An Army of Normal Folks - Kevin Adler: Reuniting 1,100 People Experiencing Homelessness With Their Families (Pt 2)

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Kevin was tired of walking by people experiencing homelessness, not doing anything, and undermining his own humanity and theirs each time. So he finally did something and his accidental nonprofit Miracle Messages has since reunited over 1,100 people with their families!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal Folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Kevin Adler right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. In 2012, 16-year-old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice. The call was horrible. I replayed over in my head all the time. For years, Brian's family kept asking questions, while a culture of silence kept the case cold.

Snitches get stitches. Everybody knows it. Still, they refused to give up. I would ask my husband, do you want me to just let this go? He was like, no, keep fighting. I told her I would never give up on this case. And then, after a decade of waiting, a breakthrough.

We received a phone call that was bittersweet because it's a call that we've been waiting for for a very long time. I'm Enrique Santos. This is Cold Case Files Miami, a podcast about justice, persistence, and the families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Evans and

on my podcast Behind the Bastards we talk about the worst people in all of history. We've discussed a lot of horrible monsters in our time, but this week we have one of the very worst we'll ever talk about. David Berg, founder of a cult called the Children of God. We'll talk about all of his horrible crimes with special guest Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this kind of evangelical Christianity, Pentecostal preaching in the mid-century. He's a very

weird guy. But yeah, I'll just get into it here. Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't say it. Right. But that's the beauty of cults. Listen to Behind the Bastards on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories

and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more

to explore the stories that shape us on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or

wherever you get your podcasts. From I Heart Podcasts, before social media, before the internet, before cable news, there was Alan Berg. You dig what I do, you have a need, unfortunately you have no sense of humor, that's why you can't ever enjoy this show, and that's why you're a loser. He was the first, and the original shock shock.

That scratchy, irreverent kind of way of talking to people. You're as dumb as the rest. I can't take anyone. I don't agree with you all the time. I don't want you to. I hope that you pick me apart. His voice changed media. His death shocked the nation.

And it makes me so angry that he got himself killed because he had a big mouth. KOA morning talk show host Alan Berg reportedly was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver. He pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, there are probably two million suspects. This guy aggravated everybody. From iHeart Podcasts, this is Live Wire, the loud life and shocking murder of Allen Berg. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A murder happens. The case goes cold. Then over 100 years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator. And I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we reexamine historical true crime cases. Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed. Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go

hunting out there. These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling. I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network.

Listen to Buried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So this one interaction led to kind of a light bulb moment, I guess, for you is that we can serve this way. Yeah. So I mean, and again, the backstory that, you know, isn't often shared on this, on the, on the website and the backstory of it is for about three or four months, I did nothing more. Why? Besides you have a life. I didn't have much of a life.

You didn't get the good bio there. I did not have much of a life. I was walking down the street, talking to people at that time. I was walking down the street, talking to people at that time. You know, what it was is I can be my own worst critic, probably like many of us. And I was like, I don't know if I'm cut out for this. I don't know if I'm the right person. I, when I think of a person who does homeless outreach work, I think of Little Angel, some of the people I work with now, to be honest, who go out with no publicity, no cameras,

no intention of growing anything, and they're just loving on people. And not only do they know, you know, we're giving out shoes today and the whole thing, I know your shoe size, right? Like your family. I was like, I felt like an imposter, right? That was not my life. But what I realized was, it's not so much

homelessness that I care about. Like I care about the issue now, you know, dedicated the last decade of my life to it. But it's really not homelessness that kept me going and drew me to this. It's it's my core values, which believe that every single person is intrinsically valuable, and that we're all interconnected, right? And it was just-

But I think that's a fact. That's a value. I get that's your value, but I don't think anybody can argue that every single human being has value, and that scientifically, our DNA is 100% society. Agreed, 100%, thus the need for an army of normal folks, but agreed completely. And that was, for me, the rub that got me back out there.

That's what did, because you- Oh yeah, because I was like, in San Francisco, and I was like, I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore.

I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. I'm not gonna do this anymore. But agreed completely. And that was for me the rub that got me back out there. That's what did because. Oh yeah, because I was like in San Francisco, and you know 2014. You were like if I'm gonna live my values.

If I'm gonna live my values, I gotta go talk to people. Because I know something that other people don't know is the virtue of this little stuff I've tripped over with my GoPro. And the wildest thing is it's just through conversations with people, just going out having interacting, you know, hearing their stories and then hearing the barriers of why the person's unhoused. Suddenly, it makes sense. It's not just this

abstraction as too big, how are we ever going to handle this thing? It's like, Oh, that's Johnny was the next person I met, went down to St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco. What is, I don't know what that is. They've been serving daily meals there for about- Is it a church downtown somewhere? It's kind of a faith, you know, origin affiliation, but yeah, they've been doing daily meal services, right? So soup kitchen.

So you go down there. I go down there, make this announcement saying, hey, I'm here, you know, Kevin's here. I'm going to help people reconnect to their loved ones. Kevin the Impostor's here. I'm gonna help people reconnect to their loved ones. Kevin the Impostor's here with his camera. Kevin F. Adler, the Impostor, is here, y'all. Everyone, yesterday, I was just grumbled, a little finger. And yeah, I basically say,

you wanna reconnect to their family. And it goes over about as well as you think, which is crickets, people just ignore me. And I'm walking out, just like, great. I don't have to do this anymore. This is, this is my, nobody wants to know. No one, no one gives a hoot, right? Like this is my deal with God. I'm going to do it one more time. And then if this doesn't, you know, we're done. And of course this guy comes up to me as I'm walking out the door, you know, bright blue eyes. And he's like, hi, I'm Johnny. I haven't seen my family in a long time, in about 30 years.

Now I gotta do this thing. Yeah. So we go out, I record a video of him to his family. Within three weeks, all four of his siblings had recorded messages back to Johnny. And they all flew from across the country on their own dime to reunite with Johnny in a hotel room in San Francisco. And I'm sitting there, they're sitting on a bed, almost forming like this V formation, like birds do with Johnny at the front, all surrounding him. And he's looking me in the eye and he says, thank you for giving me my family back. And yeah, at that point, all right, there's something here I gotta play a role in. I gotta ask how that story ended up.

Johnny has done really well. Johnny has done really well. So at that time I didn't realize that he was in the throes of some addiction, and it was reconnecting to his family that gave him a new reason for living. So he was able to get the support treatment he needed, he was able to beat that addiction. So he, you know,

it's he now housed, and he's now housed. So what happened years saved a life. Years later, you're gonna have to stop for a minute. All right. You saved a life. You don't want to do that, do you? I think that puts too high of an expectation. Yes, his life probably was saved through this work. No doubt, he was on the streets doing addictive stuff. He was gonna end up dead before 50 or by 50.

That's what the facts say. You're a fact-based person. Oh, I don't know, I just like data. Yeah, and it's your facts. I'm just repeating back to you what you told me. And I think my only discomfort with, and that's true, is the ones who we aren't able to save hit me hard, real hard.

