WORT 89.9FM Madison

Addressing Youth Homelessness in Dane County

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, on average 624 people in Dane County were experiencing homelessness on any given night in 2023. For people in their teens or early 20s, the barriers to housing can be greater and the outcomes more desperate. The Dane County Youth Action Board (YAB) is a diverse of folks between the ages of 14 and 24 with lived expertise of homelessness and housing instability. They are using their experiences to guide solutions. As part of the HUD-funded Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, they (along with partner organizations) developed the 2022 Coordinated Community Plan with the goal to end youth homelessness in Madison and Dane County. Guest host Sabrina Madison is joined by YAB members TaMaya Travis, Skye Gia Garcia, May Mahadevi Wilkins, and Program Coordinator for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program Kayla Every. They discuss the unique barriers facing young people experiencing housing instability, the day to day of their work, and what is still needed in Madison and Dane County. They also talk about the opening of the new EverStrong Youth Drop-In Center.

Broadcast on:: 24 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

[MUSIC] >> Hi, I am Sabrina Madison, your guest host this afternoon for a public affair on wards. I'm excited to talk with these guests today and I'm excited to be here. I am the founder of the Progress Center for Black Women, but I also serve as alder on the City of Madison's Common Council, serving District 17, which I like to call the best side of the east side. I love all the east side, but you know, I very, very, very much love, love, love, love, love, love, love, my part of the east side. So, I was in a recent meeting and I kept hearing about this group called YAB, YAB, and I was like, "What is YAB? What does that mean? What does it stands for?" And someone is like youth action board. So, I got on my Googles because if you know me, you know, I love my Googles and I really encourage other people to use your Googles when you have questions and do a little bit of research. So, I got on my Googles, did some research and found that they are the youth action board. More importantly, I believe they are the Dane County Youth Action Board and the center of their work is homelessness. So, not why not want to talk to them as I come back to host this afternoon session on a public affair. So, without more words from me right now, I am going to ask our Dane County Youth Action Board first to introduce themselves. So, I would love to hear about each of you who you are in a one-minute or less because y'all came in here super fabulous. If you were able to see us live, we're live streaming right now, you would think that we are on like Dane County's fashion show for youth action oriented work because I am in here y'all with a little regular workout shirt on with a little bit of joggers. I do got my dunks on though, but they came in here with pearls, froze, heels, gold, and I'm like, oh, you know, I feel very basic today. But I feel like I am cute though. I do got my new wig on so life is good. Okay. So, we're going to start here. Tell me who you are, introduce your name, maybe your role as a youth action board and about you. Hello, my name is Mae Mahadevi Wilkins, and I'm recently new to the Yab. I got on a Yab due to my lived experience with oppression and homelessness, not only in a Dane County, but from my hometown as well. I would describe myself as somebody who is moves in and on love and justice. I love it. Have you read Bill Hook's his work? I have not. We're going to come back today. I'm going to tell you why because I love me some Bill when you said moving and love. Yes. Okay. Who are you our next guest? My name is Tamaya Travis. I am not the newest, but before our new members, I was the newest member. I've been on the youth action board for about a year now, actually coming up on a year this week on the youth action board. Okay, snap, snap, snap. I am the social media manager and our fundraising and raising awareness specialist. I also work at outreach as our bilingual system navigator, and I would describe myself as somebody who is very outspoken, and I like to say that I stand on business when it comes to the people I work with. I love it. You got to stand on business, especially in a place like Dane County. All right. Who else we got to sit next to you? I just got to say full resume. Okay. I love these resumes. And I'm here and I'm there. Yes. Okay. Yes. Hello. So my name is Kayla every. I use your pronouns and I am the Dane County Youth Action Boards coordinator, which means that over the last few years, I have supported them as kind of an older adult partner, helping guide their work, which we'll hear more about today. But I come to this work as a person with lived experience myself, having experienced homelessness here in Madison in my own youth. And so, yeah, I'm forever gracious to be working with this amazing group of young people. I love it. I love how you also support it so you can fill it in the energy in the room. All right. Thank you. All right. Who else did we got here from the youth action board? Thank you so much, Sabrina. My name is Skygia Garcia and I work for Outreach. I was hired by Outreach LGBTQ Community Center to implement the Youth Homelessness Project demonstration. And I am very grateful to know that above me, I have the Youth Action Board who has guided me and whose leadership I follow every step of the way. Wait a minute. I love that. So the Youth Action Board leads out the outreach part. Okay. The program. The program. Yes. Oh my gosh. I love it. I love that kind of leadership model. You know, okay. It's not a hierarchy in the youth action board. It's everybody is working together. So y'all are all gyms. Everybody's a gym. There's no higher rated or no shinier gym. We all shine together. Is that what I'm hearing? Absolutely. I love it. I love