Your Transformation Station - 77. "Transforming" Better Ways to Serve People "Treacy Dobbins" w/ Favazza

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

"Your Transformation Station" and Inspire Real Change are working together to improve the quality of service and reduce and eliminate homelessness. You can make a difference in the lives of "North Carolinians: who are struggling with homelessness. Support the showPODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://ytspod.comApple Podcasts: https://ytspod.com/appleSpotify: https://ytspod.com/spotifyRSS: https://ytspod.com/rssYouTube: https://ytspod.com/youtubeSUPPORT & CONNECT:- Check out the sponsors below, it's the best way to support this podcast- Outgrow: https://www.ytspod.com/outgrow- Quillbot Flow: https://ytspod.com/quilbot - LearnWorlds: https://ytspod.com/learnworlds- Facebook: https://ytspod.com/facebook- Instagram: https://ytspod.com/instagram- TikTok: https://ytspod.com/tiktok- Twitter: https://ytspod.com/x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bam. Tracy, we are live right now here on Facebook Live. Welcome back to your transformation station. Awesome. Awesome. Now, like, the last time we had you on the show, we got into the challenges you face with you working in the trenches. I love that statement there on. combating this homeless issue that is occurring that it that's recidivating right yes yes you get no you got it

you got it with that issue now you've been doing um you're collecting data and your goal is to establish a new standard and improving and cleaning up this issue because it's an issue and it's and it's everywhere, but it can all be solved with having a new standard. Tell us about that. Yeah, so we've been doing a research project over the last year. It's called homeless recidivism, and we have basically wrapped up our data collection. We are finalizing our actual final report, and we've been crunching some data over the last several days, and it's really been, it's really been interesting to see because we've worked with 30 individuals who are currently experiencing homelessness. And we've worked with them throughout the year.

We've followed through a process of doing assessments with them, tried to understand exactly like how long they've been homeless. Like what led to your initial homeless event? Like what do you think? Why did that happen? And then what challenges do you have right now? What needs do you have right now? and then trying to connect them with services and programs that we feel that

could help them with homeless recovery. So we've been crunching that data and we're getting ready to release our final report on 1 January. We're really excited about it. Well, I think we've really got some good information. It's going to be eye-opening for people. And it's really, it's interesting because a lot of our kind of solution-based models that we're coming out with.

It's really, it's not rocket science. It's just something that when you get data from real people, you know, you like, just like we talked about being in the trenches, when you get data from real people that live it every day, you can really get a good understanding of it. And then you can start to build solutions off of that. Now, for me, I'm looking at this from the outside, looking in. And it's coming down to a. standard that is not being enforced.

So when people don't have a good understanding on what the bigger picture should be, I feel like certain individuals have their own understanding, oh, well, since it's not ingrained in what my job title states, I will only do this. And he ends up on the streets, so be it. Because I did my job, and that's all it counts. No, because we're trying to look long term because that's what they would want if the shoe was on the other foot. God, I can't believe I use that. That's like old.

Yes. But tell me about the standard that you want to establish. Right. So I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a change a perspective with. Because when we think about, for example, we. example, we think about homeless shelters. You know, people don't go to a homeless shelter just for a bed to sleep in. They go there to get help. So it really makes no sense for somebody to go to a shelter and the shelter would only provide a bed for the night. A shelter should help the person with understanding what their challenges are, what are their needs, and then to help them to begin to develop goals and work towards those goals and fill those needs. Because at the end of the day, homelessness is not a result of somebody really not having a place to stay. It's really a result of somebody unable to care and fulfill their own needs to be able to fulfill that housing need in the end, if that makes sense.

No, it makes. I'll give you an example. This is a good analogy. I use a lot. So imagine if you had a need medical wise and you went to the doctor and you checked in and then they put you in a room, but the doctor never came. I've experienced. Yes. So think about housing from that perspective with homelessness.

You give somebody the keys to an apartment and you pay their rent for several months, but they never get their needs addressed. So what ends up happening is they regress or recidivate back in. the homeless. I love that example. I just want to get this out there. I have these like eyes that are closing. I mean, infant fucking finals with school podcast. Fuck yes. So I'm paying attention. My eyeballs look like they're closing, but I'm here completely all the way. I was not going to miss this, no matter what. Yeah, no worries. Awesome, man. Yes. So I wanted since we're a little off. topic right now. I wanted to just show my support here. You know, I got myself, my own shirt. We've been, I've been trying to establish a little t-shirt just to make a contribution.

