An Army of Normal Folks - They Call Us The Catholic Hippies (Pt 2)

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Do you ever wrestle with how our country’s extraordinary wealth and problems co-exist? Or yearn for a deeper sense of community where we have each other’s backs? Then you’re going to cherish this episode with Jordan Schiele, the co-founder of a Catholic intentional community called Jerusalem Farm. These Catholic hippies, as their neighbors in Kansas City originally called them, live together without salaries and have completed over 300 home repair projects in the last 5 years alone!  Learn more: jerusalemfarm.orgSupport 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 Jordan Shealy, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. You want to know what my evenings actually look like? Homework questions. Someone needs a permission slip signed. The dog's begging for a walk. Someone's yelling for a snack. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I'm supposed to figure out dinner? That's why Hello Fresh has been a lifesaver. Fresh ingredients show up at my door, locally sourced when possible, simple step-by-step recipes that actually make sense. And no matter how chaotic the rest of my night gets, dinner is the one thing I don't have to

stress about. I'm just cooking a delicious meal my family will actually eat, and it takes around 30 minutes. And honestly, the real value is knowing that even on the messiest nights, dinner's handled. That's one less thing pulling at me, and that matters. Take some stress out of your evenings right now. Get 50% off your first box plus free sides for life. That's right, free sides for life. Go to hellofresh.cate and use code box.

That's hellofresh.cate code box. Hellofresh, Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. There's no championship league for small business owners, but if there was, you'd be at the top of the standings. Because going pro with Lenovo Pro means you've got the winning formation. One-on-one advice, IT solutions, and customized hardware powered by Intel Core Ultra processors help you stay ahead of the competition. Business Goes Pro with Lenovo Pro. Sign up for free at Lenovo.com slash pro.

Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience. But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it.

When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried. tried to leave behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like, my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? I just fell and started screaming.

If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way. I said through you shot 22 times. The police, right? But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake. He'll hurt you.

I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I'm Nikki Richardson, and this is The Girlfriend. Untouchable. Detective Roger Golubski spent decades intimidating and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City using his police badge to scare them into silence.

This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down. I told Roger Galoopsky, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the girlfriends,

Untouchable, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link.

But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder. after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company,

which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI. agents and small to medium businesses.

Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so that's 2012. So what happens once you start? Tell me what the last decades looked at. Just a lot of work. It's been a lot of work. No, it's been, it's been good. I've learned a lot. Our community has grown a lot. And with our programs, we started with home repair. That was the basic. Started with home repair. Yeah. That was the basic need that people had. Over the years, we've grown, you know, we started a tool library. We have orchards and gardens. Don't just skip past that. This is what's cool. A tool library. Yeah. So we were just finding that a lot of people, once again, know how to do the work that they need done. We don't have a lot of money, but we do have tools, you know, and we're not using them 100% of time. So if you can fix something on your house yourself and just borrow our tools, then that's a win-win for everyone, right? Because it's less work for us. Yeah, I love it. You go a tool laboring. So it's a free Dixie routes. Yeah, just come in and borrow whatever you want.

Do they come and do they bring it back? Yeah, yeah, we get everything back. Some people would say you'll never see that stuff again. Yeah. No, we haven't had anything stolen from us, so. That's unbelievable. All right, so what did you say after the tool library? We have orchards and community gardens.

That was around- Is it on the property? On the property and in city parks. So trying to find spaces, you know, beyond our house, part of our environment that affects us is the parks around us. the public spaces. And so wanting to improve upon those spaces is we put a lot of effort towards that. So creating community orchards, community gardens, walking trails, you know, advocating for just general improvements around our park systems. In our neighborhood, we have what's called

Kessler Park. It spans across three neighborhoods and it's a giant park system. There's been, through our surveys, learning about people don't always feel safe in those parks or that they don't have the infrastructure that they'd like for their kids on playground and so forth. So a lot of our work is advocating for that. We have goats on Cliff Drive. You have what? Goats. Where? Along this park system.

What are the goats do to make people feel safe? Well, they eat the honeysuckle that grows up and one chokes out the native habitat, the trees, but it also blocks your line of view, right? And also encourages, you know, people are dumping this area. So by having goats, we have more positive. positive activity. The honeysuckle's gone. Are the those just running around? They are. We do have a fence, electric fence, that keeps them in.