it. Okay, y'all. So we're going to get into it because I get the feeling that I can talk to them through the weekend. Okay. So someone maybe told me what exactly is the Youth Action Board and what exactly do y'all do? Well, everybody's looking at me. So I guess I'll take it. And who is this again? Tamaya. Okay. Tamaya's going to tell us what y'all do, who you are. So the Youth Action Board is a wonderful group of young people. We are all between the ages of 14 and 24. We have our older adult peer peer guides. Yeah, peer guides from 25 to 26 once they turn 25. But basically we are a group of young people who have all experienced homelessness or something along the lines of that in our youth and are still going through it and overcoming it. And we do a lot to support the community and to support the YHDP program or the Youth Homeless Demonstration Program. It's really been like a tooth and nail kind of fight to get it up and running. But together with these, I've never met a group of intelligent, like so many intelligent people who've come together to really make a difference in Madison. So we go to different meetings with the city, different people in the county, the state and stuff. We go to conferences. We just do everything we possibly can to expand our knowledge and our skill set and continue to better the community. I love it. What does an average day look like for the Youth Action Board? Well, it really varies from person to person. For me, it's pretty hectic with especially juggling both jobs. So I'm in meetings every day, all day. And then I'm also working with my participants and working in the community and doing other things. But I also work on social media. So TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. And then we're also planning a gala for next year. Keep an eye out for you guys. Let me put the same in the edit. So keep an eye out. So I've just been working on creating like the numbers for that, you know, getting ready to start fundraising, find venues, things like that. And what about y'all? What does an average day look like? Or average week if it's not necessarily a day for Youth Action Board members starting over here? For me, I'm relatively new to the YABA and we have many different things that we can do. It is more fluid, more than it is structured and rigid. So for me, that will typically look like joining meetings and talking to my other YABA members, coordinating what it is that we can do and talking about the meetings that I was in and the information that was shared in those meetings. Gotcha. And what about you? Yeah, absolutely. So my role for the Dane County Youth Action Board is kind of coordinating a lot of those like different engagement opportunities that we have. And across our community, the overall kind of work that the Youth Action Board supports, we really call authentic youth collaboration. And so what that means is, you know, it's really an intentional empowerment of youth as decision makers in their own lives and in the systems that impact them, that affect them and that are close to their experiences or history. And so with that, a lot of times, you know, we're engaging in meeting spaces where decisions are being made, policies are being evaluated, programs, benefits, things like that are being evaluated to see really how we can coordinate with larger community efforts that are happening and ensure that there's authentic youth collaboration going into these policies, going into the different areas of our work. Yeah. So it sounds like y'all are making sure that the young people who are being discussed, y'all have representation in the room, because oftentimes folks are not in the room, especially when young people are the young people who are experiencing or experienced homelessness, they're not in the room. And I've seen that over and over. It's got to tell me about an average week or day for you. Well, since the youth action board and outreach hired me at the beginning, a day to day looked like assisting and supporting the designing of the program altogether. And then once we were able to launch the program, my day to day is a mix of doing street outreach, working with people in Dane County who are homeless and attending meetings when it comes to challenges that we have faced in our efforts to achieve and expand our program altogether. I love it. It seems like all of y'all have mentioned meetings in some capacity. So how are you off? Because you know, I will be what 46 in the fall, and especially when I was a younger person, even I think in my 30s, you would have someone who's older and may have been in Madison much longer than me, sort of like, I don't know, I think their energy was that one up some in some capacity. So tell me about how does it feel for some of y'all to be in meetings. Do you feel invited? Do you feel welcome there? Or is it like, you know, are you feeling like you got to be a bit more like Shirley Chisholm and just, you know, bring your own chairs and it's like, when I'm going to be here, whether you want me here or not. I'm very much, well, I would say I'll speak as the youngest person on the yeb. Yeah. I'm typically the youngest person in every meeting space that we're in and looking at me, you wouldn't think that I'm 20, but then when I know you're only 20, I cannot remember exactly. But then like, when you find out I'm 20, it's like a lot of the older adult partners will discredit what I have to say and kind of like try to downplay what I'm saying because they don't feel as though I'm as qualified or as relevant to be at the table as them. But I feel as though I'm just as if not more qualified than most of the adult partners that were there and that are there, especially when it comes to topics of being homeless in Dane County because a lot of these people have not been homeless in Dane County. Yeah. Yeah. Lived experience is so invaluable. And two, I always say like growing up, especially then as I mature, you know, I always tell people, you're like really honestly