I get that. Yeah. But I've said this before in other shows, something that dawned on me probably five years into my work in the inner city is that if you take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle of it, and then a little line across the top of it,

and you put a plus in the left margin and a minus in the right, and you start listing all the pluses against all the minuses. If the minuses outweigh the pluses and you see that as a failure, which in school or business is how you ledger success? If you do that when you're working in a community like you and I have worked in, and like you're working in, you'll be the most depressed human being on the face of the planet. What you've gotta realize is most of those pluses

never happen without your engagement. So each of them are 100% successes and you can't measure the pluses against the minuses and that kind of. Were you a coach in a previous life? I might have been. You did some good pep talks. I might have been.

That's a good one and that's true. That's 100% true. It's called the Ben Franklin Close. Ben Franklin used to make decisions by drawing a plus and a negative. Really? Yeah, he drew a plus and a minus on top of a page, drew a line down it,

thought about all of the positives and all the negatives that would occur as a result of what he was about to engage in, and if the minus is that way, the positives, he did, and he found something else to do. And that's effective except when you're dealing with a ledger that doesn't start even but it starts with a metric-ass ton full of minuses. Yeah and Johnny's, his life was saved from the reconnection. And years later, as a kicker, he was housed, but as we were talking about four walls and a roof don't always make a house a home.

And he was feeling super isolated, lonely, getting depressed, gained a lot of weight after beating the drugs, but you know but put on a ton of weight. And he told me, you know, years later, he's like, I was getting very depressed and started having suicidal thoughts. But what saved me, two things, started seeing a therapist, made a big difference. Second was he signed up for our second program that we created, Miracle Messages. It's a phone buddy program. He signed up for our second program that we created, Miracle Messages. It's a phone buddy program.

So we match folks, everyday volunteers, people who are housed for weekly phone calls and text messages, kind of like a digital pen pal. Johnny signed up for that program, unbeknownst that he was signing up for this thing that he had already done with the reunions, he got matched with a friend who they started having weekly phone calls and text messages

and just having that person to talk to he said. Just a little bit of encouragement from another human being goes a long way. That was it. All right, so Johnny's two. Johnny was the second one. But we don't really have an organization at this time. We have a goofy dude walking around with a GoPro

on the street talking to homeless people. That's all we got at this point. We have a goofy dude walking around with a GoPro on the street talking to homeless people. That's all we got at this point. So what happens? So I quit my job. I had been okay. Now you're ridiculous. And what did you do? I was working in the education technology space.

So kind of startup Silicon Valley. San Francisco, San Francisco, you know, and, but I was always more driven by like mission than profit and I let the mission interfere with profit sometimes. That's all another story. But this whole idea of like social entrepreneurship, I didn't know what that was, but that was kind of like what I was. Neither did I. And I'm not sure I still actually know what it means.

Yeah. I mean, call it service. Yeah, what it means to me is finding needs like you would in business, but instead of optimizing for making money, you're optimizing for changing lives. That's a really good way to define it. It really is. We'll be right back. In 2012, 16-year-old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice.

The call was horrible. I replayed it over in my head all the time. For years, Brian's family kept asking questions, while a culture of silence kept the case cold. Snitches get stitches. Everybody knows it. Still, they refused to give up. I would ask my husband, do you want me to just let this go? He said, no, keep fighting. I told her I would never give up on this case. And then, after a decade of waiting, keep fighting. I told her I would never give up on this case. And then after a decade of waiting, a breakthrough.

We received a phone call that was bittersweet because it's a call that we've been waiting for for a very long time. I'm Enrique Santos. This is Cold Case Files Miami, a podcast about justice, persistence and the families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami as part of the My Kultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Evans, and on my podcast, Behind the Bastards, we talk about the worst people in all of history.

We've discussed a lot of horrible monsters in our time, but this week we have one of the very worst we'll ever talk about, David Berg, founder of a cult called the Children of God. We'll talk about all of his horrible crimes with special guest Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this kind of like evangelical Christianity, Pentecostal preaching in the mid century. He's a very weird guy. But yeah, I'll just get into it.

Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't sense. But that's the beauty of cults. Listen to Behind the Bastards on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked

by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcast. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep-diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book-to-screen casts for years. And now, I get to talk to the people making the magic.

So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From iHeart Podcasts, before social media, before the internet, before cable news, there was Alan Berg. You dig what I do. You have a need, unfortunately you have no sense of humor. That's why you can't ever enjoy this show, and that's why you're a loser. He was the first, and the original shock shock.

That scratchy, irreverent kind of way of talking to people. You're as dumb as the rest, that's, I can't take it anymore. I don't agree with you all the time. I don't want you to, I hope that you pick me apart. His voice changed media, his death shocked the nation. And it makes me so angry that he got himself killed because he had a big mouth. KOA morning talk show host Alan Berg

reportedly was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver. He pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, there are probably two million suspects. This guy aggravated everybody. From iHeart Podcasts, this is Live Wire, the loud life and shocking murder of Alan Berg. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A murder happens. The case goes cold.

Then, over 100 years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator. And I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we reexamine historical true crime cases. Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed. Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there.

These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling. I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day.

New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You quit your job. Yes. Because you're well balanced and you decide I'm going to spend my time walking around talking to homeless people with a GoPro. Yeah, raised a little bit of money on like online crowdfunding to travel across the country. And I had this thing called the 100 stories campaign. I was going to talk to 100 people, offer the service to 100 people.

And if they took it up great, if not, that's it. And at the end of it, reevaluate my life decisions. And see if in the meantime, you can connect some unhoused people with some family members. Went to Burlington, Vermont, where I met Perry, and he hadn't seen his son. Why Burlington, Vermont, where I met Harry, and he hadn't seen his son, James. Why Burlington, Vermont, of all places? I think there's a few places,

like the reaction you just had is why I wanted to go to places off the beaten track. That's a good point. That's really well said. Yeah, I get it, yeah. Right, because we think anybody can go to LA or New York. Los Angeles, New York. Right, or DC. Or DC, or, you know, Miami or San Francisco.

But like homelessness, we're at the tip of the iceberg. And I'm even now getting emails every day through Miracle Messages from folks who are unhoused, asking for services or seeking some help in places I've never heard of in this country, right? Small towns all across. So this would get a lot worse before it gets better. So you go to Burlington. I go to Burlington, I go to Portland, Maine,

I go to Manchester, New Hampshire, go to Miami at one point, Fort Lauderdale. And I'm just offering the services and meeting people, having conversations. Literally just walking down the street. Sometimes going to like a local homeless service org and saying, hey, can I camp out here for a bit and offer these services? Right. And people are generally pretty receptive to it and had a lot of powerful

conversations and occasionally would meet someone who wanted to reconnect to their loved ones and would do my best to try to facilitate that reconnection. At the time, it was more posting things on social media, doing searches and those posts would go viral, news covers it, people would get tagged. Because I didn't realize this until later, but family is often looking for the homeless relatives who don't know where to turn.

