Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Secret Society Of Homeless People...

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

The Secret Society Of Homeless People...

is that the homeless have readily admitted to me that we are the judge, juries, and executioners in encampments because they've kind of been left alone to create their own community. You leave them to their own devices, and they're in the middle of nowhere. Eventually, they're going to create their own community with their own rules. This is why every encampment has a mayor. You know, most encampments have a homeless mayor that's in charge of everybody. I've personally been taken to grave sites in the middle of the woods where they showed me where the bodies are buried. If we were ever to do some kind of infrared thing throughout the country where there's homeless encampments, where you can kind of tell if there's been holes dug, you're going to find people buried everywhere, especially in the deep woods.

Hey, this is Matt Cox. I'm here with Kevin Dahlgren. He is a homeless consultant, and he's got some interesting stories regarding homeless issues, and it's going to be an interesting video. Check it out. So I watched that video you sent me. What, like, I mean, I know we texted about it, but what happened in the video? oh are you and remind me which video i know i sent you a few was it the uh the one where i was

attacked or was the short documentary i made with tyler olivera no no this was a this was you had been talking to like a homeless guy and then a bunch of guys in coats came and just started beating on it oh oh right uh that happened in evanston illinois which is a suburb or chicago and i was there assessing their homeless situation not two months ago. And I was sitting with a homeless guy, a senior citizen, who then got up and walked towards his bike to do something. And I heard some commotion and turned around. And he was having some words with these city employees, these contracted city employees. And really quickly, I saw it. So I kind of turned on my camera thinking something bad is about to happen and then what I sent you was this one minute, 11 second clip of these five city employees beating the hell out of this guy. And it wasn't like it was some mutual combat thing. They had thrown him to the ground, stood around him and just kicked him in the head. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't even believe it. And the whole time they're doing this, they were being very threatening and stuff. So anyway,

I was shocked, but of course, after this happened, everyone basically said, well, Kevin, this is Chicago and this is, this is just normal. And even when the police arrived, they weren't overly enthusiastic to take my report of what I had witnessed or filmed because they just said, you know, this is kind of a common occurrence. I said, well, these are city employees, not, not, not okay. no one should be on the ground and just, you know, getting their head kicked in. The guy had been there, and it's no fun. I don't know. They said that he possibly was trying to urinate in a corner or something. I didn't see that.

All I know is that they had words. And honestly, it doesn't matter what the words are. And it doesn't even matter if this guy started it with words. We are trained professionals to de-escalate and not get. triggered and keep the emotion out of it. So when I work with, say, a homeless person and they're just like, hey, Kevin, F you, or I'm going to da-da-da-da, it's not like I get heated and say, oh, yeah, because what is that going to solve, right?

You have to be professional. They were not professional. So I could, you know, basically this was a group of people that were very poorly trained. So, how often do you see stuff like that? the violence I witnessed daily all over anywhere I go because I go in the accountants it's very very common you know there's street justice is very common on the streets I was in Bend Oregon a couple weeks ago which is a beautiful city in southern Oregon and I was in the dispute forest where there

there's maybe three, 400 homeless people. And I was talking to a lady. And she was camping next to a road called China Hat, which goes directly through this forest. And I just simply, you know, we were talking in, and I asked her about what's it like living on her and stuff? And she said, well, what happens in China Hat stay six feet under in China Hat? And what she's saying is, and this is a very common thing to hear,

is that the homeless have readily admitted to me that we are the judge, juries and executioners in encampments because they've kind of been left alone to create their own community. Kind of like Lord of the Flies in a way, you know, when there's no other supervision, that's going to happen. And some encampments work, others don't. But like she was blunt because she's been living this for years and, you know, she freely admits this is just the way it is. And this is why I take this job so seriously, this, you know, this, this effort is I don't believe a homeless person will ever truly get their needs met on the street. And we can't also allow them to do things like this because everyone deserves to be treated respectfully and to at least have their day in court. and you know people getting beating up and murdered and all that other stuff is completely

unacceptable you know i again i don't know the backstories of what you know why a lot of these people ended up like this but i don't think that matters what matters is this is not normal behavior and something this is inevitable when a community does nothing to end this homeless crisis you know when you leave them alone you leave them to their own devices and they're in the middle of nowhere, eventually they're going to create their own community with their own rules. This is why every encampment has a mayor. You know, most encampments have a homeless mayor that's in charge of everybody. And not in charge, like they tell them what to do, but they're sort of like the senior respected figure of the area that ultimately makes

decisions on the direction the camp, the encampment's going to go, or even sometimes the fate of the person who they think crossed the line and so i've met yeah or go ahead well i've just you know i've met dozens and dozens of mayors and they're all basically the same it's people who have been homeless the longest who usually hold on to the who have the most respect of the people around them um so how did you get into this like where were you where were you uh born raised you know like i'm it's a good question i'm i'm 52 years old And in the early 1990s, my little brother ended up on the streets of Portland, Oregon, with a meth addiction. And I knew nothing about drugs.

