An Army of Normal Folks - Adrianne Hillman: My Sneaky Way To Teach People To Love Better (Pt 2)

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Adrianne's home of Tulare County has the highest rate of chronically unsheltered homelessness in America, with over 2,500 people experiencing homelessness in a county of 484,000. Despite not wanting to take action, Adrianne felt convicted that she must and her nonprofit Salt + Light built The Neighborhood Village, a brand-new community of 50 housing units with onsite whole-person care. Community changes everything and teaches all of us to love each other better. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army and normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Adrienne Hillman, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Secret Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a live built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Masiel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Masiel as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long

Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why despite our best efforts to resolve suffering,

we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History,

The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You want a quick Zig Ziglar story? Yes, I love Zig Ziglar. His favorite part of the roast was the ends, but they always threw him away, and it made him angry. So he went to his, so he went to his mom. He said, Mom, why do you always know the ends of the roast away?

That's my favorite part. And she said, I don't know. Your grandmother taught me that. So grandmother was on Christmas. Grandmother was in the living room, went and said, Grammy, how come you always throw away the ends of the roast? It's my favorite part. And she goes, well, that's the way my mama taught me as great-grandmama was sitting in the lounge chair, went over great-grandma and said, hey, great-grandma, why do you always throw the ends of roast away?

And you taught your daughter and now my mama that, and I can't get the best meat that I like. And she says, because back when I was coming up, we didn't have big ovens. And my roaster was too small to fifth old roast beef in it. So for three generations, they've been throwing out the best piece of meat because 60 years earlier, they just didn't have an oven. Oh, man. And the point is, if you do something the way you've always done it without questioning why you will never improve and you may throw away the very best idea that exists. Exactly.

Exactly. That is such a great story. Yeah, I can't claim it. That's old Zig. It's a good thing. It's good. It's good. Don't forget that.

That's where he's from. I didn't know that. Yes, I am. Okay. Well, that's a really good story. And one I might have to put in my back pocket because I agree. You cannot be innovative when you're in that box of like not being – I'm just like – I'm a naturally curious person anyway. I think that's part of what has been part of my success because I just want to know why, you know?

And I had to – I had to be curious because I really didn't know why because I really didn't live anywhere near homelessness. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but now you've got this Austin thing. You've got these people saying no, so – And I'm just getting increasingly frustrated with why are we talking about people like this? Why are we saying those people? We, you know, there were just some things. I'm going, why aren't we feeding people?

Why aren't we? Like, it just started. It started. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Okay. Well, we're getting there. Well, she's on this topic because it's not proper.

Yeah, I was going to say it. And I'm just like, I'm just, you know, I just want to offend people. But, you know, I'm just going to say it. So, okay, we had this, like, also the fundraising, you're not going to create a movement with, like, bake sale fundraising. It's not going to, you know what I mean? And we were doing this fried chicken dinner, and we all had to sell, all the board members had to sell tickets to it. And it was fried chicken, broccoli salad, a cookie, a little Hawaiian roll, and a water.

Do you people know how to fry chicken properly in California? They bought it from the grocery store, yo. So, okay, I know. I mean, you're down home now, girl. I know how, but that's because I'm curious and I'm a cook, and I always want to make things in the way. You might need to go and buy Guses and get some southern fried chickens around the corner from. where you're staying. Okay. I might need, I'm a huge fried chicken fans. I probably will. You need to stop in. Wait, is there also a, is there a gusses in Texas as well?

Yes, it all started here. Yeah, okay, I've been to gusses in Texas. I've been there with my sister and their family. So, you know, that's some real fried chicken. Real fried chicken. That's a good stuff. So you got this grocery store fried chicken. So we got the grocery for fried chicken, whatever. And we all have to buy our, we have to buy 20 tickets or whatever. And where they're serving in. And we're right in the neighborhood where people are riding around on their bikes. These are clearly people experiencing homelessness. And they come by, and they're like, ma'am, I'm hungry. This is Sunday. It's a Sunday to add insult to injury.

And they put a fried chicken leg on a napkin and say, here you go. Like, give them a whole dinner. No, they'll just keep coming back for more. Then the lady's auxiliary afterwards when there's all this leftover chicken, they divvied up between them and take it home to their families. These are really wealthy women, really wealthy women. It went all over me. I couldn't do it.

I just like, so I took all my tickets. I took all my dinners, and I loaded my kids in the car. We'd already decided we were going to do this when we went down to the bus station. This was probably a game changer for my family, for my kids. And there was a guy dressed in a Santa suit, because that's all the clothes he had. And it's, you know, May. Central California, it is not where you're wanting to wear a felt Santa suit or elf suit. A homeless dude in May at the bus station and a Santa suit. Yeah, it was actually an elf suit. Now, I'm going to make it clearer. An elf suit, even better. Even better. But we get there and we're like, we've got food. And he's like,

I was imagining bad Santa with Billy Belvoir. A little bit like that. A little bit like, yeah, African-American guy, just such a cutie and sweet as can be. And he's like, come on, y'all. Get up. Get up. Get up. Get up. Everybody. They got food for us. all the people in camp. So he goes all around the camp, gets everybody awake to give them the food. And he's helping us distribute. And he's like, I've said, it's almost like Christmas. You know, he's like, yeah, he's an elf, right? Yeah, chicken elf. You're right.

He gives them all away. To all the other homeless people. And it's all gone. I'm like, bro, you got to get some food too. He's like, that's all right. It's okay. I'll find something. My kids, boys, they had to go to the car.

because they're just, we've got to go get him some food. I said, oh, I know where to get some. There's more fried chicken right down the street. This is probably I'm eating in a day. Oh, yeah. No, skinny guy. And sitting there with food everywhere.

Skinny guy. But he woke everybody up in the camp to make sure they had somebody to eat. And I will tell you that I can, that is, I've had ground hog day on that for years and years. It happens every day on our food truck. I've served over 100,000 meals. It happens every day.

Because people with less tend to be more generous. You can't believe that people will have nothing. And they'll give away the last thing they've got when they need it. Because there's all these other people that do this guy. So I went back down to the chicken dinner. And I bought 20 more. What are you going to do with those? I said, well, I got rid of the last 20 and we gave them all away and there's more people.

And there's someone specific that needs more. And when I brought him back, he goes, yeah, I know I can find 20 more people. Let's go. He gets in my car with me. go to another encampment across town. He gives all those away. And I said, listen, this time you're keeping one. Okay, ma'am, I'll keep it.

I'll keep it. I'll keep it. Anyway, that... You put the drunk, homeless elf in your car after meeting him only two hours earlier? Sure did. And you know what? I've never had one instance of threat or lack of safety. The only people have ever threatened me or made me feel unsafe or scared me. we're drug dealers and pimps, predators,

people who need people experiencing homelessness to continue to be addicted and continue to be trafficked for their good, they don't like people like me because they don't want me helping people settle and heal. You know what I mean? They don't want me in a culting community. That's right.

So those are the only people I've ever felt threatened by. All that to say, just sad note to that story, two years ago, he was hit by the train in our town. Yeah. We lost five people in one year at the train. If you're close enough to train tracks, which is the only place they could find a camp, if you're close enough to, it'll suck you in.

Yeah. Yeah. It's tough stuff. This is heartbreak work. And it's heartbreak heel, heartbreak heel. I mean, it's kind of like you start getting used to it. But this dude taught you a lesson. Sure did.

And now you're even more energized. Yeah. I'm glad you called it energized because at the time it felt pissed. Really? Well, I just can't stand the thought of people serving, people not sharing. It just got all over me. So I did a lot of soul searching, and I fought this call for, well, from 2016 to January of 2019. And in January 2019, I went back to Austin for kind of a leadership thing that they wanted me to come to.

And I didn't want to go. I was like, I'm not doing this. I don't want to do it. I'm not equipped. I can't. And my husband said to me then, you know, you know God called you to this. And you can't say no to God.

You can't. Like, that's pretty supportive. Oh, my God. And here's the deal. He was getting ready to retire. And we're 20 years apart, my second husband and I. And he was getting ready to retire.

