Nobody Ends Homelessness Alone: A Conversation with Cathy ten Broeke

Speaker A: Hello, community. You are listening to Conversations with Shonda, where leadership gets real and personal. This is where we cut through the noise to confront the issues shaping our world and our community from power and justice to the heart of community change. Hosted by me, Shonda Smith Baker, president and CEO of the St. Paulette Minnesota Foundation. Welcome to Conversations with Shonda. This conversation is hosted by Alfonso Wenker and Senior Vice President of Community impact at the St. Paul in Minnesota Foundation. Alfonso is in conversation with Kathy Tenbrook, who leads the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness. Kathy has been doing this work for more than 30 years, starting at a shelter in Minneapolis and now leading a cabinet level body coordinating housing policy across 14 state agencies. Here's Alfonso and Kathy.

Speaker B: I am here today with Kathy Tenbrook and Kathy leads the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness. Thanks for spending some time with me today, Kathy.

Speaker A: Thank you, Alfonso. It's great to be here.

Speaker B: Um, tell folks what the council is and how long you've been involved and what's the scope of the work there.

Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So I've been here at the Minnesota Interagency Council since January of 2013, so about 13 and a half, half years. Prior to that, I did work in Minneapolis and Hennepin county, and I did a little short stint out in Washington D.C. working with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. But prior to all of that, and most importantly, I worked, uh, in direct service at a shelter for about eight years in Minneapolis. And that is really where I became just so deeply passionate about this work, um, the work of the Minnesota Interagency Council. It is a cabinet level body for the governor and Lieutenant Governor. It's led by Lieutenant Governor Flanagan and co chaired by our Housing Commissioner and Human Services Commissioner. But it has the commissioners of 14 different state agencies and the chair of the Met Council. And together they represent, um, the most critical agencies that have a role to play in housing stability for people in Minnesota. Everything from the Commissioner of Education that has a role with her, her partners all across the state to identify students, for example, who might be experiencing housing instability, to obviously the Housing Commissioner and the Human Services Commissioner, but also the Transportation Commissioner because transportation is so key and important to all the work we do. Higher education, Department of Corrections, Public Safety, so it's the Health commissioner. So a really incredible group, um, that drives this work. And the role that they play is that they are responsible for the developing and implementing a statewide strategic plan, uh, for the administration on how we are addressing housing instability across agency lines and breaking down silos and of course, all of that work is done with partners in every corner of the state. Um, they're also responsible for the governor's interagency housing stability and policy package. Um, and then a lot of work that we do, um, working with communities on, you know, public education, technical assistance, supportive communities on multiple different initiatives happening all across the state. And so my role, I direct the team, the interagency council team. They have a small little staff. Um, but the beautiful thing is that we get to work with staff from all of these agencies every day, working across lines to just really figure out how do we make this work, um, less about any one silo or any one entity, and really pull together solutions across agencies, uh, and across silos. And then we get to work with so many amazing nonprofits, um, and local jurisdictions and tribal nations and partners in every corner of the state. So that is a wonderful job and I love what I get to do. I think the other thing I want to make sure to say, Alfonso, is that something has really shifted in our work over the last several years in that we have moved into developing a strategic plan that is focused on justice and how do we create housing justice, uh, racial justice, and health justice for people facing homelessness in our state. And that was really born out of our experience during COVID when we recognized that to protect people experiencing homelessness and engage systems that were responsible for doing that, a lot of those systems and processes were never designed to meet the needs of people who had housing instability. And they really weren't designed with people, um, or by people experiencing homelessness. So we had to do a lot of, um, figuring out how to work around that. And so what we're trying to do now is actually center people who are experiencing homelessness in all of the work. So we're hiring people with lived experience of homelessness to work with us on a daily basis. They both were hired to create the plan with us and co lead that process. And they're now also hired as we have 14 implementation consultants who are paid to work with us, are embedded in the agencies helping us implement the Crossroads to Justice plan. So that's been a really big shift in how we do our work together.

Speaker B: My brain is buzzing. There's a lot I want to follow up on in all of that. So things I want to get to. I want to talk about sort of the origins of your leadership in and those early stories in the shelter work that you did, what brought you there. So I want to talk about that at some point. Um, I'm really Curious about this structure of an interagency council. And I want to understand if that's unique. Um, and then I want to talk about this shift to justice. The way you said a shift to justice makes it sound like a really big deal. So I also want to understand, um, that part of it. So let's start with the kind of entity you work with. Is that unique in the state and the country? Where does that kind of model come. Come from?

Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for asking that. So, you know, in Minnesota, I'll start there. We have had something on the books, uh, through statute. I think it goes back to about 1987, 1990, somewhere in there, that their legislature asked that the state develop some kind of an interagency task force, I think it might have been called then, to work across lines and try to do better, um, to connect, you know, the work and break down silos. Um, it was never a policy driving body. It was never a, like a sub cabinet of, um, the governor and lieutenant governor's office. But in 2013, when I was hired to come in, uh, that year, Mary Tingerthal was the commissioner of Minnesota Housing, and Tina Smith was the chief of staff of Governor Dayton. And they really wanted to see something that would be elevated within state government to more of a sub cabinet level body that would focus on housing instability. I was coming fresh off a stint out in Washington, D.C. at, uh, the very end of President Obama's first term, working with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. And so we modeled what we built here essentially on that model, which was 19 federal secretaries working together on the issue of homelessness all across the country. And it was so very impressive that it was like, what could we do to really get commissioner level buy in across the critical agencies, uh, to do that work here in Minnesota. So we literally started walking around to agency by agency, talking about how critical their role was, um, in the housing stability of Minnesotans. And what was interesting is that I think at first for some of the commissioners, it was like, well, you know, I'm the Commissioner of Education or I'm the Commissioner of Transportation. What I don't do. Housing was sort of the idea. But then when we really talked about it a lot more. What does housing stability mean? It requires prevention. It requires all kinds of supports and services. It requires getting to work. It requires having, uh, educational support for children and making sure they can get to school and that their families have what they need for that kind of stability so kids have a place to go home and do their homework. And once we started really diving into the details of what is involved in housing instability. Commissioners were very much on board and it just. That kind of buy in kept growing throughout the Dayton administration. And then the Walls Flanagan administration just took it to a whole nother level. It became just a central priority for the Walls Flanagan administration and Lt. Governor Flanagan in particular. This is a passion of hers and something that's deeply personal to her. So for her to lead this council now, um has really been, you know, just helped kind of skyrocket into this, this next level of work. So I wouldn't say it's entirely unique. We certainly see other interagency council models around the country. There are not very many of them that are state interagency councils and very few that are cabinet level bodies. So where the commissioners are really at the table driving the work. And so we're really, really proud of it. We do a lot of talking with a lot of um states about how we've set it up and how it works and the pros and cons of different structures. And it's a lot of fun for us because it's something that we just feel um, excited to share with anybody who's interested in doing this work this way.

Speaker B: What stands out to me is the conversation that to assemble something like this, helping different leaders understand that we as people who live here in the state don't experience life organized by state agency. So when I'm, when I'm thinking about just navigating my life, I'm not thinking about if this is DEED or DHS or Department of Education or. Right. That it humanizes the experience that someone might be having. Which brings me to this concept of centering justice and just how you said that, it signaled something for me like this is a big deal. So when you say housing justice or what does that mean and how is that different from just decreasing the number of people who are unhoused in any given night?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think the big difference for me is that I have, you know, now being in the work for over 30 years, I've certainly been a part of a lot of plans and strategic work that is all about like how many units of housing are we going to develop or we have those kinds of goals. And I think the justice frame takes it out of just how many units are we going to develop? Obviously that's very, very important. But into the realm of how are we going to do the work and who is it going to serve and what is the impact on people and their quality of life. It just sort of it's a whole different frame. And the best way I can think of to describe it is that it's shifted not what we do, but how we do it. And so when we were charged to create a justice plan, that was incredibly exciting to me and very humbling because I knew my little team and even all the folks within state agencies, we couldn't do that work. What we really needed to do was engage people who are closest to the issue, who live this every day, who really understand from their experience, experience what systems work and what systems don't, and some of the ways, uh, we could improve those systems. And so that's when we said, okay, we've got to do this differently. And that's when we hired 10 people with lived experience of homelessness from all across the state to work with us and co lead community conversation. This is right at the end of COVID So all of this was virtual, at least to start. And they were leading community conversations all across the state. And we asked them to lead the charge of actually even defining what justice means, housing justice means, what racial justice means, and what health justice means for people experiencing homelessness specifically. They did that work. They asked people, they formed committees, they worked with us. Um, they brought back the definitions of justice to the council, to the commissioners and the lieutenant governor and said, here's what we want to use to drive the rest of our strategic plan. And the council approved those definitions, and that's what we built our results around, our strategies, around, our actions, around. They were then embedded in the agencies, working with the agencies on those strategies and actions. And we had never done anything like that before. I mean, I think, you know, I look back on my journey in this work and, you know, I can think of a number of times where we, you know, had listening sessions with people who were experiencing homelessness, or we paid people with gift cards for some of their time and that kind of thing, or sometimes, unfortunately, didn't pay people at all for the work and their expertise that they were bringing. And this was, you know, working with people consistently over the course of, you know, a good year and a half to develop this plan and paying them as consultants for their expertise, um, and that doing it that way and now, you know, can't imagine ever doing it a different way, um, in the future has really shifted, you know, not just what we put in the plan, although it certainly shifted that, but just the how we show up at meetings, who we're listening to, what we expect in terms of our collective commitment, um, to each other. And it's really exciting.