And every day we get family members reaching out to us saying, hey, my brother's missing. This is kind of like America's most wanted of homelessness. It is, it's like a reverse kind of feel good. It really is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I started doing that and, you know, a hundred stories in just had had people reconnect,

get off the streets, powerful homecomings, some big ones that didn't work out too, right? I can talk about the successes and the failures. There's gonna be minuses. But there were more pluses than minuses on the, You're killing it. Yeah, yeah. So, and got down to a place where I was barely getting by.

I'm not coming from tons of family money and I just got trust fund that I'm, no, it was like, yeah, I'm privileged in the sense that rock bottom for me is just gonna go move in with my dad, right? I can go live at his house, but it was never gonna be, so I could take these risks, but also, if you're in your mid to late 20s point,

getting down to like $600 in a savings account, there's not much you can do to sustain after that. So 2016, 2017, briefly stepped away from Miracle Messages. I started working outside of that. And I was like, I'm just gonna make money here and then subsidize it there, right? And kinda, that was the plan, right? I could have used a little more coaching than that.

My dad's like, what are you doing? Yeah, well, you are 26. Yeah. He's a very good friend of mine told my son when he went to DC, people need to understand a 1300 square foot apartment in DC is four or $5,000. Right. So you pile five or six people in a one bedroom and just live. And what a buddy of mine told my son, great advice is you're, you can be young, single and broke once in your life.

Do what you want to do while you can be young, single, and broke once in your life. Do what you wanna do while you can be young, single, and broke. And that's if you're lucky too. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's a lucky one. But that feels like that's what you were. Yeah, I mean, I kept, I both wasn't making much, but I kept my costs real low.

Yeah. So, you know, I found a five bedroom house in the outskirts of San Francisco. I was the master tenant. Everyone had a good rent. I had a great rent. Right? Like-

Same thing that son did in D.C. That's what I'm saying. You figure it out. You figure it out. Yeah. And so, but you know, it got to the point where it was just like, this is not sustainable. And I go and I'm working on a political campaign for about one week and I'm learning all the organizing and campaign work and marketing and the one week. And I'm learning all the organizing and campaign work

and marketing and the whole thing and everything I'm learning, I'm applying back to Miracle Messages. So I'm like, all right, I can't continue with this. I sent them an email. I'm saying, sorry, can't do this. Go to bed that night. I turn off my phone.

I hate that feel of letting people down, like disappointing. So I'm thinking I'm gonna get this angry email morning. They didn't care, I was a nobody on the campaign. But I did have two emails in my inbox, this true story. First email was from Ted, Ted Residencies, saying, congratulations, we'd like to invite you to come to New York, live here for six months, incubate your idea at Ted headquarters and then give a Ted talk on this work. Okay. Second email. Hey there, we're

producing this digital platform called NowThis, like a Buzzfeed kind of thing. We love your work. We would like to tell your story. That video at 26 million views, 1 million shares online, that plus the TED talk led to some funders getting introduced to us, getting our first funding at Miracle Messages. And 2017, we got that funding. Since then, we've never missed a payroll and we've grown the team we're about 1213 full time

we just hired my successor last year as a new CEO. So it's now become a legit thing. Didn't start that way. So tell me what this legit thing does. So miracle messages. We help people experience from a normal guy who was a little bit nutty, who decided to film some homeless people to connect them because he knew how much the connection from his uncle meant to him. That's where it comes from.

And how Jesus had a smartphone and the whole weird origin. Nazareth, the whole thing. And the origin of the name was, I asked Jennifer, who reconnected to Jeffrey, what should we call this thing? Like there's nothing here. People are asking, what's this thing called? I was like, dude, goofy guy walks around. Goofy guy with a phone.

It's very catchy. And she's like, well, we're here in Montoursville and locally people have called it the miracle of Montoursville. So maybe we could call it, it's like a miracle message. That's where, that makes sense. Yeah, I was like, great, it's a miracle message. So we help people, we're a non-profit, 501-C3.

We help people experiencing homelessness rebuild their social support systems and their financial security. So we do a couple things. We do family and friend reunification services. So instead of just random people walking down the streets blasting things on social media, we now have caseworkers, social workers, outreach workers,

local chapters around the country, folks who are going to partner sites, offering services. We also get folks who are unhoused reaching out to us directly, often through our, either the website, you know, miraclemessages.org, or we set up a hotline. The phone number is real easy to remember. 1-800-MISS-YOU. Right? We own that. We own that. We own 1-800-MISS-YOU. Right? So we get messages coming in and when a message comes in, we have a network of volunteer digital detectives.

So these are everyday people who are just like feeling frustrated and helpless on this issue. And like, what can I do? I wanna do something, right? I don't wanna just see people living and dying on the streets in front of me. So someone listen to us.

What's that? Someone listen to us who wants to get involved. Yeah, exactly. Here's one easy way. Here's one way to do it. You could be a digital detective. You can do digital sleuthing for good. And you're going online, making phone calls,

writing letters, doing digital searches, locate loved ones, deliver messages. That process has led to about 1,100 reunifications. Yeah, I read a stat that by the end of 2024, so now we're a little bit ahead of that, but by the end of 2024, a thousand people had been reunited with loved ones via Miracle Messages.

80% of reunions have led to what you call positive outcomes. That's a lot more than negatives. With 15 to 20% leading to homeless family members actually getting off the streets. That's phenomenal. We're always about what are we gonna do about this problem? Well, here's one. Help them reconnect.

And again, it's a first step to family reunification and loved one reunification, not a last step. So there are programs where it's like all you need is bus fare to get a one-way bus ticket to go live with your loved ones. We say, well, maybe a first, you know, if you're reconnecting after years, if not decades, the starting point might just be, I, I'm still alive. I love you. I miss you. I'm sorry. I want you back in my life." And that's where we start, the Miracle Messages. We also have it where families reach out to us looking for their missing relatives who are unhoused in a city. We've done about 100, 120

of those very hard needle in a haystack, find them cases is what we call it. But we also have learned that for some people, family's part of the problem, not part of the solution. You know, there's violence, there's unsafe home environment, there's reasons, abuse, reasons not to reconnect. That's totally inappropriate. Some don't have a family because of foster care. And some don't have a family and foster care. And often, and we gotta talk about this,

sometimes the family is not that much better off than the person experiencing homelessness. We got a country right now where one out of every two people are one paycheck away from not being able to pay rent. And 40% of people say they don't know where they'd get $400 for an unexpected emergency. So the goal of this is not, let's put the entire burden on families and that's the solution.

You gotta build housing, you gotta have a lot of other services. But I consider myself a pragmatic idealist. This is, I'm very pragmatic. It's a step and we all need it. We all need that kind of social support. So for folks who don't have family to reconnect to, that's where we created our phone buddy program,

where we match everyday volunteers, maybe some of your listeners. Another opportunity for people. Just and it doesn't take that much time. You're talking once a week. 20 minutes, 30 minutes a week for three months is our initial commitment. We ask for and it's a digital Pimpel. Phone calls. And if you're not comfortable, phone calls, you do text messages.

