00:00 - This program has been paid for by the sponsor and does not reflect

00:03 - the views of PCN.

00:19 - Good afternoon and welcome to Peter C Speaks Fair Housing Forward.

00:23 - I'm your host, Brittany Mellinger, and I serve as the Fair Housing

00:26 - Training and Outreach coordinator at the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

00:30 - In this show, we explore all things housing with the experts, advocates,

00:34 - and community leaders who are working to expand access to housing.

00:39 - Today, we'll be discussing

00:40 - housing challenges for individuals returning home after incarceration.

00:44 - It's my pleasure to welcome to the show Kurt Danish.

00:47 - Kurt is the founder and executive director of Tamara's

00:50 - Neighbors, a nonprofit organization in Cumberland County.

00:54 - He is also the director of the Cumberland House, a 13 bed

00:57 - reentry housing solution in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:01 - Prior to this role, Kurt served 24 years in the Pennsylvania

01:05 - Department of Corrections for a crime that he committed in 1996 at the age of 18.

01:10 - Welcome to the show, Kurt, and thanks for joining us.

01:12 - No problem. Thank you for having me.

01:14 - So we all have a story about how we got to our current work.

01:17 - Could you share a little bit of your journey with our viewers today?

01:20 - Sure.

01:21 - So as you said, you know, I went to prison when I was 18.

01:24 - In 1996,

01:25 - I committed a very serious crime, a crime for which I deserved to go to prison for.

01:29 - When I first entered the system, I was kind of lost.

01:32 - Young man.

01:32 - Didn't know, you know, where my life would turn out.

01:35 - And ironically, it was really the life of a population.

01:37 - So in Pennsylvania, we have about 5000 men, women and children

01:41 - serving life without parole.

01:43 - These individuals will never be released from prison.

01:45 - They have no real motivation to do well,

01:47 - but they're the lifeblood of the prison system.

01:49 - And so when I felt like my life was over, they were the first ones to say,

01:53 - no, it's not like you're going to go home one day.

01:55 - You know, their lives are over.

01:57 - And they invested in me.

01:57 - And one of the greatest advice they gave me

01:59 - was to go in the education building and sit down and get an education.

02:03 - And I did that.

02:04 - And, one of the education pieces I obtained was peer support certification.

02:10 - So the Department of Corrections has what I consider a phenomenal program.

02:14 - They train inmates to be a peer support specialist.

02:17 - So they give mentor and emotional support to their peers.

02:20 - The program gave me purpose, gave me a reason to wake up every day,

02:23 - enabled staff, my peers and myself to see myself differently.

02:29 - Shortly after that, they brought the Pell Grant second Chance program back.

02:32 - So in the 90s, they took mostly educational opportunities

02:34 - away from prison. We've slowly brought them back.

02:37 - And so I was able to earn a business degree.

02:40 - Part of the business degree required me to come up with a business plan.

02:43 - Having been in prison for about 20 years at that point, you know,

02:46 - I didn't really know what to do.

02:47 - But I had a really good professor who said a good business solves a problem.

02:52 - So he said, can you think of a problem?

02:53 - And I said, sure, reentry.

02:54 - And he said, well, just design the best

02:57 - business model you could think of for a reentry organization.

03:00 - So I took it serious, and I started sitting down with a lot of the

03:04 - prisoners that had come back to prison for parole violations.

03:06 - And I asked them, you know, why are they back?

03:09 - And almost every single time

03:10 - it came down to two reasons they felt overwhelmed or they felt alone.

03:14 - So I designed Tomorrow's Neighbors to kind of address both those issues.

03:17 - I think tomorrow's Neighbors definitely helps those coming home after me.

03:22 - I think it creates safer communities.

03:24 - But more than that, I think it also

03:27 - can make amends for my offense.

03:28 - You know, I went to prison for a serious offense.

03:30 - I deserve to be there.

03:32 - But I look at tomorrow's neighbors.

03:33 - With every successful reentry

03:34 - that we keep out of prison is one less victim of crime.

03:37 - So even if you don't support re entrance because you're not empathetic

03:40 - or sympathetic to them, please understand that.