And then we have a little trailer that an art group put a big mural on. And they just eat all day. And people go visit them. Who came up with that idea? It all started with me and one of our community members, Mary. I said, we were thinking about how we can use some more volunteers. And I said, you know, if we had a Catholic organization with goats, we'd probably get every M-Div student from the University of Notre Dame would think that'd be fun and want to come join us. So it started as a joke. And then we started, Mary researched it and realized that it's actually used worldwide as a way to manage land is utilizing goats.

So we use it as a community building activity. You literally, how did the city decide okay for you to put goats in their parks? You know, I was, when Mary started doing this research, I really thought she was going to hit a dead end because I didn't really want to do goats. I was like, that sounds crazy. And I thought she's going to hit a dead end with the city right away. But no, the neighbors love the idea. The parks department liked it. We went before the board.

We put together a contract. And now we have goats on there. Are you guys doing goat yoga out there? We're not going to go yoga, no. That is hilarious. You also started doing something else that I found really interesting. When you started, and I think you will remember the initial one, but you started advocating for neighbors who were getting cited by the city.

Yeah. This is really interesting because my business is in a place in Memphis, called North Memphis, reminds me a lot about some of what you're talking about. It has parks. It's not too far from some pretty fluent areas. But the only thing that's different is it's largely African-American. But it's also this part of North Memphis has been there since the late 1800s. And there are a lot of second, third, and even fourth generation, largely black homeowners there.

And so many of their homes because they were building. still 60, 70, 80, 100 years ago are an ill repair. But these people own these homes, and they're paying their taxes. And I would not imagine the mean income is much greater than $30,000, like what you're talking about. And when a tree limb falls to their roof, or they get a water busted, a busted water line in the winter and it starts rotting their floor.

out. They simply can't fix it. And then when this happens over the course of 20 years, the neighborhood starts to look blighted. And the city comes in and starts writing tickets. Right. And honestly, I want the city to enforce code and make sure our neighborhoods are taken care of and children can play in because blight brings in crime and everything else. But if the homeowner doesn't have the money, it's this systematic cyclical degradation of these types of communities. And I can see over time how that just causes more and more problems. So when I read what you're about to tell me, I started thinking about, I bet so many of the people in North Memphis deal with this very thing. One of our partners is the Don Bosco Center and who we got our building from.

a senior center. And they would always refer some of their guests to us that had needs. And one day a lady called me and she was in tears on the phone and says, I just got a letter from the city. And they say, I have to go to court. And if I don't go to court, they're going to put a warrant out for my arrest. And I got a ticket because I have a blue tarp on my roof and I can't fix it. And they said, I have 30 days to fix my roof. And I'm telling you, North Memphis, you'd see 50 blue tarps on roofs. You see them all the time. And South Memphis, too. But I know what you're talking about because people can't afford to fix a leaky roof. It's expensive. And I was like, what? Like, I've never heard of this before. I was like, are you sure? Like, I was in disbelief

when she was telling me this. And she said, you know, I've never been to court my whole life. And I feel like a criminal because I can't take care of my roof. And to me, that just broke my heart that she was feeling this way. And so I said, well, when's your court date? I'm going to go with you. And we'll take care of your roof, you know, now that we know about this, we'll take it. But I was like, it's not going to be in 30 days because we don't have the funds and so forth. But we're going to get your roof taken care of and I'm going to go to court with you.

So I went to court with her and it's a housing court there. And I went up with her and the judge was like, who are you? And I explained that. At the time, I did have my dreadlocks. I was not, you know, dressed in a tie or anything. So you did look like a goody little bit, yeah. And he's like, who are you? And I was like, oh, well, I'm her neighbor.

And I'm with a nonprofit. And we're going to help her out with her roof. But we just wanted, you know, it said she has 30 days. And we're not going to be able to do it within that time. But we're going to take care of it. And he said, okay, well, he said, come back. I think it was like in two months and have the roof. have the roof done. So we did that, but I looked around that court and it's full of people.

So, you know, I was with her, but there, you know, it's the whole courtroom of people in her situation. And so we got our, her roof fixed and we went back to court on her second date. I went with her again. And he released, you know, the fines. Typically, even if you do have it fixed by the time you go to court, you still have a $125 minimum fine for court fees. But he, he waived it for her. as an exception because she was working with us. But that just opened my eyes to what was happening. Then once we did that, the Don Bosco Center was like,

oh, we actually have a lot more seniors that are experiencing this same thing. And so then once word got out that we were going to court with people and doing things with code violations, we started getting more and more calls. So we started realizing this is actually a systematic issue that's taking place. And we started organizing with the residents

to go to the city and say, hey, there has to be a better way because, yes, like you said, you know, I don't know if Memphis deals with it like we do in Kansas City, but there are a lot of investors from the coast that buy up large amounts of property. All over the city. And they don't do anything. Memphis, when I say inside the circle, there's three loops. There's three interstate loops. Memphis is in the corner of the state, right?