Speaker B: You said at the outset of this story that you were really humbled and you started to lay out the kind of sequence of events. And I think anytime we're engaged in an evolution or a transformation or just a shift in how business as usual is happening, as leaders, we have to have a different mindset. To even be humbled by the request, to sort of take that request and say, this is the opening to do something different. There's a mindset shift. And so for you, what are the characteristics or the ingredients of the mindset that it's required to move into this justice oriented space?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. I think, um, well, humility is really the first one that comes to mind. Um, kind of just this deep sense of interconnectedness and respect that I think, you know, I think leadership for me is so much about the recognition of all of the wisdom and talent and expertise that is around us all the time and the nurturing of that and then the harnessing for the common collective vision or goal that's way bigger than any one of us. And that feels like the mindset needed to do something as bold as developing a justice plan. But frankly, that's kind of the mindset needed, I think, for any kind of big social movement effort. One of the things that just came to mind as I'm just talking right now is thinking about the metro surge and all that happened in Minnesota and how deeply, um, just proud I am to be a part of the state in this community. But. But the thing that struck me about it is that there was no leader per se, in the sense of what we all might think of historically, as, you know, when we use the word leader. Everybody showed up in whatever way they could with the skills and talents that they had to protect their neighbors. And uh, that is essentially the same mindset that I think any kind of big social movement, like trying to end homelessness or develop, you know, housing justice for people. It's the same idea that no one person is the person. It's all of us together bringing the best that we have to a movement and then feeling mutual love connection, um, respect, humility, you know, to be in that space together and make it happen. And that just is, um. It's just been such an honor for me. I just really, uh, these last few years of this work, even though I would say they probably have been some of the hardest, most difficult years because of all the kind of retreating that we've seen from our federal partner and some of the pain that that has deeply caused, um, it has also been some of the most fulfilling years of this work for me so far. And it is because of very, um, that kind of work and doing it differently.

Speaker B: Talk to me more about what's different, like what makes it more fulfilling. Like you, you've referenced this journey, the decades you've been in the work. And so if just the last few years and so oriented around crises and kind of flashpoint struggles and barriers, and yet you're describing them as some of the best years in the work. So like, tell me more about what, what's making it feel, uh, it almost

Speaker A: feels like it wouldn't make any sense, but I think it's, I think. Well, Covid was a really interesting moment for us in this state. I um, think if anything shook us to our core and kind of got us out of all of our comfort zones about how we do work, how we, how we interact with each other, how we work together on something, um, Covid did it. And you know, when Covid struck, um, my team, the interagency council team, was really designated to be the team that would have to figure out how to help set up a structure to protect people experiencing homelessness in the state of Minnesota during COVID So we're all at home at first. All we have are our phones. We're on. You know, if everybody probably remembers this well, we're just like on conference calls, trying to have meetings. On conference calls. We didn't know how to even do zoom or teams or anything like that yet. And I remember being on hours long conference calls that just didn't end. But people were jumping off to do different things and then coming back on because we were dealing with a collective crisis. And everybody showed up as they could and we developed this incredible interagency and community wide team of people who work together non stop throughout that entire time, all with the goal of helping to make sure that people experiencing homelessness got into some kind of a safe space where they were protected and secure and in a non congregate setting where they would actually be prioritized for vaccines so they could get connected to those vaccines, uh, through systems that weren't built to serve people without stable housing. There were so many things to figure out, but people didn't. We were tired, we were. It was hard. All the things, you know, um, but people did not come, people did not complain. People just showed up and stayed in the work and did it together. And I think it was after that experience, it was both the recognition that we can do, we can do Anything, first of all. And that we recognized so clearly that what we needed to do next was make sure that systems were designed with and for and by people who were experiencing, you know, in our case, housing instability. But this would be true across any big movement or issue you were trying to solve. And that from then on, we knew we needed to do that work differently. And I think there's, as hard as it is now that we've got a challenge with a, uh, retreating federal partner, we have a little bit of that same spirit where, well, we're all in this together. We are in this not for ourselves, but for something much, much bigger than ourselves. And each of us is so critically important in that work. Now that we get to work with these amazing people and pay them for their expertise, which they always deserved. Um, that brings a lot of joy and energy and focus to the work and new ideas and new ways of thinking that I think as somebody who's been in the work for 30 years, it's so very refreshing to have a whole new, um, perspective to how we can accomplish some of the goals.

