Hello everyone and Welcome to another

episode of Selling Greenville your

favorite real estate podcast here in

Greenville, South Carolina, I'm your host

as always Stan Mccune realtor right here in

the Greenville area you can find all of

my contact information in the show notes

if you need to reach out to me for any

of your real estate needs and just a

reminder as always please like the show

on whatever platform you're listening or

watching on subscribe to it make sure

you don't miss future episodes leave

a rating leave review any of those

things you can do I would greatly

appreciate to support the show I'm very

excited today that we have a special

guest on here Susan Mclary of Greenville

homeless Alliance she's the director of

Greenville Homeless Alliance and just

has a lot of insight we've talked about

the issue of homelessness which is an

issue in our country as a whole

Greenville is no exception to the

rule obviously the upstate as a whole if

you go into Pickens, Anderson, Spartanburg

all of the upstate this is an issue of

but this is a specifically Greenville

oriented podcast so I connected with

Susan a few years ago and really for

a while now I've been wanting to have

her on the show and then I reached

out a few weeks ago and this has

been in the works for a little bit

but Susan again director of Greenville

Homeless Alliance thank you for being

willing to come on the show I appreciate

it thank you Sam for having me I've been

looking forward to the opportunity to

into this with you absolutely so for the

listeners out there who have never heard

of Greenville Homeless Alliance what is it

what are you guys doing what's your

mission anything you want to explain

about your

organization yes thank you we like to

call ourselves a coalition of doers and

change-makers you know focused

specifically on Greenville County and

our vision is that everyone in this

Community would have access to a

safe and affordable home so I'm sure

we'll talk a lot about what that means

absolutely and then our in order to

achieve that Vision our mission is that

we are a convener a connector we are not

out there as case managers or care

coordinators we're trying to bring all

the big entities that touch this issue

together so that we're not working in

silos so that we're leveraging you know

every penny to meet the needs of the

people who are experiencing

homelessness and those organizations

that are focusing with Direct Services

but in order to do that what we say is

we're trying to bring both public and

private Partners together and when we

strengthen those Partnerships we believe

it will broaden support overall and

increase options so that big word of

increasing options just like when you're

dealing with a client who's looking for

a new home in Greenville you don't want

to just show them one right well

if if if they will buy the first one

then I'm okay with that but that

normally they do have to look at a few

normally yeah people like at least you

know more than one option but so we're

really trying to make more options

available especially for people who are

most vulnerable and they're vulnerable

because their income typically is going

to be on the lowest end of income

and then so obviously they have to be

experiencing homelessness and wanting to

seek stability

out of that

experience

so if you don't mind just explain to me

a little bit more in terms of what

Greenville Homeless Alliance how you

guys are kind of positioned between

these public and private entities what

exactly are you guys accomplishing in

order to help is it cohesion that

you're trying to bring or what exactly

if you could just kind of explain that

how you guys work in the middle of

all these different

organizations sometimes this is helpful

especially if people are familiar with

bicycles and you know thinking about

the popularity of our swamp private trail

here but if you think of that Hub in the

center of a bicycle wheel with those

spokes going out we are that Hub in the

center and trying to make that strongest

connection possible between when I say

every different type of public and

private organization that could be

touching this issue could be obviously

local government to your Hospital

Systems to your school system Frontline

service providers you know that's kind

of where we started because they were

already providing Services some of them

when we got started were had been in

this community for over 100

years so does that make sense yeah yeah

it does so practically speaking

what does that look like what would be

would be an example of you guys you

know working with these different

organizations and being that spoke of

the wheel sure one of the first early

examples that we can now say was made

possible by this

intentional Hub

relationship is that we knew that people

were coming were being discharged from

our local hospitals but not well enough

to return to living on the

streets but yet our Shel providers had

to also turn them away because they

weren't equipped to care for some of the

medical needs you know they're just not

set up that way and so they had to turn

people away which meant we had this

revolving door of you know in and out of

the hospital in you know through the ER

very high public cost when you know

someone doesn't have a safe place to

recover and can you know care for their

medical needs yeah absolutely and so

inter we have a federally qualified

Health Center partner that comes through