So it's not a circle all the way around. It's kind of a start at the Arkansas line, loop through Tennessee down the Mississippi line. There's three loops, three big loops, interstate loops to connect everything. When people say you live in the loop, that's inside the center loop. And that's kind of considered Memphis City. You're inside the loop right now, okay? There are more homes owned inside the loop by outside investors than there are individual-owned. in the city of Memphis, and that tells you everything you need to know about what's happening

to neighborhoods. And we have the same situation in Kansas City. I think it's like three firms own more than half of the rental units, or three investment companies own, you know, majority of the rental units in Kansas City. And when we see rental units, don't think apartment buildings. No, houses, we're talking house, standalone houses that become rentals. And then they don't get back on the market because these corporate. giants own them. They'll rent them out with no repairs done for as long as they can until they

can't rent it out anymore. And then it'll sit until they project that the neighborhood is going to flip. Then they'll do a big rehab and then they'll sell it above the common market rate. Huge business. And they're making lots of money doing it. And get tax exempt just because of the opportunity zone that they're in and so forth. So the point is, but what I've learned is they are really happy with these people losing their homes because that's how they get them. Correct. And we also want the code enforcement to take place on their blighted homes. But what we don't want is for homeowners that are there, seniors, low-income families that are struggling that have this one incident or that, you know, you can't maintain your house to get

caught up in a punitive system. And so we worked with this group. called the Center for Conflict Resolution in our early days, and they set up what we call these neighborhood accountability boards. So the thing about code enforcement in Kansas City is it's 90%, they'll say the city will say 100%. I'm a little skeptical, but they say 100% complaint driven. So they're not just cruising around looking for code violations. They're getting calls to their 311 system about a house. And then they send an inspector out to investigate. So a lot of our work was, one, educating residents, kind of in this Rights and Responsibilities principle, that, hey, when you call 311 on your neighbor, it's putting them through this whole system.

Call us first. Yes. Give us a call first. Well, first, maybe get to know your neighbor and know what's going on because in some cases we discovered that like one lady her husband had recently died he always mowed the lawn and so when her lawn has been mowed in six months she doesn't have a lawn mower she doesn't like she's trying to figure that out right and so if the neighbor knew her and knew the situation what we ended up in that situation was the neighbor's like hey i got my son he can go mow your lawn now too right but and that's what our neighborhood accountability boards did is they we tried you can make anonymous so we we would try to identify who was making the complaint get them in a circle with the residents that was being complained about and other community

organizations in a circle to talk and share and get to know each other and then we found that there was collaboration when that took place we don't do that anymore because what we were finding was that even that was a slow long process that people shouldn't have to spend all that time. So now we have a more direct route where we can be the first line of defense for 311 calls. They get routed to Jerusalem Farm and we work directly with the code inspectors. You're telling me the code inspector that the city now routes, the phone calls from that area to you. Yes. And we have the code inspectors also have contact. So we get the calls on the front end so that we can divert people from those court cases before they even have to. I can believe the city agreed to

that. Yeah, you know, it didn't just happen overnight, but I think it's a common sense thing. Like, I haven't, when you... That doesn't mean anything. We're talking about the government. Yeah, don't they want that fine revenue? I mean, it's an accomplishment. Well, you know, I'm not sure that I don't know about how much revenue that brings in, but they were, they spend a lot to, to send those inspectors out. And they're building a lot of animosity around the city, you know, because you're sending a message to your residents that. that they're not wanted here that they need to move on. And I don't know.

I don't think that's what they want to send. That is unbelievably cool. So he started with $25,000. What kind of budget you got now, bro? Oh, I think that's my wife does that. But I think we're close to $2 million now with the budget. And a lot of that's because we're now building. We just broke around on our first new build.

So we're now getting into developing affordable housing. which has increased our budget a lot. Is that the land bank? With the land trust. Or land trust, yeah. Realizing the land trust. Well, first of all, to get there, there's this interesting thing that the average price of a home in Pendleton Heights, which I assume is a northeast neighborhood. That's the neighborhood we're located in.

