An Army of Normal Folks - You Walk Past Them—Here’s How to Actually Help (Pt 1)

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Most of us walk past someone on the street because we don’t know how to help—or if it will even make a difference. Jonathan Kumar built Samaritan to change that, giving normal folks a simple way to offer relational and financial support that empowers people experiencing homelessness. They’ve helped over 5,000 people so far and they need us, An Army of Normal Folks, in the game to serve the over 650,000 people who experience homelessness!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our car was worth less than $1,000. We were in public housing, food stamps, WIC. I was born in a public hospital. But we were adopted by a group of people, an army of normal folks, from a church that brought us in as their own kids and provided for us relationally, financially, culturally. It was a huge piece in why we didn't end up having to move back to India after my dad's graduate studies.

And so this group of people. you know, 5, 10, 20 folks made a catalytic difference in our trajectory. It went on to do maybe 100 interviews with people on the street. And I developed this hypothesis that, like, the social and financial capital for these people to be successful in their life, it exists. It's out there. And if I could get every person like Edward on the street, the same type of team or army of normal folks around every person like Edward, I'd,

I think the problem of homelessness goes away. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I'm a football coach in inner city Memphis.

And that last part, well, it somehow led to an Oscar for the film about one of my teams. It's called Undefeated. Y'all, I believe our country's problems are just never, ever going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox. But rather by an army of normal folks, that's us. Just you and me deciding, hey, maybe I can help. That's what Jonathan Kumar, the voice you just heard, has done.

Jonathan is the founder of Samaritan, which has helped 5,000 people experiencing homelessness by providing financial awards for steps that they take to flourish at higher and higher levels. And it's working. Their members' health care costs are 54% lower than the control group. Jonathan will show you how you can be a part of the solution to homelessness, and I cannot wait for you to meet him right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. You know, Rildall, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG.

But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his story? I must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you.

I was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney. Disney and offered Hitchcock before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever?

And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Doll on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl. You may know me from my It Girl series I've done on the streets of New York over the years. Well, I've got good news. I am bringing those interviews and many more to this podcast. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success,

but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work with the women's shaping culture right now. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard and you have to push the narrative in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Each week, I have unfiltered conversations with female founders, creatives, and leaders to talk about.

about ambition, visibility, and what it really takes to build something meaningful in the public eye. Because being an it girl isn't about the spotlight, it's about owning it. I think the negatives need to be discussed and they need to be told to people who maybe don't do this every day, just so they know what's really going on. I feel like pulling the curtain back is important. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families.

Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun. Tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Tremaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Termaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth.

For 22 years, only two people knew the truth until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go! Words are coming back. Thursday, March 26th, live on Fox. Watch as we honor the biggest. It stars from all genres of music that you loved listening to all year long on your favorite IHeart Radio station and the IHeart Radio app.

Hosted by Lutocris. Icon Award recipient John Mellencamp. Innovator Award recipient. Miley Cyrus. With performances by Alex Warren, Kalani. Lainie Wilson. Ludacris. Ray.

TLC. Sault and Pepper. And invoke. Plus, Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Nicole Scherzinger, Nikki Glazer. Somber, Weiser, and more. Watch live on Fox, Thursday, March 26th, at 8.7 Central. And listen on IHeart Radio stations across America and the free IHeart app.

Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know, with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know Think Spring podcast playlist is available now. Whether spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not. The Stuff You Should Know Think Spring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands. Hands in the dirt. You can get the stuff you should know think spring playlist on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jonathan Kumar from New York City. New York City all the way down to Memphis. What are you doing, man? How do you like it? I'm a buffalo boy at heart, but yes, I live in New York City right now.