03:42 - You know, if you keep someone out and you take them out of the

03:44 - cycle of crime and recidivism, you're preventing victims of crime.

03:48 - Yeah, that's a that's a powerful story.

03:50 - And and it sounds like you were able to get, great support with the lifers

03:56 - and the professor, and and it's incredible how you found your way to

04:00 - to Myers neighbors.

04:01 - Could you tell us a little bit more about the work of tomorrow's neighbors

04:04 - and what that is? Sure.

04:05 - So we're a nonprofit reentry organization.

04:08 - Our mission is to empower returning citizens to become responsible

04:11 - community members.

04:13 - And our goal

04:13 - is to significantly reduce the crime and recidivism rates in Pennsylvania.

04:17 - As you said, we operate the Cumberland House,

04:19 - which is a 13 bed reentry housing solution.

04:22 - We're a little unique in that we're entirely peer driven.

04:26 - Everyone that works for us has previously been incarcerated

04:29 - or in some way been touched by the criminal justice system.

04:33 - It's understood when you come in, we're going to mentor you,

04:35 - but eventually

04:36 - you're going to be called on to mentor someone coming home behind you,

04:39 - because I find, you know, in reentry, when you have your hand out

04:42 - and you need services, you feel less than,

04:43 - but when you're able to kind of give back in, you feel more then,

04:49 - we're a lot more support than structure.

04:51 - So we don't have necessarily rules.

04:53 - We have an expectations of a good neighbor manual.

04:56 - We find that, you know, jails sometimes create good inmates, not good citizens.

05:00 - So we really want to help, you know, people coming home to become good

05:03 - citizens.

05:05 - It's their house.

05:07 - The rules they have to follow parole puts plenty of rules on them.

05:09 - So we strongly encourage them to follow those rules.

05:13 - But we mainly connect people

05:14 - with resources, so we require everyone to do community service.

05:18 - But I say require the guys love doing community service.

05:20 - Most guys returning home,

05:22 - generally remorseful for the actions that you know, led them to prison.

05:25 - They want to re contribute to their community

05:27 - and they want to be reintegrated.

05:29 - We also help people get identification.

05:31 - Transportation is a huge issue.

05:33 - We have an e-bike program we started last year,

05:35 - so we have a fleet of 15 e-bikes to help people get to work.

05:38 - The Rotary Club recently did a fun drive for us, so we're trying to get a van.

05:43 - We're looking to find an affordable rental van to help people get to work.

05:47 - Help them get to other important,

05:49 - important appointments because we forget, you know, people just don't go to work.

05:52 - They also have doctor appointments.

05:53 - They have mental health appointments.

05:55 - And we connect them with those mental health services,

05:58 - recovery services and, employment.

06:02 - And we've had great success with employment.

06:03 - We've had house guests that became tax preparers.

06:06 - We have one guy that became a head chef at a pretty reputable restaurant,

06:10 - and we have a guy that just recently graduated

06:13 - from our program who's now going to Shippensburg University for social work.

06:17 - That's incredible

06:18 - to see how all of those folks are giving back and,

06:22 - and reestablishing their lives in you work, in your work, what do you,

06:26 - see as some of the biggest challenges, challenges for returning citizens?

06:31 - I mean, traditionally, it's obviously transportation is a big issue.

06:34 - Employment.

06:35 - I think stigma is a really big one.

06:37 - And a lot of the stigma is like, yes, the public perceives as a certain way,

06:41 - but when we come home,

06:42 - we feel like we have a sticker

06:43 - on our forehead that says, I just came out of prison.

06:46 - And unfortunately, some people fall into that path and

06:49 - they have the mentality that I'll reject society before society can reject me.

06:53 - So we really try to, you know, our mentorship starts

06:55 - before somebody is released from prison.

06:56 - So we start working with them ahead of time.

06:58 - We start preparing them, you know, to kind of address that mental, mindset.

07:04 - But mental health is another issue.

07:06 - People coming out of prison.

07:07 - You know, we have a rehabilitation model, but a lot of people that went to prison

07:11 - weren't literate to start with.

07:13 - So they need those life skills.

