Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-05-26_FRIDAY_7AM

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

06-05-26_FRIDAY_7AM

This hour of the Bill Myers Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurrilling.com. Greg Roberts is here. Mr. Outdoors, Rogueweather.com. Outdoor report sponsored by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority on Airway Drive in Medford. How you doing this morning, Greg? Welcome back. We're doing good. Thank you, Bill. Hey, really sorry about your kitty.

What was your kitty's name again? your buddy there? Yeah, kind of a kitty cat. She adopted us. You and Linda have experienced that. You know, we live in a town home complex here on Garfield Street and these people moved in and Lily was with them and then, I'm not kidding, it was probably within two months, a couple splits up.

Lily was her cat. Well, she leaves and she left Lily with her ex, who promptly threw her outside and kind of left her to fin for herself. And she wandered around the complex for about a week, and we kept watching her. And she was approaching anybody and everybody being all affectionate. And, well, Terry being truly the original crazy cat lady, just couldn't stand it anymore. So we started giving her food and water, and she found a spot out on our front porch. And, well, that led to getting her a much better shelter on the front porch. And then, I don't know, she'd probably been living on our front porch for, I think, a year.

Yeah. And then finally, Terry goes, well, why don't we take her to the vet and get her checked out and see if she, you know, has anything wrong? And then we can let her start coming inside. And so that checked her out, pronounced her very healthy, nothing to worry about. And so we let her start coming inside. But of all the cats that we've had, she was the only one that was allowed indoor, outdoor privileges, because we just kind of felt like, well, she adopted us. She used to being outside.

She just sticks around the town home complex, so we thought. And so we let her do that. And that went on for years. and then Memorial Day weekend, she didn't show up on Saturday, and we thought, okay, that's kind of strange. But we weren't too worried. And then Sunday morning get up and she's still not here. And it's like, oh, man, I hope she didn't wander into somebody's garage or shed. And they shut her up in there, left for the weekend.

And she's shut up in somebody's garage or shed. We went over to Boatnik on Sunday, went to the plush concert, came back home, and she's still not here. And then Terry was like, I think something's really wrong, and I think we ought to put up post on our profiles. And then we went ahead and put a post up on rogue weather and put a picture of her up, showing her wearing her pink collar. and it was 8.30 in the morning on Monday Memorial Day that I got a message from somebody who follows me on rogue weather, who did not know. They lived that close to us, but they said, we think we have your cat. And I go, are you sure? And they sent me a picture of her caller, and I was like, oh, no. Yeah, so she was struck and killed. It was her. And she'd gotten out on Garfield. We'd never seen her on Garfield. And she was. And she was. hit and killed and it was, you know, an instant death. Fortunately for her, there are no suffering,

but, you know, these amazing people got her off the street so she didn't get splattered into a big furry, greasy spot. Preserved her for us in their freezer. And they held her for us because we don't have freezer space until I could get her to Green Acres. And I'm going to Green Acres this afternoon to pick up her remains. So it was very sad. In fact, having to tell Terry on Memorial Day Monday that Lily had been hit and killed by a car, that was the patient I've ever delivered to anybody. Well, I got to tell you, Greg, our furry friends end up being big parts of our family. You know, I know that there was a lot of people giving you incoming and you were kind of giving it back as good. I stayed out of the fray, you know, it's that sort of thing.

But, you know, because people were saying, well, you let the cat out. The problem that I wanted to address, though, is that that is the challenge when you take a cat that has been an outdoor cat and you bring them in. And we have a couple of neighborhood strays here. There's Punky Jr. And then there's Cricket, who doesn't meow, just kind of chirps at us. And so, and we feed them and stuff. And one of the things we've thought about is like even if we were to take them in, once they've been outdoor cats, most of the time it's going to be next to impossible to keep them inside and just strictly inside. That's just reality.

But it also shows, though, the danger that outdoor cats face. And it's just kind of one of it comes with the territory with even if you're an indoor, outdoor cat that that can happen. That's just the reality of it. Right. And obviously we see it all the time. People, their pets, their dogs, their cats go up missing. And especially with cats, it's a pretty high percentage. That people never know what wound up happening to them.

We are at least grateful we knew. We are at least grateful we can get some closure. Now, what you're saying about cats who've been outdoors, the funny part is we've got our Betty girl and she did the exact same thing that Lily did. She showed up and she literally lived on our back porch for two years, would not let us get anywhere near her. We set up a shelter for her. We were giving her food and water. She just stayed on our back porch. And then shortly after we had to put our gypsy girl down and send her over the rainbow bridge,

All of a sudden one day in November, I'm looking at the back door. Betty, standing there and very clearly saying, I want to come in. So I open up the door. She marched in. She hasn't been back outside since. Now, you know, there are some cats that'll do that. They'll say, hey, man, I've been out there. I don't like that.