A buffalo boy at heart. Yeah, yeah. Everybody, Jonathan is the founder of some Mariton, which is a public benefit corporation that helps people experiencing homelessness, access the financial and relational support they need to achieve stability and housing, health, and income. And holy, moly, that's a lot. So really forget what I just said. You get an idea, and it'll unfold as we visit with Jonathan here. Do you go about Jonathan or John? John's fine. Thank you. Okay. Good. I think it's really interesting where you came from and how you grew up, and I think it's

incredibly germane to your journey, but we'll get to it. Let's just start with this. Pretty cold straight out the hatch, but I think it's the place to start. You were sitting, I think, in a cafe what I read, and watched people pass a man asking for help without stopping, without eye contact. without any acknowledgments of his very existence. Tell us about that story and why didn't you do the same that everybody else did? Yeah, I mean, the Y comes from my background and my story before, but it was, yeah, October of 2015 on a rare sunny day in Seattle.

I was working on another startup at the time, and I was enjoying my lunch outside. And so it was like downtown, the corner of 6th and Columbus, I'm about 50 yards away from me. There's a man, yeah, holding a sign. And, yeah, cars are driving by him. People are walking by him. But no one really seems to acknowledge that he's there, that he exists, that he's

invisible. That's a picture we see all day, every day in any city in America. We've seen it. I've all seen it. And so it was nothing... I drove by a guy on the way here. Yeah, I know. I passed 10 of them on my way commuting from New York to Memphis last night.

So, yeah, I mean, it wasn't out of the ordinary, but for some reason, my background is an user experience. design. I wanted to really observe and watch and better understand this user experience. This man is literally at a point in his life where he's begging strangers for help. So I watched him for about 20 minutes, not a single person really. And you said they're eating. Yeah, I'm having my sandwich. You eat lunch. Check it out. All right.

Yeah, just observing at a distance. And so after I finished my meal, not one person in 20 minutes seemed to really even respond to him. And I couldn't see a sign. So I wanted to go and ask him a few questions. So I walk over, approach him, and I sort of approach cautiously, big, big kind of imposing figure, and I am able to redesign, which says need medication for the diabetes of my feet. And so I talk to him or I ask him, like, excuse me, sir, do you mind if I ask you what you feel your challenges are in terms of raising this money? Again, I'm asking this from a user experience perspective, trying to understand what he's really going through. Do you mind if asked her what you feel your challenges are?

Do you feel people aren't carrying cash on them these days? And he cuts me off. He interrupts me and says, I've got the wrong look for this, the wrong skin color. Nobody believes I am who I say I am. And it took me a moment to sort of process that. And my heart sort of broke in that moment. But I've asked him another question.

like, you know, people don't believe you or who you say you are. Like, do you have access to, if you don't have money for the medication you need, do you have access to a doctor, someone who could give you this medication for free? Like, you shouldn't have to pay for the medication if you don't have any money. And he said, yes, I have a doctor through the shelter I'm staying at, but he only gives me about a fourth or a fifth of what I need to manage the pain on a monthly basis. He doesn't want to give me any more because he thinks, thinks I'm going to either sell it or get addicted to it. And I'm out here begging for the rest.

And I, you know, I stood, and suddenly made sense because he was like standing there gingerly. He wasn't comfortable on one foot. It all sort of came together. And I realized that, you know, beyond this, this financial poverty this person was facing, there was this profound sense of relational poverty, this inability to communicate his true needs, his true identity to people, both laymen and professionals, who would actually believe him and meet those needs. So I assume from what you said, this is a black date? Correct, yeah.

And did you... Edward, what's his name, yeah? Seattle's a pretty progressive area, you know? Yeah. We're not talking about Memphis or Birmingham or Little Rock or Dallas. We're talking about Seattle, Washington. I mean, the Pacific Northwest, do you feel like even there, do you feel like his notion that race played into people's willingness to stop was actually at play?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I have a picture of him. And I can say that he had sort of an imposing look to him. he had maybe the sense that he was, you know, an able-bodied adult. And so I think that's sometimes a question people have that I've had. You know, I think it's fair. I consider myself a caring human being. And I really, obviously, I've been doing this three years once I'll extract me into it.