We had a plan. Slick. Yeah, we know what we're going to do. We're going to go climb Kilimanjaro. And we're going to go to Everest Base Camp because he's a climber and a marathon runner. He's a real athletic. And we had all kinds of plans for travel. And I just kept saying,

I can't do this. I can't. I can't do this on my own. I've never run the nonprofit. I'm not equipped. Came back from Austin, and I knew. I just knew I had to do it. We stayed up for three days. We did not sleep for three nights. A lot of tears. And I just raised my fist at God and said, I'll do it. Fine, I'll do it. And people always say, like, don't you feel like you, aren't you glad you're doing God's work? And I'm like, I know, but I think you would probably want a little bit more cheerful servant. You know what I mean? Because I didn't want to do it. I was scared to death. I had no idea what I was doing. I really did not. I did have a front row seat to some family businesses. A couple that ran well, a couple that didn't. A couple that went from mom and pop

big. And I got to see how they did that. Building culture, following guiding values that didn't change, having integrity within the business, you know, doing what you say you're going to do. And so I I decided to do that. And in October of 2019, we launched Salt and Light. Pretty tough timing. Oh, yeah, I had no idea what was coming in March. So I started my business while I was with $17,000 in 2001 when I was 31 years old. And you talk about not having what you're doing, scared.

And that was September 1st of 2001. And I didn't think I was going to make. make it, did fairly make it over it. And then about eight years ago, as the industry changed, well, not eight years ago, about six and a half years ago, as the industry changed, I needed change with it. And to do it, I had to change the bottle of our business. And I invested everything I'd saved up, hawk my house, hawk the business to come up with about $11 million in debt because I'm not wealthy, didn't come from anything.

And anyway, I financed $11 million to put in this new equipment. And I will never forget the banker sitting at my conference room table when I was shaking, signing this amount of money. And I said, I have confidence in this because I just don't think you guys would loan me this money if you didn't think I was actually going to be able to repay it, despite the collateral I'm putting up. And he said, Bill, listen, it's a lot. And it's a bunch of leverage.

But absent a World War or a pandemic, I think you'll be fine. Six months later. Oh, my gosh. COVID. I mean. And that's your story a little. Absolutely. So in October 2019, we had a launch party at my house.

And a bunch of people came. And by this point, I had already resigned from the board. you know, amicably. And I love those folks. These are people I'm still friends with. That's why I am careful. I don't want to be disparaging. It just was the old model.

It was the old way of thinking. Oh, you don't want to. I mean, they're doing whatever work they're doing and good for them. And they've grown and done great work. And actually, they've taken some of what we've done and they've built on that. And it's great, not at all. It just wasn't what I wanted. And so, but before October 2019, I'll be honest with you, I have a therapist.

And I'm like, look. I know why I'm not. I'm crazy, but is this another level of crazy? That was it, right there. It's like, why won't this let me go? Oh, really? And she said, let's do some work on it. It took us about six weeks.

We did some work on it. I said, why won't this let me go? Is this a penance project? Is this a vanity project? Do you ever ask if it was ego? Yeah, vanity project. Oh, sure. I mean, I'm an entertainer.

I've wondered that myself too. Yeah. I mean, you've got to check yourself on that stuff because now I can spot it from a mile away and now that I've done that work. And I'm telling you, it's really difficult to have a nonprofit work or this kind of heartbreak work actually work if it is a vanity project.

Because the person's ego, it just gets too big, bigger than the organization. And it's really incredibly difficult to have an integrity-based organization when the ego is like in charge, right? You just cannot appropriate. I would argue it's impossible. It's impossible. I've seen it too. And I knew that that was going to be a no-go for me.

And I'll tell you what, I've been an entertainer my whole life. I thought I was moving to Nashville after Miss California. I did. And I was going to come and sing. I mean, I'm a musician. That is what I wanted to do with my life. I've always been a performer. Well, you know, performing didn't get me to stay in the church.

You know, when that kind of thing happens to you and you're extricated from your friends and groups and church and places you thought you belonged, it does a number on Miss most popular of her senior class. You know, all of a sudden, I don't care how much tap dancing you're doing. it doesn't matter. And so I had to go to my therapist and say, am I tap down?

Am I trying to get people like me? Am I, what is this about? So we did six weeks of work on it, and she said, we got to, but long as my heartbreak. I got thrown out of church. I mean, tell me, when someone says to you,

God doesn't love you. I mean, in so many words, you're not okay in the eyes of God. I mean, how much more can we extricate someone, right? However, and I'm not suggesting that I'm anywhere near homeless, please. I'm not suggesting that getting a kicked out of church is like being homeless. But when we tell people that you don't belong to society, what that does to a person's soul, right?

Yeah, try being gay and hearing that from your parents. Right. So you can see why my heartbreak is around these groups of folks, right, anyone who's extricated, anyone. And so we did a lot of work on it, and we worked it out. And I was like, all right, I'm clean on this. I know why I'm doing this. It's going to be hard as hell. And I had no idea.

How hard? I thought it was hard. No clue. Started in October. A week later, my dad had an emergency open heart surgery, you know, flatlined on the table during a routine angiogram. My grandmother died in my arms a week later. My other grandmother died three weeks later. Kind of felt like maybe I shouldn't be doing this. You know, I felt like, okay, I'm going to fold up the tent. I didn't. And in March of 2020, COVID hit. And then I was like, all right, got. God, I did my part. I'm folding up the tent. I am done.

And I am the answer that I felt that I got was like, no, you're not. Sorry, but no, you're called to this. And I raised my fist at God again. And we had a little fight. And I said, fine, you open doors. I'll walk through them. You close him. And I'm done.

And he laughed and laughed and laughed. And the door just started flying open. We'll be right back. At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Massiel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose

within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada. and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower

to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the meaning Secrets of Marcial Masiel as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here.

This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering,

we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And so I spent COVID behind a screen with making Zoom calls and counting on our county supervisors, powers at B, how can we get this done, casting that vision with people. is this done?

Building a village. And that's all I really wanted to do was build a village. Then our local continuum of care came to us and said people are literally starving on the streets of Tulare and Vicelya. Without PPE, they're unable to get their hands on food and there are no soup kitchens.

There's no access to food for these folks. Would you consider a mobile food truck operation? Which is what Alan Graham had at Mobile O's and Fish is in Austin. But I had wanted to circumvent that. I thought someone else could do the food, the clothes, the relief items. I want to build a village. Well, I did say yes to it, and I flew up to Portland and drove home a jalopy canteen food truck.

It's still the one we use, rusted out and sat on a nail base, and I drove at home 14 hours from Portland myself. And we started, everyone eats today. We started feeding people on the streets, and it was a game changer. It taught us what we needed to know about people experiencing homelessness. We had more days of people giving away their food to other people who were hungry. And this was 20. 2020, this, 2020, summer or 2020. So in 2020, you go get a jalop, you fix it up, you make a food truck.

Yep. But in the back of your mind. But meanwhile, I've got the wheels turn around this village. You want to build a village. Oh, yeah. And I've already cast this vision in my front yard in front of 475 people that I'm going to build a village. And now people are going, when's it going to be done? And where's it going to be?

I'm like, oh, I don't have any land money, volunteers, donors, or anything else. But I got an idea. But I got an idea. And I need your support. Alan Graham came out and actually was a keynote speaker for that help to cast that vision. But yeah, and people were behind it, but also didn't really understand. how much work. I still had to build an organization. And what I didn't know is I had to teach people why this even mattered to begin with. Which is why we started the way we did to lay the

foundation so everybody understood that's listening to us. Why is this crazy girl wanting to build a village? Right. And I say this a lot, and I still think it's true, that yes, our work is around homelessness, but I always say, this is just my sneaky little way to teach people to love each other better. And probably selfishly, because I wanted to be better, too, than I had been. you know, during some real hard times in my life. And so I did kind of go on a campaign of like having to educate the community about this model, which is a community-based relational, intentional model, which has intensive services, you know, community built into that, a lot of grace,

and a much more robust care system than anyone in our community had ever seen. They only really knew the shelter model. And the shelter model is pretty antiquated. Now, it's good for emergency. You know, emergency shelter is a definite need within the homeless, you know, pipeline. But permanent supportive housing where people can actually settle and heal is critical. And people are not given that chance to settle and heal before they have to up and out through transitional housing. That's really important.