I mean, you know, I dabbled with smoking pot when I was a kid and stuff, but nothing major, not like it is these days. So we ended up on the streets. I was in my first year of college, not really sure in what I want to do with my life. So it was like 22, 21, 22. you. Anyway, once he called me from the streets and I was like, oh my God, my little brother's on the streets. I invited him into my studio apartment and he lived with me for about a year and recovered and stuff. And I was very inspired by that moment of like, wow, I was able to help somebody. And then I started really paying attention to other homeless and realizing

what happens when you don't have family support because he got lucky. He had me. He had my other brother who even though at the time we were too happy with him for some certain reasons because he was you know causing some problems and that's fine just he was just young and angry we also he had the he still had that family support to help him

so I started obsessively trying to understand the rest of the homeless population what happens a homeless person without that support well guess what they stay homeless because the system wasn't really built to actually really get anybody off the streets, I noticed. And that was a rude awakening for me because when I entered the field, I thought I was going to be surrounded by people who woke up every day,

ready to change the world. And mostly, you know, what I found was a high percentage people I worked with were doing it because it was a job. And that, to me, was a very backwards way looking at it because I've always thought of what we do in homeless services or addiction should be a cause, not a job. Cause meaning, you know, we should treat this like a crisis it is, not a job, and also have the belief that we can end this crisis.

So I entered the field professionally in the, you know, early 90s after my brother got off the streets, went, you know, went back to school, kind of studied all the right things. I needed to study to have that piece of paper to get my foot in the door in various places and then worked in that system for about 29 years and only just recently left it. And while I think there's still good people working in this system, I've been very critical of this system that once felt like a cause in the 90s became this multi-billion dollar industry. And it's something I've been very vocal about is it's of highly, highly profitable industry.

And the fact is the longer the people stay. on the streets, the more money people get. And I am very unhappy that it's become this way. So I've been very much, very vocal about this problem and trying to get people to think differently about it and get people to start treating it like the crisis it is, which we definitely are not doing today. So what do you typically, like, what is your typical, I hate to say day, because obviously this is probably not a typical day but what's your typical month like um you know like

what do you do for organizations what do you do when you go out to these places like like how are you making a living well i am currently i'm not i am i am very boots on the ground i am a strong believer if you want to understand a problem you go to the problem you immerse yourself You spend time, right? I absolutely hate all these, you know, so-called professionals that write books on homelessness and addiction that have no firsthand experience. It's not like you have to necessarily have been homeless or been an addict, but you need to also devote your life to being around it and immerse yourself to understand that population. And it's almost non-existent.

So every day, every day, I'm in some. some encampment somewhere interviewing the homeless and I've been doing this to try to then share with anyone who's willing to listen what the homeless think and what's actually going on because they've never really been given a voice. So I have started doing homeless consulting so I have been traveling a bit to different cities, you know, counties, communities that are interested and talking to me about kind of what works and what doesn't. You know, and so, like, for example, I'm a big believer in the ground, not just for me, but for anybody who wants to end this crisis. We're not going to end it by building multi-million dollar buildings, right?

We're going to end it by doing the outreach and building that trust, building that rapport, bringing back that hope. That is like step one in the most important step, but the step that isn't really utilized at all. It's so, for example, I interviewed just this year alone about 150 homeless people just in Portland, Oregon, which is my hometown, and 90% told me I'm the first outreach worker to ever approach them. I mean, that's insane. So even if you don't work in homeless services, you have to assume, right, that at least there's outreach going out there and talking with them and working with them. it's not really happening and that doesn't make any sense and so i've been very much pushing for people to rethink what we're spending our money on and maybe diverting funds towards the actual outreach because that is that is where we learn the problem and that is where we're going to

kind of save the lives is once we understand it well if nobody's going out and actually talking with these guys and figuring out you know how to you know you know help with their problems to get them back, you know, in this acclimated back into society, then where's the money going that is dumped into this problem? Well, a lot of it is weighted on studies, research,

the housing first model, which is really, that's where billions of it is spent on brand new apartment buildings, where they will place the homeless, but they will place them without any sort of expectations or responsibility. So imagine, you know, you work for an agency and a person who's actively using fentanyl, which is terrible, I'm a jrugging-a-all counselor, and that's the worst thing I've ever seen, right? So anyway, he shows up and said, I want housing.

Great. So what they do is they will put him into a fully furnished, apartment without any requirements of getting sober, going on meds, getting a job, following any type of rules, anything. It's just literally a low barrier. We have housed you. Now, you do this thousands and thousands of time. To the people who aren't in the field, you're going to see a noticeable difference. You're going to see the sidewalks emptied, right? Because people sometimes want that. The problem is, is we're not solving the problem. We're hiding the problem. because we're not helping these individuals recover.