I want to stay inside, and it's just fine right here. But most of the ones that I've known are not that way if you bring him in from the outside. That's just sad. And then another crazy thing about her, outside, we couldn't hardly get near her. She was not a very affectionate kitty. We thought she was super feral. As soon as she came in the house, nope, turned into a total love slug. Okay, well, that's good.

Well, sorry about Lily, but yeah, I just wanted to just give note. I was following you on that and watching that. And boy, I know, it's really tough. Anybody can appreciate this, all right? Why don't we talk about what is going on this weekend, because it is free fishing weekend. And you want to talk about how people get themselves in trouble over free fishing weekend and how to avoid that. I think it's a reasonable deal. And so now, does this mean you can just fish anywhere you want?

No problem. No license needed. What's the actual rule of a free fishing weekend? Well, let's talk about legalities that are waived on this weekend. And this was the original. pardon, this is the original free fishing weekend in Oregon. It was, oh, for quite a few years, it was the only free fishing weekend, that first weekend in June. And I found out they did that because most school districts have released for the summer.

For example, I think everything down here that was the last day of school, it certainly was for Medford School District, for low gospel, charter school, other schools around the valley. So the thinking was, hey, let's give families a reason to get out on that first weekend as kids get out of school. Let's do free fishing. So you don't have to have a license and you don't have to have tags, but everything else applies. And that means times you can be fishing, legal methods of fish limits, bag limits, possession limits. And And people who don't regularly fish apparently think it means, well, I can just go out and do whatever I want. No, that's not the case. And I think a lot of people wind up getting cited and then being very surprised in claiming, well, it was free.

No, free means you don't have to buy the license and the tags. Legal applies in every other case. And when you do get cited, because you, well, didn't know, you're only allowed five trout over between eight and 20 inches. To the bag limit, you're going to get written up. Then you're going to go to court. And then the judge is going to say the regulations are out. Anybody can read them.

Ignorance is no excuse. You're going to pay however much fine or even potentially lose the ability to go fishing, even on free fishing weekend legally for two years. And people need to read their regulations before they go out. People who are regular anglers have a much better idea on what the regulations are. People who suddenly decide, oh, hey, it's free fishing weekend. Gee, this sounds like fun. Let's go give it a try.

Those are the ones who usually wind up getting into trouble because they never look at the regulations. Oh, okay. Yeah. You still have to follow all the rules, in other words. That's just our bottom line. Okay, all right. Yeah, it just doesn't cost you the license or the tags, but it's going to apply. Okay, fair enough.

What else can we be doing this weekend if you're not part of free fishing weekend? What would you suggest? Well, state parks jumped in on the fun, and they waive camping fees where campsites are available. And back in the day when we had Joseph Stewart County Park, Joseph Stewart State Park would get a lot of people, and you could never find a campsite for free on free fishing weekend. But Valley of the Rogue frequently had campsites available, and you could get right in and camp for free at Valley of the Rogue. Well, State handed Joseph Stewart State Park at Las Creek over to Jackson County. So Valley of the Rogue is the only state park with a campground here, and I,

I would be shocked if there is any open campsites available. Yeah, by the way, I want to ask you about that. Now, wasn't part of that like a homeless encampment at some point or was part of a homeless shelter? Was I wrong about that thinking of some other campsite out there? That would be some other campsite. Okay. All right. Here's why.

And the homeless are going to avoid Valley of the Rogue. Rangers on duty there. Ah, okay. Homeless prefer campsites that your chances of having rangers or any type of enforcement run. Got it. That's what they look for. All right, that makes sense. So Sally of the Rogue, Joseph's, with having rangers present 24-7, 365, that's not a place homeless people are going to go.

Okay. They don't like that. All right. Fair enough. Okay. So we got that going on here, too. Great. Now, the other thing I want to get to, because this is new.

this year, and this is one of these things that the snake, the snake, the paying attention, the fees snuck in fees on kayaks, they snuck in fees on canoes. Well, the state of Oregon is magnanimously going to waive those fees for this weekend for free fishing weekend. Hang on, hang on. But we'll just give them a little bit of a real American salute, but just a little one. I have to make a short. Because this is the kind of stuff now that the state of Oregon is doing because, well, they know they're not going to get taxes passed.

I mean, obviously, witness last election. So now they're adding fees to everything. They created this special steelheading fee for Southwest Oregon that you have to pay an additional fee if you want to go out, especially in pursuit of winter steelhead. There's another fee. Now they charge you money to just simply go out on the ocean and fish for anything. There's another fee. They're feying us to death. So what they do, they start stacking all these fees on and they go, gee, we're seeing declining numbers of participation.