Just check. And you don't have to meet if you're not wanting to meet in person. Just checking on you. Right. Being a neighbor. How are you doing? Right. And we say you're not trying to be a lightweight caseworker or social worker.

Because for many folks who are unhoused, including also some of our volunteers who are housed, this may be the only person that they have to talk to. We have a real crisis right now where loneliness, disconnection, all time high. So we have Miracle Friends is that program where we match people for weekly calls and texts. Those volunteers have logged over 350,000 conversation minutes.

And you know, lives get changed on both sides of the legend. I bet eyes get open. I bet eyes get open. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you think like Bruce and Nathaniel, you know, Bruce, someone who works in venture capital, he's got a ton of resources, he's great. Nathaniel, he's been in and out of jail, he's lived on the streets, he's had substance issues. What value could Nathaniel possibly

provide Bruce? Well, as Bruce would tell it, first, eyes, hearts get open, right? On this issue, learn more about his community side that he doesn't interact with you often. And not too long ago, Bruce's father passed away. First person called him was Nathaniel. He said, I lost my dad a few years ago too. I know what that's like. So for me, this gets us past the labels, the categories, all that nonsense into just like, we're human together.

We allow humanity to do its thing. We'll be right back. In 2012, 16-year-old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice. The call was horrible. I replayed over in my head all the time. For years, Brian's family kept asking questions, while a culture of silence kept the case cold. Snitches get stitches. Everybody knows it. Still, they refused to give up. I would ask my husband, do you want me to just let this go? He said, no, keep fighting.

I told her I would never give up on this case. And then, after a decade of waiting, a breakthrough. We received a phone call that was bittersweet because it's a call that we've been waiting for for a very long time. I'm Enrique Santos. This is Cold Case Files Miami, a podcast about justice, persistence and the families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Evans and on my podcast, Behind the Bastards, we talk about the worst people in all of history. We've discussed a lot of horrible monsters in our time,

but this week we have one of the very worst we'll ever talk about, David Berg, founder of a cult called the Children of God. We'll talk about all of his horrible crimes with special guest, Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this kind of like evangelical Christianity Pentecostal preaching in the mid century.

He's a very weird guy. But yeah, I'll just get into it. Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't say. Right. But that's the beauty of cults. Listen to Behind the Bastards on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off.

I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. From iHeart Podcasts, before social media, before the internet, before cable news, there was Alan Berg. You dig what I do. You have a need. Unfortunately, you have no sense of humor. That's why you can't ever enjoy this show. And that's why you're a loser. He was the first and the original shock shot. That scratchy, irreverent kind of way of talking to people. You're as dumb as the rest. I can't take anyone.

I don't agree with you all the time. I don't want you to. I hope that you pick me apart. His voice changed media. His death shocked the nation. And it makes me so angry that he got himself killed because he had a big mouth. KOA morning talk show host Alan Berg reportedly was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver.

He pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, there are probably two million suspects. This guy aggravated everybody. From iHeart Podcasts, this is Live Wire, the loud life and shocking murder of Alan Berg. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A murder happens. The case goes cold. Then, over 100 years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator.

And I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we reexamine historical true crime cases. Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed. Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there. These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling.

I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him? Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Buried Bones

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm going to read some numbers and then I'm going to ask you some more questions. Actually, I'm going to tell you a story and then I'm going to ask you more questions. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, estimates that 582,462 people experience homelessness each night. I think that's a low number. And the latest number is closer to 750,000. That feels about right.

But we estimated in my book, it's closer to 6 million over the course of the year who experience homelessness. Of those, a handful, 350,000 or so are sheltered. Yeah, about half. For those in shelters, 59% are individuals and 41% are with their families. That's the that's one that's stark. That's 40% of families are unhoused.

Right. 40% of unhoused people are part of families. Right, are part of families. 250 or so are unsheltered, 92% being individuals and 8% with their families. 1.1 million school children are considered unhoused. That breaks my heart. The total number experiencing homelessness at one moment is likely around two and a half to three million

and six million over the course of a year, which is almost 2% of our population, one in 50. Blacks are 12% of the population, but represent 30% of homelessness. 37%. 30, what'd I say? You said 30. 37%.

37%. And 50%'d I say? You said 30. 37%. 37%. And 50% of homeless families with children. Homelessness reveals the issue. A lot of societal issues. A lot of societal issues. My brother-in-law, my wife Lisa, her little brother's Ben, I've spoken about him a handful of times on the podcast, Ben has special needs,

and I've known Ben since he was four and have experienced all of the gifts and blessings that has been and all of the headaches that can go along with someone who has special needs. And it's not an easy thing to live with special needs, I'm sure. But I can also tell you, it's often not easy to be the family

of someone with special needs and care for them. I mean, it's hard work. It's work we all gladly take on, but it does not diminish the fact that it's hard, oftentimes. Ben was 16 and a half when he was given the afford of the great opportunity to go to a place in Austin, Texas called the Brown School, which really worked well with people with developmental disabilities plus behavioral

issues. And it was a blessing for the family that he got in and he was doing really well. Ben is also high enough functioning that he knows enough about how the world works, low enough functioning that he is certainly developmentally disabled, but he knows a few things and he's a lot smarter as are most people in this situation than we think. Well, he, over the course of the five or six years that he'd been going to different schools and different places, he kind of learned the rules around institutionalization and on his 18th birthday, he walked up to the front desk and said, would like to leave and because of the very thing you were talking about the HIPAA rules and being sued and everything they had 24 hours

where they legally had to set him onto the streets of Austin Texas and they called and said Ben's about to leave. We're like what? What do you mean he's about to leave? He's got, he operates on a third grade level. He can't, I mean it's it's his prerogative, it's legally his right and he says he doesn't want to stay here anymore and he is not committed here by a judge or any law and we got there a few hours before he walked out. Had they not called us and had he walked out, I have no idea what would have happened. But I can assure you, knowing the way Ben looks,

knowing his affect, his gait, his everything, thousands of people would have walked right by and not given him a second thought and just tried to stay out of his way, you know, so I would say our family was hours away from experiencing a dear loved one in homelessness. So I hear all these numbers and I give you that story to also tell you I'm really sick of my car getting broken into and having to pay $500 to replace the window and all the change being rifled through in my console.

Sick of that too. So I am a little bit of a hypocrite and certainly very conflicted as it pertains to all of this and want an answer. And I think the vast majority of the people in the country have a heart for folks who are not well off but are also sick of their neighborhoods, especially in urban areas, dealing with such a terrible circumstance, both on a human level and candidly on a societal level

for those of us living with people in this. And we have all seen in your hometown of San Francisco on the news, which I am certain is sensationalized. The Livermore is my hometown. But you know what I mean, in your area, we have all seen on the news, pictures of encamped areas of San Francisco that were once beautiful roads with a bunch of pup tents

and people peeing on the sidewalks and drug, and some areas down by the wharf and everything else that it's not good for society. It's not good for the people there. And I'm certain all that's sensationalized, but I guess what I'm saying to you is I think this whole area provides just a lot of conflict for people. And when you hear all those numbers, you're basically talking one in fifty. This is not an isolated deal. This is everywhere. It seems to me you have

stumbled across a way to start to help chip away at the problem. And after ten years, I consider experts, you know, I don't think a degree or certification makes you an expert in a certain area. I think the work there does. So I consider you an expert in this area because of the amount of time you've spent learning, understanding it. What do we do? Well, the status quo is not working for anyone right now.

