Nonprofit vs. Government: Who's Better at Solving Homelessness? | Interviews

The homeless people, we live on three things that we base every choice on. Drugs and alcohol. We don't want to be told what to do. We want to pretend we're in charge. But I believe the solution to the homeless problem is to force us into an environment that requires us to grow. What's up guys? This is Will Witt joined with Amla Taylor. We are off the 101 freeway right now at what's going to be a new homeless encampment where they're taking this giant parking lot and they're putting up a bunch of tents. For all of you who are familiar with California or who live in the Los Angeles area, you know that homelessness is a big issue here. And in the past year, homelessness has increased by 12.7 percent. They're going to be setting up individual homeless people with tents and they will also be providing them with supplies, showering, food, and that is going to cost them $2,600 per month per occupant of this lot. Yeah, in San Francisco it's even much worse. They're spending $5,000 per month per tent in their encampments and that amounts to $60,000 per year. Of course, if people are getting all this free stuff, they're going to choose to remain homeless. They're not going to get up and try and get a job or find resources. When the government enables people, all it does is make it so that they're going to stay homeless. So we need real solutions and we found some private organizations that are actually doing the work, actually getting homeless people off the streets, rehabilitated, educated, and getting them on with their lives. Now we're going to take you to a place called the Dream Center that is doing that here in LA and they've stated that they only spend $6,000 per a full year of rehabilitation for each homeless person that they encounter. So we own every single building on this property right here. It's all 400,000 square feet and we have 700 residents that live here who are getting their lives back together again. Anybody can eat for free, whether it be families in the neighborhood, homeless under the streets, which is really big because when the homeless come by and get their meals, they have a place to sit down and talk with people. So really, there's so much relationship being established and that's what causes people to make long-term decisions in homelessness. I think a lot of times people think you throw a lot of money at a situation or you just get it away from the people's eyesight and move them somewhere. Those things typically, six to nine months, they end up being run down and broke down again. I think it would be hard to transition out of the homeless life without enough support to do so and without relationships to do so. So it's really important what you're doing. And I think the peer pressure is important too. When someone comes in to a place like this and everyone is wanting to win, wanting to achieve, wanting to do great things in their life and everyone just kind of elevates one another. To me, the accountability is a really important thing when it comes to like the government. They don't hold people accountable for their actions at all and they think continue to get worse. Yeah, and it costs $81,000 to incarcerate someone and it costs $6,000 a year to take them through everything, one year of rehabilitation here to get their lives back together again. Room, board, food, GED programs, everything to get them back in society again. So do the people who stay in your housing units, do they also help around the Dream Center? Oh yeah, yeah. They do about three hours of work shifts a day and then the other three hours they do like personal growth and counseling. Here's the people in the program. My name is William. I'm 61 years old. My name is Anel. My name is Alfred Lomas. Patricia Carpenter and I am a veteran. I used to always see my uncles and I'm getting high and doing shots of heroin and stuff. So at about the age of 14, I asked one of my uncles, I was like, hey, can I have some? He didn't even hesitate. He immediately gave it to me. I've been using this since I was 14. Drug addiction, marijuana, cannabis, alcoholism, in and out of juvenile hall. Ended up going to prison about seven times. I probably spent over 15 years of my life in prison. When I get out in 2013, I go right back to using heroin down on Skid Row. I lived in a tent. I went from an apartment to a tent, to my backpack, to my shoe for a pillow. I asked some people to buy me food one night and it turns out they were a temporary missionary to the Dream Center. I get approached by security and these two guys are like, hey man, you need some help? So I'm like, yeah. I was like, what is this place? Well, they go, we're a program, it's like a rehabilitation program, but it's through Christ. So they're like, we'll get you some food. They go, you can hang out, sleep, wake up in the morning, check out the program if you like it. It's absolutely free. And I was already at my end. I was like, I need to do something. I was ready to change. I cleaned up a couple of times only to just realize cleaning up wasn't enough because there still wasn't God. I wake up and there's a guy named Malcolm Henson and he goes, you have to be ready to let go of your old life. You can't be that man no more if you want to be new in Christ. And he goes, are you ready to change who you are and become somebody new? And just from my gut, I just said yes. I'm going to get a plan of action. I'm going to find a job that will give me enough money to live. I have meals. I don't have to worry. I'm safe. If it wasn't for the Dream Center, I don't know really where I would be, you know, being a young adult on probation and just coming out of a lifestyle of relapse and recidivism. Finally got to see how it was to put a smile on somebody's face and to help somebody because I've never done it. I've always taken. In August, I'll have tea thanks to the ministry. When you smoke crack, your dentures don't fit anymore. It's amazing. When you were out on Skid Row and doing all the drugs and things, did you find there was a lot of resources or opportunities that people were pushing you to be better? No, you don't see a lot, but it would give you food out there. They would just come by and throw it at your tent and just keep going. I would wake up with like burritos outside my tent. I was down there for years. Never got no help. Stumbled upon this place not even in 10 seconds and I was getting help. Were you receiving any government resources on Skid Row or did you know anybody within your community that was there? Maybe like people like government resources, like maybe food stamps or stuff like that or money, but we were just really getting all that just so we can continue our high. Well, he's right. I mean, you know, so many people, you know, they'll get a GR check, whatever, and they just get loaded the first few days of the month and the rest of the month scrambling around trying to survive. And we've always tried to take people again out of that survival mindset. And by having long-term programs, we're not going to kick you out. We're going to walk through this process for a year. It really helps people just take a deep breath and realize, okay, I have time. What really seems different about here is that you guys are in it for the long haul. You're relational and they're not a number. They're not someone to just throw money at them. Like he was saying, a bag of food at. You treat them like human beings, but that's a huge undertaking and huge responsibility to take them, house them, help them get rehabilitation. It's a totally different mentality. The California government has made a budget for 2020 to 2021, and they're going to give $785 million towards the homeless problem. But I can nearly guarantee it's not going towards solutions like this. Yeah. And I think it's one of those kind of fake feel good stories when they throw out big numbers, like we're going to throw this amount of money and people in their mind feel like, oh, okay, it's being solved. Um, but the reality is you can throw any number that you want, but unless you're walking through the cave with somebody and helping them get where they need to go and taking them to the appointments, they need to go standing in court before the probation saying this person has been clean for 10 months. Places like the Dreamster and the church in general are taking the lead in prison reform to a large degree as well by allowing them to have these long structured programs to help people get their life together. Thank you so much for having us here. We really appreciate it. And to see real solutions to these issues is an incredible thing. Thank you for having us. And if you guys want to see more content like this, please like, and subscribe, turn on that notification bell, because I know a lot of you don't get to see our videos on your page every single time. We will bring you more content like this, but we really wanted to highlight the Dream Center today. And check out the Dream Center at their website online on social media, check them out and make sure to follow them there too. Will Witt, Amla, Taylor. See you guys next time. Peace. What's up guys, thank you so much for watching this video. PragerU is a 501c3 organization. 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