07:14 - You know, a lot suffer from mental health.

07:17 - Technology is a huge one.

07:18 - You know, we specialize in people that serve long term incarceration.

07:21 - I personally, when I came home in 2020, I had never been on a cell phone,

07:24 - never been on the internet.

07:26 - There's not a lot of access to that technology while you're incarcerated.

07:29 - So some people come home and they say, go on the internet and apply for a job.

07:32 - And they said, how do I get on the internet?

07:34 - So there's a lot of like obstacles there that people don't necessarily see.

07:38 - But, the biggest one I think is housing.

07:41 - Yeah.

07:42 - Just spending one day in jail, you're ten times

07:44 - more likely than the average American to experience homelessness.

07:47 - I think it starts with housing.

07:49 - If you don't feel that there's a place for you out here,

07:52 - you have that voice in the back of your head saying you belong in prison.

07:55 - You know, you belong on the outskirts of society.

07:58 - So I think it all starts with housing.

08:00 - We need to,

08:01 - you know, give someone somewhere to feel safe

08:03 - so that they can take

08:03 - the next steps in employment and, you know, build the rest of their lives.

08:07 - Yeah. Housing is often that first step.

08:10 - You know, that safe

08:10 - home base before you can go out and, and put all the other pieces in place.

08:14 - You know, the lack of housing,

08:16 - if you have a bunch of people coming out of prison

08:19 - and they end up in one area because people tend to live where they can work, right?

08:22 - So you look for where those jobs are.

08:24 - If you don't have transportation, you're stuck in a little perimeter,

08:28 - so you end up with a large concentration of people coming out of incarceration

08:31 - in one neighborhood, and crime rates go up.

08:34 - It's a much better model to kind of give them that support system,

08:38 - help them get into housing so they're more dispersed,

08:40 - receive more supports, and they're not just all in one area.

08:44 - Yeah, absolutely.

08:47 - So could you talk a little bit

08:48 - about how difficulty in finding housing might impact the housing stability?

08:52 - A very entrenched, sure.

08:54 - I mean,

08:56 - I think, you know, most people come out and they have no credit, right?

08:59 - And they have no, rental history, or they might have had evictions on them.

09:03 - I think it's disastrous because it all starts with housing. And

09:07 - without having that stability, some people fall back into relapse.

09:11 - Mental health, they give up hope.

09:14 - A lot of guys will end up getting into a terrible relationship

09:17 - because they need housing, right?

09:18 - Like, here's a woman that wants to date me,

09:20 - and she's going to give me somewhere to live.

09:22 - That's not always a good environment.

09:25 - And I'll say one thing.

09:26 - Nobody wants to go back to prison.

09:27 - I've never met one person than on their last day in prison.

09:30 - Said, I can't wait to come back here.

09:32 - But they know that's an option.

09:34 - And it's a powerful option.

09:35 - If you come out here and you're not accepted into this community.

09:38 - And it seems like no matter what you do, you're not going to get ahead.

09:41 - People will go back to what they know and they don't want to do that,

09:44 - but they will.

09:46 - So I think, again, we really need to kind of focus on

09:49 - helping them find a place, you know, and holding them accountable.

09:52 - Right. Like we're not talking about giving housing.

09:54 - We're talking about giving someone an opportunity to pay rent and to do what

09:58 - the average person does to maintain that housing.

10:01 - Gotcha.

10:03 - What programs and supports

10:04 - have you found to be really helpful, as you're supporting reentry

10:08 - in their housing and other areas of their lives?

10:11 - First and foremost is education.

10:13 - Education is the only thing we know statistically reduces recidivism.

10:17 - We know that the average person coming home, 68 to 75%,

10:20 - are going to go back to prison within three years.

10:23 - If they participate in just some high school, that recidivism rate drops to 55%.

10:29 - If you add vocational training, it drops to 30%.

10:31 - If you get an associate's degree, you're at 14%.

10:34 - If you're at a bachelor's degree, you're down to 6%.

10:36 - And if you get a master's degree, 0% chance of going back to prison.

10:40 - So we know it works, right?

10:41 - Now the hard sell is getting it in there, right?

