and ready to improve what they do; and, a small volume of people will go out of their way to tell others how much I offended them. Sometimes it was my approach. Sometimes my language. Sometimes my use of comedy to help people stay engaged. Here are examples of things over the past few months people have gone out of their way to tell me were offensive:
taking off my shoes when presenting
not wearing a suit and tie when meeting with an elected official
saying “fuck”
suggesting prisons for profit are manufacturing prisoners
outlining how ineffective AA usually is (while also making clear that if someone is in recovery using AA they should continue to do what works for them)
sharing that people involved in sex work use phrases and acronyms that is a code (and then deciphering some of those in a session on harm reduction)
checking my phone while presenting (even after indicating that people can text me questions while presenting if they didn’t want to ask aloud)
making a remark that the “heroin epidemic” is getting attention as a health crisis because white people are disproportionately impacted now
challenging the suggestion that people need income before they can be accepted into a housing first program
making a joke about cats being a poor pet choice
suggesting that if change was so easy we would all do it – including being a healthy body weight
commenting that a two dad family with a child constitutes a “family” not only when doing the Family SPDAT, but in life generally
making jokes about my own parents and upbringing
distinguishing between opinions and facts, and that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts
outlining how not everyone that lives with mental illness needs to take medication
having to ask a group continually disrupting a presentation to leave the training (and to be clear, they were the ones that were offended)
outlining how moral views of sex and sexuality can differ from legal views of the same, and how that can impact service delivery
suggesting that if you are lurching from one crisis to another rather than proactive, planned service it is impossible to achieve the bigger picture outcomes
But the thing is this – I never go out to offend anyone. Why? Because offence is never given. When my values and beliefs are different than yours; when my moral compass is different than yours; when my approach to seeing an issue may be different than yours it is entirely possible someone will be offended. But that is because they took offence. I gave them nothing.
Gone Fishing
Those of you who have followed the blog for a couple years know that each year I take a week to get completely off the grid, take my kids up to Northern Ontario and do my best to latch on to a large smallmouth bass, lake trout, and/or, northern pike.
This is self-care for me. Once a year, I get to a place where I cannot look at my phone. My computer will not be with me. I will be dad. I will be brother. I will be son. I will not be President & CEO of OrgCode. I may hatch blog ideas, but not intentionally, and I sure as heck will not be writing them. I may figure out answers to complex social challenges because the struggles of bringing in a big fish took a long time, but again, it will be by accident. It is true that I live and breathe really complex social challenges on a daily basis. And I find it impossible to turn that off. But I can put myself into situations where I think about it less.
I am never going to be the guy to best teach you or your organization how to practice self-care. Of my many flaws, workaholism is one for sure. But I am trying.
See you all next week. And should you want a fish story, hit me up – there is bound to be at least one that gets away.
When Amazing Minds Come Together
Last week the core staff of OrgCode (Jeff and Tracy) along with the bench players (Mike, Erin, Zach, Kris, Amanda) all spent a couple days in the great city of Toronto figuring out what OrgCode needs to be working on next and how we need to get there. I am not going to get into specifics that will be answered in the coming weeks/moments too much, but allow me to hit some highlights to hopefully intrigue you.
Going Deep
There are many topics communities keep wanting more and more information on how to effectively accomplish, from coordinated entry to actually running reports and maximizing HMIS; improving housing stabilization to how to be an amazing CoC; what it takes to be successful at ending homelessness in rural settings to what it means to be fantastic at outreach or a shelter with a housing focus. These are things where you can expect improved curriculum, a deeper dive into the content, advanced opportunities to learn, and perhaps most importantly, tools you can use to implement.
Flexing the Bench Brain Muscle
With smarter minds involved in more projects we can offer better service to communities. While my brain is probably the largest encyclopedia of knowledge regarding all things homelessness and housing on the team, there is considerable expertise that needs to be made available from the bench to enhance what Jeff, Tracy and I do on a regular basis. Expect better training, better research, better reports, and better presence – all with what you have come to expect from OrgCode.
Improving as a Company
This one is a bit boring, but let me tell you that it is a huge thing for me. I am not a details guy, nor am I financial guy. I suck at managing communications on a regular basis. And I find myself going down the rabbit holes too often. There is brain power on the team that is going to make it harder for me to do that, while improving being a company.
Oh Canada
We have been taking it on the chin for a while in Canada. Even though SPDAT is still the most widely tool used across the country and our training is in demand, Canada remains a small place (about a tenth the size of our neighbours to the south). A VERY small group of people seem to be owning policy development and messaging – and none of these people have done direct service or the broader context to put these things meaningfully into practice. No more of just watching the pain be inflicted upon OrgCode in our home and native land.
More Video Content
I have not made a video in a long time. I kept getting critiqued for quality. Whatever. I am going to make more of them. Lots of them. And the quality is likely to be me in a hotel room ranting. Also, get prepared for a character named “Uncle Pete” to make some occasional appearances. The rest on that is top secret.
Swag
Turns out a lot of people want stuff that has an OrgCode logo on it. Imagine that. If you have ever wanted your very own “Will SPDAT on the First Date” T-shirt, OrgCode shot glass, “Down with the Fuckery” beer coozie, red pom pom OrgCode winter head gear (“toque” as we say up here), or Trucker Cap, get ready for options.
Renewed Optimism and Love
What I do for a living is a gift. That is not lost on me. Expect more love. There will still be provocation. There will still be times when pushing the envelope is necessary. I will still have haters. But after a couple days with genius minds and passionate hearts I am ready to push forward from a place of optimism and love. I needed that.
OrgCode – What’s Next?