We're simply placing them in these very expensive buildings, which by the way, they don't pay rent for it for life. We as taxpayers continue to pay it. I'm a big believer in empowering an individual to the point where they become self-sufficient, which I believe is the case, that can happen 75% of the time. So what is the, what's the majority of the problem? Like, is it drugs or is it mental?

illness or is it a common combination? It's a combination. In almost every community within the United States, I would say about 80% of every homeless person has addiction issues. And about 70% have mental health issues. And of that group, about 90% have experienced childhood trauma. It's very, very common. You sit with a homeless person. And once they build that trust, a high percentage of the time, nine times out of ten, they're going to bring up something when there were five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. That was traumatic, right?

And it fundamentally affected him. And it's something we're not really talking about, but I've been talking to thousands of homeless over the last few decades. And it's a reoccurring theme about a challenge because nobody really chooses to go to the streets. Yes, there's going to be those rare. occasions where a person just likes the party and do that, but for the most part, for the most part, I've never met an addict that says, I love being an addict. They may say I love being high because, guess what? Being, getting high feels good because of the dopamine. It's no different

than drinking three glasses of wine, right? So there's a difference. You can feel good, but it doesn't mean they're okay with it. It just means they're doing it because they're trying to fill a void. And that void is usually the trauma. So again, it's a co-occurring disorder where there's a lot of mental illness and chemical dependency and one just feeds into the other. And this is something we really need to talk about openly rather than saying that all homeless people are on the streets due to, say, affordable housing issues. And while that certainly is a small piece, it's not the big piece.

But that seems to be the narrative is that most homeless are only there due to external stressors, not internal stressors, like the mental illness and the chemical dependency. External meaning, I got in a tight spot and I can't pay my rent. And while that certainly is the case, in many cases, it's just not the most common reason. Buried by the U.S. government and ignored by the national media, this is the story they don't want you to know. When Frank Amadeo met with President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss NATO operations in Afghanistan,

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It's insanity, the bizarre, true story of a bipolar megalomaniac's insane plan for total world domination. Available now on Amazon and audible. Yeah, I was going to say, I actually have a buddy that has continually relapsed. And if it weren't for his family, you know, and friends, just, I mean, literally, it's like, there have been times he's definitely been homeless, like, but very briefly, you know, when I say, I mean, like, sleeping in his car, sleeping behind a 7-Eleven. But, you know, they, he gets into a program, goes to the, goes to the Red Cross or, wait, what do they call it? The Salvation Army or what's the other one? Goodwill or they've got just different programs.

And he's even been there where he stayed for like 18 months where they gave him a job and he stayed there and actually kind of worked there. And then he got out and he just as he gets older. And I've known this guy my whole life. I mean, there have been times when he, and it's all addiction. There have been times when he went years, did great for three, four, five years. and then relapse. And I notice that as he's getting older, it's getting worse.

Like he can't, you know, those times of sobriety are getting, that gap is going from, you know, five years to four to three to, well, you know what I'm saying? It down to the point where it's like he'll get sober for on his own a few months. In a program, maybe 90 days, you know, six months, Oh, you know, maybe six months. As soon as he's off on his own, got a job back on his feet, he didn't last a month or two. And, and, yeah, I don't, I don't know what it is.

And, I know, I've, I've definitely had some, some interactions with homeless people in it. And to me, it always seemed like mental illness. But in his case, it's not mental illness. It's, it's addiction. I just wonder, you know, I wonder what the, problem is because I've been to, so I've been to L.A. twice in the last couple of years and I've been to San Francisco in the last few years. And it's horrible. You know, the inner cities. A lot of these major cities have decriminalized drugs. Right. And while your friend is in desperate need of intervention, a lot of these cities have a strong belief that he should have that right to use. And how dare us try to stop him? Because it's called bodily autonomy, which is a more progressive way of thinking about things, that a person should have a right to do whatever they want and how dare we suggest otherwise.

And that's why we're kind of in this crisis too is because there's a strong, strong social justice philosophy about why a person is homeless or is using. and that's what kind of makes my job very challenging. So I don't know what city of your friend lives in, but I think there's a very good chance. He lives in a community that strongly supports the decriminalization of drugs. No, he lives in Tampa. That's not what's happening. I mean, he's...

Okay, so in that, so he's East Coast. Well, because I'm the West Coast guy, so Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, San Diego. That's a very big piece of it. So it could be in his community, he's not simply supported in the right way, or maybe he's just not ready to accept the help either. No, I think it's the combination of those two things. I think one, it's he's not ready. He gets ready.