It's not. Housed or unhoused people. We have to just start with that. Naming that is actually really important because sometimes people are trying to say, oh, it's not so bad. You don't know what your experience, you're like, my car just got broken into

for the umpteenth time. I don't feel comfortable walking down the street with kids. I see people living and dying on the streets. This doesn't work for them. Doesn't work for us, us, them, right? It doesn't look for society, it's not acceptable. It's also very costly.

We spend 40 to $80,000 per unhoused person per year to maintain them on the streets for one year. Lease, fire, emergency services, sanitation, that's a lot of money. 40 to $80,000 to keep someone unhoused, that doesn't work, right? So I mean, even if like you're fiscally conservative and thinking about that stuff,

the status quo is about the most expensive version of all of this, which is why we'll get into the cash thing. So I think as a society, we have swung way too far to individual agency at the expense of common sense. And my views on this have only been informed from doing this for 10 years, talking to thousands of people, listening to families.

Because when I talk to the families, they're like, this is no quality of life for my brother, my sister. I don't want them, I don't want my Uncle Mark sitting there in his own feces, talking to himself and being, most crimes involving people experiencing homelessness, the person who's unhoused is the victim. As I'm listening to you, I'm reminding myself,

and I hope all listeners remind themselves, you're the guy that approached the first guy with your keys in your hand. Yeah, absolutely, that's where I started. This is an evolution for you. It's a journey. The two questions I ask, you know, if I give a talk and I'll even, you know, ask your listeners,

just invite them to think about it. So, you know, raise your hand if you know, if you care about the issue of homelessness, every hand goes up. Say, second question, raise your hand if you know someone who's currently experiencing homelessness. When I give that second question it's never more than about five percent of people raise their hands. I say well that might be part of the problem. Imagine any other issue, you know we're talking about

racial justice, you don't know any black or brown people. Like how are you even gonna start? What work are you gonna do? You're not gonna know where to start, what the experience is like, any of that. You got to have relationships. Brian Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative founder, he talks about the importance of proximity. You got to get proximate. I actually think you have to go further than proximity.

You have to get relational. You don't have at least one friend, person you know by name, that's the first step. So in my journey of doing that work, I started very, you know, give you a sense of where I started. When I studied abroad in the UK, in London, this was shortly after the bombings that they had in 2005,

seven, seven bombings, 48 people, 50 people killed. And my dad- It's buses or bus stations. Yeah, the tube and the buses. The my dad- It's buses or bus stations. The tube and the buses. The tube and the buses, yeah. My dad, just before leaving for London, study abroad that fall, he's on the computer

and I go and I look, he's looking up, Simon calls me over, he's like, take a look at this. I was thinking about this for you. He's looking at flak jackets. This is where he started. He's like, I want you to wear, is this is gonna make this- You wear a flak jacket, walk around London.

This is gonna make a lot of friends, right? You wear this flak jacket on the tube. Anytime I see someone- The irony of an American in London wearing a flak jacket. The irony. Right. Yeah.

And of course- Where the cops don't even wear guns. Anyone who looks any different than me, I'm into the next thing. Get your keys. Or I get your keys. This is where I started. This was my, and fortunately I did not.

I was like, dad. But the point is, that was your ethos. That was the water in which I was swimming, right? And then, you know, to bring it full circle, to then meet an individual who reminded me of my Uncle Mark, most more than any person I've ever met in my 12 years of doing this work, and then asking him the question

I would have liked to have asked my Uncle Mark, saying, you know, you're suffering from schizophrenia, you have told me about your substance abuse issues, you've told me about your mental health issues, you're in that smaller percentage, but like my uncle, what do you wish I knew that I don't know about you? And the guy looks at me and he says, I just wish people realized that I was so much more of a threat to myself than I would ever be. So my education has just come from those conversations and listening, talking, and seeing people not as problems, but as people to love.

Because I think if we love people, problems get solved. Which is why I think there is an important role in society. The book I call for some pretty controversial things like involuntary treatment and involuntary holds. People don't have a choice in that matter. Now that's, that's surprising. That flies in the face of a lot of stuff. Involuntary holds. Yep. Now, here's the rub, because you know, it can be abused. What first, what have you done to get to that point? Are you a threat to yourself or others? Because if not, right,

there's kind of, there is more of a live and let live. Also, that, you know, there's a trade off. We don't want to go back to one flew over the cuckoo's nest, right? Where people are just locked up, throwing away the key in these insane asylums, these institutions. We never funded the hatchwork of the nationwide network of local community, mental health addiction We never funded the nationwide network of local community mental health addiction services. I started in the Reagan administration.

That's right. The involuntary treatment in a whole, it's limited. It's have you done everything else in your power before getting to that point? And here's the rub. So okay, so you'll hold someone for more than the 48 or 72 hours, which is now what a lot of places allow as max.

Then what? Yeah, because you talk about expense. I mean, it can't go on indefinitely. Need housing. So we come it's it's a full circle thing of coming back to saying we need to build more housing. And then people say, well, what kind of housing are you talking about? I say, yeah. Who pays for it? Well, we do.

As a society, because we're already paying for it. No, I'm asking the question. No, so this is where my extreme, this is, you know, anything you thought of me as left leaning, that probably was, you know, by that statement of involuntary treatment soldier, like, what is this guy? We have, in the Clinton administration, Clinton, give you the paraphrased numbers,

the exact ones in the book, he cut the budget for public housing by about 10, 11 billion dollars. At that same time, he increased the budget for prisons by about 10, 11 billion dollars. So in a very real sense, incarceration has become our nation's public housing. That's just switched.

We've switched it. That's very expensive. That doesn't work for people. That's not a good option. That's also how a lot of people get clean. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. In 2012, 16-year-old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice.

The call was horrible. I replayed over in my head all the time. For years, Brian's family kept asking questions, while a culture of silence kept the case cold. Snitches get stitches. Everybody knows it. Still, they refused to give up. I would ask my husband, do you want me to just let this go? He said, no, keep fighting.

I told her I would never give up on this case. And then, after a decade of waiting, a breakthrough. We received a phone call that was bittersweet because it's a call that we've been waiting for for a very long time. I'm Enrique Santos. This is Cold Case Files Miami, a podcast about justice, persistence, and the families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami as part of the MyCultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Evans and on my podcast Behind the Bastards we talk about the worst people

in all of history. We've discussed a lot of horrible monsters in our time, but this week we have one of the very worst we'll ever talk about. David Berg, founder of a cult called the Children of God. We'll talk about all of his horrible crimes with special guest, Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology

in with this kind of like evangelical Christianity, Pentecostal preaching in the mid century. He's a very weird guy. But yeah, I'll just get into it. Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't say. Right. But that's the beauty of cults. Listen Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't say. Right. But that's the beauty of cults.