Speaker B: There's, for me, in these examples that you're sharing a recognition where we get more specific about who's being harmed or who's at risk or who's being served. Right. That when we think, when we speak generally about all of us, we might not create a vaccine system or a shelter system that appreciates who's at most risk or being harmed or being served. And then there's a design question. And so there's something for me about the specificity of, um, crisis illuminates where we've faltered at some of the upstream design work to begin with, that when we have to reimagine in crisis, it really points out that we've created this thing that, um, on our best days, maybe wasn't working so well for the folks it was intended to work for. Um, I want to go all the way back to this mention. You said you spent, um, some number of years working in shelters. Where did that journey start? Where did the passion for this work come from? What were some of those early lessons?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, you know, it's so interesting. When I, uh, started working at St. Stephen Shelter, it was 1993. I was 24 years old. Um, I had done some traveling. You know, I had just come back from living in China, and I knew I was interested in some kind of social justice work. I was. I was very young. I didn't really quite know what yet. Um, my main career at that moment. I was. I was a server, and I worked in multiple different restaurants, and that's what I had been doing. Um, and. But I heard about this opportunity at St. Stephen Shelter, so I applied. And I will be forever grateful to the man who hired me. Ed Murphy is the first director of St. Stephen Shelter that I got to work with. And why he hired me, I'll never know, because I knew nothing about homelessness. I, as far as I knew, had never even met or connected with somebody experiencing homelessness. I probably had, but because I was so young, I wouldn't have known that either. Um, and for some reason, he saw something and hired me for that role. And, wow, that job. I was there for eight years, and that job just taught me so much. And, you know, I think as a young. A young person wanting to get into the work field, and I probably had the mindset on my first day of, like, I was going to this job at a homeless shelter to help people. And. And I think by day two, I realized that is not remotely what I was doing. I was going to a job to work with people and learn myself about all that was happening in people's lives that would result in an experience that they were having at this moment. It just quickly became just something that was a major learning curve for me that I just. It will forever be grateful to the guys who I worked with at the shelter, um, over all of those years, who I still am in touch with some of them, and it's wonderful. Um, and so that job was incredible. And as time went on, I started to get really, um. As much as I loved the job, I started to find myself getting really discontent and upset and frustrated with the fact that we'd work and somebody would finally get into housing, and that was wonderful. And then there'd be 10 people coming in the door the next night who I'd never seen before and who were falling into homelessness for various reasons. And so I started to think a lot more about the systems and the reason that people were becoming homeless in the first place were more of these system challenges, as opposed to personal challenges, even though those complicated things, for sure. Um, and so then I started protesting, and we formed a group, and we were protesting Hennepin county policy and asking for more dignified shelter spaces. I got arrested for sleeping outside in downtown Minneapolis. You know, I mean, just that whole part of the journey and. And testifying in front of the county board and the city council and all of that. Well, it was, you know, about my eighth year being in the shelter. I got a phone call From a newly elected Hennepin county commissioner, Gail Dorfman. And she called me at St. Stephen's Shelter. She had seen me do the protesting. She had seen me testify and all of that. And I remember it so distinct because I was in my little tiny office in the basement of the parish center where the shelter was, and I'm surrounded by big bags of men's socks and underwear. It's, like, not a glamorous. It was just my little office. And she called and she said, I am, um, as you know, a county commissioner now, and I'm really interested in doing more work on homelessness. And I'm wondering if you'd like to come meet with me and talk to me about potentially being my policy Aiden. And I said, uh, I don't know anything about public policy. And she said, oh, yes, you do. And that had such an impact on me, because here was a person who, in my sense, traditionally was. Now that's a leader. It's somebody who is in a leadership role telling me that I had important experience and expertise that she needed to do the thing that she wanted. And not only did that have profound impact on me, because I ended up taking that job, and it ended up launching me into a whole realm of public policy that I have done ever since. Um, but it also ingrained something in me that I've kept with me all of these years, that I do not have what I need to accomplish a big goal. I need to rely on people who are closer to the issue than I will ever be, um, to help inform and guide me and all of us towards that solution. And so that is, um, that's kind of the origin story of how I got in the work and then how I've stayed, uh, in the work and really felt, um, that always kind of gave me the frame that I've kind of carried with me the whole time thinking about.