He knows what, first of all, he knows what to say to get help. He's got the system down. And he's got family that just keeps pulling him up, pulling him up, pulling him up, pulling him up, no matter what. And, you know, the few times that, you know, we've spoken, I've been like, you know, don't help him. let him be homeless let him let him let him hit bottom he he knows what to say to get you to help him and he will clean up for a few weeks or a month or two and he'll go right back to it like that is the advice that give family and you are spot on matt because the fact is it's difficult but sometimes you have to let the person hit bottom because of a family

will always take care of them and then they continue the same behavior year after you or every year, you're not really doing any good. You know, they have to sometimes get cut off. And of course, then there's the fear of like, well, what if he dies? Well, he's dying anyway. I hear that all the line anyway. And you need to know that. And it sounds harsh, but sometimes the person has to hit bottom.

I mean, I have talked to countless family members where they now like, and I'm talking, these are people now in their 80s and 90s saying, And my 60-year-old son has been, you know, I've been taking care of in my entire life or 70-year-old son. I'm like, oh, my God, it's time to just say no. And she's like, but I'm scared he's going to die. I'm like, yeah, but you have barely kept him alive his entire life. And he knows every single time he makes a mistake, you can always come back to you. And you know what this has done?

This is taking your life away is what it's done. She spent her entire life worrying about her kids. And this is very common. I try to advise parents like, look, tough love is sometimes the best type of love, right? Because when do you say that? Yeah. Because I've said that many, many times, like, you know, you don't understand tough love. That's the problem.

You know, it's funny about his sister, because his dad's just done with him, his sister, I, you know, she is very big on what if he dies? I'd never forgive myself. And I'm like, let me explain something. I'm like, you've got two kids. An elderly father. I said, listen, you can only save so many people. I said, and sometimes it's a matter of just, it's triage. You know, sure, if you could dedicate him, but are you going to put him before you put your two kids?

Your elderly father who's been there for you, your entire life. Like, at this point, it's sink or swim. And this guy, you know, I mean, you're doing more damage. I said, you're doing more damage by helping him at this point. Yep. And this is the thing, too. Like, he's been in and out of program. He's been to rehab over and over.

He's been in the Salvation Army multiple times. Like, it's, and I even told her, I said, I said, look, I would have some sympathy if it was mental illness. But it's not. It's addiction. And the fact is, if he has been doing this for this many years, this is manipulation. Oh, yeah, he's good. He's good at it. He knows exactly what he's doing because he's, you know, he's pulling their hearts.

strings and it's effective. And I will tell sometimes tell the family, like, you are being manipulated. And this is what an addict will do. And they need to sometimes just, you know, take, you know, get serious, accept the tough love and do what's necessary. And it's a shame that she doesn't see that. And I understand why, because the love is attached. That's why sometimes it's easier for me to do my job because when I'm working with a person and this is my client, this is the family member. And I can very bluntly say, you're manipulating their mom, right? And mom, you need to stop, right? Because it's easy for me to do, but I'm trying to help both of them. You know, I mean, it's, I'm doing it because I see how they're basically, it becomes

extremely codependent. It's an extreme codependent relationship. And that is a problem. And it just, it hasn't done any good for them. I mean, I have personal experience with my family where, you know, we basically, you know, took care of our uncle till he drank himself to death when he was 59 years old. And his entire life, you know, the family continuously kind of bailed him out. And, you know, and so I loved my uncle, but I just always, I didn't, I never respected him. Because I just, even when I was 12, 13 years old, I just, saw like come on right and so he ended up dying when i was in my maybe late 30s but it's just was so frustrating to see the family and some of the family you know we're like now i'm done

but the rest of ones would just take care of him over and over and over again right and it's a very common thing to do but you know what it never helped him it never never helped him because ultimately at the end he ended up drinking himself to death and when we found him He was just completely naked, lying in a pile of trash. And it's sad. But that is the reality. And so tough love is sometimes the best thing you can do for a person. Yeah.

I was, yeah, the manipulation is it's funny. It's funny too because like, he is such a nice guy. Like I, you know, some of these guys are so, they're such nice guys, which is make, you know, it's even harder. It's like, you look, he is a nice guy. He's also a guy that's manipulative. and, you know, he's got, you know, major issues and he's bringing you down and he's depressed. And it's so, I wonder what the, with the exception of building a massive project, housing these people, which all, which you're saying, you know, isn't the solution. Like, and you're saying outreach is the solution.

You think 75% of the time you could probably, what, reacclimate them back into society. So not only that, but make himself sufficient. Right. With something, would you, would you, would you say, would you say get them into, uh, um, addiction or, you know, programs and then, and, and then what have some kind of a, a social worker that keeps an eye on them for several years? Absolutely. It's not like they're going to do it on their own. It's not like I'm saying, you know, pull up your own pants and just get a job, right? It's not that easy. They need a lot of support. These are very complex individuals. But by empowering them to reach their full's potential, to give them the opportunity to succeed and working with them every single day, they can become self-sufficient. And if you do this, you no longer need those apartments and all the other things because the system has basically sent the message is that the homeless don't know how to take care of themselves. They're unable to ever recover.