10:45 - And convincing the public

10:46 - that it's not being soft on crime to give an education to a criminal right.

10:52 - But we spend

10:53 - $60,000 a year to keep someone in prison, and education is a fraction of that.

10:57 - So if we're willing to, you know, have that investment upfront

11:00 - and give them that education, we're going to save it on the tail end.

11:02 - We're going to create safer communities. We're going to give people hope.

11:05 - You know, we're going to reunify families. Because

11:07 - when we think of people incarcerated, we think of the offender, right?

11:11 - We don't think about the child and the spouse that is also part of that family.

11:16 - And incarceration breaks up those families.

11:17 - And we need to at least create

11:19 - an opportunity for those families to kind of come back together.

11:22 - Yeah.

11:23 - But additionally, I would say peer reentry support.

11:25 - I think that's

11:28 - we need peer reentry support in any field.

11:30 - When you need advice from somebody, you're going to gravitate

11:32 - to people that can share your lived experience.

11:34 - You're going to take their advice more

11:36 - and like I said, when I was incarcerated, all I saw was parole violators.

11:39 - We need to see success.

11:41 - We need to know it's possible because if you're only seeing failures,

11:44 - you're going to go.

11:44 - We are all failures, and this is what we're destined to do.

11:47 - So I think when you bring those success stories

11:49 - and the Department of Corrections

11:50 - does a great job of letting us go back in telling people that we are out here

11:54 - succeeding, we're doing well, that there's communities

11:56 - that will accept us if we're doing the right thing right,

11:59 - and what we need to do inside to prepare to be out here,

12:02 - which would include education and gaining those skills

12:04 - that are going to enable you to maintain the life you want out here.

12:07 - Yeah, yeah.

12:08 - I imagine that hope is really crucial to, to be able to

12:11 - to see your life outside of prison and, and see your future.

12:14 - So you talked a little bit about success.

12:17 - How do you look at success within your with your program?

12:20 - It's tough right?

12:21 - We had a committee where we were trying to define what successful reentry means.

12:25 - And at the end of the day, it's different for everybody.

12:27 - Traditionally we measure recidivism.

12:29 - Do they go back to prison or not?

12:31 - I personally don't think that's a great test,

12:32 - because I know plenty of successes that unfortunately end up back in prison

12:36 - and plenty of quote unquote failures that stay out here.

12:39 - So I don't think that's the greatest measure.

12:41 - Of course, it's something we want to factor in.

12:43 - We want you to stay out of incarceration.

12:45 - But I look to things like self-sufficiency,

12:47 - their connection to their community.

12:48 - Do they have a purpose when they wake up?

12:50 - Have they healed right?

12:52 - People don't go to prison because they were healthy.

12:54 - You know, I mean, most of us

12:55 - coming into incarceration had experienced tremendous trauma in our lives.

12:58 - So we need to address that.

13:00 - But I think more than anything is hope.

13:02 - And when you see somebody that first comes out of prison, you don't see hope.

13:05 - That's not the first emotion it should be, right?

13:08 - We should have them to have hope.

13:09 - So they're going to act upon that and say, I can build a life.

13:12 - And these are the steps to get there.

13:14 - And I'm going to do it.

13:15 - So I think success is very individual,

13:18 - but we have to reevaluate what success really means.

13:21 - And it's the same as if you have a child and you want your child to succeed.

13:25 - We want the same thing in reentry.

13:27 - Yeah, absolutely.

13:30 - So I know programs like yours need funding in order

13:33 - to keep the doors open and keep providing services.

13:36 - Can you talk a little bit about how you're funded

13:38 - and what kind of funding is available for programs like yours to help

13:42 - your participants continue to have the success?

13:45 - Sure.

13:45 - So the answer is there's not a lot of funding coming to organizations like ours,

13:49 - but I will say that Cumberland County has been tremendously supportive

13:52 - of the Cumberland House.

13:53 - It wouldn't exist if it weren't for Cumberland County. So

13:57 - but the

13:59 - the complication is most reentry houses contract

14:03 - with the Department of Corrections in order to receive funding.