But clearly, besides the Army of normal folks, besides the local service clubs were doing, I genuinely, genuinely and interested in the human condition. I find it fascinating. I can see that. I don't know. And so I have to be completely candid and transparent saying this. There are times I pass people who look to be in their 20s or 30s who are standing at a, at a street corner begging for stuff that the first thought to my mind is,

well, just go to work. You're able-bodied. And it doesn't have anything to do with the race. It just has to do with my preconceived notions about why this able-bodied young person doesn't get to go get a job for the amount of time and everything. Totally. Do you think that that also plays into the passers-by that you saw at lunch that day?

Yeah, I mean, there's so many reasons, right? I don't have time. I don't have cash on me. I don't know if this person's grifting me. I don't, it's not that I can't afford $5 or $1 or $10. I don't want to harm this person. I don't want to perpetuate something that's not going to help them. I don't want to sustain a habit that's not productive. That's not contributing to society. There's a million reasons to say no. And the easiest thing to do is to do nothing. So I think that's one of, yeah, a handful of factors. One of the dangers of being a host of a show or a podcast is asking a question you don't know the answer to. It's easier when I know what you're going to say ahead of time because then I know where I'm going.

And I ask that question, honestly, not knowing how you're going to answer. I was curious. And the reason is, I think your answer is really important because as our listeners continue to hear the rest of this interview and hear what you're doing with you. with Samaritan and your heart and all of it, you're not standing here, vilifying people for not caring for the unhoused. You get why people might not do it. And I think that's really important as a perspective

to not just look at you as some Johnny do-gooder who's ignoring the reality of the human condition and of society. You see it. You understand it. You just said it yourself. And I think we all need to keep that perspective in mind as we go deeper in your story. I've been there.

Because it makes you realistic. I've walked by. We've all walked by. We all have had a bunch of notions in our head. And again, the easiest thing to do is to continue on and pray that someone else helps him that he gets the help that he needs. So I've definitely been there. And that's why I wanted to develop Samaritan, you know, to create two things, you know, an easy way to help. And a way to help that was demonstrably strategic, like something that would actually help.

Can't wait until we get to it. It's a great setup or perspective on who you are and why you're doing it, and that you two are no different than any of us in terms of those notions and those feelings. And while you have compassion on one hand, you also have the reality of life on the other, the human condition and all of it. And now a few messages from our general sponsors. but first, you guys got to hear this, okay? This is real opportunity. Our six local service clubs are now battling one another through April 8th to see which of them can recruit the most members to their giving circle

of just $10 a month and up, and the winner of this thing is going to get a $25,000 grant from staying together. If you live in Memphis, Oxford, Atlanta, Wichita, Northern Duchess County, or Ozaki County, join your giving circle today by visiting normalfolks.us backslash service clubs. Normalfolks.combs slash service clubs and just click on your club. And again, guys, the club that raise the most money against most people and the most of the giving The Living Circle, Stand Together is going to grant that club 25K to go do something good in your community. I can't imagine why you guys wouldn't do that.

It's free stuff. We'll be right back. You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary. controversial life.

His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's?

Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author?

ever, and what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl. You may know me from my It Girl series I've done on the streets of New York over the years. Well, I've got good news. I am bringing those interviews and many more to this podcast.

Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work with the women's shaping culture right now. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard, and you have to push the narrative in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Each week, I have unfiltered conversations with female founders, creatives, and leaders to talk about ambition, visibility, and what it really takes to build something meaningful in the public eye. because being an it girl isn't about the spotlight, it's about owning it.

I think the negatives need to be discussed and they need to be told to people who maybe don't do this every day just so they know what's really going on. I feel like pulling the curtain back is important. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun, tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Termaine Hudson as the perpetrator.

Termaine was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only 2.2 years. Two people knew the truth until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's go! Awards are coming back. Thursday, March 26th, live on Fox. Watch as we honor the biggest stars from all genres of music that you loved listening to all year long on your favorite IHeart Radio. Station and the IHart Radio app. Hosted by Ludacris. Icon Award recipient John Mellencamp. Innovator award recipient.

Miley Cyrus. With performances by Alex Warren, Kaylani, Lainey Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Pepper, and Invoke. Clare Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Nicole Scherzinger, Nikki Glazer, Summer. Watch live on Fox.