We need to take care of them for life. And I disagree because I have worked with hundreds of people that when I first met them, they were the biggest hot mess you've ever seen, right? I mean, like screaming in the middle of traffic in their underwear. And now they have jobs and are thriving and doing really well. They just had reached terrible low points in their life. And it's our job is to find that small piece of humanity still left in them and help them grow again. and that's what they're that's the difference between enabling and empowering we have to empower these people what we've done instead is we've enabled the homeless to the point of dependency

where now it's not that they want the food they now need the food they're waiting for us to feed them they're waiting for us to take care of them they're waiting for us to house them and it's no different than this the friend that says I'm waiting for my family to take care of me over and over and over again and he's going to be completely okay with this to the day he dies if something doesn't change you should show your uh show your friends this video after we after this after we talk oh listen i've talked to this guy until he's blue in the face and he's so good he's like you know i know you're right you're right it's like stop stop it don't do that to me well you got Matt i mean i watch you you got a BS meter you see you're like Matt you're like Matt

I think I'm like you know just stop not doing the whole telling me exactly what I want to hear what I was going to say do you ever do you ever watch soft white underbelly uh yes mark later

yeah yeah yeah I like yeah sorry that yeah go on I love that stuff no no I was going to say he's he's amazing and you know have you ever seen the videos of him walking through because I did an episode with him. Yeah, I was interviewed by him. And, you know, prior to going out to L.A. And, and, and meeting him, I had watched several of the episodes. Some of them I, I just can't watch. You know, my, my wife will

watch 10 of them in a row. Can't get enough. And I'm like, it's, I can't watch them. It's depressing. It's, you know, and she just can't get enough of watching these things. And I, I, I just can't. But I had watched several, and what was so funny about that is I remember listening to these people's stories and every once in a while you could hear like sirens or someone in the background screaming or cars, you know, screeching. And then I went out to L.A. and he picked me up and I, we drove to Skid Row because that's where his, his studio is. I had no idea. Like, I thought he, I remember watching it. I remember thinking, oh, he throws in sound effects. You know, no, no.

Just outside the door are people fighting and screaming and sirens and everything. And if you see him walk through, I mean, he's gone through hell. Just doing the videos and, you know, being down there, he's been robbed multiple times. he's invested in many, many of the people that he's, that have come to him and pled for help. He's put him in, in a hotel rooms and apartments. He's, you know, some of them have just, I'm not going to say, let him dry, but, you know, they have just milked him for money until he finally just gives up on him. And he's like, yeah, it's definitely a situation where you're right, you can't just throw money at the problem. and you know why because of money with a solution we would have solved it by now right

important to remember that we have spent billions of dollars yet the crisis grows every year so i and by the way and that to me is always the red flag anyone who doesn't work in social services and it's watching this anytime you hear an elected official we just need more money nope that means they either don't understand the problem or they do understand the problem and realized we're going to continue to ask for money because we're not really there to fix it. So stop talking about the money. You know, we have a lot. You think the funds are there.

They just need to be reallocated. Oh, yeah. I truly believe that. Yes, maybe up front if like say miraculously the government said, this is a crisis we need to fix us today. If that's the case, we need 10 times as many detox facilities. we need 10 times as many recovery, mental health, all that stuff. Up front, yes, if somehow we all came together in this magical moment and said,

we're going to get everyone off the streets. Up front, that's going to be very expensive the first year or two. But if you treat it like a crisis, that crisis will end. And after that two plus year period, guess what? Nobody's on the streets anymore. Everybody recovered. And then all we have to focus on now is retention and prevention. make sure people never return to the streets again and prevent them doing so.

So yes, I do think we have enough money right now. So you realize like prisons are just filled with people with mental illness. I've actually anybody who's ever watched this, you know, my, you know, my interviews has probably heard me talk about the multiple guys with mental problem. Matter of fact, in Coleman, in the facility I was at Coleman, so they have, they have 12 units. There's like three buildings and four units in each building. So there's 12th. They have a one unit that's got over 150 guys in it that just have mental problems. So, you know, that's, that's, you know, one 12th of that population that, listen, a ton of other people do, but they're functional.