Well, genius, I can't imagine why. Yeah, why would you just make, you put more fees on stupid stuff that have nothing to do with it? Well, anything which is attractive, they put a fee box in front of it. And this is both with the Fed and the state. at the state version, wouldn't you agree? I mean, honestly, I even think about how I used to love camping out at Daily Creek, daily creek campsite up off of Dead Indian Memorial Road. And I haven't been up there years because they turned it only into a group campsite from now on.

And so why? Why is it just easier or you just make one big charge for everybody? I'm trying to figure out I used to go there all the time. Love it. Yeah, and honestly, on those types of things, I have no idea why. Why is Oregon feeing us to death? There's obligation. That's blatantly obvious. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all.

Got to keep the raises going on here. But anyway, so we can't do anything about it, but at least you don't have to pay the fee this weekend, right? Mr. Outdoors, so there we go. Right. And while the outdoor shows were going on, there were petitions circulating there to prevent them from putting the same fees on paddle boards and inner tubes.

and I'm not kidding you. The state of Oregon was coming after paddle boards and inner tubes. That petition was successful. They did get enough signatures. It should be hitting the November ballot. So you're finally, somebody woke up and saw what they were doing, this fee that the state wants to put on. Again, paddle boards and inner tubes.

And I'm going to emphasize inner tubes because I know there are people shocked going, well I've been floating down the river in my inner tube forever. Well, guess what? State of Oregon now wants to charge you $9 a year for floating on your inner tube or $9 a year for taking your paddle board out to immigrant. Well, they're at least not charging us for looking at the river, at least not yet. I mean, if you drive by it, then you look at it. You have a fee box for that?

Believe me, if they could figure out a way to do it, they would do it. This is Oregon now. Yeah, I guess so. All right, Mr. Outdoors, I appreciate it. Hey, before we take off, and one of they ask you, How are things looking at the coast as far as fishing conditions and anything else you wanted to do this week? Well, the good news is it's not the worst in terms of ocean surface conditions out at the coast. There's going to be some choppy waters.

There's going to be some wind. We're going to get small craft advisories, especially afternoons. But mornings, we're looking pretty good both tomorrow and Sunday for small craft to be able to get out without too much. much problem and without the ocean being too choppy, but expect probably that magic hour 1 p.m. is pretty typically it. The winds are really going to increase. The chop is really going to increase. And if you're out there in small boats, that's no fun. But I would say if you can get out there at first light through noon, you're going to have quite a good window to get out and do some great fishing and again, bottom fishing is really good, but what I'm noticing right now up and down the

coast, bays and estuaries for crabs don't look that good right now, but you get out in the salt, meaning if you can get out with a boat and throw pots out in the salt, it definitely is much better than it is in the bays and estuaries. And every guide I know who takes people out crabbing on the coast, they're out throwing their pots out in the ocean, not in the bays and estuaries. All right, very good. Mr. Outdoors, Greg Roberts at rogueweather.com. Maybe a quick call here. Do you have a question for Greg? You're here for that or something else? Morning. Yeah, this is Phil.

Oh, Bill. Did you get a chance to go to that wolf meeting? I think it was in like Central Point or something? No. Oh, no, no. She was talking about the one that Emily McIntyre, rep, McIntyre. McIntyre was putting on this week. Really? I didn't even hear anything about it. So, yeah, no, I didn't even get to that. I find that highly interesting.

All right, well, Phil, what happened? Did you go to that, Phil? Just curious. No, no. I was just wanting some information on it, and I was just kind of wondering, since I was kind of in this area, has there been any wolf sightings around the Rogue River area? Around the Rogue River area, the only thing we've been able to confirm out there, And I'm going to include Rogue River area to also include Weimer, hybrids. Every single one of them.

We have multiple people out there with hybrids. There are some real high percentage hybrids, and especially one particular person in Weimer, he lets his hybrids just pretty much have free roam, and they generate all kinds of reports, people saying, I saw a wolf. Well, thus far, every single one of those has. turned out to be a hybrid. However, is it impossible to get wolves out there in Rogue River, Weimar area? Absolutely not, because especially in the winter, they're just to the north up there in the West Fork Trail Creek, and that's just a hop, skipping a jump for a wolf to get down

in the Weimar and Rogue River area in terms of distance. All right, very good. Hey, Phil, I appreciate the question. Mr. Outdoors, I appreciate you being here, too. We'll catch you next Friday, All right. Be well, gentlemen. Good, Bill. All righty. And Outdoor Report, sponsored by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority on Airway Drive in Metford. Greg, of course, holding down the matter at rogueweather.com. All right. We have so many things to give away this morning. We're going to start it off with Weird Al Yankovic. It is the bigger and weirder tour that's at the Buy Mart Ampitheater at the Expo, Wednesday, September 9th at 730. All right? We're giving tickets for you. We're getting you advanced tickets. right now and all you have to do is we're going to just have a little fun with this. We're going to play Do You Know You're Al Yankovic, all right? So we're going to talk about the songs a little bit. Just have a little fun, little quiz. I think you'll get it.