follow the youth, even if we look back on the civil rights movement, who was really like really in the dirt? It was young people. It was young people filling up sales. It was young people filling up, you know, countertops or whatever. It was absolutely, it was a young Dr. King, you know what I mean? So that sometimes people forget that it was young people who allowed even us to be sitting in this room together. I'm glad y'all are showing up in this space. Anybody else want to ask something to that about how you're how you're filling the meetings or what you've experienced? Well, this is Skygia speaking. So when Tamaya just shared, she was talking a lot about adultism and being somebody who is 28. And I found my role has been primarily to what I would say is a call in that adultism when it's happening, because Tamaya is going to speak up for herself as many of the youth action board members will. And it's always appreciated when somebody else is standing right next to you to say absolutely their voices should be heard, their message should be amplified. So a lot of the times that is what I am doing in these spaces as well as reinforcing the youth action board's message because they have it. It's on point. I love it. I love it. I will say Skygia is the number one youth action board supporter like hands down. Skygia loves us to death. So y'all are just walking in almost like, you know, you know, hand in hand locked in locked, you know, locked in. I love it. I love it. It's important to have folks staying with you, staying up for you and then just kind of like be back their arms cross like, you know, am I going to have to stand in? You know, okay. All right. So I would love to hear more about the folks that you're serving because my assumption is that your work is leading to young people being housed, you know, and young people getting maybe the funding, the policies or resources that they need. So tell me who would love to tell me a little bit more about the folks y'all are serving. Yeah, absolutely. I can start. Yeah. That's Kayla. That's Kayla y'all. Hey, so the first thing that I really want to say about this is that we knew from the beginning of this planning process, planning this program that the number of young people that we were seeing connected to services within our community was just a very small fraction of the true number of young people who are out there needing this type of support or who would qualify for this type of program. And so I brought some numbers for y'all. I'm a data person. Let's go. Yes. So we counted at the time of this evaluation. We counted 88 youth led families and 246 single youth where we estimated for the 88 youth led families we identified. We estimated 1,784 who were likely eligible. Wow. And we used like different methods of identifying people such as kind of our Dane County counts and things like that. For the single youth where we saw 246, we estimated that anywhere up to 2,900 plus young people might be experiencing homelessness. And so with that, a lot of I think what people want to know is like, so where were these youth being identified? Where were likely are the youth that were not identified? And so a lot of times we are engaging young people who may be living in a place that's not habitable for living. That might look like staying in a car. That might look like staying in a unfinished garage, staying outdoors, staying in a shelter. We also see that a lot of young people are frequently doubled up. And that means staying in a place where there's someone that they know or maybe don't know is living there. And they are welcome to stay couch surf. And it's creating basically a situation that's not comfortable. It's not habitable in that way. Yeah. And I don't know if you want to talk a little more about kind of the people that we say. Exactly. Honestly, well, Kayla is more of a numbers person. Numbers for me like is... That's a perfect marriage. Numbers in a qualitative quantitative marriage. I failed math. Well, you hear a shining though. I am hear a shining. I'll say that a lot of times like people will ask like, how do you find these young people? And we don't have to find a lot of them because they find us. They come to us. We just put out a brochure with us and our other partner organizations on it. And we got maybe like 50 requests within a week. So it's just a situation where they find us. And a lot of times when they come to us, they're in crisis and they're looking for a place to come. And they're like, finally, some people who will actually help us. If you come into our center, everybody's office has a different vibe, but it's like a different level of comfortability. Like Skygia's office is very sin and calm and chill. My office is very comfy and there's snacks everywhere and there's a puppy. I love it. Damante's office is more like the manager serious, but it's still very comfortable in there. It's like you can still feel comfortable and welcome. Renee's office is very comfortable. There's also snacks in there. People love snacks, y'all. There's like little couches and stuff like there's different places where you can come sit. So it's just like everybody who we come who comes to us. I really just try to make it my goal to make them as comfortable and as welcome as possible. Gotcha. Yeah, I just want to say again, I am Sabrina Madison. I am the founder of the Progress Center for Black Women, but I also serve as District 17's Alder on Madison's comic council, which represents the Far East Side. I always tell folks, think Easttown Mall to Sun Prairie and a little bit to the right and to the left and then you'll find my district. I am here this afternoon talking with our really, really dope Dane County Youth Action Board. I am joined by Skygia, Mae, Kayla, and Tamaya. And I don't know, they so dope y'all. We really wish this was a live stream so y'all can like feel the energy in here. So I would love to hear, I know I heard early on that the group that you got, the target audience, you all serve range and age from 14 to 24. The group that we serve is 17. Oh, 17. I was trying to give you the Action Board is 14 to 24. So Youth Action Board is 14 to 24, but the young people you serve are 17 through 24. That's great. Perfect. Thank you for catching my mistake. Because I was like, they got 14 year olds. Okay. I wish. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're homeless out here. Yeah. And they're being abused too, you know, and it's more difficult to reach them due to legislative statues and whatnot. Yeah. Oh, please let when we get to policy, let's talk about that because there may be, you know, any electives policy listening to this can take that and run with it. So tell me a little bit more about like, what are the reasons for young people dealing with homelessness in our county? Like what a maybe top three to five reasons you think? I'd say sexuality. Mm hmm. I'd say abuse. Mm hmm. I'd say unfortunately drug use. I think a lot of housing discrimination locally too. Yeah. Mm hmm. And when you say housing discrimination, what do you mean? We see a lot of times that young people are deprioritized when it comes to new apartments, rentals like, and then also in services. So a lot of times young people who are right on that, you know, transitional age of 18 or so. And a lot of times I think we do see that transition age change from person to person. Some people might start that transition out of a family home at a younger age due to dynamics in the home or due to, honestly, even going out and trying to start their own, you know, adulthood and really take care of their own experience. But when we see, um, when we see, I think, or what we see with that, I don't know. Oh. When it comes to the deprioritization of the youth, the youth don't always have in the eyes of a landlord as much to offer because they may not have any rental history and they may have some job history that isn't as consistent as somebody who's in their late 20s to 30s. So speaking to the deprioritization, you know, there's not as much secured profit. And I think that when it comes to the reasons that I have accredited the most that contribute to homelessness, it is failure, failure by the adults in the world and then also state violence. Goodness. Woo. Yeah. I personally really like everything that has been shared so far in regards to the questions that were asked. Um, as not only a participant, um, of the EverStrong, um, program, I'm also a, yeah, members. So when it comes to the question of like, who do we help? I'm also one of those people who was homeless and I really, really like what you had to say to Maya and what Kayla, everybody here had to say in regards to like why there's so much homelessness in the Dane County. Something that I've seen from my lived experiences, everything that was listed, but I see a common theme and a lot of people will come up to the Dane County because there is this people have been told that there's better services here, but that's just what I've, what I've run into here and there in regards to, um, yeah, the homeless youth here, the homeless youth, um, same with me. I came up here after fleeing a really, really terrible situation, domestic abuse, and I was told Madison has better jobs, better opportunities, and where I was currently staying, where I was previously staying, there was a community helping me, but not in a ways in which I was told Madison would help me. So that's also a common theme, people fleeing up to the Dane County because of their better services. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. So speaking of Madison and maybe there'd be a bit more, maybe more positive centered resources. So in your, your opinion, um, how are we doing here in Madison and the surrounding towns and cities around just ending youth homelessness? We can do better. Yes, yes. So what, what have been the strengths and then, you know, maybe someone tell me about like where, where can we really improve, especially around serving younger, even younger folks? I think a lot of it has to do with available resources. Um, so we, over the last like two and a half, three years, um, we've been working on the youth homelessness demonstration program. And so that is a federal initiative from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development that's designed to, um, address youth homelessness. And so with that, um, we've seen a lot of, a lot of times, um, that our, I guess, rather our community has come together under YHDP. So we've seen a lot of positive coordination from so many different, um, areas of our community and quote, including, um, different nonprofits, agencies, service providers, resource partners, um, advocates. And so this is definitely, I would say a huge first step for our community. Okay. It's been a long first step as well. Um, but we hope to expand the youth homelessness system, um, beyond just this first demonstration and first few programs that we've, um, released before that, we did not have youth, um, young adult specific housing. And so a lot of times we did see where youth were just connecting to the either child services, um, or they were connecting to the general homeless system. And oftentimes weren't, didn't have as long of a history of homelessness as some of the older adult population that we see here. And so in that way, we're deprioritized from getting services. So really, I think what it takes for us is to take what we have currently through the youth homelessness demonstration program, um, everything that we've learned and planned throughout that and continue to expand on it. Gotcha. So it feels like it's on its way, but what you want us to know is that there needs to be more of that. Yeah. I mean, when I think about the positives, I think about our team. I think about outreach as an organization and the ways that outreach has given me a platform to call in the people who either aren't doing enough or who are getting in the way of the work being done. So when it comes to the positives, I really