We're Out of Time - The TRUTH About America's Homeless Crisis Revealed With Ken Craft

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

In this episode of We're Out Of Time with  @RichardTaiteOfficial  he sits down with Ken Craft for an eye-opening discussion about America's homeless crisis. Learn about the harsh realities of addiction, hunger, and poverty faced by those living on the streets. Gain a new perspective on how we can all work together to make a difference. Ken Craft is the founder and current Chief Executive Officer of Hope the Mission. Since 2009, when Ken served Hope’s first meal to the homeless of the San Fernando Valley, Ken has been a visionary leader. His compassion for those living in poverty has led Hope’s regional expansion beyond the San Fernando Valley to San Bernardino, Victorville, Bakersfield, and beyond. Under his leadership, the organization has become a leading provider of housing and homeless services in the state of California. Ken is considered one of the leading practitioners in homeless services and is a highly sought-after speaker in faith communities and conferences on issues of housing and poverty. “The streets cannot be the waiting room for permanent housing” – Ken Craft For all things Richard Taite, the We're Out Of Time podcast, and Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa: https://linktr.ee/richardtaite For more information on Ken Craft and Hope The Mission: https://hopethemission.org/ Key moments from this conversation Intro 00:00 What is Richard most concerned about as it relates to the homeless crisis? 00:00:20 What have the Mission The Hope team and Ken been able to achieve to help the homeless crisis and what are the biggest challenges they face? 00:01:22 How is political pressure helping cultivate solutions to the homeless crisis? 00:08:02 When does Ken state that simply bringing a homeless individual into a shelter is not enough? 00:11:30 Why was it so important for Richard to meet Ken in person and how is he looking to contribute? 00:25:00 Why isn't there more funding available to Hope The Mission? Ken explains the government's role in this. 00:32:30 How is Hope The Mission helping homeless individuals struggling with addiction issues? 00:42:29 Why does Ken state that he has learned more from his pain than pleasure? 00:45:15 What illicit street drug is hitting the homeless population rapidly? 00:57:00

Okay, hey, Ken, how you doing? I'm doing good. Good to be here. Thanks for coming, man. I really appreciate it. So let me tell you why I wanted to see you so bad. Okay. I have a girlfriend. Her name's Emily, good girlfriend of mine. And we're trying, she's booking people for the show. And she knows how I feel about the homeless. And part of the homeless crisis that I'm particularly interested in is about 75% of the people that are homeless now. drugs and alcohol. And since that's what I do, my dream is to literally pull people off the streets, put them into treatment so that we can give them a life that they can be proud of, right? Nobody needs to live that way, right? Nobody should live that way. Certainly not in a country with the greatest economy in the world. And in California in particular, with the fifth largest economy in the world.

You know, I believe that we're only as strong as our weakest link. And so that's always been my dream. Yeah. Along with treating the military, which, of course, these veterans have the same issue. So it's all interlinking. Yeah. And the reason I wanted you so bad to come and I've waited for you for so long is because I was told that you did something extraordinary. And I heard it.

And I was like, I love this man. I love them. You did these tiny homes in the valley, right? How many? Well, currently we have six tiny home sites and over 1,000 beds. Okay, I'm in love with you. I'm not even kidding. I can't even be cool about it. Okay? Tell me how that started. One of the biggest challenges that we have here in Los Angeles and other major metropolitan areas is the lack of affordable housing and also policies, unfortunately, historic policies that prevent us from creating safe spaces and places for people to come inside. And let me give me an example. In 2016, the voters of Los Angeles voted a tax measure. It was Triple H. It was, you know, $1.2 billion to create 10,000 units of housing. We all said, yes, this is awesome. The next year, we voted on another bond.

measure measure age, which was going to be $370 million for the next 10 years for all the wraparound services, the mental health, the substance use, all that. Okay, so that was 2016, 2017, 2018, then Mayor Eric Garcetti says, so how many of these sites have we opened? The answer, zero. Nothing had been done. Yep. And so he did something for which I'll eternally be grateful for him, and that is he declared a shelter emergency. And when he declared a shelter emergency, changed the landscape, it opened the door, it created a pathway that we could begin to create solutions that were scalable. Okay, now, you brought up the tiny homes. Before he declared the shelter emergency, these tiny homes were not allowed anywhere because they don't fit the mold of

your traditional R1 residential one housing because they're only 64 square feet. They don't have bathrooms or running water in them. You have 24 square feet is what? Eight by eight. That's great. It's small. It's like a bedroom. It's very small, yes. And so, but when he did that, then all of a sudden, historically, like, you know, I was constantly trying to make things happen, but the policies were that you could only open up a site in a C2 or CM commercial or commercial manufacturing.

You could only, by right, you could only have 30 beds or less. Okay. It's hard to scale a solution with that limitation. And so when he declared that now all of a sudden, we could be in C2, CM, M2, manufacturing and that 30-bed limit, it's gone. And so... You can't be in R-1? R-1, it's controversial.

You know, there's this rule that you could only have six unrelated people in R-1, but we've challenged it in court and we've won twice. Okay? And we have in one house, it's a large house like 8,000 square feet. We have 50 people that live there, but it has enough square footage in rooms to make that happen. Right. And so these tiny homes became an opportunity to do it. Hold on a second.

Sober livings all the time have 15, 20 people in a home at all time. Yes. So why couldn't you have essentially a sober living for the unhoused with just as many? I don't understand. You can. And there's been court cases that have basically reclassified what is a family. And a family is not necessarily people that have the same bloodline. It's six or less.

historically. But now there's been this expansion of that and there's court cases. Like, let's just say you have a house and you've got, you know, 15 transitional age youth. Well, they're considered a family. And so that's, that's the angle we went into the courts because the fire department tried to shut us down and building a safety, but we want. Okay. But the beauty of these tiny homes was that people would actually have their own private space to live in. And so these tiny homes are 64 square feet, but we were, able to open up the very first one on Chandler Boulevard. That's the one I drove by. Yeah. It's only, that one's our smallest one. That has 39 units. And then we open up another one right at the street that has 100 and that one has 107 units. And then we opened up another one that was 55 units.

The next one had 75 units. It's always different. So the first one we opened was actually wreck and park land of Los Angeles that was not being used. And they donated it. Yep. And so we were able to put that there. They give it to you? A land lease, a land lease.

How much is land lease? That one, it's cheap because they're not trying to make money on it. They're working with us to create solutions. So I don't even remember the amount, but it was nominal. Okay. Like the next one then was a city park. Okay, it was Alexandria Park, which was known for homelessness and drugs. And so we were able to go in there with the city and totally renovate that and opened up.

That's right off the 170 freeway in victory. People see the tiny homes there all the time. There's over a hundred there. Somewhere in parks, like the next one that we opened was on a parking lot. It was a city-owned parking lot in Recita that was excess parking. And so we used that. The next one was a metro parking lot. Okay, that was excess parking lot.

We're able to put it there. So you've got relationships with people at the city where you can just go to and say, okay, we need another plot. The problem is the city's in a bind right now because the city is under litigation. there's a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, all right? And so there's an organization in downtown Los Angeles that basically filed a lawsuit. It's called the Alliance for Human Rights. And they filed a lawsuit against the city of L.A.