You can be functional, have mental illness in prison and be functional. you're told what to do, where to go. Other inmates will help kind of maneuver you, you know. Hey, you got to get to your cell. Hey, you got to do this. Hey, you got to, you know, they'll kind of help structure your day. But some of the guys are just so unstructured. And I, I remember, I mean, there's multiple stories, but this one inmate, they called

them Mr. Freeze. He had narcolepsy, extreme narcolepsy. And he had gotten him. he was addicted to like a I want to say crack cocaine and he ended up in state prison and there was in Florida in state prison it's very hot and there's no air air conditioning they just have fans so he he hated it and he told his cellies he wanted you know he hated it there they said he said I don't know why they don't have air conditioning and his cellies were like oh you want to go to federal prison they have air conditioning you should

get yourself moved to federal I mean just messing with them you have to commit a federal crime he said and they'll move you to a federal prison which isn't necessarily the case and so he writes a letter to president bush and threatening to kill him you know kill him his whole family i remember he said he wanted he was going to rape the dog um and i remember thinking that that was a nice touch um you know you know just it's bizarre the guy was just a mint a complete mental case i mean there was no way you could have a conversation and not know there's a serious problem. Well, the Secret Service, they come and they question him.

They indict him. He's brought to federal court. He's given, I think, I want to say seven years or something for writing a letter about killing the president that he couldn't possibly, even if it was really his intent. And they knew what his intent was. I think the judge had even said, I understand what's happening here and what you were going for, but it is illegal, blah, blah, blah.

Even if he had was able, even if that was his intent, this guy couldn't get himself to Washington. He couldn't get himself a gun. He couldn't have pulled off anything that he said in that letter. They still gave him six or seven years and he ended up in federal prison

after he did his state sentence. And he was, was in this unit and you know like that like it seems like to me prisons are are the the the mental wards that no longer really exists for these people like the system just wants to throw them away and you know i mean granted it's not as bad as you know nazi germany where they're just executing them but instead you're just locking them up forever like they're not helping these guys although except it's very profitable to do so you know the homeless industrial complex benefits from a homeless person the prison industrial

complex benefits from people in prison right right and i hate to say that but it's like it's true and for me because i i get threatened all the time right it's like i mean i'm sorry mr president give me a break six seven years that's insane we're a mentally ill person writing a stupid ass letter i mean that just bothers me it's like we all know it was a mental health thing that person should be in every treatment not being in not in prison it's not like he's going to get any better I mean again I get I agree that doesn't make any sense but where do you send them where well that's that's that's the problem is a lot of our so example for him if he's severely mental illness ill a lot of these state hospitals shut down and so where do you think they went they went to the

streets right so I live in Oregon Oregon is ranked last place in America last when it comes to mental health treatment. We are last. So that makes it very challenging for me because we have a serious amount of mental ill people on our streets. But you ask you a good question is divert the funds towards treatment and mental health services. Yeah, I was going to say like here,

like probably the most you're going to get here for, I don't think there's any place that they really can lock them down and give them treatment for a certain period of time. Mostly you just get locked up for like your baker acted. I don't know if what they call it in Oregon, but it's either they'll Marchman act them or Baker acting them. And Baker acting is like it's drug, no, now that's mental illness.

Marchman acted, I think, is drug addiction. If they're afraid you'll harm yourself as a result of drugs. I think I'm or I might have them confused anyway yeah you get locked up for three days and then they release you even though they know you've got an issue until eventually you commit a crime that they can lock you up throw you in prison then you're in prison supposedly you're going to get you're going to get counseling in prison well I shouldn't say you might get some counseling you know but the doctors are listen nobody ends up at the top of their field and ends up working for a prison these doctors The doctors that are there are just, they're just trying to collect their check and go home. They're not really trying. I believe that. To do anything. Although they do have a drug program in federal prison.

They have them in state prisons too. And most of them are based kind of on the federal system. They have one in federal prison. It's called an ARDAP. And it really has very little to do with drugs at all. It's really about behavior modification as far as, like, you know, criminal thinking is concerned. And it's actually a really good program. And pretty much, I'd say, out of the five people that run the one in Coleman, I would say four of them were really seriously dedicated.

There was one guy who you could just, he's like, he just wanted to get his check and go home. He was like, fill out the paperwork. I'll grade the books. Let's have a talk. Okay, everything's fun. Let's move on. He just wanted to go home. But the other doctors are, and they call them drug treatment specialists, even though you never really talked about drugs.

They genuinely wanted to be there. So that was actually a good program. I just don't know why. And I get what you're saying about, you know, the prison, prisons, you know, profiting. It just seems to me it costs so much money to incarcerate someone. And it really, in comparison, it costs so little money to treat someone for drug addiction and mental illness, where that's something that's correctable. I mean, let's face it.