just want to put an emphasis on the youth action board outreach LGBTQ community center, our partnership with Briar Patch as well. Those for me have been the positives. And I actually see that it intersects with Dane County as a whole, but at the same time, it doesn't speak to the city of Madison, nor Dane County officials when it comes to, you know, I think that they should be more of those positives. And unfortunately, homelessness is not on the most important dire items of funding of conversation. And instead, we have topics like the police department, and we have topics that are actually perpetuating these traumas that are creating the homelessness as a whole. Yeah, before we before we were live on the air, we were having a conversation. And I shared like the one of the reasons why I decided to go ahead and run for orders because in my district, there is the temporary men's shelter, which will border the district that will eventually have the permanent men's shelter. And so my son and I both were homeless before coming to Madison where, you know, we stayed in our car for a couple of weeks, we stayed in cheap motels. Some of the same kinds of motels that we lived in are also in my district. So my district, you can see homelessness up front. You will see families, moms with their little kids, you can see young people really struggle with homelessness. And it's it's very you can see it like the optics is very visual. So it's not to say people can't say that we don't have it, because sometimes it is actually right there in your face. And so I like that you're you're mentioning like, you know, the top bringing a top of my top of agendas, just like really making it important and centering that kind of work. I would love to know, thinking about your work, everybody's involvement here. If you had to go out and just, you know, tell someone, here is one of our most recent successes. And this is why this is important. What is one of those successes? I I'd say getting the Everstrong Center open up and running. Even before we were like completely like officially open, we were serving clients in the drop-in center in May, and we didn't open officially until July. So for me, that was like that moment was amazing for me, especially because I got to cut the ribbon y'all. That moment was like, it was just like truly special seeing our participants in the crowd at the grant opening and seeing how happy they were, like knowing that this is like a place where they know they can come, where they know that they're supported in their love in this area. So for me, that was our biggest success so far. Yeah, and I haven't heard, I don't think I know much about the Everstrong Center. Someone, please feel free to fill me in. Like, where is it? What are the hours? How do young people access it? Is it, can I just come in the area and hang out, you know, kick it if I'm not a homeless youth? Like, you know, I'm very much like the residents were places. So you can absolutely come visit. We would love to have you. It is located on 2701 International Lane Sweet 100 Red. I know that area, yeah. Yeah, right by the airport, it's really like ducked off in the cut and I like it because it's a lot more private. Our hours are Monday through Friday, 10 to sit. Well, now Tuesday through Friday, 10 to 6 Mondays and Saturdays, 10 to 2. Okay. And Tuesdays are typically by appointment only because it's usually our busiest day with meetings and stuff. And yeah, we have a few common spaces. We have a common space in the back that has a little kitchenette. So like, if you have food and stuff, you can come bring your food and warm your stuff up. We have snacks and stuff in the back as well. We have a big TV, a PS5. We have a common space up in the front where typically people just kind of hang out and talk or like wait for their system navigator to be available. Oh, a systems navigator, system navigator. Yeah, so me and Skygia are the ever strong programs too of our system navigators. I'm the bilingual system navigator and we basically just help navigate the system, navigate the homeless system and get people into housing. We have our multi-purpose room slash like kid play area. So like when people have their children with them, there's an area where they can come in, they can bring their babies and stuff. We're working on getting a bassinet. So like small, small babies and stuff in a pack and playing things like that. We have a computer lab with eight computers that everybody had that people have access to to fill out job applications, do homework, you know, just yeah, I love it. And is it, is it, so during those hours when it's not like where you got to reserve time, it's just open door, you can just come. Yeah. Oh, wow, I love it. I love it. How are y'all you? Are y'all all utilizing a space and in there? Yeah, I have, you know, my own office. Skygia, I have my own office there where I'm able to work with the community members. It's a space that I try to make as comfortable as possible because this is a space where I am building trust with community members. This is a space where community members are opening up, even though they have opened up time and time again and been failed. So the youth action board also has an office down the hall and that's where Kayla and the Yab, you know, they do some of their work and get busy. Gotcha. All right. Let's talk about policy. Well, before we get to policy, I just want to let folks know who are listening that I am Sabrina Madison guest hosting today's afternoon for a public affair. I am joined in studio by some really, really dope young folks from the Dane County Youth Action Board. We have in the room with us, Tamaya, we have Kayla, we have Skygia and we have the Magnificent May. I'm probably going to get made all kinds of other added words with it because of my auntie's middle name is May and I don't get to say May a lot. So I just maybe like, Oh my God, the Magnificent May. So y'all just please excuse me because I don't get to say May a lot and