Speaker B: You talked about. You didn't say it this way, but you talked about Ed Murphy invited you in to the shelter job, and then Gail invited you into the policy work. And in turn, you are inviting folks with lived experience of homelessness into shaping and designing systems. And so I don't know if you've ever thought about it as a series of invitations, but as I say that, what comes up for you, or how do you think about the role leaders can play in pulling people? And you started to talk about it. I don't have all of what I need, but why is that so important? How does it enrich the work? What. What does it make possible? Or accelerate.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, well, I think what it's a really. I've never thought of it as a series of invitations, but I really like that. Um, I think why it's so important is that when I think of, um, kind of where I am now in this work, and I'm still so excited about it, and I plan to be doing it for longer, and I know I'm not going to be the one in this seat, you know, forever, or in any other seat forever for that matter. Um, so the idea that we're building a large movement of people who care so deeply about this and all have such incredible things to bring to it, that it's maybe the perspective, especially as I've gotten later in my career, that gives me hope in the sense of when I really step back and look at the whole arc of all the work that's happened, even on the worst, hardest days, and we've had some of those recently, we're still actually moving in the direction of what I think of now as justice ultimately. And my role in that is just this one small little piece. And I find that actually really comforting because then it makes me feel like when my time is done and I take my little piece, there are multiple other pieces that are all doing their thing. And it's not like I just don't feel a lot of ego about it has to be me. I think it has to be all of us. And then when one of us walks away, it's not so person dependent. It's. It's movement and vision and, and, you know, goal dependent. And. And so I find that really. So the idea of inviting more and more people is just a, uh, that. That seems to be what really good social movements do. Um, and at least the ones who ultimately kind of get to the, to the goal that they envision.

Speaker B: What are your thoughts on how do we. How do we grow the us who are passionate about housing justice? What's your invitation to people who may be listening or maybe have their own lived experience or, um, are thinking about family and friends or neighbors who have struggled with housing stability. Tell me your thoughts about how do we grow this sense of us working on housing justice?

Speaker A: Well, one thing I was thinking about earlier is that, um, you know, in Minnesota, back when we had that constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and we, we, the big we in the state of Minnesota, fought that back and we're the first state ever to vote that down.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was, I was on fundraising staff on that campaign. I don't know if we've Ever talked about that.

Speaker A: We have never talked about that. Thank you. Thank you for that. Because the thing that's so striking to me about that whole effort is people who themselves had sort of nothing directly to gain by helping organize and have conversations about why love and marriage was such an important part of the fabric of our communities. Um, you know, they weren't in a homosexual relationship. They weren't, you know, um, they weren't going to benefit so directly themselves or their family. But they were out there talking with so many friends and family and spreading this conversation about why this was such an important thing. What does love mean to you? What does commitment mean to you? What does marriage mean to you? And they changed the hearts and minds of so many people so that when the time came to vote on that amendment, it got voted down. And I will be forever grateful because I did get to marry my wife because of the work of other people. Um, and they wanted to see a state that cared about all of us and recognized and honored the love that we all have, um, for whoever we love in the world. And that was such a beautiful thing. I often think about that, about this work, that if we could engage more people to just talk about, like, what does home mean to you? How important is it to you that every night you get to go home at, uh, wherever that is and be safe and close your door and feel like yourself and feel comfortable and sleep in a bed and all those things. And what not just how is important to you at that moment, but what does that allow you to do in your life? If we could really maybe build a huge movement in that direction where we're having those conversations with people, it might start to take away some of the stereotypes that people have or some of the other things that get in the way. I think a lot of people think, well, somebody's experiencing homelessness because they did things wrong. Um, and I think that if we just boiled it down to the safety and security and the importance of home for. For all of us, we all do things wrong. Every single one of us has made a lot of mistakes in our life. Um, and the common denominator when I was, you know, working in the shelter that I always thought about is that people who ended up in the shelter, the two things that were true is that they didn't have a lot of resource themselves, monetary resource. So typically, obviously, exposure, very poor in terms of money. And they didn't always have a social network that could catch them. I have an incredible social network that will catch me regardless of whether or Not I have the resources, um, but many people don't. And that's the common denominator. So can we be that social connection to each other? And then when the money, I mean, the poverty is hard, it's going to be hard to solve poverty, you know, um, not that we can't do it, but that may be the next thing, you know, but we can solve homelessness. And the reason we can is because we can. The big. We can create that social network for each other, we can support each other, we can catch each other regardless of a, uh, financial situation. And we're just so not there yet. Alfonso. But I have, you know, it feels to me similar to the story on gay marriage and marriage equality because something, it hit a tipping point and people decided at that moment that, okay, I don't understand, I don't personally understand why Kathy wants to marry Margaret, but I don't have to because, uh, what I do understand is that Kathy loves Margaret and that's what marriage and commitment and building a strong family system is about. And maybe we can do that too.