14:06 - But if you do that, there's certain parameters you have to meet.

14:09 - You have to have a parole officer on duty all the time.

14:11 - You have to have a glass bubble.

14:13 - You have to have metal detectors on the door.

14:15 - You have to remove doors to the bedrooms and the bathrooms,

14:18 - you know, all of which would ruin our model, right?

14:20 - Like we want these people to feel like it's their home.

14:22 - We want them to have that pride.

14:24 - So you're kind of forced to accept funding and change your model,

14:28 - or stay with your model

14:29 - and look for funding elsewhere, and we've chosen to look for it elsewhere.

14:33 - And that's not to say that the Department of Corrections is in any way wrong.

14:36 - There's purposes of why they have those requirements.

14:39 - But, at the end of the day, there's a lot of money going into reentry.

14:42 - I would argue it's not always going in the right places.

14:45 - You have grassroot organizations which we consider ourselves

14:48 - were integrated into our community.

14:49 - We can reach the population we serve.

14:52 - We have the trust of our community.

14:53 - And then you have artificial turf organizations, as I call them.

14:56 - And these are large organizations that have a lot of grant writers.

14:59 - They tend to be very proactive with the grants, end up

15:01 - getting all the grants, but they don't have the connection.

15:03 - They don't have the impact in the community like we do.

15:06 - In two years, we've saved the

15:08 - Commonwealth almost $1 million in avoidable incarceration costs.

15:11 - Right. So that's a good track record.

15:13 - We're not asking for that much money.

15:14 - We're asking for a fraction so that we can keep our doors open.

15:17 - The partnership for Better Health in Cumberland County

15:19 - has been tremendously supportive of us.

15:21 - We're so grateful for that.

15:22 - But most of our funding comes from independent donors.

15:25 - The religious community has been phenomenal.

15:27 - Churches have done entire fundraisers and donate it to us. And,

15:31 - I like that.

15:32 - I like that the community is supporting us. Right.

15:34 - Because that's impactful to the men that we serve to know

15:37 - this isn't tomorrow's neighbors or Kurt Danish putting this on.

15:41 - This is the community supporting you. Yeah.

15:44 - Can you talk a little bit about how you went about, establishing

15:48 - that that trust in the community, how you how you began that relationship?

15:52 - Sure.

15:52 - Well, first of all, we didn't just open our doors and say we're here, right?

15:54 - We included everybody from law enforcement, probation, parole,

15:58 - the reentry coalition in Cumberland County, the county commissioners,

16:01 - just community members and told them what we wanted to do

16:04 - and more importantly, why we wanted to do it.

16:05 - We held a reentry roundtable in town so people understood

16:09 - the plight of re entrance. Right.

16:10 - Like what barriers they face.

16:12 - The same stuff we're talking about today.

16:14 - And as a result of that,

16:15 - most people in the community said, how can we support this?

16:18 - And that included law enforcement.

16:19 - Carlisle just recently hired eight new

16:21 - police officers and we invited them to our house.

16:23 - We wanted them to meet our men and we wanted our men to meet them.

16:26 - I personally believe there's too much of a divide

16:28 - between law enforcement and the communities in general,

16:31 - let alone our community, and we think we really have to bridge that gap,

16:34 - because it breaks my heart to know that there's young people

16:38 - that could be getting abused at home, and they're more scared to call the police

16:41 - than they are of their abuser.

16:42 - And that's a sad situation.

16:45 - But so we really kind of

16:47 - built that community around the house, and now we do community service.

16:51 - We're supporting an Easter egg hunt behind our house.

16:53 - Coming up last year, one of our guys dressed up

16:55 - like the Easter bunny at the Easter egg hunt.

16:57 - He was six foot four and had dreadlocks down to his waist.

16:59 - He was not the prettiest Easter bunny, but he was.

17:01 - He was a good Easter bunny.

17:04 - But yeah, I mean, just remembering that

17:07 - we broke the law.

17:09 - We deserve to be separated from society for a time.

17:11 - When we come home, we don't say we're even with the house.

17:13 - We say we're here to prove ourselves worthy of being here.

17:16 - So we're very accountable.