Yep. All right. And 2017 was $40,000. Only five years later, it's $141.41. Right. And now houses, I think that's even old on our website. but now houses in our neighborhood are selling for $375,500,000. Medium wage in 2017 was $26,000.

So the medium wage is $26,000, and 2017, the house is $40. Now the median wage has gone up to a booming $34,000, but a house is $141. So it looks to me like wages have gone up maybe 30% while housing has more than tripled. Yeah. doesn't match. That's one thing that people don't talk a lot about in affordable housing, which we don't touch on this, but, you know, wages are, we do have a problem with stagnant wages in our country. And the cost of materials, especially after COVID, to fix the house, have skyrocketed. And if you're not cutting corners around the things we know around health

and energy efficiency and quality materials, you're not cutting corners around your labor cost, then it is hard to connect the dots, you know, of building a house that someone can afford. We'll be right back. You want to know what my evenings actually look like? Homework questions. Someone needs a permission slip signed. The dog's begging for a walk. Someone's yelling for a snack. And somewhere in the middle of all that. I'm supposed to figure out dinner?

That's why Hello Fresh has been a lifesaver. Fresh ingredients show up at my door, locally sourced when possible, simple step-by-step recipes that actually make sense. And no matter how chaotic the rest of my night gets, dinner is the one thing I don't have to stress about. I'm just cooking a delicious meal my family will actually eat, and it takes around 30 minutes. And honestly, the real value is knowing that even on the messiest nights,

dinner's handled. That's one less thing pulling at me. And that matters. Take some stress out of your evenings right now. Get 50% off your first box plus free sides for life. That's right. Free sides for life. Go to hellofresh.cate and use code box. That's hellofresh.cate code box.

Hellofresh. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. There's no championship league for small business owners. But if there was, you'd be at the top of the standings. Because going pro with Lenovo Pro means you've got the winning formation. One-on-one advice, IT solutions, and customized hardware powered by Intel Core Ultra processors help you stay ahead of the competition. Business goes pro with Lenovo Pro. Sign up for free at Lenovo.com slash pro.

Lenovo, Lenovo. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience. But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. You're going to push that line for the calls.

Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like, my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? I just fell and started screaming. If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way. I said through you shot 22 times. The police, right? But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil.

He's a snake. He'll hurt you. I'm Nikki Richardson, and this is The Girlfriends, Untouchable. Detective Roger Goloops, spent decades intimidating and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City, using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down. I told Roger Galuski, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the girlfriends, untouchable, on the IHeart

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you can. get your podcast. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link.

But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person, a billion-dollar company,

which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

So the land trust thing. So go for it. Land trust have been around for a long time, usually in rural areas, like in Vermont, where we served in AmeriCorps. You might use a trust to preserve farmland or to preserve a natural space. You can put parameters on how that land can be used. Well, in urban settings, you can also do that to preserve the affordability of a house. And so what we do is when we rehab a house that we acquire, that's through in Missouri, we have the Abandoned Housing Act that we can utilize to get an abandoned home through the court system.

We could rehab it or we could build new. When we sell the house, we sell the house as an improvement on the land. And the land stays within a land trust. and we sell that house at least 20% below market rate, and only qualified buyers below certain incomes can qualify to buy it. And there's also a ground lease that governs the resale. So they live in as long as they want, they could pass it on to their heirs or children, grandchildren, whatever it may be. But if anyone goes to sell that house, there's a formula that governs its resale value so that it can't be sold at market rate, which is important in our neighborhood, and you hear this word

gentrification, which I try to avoid that word because I don't like words that get overtaken, but in neighborhoods where you are seeing rapid increase of market rate houses, the land trust kind of slows that down, and so you can preserve mixed income living in neighborhoods. Well, and here's the thing. I don't know what the tax rate on property is in Kansas City, But just the property taxes on a $40,000 home going to $141,000, if your income goes from 26,000 to $34,000 and your house goes from an appraisal of $40,000 to $141,000, the property taxes alone on that increase eat up most of the increase in income you have. So you're not living any better at all and probably a little tighter. So the land trust, by keeping things below market, helps slow that whole process. Right, right.

All right. So you're building a house now? Yep. We have homes that we're rehabbing. We have like six homes right now that we're actively rehabbing. That are all in this trust. That will all be in the trust. One, we're getting ready to actually sell in about a month.