And said, listen, L.A., you keep wiping out all these encampments, but you don't have anywhere for people to go. So all you're doing is traumatizing people over and over. And they said, so we're filing a lawsuit to prevent you from doing that. Because of this lawsuit, a federal judge named David Carlin. Carter stepped in. Love him. Okay. Oh, my God.

I'm going to start crying. Yes. Oh, my God. He stepped in and he said, you know, I'm going to do my own evaluation of research. He talked to us. He talked to other service providers. He talked to city council members. And then he called them a dissession and said city council, that lawsuit against you, they're right.

You don't have beds for anybody that's in need. New York has beds. That's what Carter says. Yes. He said, Denver has beds. Sorry. Judge Carter says. Carter. And he said, so here's what's going to happen. He goes, he said, I'm not going to allow you to

enforce your no camping laws anymore until such time as you can provide beds for 60% of the previous years homeless count. Okay, there's 78,000 homeless in LA County. And so now all of a sudden. 68% of the homes in order to take those no. Yeah. So let's just say, here's a perfect So let's just say there's, you know, a thousand homeless people. You're going to have to provide 600 beds in order to have enforcement. And the city of L.A. didn't have it. So now of a sudden, if they want to have enforcement, now you have political pressure. Like, you know, I would tell you that one of the highlights of my life was when we were opening up our fifth tiny home.

And Mayor Eric Garcetti was there, Councilman Paul Corcorian, and I was getting ready to speak. And Councilman Paul Corcorian said, I can now proudly say, we. have beds for everybody that is street homeless in my council district. First time a council member had ever been able to say that. Well, and there's a lot going on in the city, whether it's inside safe with the mayor's program, whether it's interim housing, whether it's permanent supportive housing. There's a lot of different projects. But the mere fact that now all of a sudden, the pressure, what does a politician want to get reelected? And it's hard to get reelected when your streets are littered, okay, with homelessness.

It looks like a third world. Yes. So now they were motivated to get something done where historically we had headwinds. And we're trying to make progress, but there's all this resistance. Now of a sudden the winds came behind us and we put up our sale. Corcorian, how did he get 60% of the beds? How did he acquire that? What was the process of doing that?

He partnered with us. We partnered together. And with the city, with the city's help, with the Bureau of Engineering, it became a focus. I mean, come up. This is America. You want to put a man on the moon? We'll do it. It's America. You want to conquer? Go conquer. And we can't deal with homelessness. Of course we can. It's stupid. We haven't had the political will. And so Judge Carter created an impetus to motivate the city to get involved. And I tell people, I don't care if your motivation, you know, whether it's because it's compassion. Or it's compulsion.

Okay. In certain cases, people feel compulsion because they have to do it because now you have a federal judge who's saying, you know what? Until you do the right thing, I'm not going to let you have any enforcement. And so because of that, we are housing more people today than we ever have in the history of Los Angeles. And you're housing a thousand of them. No, that's just in our tiny homes.

We're the largest rescue mission in the country. What's it called? Hope the Mission. We were called Hope the Mission. We were hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, but because our footprint has expanded well beyond the San Fernando Nino Valley, I mean, we're up in the high desert. We're in East L.A., downtown L.A., here in West L.A. How many beds do you have? We currently have 2,700 beds, and we have 11 projects in the queue right now to add another 800 beds within the next 12 months.

And so we've taken a very aggressive position and posture. Why? And here's my analogy, if you'll indulge me for a moment. Please. Imagine there was an earthquake today. Okay. And all of a sudden, all these houses and apartment buildings, you know, they crumbled and they were red-tagged. Okay. The National Guard would be here within minutes. The Red Cross would be mobilized immediately. Why? Because we're going to care for our brothers and sisters that are homeless. And yet we have a homeless problem with 78,000 people that are homeless and we're not affected by it anymore. We go to, we're like, oh yeah, they're homeless and it's in a camp.

In LA County. Yeah. And we just yawn and go to bed as if it's not an emergency. And it is an emergency. And what we need is a FEMA-like response to homelessness. And so that's what we've done at Hope the Mission. We've said, this is an emergency and we will not stop until we get the upper hand until we can bring people indoors.

But not just bring people indoors. We've done some creative things. And I'm in some of our new projects. I mean, super creative, innovative, thinking outside the box to scale the solution. But, you know, we know it's not just a matter of bringing somebody indoors. You can bring somebody indoors and not treat the symptoms. And all you've done is put a roof over their head. But what we want to do is to help people, you know, experience transformation.

And so once someone comes in, you know, they have case management, they have housing navigation, job training, job placement. They have access. We launched our own mental health. health department. So it took me it took so long for the department of mental health to respond because are you guys paying who's paying you guys for that so far we've had we had one year council or um, Congressman Brad Sherman was able to get us two million dollars the next year he got us another two million dollars and then we fundraise and then we're going to start doing fee for service so we'll do fee for service medi-cal we'll charge medical and so we currently have over 20

clinicians on our staff. And we're young. We're only 15 years old as an agency. Okay, it was 15 years ago. I can't help you get all those clinicians. Really? Oh, yeah. Well, that would be great because, you know, we're just.

I've got a ton of, everything that you've done, okay, is the most heroic thing I've ever heard. Well, it's, you're a goddamn hero. Okay. So. Just a little crazy, I'd say. I mean, you don't know this. In the best possible way.

Well, you know what? I'm in Santa Monica, right? Right. Is your house. You know what I did a couple months ago? I took my bicycle and I dipped it in the Pacific Ocean and I started riding. I rode all the way to Washington, D.C. Okay?

I'm not a cyclist, but I said, I'm going to put a spotlight on homelessness. And we're doing a documentary right now. It's going to be called The Ride. It looks like Netflix might pick it up. And every city we went to, we spoke to, politicians. We spoke to people with lived experience. We spoke with service providers. And we're going to look at the causes, the consequence, and the cures of homelessness across America. And that this is America. We can do better than this. That we, we don't, we shouldn't be leaving people to suffer into languish on the streets. We need to bring people indoors. And so, yeah, so I just, I just finished that a couple weeks ago. Last year, I ran. That's what, that's what I was waiting on for you to cycle across the country. That's rude. Last year I ran from Las Vegas.

Shut up. I went to the, what's that big tower there? Paris. Oh, the other one. The, what's it called? But anyhow, it's 108 story. Yeah, but there's the one that has the big, has this up on Thai, I forget what it's called.

But anyhow, so it's 108 stories. And so I jumped off, okay, and it catches you at the bottom and this harness. and then I went into the casino and they had all these poker chips. It was all pre-arranged. I pushed them all into the center and said, I am all in for housing. It's a poker term, right? We're going poker. And then I run out myself and the president of the organization.

I'm the CEO. We run out to the strip. Okay, it's the stratosphere. Okay, that's what I jumped on, the stratosphere. We ran out to the strip. We ran all the way down the strip with a police escort in front of us, a fire escort behind us, fire truck all the way to the end and then they peeled off and we ran to prim and then we ran across the dry lake bed and then up and over the mojave preserve and ran all the way back to l.A.

as a fundraiser and that's why like the bicycle ride I just did we're trying to raise money for a new women's drug and alcohol recovery program and so you know we we won't stop the year before that I ran from death valley okay went out and they dropped me off in death valley and and that one that theme was what does it like to go from your lowest place in life back to a place called hope? And what is that journey from destitute back to a place of deliverance and a place of hope and healing? And so we ran all the way back and we're telling the story of people whose lives have been changed and transform. But probably the one that impacted me the most, there's a few others that I've done that are kind of crazy. But the one that impacted me the most was living on the streets of L.A., homeless for a week.