17:18 - And that I wouldn't say that our guys are guests in their community.

17:23 - I think they're members

17:23 - of their community, but they understand it.

17:25 - That comes with responsibility. So

17:29 - could you talk a little bit

17:30 - about the role that local governments play in fostering housing opportunities?

17:34 - What does that look like?

17:36 - It's tremendous, right?

17:36 - I mean, I think the tone gets set by government

17:39 - and the community is looking toward government going, is this a good idea?

17:42 - Is this something we should support?

17:44 - And I think government sees the bigger picture.

17:47 - They understand that strong reentry saves money on incarceration, right?

17:50 - Strong reentry can go further and be a preventive.

17:54 - We can reach the young people and stop them from going in incarceration

17:57 - to start with.

17:58 - But, local government can set incentives for landlords and employers

18:01 - the right to, to grant second chances, to encourage them to,

18:05 - they can add reentry on the line of a budget.

18:08 - Right.

18:08 - We can actually make sure that there's money going into this

18:11 - because we're saving more money in the long run.

18:14 - And small things like April is reentry month.

18:17 - We had, Cumberland County actually

18:20 - recognize it and issue a proclamation recognizing is reentry month.

18:24 - So that raises public awareness.

18:26 - So I think government plays a huge role.

18:27 - And having their support is tremendous for is tremendous for us and organizations

18:32 - like us.

18:33 - You know, you had worked with your local government,

18:35 - to get a zoning variance in order to, to have your house.

18:38 - Could you talk a little bit about what that process looked like for you?

18:41 - Sure. So,

18:42 - it's actually more complicated than you think,

18:44 - opening a house and having people live in it.

18:46 - And there was an issue that we didn't understand all of the zoning,

18:50 - and it came to an issue that we had to ask for a variance, because we have more

18:54 - than four family members living in a house.

18:57 - And again, we went to the Carlisle borough.

18:59 - We explained it.

18:59 - There was a public hearing, there was a neighborhood association that came out.

19:03 - We answered all their questions.

19:05 - And at the end of the day, you know, everyone agreed it.

19:06 - It was a positive thing. And they gave us the variance.

19:09 - So having that cooperation was crucial because without it we wouldn't be open

19:12 - and we wouldn't be saving money from incarceration costs.

19:15 - So yeah, absolutely.

19:18 - A minute ago you had mentioned, engaging with landlords,

19:22 - along with the local governments, you know, can you talk a little bit

19:26 - about what landlord engagement has looked like for your program?

19:29 - Sure. So we find that there's a stigma, right?

19:32 - Landlords go, why would I rent to a reentrant? Right.

19:34 - Like they're going to be terrible tenants.

19:37 - So sometimes we're kind of

19:40 - dispelling those myths.

19:41 - And in reality, restaurants are great tenants.

19:44 - And I'm going to tell you why. Because people are always going.

19:46 - How would they be great tenants?

19:47 - First of all, they're on parole.

19:49 - Parole said certain parameters.

19:50 - You can't drink, you can't use drugs.

19:52 - You have to work. You have to keep your house clean. Right.

19:55 - So most landlords struggle with those issues with regular tenants.

19:59 - And if they don't adhere to those rules, then they have to evict them.

20:03 - Well, the rental,

20:04 - it's not going to have to be evicted because he's going to violate his parole

20:06 - and he's going to go back to incarceration if he breaks those rules.

20:09 - But my experience shows most don't.

20:11 - They're very appreciative and grateful for the opportunity.

20:14 - They make great tenants and that they're very independent.

20:16 - If the batteries in the smoke detector go bad, they're going to replace them.

20:19 - They're not going to call you and say, get over here and, you know, do this

20:23 - very clean.

20:24 - You live in a parking lot size room with another man in a toilet in the room.

20:28 - You tend to be very clean, you know, and you bring those tendencies home.

20:31 - When I go over to some of the guys that graduate from our programs

20:35 - house, it's way cleaner than mine.

20:36 - I'm embarrassed to see it.

20:38 - So our experience goes.

20:39 - We will actually meet with landlords as a group or individually

20:43 - tell them why they should rent.