Yeah. Having the time, you know. Yeah, there's something I've read and I want to go to it. And then we've got to get back to the food truck because I think the first. food truck kind of morphs into everything else. But you said we can say as reasonable people, well, that's never going to work. But then we also criticize someone goes back to life on the streets. But what they're going back to, whether it's dysfunctional or not, they're going back to a community. They're going back to a place that they belong. And someone will say, well, I don't

need that. Okay, well, tell me the last time you worked out the doors of your house and you haven't looked in the eyes of a human being for an entire day or days on end. When you go to Starbucks and grab your coffee, the brista, she won't even write your name on the cup. Basically, you're a person, persona non grata. Invisible. Invisible. And when you're invisible, you don't feel worthy.

That's right. And so good luck trying to get someone to get off drugs. Get a job. Now, they've been living in survival mode for God knows how long. In Tulare County, the average time on the streets is five years of chronic homelessness before they're getting housing because we were at such a shortage of permanent supportive or transitional housing for folks. So five years, I'll tell you something. I did a street retreat in Austin with my husband in April of 2018, 2019, actually 2019, where we lived on the streets for a day. No, I had a backpack and a bottle of water.

No wallet, no cell phone. We went with Alan Graham. And we had to make our way. pass. Well, we also had to find a place to sleep. We slept on the UT Austin campus, which I was sure we were going to get arrested. And so you don't sleep. You rotisserie sleep all night, and you've got one eye open, am I going to be assaulted, and am I going to be robbed, and am I going to be arrested? And I'll tell you, I did that for 48 hours. That's not that long. It took me, I'd say, my husband, I both said, at least a week to reset our nervous systems

after that. Then I thought, now what happens when someone's done this for a week, a month, a year, five years. Alex, what's the, who the people interviewed that the kid? Joe and Kelly Carson.

They actually started the Memphis Dream Center based off the L.A. one. Oh, yeah. And their kid had to go to Chicago and do the same thing. And the very first person that walked out of door reminded him of his grandmother.

because that's how he grew up. Yeah. But he had nothing and could only, they allowed them to take their own shoes, but they had to dress out of a pile of clothes that was given to them. Oh, wow. And they were not able to have any money and everything.

And he asked for a dollar, and the first thing was, why don't you get a job? Yep. And looked away. And he's like, that is exactly how my people treat these people. And she said that her son,

that may be the most profound lesson in his life that by only changing clothes and only looking like this population of people, he all of a sudden became person persona. I remember after we woke up, we went to 7-Eleven. Isn't that right? That's the story, right? Yeah.

And it is shocking. We went to 7-Eleven and said, can we use the bathroom? Oh, oh, you were still in your 48 hours. Right, but we weren't in the clothes he was in. But I was watching all this. And I'm in, you know, I've got a Patagonia sweater on or a sweatshirt or whatever. Are you supposed to be homeless?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're not playing. I mean, we're not cosplaying. We're just like, we just have no resources. Got it. Right? So we're going to walk the streets and do what we got to do. And you got to figure it out.

So you go to the cell one. Can I go to the bathroom? And she looks at us, sure. And I said to my husband, I walked out. Now, how many mist showers and day. days on the streets would it take for her to tell me, no, not long. It's because we looked clean. We didn't look homeless. And I'm like, so now all of a sudden you've got these barriers. And I'll tell you something else. We walked around all day because we had no transportation.

Have you ever tried to walk around for eight hours straight? Well, yeah, you have. You're a football coach. But, I mean, it was hard, and we were tired as hell. And you can't sit on a park bench in certain cities or you get ticketed or in trouble. It's like, I can't tell you, we were searching for park benches everywhere. I was exhausted. My feet were killing me. And I'm thinking, and my feet are in good shape. What happens when your feet are all, you know, blistered up from having lived like this for years on end? You know, just that exercise alone for me was huge. But I do think that the larger understanding from the public is just a lack of understanding around what truly living in survival mode looks like and what it does to the human system.

And the lack of community. And the lack of community. it loneliness actually is harder on the arteries than smoking it back a day you know that? I did not know that. I wish I had the study

pulled up. Yes, there is a study that loneliness, belonging is the epidemic that is the problem of our time in my book, lack of belonging. Thus, you want to build a community, but first, you got to build the

Portland food truck. The food truck. Well, not really. I kind of both going at the same time. But they were asking. Yeah, they were asking. So tell me about that experience. So we started making peanut butter and jellies.

And this is part of the guiding principle piece that's so important. I just want to point it out because it really is an important piece to me. And I think it is integral to why Salt Light is so successful. Our guiding principles are what we filter every decision through. And I really mean that. And so I had someone to come to work for me who used to work in the shelter system and didn't totally espouse the guiding principles. I thought they did, but they didn't really. One of our guiding principles is abundance.

and radical hospitality. It's another one. And she was really big on the bottom line, really wanting to save pennies, really wanting her numbers to line up. And so she contacted Cisco and we were going to get what I call brown paper bag bread.

You know the kind, brown bread. And the peanut butter was the kind that ripped the bread because it was so dry. Like, first of all, it's not dignified. Guiding principle number one.

Two, that's not in abundance because that's not what I would feed my kids or myself. And I basically said, if we won't eat it, they're not eating it. Well, it's 69 cents a loaf and, you know, white bread is, you know, $1.20. I don't care. I actually don't care.

Build it into the budget. We're not doing that. And you know what? People came to beg, oh, please tell me you guys got grape jelly today. Oh, we do. We have strawberry and great. What do you want? You know, they came to love us.

When we first got out there, it was just kind of like, yeah, we'll take the sandwich. And a lot of times they'd say, I prayed today. I prayed today. I read my Bible today. And I'm going, okay. So now we've done. outreach that so we've created such performative Christianity or performative believers because they believe they have to say that to get what they need because they're starving. I'm like, hey,

you don't have to believe or behave to belong. You belong to us by birthright. We love you. And that's why we're giving you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So you felt like people were saying that to earn your good graces to get food. Yes, they were because the people that had gone out were people who were saying, well, let me pray for you first and then you can have your sandwich kind of thing. And I mean, I'd seen it. And listen, I pray for people. And I love people. I love people. You know, that's funny because in coaching football in inner city, one of the things I've said all the time is the kids aren't signing up to be on the roster

of mentorship. They're signing up because they want to play football. That's right. And then you get to mentor and teach little life lessons all in the way because the football is the hook. Likewise, as I hear you, I'm thinking about it. You know, if you show up and say, if you pray with me, you can get the samu. How about we show Christ-like living by giving you the sandwich and maybe you're inspired to pray with me because you see what that looks like in action.

Right. And that's what it ended up happening for us. That's very interesting. We don't want to create performative Christians. My job was I didn't have a clipboard of who am I going to save. And trust me, I've had people come in and ask me how I'm bringing people to Christ. I'm like, look. I'm bringing people to food.

I'm bringing people to food. And Alan, I called Alan one day because I had someone who wanted to give us a bunch of money. Then they found out I didn't have Jesus in my mission statement. And they were now unwilling to give me money. Now, my first thought was contort because I needed money. But then I knew better because I teach fear, you know. I know better than to make decisions out of fear. So I called Alan, hey, you don't have Jesus in your mission statement.

It's mobile loaves and fishes. It's clear what you're doing. He goes, look, every day I preach this. the gospel when necessary. I use words. And I said, and I use peanut butter and jellies. He goes, I do too, because they were serving peanut butter jellies too. But it's like, if they, he goes, look, if they can't see that Jesus's hands are all over this, I don't know what to tell them. I said, exactly. He goes, you don't need to do that. You don't need to change your mission statement. Your mission statement's very clear of what you're doing. Transforming the lives of people

experiencing homelessness through food, shelter, that's da-da-da, right? Yes. He's like, your job is not to have your clipboard. I said, I'd never have my clipboard. First of all, I'm a seed plan or not a harvester. I want people to know their worth. I want them to know they belong by birthright to the body of God, right? To the body of Christ. I'm a, I'm a Jesus girl myself. I sound like a preacher. But I'm a Jesus girl, but I'm also like, hey, look, you belong by birthright. And I'm here to love you because you're my brother or my sister. And when they would ask us, and they have asked us, I cannot tell you how many times I've heard this question, why are you doing this? Why do you love us like this? I don't know. You belong to us.

You're my brother. You're my sister. And it takes a long time for people to get the head around that. It takes many touches. It probably takes a long time for him to actually believe you believe that. Correct. You know what it takes? Consistency.

Yeah. Show up. Show up. And keep doing what you say. And I know you know that from coaching. Okay. Do you know the turkey person story? Nope.