If you have been paying attention in social media, you know that I have added onto the OrgCode team as of late. Jeff, Tracy and yours truly remain the core employees. We will still have one or more interns pretty much all the time. But on top of that, I am super grateful we have been able to get some top tier talent to devote some time to OrgCode. Let me tell you why.
I am the face of OrgCode. I get that. But I am not OrgCode. If we really want to penetrate the organizational DNA to make change happen (which is where the name “OrgCode” came from originally), we need a range of talents beyond just what I offer.
Zach Brown, Amanda Sisson, Mike Shore, Kris Freed, and Erin Wixsten are exceptional people. They all know OrgCode. All have cool, established day jobs. And they give OrgCode things it does not have, as well as make some of the things we do have better. In this arrangement we gain expertise in landlords, housing authorities, families, data systems, youth, rural, housing operations, LGBTQ, rapid rehousing, strategic planning, and training.
For two days later this week we are holed up together in Toronto to plan our next steps together. I can promise you this:
we will be creating new products and updating some existing OrgCode products
the website is going through an overhaul
we will be determining how best to provide training, where and for what purpose
the Leadership work will continue
we will better articulate the projects we want to be involved with, and why
I am excited for the next chapter of what this all means. This work has always been about making change, not making money. This newest incarnation of who we are pushes us further into the realm of making meaningful impact.
Stay tuned.
Designing an Amazing Emergency Shelter
Howdy!
If you are at the National Alliance to End Homelessness conference this week in DC you may have been in or heard about the session that Cynthia Nagendra and yours truly delivered on Designing an Amazing Emergency Shelter. Whether at the conference or not, I wanted you to get access to some generic policies and procedures that you can use in crafting your trauma-informed, housing-focused shelter. Note that these policies and procedures were first developed for a men’s shelter. You may have to adjust things like population group(s) to be served, access hours, meals, etc. But this should give you something to work off of to get you started in updating, revising or creating your shelter policies.
Follow the link here to download.
Before That Winter Shelter Gets Into Full Swing, Read This
I grew up in Northern Ontario. I understand winter cold. I know first hand the piercing pain of a northern wind sweeping across Lake Superior and taking the breath from you. My brother and I used to have to shovel our driveway and we would describe the degree of cold outside of whether or not snot would freeze when you breathed in deep. And just to make my cold weather credentials (and hoser-esque Canadiana) even more well known, we heated our house with wood, so I know what it is like to be in the middle of the night in a frozen abode until more logs got on the fire. I hate the cold. I know winter is a heartless bastard. I wish winter did not happen, and the more I travel to places like Florida, Southern California and Hawai’i, the more I realize how smart people are for living there.
So knowing the pain of cold, why is it that I am not a huge fan of winter shelter? In a nutshell, it is because people are making an emotional decision on how to address homelessness, not one driven by data. I have felt this way in my reading and research for the past decade or so. Then two events over the past week or so have solidified my opinion further.
In one instance, I was in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario for their community forum on homelessness on September 25, 2015. They presented data on the winter response to homelessness historically and over the past year as they have phased out their winter response. What the data clearly showed is that the regular shelter system could absorb the impacts of a winter shelter, and that many of the people that had been using the winter shelter were merely moving from the “regular” shelter to the winter shelter – it was not a huge population of otherwise unsheltered people making use of the winter shelter. Then on September 28, 2015 I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. O’Connell speak again in New Hampshire where he presented even more data that has me convinced now more than ever before that the push to enhance shelter options in the winter is not going to do the things that people thinks it does. What kills people that live outdoors in places like northern states and Canada isn’t hypothermia. Even when we have experienced things like the polar vortex in recent years, extreme cold weather has injured people, but it does not kill them on mass. Instead, what is killing people living outside on mass are things like cancer and heart disease. To paraphrase Dr. O’Connell and his research, these are the things brought about from years of hard living, not from being exposed to the elements. And lest you think that the winter shelter is preventing injury related to things like frostbite, there was some compelling images shared by Dr. O’Connell proving that those folks are staying outside and not even accessing winter shelter.
To me, it begs several questions that I think must be considered locally before you put out a whack of money into a winter shelter, and rally volunteers and a community response at a large scale:
If the issue is one of shelter space, shouldn’t your community have adequate shelter space year round, and not just the winter?
If you are concerned about health and welfare, why not invest more in preventative and routine health care, as well as home health care for people that move from homelessness into housing?
Is the matter really one of sensationalized media attention and knee jerk policy response rather than thoughtful analysis and planning? While one person that is homeless dying from exposure is too many, is that one person’s life worth more than the 30 that died from cancer or heart disease?
In many communities more people that are homeless die from violence and other disease in the summer than hypothermia in the winter, so why are we not doing more in the summer?
If the people that are using winter shelter generally are NOT the completely street entrenched population, but rather are episodic and other shelter users, are you actually designing a response for the population you think is served by your response?
With so many winter responses being facilities that were not designed to be shelter, have you thought through the ramifications of providing accommodation in a setting where you are more likely to be spreading communicable disease because of insufficient air turnover and cots/mats that are in close proximity to one another?
Is your winter shelter part of the professional shelter response in your community – or do you run it through well intentioned faith groups and volunteers? Is the quality of service of your winter response at least equal to the quality of service provided in other shelters?
If your winter response was to assist those that you perceive as the most vulnerable, could the same money and staffing been used to house and support these individuals rather than providing them temporary housing?
What is the outcome that you intend to achieve with your winter shelter…what difference does it really make at the end of the day? (Compared to what difference you think it makes.)
How does a bandaid measure of a winter response fit into your pursuit of ending homelessness?
Think about it.