And having done that, you did it. just to see how. I want to walk a mile of someone else's shoes. Even though I know it's not the real thing, right? I mean, I know on Friday I'm going home. But it was powerful. It was funny. We went out on a Monday night and a Pacific storm was coming in and it was 38 degrees in the San Fernando Valley.

I didn't know where I was being dropped up. I had $5 to last an entire week. Right. Okay. I had a backpack and a beanie and we went out. They dropped us off in an undisclosed location. I'm like, okay, come on, let's go. We took off running to the nearest freeway, tried to spend the night under freeway, but the ground was so hard.

I've never been homeless a day in my life. I mean, I've never been unsheltered. I've never not had a meal. And so there I am. I'm freezing. And there's two things in life I hate. I hate being cold. Okay.

And I hate not getting my sleep. And I couldn't sleep and I was freezing. And about 4.30 a.m. I turned to my partner. I said, listen, man. I think I'm ready to tap out. I just don't think I can do this. And he looked at me and said, I bet our guests wish they.

could tap out too. And I'm like, oh, man, it was like. And so then I said, okay, but I got to go. I can't sit here, man. I'm going to go crazy sitting here. And by the way, we did a mental health assessment before and after too. And so you did. Yeah. Yeah. How was your mental health afterwards? Serious decline. Serious decline after just one week. And so, but after that morning of waking up and so we went to a donut shop and there at the donut shop, I spent half of my $5 dollar son of cup of coffee. Shut up. Best cup of coffee I ever had in my life.

So I'm drinking this and I'm coming to life again and I get a refill. Now I've got to go to the bathroom and there's no toilet bathroom there. So we run across the street to Taco Bell. I use the bathroom. But then my phone's about to die. I got to charge this thing and I say, hey, I know there's a Starbucks down on the Sepulveda. Let's run there.

We run to Sepulvita in the rain only to find out there's no plugs because they took them all out. They don't want the homeless charging their phones in there. But while we were there, there was one homeless gentleman sitting in a corner. I went up to him. I said, hey, so what's going on, man? He goes, I'm not much. I said, where'd you spend the night last night? And he told me, and I said, it was pretty cold, wasn't? And he goes, yeah. I said, listen, man, I'm newly homeless. What advice would you give me? He says, man, you need to go to Hope of the Valley. He says, man, you need to go to Hope of the Valley. I said, really? I said, do you think they'd help somebody like me? He goes, oh, yeah, they help everybody. I said, if they help everybody, then why are you here? And he says, well, I was in home, I was in the shelter. They helped me get a job. I saved enough money.

I moved out. The pandemic hit. I lost my job. And I'm back on the streets. He says, I've been calling him every day, but they're full. They don't have any availability. He has no idea. I'm going to change his world right now.

And so I walked away and my partner kept talking to him. I called our nearest sheltered. And I said, listen, I don't care what you got to do. I need you to send a van here right now. at this Starbucks to pick this guy up. And so I walked back to him. His name was Christian. I said, hey, Christian, look.

Man, I haven't been totally honest with you. Like, I am homeless, but only until Friday. And he gets his bewilder look on his face. And I said, yeah, my name's Ken Craft. I'm the CEO at Hope of the Valley. And his eyes got his biggest saucers. And I said, listen, brother, I don't want you spending another night out here. And about that time, I mean, as if it was timed,

the van pulls around the corner and pulls, into the parking lot. He sees the van. He starts crying. I start crying. And I said, I gave him a big hug and say, listen, man, you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. He gets in the van and he drives off. And that was my first, you know, my first night and first morning. And then the rest of it was just survival. I had to beg for food. Go ahead. Yeah. I want to hear about the beg for food. I was going to ask when you were out of the money, how did it work? When I sold my business, six years ago. The first thing I did was I bought a building on Abbott-Kinney because I wanted to be in the middle of it. Yeah. Right? And I walked the streets every morning, every morning. And, you know,

there's all these little agencies or groups that help people. And I met with all of them. And whatever they needed, I gave them. You know, this one needed 10 iPads done. This one needed blankets and socks. and whatever, that's done. Whatever they needed. Yeah. Right? We got them. We even got a bunch of them vaccinated.

I walked the streets and in the morning I'm walking and I'm handing out breakfast burritos and coffee and whatever. And somebody following me in a car and I'm talking to everybody, right? A lot of these people just want to talk to you. Yeah. They don't want your time. Yeah. Right. So I finally get to the end of the street and I see there's this tent set up with these plastic

tables and all these cords, right? And they're trying to give away the Johnson and Johnson shot because they're not going to away Pfizer or the other one because no one's coming for a second round. Right, right. The sweet kid that was there, he's got to be 26 years old, this fireman, right? And I go, hey, big boy, how many takers you got today? And he goes, none. And I go, it's 11 o'clock, dude.

How long have you been here since 830?30. come with me. I'll show you how this is done. So I walk them to the middle of the thing and I screamed to everybody. I got a lot of cash like this, a lot of 20s. I go, $40 for anybody who wants to get vaccinated. They all rush up to me. They're like, give me the 40. After you get stuck, go get stuck and we're good.

And then I gave the wad to the kid and I said, handle it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So this guy calls me like the captain or whatever from this thing. He goes, who the hell are you? That's the worst. But one of the biggest blessings of my life is a woman in the room. And during the pandemic, a girl that used to work for me sends me a picture of this woman, African American, few missing teeth, ankles. ankles this big. Yeah.

Okay. Overweight with all her stuff on the bench. And he says, and she sends me the picture. And I'm like, what the hell is this? And she said, oh, just a picture. So I call her. And I go, hey, are you with this woman right now?

No, I just left. I said, go back there and give me her phone number. So she gives me the phone number. doesn't work. So I said, so I called her back and I said, look, tell that woman to stay there

for the next 90 minutes. I want you here in a half hour to pick up some money, okay? And don't you ever send me some heartbreaking shit like that again?

Wow. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. So she comes over, I give her some cash and she don't know where to take this person.

Yeah. She has no clue. Yeah. But Rima knows. And Rima says, take me to pot. You ever heard of pod share? Yes.

Uh-huh. Right? You know the two women that run pod share? I don't know them, but I know pod share. Oh my God, they're lovely. Yeah. They are lovely. They're a couple and they've got a young child, I think a little boy.

It's got to be four now. Yeah. Right? The salt of the earth is two women. And so we put it there, it's like nothing. It's $1,400 a month. Yeah. I gave her an extra $400 a month, $100 a week.

I told it out $100 a week because I was afraid. Yeah. going to get rolled. Sure. Right. And she's the kind of person that she'll work in another homeless person. She'll see another homeless person, buy them a meal. Yeah.