Many of the people listening now do, but I'm going to share it with you. Thank you. My first year at Manassas High School. I was there seven years. We started to go to football because that's what I football coach, but it was clear early on that we needed to coach things other than football like character, commitment, integrity, teamwork, the dignitive hard work, the importance of showing up on time, and many others, Grace.

So we start coaching that, too. Again, football's the hook to be able to do the other things. Halfway through the season, we're three and three. When I showed up to Manassas, they'd won four games and lost 95 the previous 10 years. I watched the movie. Okay, then you know how bad they were. So we were three and three that first year, which I think is average. But when you've won four games in 10 years, they thought I was like a fat, red-headed version of Pete Carroll with somebody.

So they were buying into the football, right? They were yes or no, sir. But half the team buying the important stuff, the other half the team, while yes or no sir on the football field, the men of football was over there back in the streets. Yeah. So I went to my guy. Every coach has a guy. And I said, hey, man, what do I got to do to get your half the team to buy an important? important stuff like what I have to get that half the team to buy important stuff like

your half the team you're all yes or no surbinding the football but what about you know the other stuff and this is a guy that I had a lot of real conversations with kind of like your elf yeah and um he looked at me said oh coach just keep doing what you're doing dismissively probably like your sons have said to you many times when they're teenagers and you know you know the tone oh yeah I'm still in it with them so yeah well fine so I look at them and no man real talk he's like coach you don't want to hurt your feelings i said i'm a grown man you're not going to hurt my feelings why can i get that half of the team to buy in the important stuff like your half the team he said coach are trying to figure out if you're a turkey person or not

and i said a turkey person he said coach every Thanksgiving Christmas people rolling our neighborhoods and they gives us hams and gifts and turkeys and we take them because we ain't got none but they leave and we never see them again makes you wonder if they're doing that because they really care about us or they're doing that to make themselves feel good or look good in front of their friends. I can't even tell you how hard we have tried to retrain our communities to stop being turkey people. So, when you say, here's how hard it is for them to understand that you truly love them,

and then you say it's as simple as being consistent and showing up, it genuinely is as simple as being consistent in showing up. And if anybody listens to us serves in soup kitchens or gives away turrets, turkeys on Thanksgiving, please don't take the moral of this story is that something you shouldn't be doing. The question is twofold. How consistent are you and what is your motive? That's right. Amen. And if you are motivated by the simple edification of a brother or sister in humanity that isn't as blessed as you, then you're doing it for the right reasons and people respond to that. If you're doing it because it checks as a box on your philanthropic needs for work,

or it makes you get backslaps from your friends and your social circles or you're doing it to otherwise somehow serve yourself, you are, in fact, a fraud, and the people you seek to serve will see right through you because if they're good at anything, it's recognizing BS. Yep, that's BS meters out there. There's the turkey person story, which are free to use in the around Fresno area,

but the point is when you say, just be consistent and show up and serve for the right reasons. It is so true, and when they do buy in, they are in. Because you are uncommon. That's right. We'll be right back. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Massiel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story. from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him.

Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Masiel as part of the My Cultura podcast network on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here.

This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring. spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did. Why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way.

And why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, We all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

we have bridged so many gaps in the community utilizing this food truck for that very reason and it took us it took us some time it takes a long time it takes a long time it does and you know what i can't tell you how many people have come to me to remedy an issue they have when they found someone that lives behind Burger King that they felt really sorry for and they started taking them meals every day and they started giving them the clothes and started trying to help them out and then they realized three or four days later that you know they didn't need to eat three times a day and they have a lot of needs and there's no one for them and all a sudden I've taken this thing on and can you help us because I don't know what to do with this person now

and it's like be consistent you have to be consistent and that's why I tell people I don't expect you to go out there and do it on your own come support us so we can all go out together on that truck and we'll find every person in town that's hungry we will do it and we did do it we had a route and they came to depend on us and what it ended up happening is in the middle of COVID you're talking about when you talked about services San Francisco I was thinking we have a ton of services too, but they weren't bound together and people weren't taking advantage of them, which then perpetuates the story. Oh, they just want to stay homeless and they don't care and they don't want the services that are being offered to them. Well, they don't trust the

services are being offered to them. First of all, they're not always consistent. They're transactional. They're hardly ever relational. And they're not bound together. So what happened was the county came to us. Some of the health care agencies came to us and said, hey, we've really tried to get health care services out to them. They won't take them. But if we come with your truck, do you think they'd take him? I said, well, if you treat our people with, here's my guiding principles, here's my rules, this is how you treat people, and this is how you talk to them. And if you will follow our guiding principles, we'll partner with you. If you won't, no. But if you will, we will. And they wanted to get them vaccinated. If they wanted that, they're like, we have

no chance of getting anyone vaccinated. And they're highly susceptible to death due to COVID at the time. And we lost several neighbors to COVID. And people started getting vaccinated after that. And the health care agencies were wanting to do foot clinics and eye clinics and screenings and get people signed up for health care services. And all of a sudden, the people in the encampments were starting to get those services through us. Now, they weren't our services. We were just partnering. So we became this conduit. And the best thing about the food truck that I'm so glad it was a step that we didn't skip. I'm so glad that we said yes to it was that I did not take into full account. First of all, I had no idea that people experiencing homelessness didn't trust the community at large.

I didn't realize that. I thought, well, they need us. So this is coming from my privileged perch, right? They need us. We're giving them something. Of course they love us. No, they don't. They're afraid you're an undercover cop or you're working with the cops or you're going to hurt them or or or, right?

And people, obviously, the general public is also not super trusting of people experiencing homelessness. We became a bridge in so many ways, but when people started volunteering on that food truck, I'm telling you, game-changer. Their perception changed. Both. Yes. And all of a sudden, people are taking services. They're taking the turkey dinners.

But I mean, but this is that happens when you're consistent in your relationship. You can also say them, what do you guys really want for Thanksgiving? You know what they said? We get all these turkey dinners. Everyone brings us all their turkey. They bring turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey dinners. The church brings 500 dinners out. A lot of it goes to waste.

We never get pie. Costco, man. We never get pie? Ever get pie. And we love pumpkin pie with whipped cream and apple pie. Would you please? So, every year for Thanksgiving, we do not serve turkeys. Now, there's a church that does these turkey dinners and we'll let them.

That's great. And we'll take some of them. We'll take them out if they want them, but we don't make them. But we always have pie. We always bring the pie. Isn't it interesting that you'll find out exactly what people need if you just ask them what they really need instead of telling them what they need? Instead of giving them what you think they need.

So as an agency, I'll be honest with you. I just actually just gave a keynote or a, excuse me, a breakout at Homeboy Industries down in L.A. Father Greg's organization had a deal called The Gathering, and I spoke to kind of to how salt night was built and kind of our guiding principles. And one of the things I was telling them is you have to teach, and when you're building an agency, building a nonprofit, you have to teach your donors and everyone how to treat you as an agency. So one thing we don't allow, I don't allow people to bring me trash bags of clothes. First of all, it's not dignified to my employees, because now they're digging through people's dirty underwear that's going to go in the trash anyway.

It costs me money to bail all that stuff. And frankly, it's much cheaper for me to go down to Walmart just buy new, dignified nice things that I would buy for my children. First fruits. Because I'm pretty sure if Jesus was walking along the streets of wherever in Nazareth, that if he had a new, brand new, leather pair of sandals and someone walked up and said they needed shoes, he's not going to go home to his giveaway pile. He's going to give him his shoes.

You know, hear what I'm saying? Fruit fruits. And so we started teaching the public how to treat us. and trust me, we got tons of pushback. People want to dump their crap on us. And I said, if people are experiencing homelessness, people experiencing homelessness are associated with salt and light, we're, you know, and I allow you to make my organization the dump.

I'm letting you dump on my people. And you know what I found those encampments with all that trash? You know how many kids' toys and tricycles and crap that was on the train, you know, train line, the railways? And it's because people come and dump their crap there when they don't have any place else to take it. And then they say, oh, those people are so messy. And I'm going to tell you people don't have hoarding problems.

We know that's a symptom of trauma, and there's certainly that. But people come and bring their bags of trash and drop them off at the encampments and then see you later. And so I just decided, no, I'm not letting people do that. We're going to change the way people consider giving to people experiencing homelessness. We're asking the community for first fruits. We're giving first fruits on that truck. I'm not serving one thing on that truck I wouldn't eat myself. We even get donations from crumble cooking.