If you're a weird Al fan, I think you're going to get this. 770-5633-770 KMED. By the way, you can get tickets for this at at theexpo.com. At the expo.com. And let's have a little fun with this and get you into a concert. It's a couple months from now, so you got, you already got your September, what is it, September 6th or whatever it is, all ready for you, okay? Gutters and covers, covers, covers. Covers and gutters. Yeah. Yes, you do. You want your covers guttered?

Wait, come back. Honey, hey, wake up. What? Oh, I was having a bad dream. I'm so glad you woke me. You were going on about gutters and covers. You having trouble at work. No, no. I dreamt I left all. Fontana Roofing and was trying to sell gutters and covers for another company. It started with hanging door knockers and then cluttering intersections with little signs. Then it escalated to stuffing mailboxes.

Then I found myself chasing an elderly couple down the aisle at a home show. That sounds awful. Good thing Fontana Roofing offers custom gutters, an industry-leading gutter cover brand and more reasonable commission-free estimates without the pressure and ad clutter. Yeah, but you do think our radio ads are cute. I like this background music at least. Now, sweet dreams, and for the rest of you, don't sleep on Montanaroofing Services.com. Hi, this is Lisa from Kelly's Automoto Service and Grants Pass in Medford.

From June 5th through the 30th, participating restaurants, donut shops, bakeries, and coffee houses throughout the Rogue Valley, will be creating special treats in honor of the Salvation Army. Every time you purchase one of these items, you'll be helping kids and vets right here in our community. Find participating businesses, vote, and learn more at tastegood, do good.net. That's taste good, do good.net. Tastes good, do good, help kids and vets. Kelly's automotive service, we service your vehicle, but take care of you. The Bill Myers Show on 1063, KMED.

And streamed on KMED.com. Weird Al, the Weird Al, bigger and weirder tour. Buy a Martin Amphitheater, September 9th. Tickets available at FPEXpo.com. But we have Dana. Dana is here. Dana Crandal? Is that your name, Dana?

Welcome. Yes. Dana, good morning. Great. We're going to see if you know your Weird Al. I mean, this is like going to be an 80s, 90s, flashback, extraordinary show over. And we got lawn tickets for you.

I got a pair of lawn tickets. What you have to do, though, is tell me if you know you're Weird Al or not. So I'm going to name the Weird Al parody, and you give me the title of the original. Can you do that? Yep. Give it a shot. Okay.

All right. We have three. I think you'll get it if you're a Weird Al fan. But we're going to give it a shot. Okay? So the first one, like a sturgeon. Like a sturgeon. What is it?

Like a virgin from Madonna. Okay, good one. So you're one third of the way there. The second one. Another one rides the bus. Yes. Okay. For the win here.

For the win, Dana. Eat it. Eat it. Yes. You're a way. See, I had faith in you. I really did. So, Danny, we got a pair of lawn tickets for you.

Hang on. Let me get your information. And you're going to have fun. We're going to be giving away a pair of these a week for the next couple of weeks or so over at the Jackson County Expo, the Buymart Amphitheater. Hang on. It's 737. News next. And then we're talking a little bit of homeless here on the Mill Myers Show.

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over receiving and distributing child sex abuse materials. 56-year-old David Arthur Kelly entered his no contest play earlier this week. It's one of the biggest cases ever investigated around here. Almost three quarters of a million child sex abuse photos have been downloaded by Kelly over several years. Metford Police investigating a case of suspected animal neglect after several cats were removed from a home. K-O-B-I-5 reporting that Thursday, police went to do a welfare check at a home on Roxanne Place in Highland Drive, located multiple live and deceased cats on the property.

Medford Police say 65-year-old Wendy Diamond facing seven counts of first-degree animal abuse. Several new laws go into effect today, one of them cracking down on the interest rates of unsecured consumer finance loans. House Bill 4616 is now closing a loophole that allowed some internet lenders to use an out-of-state bank that would charge higher interest rates than Oregon's limit of 36% for consumer finance loans. And nearly three years ago, there was a vote by 250 health care tech workers over at Rogue Regional Medical Center. The group wanted to unionize under the Oregon Nurses Association. Asante didn't recognize the vote because free cake was served in the hospital cafeteria, pro-union speeches were given to workers on the clock too. So Asante was thinking this was sort of vote rigging.