It's like, this is who she is. Yeah. Right. So I know how your experience is going to end. Yeah. Right. And she was there two and a half years and she calls me, she says, Mr. Bitchin, I was just wondering, if it's all the same with you, I think I'm ready to live on my own now. So if you're still willing to give me the same amount of money

and it costs more, I'll just sell more peanuts. And now I'm crying. The reason I was crying was because what she took her two and a half years to do, I could have done in 30 to 45 days. Yeah. Okay. That's just the way I do it, right? Yeah. And so anyway, I say go find a place. done. So she looks for a month, nothing. Two months, nothing. Third month, I call her. I'm like, what's going on with you? She goes, oh, Mr. Richard, I just stopped. I gave up because I just pay $40, $50 for these applications and nobody ever calls me back. Yeah. Right? So I go, I'll take care of it. So I called my buddy Farley, who was my number one. And I said, hey, handle this. Yeah. Find me a spot.

Yeah. For two weeks, this guy's calling people. No one's calling them back. Mm-hmm. Right? No one's calling back. Mm-hmm. So I'm like, okay, this is bullshit.

I got to do it myself. So I do it. One week, nobody calls me back. Yeah. Okay. So then it hits me. Oh, this is how poor people get jerked around. Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh. So I looked in my Rolodex, you know, okay, my phone now. Yeah. I still call it a Rolodex. And I looked at that. And I found my buddy Jeff and he owns a bunch of buildings. I said, hey, man, we do me a favor. This is what I need.

Do you have this? And he goes, no, I don't. But your problem is my problem and I'll take care of it by the end of the day. Wow. We got her a little single in Century City. Uh-huh. Okay. And we furnished it.

We got all the flatware, beds, desks, computer, foot massager, foot detox, TVs, everything. went to all the everything. I mean, you know that drawer in a home that you open and it's got all that shit in it? You have no idea what it does. Right, right. For whatever reason, I call that a home. If you see that, you're in a home.

If you're not you're in a bachelor pad or you're Airbnb. Right. Okay, but this is what makes a home in my mind. I don't know what I got it. And we went and got all that stuff. Yeah. Right? and she came in, she was crying, and then we went to the market.

She keeps that house perfect. Wow. She goes out every single day and goes to work. Somebody comes over a couple times a week to train her on the computer so that she knows how to use the computer. She is magnificent and the biggest blessing of my life. Wow. And I feel like a complete piece of shit.

And the reason I feel like a complete piece of shit is because, I'm not you. Oh. Yeah, you transform the life. I don't give a fuck. Yeah. Okay. I get more out of that than she does.

Uh-huh. Okay. She thinks I'm the blessing. She's the blessing. I get it. Okay. So I'm not you. So when I heard about you, I was like, okay, this guy's a saint.

I want to know him. I want to be friends with him. I want to be of service to him. Okay. Because I was thinking about it and, you know, I don't know if you know anything about me. I don't. Oh, cool. No.

Have you ever heard of a place called Cliffside Malibate? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, well, I'm the founder of Cliffside Malibu. Oh, wonderful. Yes. And I sold it six years ago without going to market. Yeah. But I didn't really want to sell.

Yeah. I enjoyed what I did. And, you know, the five years in purgatory with the non-compete were hell for me. Because if you can run fast, you need to run fast. Right, right. And it was, you know, so I started again immediately. Uh-huh. So this time around, I bought an affordable treatment center called One Method Center.

It's only 24 beds. We're full. Okay. I have no idea how that happened. Okay. We're just, you know, we're six months in and we were immediately full. Wow. And so I'm grateful for me.

that, but I also have a place called Carrera Treatment, Wellness, and Spa. Now, it seems like a vanity play, right? Because it's one of one. Uh-huh. It's built for me. Uh-huh. Right? It's built for the guy who absolutely positively has to have the finest of everything

or has to have the most comfortable experience under an uncomfortable time. And the reason I did that, A, is because I know how to, okay? And B, because everybody tries to get the best, right? So it funnels downhill. And then you can send all the people out to wherever you need to send them.

But what we're angling for is a thousand bets so that we can pull these people off the street. And I was thinking maybe there's a way, since you have to scale it anyway, right? And there's no shortage of need. We can go ahead and assist you in that as well. Right? And turn them over to you to get this done. because I've always had a dream to do what you've done. But I started it.

And like I said, I met with all these people, Lhasa. Yeah, yeah. That's a joke. Yeah. That's a joke. I work with all of them. It's horrible. You know, I got a lot of work with the county.

The homeless initiative, work with the state. But as soon as you fix the problem, they go the way of the dodo. So they're just moving paper around. They're not incentivized to fix anything. What I discovered after living one week on the streets, and I mean it's somewhat traumatizing and terrorizing because we're used to sleeping with four walls and a roof and a locking door. We feel safe. We feel secure.

I'm out there trying to sleep. And I'm thinking anyone could come attack me if they wanted to be completely vulnerable. But my takeaway after one week is that it's nearly impossible to stay sober, sane, and safe living on the streets. And that's why we must do anything and everything we can to bring people indoors. The longer we leave people outside, the worst they get. How much is it to build one of those eight by eight homes? Well, we get them and they're prefabricated out of Seattle. It's called pallet shelter.

And the cost of those units is like $7,000. $7,000. And then how do you get the electrical to it and the plumbing to it? You just, it's a, you know, we run them underground and then, You know, we had drop a plan. We have an architect that designs it. And then, you know, we pop them up. So soup to nuts, everything, including the pre-found, the electrical, the, and everything else, what's

a cost? You're looking about $40,000. Shut up. It's $40,000. Because you have to have all your showers, your, you have to build a site. And that site has to have fire truck access. It has to have. Oh, okay.

So you don't have individual bathrooms in this thing. That's right. That's right. So we have nice trailers that have toilets and sink showers in each one of them. We have security guards. We have in guard stations. There's things we have to do. We just opened up our brand. You got to come see it. I want to see all of it. I want to see all of it. No, no. I'm coming to see all of it. Okay. This is our new kitchen. We just opened it a few months ago. We are now doing over 6,000 meals every day. Who's paying for this? We have contracts and we fundraise and, you know, it just all depends. So they're paying for this.

You're a nonprofit. They're paying for this. But here's the deal. So let's just say Lossa. So we work with Lhasa. But here's the problem. Lossa only pays us about 70% of what it actually costs us to run it. So right, it's like right now, this year we'll have to raise $14 to $15 million to close the delta between what it costs us to operate or what they pay us and what it costs to operate.

Why want the city or the state take care of that? We're federal government. We're fighting for that now. We're fighting for full cost reimbursement because it's really not fair to expect the charities to have to go out and fundraise that amount of money while providing the services as well. While solving a social problem. Right. You know, solving a social problem should be worth billions of dollars. You shouldn't have to.

It should be top priority. Yeah. And they should be kissing your ass and giving you and giving you what and incentivizing you. Right. Well, here's a perfect example. If the government pays you to build bombs. Okay. Okay.

They're going to pay you 400% of what it cost to make it. And if you have overages, they'll pay them. If they're paying you to house homeless people, they're going to pay you 70% of what it costs and tell you to go fundraise the rest. Is your lawyer to do this? Our lawyer? Yeah. We don't really have a set lawyer.

It's a, I try to find any pro bono legal that I can. Well, there's somebody in this room who's going to write down the name Peter Striss and remind me to call him after this. Okay. He does a lot of philanthropy. He does a lot of pro bono work. Okay. And he's probably the best lawyer I know.