Listen to Behind the Bastards on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from

Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you.

Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From iHeart Podcasts, before social media, before the internet, before cable news, there was Alan Berg. You dig what I do. You have a need. Unfortunately, you have no sense of humor. That's why you can't ever enjoy this show. And that's, you have a need, unfortunately you have no sense of humor, that's why you can't ever enjoy this show, and that's why you're a loser. He was the first, and the original shock shot. That scratchy, irreverent kind of way of talking to people.

You're as dumb as the rest, I can't take anyone. I don't agree with you all the time. I don't want you to, I hope that you pick me apart. His voice changed media, his death shocked the nation. And it makes me so angry that he got himself killed because he had a big mouth. KOA morning talk show host Alan Berg reportedly was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver. He pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, there are probably two million suspects. This guy aggravated everybody. From iHeart Podcasts, this is Live Wire, the loud life and shocking murder of Alan Berg.

Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A murder happens. The case goes cold. Then, over 100 years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator. And I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson, a journalist and historian. On our podcast, Buried Bones, we re-examine historical true crime cases. Using modern forensic techniques, we dig into what the original investigators may have missed.

Growing up on a farm when I heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder. Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a 22 to go hunting out there. These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling. I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw our life. So how did they eliminate him?

Join us as we take you back to the cold cases that haunt us to this day. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Bury Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we have as a society created scapegoats for all of our problems. It's easier to look at someone, look at a group of people, and say they're to blame if we just get rid of them or don't provide them with any services, we're all gonna be better off.

It's never the case. So my view is we need to build more housing of all types, and it's gonna cost us a lot as a society, but the current status quo is costing us even more. So do we need more affordable housing? Yes. We need tiny homes? Yes. We need safe parking sites where people can sleep in their vehicle but in a designated area with services?

Yes. And you just kind of go down the list. You cannot be for ending homelessness and being frustrated by the status quo and having your car broken into and be against developing housing in your neighborhood. I'm so glad you said that. That's what I was hoping to hear you say is choose a side. If you're not for doing something about homelessness, quit being about homelessness. If you're against what this is doing society, then you're gonna have to embrace some answer. You can't have it both ways. Can I read something to you? Is that awkward?

I mean, I've already been awkward, so what's gonna? I don't remember you being awkward at all. Well, you said goofy, that was your word. Well, you are goofy. I'm goofy too. I like goofy. I mean, anybody who quits their job and walks down the road, talk to homeless people with a GoPro. And my dad was like, what is your job now? I bet your dad thinks you're goofy. I mean, anybody who quits their job and walks out of the road talking to homeless people

with a GoPro. What is your job now? I bet your dad thinks you're goofy. He, less so now that we got funding. I mean, when it started. But when it started, yeah, he's like, what is this? Okay, so I mean, you know, just kind of being familiar with you, that's all.

I'm giving you a hard time. That's Alex's job, you stop it. It's my show. Answer the questions and move on. I think I just asked myself my own question. You want to read from the book? Yeah, read it. So this is In Times of Crisis. In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 18th, 1906,

a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck along the San Andreas Fault in Northern California, with the epicenter just two miles off the coast of San Francisco. The massive quake caused a conflagration that destroyed some 28,000 buildings in San Francisco, leveling more than 500 blocks in the city center. More than 3,000 people died, and about 80% of the city was destroyed. In the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fire,

here it is, some 250,000 residents of San Francisco were displaced, establishing makeshift camps in park areas and in burnt out ruins of buildings. For a short period of time, more than half of the city's 400,000 residents experienced homelessness. In response, the city did not pass anti-camping ordinances. Law enforcement was not mobilized to raise tent encampments and confiscate belongings. Local residents whose homes withstood the brunt of the disaster did not join together to form anti-survivor, not in

my backyard protests. Instead, city officials and local residents rallied together to help. As winter approached, this is what you're getting at, the city built 5,300 small wooden cottages for those still in need of housing, while the Army housed 20,000 refugees in military-style tent camps. Camps formed playgroups for kids and dining halls for individuals and families, which became the centers for social life. Tenants paid $2 a month toward the $50 price

of their earthquake cottage. Many assembled in Golden Gate Park. After paying off- Here it is, Golden Gate Park. After paying off their new home, the owners were required to move their cottages out of the camp, leaving earthquake cottages scattered throughout San Francisco

in an early example of scattered site housing. In June 1908, just two years after one of the most devastating disasters in American history, the last camp closed. 250,000 unhoused survivors had been housed. We can deal with this. Like the current modern crisis of homelessness, it's a crisis as much of hearts and minds and who we see as responsible for this issue. If we think of homelessness more aligned with disasters that we're just not seeing,

like if there's an earthquake, if there's a flood, if there's a fire, if there's a shooting, we know how to respond as a community. We come together, we do a hashtag, and we say, the NASA's strong, Memphis strong, whatever. With homelessness, it's equivalent to a crisis of that magnitude. The only difference is we don't see the smoke,

we don't see the floodwaters, we don't see the charred remains, but we see the survivors. All those people, every person you see who's experiencing homelessness, they have survived unfathomable traumas that once you actually get close enough to have a conversation, you realize that's a mess.

And often through no fault of their own. So a question as a society is, are we going to respond as we would in a natural disaster? Where we mobilize, make emergency ordinances, we provide housing even if it's makeshift for a couple years, or we continue to criminalize the matter. That to me is the choice that we have.

What are the detractors from that argument? Well, if we just give everybody a house, people will just quit working and start going using all the free housing. And then what? You know what? I think that's horse crap because anybody that can work really wants to work. And people want to progress in their lives. That is a natural human instinct and desire. People aren't just gonna quit at life

and go live in a free one bedroom government. I mean, there might be a very small percentage of people who ride the dole on that. But on balance, what is the cost of that versus what we're dealing with right now? And 50% of people who are homeless have jobs. Yeah, that's the other thing we gotta think about too.

A lot of them are working, about 40% have a disability where they're receiving some kind of assistance for chronic homeless individuals. Major, I mean, nearly half of folks have some kind of assistance for chronic homeless individuals. Majority, I mean, nearly half of folks have some kind of income that they're earning. It's just they're not, it's not enough to pay rent. So then someone might say, will they move? Where? Somewhere cheaper. Where?

How? I mean, this is the, how? Where, your community, your just like you said, I don't think there's much cheaper place than somewhere like the middle of Mississippi or West Virginia. What's there? So this leads us into, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna close with something. Direct cash. But this leads us into something that, I gotta be honest with you dude,

a bristle, a pucker a little bit when I hear it, but go ahead and broach it. Okay, well let me share my journey getting into this. And we're talking about direct cash transfer. I think perspective matters. Not to share my perspective. So we do talking about direct cash transfer. I think perspective matters. That's just my perspective. So we do the reunion program at Miracle Messages. We do the phone buddy program.

And this is, you know, we're looking at 2020 when we did the phone buddy in the summer. By that fall, so we're talking like three or four months in, we started hearing from our volunteers, our housed volunteers all around the country saying, hey, I've been matched with this person now a couple of months. This person's a good guy, good lady. I like them.