Speaker B: I love that. I'm down for it. I think I am ready for a statewide conversation on what does home mean to you. And you've talked about neighbors and even the structure of the agency you work in is not allowing people to have their lives sort of chopped up into very, um, clinical. This is health and this is, uh, education and this is housing. But how it all intersects. And so much of that marriage, work, and what you're saying about people's understanding of home is before we ever ask people to act inside of a social cause or a social movement, it's understanding the shared values and having that conversation about what do you value and how are our values probably closer together, how we live them out, how we implement them, um, the choices we make within those values might look really different. But where do we have shared values and sort of a sense of home? And what home means, I think is such a powerful values based conversation to have and I think facilitates a bigger. We, um, more of an us thinking about how we all have experience. One of the ways that I think we can end up being so separate from each other. Like you're talking about, like, oh, that doesn't affect me. That's not. But we're all folks who have a, uh, lived experience of what home is. When home has felt threatened, when home has felt out of reach, and um, who and what has ever been there, um, to catch us. Like you say, if home has felt out of reach for any number of different reasons. So I think that's really, really motivating, and I hope we, um, through this, are welcoming some more folks into that movement toward housing justice.

Speaker A: Me, too.

Speaker B: Me, um, too, um, in this kind of leadership, place is really important. Community is really important. You talk about this network, people really matter in leadership. And so talk to me about, uh, the places that you belong to or who are your people? Who sort of. Who's that? Who or what are the places that are kind of that fabric that holds you up.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, who are my people who are not my m. People.

Speaker B: Sometimes a good place to start.

Speaker A: Right? I mean, so, you know, of course, my people, like, you know, my wife Margaret, my son Louie, my dad, my sister, my family. My family is such an important part of my fabric. Um, and I have an incredible group of friends, um, my colleagues, my team at work, uh, who I just feel deeply connected to and so proud to be a part of is absolutely. Um, those are my people. But kind of like we were saying earlier, I mean, my people are the people who showed up to protect their neighbors, um, when they themselves, you know, maybe put some of their own safety on the line or their own comfort on the line. And they did it anyway because they cared about something bigger than them. Like, those are my people, you know, the people, the marriage equality. Thank you for what you did. You are my people, Alfonso.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker A: I just think, you know, the guys at the shelter who. I mean, frankly, some of them who I still stay almost daily in touch with, um, and I also just ran into somebody who I hadn't seen and, you know, probably 30, 25, 30 years, um, he was the security guard at my dad's medical appointment. You know, I was like, you're just so grounding to me to run into people and see, you know, who they are and what they're doing. And, um, so I just feel. I love the state. I love this community so much. Um, and then I have colleagues all around the country who are doing this work on housing stability and homelessness, and I find an enormous amount of energy from them, um, as well. And we share stories and support, uh, for all that everybody's going through. I think what's challenging, of course, is folks who might just see, um, their. Who I don't get energy from. I won't call it, say they're not my people, but from people I do not get energy from, or people who are really just looking out for themselves. Their own power, their own resource, their own energy. But I really. That's not kind of my Experience in the world very often, obviously right now, in the big sense of the policy challenges we're having, we're seeing that on a very large and really detrimental scale. Um, but I think, uh, when we have time and opportunity to really get to know each other and see how really ultimately connected we all are in terms of our faith and our, um. And our own, um, well being is really, you know, an interconnected experience. I think that I feel more connected to people, uh, than not.