Okay. And by probably, I mean definitely. Yeah. I mean, because like the thing that I haven't mentioned yet is we're now in negotiation to move forward with 17 properties in downtown L.A. in partnership with a developer. We're looking at possibly getting 1,400 units, 1,400 units on top of what will assume me the 3,800 beds will have. And so we're just, we're saying, you know what, we're dumb enough to go for it and to say, you know what, this is a humanitarian crisis.

You know, let's let's not leave anything on the table. You know, let's leave it all out on the field. Do you have, let's go for it? Do you have a lobbyist? No. Okay, well, who the hell figured this out? We have 700 employees. I started, I mean, it's just-

You figured all of this out through all the bullshit and all the red tape and every agency. I surround myself with gifted. I don't, I'm not that gifted. I just surround myself with gifted people. So what did you get? A land use lawyer? No. No, no, we don't have a lawyer.

We just, no. I mean, I'm paying attention. What RFPs are coming out? And so the state, the request for proposal to, put it a bid on something. So the state of California said, listen, we've got this money. We want to renovate motels and hotels. And I was like, really? I said, I've never done this. So I hired a consultant to help me and we put an application. They gave us money to purchase four of them last year. And then we were the first ones to finish because I'm like,

we didn't get this done. And we did. And they're for families. Right right in, right across from Taft High School, we just opened one of our new facilities for families. 400 beds. There's 200 kids. Did you guys get the hotel? Yes. 888? Yes. Shut up.

That's ours. Yeah. I was going to buy that 10 years ago. I'm glad I passed on it. Really? Yeah, you had the Denny's right in the... In that Denys? I was there yesterday.

No. We're converting it into a preschool for all the homeless moms and kids that live in our facility right there. We have 200 homeless kids that live in that hotel. 200. It's amazing. You go there. It is...

And so that, I mean, That was a private donor. I was talking to a private donor because we didn't have any money to renovate that. Who did that? It's called the... No, the private donor. Who was the private donor? Yeah, it was called the M-E-B-R Foundation.

And it was the first gift they'd ever made. And what happened is there... Well, that's a good gift to give. Oh, it was incredible. It was incredible. And so it's going to be a community center on half of it. And the other half of it is the preschool. I'm sorry, you bought that hotel?

Uh-huh. with the help of the state, state of California. That was 18 million bucks back. We entered into a 55-year covenant with the state of California saying, we promise we will only use this. They give us the money and said, because they need beds. And I said, you know, we'll do it. I said, but we need the money and we'll enter into a covenant for 55 years.

We'll use this property only to help homeless families. They said, you're our partner. Let's do it. And so we did that. And we opened up another two up in Lancaster, downtown. L.A. I want to hear a funny story. This one in downtown L.A.

It was a prostitution hotel. Okay. So then it was Cracked Motel. It was everything. Everything that you can imagine. Just so you know where there's crack, their suckers. Yes.

Okay, go on. And so remember how I explained to you how we've done a lot of crazy things to put a spotlight on homelessness? So myself and Roan, we said, hey, look, let's put a spotlight on this because unfortunately, sometimes this is where homeless moms and kids, their final backstop before they're out on the, the streets. So we went to this hotel. We paid our money. Okay. And I said, let's go check out my

room first. And I've never met in a place like this. I'm kind of freaking out, right? So we go into my into my room. They might have bed bugs there. So I go in there and there's like burn marks on all the on the beds, red. Well, that's from the crack pipes. Yes. And then I pulled the sheets back. There's hair and blood stains. And all the, and I'm thinking, oh, dear God, I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can do this. And about that time, you know, my partner, he goes, he was, hey, I didn't tell you this, but I brought a black light. Oh, no. Yes. And he turned off the light and, and I saw things I can, I'll never unsee. Okay. It was like, and I said, blood everywhere. It was on the walls. Everything you can imagine. Okay. Right? On the walls. Oh, yes. Do you know what

that's from? No. It's from shooting. Dope. Oh. They do that. It gets all over the walls. Yeah. And so I. I'm like out of my element, okay? And I told him, I said, let's go look at your room. Maybe your room's better. Oh, sure. Sure. So we went to his room, and the door next to his had been busted down by the sheriff and had plywood over it because of, you know, whatever they had to do.

We went into his, and when we turned the lights out, there was this like, like someone had shot their brains out and spray across the ceiling. And I'm like, okay, what am I going to do? I don't feel safe. I said, okay, here's the deal. Look. Okay. The only way I'm staying here tonight, I'm sleeping in this bed. with you.

You're on that side. I'm on this side. And we're like videotaping the whole thing too. And then I'm like, I don't know if I can, I'm afraid there's bedbugs. I'm just afraid that's going to get whatever here is going to get on me. So I finally lay down when I did the person with the camera yells, cockroaches. And I look to my left of these cockroaches come running out of the light socket.

I made it through the night. But now if you go there, if I has to give you a tour, it's the most beautiful building on Alvarado Boulevard. Okay. And the outside of the building, we spelled in massive letters. Hope. And now it's filled with moms and kids. It's right at the street from MacArthur Park.

I want to see how many locations do you guys have here in L.A. County. Currently, 23. In L.A. County. Yeah. Well, we have one. Maybe it's more like 20 or 20 because we have one in Victorville, one in Kern County. All right. Well, go on to Victorville.

21. We have 21. But do me a Javer. Mm-hmm. Okay. Within a 30-mile radius here. Mm-hmm. Okay.

I want you to send me to text me. We're going to exchange numbers out. Revers. I want you to send me the locations to all these things. Mm-hmm. I'm going to go, just show up. Yeah. Okay.

Whenever I'm driving by anywhere, I'm going to learn these things and I'm just going to drive by. So in about 30 days, I will have hit all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then just an organic. way. I really want to see them. And I'll just text you and say, hey, man, I'm here. Yeah. If I have any issues getting in. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll just call the site.

You'll hit it up. Yeah. No, I'd love you to do that. And I'd love you to come see, you know, our kitchen because one of our models is that. Where is that? Where is that? It's in North Hills. Just right up the 405. Fullway. Right off north off. Do you live in the valley? Uh-huh. Where do you live? North Hills. Okay. How long have you been there? Eight years. Okay. Good. Because 18 years ago or 20 years ago or 25 years ago, they called it Canoga Park. Okay. Okay.

I grew up in the Valley. Okay. Went to Taft High School. Oh, you did? I did. Oh, so you know the area. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I had so much resistance when I was getting ready to open this. I mean, I had people calling, yelling, screaming. I'm on town hall meetings and why are you putting this here? Put it over in Sun Valley. Put it in Becoima. And I'm saying, listen, you know what? When I tried to, I've opened things in Bequoima and they yell at me there too and

say don't put it in for coin. That's right. Nobody wants it. I get it. But we have to open up our hearts and make room for people that are struggling that have lost their way, that need a second chance. There's only two ways people feel really about this issue. One is, I don't want to see it, get it off my streets. This is my city.

This is heartbreaking. And I want to look at it. Right. Okay. And the other one is people should not have to live this way. Yeah. Right. Right. This isn't okay with me.