I respect them. They're telling me about the barriers and challenges they face to housing. I don't know how to get them into housing. That seems almost insurmountable. What I do know is now that you've asked me to be their friend, I'm not gonna turn my face and give them a blind eye when they don't know

how they're gonna get food tonight to feed their kids. Or how on Monday they're gonna get gas in their car to get back to work. Because they got a job they just can barely get by. So either you give them money or I'm gonna give them money. That was the starting point. So I was skeptical. As I said, okay, any amount of money we give folks,

it's not just that, you know, are they gonna blow it on substances? We can have that conversation, right? Outside of that, a couple hundred dollars a month, what is that gonna do? How is that gonna make a difference for anyone? Right, it's a Bay Area where I was based. You would almost say a couple hundred bucks a month

will absolutely go into a bottle or a deedle because it's not gonna do anything else. I didn't know, didn't know. But again, the best thing I've done on this whole journey, Bill, is that I started from this premise of I don't know, didn't know. But again, the best thing I've done on this whole journey, Bill, is that I started from this premise of I don't know a thing about homelessness. I've never lived a day of my life homeless.

I had an uncle who was homeless. A lot of people have had uncles who were homeless. So I was just listening to people, right? And I heard over and over again, people say, God, give them money. They need the money. Who's gonna do it? So we raised a little bit of money, all private, right?

Individual philanthropy. No tax money. Yeah. No public funds. No, no, no, it's just a little experiment. A pilot. Let's try it. Yeah, a pilot, let's just try this out. We raised about $50,000 to give out $500 a month

for six months. We could afford giving it to 14 people who are in our Film Buddy program, all of whom had been nominated by their unhoused friends. That's cool. All vouching for, right? And we had, you know, at that point 80 people in the program participating, 80 pairs, and I think we had about 50 or 60 nominations. So the vast majority. Select 14 individuals from those 50 or 60, $500 a month for six months.

Within six months, two thirds of those individuals who had secure, were able to secure housing using that $500 a month. They- Off the streets. Off the streets. 60%. 60%, super small sample size. Like, this is not scientific. Off the streets. 60%. 60%.

Super small sample size. This is not scientific. Two thirds of them secured housing. Elizabeth became eligible for senior housing, which required a minimum monthly contribution. She was able to make that. She's now in her forever home. Ray was able to find a housemate, pay towards half the month's rent out of state,

moved in in Kansas with a housemate. And you can kind of go on, but this person was able to get into an SRO. This person was now not feeling like they'd be a burden to go live with their family and pay a little bit every month. Well, they want to pay to their family. They wanted to participate.

Cover their portion. Like that same desire of not wanting to be a burden, that disconnection, that's because of that individual responsibility. That ethos is in our unhoused neighbors' hearts and minds too. Do you think them knowing, it was six months, right? Six months, 500 bucks a month. Do you think them knowing, it was six months, right? Six months, 500 bucks a month. Do you think them knowing that there was a sunset date

on this gift also helped? In other words, I got six months to use this money to get something done. Because I think if you just say you're getting $500 a month, but if you're getting $500 a month with a sunset date, this is your shot. This is your chance to get a little bit of a hand up.

This is not a handout, but a hand up. Do you think a sunset date helps? For some, for some. I think it's also for some, like if you have $0 and then you know you're gonna get $500 a month for six months, I'm immediately feeling anxious about what's happening after month six. No doubt.

So it's not like you're just settling into your life. That's fair, that makes sense. And what we saw, just as interesting, because again, super small sample size, we wouldn't be able to replicate that two thirds gain off the streets. It was an odd time also with the pandemic and things going on.

But what we saw just as interesting into this, you know, rub the wrong way or this bristle at that you mentioned, looked at spending habits. Third of the money was spent on food. A third was spent on housing or rent. The last third spent on everything from childcare to emergencies to storage to paying down debt to close. How much to alcohol and drugs?

About 2%, which was less than when we started. That's not what the fear mongers on the news site will happen. Because they want you to keep watching the news. I love you. That's right. That's exactly right. You're no longer goofy. You're brilliant.

But it's true. It's one of the things we talk about all the time is that there's an enormous amount of power and wealth concentrated in the narrative makers. And the more that they scare you, and the more they freak you out, the more you tune in. And unfortunately, the dumber we get about the issues that are really facing us. And so we because I wanted to figure out the scientific part of this, we ended up growing on this. And I was skeptical at first. Remember this whole thing direct cash,

the whole thing ended up getting some funding from google.org, a few private families, individuals, no government funding into this, but we were able to get $2.1 million and created a randomized controlled trial where we gave out $750 a month for 12 months to over 100 people experiencing homelessness all throughout the state of California. We're going to be releasing the results for that

pretty soon. But what I can tell you is are you breaking news on my show ratios? Are you breaking some news on my breaking news? I got the eyeballs to there we go. The ratios of where money was spent is almost identical to that small little pilot. About a third on housing, third on food, and the last third food or sorry, child care, emergencies, clothes. The first person who I gave, we gave the money to Elizabeth. The first thing she did with the money was she made a donation to Miracle Messages. You're kidding me. And I looked at her, I was like, Elizabeth,

you didn't need to do this. This wasn't part of the expectation. She looked at me and she said, I kid you not, she says, well, I didn't do it for you. I did it for myself. So I could once again feel the dignity of being able to support the causes I believe. But to me, this is not just a question

about the base of Maslow's hierarchy, food, water, shelter, clothing, housing, which we all need. This is about love, belonging, community, dignity. So as I hear all of this, maybe this, what's the catchphrase for this thing? What's the catchphrase for actually just providing money for the homeless thing? And it's the, not the catchphrase, actually just providing money for the homeless thing? It's the not to catchphrase. What's the term?

Not universal. Direct cash. Just direct cash transfers. Basic income. There. Basic income. I mean, basic income, though, it can get into a loaded thing that assumes like everyone's getting basic income, same amount. It gets the political, you know, like, we're just at the end of the day, we're giving people cash. Right now, we're spending cash,

but we're giving them cash and not really providing a lot of oversight, but trusting that they're going to do the right things with it. So far, your two pilots have proven they spend it better than we could have spent it for them. That's the point. Yeah, bottom up, not top down. Yeah, that's right. And we trust people. And so if you want people to act as you'd like them to act,

you treat them the way you'd want to be treated. Shocking. The golden rule still works. Yeah. Really? I think some of us skipped kindergarten. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

All right, I'm gonna let you sign off in a special way, but first I want you to, if those listening have been convinced that they can be a message friend, they can be a sleuth person. Yeah, miracle messenger. Miracle messenger, what's a sleuth people called? They can be a digital detective. A digital detective. Or join a chapter, a local chapter. All, miracle messenger. What's the sleuth people called? They could be a digital detective,

or join a chapter, a local chapter. All of these things. I think one other thing too is probably a lot of people listening either know people at the local homeless shelter or they volunteer with them already and so there probably is a great part I think you guys are already partnering with like 80 homeless shelters around the country that and their local ones if they can hook the local ones up with Miracle Messages. So how do they find out all that stuff? Yeah they can reach out to me if they want. How? So my email is kevin at miraclemessages.org or go to our website.