What's it going to sell for? This one's going to sell for around $200,000. Tell me what that house is, size-wise bedroom. It's three bedrooms, two baths. It's around 1,400 square foot. That is amazing that it's cost that much. It'll appraise for around $300,000. And you'll sell for two. Yeah.

So do you make money on that? We try to break even. That's our goal, is to break even. So it's just expensive. So this house that we did, we had to rebuild the whole foundation because the east side of the wall was collapsing of the house and so we rebuilt it up and and the goal is to bring in low middle income correct yeah how much you're getting these houses for you mentioned that missouri act for you're able to access them yeah the abandoned housing act is i don't know if tennessee has this or not but if a house is vacant is three years property tax delinquent and has code violations you can bring an

abandoned housing act case to it and what you do is you serve notices to any you know registered owner on a deed or anyone that might have a stake in the house and if they don't respond typically these homes are going to be homes that maybe there was no air to it or but yeah you get it essentially for the legal fees there's like two thousand dollars wow so that's kind of similar to what we talked about with axe housing bill in Milwaukee where they're getting them from the city similar yes i actually listen to that axe housing show and their programs are very similar it's very cool in the last five years this is maybe from your website i don't know where alex got this but in the last five years you've hosted over a thousand volunteers you've

completed over 300 home repair projects which is insane that's one a week no it's more than one a week yeah we do like 30 to 60 a year depending on the size of the projects and contributed more than $8.5 million worth of labor materials to your area. You facilitated the renovation and sale of three homes with five Warner construction. You broke around, like we just talked about, the first newly home, and you're building eight more next year. From a dude washing windows hanging out in West Virginia, what's next next?

For you and Jess, because I get the sense this is a clear partnership. Yeah, I mean, it's Jess, our whole community. None of this would even be possible with the collective community that's surrounded us all the volunteers. We'd never set out to do any of these things that you just mentioned here. I would have never imagined that I would be learning about how to develop new builds. Or how to negotiate with the city for goats and code violations. Right. Everything has been. Goats and code violations.

I've learned. I've learned to never say never. And so I don't really know what's next. We have our principles of Catholic social teaching that we shared about. And we have our goal of dignified housing, building the beloved community and sustainable living and making sure that people feel like they belong. And so that just leads our way, I guess, on the work that we do. At this point, everybody around has got to know who you guys are, right? Yes. I never say everyone. But yes. we're well known around the city and especially in the northeast. And probably well liked by all walks of people.

Because if you're from those affluent mansions, well, they got to love you because you're helping keep the neighborhood up. If you're part of the underserved, they got to love you because you're helping with whatever. The city's got to love you because they are not the villain and you're helping them with blight and goats in the park. I mean, my expectation would be that you're almost a hub, keeping a lot of different spokes kind of connected. Yeah, I appreciate.

I appreciate you saying that. I don't want to speak for how people perceive us, but I do believe that if you focus on service, it's hard to argue with that. And so that's one goal is that I just want people to be inspired. One of our friends, Jack, use this language, the growth mindset, to think that we can accomplish common goals when we collaborate and work together and look to serve one another in the community.

Okay, so really, step by step, AmeriCorps taught you the basics. You really learned a little bit more about what you were doing, hanging out in the hollers of West Virginia. Then you go to Kansas City and you start drizzling farms doing this. I honestly don't understand why. this is not a replicatable model for every city in the United States? I think it could be. I think it could be, yep.

Is there any conversation around that? I mean, you were brought there by somebody who knew where you were in West Virginia. You know what I mean? Right. I mean, why couldn't this be done in Memphis and Birmingham and Chicago and Detroit and Louisville and Little Rock and St. Louis? I think it could be and I would be so I bet there are probably communities here in Memphis or elsewhere that are similar in a lot of ways you know I don't think every community like even between us and Nazareth Farm and Bethlehem Farm we all have the same cornerstones the

same mission but we're distinctly different because of the people that are there and the neighbors are different and so yeah I would I would say if cities of communities can support people that are coming together to do service and to build their community. That's where we should be putting our resources at the grassroots level where people are doing the hard work. And a lot of times you don't see those people. For a long time, people didn't know who Jerusalem Farm was. It wasn't really until the code violation work that we started doing more political organizing

that we became more well-known. But for a long time, we just had our heads down working in the community. Are your parents still worried or are they pretty good now? My parents are amazing, and, yeah, I think they're very proud of what I do. All right. Alex's question. A lot of this great work is enabled because you guys don't receive a salary. I don't think we've talked enough about your guys' simplicity and the way that you're living. And how do you think about this in terms of how many more Americans should be living this way?