Yeah. I don't care how people feel about it. Mm-hmm. Okay. I don't care just so long as they're part of the solution, right? Yeah. I don't know if there's another sect of people, but that's generally the whole thing. Yeah.

What do you do with the people who are afflicted with drugs and alcohol? What type of treatment do you provide? and where do you provide it? Yeah, and that's a real issue, right? I mean, when you look at the demographics of people that are experiencing homelessness, one of the sad realities is even if a lot of folks that became weren't using drugs before they became homeless,

but once they became homeless, they start using drugs to stay awake at night to protect themselves because I've yet to meet a woman who's been on the streets for any period of time that hasn't been sexually assaulted. No. Okay. And so, you know, I could tell you story after, I mean, just crazy stories,

but women start using methamphetamines. They start using drugs to stay awake at night to protect themselves. And so one of the big challenges we have then is not just the mental health side, but the substance use side. And that when someone comes in, and now we do have, you know, we have different types of facilities. And so, you know, if you tell someone, the only way you can come in and do this shelter is you need to, you know, be clean and sober.

Well, that's a huge barrier for someone who's on the street. So it's like we say, you know what? Come in as you are. And you know what? Because we want to help you, but let's help you with where you're at and get you to where you need to go. And so we work, you know, detox and getting people that need detox. How do you do that? Where do you do it?

And Silmar. And I'm not really on the front lines of that. We have our case managers that are doing that. I can help you with that. Tarzanah Treatment Center. Oh, so you send them to Tarzanan Treatment Center. Yes. Uh-huh.

And a case for that. Tarzana Treatment Center. They work with us. We have a deal. We have an MOU and they'll do it. And then they'll send them right back to us. Who pays? I'm assuming Medi-Cal.

Right. I'm assuming Medi-Cal. Yeah. And so we work with them and then they send them back to us. But like the big thing that we want to do right now is we need to open a women's drug and alcohol recovery program in the San Fernando Valley. Because we have a men's program, but we need a women's program. And so that's why I did that bike ride. always have them separated like that always um not always not in the tiny no no no all of our shelters are

are co-ed okay um but when it comes to a really a treatment long term really we'd you know we want to keep the women with the women the men with the men and just you guys have addiction specialists that provide medication nope nope so it's just straight therapy yeah yeah and any doctor you get a long way to go any doctors that come around and treat their ailments. We do have medical providers that will come and some like the UCLA Street Outreach and USC Street Outreach. I'm sure Dr. Cooley came. I believe, yes.

Yep. So we have some good people. But, you know, we've got a long way to go. I mean, this is a marathon. And, you know, I mean, this isn't, I didn't set out to do this kind of work. It was out of my own failure and my own brokenness. that I even got into this. I mean, I was a pastor for many years.

No shit. Yeah. Go on. Is that obvious? Yeah. Yeah. Just a touch. But I had my own broken.

You got the whole God blow. You got the whole God low. Do you go? In fact, I probably can figure out where you go. That's hilarious. Hold on. Hold on. Shepherd of the Hills.

Well, yeah, on Saturday nights. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Dudley. Yeah. And, uh, uh, uh, uh, Walden. Yep, yep. And Tim Winters.

Say hello to Walden for me. Okay. You tell him that you ran into Richard Kate. Yeah. He will lose his mind. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome.

He's the greatest guy ever. Well, it was my, so I was pastoring, but I had my own broken world experience. Okay. And I lost everything. And I was ushered out the back of the church. And, and I mean, just the shame. And I had an affair. Okay.

Affairs don't go real good with people in the pulpit. Okay. It's just got a, not a good. Right. Well, you always get out of it. Yeah. Exactly. Right. And so here I am. You know, my wife divorces me. And I'm like, I went from the penthouse to the doghouse in no time at all. And just, I mean, I felt like, I mean, and the church that I started, I mean, we were running over 2,000 people. It was a very dynamic church. It was great. And I just, man, I just lost everything. I repented. But it was like, you know what? I was ushered out the back door. And so it was a very painful season. of my life. And I ended up getting a job with Equifax and did national, you know, credit. Can I just say, can I say something right now? I bet you, how long ago was that? Gosh, roughly just 25 years ago. 25 years ago. Have you ever gone back to that church that threw you out? No, I've never been,

no. Oh, you definitely have to go. No. Oh, you never invited to go. Yeah. You definitely have to go. Yeah. You definitely have, because number one, you're not going to feel any shame. anymore. Right. Right. Number two, you're going to realize. Yeah. That you are the most important, that you are the most important person there. Yeah. Okay. And you should share with these people. Yeah. Because there's turnover. They're not saying people. Right. But you should share what happened in your story there and ask them, you know, to be a part of it. Yeah. Okay. I have definitely learned more through my pain than my pleasure. Everybody does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that I, from that, I was then doing national sales and did, you know, it did well, Equifax and, you know, credit, you know, real-time authentication technology.

And then I get a phone call. A guy that had gone to my church, he ran a rescue mission. He goes, Ken, if you ever consider working with the poor and the homeless? I said, no. I had it. It never crossed my mind. Right. Okay.

And he goes, hey, he ran a rescue mission in inventor or auctionart. He goes, hey, would you come have lunch with me? I said, yeah. And so I thought he was going to take me out to lunch. There's good Mexican restaurants up there. And so instead, he made me have lunch with all these homeless people in this room for lunch. And all these homeless people kept coming up to me and they were so nice. And they were telling me their stories.

And I'm fighting back tears the whole time. I'm thinking, that should have been me. That could have been me. But for the grace of God. And I had already disqualified myself from ever doing anything of significance again because of my own shame. And so I drove home that day in tears, literally in tears. is and I just prayed a very simple prayer. I just said, God, if you see fit to use me to give people a second chance in life, then I'm open. And the next day they called me and say, hey, Ken, we're

starting something new in the Sanfano Valley. Would you be willing to lead it? I said, listen, I don't know the first thing about homelessness. They said, don't worry. You're a leader, but we can teach you about homelessness, but we need your leadership gift. And I said, so I took a 50% cut in pay. And that was my entry into homelessness a number of years ago. And I haven't looked back since. And I realized. And so what I love now, you know, having spent many years on the church side, now this organization, we are an inclusive faith-based organization. We have people of Jewish faith, Christian faith, Muslim faith on our board of directors.

So it's like a non-denominational faith. Absolutely. Yeah. So, but you don't have, can you be an atheist? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Because the problem is too big to build walls and barriers.

We've got to build bridges. And so I love the fact, when our board of directors meet, I got the guy who, the gentleman who heads of the Muslim Medical Association of California, he's the head of that. I got people, you know, Rabbi Stearns from on top of the hill, the big temple up there. We got people of Christian faith. And you know what? We leave all that at the door and say, you know what, we're here to help people. We're here to serve people.

And you know what? Let's grab hands, link arms. Let's work together, you know, and let's do something great. If you're Jewish, come do your mitzvah here. If you're Christian, serve the least of these here. You got a lot of homeless Jews, do you? Not as many as non. You know, so, you know, people of all stripes and, you know, so we're helping. But that's my, so my goal is, I'm not stopping until we get everybody off the streets of L.A. We got it. It's a big goal. I met anybody at the mayor's office. The mayor came and ate breakfast with me just two weeks ago at our headquarters. So why can't this red tape just be like, hey, let's move this shit along. You're going to make me look good. Credit is for politicians. I know that you don't need any of it. I don't need any of it.