so all their funding comes through our

health and human services division of

the federal government and here that's

called New Horizon Family Health

Services and they provide Health Care to

anyone in Greenville County who you know

would be needing it but they also have a

very specific program called health care

for the homeless and because that

partner said hey I'm aware of other

parts of the country that actually

provide a special type of bed called

medical

respite they started you know with our

connecting of funders and other partners

that led to Miracle Hill Ministries

which is a our largest emergency shelter

provider both in Greenville and across

the upstate they said wow like we knew

we were having to turn individuals away

once they understood what could be done

they actually were able to accommodate

this new medical respite program in

their current men's and women's shelters

without having to build anything new

they just rearranged some space and so

they provided the space and the the

meals you know and everything that comes

with that stability of shelter and the

New Horizon came in and provided a nurse

and a social worker specific just to the

people in the medical rest bit program

and that's that example of Miracle Hill

is 100% private your medical side is

100% public and had you know this

intentional Partnership of the homeless

Alliance existed likely those and so and

so you guys connected them where yeah

and also you know they were able to

access a small amount of funds from one

of our local philanthropy Partners so we

we talk about this very intentional way

of making sure the our best chance of

you the problem is to have the most

different actors in the community

looking at the problem with us

absolutely yeah and it and it seems like

it's a problem that it's like a

mountain and you can't just blow up the

whole mountain and make it go away you

have to kind of chisel away one rock at

a time is that is that do it feel that

way on your end it does we also use that

analogy of you know how do you eat an

elephant

yeah yeah very similar y for sure so

when people think about Greenville you

know they think and and I'm just kind of

speaking I'm just kind of regurgitating

some of the things that I hear from

people they think of Greenville as very

clean City a city that is up

and coming already here has you know

good diversity all these different

things they don't necessarily think

about their being homeless people here

because it's maybe not what you see

on the news you know the news likes to

do all these you know show every 10 city

and every you know person that is

clearly you know walking around like

like we were talking before the show

about San Francisco how much the news

media likes to show everyone that's on

drugs and you know it's just kind of

passed out on the side of the road and

we don't see that as much in Greenville

as perhaps the media is portraying it in

some of these big cities but that

doesn't mean that it's not happening and

that doesn't mean that there obviously

we know that there are homeless quite a

few homeless I actually heard a rumor

recently there's some kind of

underground system in Greenville like

underneath like where the where

Tupelo Honey is I don't know if this is

true at all but there's like some kind

of underground system where where

there's a bunch of homeless people you

might or might not know that but

anyway regardless of that

rumor

for those who haven't had much

experience with the homeless in the

Greenville area how do you quantify the

scope of the problem do you have any any

numbers or any or any comparisons that

you can make to kind of for the average

listener to kind of help them to

understand okay here is what the

homeless problem

is yes that's a excellent question and

we have worked hard on being better able

to report and have a shared

understanding of that data because prior

to our existence, there was a one-time

count that the federal government tells

all communities across the country that

you should get out and try to count your

people experiencing homelessness

typically it's the last week of January

okay so in any part of the country you

may see some news stories around that

time that do reference count and when

you think about that like how accurate

would your real estate sales be if you

said I'm only reporting one day right

yeah you know not super accurate

actually, this is a big problem in

real estate is a lot of the data lags and so

there's only a few companies out there

that are really doing a good job with

up-to-date data otherwise we're often

times looking at data that's one, two,

three months old which is by that point

almost

useless yeah yeah so similar like

there was a recognition that first of

all if you saw our data sometimes it was

reported as the entire Upstate because

when the federal government looks at

where they send their dollars to help us

address this problem they don't just

look at Greenville they have defined

areas and this is called a Continuum of

Care and the State of South Carolina

only has four oh interesting and ours is

pro ours is the largest because we have

13 counties

wow it it expands from as low as

Greenwood you know over to Cherokee and

ozone you know so 13 think of those 13

counties unbelievable we're all lumped

together we're all we're very different

you know even within Greenville County

it can be very different from fountain

in up to

Marietta yeah but so we're lumped into