It was not much. Like, okay, I'll tell you what, marketing is not my strong suit. I'd rather be out on the streets screaming it from the rooftops. I feel like I would do it a better job. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. Than do one. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So we'll get with afterwards. I want to do it properly and send you what I was able to make. Like, it's embarrassing because I feel like I didn't like do what I wanted. Like I wanted like a thousand dollars. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, now, well, here's what I tell everybody. Every little bit counts. You know, I've got people that, you know, donate $20 or $50 or whatever. And at the end of the day, when you put it all of it adds up. So we're always, we always say, hey, we're just appreciative that you have a heart. to do something or a heart to give that way or just to contribute or collaborate, man, because it all comes down to it helps us and it helps people.

So that's what it's all about. Yes, yes. I mean, it's a fucking learning opportunity for me. Like, I can't pass that up. I wish people would look at it that way, but now we're going off topic. So with this data that you collected, could you give us just a little taste on what we could expect and what the possibility to addressing changes and what that would look like. Yeah.

So some of the data that we collected showed a significant proportion of the folks that we worked with. They continued, they continued that when we worked with them, they continued to deal, have certain needs. That was the actual need of when they originally experienced their first event of homelessness. So they had a need. That need drove their first event of homelessness. And then now later, and we can some some individuals that years later, they still have that need. Like the need was never was never filled or never met. So in turn, they continue to experience homelessness because the need is not met.

mental health, physical, substance abuse, whatever it is. It's incredible to see how they've gone through this journey of years and the needs were never filled and they continued to experience this. Another thing too, which really surprised me was when we were working with people and we said, hey, you know, where do you go? Like, where do you go to get information? Like if you are looking for a housing program, you're looking for whatever it is, we had a large percentage of people said, I go to the library because the library has become the hub of, you know, major cities, if you will, as far as information, employment services, all these different services they provide.

And it was incredible because I only had one person that said, oh, well, when I want information on social services, I go to a homeless shelter. And that blew my mind because I thought about, you would think if somebody wants information social services that that homeless shelter would be the place. But in reality, it's not. So when we looked at it from that perspective, we thought, you know what we've been pushing what's called a triage model. So when you think of a triage model, it's like, again, another analogy with the hospital. You go to the emergency room, they triage you, right?

Yes. They go through everything. They rack and stack. What are your needs? You know, and prioritize them. then you start from there with the highest product. So that's what we looked at. You know, we've been pushing this triage model.

And I think that if the library per se, where we are is the hub, then what if we propose creating a triage center in the library where we bring all these service providers together to, so a person can have a one-stop shop to go and go through an assessment process and go through a prioritization process and then directly connected to those services to fill those needs. You look like you really want to say something. It's almost stop talking. Yeah. No, like that is awesome because it's all, I mean, it's funded by the state. It's what I'm assuming state level. You're bringing everything together. And when everything is together, I mean, there's a constant communication. Okay. This is what's has.

happening. Now, people know what to do. At that point, they can start to, there will be an average understanding where they can go directly to where they need to go versus not, not making it, being left out in the cold, whatever that may be. And we got, we got to backtrack. So with needs not being met, with, I'm looking back on it as mental health. Now, I'm transitioning. the podcast for next season, particularly for forever. Like, I'm addressing mental health, and I'm going to be the example by extracting every single event in my life, and I want to put it live on camera. So I want to get all of that out because when I wrote everything down, there is a, it, you can

see the tipping point when. It started out as me being a child, taking abuse. And now as I'm getting older, okay, cry out for help. I'm getting mixed up with speeding tickets, DUI, okay? Now failing out of school, then joining the army. Then at that point, I needed to make a decision of what am I going to do? Am I going to let that be the end of me? Fuck, no.

I'm grabbing it by the balls and I'm going to fucking own it because I have that drive, that tenacity. For people that don't have that, that is where it happens is because of those social upbringing moments. Have you experienced? Yeah, absolutely. And that's another, that, that, that, that's incredible because that's another thing that we're looking at right now is we're talking about different models that we want to use.