Thursday, March 26th, at 87 Central. And listen on IHart Radio Station. across America and the free IHeart app. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know Think Spring podcast playlist is available now. Whether Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the stuff you should know, think spring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt.

You can get the Stuff You should know Think Spring playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. podcasts. Clearly, the story you just told is shaped what you've built with Samaritan today, but it really isn't the only story that shaped you. Your family's story did too. Having moved from India to Buffalo, and you guys lived on your dad's student stipend of $600 to $800 a month, which is incredible that a family lived on that. And according to culture's tall-tale version of the American dream, somehow that was enough for you guys to pull yourself up. Tell us about that time in your life and what it taught you and how it formed your perspective

as you're sitting in Seattle having a $20 sandwich looking at a guy beg $5 for pain meds. That's right. That's right. Well framed. Yeah, we definitely didn't pull ourselves up. I mean, $600, $800. It went further in the 80s, but it was just enough to survive. I mean, our car was worth less than $1,000.

We were in public housing, food stamps, WIC. I was born in a public hospital to a mom who wasn't offered an epidural or a C-section in spite of me weighing 10 pounds, 10 ounces at birth. Holy smokes, you are huge. That's a big baby, and they didn't offer her anything. Where were you born? In Buffalo at a public hospital. Why?

Why didn't they offer? Because she didn't have money to buy for it. You know, these are more expensive procedures, and we were on Medicaid. So we, you know, those types of things often on, I mean, there's like people of color thing. There's like a lot of stats and data around when, you know, mothers are offered what types of services when they don't have, you know, commercial health insurance. And anyways, so that, you know, plays a part of the story. We definitely weren't, we were able to survive.

We weren't able to really pull ourselves up. But we were adopted by a group of people. an army of normal folks from, you know, local organization of church that basically, yeah, brought us in, brought us in as their own kids and provided for us, relationally, financially, culturally, even legally, they helped us sue that hospital based on how my mom was treated. And we ended up with a settlement that allowed us to purchase our first home in the country. It was a huge piece in why we didn't end up having to move back to India after my dad's graduate studies. And so, like, this group of people, you know, 5, 10, 20 folks made a, you know, a catalytic difference in my family, in our trajectory. And, you know, still why I say I'm from Buffalo.

It's why I'm still a Bills fan, even though I left there when I was like five or six. And coming back, yeah, 2015, October and Seattle, 25, or however many years it was later, you know, I was just sort of struck by like this person and these people, because I did actually, I went on to do maybe 100 interviews with people on the street, also commuters passing them by about their attitudes around what each side sort of was encountering. And, you know, I've developed this hypothesis that, like, hey, the social and financial capital for these people to be successful in their life, it exists. It's out there. And if I could get every person like Edward on the street the same, somehow get the same type of experience, the same type of team or army of normal folks around every person like Edward, I think.

the problem of homelessness goes away. And does that hypothesis come from your own childhood, realizing that if you didn't have that team of people from that church, I mean, by all intents of purposes, you'd be living in India. Potentially, yeah, yeah. I don't know what my life would have been like. Yeah, yeah. I mean, can I give every person like Edward what I was given.

And then instead of a Buffalo Bills fan, you'd be a Bombay cricket fan or something like that. or tennis or something, yeah. Yeah. But is that, I mean, do you think that perspective is it? I've seen people's lives changed, you know, that we have served at Samaritan by putting a team of people around them. In Seattle, we had maybe 15,000 volunteers. We call them Samaritans. Join the team of one of our members.

Joining a team means that they commit to doing one act of kindness. month for that person. And that's a very low bar. It's a very low bar. That means giving them 10 bucks on their Samaritan balance, which I can explain later, or sending them a text that they're praying for them, or they have a connection for them, or they are able to give something in kind to them that they can use, camp in my backyard, let me introduce you to this coffee shop that's hiring, let me take you to a meal with my family at Denny's, like, whatever it is. And we see that when we can get five, ten, up to 30 people on one person's team, people find their solution to homelessness.