that and so you might see a number that

actually is for those 13 counts prior to

our existence okay so then we said you

know

Greenville has the highest population

our County does in the entire State we

also have more Services here than

really anywhere else in the state and so

local philanthropy said you know we

want to help focus more specifically on

Greenville so we started talking about

that number and because we've we get a

variety of funding sources to help make

our organization possible we're not tied

to what HUD tells us to do so we talked

with the school district and we said

what are you seeing because we do have

one school district for Greenville

County which is unique as well right yep

some of our neighboring counties I've

referenced that a little bit on

previous shows it's a kind it's

a one of the most controversial things

about Greenville is whether they should

have a bunch of individual school

districts or just the one

yeah yeah oh yeah I mean it yeah for

sure and so the other thing we've

tried to help people understand is when

you do hear that one night count they're

not typically including most of our

school children because they're only

able to in terms of how HUD looks at

the issue and their definition there's

different definitions and theirs is more

literal are you living on the street are

you living in your car are you living in

in currently in an emergency shelter

okay if you're in those situations

you're going to be

counted but if you're paying for your

own motel room but don't have you know

home they don't count you as

experiencing homelessness under that HUD

definition interesting if I've lost

my home and I've said Stan can my family

and I stay with you for a short period

of time that's called couch surfing

sometimes or doubling up that's also not

counted and so thankfully in Greenville

we have very very low numbers of

children in their families who are

self-reporting literal Street

homelessness so I think to your point

earlier about other cities we just

aren't seeing that here but under our

broader definition so we follow what the

US Department of Education outlines

homelessness to be we do have in the

most recent school year 2000 381

children whose family self-reported

homelessness so that number would be

much bigger if you could include parents

and non-school aged children that might

be in the home as well sure so

so that's interesting so what's

the reason why Greenville has less

Street homelessness perhaps than than

some other areas might per

capita yeah yeah I think it's a great

question we think it one is because we

have the most number of Shelter beds

here we have over

450

shelter

beds and those have and we're kind

of adding some capacity there okay you

know and that's way more than any other

County interesting how does that compare

to like other I know that you guys have

looked at other Metro areas as well how

does that compare to other Metro areas

that's a great

question I don't know if I have that

data I you know we've studied other

cities as close by as

Charlotte and I would say for our

population and most of our emergency

shelter beds currently are inside the

city limits of Greenville okay which for

your listeners you know is quite small

geographically compared to the size of

the

county but I think per capita if you

were just to say our city like we would

still rank pretty high

in terms of you know to the

population the total population

interesting so

how does you say it would rank kind

of high so you've compared to like

Charlotte and whatnot I

mean what are we doing different than

for instance a Charlotte or what

have you learned from seeing some of

these other areas that could be

improved in

Greenville so one reason we formed the

homeless Alliance is we did have this

recognition when I say we it was among

those big service providers who like I

mentioned the one who had been here by

the time we were forming was the

Salvation Army of Greenville County over

a hundred years Miracle Hill over 85

years you know so like these United

Ministries where I'm coming to you

today from over 50 years so these

Partners who said something has changed

and we need to do something different

because otherwise the people were

trying to serve are going to end up more

harmed than

helped and so what they landed on like

the housing was so elusive it used to be

more plentiful especially if you look at

where our shelter and nonprofit

Partners where their offices are again

for our listeners who may not be as

familiar with Greenville a lot of these

are located closer to where our Mills

resided at one time so our textile

economy created a plethora of rental

housing that for a long long time was

quite

affordable and

walkable and closer to other you know

yeah those little those little Mil towns

yeah they're you you can walk straight

to the mill and yeah you can you can

Envision just how you know how thriving

that was at one point you know people

not even needing even a vehicle that's

why it's so hard to drive around those

areas right right some of those streets

are very narrow so so really we said

you know we've got to figure out how to

help more people understand what's now

very difficult because we have a lot of

residents who care deeply about these

nonprofits but they may not know

how to help create these long-permanent

solutions that are now so difficult

to find and the other piece that comes

with that is like usually with