I just love that name. It's so like it connects you. I really honestly feels like the name may connects you to like your elders. I don't know how to explain it, but that's that's the feeling of it. I get it. Yeah, yeah, it does. So I'm about to be like, why didn't I get why is it my name is Sabrina May, you know? Okay, y'all. So I really want to talk about policy and the last half of our show. And so are there current or most recent policy that come to mind that really you feel like got to the heart of ending youth homelessness before we talk about what is that we need to really be implementing? I mean, I think that if we could get over where these homeless services are located as a community, I mean, you talked about where the homeless men shelter is located, right? And that wasn't the first place that it was supposed to be if I'm correct. Yep. That was constantly moved. Why? Because citizens of Dane County don't want to see homelessness because citizens of Dane County see homelessness as an inconvenience, as a threat. And they want to criminalize and demonize these people who are struggling, who need the support of Madison's progressive community. And I think that one of the biggest policy issues that we've been facing is the ways in which services that are located anywhere central to where homelessness may congregate. They are constantly removed because they are considered as blight. So I know, for instance, that the beacon on East Washington is having difficulties with the Salvation Army, who is another homeless provider, because the Salvation Army says that the beacon has brings too much trouble, there's too much police that's coming there. And I think that that is something that is accepted as reasonable. And I think that that's one of the biggest policy issues that we're facing is just the criminalization of homelessness as a whole. Goodness. Yes. Okay. So if I had to, or I'm going to ask each and every one of you today, the four of you here representing the brilliant, this is a brilliant organization. When we think about like what's really solving or helping us to resolve some of the root causes of homelessness, these are the kinds of organizations I believe make the most sense because these are folks who are closest to the issue. They may have experienced the issue and they have like brilliant and beautiful and caring relationship with folks because sometimes folks think they know better, but they have not been close to it. They have not experienced it. They don't even know who the who is in it, but sometimes, you know, so I'm happy to see young people also too with the lived experiences. Like I feel I'm happy, you know what I mean? Like as a policymaker, but as someone who also ends up serving young people who may be experiencing this or their families, I am happy to see y'all doing this work. So for each of you, you know, now let's talk to me as a city alder, right? Because I know sometimes people got stuff they need to say, but I like to think about, I think about my role as an elected official, as someone who has even before I was, I was older. I always made myself accessible to the people who are not who are centered the least in the in the city. And so where I may say no to a meeting with another CEO, I'm likely to say yes to someone who just wants to talk about like the toxicity in their job, for example. So I would love to hear from each of you, you're in the room with an elected official. I would assume that you all want us to know and you know, particular things when we're making decisions, especially around policy. So what do what are your policy recommendations or initiatives, both in Dane County and the city? Like what can we be doing better? What can we be centering? You know, we can't curse today, but you know, you can curse in a way that's not an actual curse word. So I'm not going to say that I'm going to show to what y'all say. I'm not going to take it personal because I'm not the kind of person anyways. But I'm, you know, be honest, because you know, I'm not I grew up in an actual hood. Madison, I still don't believe has one, even though people believe it does. It doesn't. And Darbo does not count. Yeah, oh, people call Darbo the hood. Darbo and Ally, Darbo and Ally are not the hood. I feel very safe on Darbo and Ally that no matter time. Thank you. And people on Darbo and Ally have curtains. So where I grew up, I grew up on 34th and Center Milwaukee, not that we're trying to out-hood or out-get on each other. But I'll just say, my family, we could win all the awards for how hood are you today? You know, so but that's another topic. We're going to go on back to me being older and us talking about policy initiatives. Policies that actually do affect things that are determined to be the hood, because when people are labeling, likely Darbo and Ally to hood, they're likely just listening. They're important to, you know, policies that address their divestment or lack of investment initially. So talking to a elected official, what do y'all want to share about what do we need to be doing and thinking about? Yeah, I would say the big one is housing first. Yes. But when you play in your answer, not to cut you off, but in your talking about housing first, there are always those people who push back. And I don't, I don't get, I get it, but I don't, because having a house allows you to breathe, you know. So when you're explaining the house in first, please tell me like why? Like why you started housing first? Yeah, absolutely. So housing first is a philosophy that recognizes that housing is a human right. And that really, the key to it is that individuals and families are not required to first demonstrate that they are worthy or ready for housing. And so in that, there's been a lot of studies that have been done in other demonstration projects across the country that have really highlighted just what we know to be true, that once somebody is stably and safely housed, a lot of the other things that they might be dealing with are