Speaker B: You talked about where you get energy, where you maybe don't get energy. And I've been asking everyone I have these conversations with, you know, what does it take to be a leader right now in this context?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think maybe especially in this moment of, uh, pretty challenging times, maybe the thing I think about the most. Well, maybe two things, three things. I mentioned nurturing, which I think is really important, is just nurturing a bigger, broader community of, um, interconnected work and support. And being a part of that feels important. I think maybe especially important right now is perspective and seeing if, helping, I think about, with my team at work, um, some people who are newer to this work on homelessness and housing stability, some people who, like me, have been around a long time, but on the really hard days, maybe being the one who can help just zoom out a little bit and look at the perspective of where we are is really, really challenging. But look what we've done together, us and the broader community, over the course of all of these years and what has shifted and where we're going. And I think that's a really important part of leaders right now. And then, frankly, I also think being really, really honest and vulnerable feels like a really important part of leadership right now as well. Um, Alfonso, I was thinking about, you know, with the challenges we're seeing from the federal government on sort of the. The storyline of what works and doesn't work to end homelessness. I, um, was thinking back to 30 years ago, more than that, I guess now, 33 years ago, when I was working in the shelter and, you know, I was a part of, you know, a shelter that you had to be sober to come in. You had to, uh. If you were wanting to get into housing, you had to save up a certain amount of money. You had to kind of. You had to kind of prove and go through certain hoops so that we would somehow say, you are ready for housing, and then we'd help you get into housing. That was wrong. You know, that was just wrong. And what we're hearing now from, uh, our uh, federal government is that getting people into housing first is not okay. What you need to do is require them to do X, Y, and Z, and then they'll be ready for housing. And so for me, hearing those words, that takes me back 30 years. And I can say it was wrong then, and it would be wrong to do it that way again. And I think you have to be kind of vulnerable to raise your hand and say, I did that. I made mistakes, and they were not the right. That was not the right thing to do. And, uh, 30 years later, I can just say, let's not do that. Let's not do that again. And instead, let's make sure we. The evidence that we gained over all of those years is the evidence we have now about what does work to end homelessness. And it's getting people connected to housing as soon as we possibly can and then surrounding them with the kinds of supports and services they need to stay stably housed. But it isn't making them jump through a bunch of hoops first. Because for people who, you know, don't have a lot of complexity or really big, big challenges in their life, yes, they can do all those things and then get into housing and be okay. But what we ended up doing is, unfortunately, leaving people behind who did have highly complex health needs and other issues that prevented them from getting into housing because they couldn't meet all those expectations. And then they were homeless for another 10, 15 years. And that's not okay. That is not a solution. The solution is what we have learned since then, which is getting people into housing and then supporting them. Um, and so I think all of that to say, um, being vulnerable and open and admitting what you did not do right along the way so that you can help make sure it doesn't happen again.

Speaker B: To me, it feels like the vulnerability part and the perspective part go together where you're like, I've been in it long enough to have a perspective of what was, what happened, where we are now. And I can point at different moments and say, here's the threads we're pulling forward, and here's the stuff we're leaving behind. And, yep, I was a part of the stuff we're leaving behind. And I want to be a part of figuring out what the forward thing is. I love. I love how those go together. I think it's important. Um, you and I are in a lot of meetings and events around this topic together a lot. And I'm really new. I may be 18, 24 months, depending on how you count into my work in this space. And so I think it's really, um, it's probably our responsibility to put a finer point on this idea of those lessons learned about why, um, having all those barriers in place, it can sound really logical, like, you've got to be sober, you have a little money in your pocket. You've got to be able to do X, Y and Z in order to, um, receive some sort of services related to housing or even just simply shelter space. Right. So, um, put the finer point, like, make the. Make the point really directly, Kathy, for folks about, um, why what we know works, works.