Well, Rogue Valley Times reports that federal labor officials have ordered Asante to recognize the union from now on. Bill Meyer, KMED News. This hour of the Bill Meyer show is sponsored by Glacier Heating and Air, making sense of the heating and air business. The AC typically has the largest impact on your summer electric bill, especially if you have an older unit. Glacier heating and air, your local, independent train. dealer reminds you the best way to reduce your summer energy bill is to have a new high-efficiency air conditioning system installed that will help keep you cool, temperature-wise, and with rising utility bills.

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Hi, I'm Charlene, owner of American Industrial Door, and I'm on 106.7 KMED. Just had a bit of breaking news I was going to mention here before we get on to our next guest this morning. I don't know if you know James Handy. He's a veteran character actor, and he's 81 years old, and he was in all sorts of movies. Top Gun, Maverick, Arachnophobia. And you know the problem with being a character actor is that it's like nobody knows your name, but they go, oh yeah, that guy. Well, he got stabbed at death, and his girlfriend was arrested in charge with murder here. New York Times doing that. I'm just holding up his picture at the Facebook Live. And you see his

face and you go like, oh yeah, that guy. Yeah. And yeah, that's what happened to him. But the son of the girlfriend is the one that has been busted and has been taken into custody there. So I just thought it just mentioned that. 743. Joining me right now is Michelle Steve. We've talked with Michelle Steve before. And when it comes to the homelessness crisis here in Southern Oregon, the state of Oregon, really the United States, she's just one of the finest experts on this. And she has written on this extensively, including her latest book, Answers Behind the Door, Battling the Homeless Epidemic. How are you doing this morning, Michelle? Welcome back. I'm doing well, and I appreciate you continuing to lift up this topic.

It is not getting, you know, much better. And we need a lot more people to be informed as to why and how to turn this around. Yeah. Now, it's interesting here. A little bit of your background. If I recall correctly, you ran, let's see, you ran homelessness shelters in the state of California. Not that long ago, right? Or do you still run?

No, I ran Northern. California's largest program for homeless women and children for 13 years. Now in 2019, my husband took a job in Texas, so I'm now in Texas, but spent a lot of time addressing homelessness in California and was just back there actually two weeks ago and launched a whole expose on how much worse it's gotten in Sacramento and why. Okay. Well, I really like to hear more about this because housing and urban development nationwide did a survey on homelessness. And homelessness over all, I should say, in the rest of the country, has been declining, actually on the decline, which is good to hear about this.

Not in Oregon, though. Oregon actually went up. Now, Oregon will actually come back, Michelle, and say, well, we just do a better job of counting homeless. You know, we're just so much more effective in our bureaucracy. We can count better, I guess. So what are you thinking about that? Well, yeah, so homelessness nationwide has gone down about 3%.

The chronically homeless population, though, has significantly risen. And I will talk about the reason for that. As far as Oregon goes, yeah, it's going up a little bit. And that's not good. But it's not a significant bump like it was two years. prior, right? I think two years prior, it was a 9 to 11% increase in homelessness. So the good news is it's coming down, you know, that increase is coming down a little. But Oregon is really in a tough spot because of, and even though they kind of took it back,

but you remember back in 2020 when they decriminalized a lot of the, you know, drug crimes and even though they realized that was a massive failure, a lot of the people who came to the state because of that are still there. And Oregon has taken this approach. The federal government took called Housing First, which means that for everyone who's struggling with homelessness, they provide them that their goal is to provide them with a house with no no more life with no sobriety requirements, no work requirements ever, and no treatment requirements. That's been a massive failure at the federal level. That's why this president is trying to turn it around.

But it's been a massive failure in Oregon as well, and they continue to hang, to cling to this policy with people, a population, a homeless population that is largely their, because of the decriminalization of the drugs. Yeah, and the challenge you run into it. Yeah, I guess the challenge that you run into, though, is this housing first process, which came in through the Obama administration, if I recall correctly, right? That's correct.