more likely to be resolved. So for example, someone who might be struggling with, say a toxic codependent relationship or some kind of substance use before, before housing first projects started really ramping up. A lot of times what we would see is that a housing provider or program might say, okay, you can enter our program once you are sober or once you have left the relationship, which really put up a barrier and made it this either or situation. And a lot of times people would, that would add to the stress that they were feeling around that situation, which likely fuels then the problem. So alternatively, housing first really allows people to demonstrate that people will, once they are safe and stably housed, they will start to naturally come out of that hyper stress crisis mode and be able to make steps towards securing or maintaining employment income, really working to dissect any substance use or patterns of behavior that are not serving them. And yeah, it really does start with housing. And so I think that as we are looking at Dane County as a space that is facing a housing crisis like many places across our country, that it is important that we recognize that as there is less access to housing, we will likely see people who are impacted negatively in that way and ultimately will create a divide, which makes it that much harder to overcome homelessness than in the future. And yeah, we often say that, you know, a lot of times the longer or more significantly that someone experiences homelessness, the more likely they are to then re enter that situation later on. Yep. Yep. I think that for me, Skygia speaking, I think that it would be really great for elders to vote no more often. Especially when it comes, well, when we're talking about the expansions or even just items that have to do with police budget and the ways in which there is so much money funneled into the police and the ways in which we could take even just a very small portion of that and change the lives of so many people in Dane County. When it comes to the development deals that the city makes, whether it's for housing, whether it's for downtown development, you know, these types of deals, while they are disguised as liberation for people, I've always said that if it comes at the cost of oppression of others, then it is not liberation, it is just violence. And what we see is that the more what is called development, what I know as gentrification, the more that that continues to take place within the city, the more that the homeless community will suffer and be subjugated to further violence. So I really think that something that Madison's mayor Satya said at our grand opening of the Everstrong Center was that Madison City cannot do more and that it will not until there is alleviation from state pressures. And I just think that that is not true. I think that the city absolutely can do more, but it just depends on the prioritization. And, you know, we should sometimes have a conversation on the culture of seeing the prioritization of homelessness as an inconvenience. There's a culture of it. It exists. And it's a reason why we're here today. And then just to piggyback off of what Skyjia said, with the city of Madison can't do more, I find that very hard to believe as the city of Madison is actively doing stuff to create more homelessness and cause more issues as in taking all of the bus routes out of the neighborhoods that really access them and really need them. So now you have to walk basic like almost half a mile sometimes or more to get to a bus stop like to a bus stop to get to our to our facility. There used to be a bus stop right in front of the center. But now you have to walk either all the way up international to Darwin or all the way up to the train tracks on the other side. And for homeless youth who are carrying dozens of bags and a lot of heavy stuff, especially in the winter and the summer and stuff like that, that it deters them from going places because they don't want to have to carry all of that and exert all of that energy. Yeah. So yeah, we deal with that too in my district where folks may be getting off the bus near Easttown, but they have to kind of walk and look and, you know, travel, maybe a half a mile, a little bit could be a mile almost to the temporary shelter. So I definitely see that. And Sabrina, my last example that I want to give that I just know is so important is for instance, when we established the Everstrong Center, we were blessed enough to have showers. There are two showers located in the building. Okay. We cannot use those showers, not only the city of Madison, but EMI, our owners of the property have locked those doors because of zoning restrictions. So we cannot give Dane County homeless folks access to clean showers because of a zoning restriction. I don't understand how people who have sat in meetings where there have been other entities that are grandfathered in. This is common talk that is used very regularly at city council meetings. Oh, we're going to just allow this to happen because of this being grandfathered in. So there are ways to overcome these types of zoning restrictions. But when you are a provider who is attempting to do this, it seems like you are put through every single obstacle with little to no support from the city administration. And the question is why? That's just all I want to know. Like when we were getting the Everstrong Center up and running the meetings and the arguments that were had over like little things, such as like providing hot food for our participants, not like a full five course meal every day, but like we can find it in our budget to like go out and get some frozen pizzas and stuff and have hot food for our participants here. But we're not able to do that because it's considered respite, like things like that. They don't want us to let participants like take naps in the center because that's considered respite. Like things like that is like actively working against us who are trying to