20:45 - They take the chance and then they'll call us and say, do you have any more?

20:48 - Because it's really that good of an experience

20:50 - and they tend to stay in the place,

20:52 - you know, for at least a year, you know, before they move on to somewhere else.

20:56 - But yeah, it's not hard to convince them.

20:59 - It's hard to, to beat that stigma.

21:01 - But once you do, I think people are on board.

21:04 - Yeah.

21:04 - What do you find is really key to beating that stigma?

21:06 - Like what do you find the most convincing?

21:08 - Is it the facts and figures?

21:09 - Is it the stories is like what I'm a facts and figures guy right.

21:13 - So I thought when I came home that's what's going to compel people.

21:16 - Yeah.

21:16 - But honestly this telling stories, talking about it,

21:20 - I think that really does change hearts and minds.

21:22 - Getting people exposed to people.

21:23 - Every time I talk about reentry, someone to come up afterwards, inevitably

21:27 - every single time, and they'll whisper and say, my brother's incarcerated.

21:30 - And I said, well, why are we whispering?

21:31 - Everybody knows somebody who's incarcerated.

21:34 - But I think that's powerful, right?

21:35 - People feel alone, so they feel isolated when we just talk about it.

21:39 - Right.

21:39 - We have to have one point 2.5 million Americans in prison.

21:42 - This is an issue we should all be talking about.

21:45 - Yeah, absolutely.

21:47 - So the work that you do is incredibly meaningful, but I imagine

21:51 - it's also incredibly challenging as well.

21:53 - Could you talk a little bit about what keeps you going on those really tough days?

21:57 - Sure.

21:58 - I think of one person and his name is Greg,

22:01 - and he went to prison when he was 14 years old.

22:05 - We started giving him services after he came home after 47 years incarceration.

22:10 - So you do the math. The man's in his 60s.

22:12 - He went to a halfway house in Harrisburg

22:14 - Road, his bike three miles to work, three miles back every single day.

22:18 - Never complained and ended up getting an apartment in Carlisle.

22:20 - He has a job in Carlisle and he would still ride his bike every day.

22:23 - Rain, sleet, snow it didn't matter.

22:26 - So we recently got him a 50 cc scooter so he could get to work and back.

22:30 - And in his words, he said great, I can sleep longer in the morning,

22:34 - but I see him around town all the time smiling.

22:36 - I mean, this, this is he's just got such a grateful heart for the life he has.

22:40 - So when I start struggling and I feel like my day is bad,

22:43 - I think of Greg and I'll say, you know what? Right?

22:45 - Do I have to be miserable today if he can do it

22:47 - and he can have a smile on his face, you know what I mean?

22:49 - That keeps me going. And and him and all the men we serve.

22:52 - I mean, they proved this model works, you know, they're proving it.

22:55 - We're not doing this.

22:56 - And I

22:57 - and I think it shows

22:57 - if you give people just a little bit of support and encouragement,

23:01 - they will either live up or down to your expectations.

23:03 - So if you set your expectations high, they live up to them.

23:06 - If you set them too low, they'll live down to them.

23:08 - So well.

23:09 - It sounds like you've got some incredibly high expectations,

23:12 - but some incredibly meaningful success as well.

23:15 - So, I'm really thankful

23:17 - for joining me here today on the show to talk about your work and,

23:21 - for taking the time for this discussion today. Awesome.

23:23 - Thank you so much for this opportunity. Absolutely.

23:26 - I'd also like to thank our viewers for spending their afternoon learning with us.

23:29 - If you believe that you've experienced housing discrimination

23:32 - or would like to learn more about the housing protections in Pennsylvania,

23:36 - give us a call at these fair housing line,

23:38 - which is (855) 866-5718.

23:42 - You can also find us at our website on the screen,

23:45 - which is ww.gov.

23:48 - Again, slash agencies slash HRC.

23:53 - You can also keep up with our work on Facebook, Instagram X,

23:57 - YouTube and LinkedIn.

23:58 - And remember our

24:00 - our communities are stronger when everybody has a place to call home.

24:03 - We'll see you next time.

24:06 - This program has been paid

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