We have a get involved form miraclemessages.org and then click the get involved link and then just let us know how you're interested in getting involved. We'll connect you up with other folks in your community if you're interested in doing local outreach at a local partner site. We'll do the training, the support. But yeah, we need, if there's no other lesson from this conversation and what I wrote in my book,

it's that we say, miracle messages, no one should go through homelessness alone. I wish I could end that a word early. No one should go through homelessness. But while homelessness is a thing, it should not be a fundamentally isolating, otherizing thing. And second part of the mission is we say,

no one should feel helpless on this issue. There's just way too much good work for people to do. So if through our conversation, you've been convinced you need to get involved, that's how you get in touch. If through my conversation on a cerebral or academic level, maybe some of your preconceived notions have been challenged, which I have to admit,

some of mine have. The book, When We Walk By, Forgotten Humanity. The title is When We Walk By. The subtitle is Forgotten Humanity, Broken Systems, and the Role We Can Each Play in Ending Homelessness in America. By Publishers Weekly, a must read for anyone interesting in solving the problem of homelessness, and I don't know anybody walking the face of the planet in the United States that isn't interested

either from an idealistic or pragmatic stance to understand this is an issue we've got to solve. And so the book might challenge some preconceived notions and for some of you it might solidify the way you've thought but I highly suggest it because it uses data fact and real life experience to kind of open our minds to the things we can be doing differently, we must be doing differently. So I'll often talk in speeches about my wife, Lisa,

because she's hot and she's also pretty cool. I tell people she's my compass, because it is when I start thinking far too great of myself that she will remind me that I'm just a jackass from Memphis who coaches football and has a lumber company. And, you know, if you leave D.C. and fly all around the world and land back in D.C., if your compass is off only three degrees by the time you get back to D.C.,

you would actually land in Nova Scotia. 3% doesn't sound like a lot, but on the trip of life, if you get off path only three degrees, you will be so far away from where you're supposed to end up and we need a compass. Seems to me you have one too. I thought I'd let you read this and hopefully she'll listen.

If I seem a bit more patient at work these days and listen more fully before responding, if I've grown as a leader by admitting more of what I don't know, which is a lot, and bring a little more playfulness into public speaking, if I'm a better colleague, thought partner, and friend, it's because I married my best friend. When did that happen? We we had our wedding about a year ago. Yeah,

this past week in Memorial Day weekend. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. And I guess she's as vested in this as you are has to be her first question to me when we met we met through one of the dating apps. She her first question was, what are your values? Asking that is enough. You know, right there. I was just like, oh, what are you doing there? Okay, we're gonna start there.

She's, yeah, she's the best human I've ever met. She's an incredible person, incredibly warm and incredibly strong like my mom. I mean, I see a lot of those qualities. I wish they had had a chance to meet. She inspires me every day to be a better person but loves me unconditionally even when I'm not. It's pretty awesome.

Yeah. Dude, I think you're doing God's work. I think you're doing God's work both for the homelessness and for families But maybe even now After these ten years and you have a staff doing the minutiae of the daily maybe even now the work is to Is to use this platform to

change minds open eyes challenge preconceived notions of perspective and Maybe maybe lead us as a culture to finding solutions for a problem that affects us all. And so I applaud you, I'm inspired by you, and I really thank you for joining us and telling us your story, and I'll let you tease as we end the next project. It's an honor to be here with you. I yeah, just big fan of

yours and the work you've done. Thanks. You actually haven't mentioned that Kevin. Tell Bill you've seen Undefeated like a decade ago. If you did a decade ago, and I even found it in my spreadsheet of the movies I've seen with a little bit of my synopsis and takeaways. It was like terrific film of life and life lessons

on and off the football field. Well, thank you. Did you say this goofy fat red-headed guy coaching football? You should've said something like that. I bet it's in there. If you're goofy, then I'll embrace that goofy monitor. I'm as goofy as I get, bro.

I love it. Peace with the next project. Let's end there. So planning to start working on my next book. And that book is, you know, when we walk by, is really trying to answer this question, why are so many people experiencing homelessness? You know, we hear that all the time.

Talk about the broken systems, the broken humanity, and a hundred pages of solutions for those broken humanity, broken systems. Equally important question that just never gets asked with one out of two Americans a paycheck away from not paying rent, 40% of people don't know where they get 400 bucks for emergency. Why aren't more people experiencing homelessness?

Why isn't half the country homeless right now? And the hypothesis is it's family, it's friends, it's community, it's faith-based groups, it's social capital, double-bup, tripled-up, informal economy, making up that difference. I don't think that gets talked about nearly enough and I don't think that's well understood. Also may be part of the answer. I think if it's happening, it needs to be invested in. And then it raises questions like, what does public policy need to look like if social support is playing this critical

but overlooked role, how do we make sure it's reinforced and supported? All right, well, hurry up and write the damn thing so I can have you back. Well, okay, that sounds good. All right, buddy. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate you.

Yeah, great. Amen. And thank you for joining us this week. If Kevin Adler has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by referring someone experiencing homelessness to Miracle Messages, becoming a digital detective, joining the Phone Buddy program, engaging your local shelter about miracle messages, donating to them, or something else entirely. Let me know.

I want to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at NormalFolks.us and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate rate it review it join the army at normalfolks.us consider becoming a premium member there all of these things any and all of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks i'm bill cortney until next time, do what you can. In 2012, 16-year-old Brian Herrera was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to do homework. No suspects, no witnesses, no justice. I would ask my husband, do you want me to stop? He was like, no, keep fighting.

After nearly a decade, a breakthrough changed everything. This is Cold Case Files Miami, stories of families who never stopped fighting. Listen to Cold Case Files Miami on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Evans and on my show Behind the Bastards this week, we have one of our worst subjects ever, David Byrd, founder of the Children of God cult, who we'll be talking about with special guest Ed Helms. He's not just like a weird religious cult leader. He was like fusing a bunch of hippie ideology in with this evangelical Christianity

Pentecostal preaching in the mid-century. He's a very weird guy. But yeah, I'll just get into it here. Like nothing you just said makes sense. That doesn't set- Right. But that's the beauty of cults. Listen to Behind the Bastards on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places.

Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts where we dive into the stories that shape us

on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From iHeart Podcast Podcast, before social media, before cable news, there was Alan Berg.

He was the first and the original shock chuck. That scratchy, irreverent kind of way, talking to people and telling them that you're an idiot and I'm going to hang up on you. This is Live Wire, the loud life and shocking murder of Alan Berg. And he pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, there are probably two million suspects. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. A Body, a Suspect and 100 Years of Silence. Buried Bones is a podcast about the forgotten crimes history tried to leave behind.

forgotten crimes history tried to leave behind. A common misperception about serial predators is that every single time they commit a crime, they commit it the same way. The past is a way of talking, if you know what to listen for. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Barry Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.