It is. Incarceration, you get out, you're good for a couple of years, maybe, and you go right back to prison. It's just a complete cycle over and over and over again. where if you kept these guys on if you did give them someone that could keep tabs on them you know just like they do in federal prison and most state prisons you'll do a sentence of five or ten years and then you have several years of supervised release

you know or probation where you have a probation officer and they kind of keep an eye on you and where are you working and what are you doing and who are you living with and who are you hanging out with and so after several years of that you become so acclimated to behaving correctly you have a better chance you know maybe not a great chance

but a better chance of acclimating back into society as a decent citizen so yeah I don't know well our society you know we're very big on the the Band-Aid solutions we wait for it to happen rather than getting to like say the root causes or

you know it's the Band-Aid yeah you're reacting so what it is were reactive, not proactive, exactly. And we need to be more proactive. And there's certainly some people out there really trying. I had a good friend who served, you know, on and off, 15 years in prison, but his last prison stand, he finally met this person who really changed his life. And he had a history of addiction stuff and basically completely changed the way his

outlook and I'm 100% confident he'll never return to prison because this person changed him but he went in and out in and out in and out ever since I was 18 years old right and I spent thousands of dollars talking to this guy on the phone because prisons love to charge money for those damn

phones I couldn't even believe what else me to charge them like can you just charge me a quarter it was like $30 a call or something and this was I was poor so I spent thousands talking to this guy over a decade anyway so he met the he rent the person he's thriving now so there are some systems that work and you got to when a

program works duplicate it right talk about it and duplicate it because that's how that's how we're going to fix the system what what is going to happen and is is organ as bad as california for homeless it's very close I've done a lot of outreach in San Francisco but I would still say possibly or California is still worse because I was recently in San Diego and it's something we're not really talking about much

but I was there with my friend and colleague Kate Monroe and I was talking about how everything's a crisis crisis crisis I say it a lot you know and she paused for a moment she says you know what Kevin this is not a crisis

this is malicious neglect and I'm like oh my God she's so right because we had given the government many opportunities to fix this and so I walked around with her and I realized she's absolutely right this is now malicious

neglect because we gave these people decades to solve this and it's still bad. It's always blown away when she said that. It's very, you know, now she's been doing a lot of media and stuff, and she's a local leader there, Kate Monroe, and I'm very impressed with her. So, but that really made me realize that we need to start kind of going on the attack

and talking about, you know, who has failed this, you know, how have we failed these people because we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. So yeah, California is quite bad. Portland, Oregon, you know, Bent, Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, Salem, terrible homeless problem. But I think per capita, California is still probably still number one. I believe Oregon's number two. What's going to happen when, I mean, there's so many people leaving California. There's so many businesses that are leaving. They've got a deficit. Like, what's going to happen when they, they keep pushing these progressive programs that aren't helping and now their tax base is leaving like it's affecting the the people

that live there they don't want to live there anymore then people need to vote differently don't they yeah and i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not political but i'm saying vote the candidate not the party vote the candidate that has great idea to solve this crisis and to save their community and whatever political party they're affiliated with it doesn't matter because if they care deeply about the community, that's the person to vote for. I'm an independent, and so I vote candidate and not party always.

But I will also say, you know, these progressive policies are destroying our cities, right? And that's not okay. So what about the documentary? Well, I work. on this really great

just 18 minute piece on Portland, Oregon homelessness and addiction with Tyler Olivera who does a lot of great YouTube videos and it's, we only did this a couple of weeks ago

and it's gotten a lot of attention. I think it's at just under 6 million views in four days now. I haven't seen this because you didn't send this to me. Yeah, I forgot what I sang you,

but when I'll do this right after we talk, I'll text it to you and, you know, if you want, post the link in what we're doing here. Yeah, I'll watch it. We'll post the link in the,

in the description. But it's, it's wild. And what's crazy is we did this over one day. Because you know what? Every day is a documentary. You go out to these camps and no matter what, you're going to see something crazy.

And, you know, we talk to a lot of people on the streets and addiction and really just, you know like so for example in the first 10 minutes of us even out there a guy pulls a knife on us and chases us that we filmed and it's like you can't really make this stuff up it's like what the heck now because i had you know the small camera crew with me and they're not really used to be in that kind of situation i was like well let's just walk away but the guy kept pursuing us and i got a a little frustrated, so I just basically stopped and walked up to him and stood my ground and just said, stop. He's like, I've been here longer than you. You don't get to do this.

And he walked away, but I'm like, I was frustrated because I'm like, look, that's not going to solve anything, right? And by the way, I had done outreach in that encampment hundreds of times in a year and a half. And so everyone knew me. And this was a new guy who sort of just took over, who clearly was a little more. violent and i was not happy with that i'm like you don't how dare you pull a knife on anybody that is not okay it's just like come on so i was i was pretty frustrated but you know we eventually left and did our did the rest of the day but it's a pretty cool video so is there a lot of violence

or murders among the homeless it's or just violence i mean murders happen that there's a lot of violence, it's street justice. Right. You know, it's hard to prove a murder because, for example, fentanyl, back in the day, when I worked at homeless shelters, if a homeless person wanted to off another homeless person, they would inject them with heroin. And then they would die of an OD, right? Now these days, it's fentanyl because fentanyl is 10 times easier because