We get there like, I wouldn't even say they're day old, like at the end of the day. So they're still really fresh. But any of them that are broken go into a bin and my employees eat those. We only serve whole cookies. Have you guys seen the Seinfeld episode on the muffin tuffs? Yes. Great episode. That is such a good episode.

It is. But I won't allow it. And they love it. I give them little tongs and little paper. And in the back of the food truck, we set it up like a bakery station. And they go get their cookies or whatever. And I had a grocery store that wanted to give me a bunch of donations. and they insisted, and I said, listen, they said, we want to give you our bakery day olds.

I said, here's the thing I can't take. I can't take bagels because my folks have trouble with their teeth, and I can't toast them. They're not going to be, they're going to be hard on people to eat. So I can't take your bagels. Oh, no, you have to take the bagels. If you don't take the bagels, you can't take everything. Well, then I had a volunteer that didn't follow my guiding principles of abundance and really thought, well, what if we don't take them?

They'll never donate to us again. So she speaks for me and says, we're going to go get them, takes a truck, and they load it up on the 4th of July, like 113 degrees outside. Perfect day to get all that stuff on a Saturday when we're not even open. We get it, we open it up. It's trash bags full of bakery items. One of the trash bags is full of cakes. You ever served a cake out of a trash bag? Do you hear what I'm saying? Lovely. Oh yeah. I threw it all in the dumpster. Costs me money. You know what I'm saying? I got to get rid of it now. And I just said, we're no longer taking donations. And this is a huge grocery store. And I mean, I had employees that was a great lesson for my employees to be like,

this is not abundance, guys. That's living in scarcity. That's saying that we know God's best is out there for us and for our neighbors, and we are going to stand in the gap and make sure they get it. Okay. So people may be thinking that Salt and Light is about a food truck, but it's not. Oh, no. So that helped you to build the relationships.

It also helped you train your people around your guiding principles. Yep. But earlier you said this village, which really was what you wanted to do and be. That was the flagship project, all on. So take us to what Salt and Light really is now that we've laid the table for all of the data, all of the understanding of the people, all of your heart and why you did this, why the food truck matter, why you went to Portland, how it worked, what the principles are, what your volunteers and staff now understand that culminated in what Salt and Light really is.

Yes. Okay. So the flagship project was always the village. And so that village, I was still, you know, moving the needle on building that village and trying to figure out where it was going to be, how we were going to do it, how we were going to fund it, while that food truck was also going and teaching us what we needed to know and also helping us build a movement. I needed a movement because I needed support, right, in a lot of ways. money, volunteers, all those things.

You're talking about a village. Those are houses and development. Yes. This is not cheap. No, it wasn't cheap. And I knew that it was going to be difficult to raise that kind of capital and keep the momentum going because people are like, when's the village going to be built? I'm like, I haven't even found land yet.

But meanwhile, that food truck started in, like I said, the summer of 2020. And I think it was like September October. And the county had been wanting to maybe give us a piece of property, maybe lease us a piece of property. They had been kind of dangling it since the launch party, and we've been kind of working on it, but it was someone else's family business that was utilizing this piece of property, and the county was potentially going to break the lease so that we could build a village there. That didn't feel great to me. It was a family pumpkin patch and corn maze, and it was a hit. It's been around for 20 years. Everybody loves this place.

It's kind of the place to go during Halloween. You may not get a community support when you steal the corn maze for the homeless. Thinking that wouldn't be the greatest headline, you know what I'm saying? And also our tagline has also always been cultivating community. I'm like something about this doesn't feel like cultivating community. So I go to the guy and ask him, would you be willing to swap land? Has anybody talked to you about this? He's like, no one's talked to you about this.

But I'll tell you something. I have actually experienced some of what the people you deal with have dealt with. I've been through recovery. And I actually think this model could really work. But if you take the corn maze, it'll put me out of business. And I said, well, okay, well, that's not cultivating community. So I'll just, and I've been working on this for a year. and I literally, I love the county,

I have a great relationship with them, still do. And I just said, I'm not going to do it. I'm just not willing to move forward on any more discussions on this because I'm not willing to do that. On that land. On that land. And they were like, are you serious?

I was like, yeah, I'm serious. And I had no other plausible ideas for where we were going to go. Because I was, now I'm at the point, at this point, real estate agents won't even talk to me because they know what I want and no one wants me anywhere near them. Yeah, who wants to build a homeless village next to my house.

And no one's seen what I've seen. No one knows about this model. So I'm trying to educate people about how the model looks, but they've got nothing to look at. I mean, they can see Alan Graham's stuff, but kind of. And it's like, well, that's Texas. It's spread out. It's different. You know, people aren't getting it.

So, but I had faith that if I was honoring to what I said I was going to do, my insides matched my outsides, that a door would open. And I kid you not, two days later, two days later. The same people who asked us to put the food truck together, so our local continuum of care got us together with a, affordable housing developer and said, you guys need to meet, let's see if you guys could do something. And the affordable housing, been around for 65 years, been building farm worker housing, all kinds of affordable housing, said, we're interested in maybe making your vision come

to life. Because what people don't know is that affordable housing by and large in the United States is not 100% permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness. There aren't villages like this. What happens is you have an apartment complex and it's, well, at least in California, and it's a unit mix. And it's like, there's tribal housing, there's farm worker housing, multi-family housing, a section 8 housing, blah, blah, blah, and that's the same stuff here. Yeah. And then a percentage is people who've experienced homelessness. Now, where do you think the revolving door is in those affordable housing complexes? Yeah, it's the 10% of people experiencing homelessness because there's no community there. There's no services there. There's

nothing for them. Farm worker housing, they don't need that. I mean, everyone needs community to agree, yes, but people experiencing homelessness need a lot of services. And the way we've done it in the U.S. is we say, here's your house. This is a housing first model. Here's your house. we'll send your caseworker. You're talking about someone with complex trauma, living in survival mode, potentially substance abuse issues. Now we're going to go put them in solitary

and tell them, good luck, you have no transportation, no food, no outside. No furniture. Maybe. Actually, our affordable housing developer is really good. They put furniture and everything. And I will tell you this, our affordable housing developer partner

on the neighborhood village, which we obviously end up building. We'll talk about it. They do a great job, and that's why we partner with them because we really were pretty value-aligned with them, which is why they said, we want to bring your vision to life. And we have a piece of property. Six and a half acres. I know you wanted 20. I did because I wanted 200 houses. I had a

big vision. But they said, we can make it smaller and we think we can make this work. We're going to have to do some contorting because my vision was freer than necessarily a, and I don't mean free cheap. I mean less restrictions or just more ability to have the grace I wanted to have a little more fluid than affordable housing always permits. We worked with the state of California. So they were able to bring down state dollars. So that's something wholly different than what Alan did in Texas. They used private dollars. He also had a 25-year nonprofit behind him to be able to have that community to build that. I did not. So he's also got like the founder of patron supporting him in some interest. Yeah. Titos gave him a huge piece of property. Yeah. I mean, it's just a different,

it's a whole different climate there. We're not a philanthropic based community. We just, the wealth is not there. So we said yes to that. And we said yes to that. And we, We started working in the state of California. I was like, nope, nope, nope, several times. So we contorted and contorted and we worked with my vision. And I held firm on some things. And we got that village built. So we have 53 units.

50 of them are people experiencing homeless, who have experienced homelessness. Three of them are homes of people like you and me who live there as a call. Well, one family does, and then one is my property manager. And then another person is someone who lives there. Everybody right now is thinking, so you built a village for a bunch of people to living that aren't paying rent. Oh, no, they're paying rent. Yeah.

Tell us about that part. That was the part that I love the most is that it's a hand up, not a handout, and you're asking them to meet you halfway with the rules, the association, the rent, which in my view gives them pride in themselves for the work that they're doing in their own lives. And skin in the game. Skin of the game. We'll be right back. At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling.

In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Massiel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to live.

to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Massiel as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts.

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long

Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur, 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him.

So he had this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Six years ago, you're like, I'm going to build a village. And then you end up with a food truck, and now you build a village, which is freaking insane for someone who had no idea what they're doing. But the secret to the sauce, in my opinion, is just like you were steadfast in the rules of your organization and your guiding principles, you have principles about this village that I think are phenomenally vital to a success and the people living in it. So talk about that, please. Okay.