So we've been looking at some of the models, it's a bio, biocitia. Ecosocial models. So if you take those three components and you sit down and you go through an assessment with somebody and you look at those three areas and then you can begin to pick out certain things and then you and then it transitions to what's called a strength based approach. So we look for strengths within those needs and then we can extract those and then we can motivate people to fill those needs. So that's something else that we were looking at and we're talking about with this

triage center is injecting that into that as well. Because it's kind of an all-encompassing model, if you will. Does that make sense? Yes. And now I'm curious, will you be training everybody to understand how this model is and be up to par that they can go up to anybody and utilize this model appropriately. Yeah. So what we're talking, what we're talking about is taking some examples and going up to,

to let's say, city leadership or government and showing them what it looks like and then seeing if we can get buy in at that level. Because we know I can't walk into somewhere and go, hey, I've got a great idea. idea and here's some things that we can implement it. It's going to be, it's going to have to be more than that. So if I can go to those higher levels, present it, present the data and get that buy-in, then I know that buy-in would be able to push it down to the lower levels. And then we can start to implement it.

And I would be right. Like reading this as well. So I'm really excited about it. Excellent. I was losing there for a second. And that's fantastic. And that's how we get the political figures, the ones that aren't making that change for our society out the fucking door is we need to start at the lowest level, get the right people in. And then in time, the right people will be at the higher level.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. And that's something that we've always realized. And, you know, at a service level, it's where people are. are and it's really hard sometimes to get people to understand or to step outside of that comfort area. You know, it's like, you know, for me, and I'm sure you understand this as well, when something continues to not work, the worst thing I want to do is be a part of continuing

to do the same thing. I just, I just can't do it. You know, it's just not who I am. I know that's not who you are as well, but I just can't continue to do that same thing. And I have to do, I have to look at, you know, there has to be change. There has to be real change. So that's what I'm excited about is because I know that once we go to those higher levels, and I've already had several meetings over the last several months with some civic leaders, a senator, a congressman, and we've discussed this topic. And I was really impressed of how much they understood it.

And I was really impressed of how motivated they were to do something about it. So we've got some follow-on meetings scheduled up over the next several months. And that's why I'm hoping that that can be our, I guess, our kind of big play as far as getting a bigger push for some of these ideas that we have. Beautiful. So once things get published and it is live, where can people go to see the results for themselves? Yeah, so they can go to inspireo change.org. And if you go on our website, we have a research page. So you can just click on the research page.

And what you will see on there, you're going to see a highlight of the data. So you're just going to see the big hitter highlights. And then you're going to see some solution-based things at the bottom of it. And then we're going to actually have a written report as well that's going to go through a bunch of different other aspects of, hey, what does this mean or how does this work or what if we try this type of thing? So if you're really like in the data and you're a critical thinker, you're going to love this, man, because this is going to be right up your alley. So it'll be available.

Nice. So now where does that leave inspire real change? What is the next objective you're going after? Yeah, so the next, it's really the natural progression of it is this research project was focused in Columbia, South Carolina. So in 2022, we're going to branch out into the entire state. So we're going to be, we're going to be doing a new research project. It's going to be based on that, on that methodology that we talked about earlier. and we're going to be going to different parts of the state.

We're going to be going to Myrtle Beach. We're going to be going to Greenville. We're going to be going to all these different places because we want to gather data from individuals in the entire state, which to us feels like the natural progression. You know, we started in a city in a small area, and now we're going to branch out to the entire state. So this year is also going to be a bigger push for solutions. So we can all sit and we can talk about this is a problem, this is a problem, this is a problem, this is a problem.

But what we want to bring to the table is we want to bring solutions. So we're going to be doing a heck of a lot of advocacy, especially kind of what we just talked about with leadership side of the house and showing them this is the data that we have. But more importantly, here's some solutions that we believe can begin to shift and change this thing for the better. because we truly believe and we are fighting to reduce an in homelessness in our state. We understand that COVID is a major player. We know there's a lot going on, but you know what? As far as we're concerned, we're fighting through it and we're going to do whatever we need to do to help our individuals in our state and in our community.

So we're not going to stop. Fuck yeah. I love that. It's now for people that are trying to. make and inspire a real change is this is how they have to do to get a bigger picture and to establish something is to start at the base and then go out in different parts to get a I feel like I'm butchering this right now to get a baseline of information so when everybody can see hey it's not just this one part of the state it's everywhere but

it start the city is ground zero now this is where everything is the trajectory that where everybody's heading yeah so the the the the kind of the core principle was we're going to collect data from people who are experiencing it right now okay because you cannot get we we want to go to the lowest denominator because you can't you can't dispute that if somebody's on the streets and they're homeless and they've been homeless for four or five years and we work with them and we collect data on them, you can't, you can't dispute that. So nobody can sit at a different level and go, well, I don't think those numbers are accurate. I don't think, no, they're not. I can tell you, that's why, that's why with our organizations, real people, real data and real

change, because that's what it is. It comes directly from the source and we take that and we use it. And then that's why we're expanding out because again, we want to show when we bring these solution-based models to the table, we want to go, this is what we think we can do because the data shows A, B, C, and D. Yes. And that's why we're doing. We're not just making it up and going, let's just throw this on the table and see if it runs around a little bit. We're like, hey, there's actually, there's actually data behind this to support what we're trying to do because that, you know, that that's where it all comes from. So yeah, that that's the core of it.