Obama administration. The concept was that, okay, we don't care why you're homeless. The first thing we're going to do is get you a home. and yet the challenge with that, and the only have to do is just kind of, you know, think it through, though, that if you're a raving, mentally ill or drug-addicted, you know, a person who is not in her his or her right mind, it doesn't matter how nice the house it is that you might be given or might be put into. The housing's not going to solve the real problem, the root cause of your problem, right? Is that kind of where you're coming from, too, I guess? Yes, it is. In fact, again, about 80% of the, at least the street homeless population, but I would say it's really across the entire homeless population are struggling with both

addiction and or mental illness. Both of those are diseases of the brain. And under the last 12 years, this housing first approach, we've made treatment optional. We actually defunded treatment services. services along with housing. We decoupled treatment services and housing and defunded the treatment services. And so what's happened is when diseases go untreated, they get worse, just like cardiovascular disease or cancer. So these people have gotten sicker and sicker because we haven't been treating the accompanying diseases, the diseases that accompany their whole.

homelessness. So it's especially concerning in Oregon where, again, the population, a lot of the homeless population are there because of the decriminalization, even though it was reversed, they got there and they've stayed there because the consequences are not being enforced. Michelle, as far as the treatment aspect of things, does treatment, Does treatment work even or does it get to the point where the person has to really want to be healed or actually has to decide to love life more than they love drugs and or alcohol or various other things? Now as far as deeper mental illness here, schizophrenia, I don't know, you know, you know, what we can do about that. I'm just wondering how successful the so-called treatment programs are. Do you have any idea on the metrics here, what the numbers are looking like?

Well, definitely not all are successful. And there's a lot of, there's a need for more research into, you know, programs that do this well and the replication of those. But I will say the president, the current administration, is now, has reversed the housing first policy and said, we can still do. housing first, but the majority of funding that the federal government is going to provide is for treatment services in conjunction with temporary or transitional housing. We're going to prioritize those kinds of models. We're going to need to rebuild the system because that system largely went away under the housing first mandate by President Obama. And the good news is, you know, even though we have to rebuild, we can use good models to base the rebuilding on.

There's a lot of programs that engage in treatment services that don't have great outcomes, and we shouldn't be obviously replicating those. Michelle, Steve, is the founder of Free Up Foundation, by the way, and also author of Answers Behind the Red Door, battling the homeless epidemic. And, you know, you were like CEO of that homeless program in Northern California, 13 years, I guess, I understand. Are there any treatment programs that you can hold up as being more successful than others? And I know that one of the challenges we've had here in Oregon has been the demand is for low barrier shelter.

And, of course, low barrier shelter is no rules. We just get you in. We get you off the street and you're into a bed in the shelter. And I don't know if much help happens with these people that are in low barrier. I know that there are higher barrier ones that, well, like faith-based communities that will have certain rules. And, hey, we're going to help you get off these drugs. We're going to help you get some help and get yourself straightened up. and the ones that actually go through their programs seem to do pretty well or at least a high

percentage and I don't know maybe it's just because they're more motivated because they're willing to actually take some rules on but I'm wondering how you see it here in your experience yes the Trump administration in fact in this reversing of the housing first only policy is also inviting the faith-based community back into the fold they were really sidelined under the Obama administration. Oh, okay. The Biden administration. So you're right.

Faith-based organizations that have been doing this work for a long time are being invited back into the fold. They've got some really great models. There's some non-faith-based organizations, too, like the one I ran, though ours was really a hybrid between faith and we didn't require faith-based teachings, but. we were founded at church and we had church services and property. So there's some really good models that were able to survive without government because they weren't allowed to be funded under a housing first mandate because they had too many rules.

So those are the ones, those are the programs that administration wants to really see lifted up and replicated. and the funding notice just came out actually Monday night. So communities are going to be responding to that. They have to show the Trump administration, which is, again, that the federal government is a largest source of funding for homelessness. So local communities who receive federal money are going to have to say how they're going to reconstitute. their homeless system to prioritize mental health treatment in conjunction with transitional housing and faith-based models will definitely be incorporated.

Well, the one thing you have discovered, and you make it clear even in your latest Fox opinion piece, is that Housing First is a disaster. And you have just seen too much of this. There's no way that we can avoid this. Now, Oregon, we're still having some challenges here. and what is your opinion of harm reduction programs when it comes to the drug addicted? Because that's a big deal. It tends to irritate a lot of regular folks because they see it as, okay, the NGO shows up that's funded by the Oregon Health Authority.

The NGO shows up with a box of needles or a box of paraphernalia with which to smoke and or inject drugs. and we'll tend to look at it from the outside as, hey, this is just kind of furthering the problem or just enabling the problem. How do you see those kind of harm reduction programs? Do they have any value at all in your opinion? Yeah, so harm reduction was actually an approach that began in Europe. And one of the Hallmark programs is in Portugal. where harm reduction very well.