I can even share with you I had a client just a couple months ago who was completely sober and had zero interest in drug years someone put fentanyl powder in his drink and he died 20 minutes later and

do the police even look into it? They don't because think about it a homeless junkie I mean it's just like of course it's a what they call it is not of a suicide, it's accidental overdose. Now, I come across people overdosing every single day. So I carry

with me Narcan, which is the opioid blocker because fentanyl has basically replaced all other drugs. But murders, I wouldn't say are common, but are not also uncommon. They're going to happen. You know, I mean, but, you know, my question is like when you find a person who's overdosed and died, we don't know how they ended up that situation, because the fact is on the streets, there's a lot of infighting, there's a lot of drama, and there's almost no law and order. So these things kind of happen sometimes. I've personally been taken to gravesites in the middle of the woods in Portland, Oregon, where they showed me where, you know, the bodies are buried.

it's like you know it usually it's in the deep deep woods you know but it's not like they're always killed some died of natural causes and they decided to bury them in the woods because that's where they live so it's just hard to tell but i mean if we were ever to like do some kind of infrared thing throughout the country where there's homeless encampments where you can type kind of tell if dirt if there's been holes dug you're gonna find people buried everywhere you know especially in the deep woods. But yeah, it's just a tragedy. And this is why I'm really, you know, set on trying to end this crisis because this is the stuff that will continue to happen until we do something. Okay. Do you want, like, is there anything that people that watch this? Like, you want them to

go to any links or anything like that in the description? Well, and I appreciate that, Matt. I do have a website, Truth on the Streets.org. Okay. And also that's, you know, I have a good, I do a lot of tweeting where I interview the homeless and talk about the crisis and I've been doing this for a couple years. And that's just my name, Kevin Dahlgren. And you can find me pretty easily in there. And of course, I write for substack, which is an opportunity where I can write articles and share my 28 years working. the system and kind of what I thought works and doesn't work. But I can send you all the

links and stuff, Matt. And thank you for asking. Yeah. Well, I, I appreciate you, you know, talking with me. This is great. I follow you. I listen to you. So this is a pleasure for me. That's funny. I appreciate that. I was like, whoa. I was, I had to actually do it double. I was like, is there another Matthew Cox? I couldn't believe it was you. I was like, And I had to actually Google thinking, well, I don't want to get excited because I wasn't sure. And I'm like, because I love watching podcasts. So I thought that's really cool, brother. Well, yeah, I appreciate that.

Tyler, you talk to Tyler. He's always suggesting, you know, different people. And I mean, I keep telling him, you know, true crime, true crime, true crime. You know, that's what I need to stick with true crime. But, you know, we spoke and they seemed interesting in that, you know, that clip. Honestly, I'm surprised you haven't been harmed at this point going in and out of those places. Well, I've been harmed multiple times. I've been, you know, I still have the bruising of my brain bruising.

I was in San Diego a few weeks ago and got beaten down really hard. And I filmed the entire thing. And it was brutal. I got kicked in the head. I've been stabbed twice. I've been attacked multiple times. I'm just kind of resilient. But, you know, these things happen. Now, of course, the guy who attacked me, he was mad because I was filming him, but I was only doing it because he was beating up another guy. And I went over there in a very respectful way, he said, please stop. Just stop, right? Because nobody else was doing anything. And this guy was weaker than him. And he was just, this guy ended up

getting hospitalized for a week, right? So, I, just said please stop and i'm filming it and this the victim was like oh thank you and kind of stumbled away and then this guy who was all thoroughly pumped walked right up to me and just said boom and then i i stood back up punched me a second time i stood back up he punched me a third time knocked me down and then got and kicked me now i don't live in san diego i didn't know everybody there so i also knew it wasn't wise at that moment to fight back because i don't know if he had something else on him or who his friends were because there was good 30 people there. So sometimes you have to sometimes just know when not to duck, you know, and when to take a

punch. And so it wasn't like it was the way I painted is, I got off lucky because guess what? I got to go home. I got off lucky because I was just punched a few times and I'm recovering. But what about the people out there in the streets every day getting raped, getting murdered, getting beat up daily every single day that's what we got to be talking about so i i'm not i'm definitely not the victim i definitely got hit and getting hit is no fun it's painful but i got to go home they don't because the system isn't really set up to really help them in any

real way so that's all i want to say about that okay uh do you have any do you have that video Yes. Oh, it's in, actually, it's in that 18-minute documentary. So you'll watch it. I'll send you the link here in a minute, okay? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, perfect, perfect.

And share it. It's really cool. All right. Absolutely. Hey, thank you guys for watching the video. Do me a favor if you like the video, subscribe to the channel, hit the bell so you get notified. Leave a comment. And I'm going to leave all of Kevin's links in the video.

the description, including the link for the 18-minute documentary, his social media links. And so, yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. See you.