So we'll get to that because that's the nuts and bolts of it. And we'll explain it. But so you go to University of Michigan and how do you end up in Seattle? I think I read you developed us or you're working on a startup. I don't know what you were. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I, you know, had the experience in Buffalo. We moved around a bit. So I was in Madison and then down in the Chicago suburbs, went to the University of Michigan, you know, super privileged to be able to go there and studied film, you know, user experience design, economics. And so I actually, yeah, did a documentary,

and that's why I'm really interested in asking questions myself. But yeah, so I graduated, and then I had an opportunity to work at Google, ad agencies, but ended up wanting to start something and started a venture called Food Circles, which was a customer acquisition platform for restaurants. We built it up in Ann Arbor, built it up in Grand Rapids, and then Seattle was like our first out-of-state market that we selected. Moved out there.

Long story short, that venture failed. We ran out of cash. It was too costly to acquire restaurants relative to the revenue we were generating. So I sort of put it on ice. I was thinking about, yeah, working at, you know, big tech or creative agencies again. And, yeah, I think God just had a different plan for my life. And I just noticed how pervasive human suffering was in this beautiful city. And, you know, I had some capability around building new things and, you know, product development, research, fundraising, sales, all of that.

And so because I had some capability around doing something to create, value for this very particular special user, you know, this population of folks experiencing homelessness, I felt like I had some culpability or some responsibility. It is so crazy to hear you say that. We say it all the time that magic happens when somebody's passion and their discipline or their abilities intersected opportunity. That's exactly what happened. I mean, you're in Seattle.

You've got this unbelievable opportunity and this tech brain of yours. and you're passionate about the people that are homeless, and you saw an opportunity, which is crazy. So before we get for that, I think it's interesting. You obviously feel empathy for people experiencing homelessness, as many of us do. But you started spending a lot of time with them. And you alluded to it just a second ago.

You said, I think, 100 people. What is spending time with them? the homeless, with people experiencing homeless, what does spending time with them look like? And what was your intent? The intent was to validate, you know, potential opportunity to create something that would offer them a lot of value in helping them move forward in their life. Anytime people ask me, like, hey, I have a business idea or I will start something, like, how do I go about building a website?

or how do I get my first developers or how do I raise my first angel funding, $25,000, $50,000 so I can focus on this. It's like, throw all that out of the window, you know, take a pen and paper, write down five hypotheses you have

about your target user or your target customer and then turn those hypotheses into non-leading questions that you can ask your supposed customer or user. And then go talk to at least five of them ask them those questions and see if they reveal the problem that you want to solve,

that they validate your hypothesis. So you literally walked up down the street to people experiencing homelessness said, hey, can I ask you some questions? Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it was. I would give them a couple bucks or a granola bar, a bottle of water to kind of show them like, hey, I'm here for, I'm on your side. Like, I'm not trying to take advantage. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Here's something that's a practical use. Do you mind if I hear a little bit of your story? How did you get to where you are? Where are you trying to go? What do you feel you need to get there? What's stopping you from getting what you need to get to where you want to go? We have done a few shows with folks who work with folks that are experiencing homelessness.

He knows Kevin Adler from Miracle Messages. And Alan Graham, right? Yeah. Community First Village, yeah. We've not had them on, but they've inspired some of our other guests. Yeah. Yeah. So this may be redundant from some of our long-time listeners, but I think it's really

important. The time you spent talking and finding out people's stories, there is a widely held notion that these folks are all bipolar and drug addicts and suffering from all kinds of issues and should be in mental hospitals or somewhere else. That's why they're homeless. And I got to be honest with you again, in all candor, when I started doing this, I think I probably would have thought, you know, you don't want to paint with too broad a brush. I wouldn't say every person experience. But I would have thought 80 or 90% of people that are homeless are homeless because of those things.

And I have grown to find the inconvenient truth that usually those things come after someone becomes. home. Correct. That's right. We'll be right back. You know Roaldahl, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true.

I'm telling you. I was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids.

The true story is strange. than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl. You may know me from my It Girl series I've done on the streets of New York over the years.