The whole concept is, you know, again, in Europe, that was and still is there, that you need to, if someone's going to be using, you know, needles, injecting drugs, if they're going to be, you know, engaging in prostitution, you need to give them supplies that are safe so they don't have additional diseases that the public is going to have to eventually fund. The way that we practice harm reduction or have practiced it in the United States is taking it to,

oh, and by the way, in Europe, once they give you those supplies, they help lead you into programs where you are not going to engage in those kinds of negative behaviors any longer. Right? So they help you heal. Oh, okay. So maybe that, maybe we're not doing that in Oregon or as much. Exactly right. We're not doing, well, we haven't been doing it in the United States. The way we practice it is we just are going to give you more and more of these tools to continue to engage in your negative behaviors. And it's been an horrible mess. And that's another the Trump administration has addressed. You know, harm reduction is no longer going to be federal policy. It was under Obama. and Biden introduced by Obama, but it's no longer going to be an approach that the federal government supports. So, you know, I feel very, you know, Seattle, I just did a story on this not that long ago in Seattle, they are using public libraries to show people how to inject drugs. It's craziness,

the way that the United States and certain states within the United States, taken harm reduction to an extreme. It is not the original intent of the movement. Yeah. Harm reduction was supposed to be, okay, we'll give you a, we'll give you clean needles, but we're also going to get you in a drug treatment program like right now, and you're going to have to do it, right? Okay. Now, maybe not right now, but be to that, right? The whole goal is to lead you away from those negative behaviors. It's not the goal here in the United States. It hasn't been. We haven't been doing that. All right, that makes a lot of sense.

Now, when it comes to mental health, the truly mentally ill there, not those that are mentally ill just because they're taking drugs because sometimes that can actually encourage, you know, a lot of mental illness to pop up. But, gosh, the number of mental health beds, very small, maybe four or five hundred in the state of Oregon, the entire state of Oregon, maybe a few hundred more on top of that. and, you know, in the, you know, Oregon mental health hospitals and such.

And we don't have the institutions that we once did. And is there a move to re-institutionalize those that are just truly mentally ill? Or is that still sort of, you know, caught between a rock and a hard place because of the increasing costs, just insane costs of actually institutionalizing people that are homeless and mentally ill? Yes. So I do want to step back a little bit in history when, you know, it was Kennedy and some doctor friends of his who proposed institutions the way that they were, you know, what we saw and one flew over the cuckoo's nest, right? They developed this whole system. At the federal level, we weren't involved in mental health treatment. It usually was left to the local or the state governments. But under Kennedy institutions rose up. Reagan gets credited, quote, unquote, with closing these mental institutions down, which he did.

But he did because the outcomes were so poor. We were spending so much money and the outcomes were so poor. Congress was supposed to build, you know, create a new system. It really didn't happen. I don't know why. But bottom line is we don't want to go back to the old days where we're institutionalizing in that same way and spending, you know, a lot of money for horrible outcomes. Yeah, but I do think that, but aren't we having a problem right now with homeless who are

mentally ill that we kind of hope beyond hope that they'll take their meds and they'll do it, you know, routinely and they'll keep the habits going and the good, the better habits going that they're going to fix themselves on the street. And I'm wondering if that's kind of a fool's errand. Oh, it is. And in fact, the Trump administration and their executive order, again, to redesign the nation's homelessness system, he calls for a strengthening of civil commitment laws and of a stronger use of the civil commitment laws that are on the books.

A lot of states have good laws on the books, but they, There's a whole bunch of reasons they don't get followed through on by law enforcement. So there is a big call to, and again, it's just now rolling out to strengthen those civil commitment laws to make sure that we're using them to their fullest potential. And a lot of the homeless who are, you know, a lot of people say, oh, well, they just, they want to be out there. That the reality is they are so sick. They don't know how sick they are.

and for those people, we need to compel them into treatment. It can't be an option. It's a fool there. Yeah, some are just going to have to be forced. That's just all there is to it. Yeah, because otherwise they'll just stay on the street here. I know that, you know, the city of Grants Pass, as you well know, was part of the big court battles in the Supreme Court, you know, over homelessness policy.

And next week, I guess, they've been putting a, no, Daily Courier had an article out the other day that homeless people could be moving into a Grants Pass homeless village. They've been taking shipping containers and converting them into like these into bedrooms is what they're doing in this Elk Island trading group operation that they're doing in the city of Grants Pass. They're trying to move them out of the managed campground systems here. And is that kind of a model where we have sort of some communal housing aspect? of this? Do you think that that kind of situation is going to help move the needle on the homeless situation here? Michelle? Well, I'm not familiar with this new program, and I will look it up. I'm glad you told me about it. And what I would say is it depends. It depends on if it's a low

barrier program or a program really designed to move people into treatment and to purpose, right, to restoring their purpose. If it is a low barrier program where they can just, you know, be and decide if they want to engage in treatment or not, they're really, those programs have not proven to be economically or, you know, any other way successful. So you might need to have them,

but they should be a stepping stone to, you know, a longer plan, which is to move, people into treatment. So I'll look into that. I'm glad to hear there, you know, that there's something new. I just, it really depends on whether or not it's a low barrier or a more intentional. I'm thinking, I'm not exactly sure of all the rules about this, but I think part of it was that they wanted to draw down the number of people in the unmanaged campgrounds that are kind them around the city. And then because of the availability of these, I think it's called Parker's, yes, Parker's Place Village is what it's called, if you wanted to look that up, Parker's Place Village.