And I'll talk about the fact is it's unique. it's unique because it's unique because it's expensive okay first of all it's expensive because people we believe that people heal people have a staff of 31 people um we moved into that village just shy of uh five years as an organization so we moved in september 10th last year which is incredible it is and i really feel like a lot of that's just miraculous in a lot of ways and community support and a lot of it was you know passion driving behind it but also the trust the neighbors there were just It was an alchemy, you know, of things that made this happen. But I think it's also because the model itself works. So we believe wholeheartedly in really coming beside people and really whole person care.

So there's a thing that people talk about in the homelessness realm, wraparound care. Rapp around care can look like a lot of things. It's the same as like coaching, life coaching. It's like some life coaches get their certificate on Saturday afternoon at the First Baptist Church. and some people go through a year of training, certifications, all these things. And so there's a wide range of what life coaching looks like, for example. Same thing with wraparound care. We can call wraparound care, someone who just is getting case management services

and the phone number to some medical care. For us, we bring that on site. We bring services on site. Everything's there. My office is there. All of my employees are there on site in community, in relationship with people experiencing homelessness. And we hold the line. It's highly managed because we're all there. It's, and we hold the line on community rules. Those are like HOA rules. There's things like you can only

have two animals. They've got to be on a leash. If they're not on a leash, they've got to be in the dog park. If not, you're getting a lease violation. You know, you can't give your gate key to outside folks like your drug dealer, or you will get a lease violation, or we will be calling the sheriffs. I mean, there's things like that. No more than two cars. That's right. So, and we've got to follow those things. No cars on blocks. Correct. No boats in the front yard.

No hoarding. Yeah, we've got some, we've got, and we're on it. But let me tell you something. It is a lot. And so people shave that part off. But here's the thing. Don't hear that and think, oh, you're crimping their lifestyle. Oh, no.

I live in a house with a homeless association. I can't put a boat in my front yard or have cars up on blocks in my yard. and people run around my place, I don't do it because I don't want a dog because I don't want to have to walk a dog with a bag of dokey that I got to scoop up off the grass every time they go. But those who have dogs, that's what they have to do.

Exactly. Or they're going to get fine. So this village is just normal. That's right. It's just a community. It's like a little mini city, kind of. And everybody listen to me. What's that YouTube thing?

What's the link to it? That YouTube you made me watch. that I'm glad I did. You sent me a little on the, how do people find that? About them? Yeah. I'll just go on their website, saw the lines website, the videos are on there. Yeah, well, I mean, we're not dropping right here.

We've still got a few more minutes, but I want people to hear me. You think of a village or a housing area for people experiencing homelessness going into it, and you think of a cinder block, institutional green, multi-level type place. y'all go to the pictures this is a lovely little neighborhood with bushes and yards and it looks like any other little neighborhood you might pull into it's a nice unity hall that most neighborhoods don't have it's lovely it's like niceville i mean it's that was by design because you know what people sometimes people need to be reminded of their worth and sometimes that comes with being in spaces that feel dignified and beautiful and whole and i really wanted people experiencing homelessness and our community at large to think of this differently in the way that they don't need seconds. And my employees don't need seconds. You know, a lot of nonprofit employees work in the back office of somebody's office building that they didn't want that has the rats running through it and the drippy ceilings and all the things. Like, no, I don't want

my employees. I don't want my employees in that. And you know why? They've got to go do a really hard job and love people really, really hard. And also peddle dignity, belonging, radical all these things. If they're not filling that inside the office, how are they going to do that out there. Same thing with building a village that's beautiful and neat and kept. People have a serious pride of ownership in their houses. You should see all the decorations, the flowers. So the rent, how's that work? It's on a sliding scale. And that's basically set by the state of California. So the way that that works is that they take fair market rent based on one bedroom or two bedroom. So we have one bedroom and two bedroom homes. These are mobile homes that we have

on our site. Yeah, but they're not mobile homes on wheels. They're actually on. Yeah, we put Put them on a foundation. They're in a Pitsat foundation. So they're basically manufactured homes, is what they are, but on a concrete slab. That's correct. Which gives it also a really cute look. Yeah, we wanted it to feel like a stick built. We wanted it to feel like a house, house, and we didn't want it to feel like a trailer

with skirting. It's not. It's manufactured housing on a thing, but you got one bedroom to a bedroom, house rent work. And the rent works, the way that the state does that, it's always like this with affordable housing. They set it based on the bedrooms. So it's like, okay, in Tulary County, Fair Market Rent, for a two-bedroom houses X, and then they go on a sliding scale of average median income.

And so we have folks who pay rent at 60% average so they would reduce that by 30%, whatever that fair market rent is, or then there's 40%, and then there's 30%. So that's the lowest rent. But they are paying to live there. Oh, yes. And if they, so we have people who have vouchers. So I don't know if you know how the voucher system works that comes through HUD. A lot of those got cut recently.

We're really hoping they get reinstated because that's the way we can change. shore up some of this when someone doesn't come with income because there are folks who are disabled. There's all kinds of things about why someone might not have income. Many of our folks have jobs and they pay rent. And then for those, there are some who came in on what we call scholarship. We knew they didn't have income at the time, but we have a workforce that we've implemented within the community that they can work for us. You know, there's something you just said that, boy, I hesitate to sell this story, but I'm going to tell it because of what you just said.

And I think it's really important. Our listeners hear this. I specifically remember when Barack Obama's president, and there were a lot of things he didn't say that I didn't agree with. And there's a lot of things, presidents, from the other side of the I'll say and do that I don't agree with. So again, I'm an equal opportunity frustration person.

But he said this. He said, in America, anybody working a full-time job should not also be in poverty. And if you aren't paying at this time, it was $10.27 an hour. This is back then. If you aren't paying $10 and $27 since an hour to a person working 40 hours a week, then they are earning in a full-time job a living that keeps them in poverty. Right.

And at that time, I had people making less than $10.25 an hour at my company, and I first verified that that was not BS, and it was true. And it was. I looked at what the poverty level, what the statistics said the poverty level was in the state and made sure that within a week, made sure every, and my business was not killing it at this time. But I still made sure that if someone was working me 40 hours, I was eating. least going to pay them a quarter over per hour what it took that they were, I was not going to sleep in bed knowing I had people working 40 hours a week at my company and not making at least enough stay above the poverty level. The reason I'm telling a story, as you said, many of my people have jobs. Can you imagine someone with a full-time job still homeless? And people don't get that.

It's not, hey, go get a job. I would just say, if I was that person, hey, jerk, I do. I work. 40 hours a week, and I still am living on the streets. That's right. That's sinful that our culture and our society would tolerate that someone is willing to go do the right thing and pay their taxes and pay into Social Security and have a 40-hour a job week and still be living in the streets. Right. No.

It's not right. But I'll tell you what. But you have people that now meet that. meet that lower income expectation of 40 hours a week in work, but now they can actually afford to live based on the village. Yes, because they can pay a subsidized rent, which is awesome. But I'll tell you something else, just speaking to the minimum wage thing,

there is not a single person including my workforce at Salt and Light who makes minimum wage, no one. And I made that decision early. I built it into my budget early because I decided that if I believe that the greatest cause of homelessness is a catastrophic loss of family or support. I got that straight from Alan Graham, by the way. I can't claim that one, but it's the truth.

I've seen it meet it out. But here's what's true. If I'm asking my employees to do this really hard work, I mean, the work we do is difficult. You know, we haven't talked about the messiness of this, the grittiness of this kind of work. If I've got my people doing this kind of work that's that taxing, but then they're also having to go work another job

and another job to make ends meet, but then they're drinking to go to sleep at night or whatever other things can be caused catastrophic losses of family or a mom that's never home or a dad that's never home because they have to work three jobs because they decided to have a heart for the homeless and work for this nonprofit. But sorry, it's nonprofit work.

You're going to have to work three jobs and just suffer. How am I going to have them doing good work? How can I sleep at night knowing that I'm causing my own catastrophic loss of family and generational trauma? The irony is those people are only one catastrophe away from needing your services. Correct. Correct. So how about we don't create more of those issues? And also, I just made it my, I know minimum wage doesn't cover it in the U.S. It doesn't. It's not a living wage. It doesn't work anymore. And so for me and my org, we're not doing it. And I'm not saying we pay people an exorbitant amount of money, but we pay people fairly.

No, you just at least enough to live. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got this village. You've got these people in it. Are you still run their food truck? Heck yeah. So there's all kinds of things going on. How many units do you have? So we've got 82 residents. You got 82 residents in how many units? In 50, well, 53. Yeah.