Well, I've got good news. I am bringing those interviews and many more to this podcast. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work with the women's shaping culture right now.

As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated, So you have to work extra hard and you have to push the narrative in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Each week I have unfiltered conversations with female founders, creatives, and leaders to talk about ambition, visibility, and what it really takes to build something meaningful in the public eye. Because being a it girl isn't about the spotlight, it's about owning it. I think the negatives need to be discussed and they need to be told to people who maybe don't do this every day,

just so they know what's really going on. I feel like pulling the curtain back is important. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. He pulls the gun.

tells me to lie down on the ground. He identified Termaine Hudson as the perpetrator. Germain was sentenced to 99 years. I'm like, Lord, this can't be real. I thought it was a mistaken identity. The best lie is partial truth. For 22 years, only two people knew the truth until a confession changed everything.

I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know Think Spring podcast playlist is available now. Whether spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet or not, the stuff you should know, think spring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the stuff you should know

ThinkSpring playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go! Our IHeart Radio Music Awards are coming back. Thursday, March 26th, live on Fox. Watch as we honor the biggest stars from all genres of music that you loved listening to all year long on your favorite IHeart Radio Station

and the IHeart Radio app. Hosted by Ludachrist. Icon Award recipient, John Mellencamp. Innovator Award recipient. Myelie. With performances by Alex Warren, Kalani, Lainey Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Salt and Pepper, and Invoke. Taylor Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Nicole Scherzinger, Nikki Glazer, Sombor, Weiser, and more.

Watch live on Fox, Thursday, March 26th, at 87 Central. And listen on IHeart Radio Stations Across America and the free IHeart app. Why don't you tell us about what you found out in your own travels about that very thing? The thing that's really important before we go forward is what you're doing. Do we need to open our hearts to so much of what we see in the homeless happened not before they became homeless, but actually after? And how and why that happens? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, first, you know, the reason that people become homeless. homeless, they're varied, but the common thread is a lack of, from what I've found in my interviews, a lack of social capital. You know, it's the job lost, it's the domestic violence, it's the significant health event. It is the diagnosis of mental health condition or an addiction. And then they never, they run out of couches to crash on, or they never had couches to crash on to begin with, given what they were born into. And because I mean, check it for yourself. Like if your mom or your cousin or your brother, like went through something like that, they would have a family or they would have friends to keep them from the street. It's the absence of that,

the absence of community of relationships that people lose their housing and stay unhoused. And yeah, once you're on the street, it's really freaking bad for your physical and your mental health. the toll that it takes on your mind, on your body. I have met people who, you know, day one, they of being on the street. Like, they take up, you know, they go from, come from Florida. They come to Seattle on a bus. Tell that story. Yeah.

That's a really good example. Sure. So the guy, you know, looking for work and has a friend in Washington State that says, hey, you know, come work on my weed farmer. You know, I've got work for you. Take a bus. Get out of Florida. He takes a bus.

You know, gets out there somehow. uses every dollar he's got to buy the bus ticket. So he steps off expecting his friend to be there waiting for him. A friend is nowhere to be found. Never sees him. Now he's in downtown Seattle. He's on the street. He could work the next day at Lowe's or Home Depot or FedEx full time independently.

As long as he had, you know, place to charge his phone, go to the bathroom, stores, belongings, cook a meal, you know, sleep at night. But he doesn't have that. So, you know, he's sleeping outside. He's sleeping in shelter. You know, he's being exploited in different ways. And you go through this for, I mean, a day, it's an awful thing. A week, a month, a year later, he's pushing around the cart and he barely knows his name. And the outreach teams in Seattle are like, ah, that guy.

Like, I'm walking with these outreach teams and I'm looking to do some more interviews. Or, you know, I was like piloting the kind of initial framework for Samaritan at the time. I was like, hey, what about that guy? Should we talk to him? Should we see if he's interested in becoming one of our first American members? And like, ah, no, he's, he's, like, far, like, far too gone. There's no hope reaching him. We've tried.