And I would tell anybody that if you wanted to, if you want to do something or you want to, if you see something in your community or whatnot that, that, you know, is unfavorable, whatever, find a need, man. Just find a need in your community and just start at that need. Because that's where really, that's where it really begins with somebody having a, would somebody seeing something and going, this is not working. And I, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how challenging it is, I am going to step up to the plate and I'm going to do something to make a change. That's what it's all about.

I fucking love that. And that's why I'm transitioning this podcast to get everybody on the fucking train to embrace our vulnerabilities as our authentic selves. In order for us to do that, we need to fucking purge everything that's been brought upon us and reconcile that. and understand that you are not the only one and you are not alone. Once we can get that out in the air, I feel like that will have an enormous ripple everywhere. The majority of individuals today are millennials, so they're operating as management in the positions of organizations. If we can get those people to be okay with what happened, that requires a lot of work. It requires somebody to be up front, center that said I had this, this, and this happened to me. You are not the only one. Then there is a

path for everybody to follow. And when that happens, now people become empathetic and understanding. And then at that point, there is a psychological, safe workplace because people fucking matter. And one other thing, too, to kind of piggyback off of that, I was just looking at our research, we had 76% of the people that we worked with identified as having some form of trauma. Fucking do it. So, yeah. So, and, you know, and big picture, we believe homelessness is a trauma itself. You know, not having a place to live or sleeping outside.

I mean, it's a trauma. Actually, being in a show. shelter can be a trauma. So, you know, that was something else that that we're working on too is we thought, well, if we've got a high percentage of trauma related clients, then that, then that will require trauma related care, which that could be something else that can be integrated into the triage model or triage center. Because if if you've got some of the experienced trauma, then then we need to do trauma and formed care to help this person to fill that. need just makes sense yeah i like that that yeah that that's a oh god that could be that could take all day

to go into that but i love that now tracy is there anything that you would like to get out to her audience that i haven't given you the opportunity to say so yeah i would just say that um you know like i said wherever a community that you're in um just just find a need and go fill it i mean it really I mean, so many great things come from just, I mean, it starts with just one person. You know, we think, oh, well, it's just me or, you know, I've got a couple of people and we're thinking about doing this or thinking about doing that. But I don't know. No, man, if you really feel in your heart and you're passionate about something, I encourage

you to go do it because you never know what type of impact you're going to have, not just on who you're trying to serve or what you're trying to do, but other people that, other people that see you. because people will see you and they'll see your passion and they'll be like, man, I want to rally around that person. And before you know it, you've got a whole, you got a whole crew of people that are just like,

man, I'm fired up, man, let's, you know, they're getting you out of bed every morning. You know what I mean? So that's,

that's the beauty of it. But, you know, I always say, you know, great never came from easy. So just because something gets difficult, don't stop doing it.

Keep, keep your focused on it and keep doing it. And even though you don't get to accolades from people, it doesn't matter because you just keep doing what you want to do. And if that's your passion, you'll see it come to where to do you. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. How can our listeners get in touch with you if they want to know more or help out? Yeah, just go to InspireRealChange.org.

You can contact us that way. You can send us a message on social media. We'll respond to you as well. But we're hard at work. We're excited for the future. and we're thankful for every opportunity that you've given to us, man, with your podcast, man. It's been absolutely awesome. Beautiful. Thank you.

I mean, I want to help as much as I can because I connect. And for those that are listening, there's still time. Get yourself a fucking t-shirt. You're going to make a difference in somebody else's life. Yeah. All right. That's it for today. Tracy, I'm going to transition you off.

here. Let's see how I can do that. I don't think I can, but I'm going to try. If I lose you, you better call me right back. That way, that way. All right. Yep, definitely lost them. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for tuning in. I'll be sure to post this on the podcast. If you want to listen to this on the go, but other than that, I will see you guys next week and broadcast. It's tax season. And at Lifelock, we know your tired of numbers. But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and

refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.