Speaker A: Yeah. Here's what I will say, that regardless of your philosophy, you may be somebody who's listening out there who says, you know, people need to be held accountable for their actions and do X, Y and Z. And then housing is this reward for that. Or you might be of the philosophy that housing is a basic human right and more important than anything else, people just deserve housing. And then the rest will come. Either one, frankly, if you care about good public policy and being a good steward of our collective resource in this country, if we don't help get people into housing first and then support them with the services they need to stay there, they are going to remain homeless, which is really expensive. Um, so if you're caring about the dollars and cents of this, it also makes no public policy sense to allow people to languish on the streets, maybe cycle through multiple systems, maybe end up in the hospital, in the emergency room and inpatient care. And we have proven over and over and over again that when you get somebody into housing and support them there, um, not only is it most important to me better for their life, um, but it is also just smart public policy, and it's good for the community. There was a guy who, um, when we first started setting up a big outreach team in Minneapolis, who had been homeless. I can't even remember something like, um, arrested by the police, like 36 times for very small livability stuff, because whenever he would have a sort of a mental health crisis, he would do some graffiti or do something that would get him arrested. So he'd go in front of the judge, and the judge would say, okay, don't do that anymore, and maybe get some jail time. And then he'd go back out. Once that gentleman got into housing, working with our outreach team, and the outreach team supported him to stay in housing, he was arrested one time over the course of that whole next, like two years. And when he went in front of the judge, the judge said, where have you been? And he said, well, I'm in housing. And he said, please leave here now. Go back to your housing. Stay in your housing. That's great. So it was just this, it was a better quality of life for everybody. So the finer point, Alfonso, is housing works. Housing ends homelessness for people. Um, and when people do get into housing and they have the opportunity to get connected to the kind of supports and services that, that our community provides, um, our teams of wonderful nonprofits and others who work with people, they not only remain in housing, but the quality of their life improves. And their need for the kinds of external services from hospitals and jails and police time go down dramatically and they do better. And so, um, it just works. It is the solution to homelessness. Um, and frankly, the other idea of arresting people for being outside, where are they going to go? They're going to be in jail and then they're going to end up back outside. And we have solved absolutely nothing and usually made the problem a lot worse. I think that's the point.

Speaker B: Thanks for, um, underscoring and really driving that home so we could have a shared sense of what we're really talking about here. Well, we are coming up on our time, Kathy, and I've been asking everyone in these conversations, what are you reading or listening to or taking in to fuel you and keep you, uh, grounded right now?

Speaker A: That's a good question. Well, my favorite book in the whole world that I've read probably about four or five times is the Boundary Waters. Um, and so ironically, a book that maybe will resonate with people right now, but the Boundary Waters is my favorite place on the planet. It's the place where I really can kind of unplug and really get perspective. And, and so, you know, I love the boundary wires. I love reading about the boundary wires. I love being in the Boundary waters. And then the other thing I, I do, I do try to read a lot about meditation and, um, and sort of philosophy. I think those are two things that I find a lot of comfort in, both for meditation, for sort of my own sort of ability to, to stop and breathe and be grounded. Uh, but philosophy, because I think, once again, for that perspective feeling that I feel like Greek and ancient philosophies really ring true so much today too. So if you go back and read those, it's really, really helpful, um, to remind us about the perspective and the arc of human thought and experience and, and I find that comforting.

Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I'm going to, you know, with everything happening policy wise related to The Boundary Waters. I'm going to need to read that one. Um, and where can folks find information about the Interagency Council if they want to look you up and learn more about your work and what's going on?

Speaker A: That's great. Um, please just Google Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness. You'll get to our website, and there you can see our strategic plan. You can see, you know, budgets over the last several years. You can see all the biographies of our incredible consultants with lived experience of homelessness. Uh, and you can see some of the most recent, uh, work that we're doing out in communities. So please visit.

Speaker B: And if someone's feeling motivated from this conversation to join the movement for housing justice, what's a first? Where would someone, you know, what should someone do as kind of a first move?

Speaker A: That's a great question. It might depend on where they are in the state. So what I might suggest is they could certainly reach out to me and my team would be happy to connect them. So, you know, if they're in, uh, a certain part of the state, we can connect them to the continuum of care and, uh, you know, the team in that part of the state that's doing the work on the ground, um, if they're interested in statewide work or advocacy, we can connect them into some other places. So I think it depends on what they want to do and where they are. So feel free to, um, shoot my email or phone number in the information as well.

Speaker B: Great. Well, we'll make sure to put some links out there when this episode's on. Um, Kathy Tenbrick, thank you for your time. Always a pleasure to spend some time with you. And, um, I know know we'll be talking soon.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. Alfonso, thank you for listening to Conversations with Shonda, hosted by me, Shonda Smith Baker, president and CEO of the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation. To hear more conversations with change makers, visit conversationswithshonda.com conversations with C H A N D A.com or find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. If you'd like to learn more about the work at the foundation, please visit SPMCF.org.