And this guy, like, a year later of experiencing homelessness, he will never hold a full-time job by himself again. Is it trauma? I mean, I mean, I know you're not a doctor, but you're in this. What happens to an able-bodied person who, I mean, like this guy, he got screwed. He used every dollar to go to a job. He has no job. He has nowhere to go.

Now he's on the streets. But what happens over that months long or years long period that renders them not only a homeless but unable to even... It's almost a disability at that point. It basically is. And yeah, I mean, it's everything you can think of. It's like to sleep at night on concrete or on cardboard, you probably need to have a six-pack.

You probably need to have a 12-pack. So you're numb enough so you can actually fall asleep. You know, it's just the constant paranoia that someone's going to come and kick your eyes or stab you or take your belongings or all above. It's the, you know, being spit upon, ignored by people walking by, harassed by the police. It's getting promises, you know, for shelter or a job at a social services agency and seeing those promises. broken or sleeping at a shelter and getting bed bugs. Just the combination of physical realities, the isolation, the relational damage that's done to you, it's all of those things that creates pretty serious physical and mental effects that will last for that person's

lifetime. Which can easily explain, my aforementioned, 35-year-old able-bodied guys standing on a corner with a sign. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we just don't see what people have been through or what people are carrying. It's really easy to assume that they could just go to Walmart or Home Depot and start working again. There's a lot underneath the surface. I mean, look at our veterans for a great example, the outcomes that they have after

serving. You learn about people. You're asking questions. You're studying them. and it became a point that the listening and learning became an action plan for you, which effectively became Samaritan. So assume you're talking to someone who's dumb because you are. I am an idiot, all right?

I don't fully get, I mean, honestly, I'm not kidding, okay? Yeah, yeah. I can turn my computer on and open any little box. that's on the screen and do what I need to do. But from there, I'm horrible. My wife has to download my apps, okay? I am a, I have so much going on my life that is one thing at 57 years old.

I've just never spent a lot of time doing it. I'm really proud that I can download Netflix and Amazon Prime now. That's a real stuff for me. Great job, Coach. Yeah, thank you, baby. So here we go. You recognize the problem,

You're understanding folks experiencing homelessness. You're passionate about it. You have this background and understanding of what it's like, how important social capital is, an investment from the church. You've got all of it, all right? And now you've done your research. Explain what your mentality was about how can I make this problem better and do it in a way that is fresh and unique,

and involves your talents from a technical expertise. Yes. Because it is fascinating to me. Yes, I'm glad to share. Maybe people assume 80 to 90% of folks they see on the street have this addiction or mental health disorder. Before becoming homes. Right. Right.

And so to your point to conclude, we do see that it happens after. And that it's more like a third. A third of people that experience homelessness. have maybe even at quarter, have some sort of severe mental illness or substance use disorder that requires like full-time intensive treatment. Prior to homelessness. Or even today. Oh, okay.

Because we actually see that the people that are most visceral, that's the 25%. That's the 33%. It's like that iceberg, you know, visual, right? You see that, you see the top 10 or the top 20% most viscerally on our corners, you know, in the, in the store entrances, in the hospital, dancing in the street. but most of homelessness is hidden. It's people sleeping on their aunt's couch. It's people sleeping in their cars.

It's folks that are working at Home Depot that are between places. Most people experiencing homelessness are not crazy, are not struggling from severe mental illness. That's just the folks that we see. I just wanted to add that as well. That's really important. Yeah. I mean, and you're so right, and the illustration is great, is that you see the tip of the iceberg,

but the vast majority of icebergs below the water and you don't see it. What you're saying is when you talk about people experiencing homelessness, don't assume, in fact, a smaller percentage of the ones are the ones standing in front of Walgreens. There's this whole population of people still trying to do right. You coached. You coached. 25% of the players you coached, you know, would probably fall on the,

category of homelessness. Probably so. There were a lot of those kids sleeping on couches who were, I never could get an address on because they moved. They slept in one place, not knowing if they would sleep in that same place tomorrow. It's true. All right. So you got that. Yes. And you say, okay, I got this, I'm this whiz-bang tech guy. I'm smart about that stuff. I care about these people. There's a fresh approach. What am I going to do? Sure. The high, hypothesis was, hey, the capital for these people, the raw materials for these people to utilize their God-given gifts, to find stable housing, income and health. It exists, both money and relationships. It's out there. I just need to get it to these people, every person