Okay. And I think because of this, if people would then refuse to move out of the unmanaged campgrounds, they could then be ticketed for violating the camping laws. It's like you have to have some place to put them. And I'm sure this is, you know, part of the city of Grants Pass once again, to not be sued again, you know, because even though we have that, you know, good rulings from the Supreme Court, we're in Oregon once again, and Oregon has a different take on homelessness policy. Actually, essentially, what the state of Oregon did was codify what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did when they destroyed us, you know, and we're suing in the first place. We made those rules kind of state law. And, well, don't, well, aren't we?

stupid, I guess, you know, in our state. You can't fix that part about it, Michelle. I know that. Well, I will say the good news is, again, the Trump administration and their executive order is saying to local governments where they distribute most of their homelessness funding that if they want to continue to receive homelessness funding, they need to clear encampments. Encampments are dangerous for the people living in them, the pets living in them, but also the surrounding communities. The problem is we can't start clearing encampments until we have a place for people to go. And that's what this new funding opportunity that came out on Monday is all about. It's over $4 billion for communities who are building those facilities that include treatment

of mental health and addiction, building those facilities. So people do have a place. place to go to heal and grow and turn their lives around. All right. You can find out more about Michelle and what she's done here. There's the FreeUp Foundation, freeup foundation.com, Michelle Steeb, steeb, dot com. And the book is Answers Behind the Red Door, battling the homeless epidemic. And thanks for bringing us up to date and what the administration is doing here.

Now, that $4 billion you were talking about, final question, is this going to be something where like cities and counties and states, we, It's like grant stream funding where you make an application. Hey, we're, okay, we're shutting down our homeless encampments, but this is where we're putting them and you have to dance through some various rules. How does that work, do you know? Yes. So in most communities across the country, there's what's called a continuum of care.

It's an entity that HUD created that coordinates the homeless, the federal homelessness response at the local level. So programs who want to be a part of or want to apply for this funding need to apply through the COC. The COC then will submit its own application to HUD saying, here are the programs we want to fund. They have to, the COC has to show that they are prioritizing mental health treatment, drug and alcohol treatment and transitional housing programs, which they haven't been doing for the

last 12 years because it was under the housing first mandate. So if a community does that and they show that once they have those programs in place, they're going to be willing to clear encampments and strengthen their civil commitment laws and the use of civil commitment, they are going to be eligible for a lot of funding, even more funding than under the Biden administration. But if they don't show that, if they continue to engage in the same approach, they're not going to get that much federal money. And that, again, is the largest source of homelessness funding. So, yeah, I'm wondering if I do wonder, and this is something where we have to figure this out, I've got to look at the rules of this, but if Oregon's housing laws on the homeless and the rules,

since we codified the bad stuff that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal ended up making us do a number of years ago, If that might keep us out of the running for this homelessness money that you're talking about? I'm wondering if that might be the risk here that we're running. Well, the state can use its funding the way it chooses to, right? So if Oregon keeps doing the same thing with their state funding, that's up to them. But for the federal dollars, if those dollars come into a community, they have to be prioritized on mental health treatment, drug and health all treatment in transitional housing settings, and the community needs to agree to engage in the clearing of encampments

once those programs are in place with the federal money. The state can continue to do what it chooses to do with its own taxpayer funding. All right, but the housing first model is over, at least at the federal level. Oregon's probably hanging on to a certain amount of that still. I'll have to get back to you on that. Michelle. Thank you very much for the update for the feds too. Okay. Appreciate it greatly. Well, you're welcome. And just to say housing first is still going to be a part of the funding, but it's not going to be, it'll be like one third of funding can go to housing first.

We're not shutting it down entirely. But the federal government is now prioritizing, like I said, transitional programs with treatment for those diseases that often accompany homelessness. That is good to know. Michelle Steve once again, the CEO of FreeUp Foundation, freeupfoundation.com. We'll get all your other information up there too. Thanks so much for the talk. Appreciate the update. Thank you so much.

All right. This is KMED and KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants, pass. Transulator K-294A.S. Ashland, K290AF Rogue River. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack in that situation when it comes to the homelessness. And happy to take your calls on the Bill of Meyer show, 10 after 8.