I mean, I don't think everybody's called. That's a great question. I don't think everybody's called to live this way. And obviously, even just donation-wise, you've been the beneficiary. series of people who've made, you know, great wealth, we're able to support this work. Yeah. But my bias is we need many more Americans living in such a radical way and not in our materialist culture and going forward and building up this great wealth.

But how do you think about that issue? That's a tough one. You know, it's a personal choice for everyone. And it's something that I get asked all the time. Just the other day I was asked, well, you are saving up a retirement, aren't you? And I'm not a young chicken anymore. you know, so when I started Jerusalem. Oh, you went from a young chick and an old goat.

Yeah, right? I don't actually have those answers, and I might be pretty ignorant into what my later years of life might look like if I don't have the traditional savings for retirement. I guess that's where I am leaning into my faith and my prayer, and I mentioned St. Basil earlier about storing up wealth. My hope is that I can spend my life working towards building the beloved community that cares for its elders and for its seniors so that every individual doesn't need to live in their silo where everyone has to have a million dollars in savings. The reason we do that is because we don't have trust, we don't have confidence that our society is going to care for us when we're in need. If society's not going to care for us, then I have to care for myself. And then that just instigates all this hoarding that takes place.

So I hope that my life and my wife and I have committed that we hope we can be catalyst or a beacon to say, hey, no, let's spend our lives caring for our neighbors, for those around us, building up systems of support. And then to have that hope that when we're in need, that we'll be able to find it. I don't have a good, a clear answer for you on that. the commitment to what you're trying to do is pretty phenomenal. So what's next? More houses? Build more? Our goal is to listen to our community. That's interesting. So what's next is what your community says they need. Right. Yeah. So right now our near-term goals is to build this housing because we know that that is a need for people. But yeah, long-term visioning our goals to listen to

our community and to see what comes up from that. Jesse and it's Nathaniel Jubilee and Moses. Did I say those, right? Yeah. All right. I hope Nathaniel, Jubilee, Moses, and Jesse listen to the episode. Kids be proud of your dad. And Jesse, you're pretty cool because it sounds like you had a major hand in Jordan being

where he is today. She should be here. She should be here. She's the second director of the nonprofit. She is. I wish you were the first words out of my mouth were Jesse with you. She's got a better radio voice than me, too. I would love to have met Jesse.

Sorry who it didn't meet you. Jordan, it has been a pleasure. If anybody wants to find out about Jerusalem Farms, is there a website? Yeah, Jerusalemfarm.org. Got it. And if somebody hears this and says, you know, I'd like to take a group and volunteer there, and I'd like to hear more about it, how they get in touch with you. Yeah, on our website or has information about retreats.

or volunteer at jerusalemfarm.org. Got it. I'm sure that goes to you anyway. Yeah. We're looking for community members. We have summer internship program. People can't spend a summer with us. I can't imagine a cooler thing for a group of high school kids to go do a week of work

and just see it and feel it and learn. Oh, it's amazing. All week they don't have cell phones. You know, that alone is nice. They get to be free from that and enjoy each other's company. And then they're in new spaces, meeting new people. Only two showers with buckets of water. We encourage, we have them think about that, the different facets take place, vegetarian during the week.

And all that is just to cultivate this collective mindset that, you know, when I use this water, we have depleting aquifers in the Midwest. And vegetarian, what's the toll? Using less electricity, you know, we lived in West Virginia and saw a mountain top removal. And so, you know, the clothes we wear, everything, we're interconnected. And so we do these little practices to remind. people of our interconnectedness and mutual responsibility. Jordan, thanks for taking the time to drive down and see us. Thanks for having me. I'll give you some cool places to check out before you go back home. And great story. Jordan Shealy, co-founder of Jerusalem Farms with Jesse and his

family making a difference in Kansas City Northeast. Thanks for being here. Thank you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Jordan Shealy has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by reflecting on living radically, or helping those who are living radically, donating to Jerusalem Farm, or something else entirely, please let me know. I really do want to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfolks.us, and I will respond. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with friends and on social. subscribe to the podcast, rate it and review it. Join the army at normalfolks.us, any and all of these things that will help us grow,

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