like Edward. So I need to develop technology to bridge the capital that's needed to the people who need that capital. So well, said. That is simple. I get that. Keep going. So now I can follow you. Yeah, yeah. So what it looked like is, you know, we would partner with frontline agencies who are doing street outreach, case management, rehabilitation programs, and ask them like, hey, can we talk to, can we go on outreach with you and can we interview some of the people that you're

outreaching to? So we would go to people like Edward, Chris, Charles, Sarah, Nicole, whoever it was. and we would ask them a little bit of their story. How did you get here? Where are you trying to go? What do you need to get there? What's stopping you? And we would load that into a database.

And we would give, this is really funny. I think it's amazing. We gave them this little Bluetooth necklace that emitted this signal about 30 yards in every direction. And then, so we gave out like, you know, 50 of these necklaces, 100 of these necklaces is cool. So we got some stories. And then we give them this Bluetooth emitter. It's got a battery the last about a month. Once it dies, you know, go to the nonprofit, get another battery.

We got 500 people in Seattle commuters, downtown commuters, to download this, like, bare-bones app that we made that would receive that Bluetooth signal and pop up a notification that says, hey, this is Edward. Edward's been on the streets for... Hold it. Time out. If you got within, like, 30 yards of them, you said it admits 30 yards away. That's right. So if I'm Edward and I'm wearing my Bluetooth.

Yeah, that's right. And there's 500 people in Seattle with this app. If you get within 25, 30 yards of me, my Bluetooth pings your phone. Uh-huh. And then you can look at your phone and say, and does it do a dot? Like, find my phone? Did it put a dot where Edward was? Yeah, well, the notification, like a text or, yeah, you know, Facebook notification or email.

That's where he is. That where he is. Like, you've passed by Edward. But you passed by Edward. Yeah. And it says, this is Edward. Uh-huh. And all of the information you have is pulled from the database.

Right. And now I know. You see his photo. You see what his goals are. You see what organization is working with. And you can give a dollar, give two, give 10 into an account that Edward uses with the nonprofit to meet. To meet. So now I don't have to open my wallet or even stop.

Right. I just see it. And I'm saying, man, I'd like to help that guy. That's right. And hit the $5 button. And it immediately goes to a. account. And Edward's name.

An Edward's name that Edward can then go access for his needs. That's right. All right. Stop. If the story ended there, that's phenomenal. That is the coolest damn idea and so whiz-bang, techy, young person smart, because it erases the, I don't know if I'm going to give this guy $5 and he's going to go buy crack instead of food. It eliminates that.

Right. And that concludes part one of our conversation with Jonathan Kumar, and you don't want to miss part two that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. You know, Roll Doll. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy?

In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy.

Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know with a message that could change your life. The Stuff You Should Know Think Spring podcast playlist is available now. Whether spring has sprung in your neck of the woods yet

or not. The stuff you should know think spring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the stuff you should know think spring playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go! Words are coming back.

Thursday, March 26th, live on Fox. Watch as we honor the biggest stars from all genres of music that you loved listening to all year long on your favorite IHeart radio station and the IHart Radio app. Hosted by Luddocris. Icon Award recipient John Mellencamp. Innovator award recipient.

Miley Cyrus. With performances by Alex Warren, Kailani, Lainey Wilson, Ludacris, Ray, TLC, Saltin Pepper, and Invoke. Claire Swift makes her first award show appearance this year. Nicole Scherzinger, Nikki Glazer, Sombor, Weiser, and more. Watch live on Fox. Thursday, March 26th, at 87 Central. And listen on IHeart Radio Stations Across America.

I'm Bailey Taylor and this is It Girl. This podcast is all about going deeper with the women's shaping culture right now. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work behind it all. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja.

Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 2 podcast. This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpbright became the victim of a random crime. The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything. I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.