provide these services for the youth. And then accessing other services that are not youth focused is like fighting tooth and nail to even get them to care and pay attention to the youth that we're trying to help. In our magnificent May, did you want to add anything before we wrap up? For me, based on my lived experience, not only in a Dane County, but just overall with homelessness, I'm going to piggyback off of what Kayla said when it comes to housing first because it was not until I got housing that I got out of the fight or flight mode and was able to even start applying for jobs and getting back on my feet. So that is absolutely very, very, very crucial when it comes to helping the youth here and just overall any homeless person because you, when living in that fight or flight mode, you're not necessarily worried about like finding a job. You're worried about, am I going to survive? Like where's my next meal going to come from? So I feel like it is absolutely crucial for us to focus on a housing first. Yeah. And for the Madison Police Department, please stop giving homeless people $430 tickets. I have a court date on November 13th that I'm going to to support somebody who isn't a predicament where they're facing either jail time or to pay this ticket. It doesn't seem feasible. Thank you everybody for everything that you've shared. Y'all have done what you do every day and that show up. I love it. And even though we're going to wrap up in a few minutes, I just want to say there are some things that I as an elected official in serving on Madison's Common Council can follow up on and encourage other orders to follow up on. But I also want to invite you all, if I bring other orders or electives and certain city agencies together, I would love to have, of course, you at the table because we're talking about you. Oh, yeah. Okay. So a couple things. If you're an elected official, you're like, Oh, my God, I need to listen to this discussion with the youth action board. Some of the things that they've ended our conversation with around what they want to say directly to us. And I felt a little like, let me just get this out because they listening potentially. So there are some concerns and issues around MPD, especially, you know, with tickets that are $400 a lot. It is especially for a person who's homeless and does not have place to get stable income. Yeah. So some of the concerns, you have MPD and tickets. And then their inability to provide what essentially is respite, naps, food, showers, you know, these are sort of like things that we would just refer to as community care. And so there, there's inability for them to provide some of those things. There are some issues around their zoning and the inability to provide showers to young people who likely will need a shower because when you're a homeless, that means you do not have a stable home in which to access a regular shower. Then there are issues around Metro. I know I've heard from other constituents across the city where through the update for the bus transit system that, you know, stops were moved around. And of course, always the common issues around housing. They encourage more orders and I would assume Dane County supervisors do for us to be saying no more often to certain projects because we need to be considering is this liberating or we continue to oppress folks, you know, intentionally or unintentionally. And so as we take our last little two, three minutes, I want to just say, thank you for joining me today. This was a really, really great conversation. I am glad that you all came up in one of my recent meetings because it allowed me to explore and do the research and use my Google to learn who you are. And so in this next, what we got like two minutes, I would love for everybody in like a half minute or less tell me maybe what has joy looked like for you doing this work. So we'll start over here with our magnificent may. I would say joy for me in doing this work. It's being somebody who has had a lived experience with homelessness. Now being able to be on a board that literally deals with my lived experience is something that is absolutely priceless. I love it. I'm writing Tamaya. I'd say joy for me in this work is really just like seeing the smiles and knowing that a lot of my participants feel like absolutely safe with me. I spent two days in the hospital with one participant while she gave birth, cut the umbilical cord and she gave the baby my middle name. So just like things like that bring me so much joy. I love it. I love it. Kayla. Yeah, I would say similar to mine as surrounding my lived experience, this has been an opportunity for me to really I think go back and heal some of the experiences that I have been through by helping support other people to move through them in ways that they're not hung up or not being hung up as much as I have to really advocate for not only the people that I went through my experience with but the people that I'm working with today. Perfect. And Skyjia? The joy that I get from this work is being able to connect the dots for folks, expand consciousness on the fact that when we identify these challenges, we can find the roots within white supremacy. So dismantling and abolishing those systems are where I find the most joy. I love it. Thanks again for joining me. Again, I am Sabrina Madison and I just got to say for me, the joy really is is that what I absolutely love and ground in my work in is Bell Hooks is love ethic. And so I got to do that with them today. So thanks for allowing me to be your host today on a public affair. Have a good rest of your afternoon. We bring the truth to places truth has never heard before. We bring the sound communication of our tribal war. Dark vision fly by helicopters in the night. Attempt triangulation of our station in the fight. Straight from the base deep down low precision. High crime treasonly broadcast in tradition. Like the Wall Street morning after noon edition. Commandering airways from unknown positions.