82 resident 53 units. So I got to believe you're thinking about the next 53. Oh, heck yeah. I've got a piece of property that is an escrow north of us. And that, we've got big dreams to that. So we're pretty stuffed onto this six and a half acres. We need more ancillary buildings. We want an art house.

We want an entrepreneurial hub. I have big dreams about the, you know, I saw what happened with the food truck. in terms of bridging the public with people who've experienced homelessness and trauma. And this corridor that we're on has two Amazon warehouses, two UPS warehouse. It's right on the edge of an industrial park in Vysalia. So we're actually in Goshen. That's actually where it's a long story, but it's an unincorporated little, very impoverished little city that we are kind of on the outskirts of Vysalia.

Anyway, this piece of property has the ability to, it's got some frontage. so there's a lot of traffic there. And I'm like, I think we need a bakery, and I think we need a market. And I think our neighbors need to be working it. And I think people need to be coming, getting their amazing, delicious sandwich from someone who they didn't realize had ever been homeless or maybe. And all of a sudden, they're front facing with people who are living in that village and going, huh, they're just people like me, just like people on the food truck.

Because it's like, people want to come get a sandwich, want to get their gas pump, they want to get a cupcake, whatever. That's our dream, more housing. in that piece of property, and then also just more opportunities, more services for the folks who are going to be living there with us. We did this in five years, when was that next week? Well, I'm already trying to draw on up plan. So, yeah.

And then, yeah, so there's a few things, there's a few irons in the fire in terms of expanding. And, you know, the state has their eye on us. They know what we're doing and they like what we're doing. The Department of Housing and Community Development has been very supportive of us. And I know California has taken a ton of heat about their homeless. policies or perceived homeless policies, but I will tell you that this administration in California has been very friendly to innovative solutions to homelessness. And I know that at one point, Governor Newsom turned around a bunch of continuum of care who came with their next few years

plan because it only moved the needle like a half a percent. And he's like, go back. And so there is a real push for innovation. And we're hopefully leading that charge. And what we would love to do is to say to the state, look, and the federal government to say, we've got to stop giving affordable housing dollars using this broad brush stroke approach for people experiencing homelessness who need so much more robust care. Think of ICU. You know why? Top down like that almost never works. You need to be bottom up. That's right. And we've got, and we've also got to put those affordable housing dollars specifically for people experiencing chronic homelessness with the care dollars. So what we've done for some,

Salt and I, these care dollars didn't just come. We fundraise for them. We grant raised for them. We built the village with affordable housing dollars. That doesn't pay anything for services, really nothing. It paid for a basically minimum wage, part-time village manager to be on site to give people lease violations. His pay doesn't look like that because he was already employee of mine and I wasn't

going to pay him that. But so that, that budget that came out of those affordable housing dollars does not pay for care. And we know what kind of care it takes And we've got all the data We've got the metrics And we've got a I brought you a little folder And I'll show you all the ways

We care for people But it's robust It's like you cannot expect people Who just need to go get a splinter out At the urgent care To be housed with the same people Who need ICU Doesn't work

People experiencing homeless Need ICU They need time, grace You know, redentive stance Therapy Therapy, mental health care Medical health care I can't tell you

you, we've lost a lot of neighbors and I had one lady. So we did start case managing people and we were case managing them and housing them in other affordable housing complexes while we were building the village because we want to get people off the streets, obviously. But we had a woman when we got housed in our affordable housing developers, one of their apartment buildings

and she was there one day and she died. She didn't have any... One day? One day. One day. Would she die? Would she die? Probably a broken heart. I think she died of like her body finally got to rest. The trauma of life on the streets is so yeah we got to remember you spent two days and it took you a week to get over

what's it take to get over five years average a lifespan of a person who's experienced chronic homelessness they usually average death age between 50 and 60 we'll be right back At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Masciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story.

It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him.

Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Marciel as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here.

This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's in its family waited for justice to occur.

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him.

So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revision's History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You've had 1,370 volunteers. You open the neighborhood, successfully housed 74 neighbors. You now have 80. We have kids, and they're just, you know.

You opened in September 26th at 2024. We're not even a year old at this point. And you've already surpassed both state and national retention rates. Over 86% of residents feel supported by the village community. And I think not a single resident has gone back to homelessness. No. I'll tell you the three we've lost. We've lost one to death, lost one to incarceration for something else outside of the village,

and one that needed to be in behavioral health to begin with, had a mental break, and is now in boarding care. That's it. 92% of your neighbors feel hopeful about the future. Now, that sounds good. And it's like, why not 100%? Well, just remember this, that the last polling on our government said that only 52% of Americans feel hopeful about the future. So 92% is a pretty daggum number.

We surveyed them. We have a hope index and a dignity index. And we start when they move in and we see where their hope lies then. What is the hope number before they come in? Do you know? Pretty low. I don't know the actual number. And I can ask.

I wish I had it. Well, I mean, it would have to be horrific. I just didn't know if you know it. Yeah, it can't tell you how many ways we have to. to keep showing people that we love them. They throw tantrums. They throw fits. They do things that cause lease violations. And then they keep going, but you still love us. Like, yep, we still love you. Uh, salt and light.com. What is it? It is salt and lightworks.org. And if somebody wants to support you, hear more about it, maybe come see you like you saw the folks in Austin and

try this elsewhere. We're starting to develop an educational program so that people can actually come out and have a day with us instead of just like a tour. They can come take a tour anyway. Wednesday. Those are always open on the website. But if they want to start learning, the website's a great place to start. Good. They can email us at info at saltlightworks.org and we'll get you the right where you need to go. Yeah. No, I, people got to see it to believe it. The thing is, I wish we were in California. I wish you could come see it. Maybe when you come to California at some point. Maybe one day, because I do business up in that area. So maybe one day. And Lisa, I like wine country. It's not that far away. No, and we have Central Coast wine, too. Yeah. I've heard some

for gross wine is actually pretty good we haven't done it it's very good so um i know you have a bunch of sad stories and i know you have a bunch of success stories because any time of work that you do like this there are failures and there are heartbreaks but you got to remember the successes carry them all because if you weren't doing this work there would be no successes so i could talk to you for four hours about those and i really do wish we had time to do that. But on the little video I watched, there was a driver's license picture of an emaciated man. Patrick.

Who is now the receptionist. I get to see him every single day. And he looks healthy and happy. And I'd like you to tee up that story just because I saw a little of it. And y'all, please go watch this video. to get them, put in your mind's eye what this place looks like. But honestly, what I got from it most was the juxtaposition of the picture of this man with his California driver's license.

And he looked horrid, emaciated. I mean, I know that I don't want to overdo it, but I mean... He was really sick. It was disgusting how bad he looked. Not he was disgusting, but it was disgusting to me that he looked like. And now to have him interviewed and you see this healthy, smiling human being and this transformation that's taken his life, if that doesn't make you a believer in this work, nothing will. But I want you to wrap us up with Patrick, who said, I finally feel safe. I have a second chance of life.

Why don't you take us through the story of Patrick? Okay. I'm going to try it without crying. You can cry. There's been plenty of people that have cried here. Alex cries because I make fun of him all the time. Well, I appreciate you not making too much fun of me. But, no, Patrick, he was our first neighbor that moved in.

He actually... Oh, was he really? I didn't know that part. He was the first one in. Well, he was there the first day. We moved five neighbors in the first day. Did you meet him on the food truck? He actually was in respite care.

So what happened was his mom died. He was addicted after that, lost everything. Had a stroke on the streets. Oh, gosh. Yeah. And if there aren't respite care places set up for people, they just, if they're sick, open heart surgery, sorry you're going back to the streets. It's terrible.

But he got to go into respite care. And so one of my case managers met him through this respite care center where he was healing and got him on our caseload. And then he applied for housing at the village. And so the very first day, and that he was beloved. He has, you know, had his walker because he'd had his strokes. I mean, he's disabled. But he was just, I'm just so glad to be here.