You know, we serve at the pleasure of great men and women. Yeah. And I don't understand. why that wouldn't be fast-tracked if we started this thing by talking about politicians and one goal, right, is to be re-elected. How the hell is this not working right? Because I just want to say something. She has a woman who's in charge of the homeless crisis.

Yeah. What's her name? Do you know her name? Lordus. I don't know if that's her. her, but there's one woman, maybe it's her assistant, maybe it's another thing, but some kid I got sober works with her. Okay.

And I said, hey, get me a meeting with this woman. Yeah. You can't believe she hasn't called me back yet. Yeah. Now, I can't imagine it. I don't know if I've ever called somebody other than those apartment people, right, who I've called and wouldn't call me. back. Right. And understand, especially when all you want to do, there's nothing to get,

only to give, you're going to leave the place better than you found it, right? The whole thing. Not, not a call. So, I mean, I'm wondering who, because I don't know the inner workings of local government, state government. Yeah. Know about federal government. Yeah. But I don't know about the municipal. We're working with her administration very closely. We've opened up a number of her inside safe programs, which I'm thankful for. It's just oftentimes there's a bureau. I mean, when I sat with her, I said, you know what, Mayor, what you've done so far is great.

You've been bringing people indoors. You know, this next step is we have to really beef up those wraparound services around them. It doesn't mean shit unless you do it. And she agrees. She agrees. It doesn't. And so that's her goal. It's a temporary fix.

Yeah. If you don't teach people, if you don't give someone a life worth of, living a life that they can be proud of. Yep. Okay. This doesn't take. Yeah. The roots don't grow.

Exactly. Exactly. So she's very open and she knows that and she's got to, she's building a good team. And so, you know, I'm a bit of an optimist. You know, I mean, I look at everything and think, okay, we could do this. Just taking these meetings with people. Yeah. And getting one little thing and having them make a call on behalf of you to move that thing along.

Yeah. We should really think about this because there's got to be a way to just say instead of all this bullshit. Yeah. Right? To cut a deal like, hey, you got 60,000 left. Let's cut the damn deal for 60,000. Let's identify the shit. Okay, where we're going to put this.

Let's formulate a cost for it. Here's the wraparound services. This is how we can do it. This is what that's going to cost. I don't understand if it's presented in that way. Yeah. Right? With all the contacts you have. Yeah.

And we grab some people and, like one of my good friends and actually one of my lawyers, Nathan Hockman is going to just beat the shit out of gas gone on the third. Uh-huh. Because that guy's just a straight up scumbag. Okay. The next person he cares about will be his first. Uh-huh. And Nathan's had it, man.

He's had it. He's had it with the fentanyl issue. He's had it with... Nathan came and met with me. Nathan's the best. Yes, he came to my office. He did. Yeah.

Do you know why he came to your office? Well, he wanted to introduce himself. Because it gives a shit. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This wasn't about I'm going to get votes here. Yeah, yeah. This is about a learning opportunity for him. Yeah, yeah.

So he can go and say... Really nice guy. The best. Yes, yes. The best guy. And so, you know, look, this guy does the right thing. He's been calling me to check. He does his research.

He does his field research, right? Yeah. He's been calling me every quarter for a couple years. Wow. All right. Tell me about the fentanyl thing. Tell me about the treatment. Tell me about this.

Tell me about that. Right? What do you think about this? And he'd ask really great questions. Yeah. And I'd say, well, I don't really know. But this is what I think. Yeah.

We can use guys like this. We just have to collaborate because, you know, I got defeated, man. And I couldn't do, I couldn't fight too worse on at the same time. I couldn't do it. Yeah. And, you know, so I was going to get to it, right? But when I heard about you, I'm like, yeah, yeah, this is the guy, okay? This is going to save me a ton of hassle.

because every mistake that I would make over the next three years you've already made. Made a lot. Do you remember that commercial BASF? We don't make the products you use. We just make them better. Right, right, right. I can help, right? I love it.

So I'm like BASF, right? I can just help on the fringes optimize what it is you're doing. Yeah. But definitely in the medical space. Yeah. And definitely in the mental health. health space, yeah,

substance use space. Now, being that I just said that, just so that we know that there is a need for it. Yeah. We know that about 75% of the people on the street

are doing drugs and alcohol, right? How many are dying of fentanyl? We have between four and six people that die every day in L.A. On fentanyl. Most, they're homeless and oftentimes

it is overdoses, yes. Okay. You know what's common. Trank. Yeah. Sure, yeah. Okay.

That's fentanyl mixed with xylosine. Okay? And it's so bad. It's so hard to get sober on that thing because it's just got you. And when you're overdosing, Narcan doesn't work on it. Really? It's a flesh-eating drug. You can actually see the bones in people like this big, like that big.

like that big in there right and they take and they shoot in the hole it's oh and it's coming to a suburb near you okay this is going to change every you know what I keep saying it's going to change everything it never changes yeah you know I thought gun violence would end yeah after sandy hook right I'm like okay these are six year olds right okay nobody's tolerating this shit yeah And remember they had 90% of Republicans, NRA members said, uh-uh. No, we need this, this, and this. Yeah. And the gun lobby just killed it.

Nobody ever saw encampments like this. Right. You know, I'm like, okay, someone's going to deal with this. Right. Nobody. Yeah. Do you remember when San Vicente and Wilshire? Yeah.

Right? You had all those tents? On the outside. Yep, yep. And on the inside, you had little homes. Yeah, those are ours. Those are yours. We run that.

Okay. The greatest. I figured that the reason these people were on the outside and didn't get in is because they were using drugs and alcohol, correct? Some were resistant to coming in. Yes. That's always going to happen. But the ones that weren't couldn't get in because of their drug and alcohol use, correct?

Yes, that's a barrier. Okay. So I went ahead and when the elections were going, I interviewed all the city council people for this district. But there were two women that I really liked, Allison and Tracy Park. Okay. And I chose wrong. Okay. But I never harmed Tracy.

I gave her money. I never ran negative ads against her. Yeah. And I think she's doing a really good job. Yeah, she is. She told me when I interviewed these people, the only two that knew that. were the two women that were running. Wow.

The five guys that were running had no clue. It would bother me. That's Brett Wood. Yeah. I mean, and I'm driving and I'm looking at this every day and I'm heartbroken. So one day I get out and I'm talking to all these guys, right? And what I'm noticing is they're tents and their stuff outside buttoned up. Yeah.

Not like the other encampments. Yeah. Like a goddamn military worker, right? Yeah. Okay. Just so you know, I've got three veterans right now in my place, wounded warriors, for free because I'm not going to have a contract for another year. And I told the guy, I said, hey, all heroes come to me.

Wow. And in the last couple weeks, he started sending him. And he's going to, I just got to keep getting houses to put them in there. Wow. Because all heroes come to us, man. Wow. Wow. I got to have it.

I got to do it. Well, let me tell you a possible solution. Please. Like right now, the fastest growing segment of the homeless population is senior, 65 and over. Wow. Most people don't realize that. I did. And it's people who they brought out of money.