I'm just so happy to be here. How much he way? I mean, that picture of his license, he looked horrible. He emaciated. was emaciated. I actually never met him during that time my case manager had, and they nursed back to health at this respite care center, and then he came and moved in. And then he ended up being the keynote for our grand opening, which like state representatives were there and everything. And he did so well. But let me tell you, just yesterday. So he is our front desk receptionist in the

afternoons. And he writes to me, and I see him every day when I'm there, when I'm walking on. Hey, Patrick, what's up? He's like, I just want to remind you that I'm really grateful for living here. And I just want you to know that I really love you. And I really love this whole team. and I love being a part of it. Every day. I mean, I get this every day. Yesterday, he chatted me, just want you to know,

I want you to make it a great day. I wish I'd have seen you on your birthday because my birthday was Wednesday and I wasn't in because I wasn't feeling great. And I mean, like to get messages from this guy who, he said I was so close to death. I don't know if I've told you. And of course, he's told me many times

that how close to death he was and how destitute and hopeless he was. He goes, you know what I love the most? That I can just sleep and feel safe. And then I just get up and I can work. It's so much easier because I could never hold a job before because I just never could sleep. I never felt safe. That's the settling and healing piece.

That is the game changer. When people know that they can sleep, eat, know they can be held. I mean, people can come to us and say, can I get a box of cereal? Yeah, come and get it out of our pantry. They know where their next meal is coming from. They don't have to worry anymore. And it's not about handouts. It's about reminding people of their worth.

Yeah, don't remember. These people are paying rent where they've never paid rent. These are the very people that you avoid on the street that are now working, hang rent, and living a good life. Yeah. Why wouldn't you, if you don't care about this from a social, faithful or point of view, and if you're just someone who don't like having to deal with homeless folks all over your streets, well, from a pragmatic standpoint, why wouldn't you support this? Right. And I always say, let us do the work. I don't expect you to go out and do the work by yourself.

I mean, love people well. You don't even have to care about them. Right. Wouldn't you be happier if this existed so that we didn't have all of the issues that come along with people experiencing homelessness? Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't much rather you care. But if you don't, pragmatically, how about the cost? How about the cost of it?

The cost to the law enforcement, I mean, like the police chief of Visalia is on our board. It happens to be a really good friend of ours. And the policy in that city is that they want to enforce their way. out of homelessness. He knows that's not a viable solution. Good luck. Right. He knows that too, but this is a hell of a lot less expensive than a jail sale. Thank you. Incarceration, law enforcement, the judicial system, what the cost to health care systems, I mean, I think when I first started, I think one of the health care systems told me that they think it costs about $100,000 per person experiencing homelessness who uses the ER as their medical treatment. Do you know

the cost of that is to medical care center? Meanwhile, in the village, You've got this big, what's that big 6,000 square foot thing called? Oh, Unity Hall. It's a meeting hall for the, meanwhile, they can come there and get basic medical care. Yes, the Fresno State medical truck comes. They've got an F&P program, and they bring their medical truck. It was there yesterday. It's there every other Thursday.

And then our local health care system in Venice Health comes to the other Thursdays. And now the ER is not overrun with all of it. And we've got dental care that comes inside a mobile dental clinic, all these ways that we're trying to ease the burden. on the system. Yeah, it might be expensive, and I'm using air quotes, to run an organization like this with this much robust care. Sure, because it takes people and I got to pay people to do it. And I got to pay their insurance and all the things, right? Yes. However, we've got the data. It's nowhere near the cost of society with this turnover we keep having, which that's our

hue and cry to the state and the feds. Hey. And meanwhile, while that cost is being reduced, people's lives are being enriched. Thank you. I mean, it's like that part, the part for me, but if you want to get pragmatic and really it's about the bottom line. That's what I'm saying. It just checks about boxes. It really does. I got one more thing, Bill. Tell them about Father Greg Boyle's quote about the margins.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I love Father Greg so much. He's such an inspiration to me. Yeah, and this happened to me. So I'm real careful with my hiring practices, and I'm really careful about people who come in and want to wear a Superman cape. I don't think that's a good idea. Yeah, because typically then the organization and the people get appropriated for people's Superman story, right?

You know, the thing about a cape, it's just, you know, people look at them a lot. So if you're wearing a cape, you got to ask yourself, why are you wearing a cape? You want to be looked at? Right. So, Father Greg says, when people ask Father Greg, don't you get burnout? And people ask me this all the time, don't you get burnout? And he said, you only get burnout when you think you're going to the margins to fix the margins. when you realize that the margins are actually going to help you,

it's addictive and you can't stop. That is another great quote. That's the second one of today. His quote is better than that. That's kind of ad-libbing his actual quote, but that's what he says. You only get burned out. Say it again.

You only get burned out when you go to the margins thinking you're going to fix the margins. When you realize the margins change you, you can't stop. That is another way of saying what I am telling you without exception. there's not a single guest that has not ever sat in an interview with me is somewhere in this country and said the truth is I get more out of this than I ever put into it. And don't you at Manassas? Yeah, I did back then.

I did now at middle college. But yes, I get more out of this podcast than I put into it. The stuff I've learned, the people I've met, it's unbelievable. You said you didn't want to do this interview today. You said it was too many. What's that? We did too many interviews. I thought this one today.

This is just me. He scheduled five, I've done five interviews this week. That's a lot. I really, I'll be honest, I, you do a really good job. I would, I really have wanted to launch a podcast for so long. Wanted to before I even started Salt and Light. And I got to tell you, your interview skills are really good. I really, you're fun to talk to.

Well, just, uh, keep saying that louder. I mean, don't say that anymore. You're embarrassing. You're, thank you. You really was fun. It was fun to talk about it. You gave me the floor to talk about things. And I love being challenged and talking about ways that,

society sees this and ways that we can talk through. I think we need the opportunity to open-mindedly without preconceived notions. First, vet out the preconceived notions that are often inaccurate before we can even lay a foundation to have a real chat. That's all. I think that was really helpful. For another podcast, we can do that about logging. I'm in the lumber business. I know you are.

I heard about this. The hardwood lumber business. People don't want to hear the truth. that there's 70% more harvestable timber growing in the United States today than there was in 1950. I didn't know that. See? I don't know a lot about logging, so.

We could talk about why there's fires. Oh, yeah. Do you know there's four times as many lightning strikes east of the Mississippi River as there are west of the Mississippi River? Yet we don't have massive forest fires while the west burns to the ground. Well, because we're not managing our forests. Because logging roads create firebreaks. when you run out of stuff to burn, the fire just burns out.

Yeah. And we've lost so many of our gorgeous, majestic sequels. We have, but when you actually harvest the old trees and you have logging roads, certainly you're going to have fire breaks out, but they're contained by the logging roads and the lack of tender to keep the fire burning. When you don't log them, it is actually pitiful policy, and you lose 12 times the amount of standing timber to forest fire than you would to logging in a year. and we have 60% more standing timber today than we did 80 years ago.

We'll save it for a shop talk, Bill. How about that policy? I, this is the kind of stuff I love learning them. Yeah, for a girl that grew up on the foothills of the sequoias. Yeah, and I care about them burning. Of course you do. Yeah, and we know that. I'm not saying we just cut down sequoias.

I'm talking about other stuff. Oh, I know what you're saying. We used to do that. But the point is to all of that, if you just hear that, there's data about people experiencing homelessness that may be inconvenient, may fly on the face of what you've been told, but it doesn't make it any less true. That's right. My friend, Adrienne.

You got it. Thanks so much for jutting out here for California. Sorry about Delta screwing you up, but I hope you got a buddy coming down to hang out with you this weekend, right? Yeah, and it was worth it anyway, even if she wasn't. This was so fun. Well, I hope you get to enjoy some chickens, some barbecue, a little bit of music, and some of the Memphis Flair while you're here.

here and I really do appreciate you spend the time to come out and join us and tell us your story and y'all salt and light she's the founder of the CEO she's obviously the dreamer of it and in only five short years to have a village and a food truck and serving all the people they're doing I cannot imagine where you're going to be five years from now but I want you to check in with us on us now okay we sure I sure will and it's been an honor it's an honor to be here really is it's honor to meet you as well Thanks for being here. And thank you for joining us this week. If Adrienne Hillman has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by donating

to Salt and Light, volunteering at it somewhere like it in your community, or starting something similar, or something else entirely, please let me know. I really genuinely, I want to hear about it. You can write me any time at... Bill at normalfolks.us, and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Join the army at normalfolks. us, any and all of these things that will help us grow, an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do it you can.

Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story. When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia and Masel, the leader of the Legionaries, took me in the eye and told me I had a calling. Surviving meant hiding, escaping,

took courage, risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Marseille-Massielle on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.