Social Security isn't enough to, I mean, imagine in L.A. living on that. Okay. So I've been trying to come up with a solution. And there was a bill that was passed last year called SB4, Senate Bill 4. which says that faith-based organizations, churches, temples that have excess land can build affordable housing and bypass all the regulations. Shut up to build it on their property. And so I'm the first one in L.A. to submit an application to the city of L.A. Or?

Or there's a church called Valley Presbyterian Church. Wait a minute. I thought you don't have to deal with any of the horse shit. Well, you still have to have plans. But you seek one. You know, you get all the environmental stuff. You don't have to deal with all the environmental stuff. Okay.

And all... But you still have to apply for the permit. Building and safety, they have to be safe, right? Do they move through it fast? Yeah, so listen to what this is, okay? This church has half an acre of a parking lot that they haven't used in 12 years, okay? Wow. So we're talking.

We negotiated a land lease. And there's a company called Boxable, B-O-X-E. B. L. You got to look them up. And so I went to their headquarters in Las Vegas. They have like a 200,000 square foot manufacturing plant. And these things, I mean, the engineers of horse designed these. Okay. Of course. And they did. That guys are modern. They've been brim, just a, he's a hero too. And so here's the deal. Okay. They're holding them for me right now. Because first of all, they had to get approved through the state of California. This last month, they were stamped approved. in the state of California. I've got the plot of land and we already have a plot plan. I'm going to send them to you. So here's the deal. Okay. We're ready now. I'm actually working just to get the, you know, the plan submitted. And we're in a bit, it's a prototype, but we're going to put 22. This is permanent housing, not interim or temporary, because they have a full bathroom, full kitchen, sleeping area. It's a studio apartment. Now, if you've been reading the

newspapers at all or watching the news that the wine guard center okay just opened up their brand new facility downtown skid row and how much did they pay per unit to house one homeless person 600,000 per unit Michael Mike Bonin wanted to spend 750,800,000 dollars for a damn unit 600 yeah so 600 guess how much I can do it for these prefabbed houses all that's how much the the units cost. But then you get all the infrastructure. I got to do the sewers, the plumbing, 120,000. 120 grand. For a permanent housing and all the, a lot of these churches and temples, they have excess land. And so we, I'm going to prove that we can do this at a price point that's, that's doable. You don't even the state or the cities help initially for at least a couple

years. In other words, you can slow play the state because in two years, two years is who's helping me with this project? Rick Caruso is helping me with this one. He's a stud too. He says, he, I'm meeting with his team again tomorrow. They're, they've been involved and they, and Rick said, Ken, I'm going to help you with this one. And he said, you know, I'm going to reach out to my friends and we'll make sure you get the money. The total cost on the project I think is like $3.2 million. Yeah. But I think Elon will send those to you, man. I think he'll just send Yeah. I mean, he took us off fossil fuels. And now, think about that. This guy took us off fossil fuels. Every goddamn car company in the world has to do it. Yeah. EV cars. They have to. This is such a good. Yeah. But I think that's what we have to think outside the box. We have to think new paradigms. We have to think in new, because this is a real problem. We have to problem solve it.

But here's the deal. And you're right. Three years is going to be here whether we want it to be here or not. Right? So it's good to get started. But in the interim, right. You work off a list. You go see all these pastors. You go all see these priests.

You see these rabbis. Yeah. There's nobody who's going to tell you no. And even if they do and they don't have the space, fine. Give me five new numbers to call and make the introductions. Yeah. Right? Yep.

Absolutely. And these boxables, we will have open in Q1 of 25. That's how fast we'll have it up. We need to find a way to make a list of every single church and every single temple. Temple and mosque. Because it's revenue for them because oftentimes they're hurting financially. So we do a land lease. It helps them financially.

They're doing what their DNA is to help the poor and the homeless and the needy. And it enables us to do something to really make a difference. That's the way to go. Because to get rid of it, I mean, how long will it take to go through building and safety to get, if you go to, let's say you go to one temple and they've got room for 50 units. Yeah. Okay. How long will it take to get that? Now that the plans have already been, the units have been stamped at the state of California, those units don't go through plan check.

The only thing that has to go through plan check is on your site. Where's your sewer lines going? where's your electrical going, your power, and where the unit's going to sit. So you get that plant, and then you come and just pop them open in one day. How long does it take to get that? We'll have them from beginning to end,

seven to eight months. Really, it takes that long to do it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, to get it through. That just sucks. Yeah, but that's fast. Normally you're looking at two to three-year process to build any type of permanent housing.

It still sucks. Yeah. But ask me the question again after we do it this first. time because, you know, I'll have a better, we haven't done it yet. That's kind of what I'm estimating. But the beautiful thing is, and we're going to be, yeah, once those, they bring out those units and the cranes just start popping them open. And then in a day, you have a permanent housing. Wonderful. If the mayor went down to all these city places and said, hey, will you guys do me a favor and get these things, put these things at the top of the pile

and knock these things out? We're short, 500,000 houses. And it'll be a hundred thousand houses. And LA County. We're short. 500,000. Yeah. I thought there's 70,000 people. I mean, just for affordable housing, people that can't afford housing. So there's a massive need. Oh, so these are the people that are this close.

No, we're housing the homeless. Anything we do. My point is, if you've got the delta between 70,000 and 500 is 430,000, what you're telling me is there's 530,000, there's 430,000 people in L.A. county that are this close. That's right. It could go either way. That's right. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Or people that are that are doubling up, tripling up in homes. Okay. People that are. Oh, three, four people in a house. Yeah. For family, three and four families living in a house because they can't afford to live in

their own house. And so they're saying in terms of actual need, we need about 500,000 units of housing in LA County. And so that. Because by the time you get done. Yeah. With that 70,000, you know, another 40, 50,000 are going to pop up. Yeah.

Because that's just math, right? You got 430,000 people. It's just math. A percentage of those people, even if it was 10%, you're looking at 43,000 people. Yeah. Right? You just put together 70,000. You got 43,000 that just popped up.

I don't know the answer to that. Yeah. So we got our work. cut out for us. But, you know, the important thing is that we stay focused and that, you know, we partner together. Somebody wants that if you want to go fast, go alone, you want to go far, go together. And so when we go together and we link, you know, we utilize existing resources and, you know, I mean, so anytime I get a chance to meet someone even like yourself, you know, that has connections, that has experience, that has success, that has resources, it's all of us working

together, you know, I'm just a conduit, you know. There's so much I don't have. Okay. You're the goddamn pipe paper. Okay. Shut up. Self-effacing answer. But, no, but it's been really good.

Just talking and sharing. Thank you for that. And thank you for everything that you do. You are, wow. And it will even have the words. I'm grateful. And I'm humbled just to be able to do what I do. You know, I'm, if I can help just more people than I'm a happy person.

So I believe in the goodness of people. I believe people want to do the right thing. I believe people want to make a difference. They just don't know how. And so that's where we got to pull together. And, you know, I've never lost a three-on-one fight. So we need to triple up and double up. And we got to work together so that we can actually win.

we are going to end there. Thank you. We're out of time. Please subscribe on YouTube, click the thumbs up, and leave a comment. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast and Spotify, and leave a rating and a review, and share the We're Out of Time podcast with others you know who will get value out of it. See you next Tuesday.