homelessness you're not just

experiencing the lack of housing you may

have had a ding on your credit you may

have experienced an eviction you may

also have you know like you said you

what if you don't have a car like that

really limits where you can look for

housing yep so all those pieces together

we've tried to bring in a stronger

partnership with Green Link our public

transit partner and organ you know

they're funded by the city and the

County here and then a lot of work with

trying to figure out what are those ways

that we're going to have to figure

out to build more housing that truly

meets the needs and the income

levels where we see people just have no

options yeah and that's something that

we've talked about a lot here on

this show because you know affordable

housing Workforce housing all of those

things a lot of buzzwords and we've got my

episode my most recent episode of

the show was about the local political

scene and of course we've got mayor

races and city council races all over

the

upstate so what would be you know if

if anyone running in those elections

are listening to this what would be your

what would you say to them with regard

to these affordable housing shortages

what can public officials be doing

to help on that

front first and foremost you just making

sure we're all talking off like the same

sheet of

music it is a complex issue in that

you know there's different ways to build

and fund to maintain quality

housing so I do think we've got some

sort of misinformation that often just

you know unfortunately hurts that that

Narrative of where we need to be going

as a community what would

be if you don't mind what what would be

an example of that

misinformation yeah so

I think sometimes they currently

there's some discussion as recently as

last night around what does this tax

abatement look like and mean for

residents especially in Greenville

County and you're saying for you're

saying for residents or for the

developers that are getting like tax

refunds for affordable

developments yeah I'm sorry about so our

elected officials I think there's

misinformation both on the what I would

call the residents the voter side

but also some misinformation that's

coming from some of our elected

officials as well that just amplifies a

narrative you know that is not helpful

to people that truly are desperate for

somewhere to call home sure so I

think what often is misunderstood is

housing is expensive to build it's gone

up during coid you know construction

cost construction labor all those Market

forces have impacted interest rates

you know all those things have are

outside of our control so in order to

build quality housing it looks the

same but the way to make it affordable

is you've got to figure out ways to

layer more money in there to bring that

rent down to bring down the cost of

habitat home and so that is you know the

only way that we're going to match again

is not that people aren't working people

have jobs their income just is lower

than where the market offers that

housing

so in order to help people leave

homelessness like we've got to be you

know Finding ways to stack capital and

bring that cost down so that that person

pays what any of us you know that gets

to the definition of

affordable we should be all paying

around 30% of our gross income or less

for our housing

cost so like could your clients you know

buy a home that's 50% of their gross

income would the bank give them a loan

not well it depends it depends on how

they're reporting that income but

they're not supposed to they're not

supposed to so that's also true in the

rental market you're not really supposed

to like a lot of times when you go to

rent you have to show you earn three

times the rent yep right well there's a

lot of private Property Owners out

there that are not adhering to that so

we have a lot of residents in Greenville

County we even have like 32,000 home

like household stand who are paying more

than 30% of their income for their

housing wow 32,000 so we look at that as

like that's 32,000 households that any

moment could fall into this crisis yeah

for

sure yeah we think it's surprising our

numbers aren't

higher right yeah and is that 32 is

that just in the city limits or is

that's Greenville County

okay because I was

going to say the city only has what

75,000 so I don't remember I haven't

looked at the most recent numbers but it

was like I'm not

relieved from the county standpoint but

I'm like well at least that's not the

city that would be really bad for the

city

so would you say that

the it are the solutions keeping up the

solutions for homelessness and you know

the various public-private work that's

being done the various Charities that

are

contributing all of these things are

they keeping up with the demand or are

we are is the homeless problem getting

worse is it growing at a rate that

we're really struggling to keep up with

it in this the Greenville

area you know that gets it back to how

we the data we have access to is one

piece of your questions we do know year

after year we look at the school

district numbers because they're able to

report each school year and this the

numbers start over beginning of the

school year

that number has been dramatically

Rising so we are not going in the right

direction for our

children and their families but like

we talked about earlier majority of

those children and their families are

not going to qualify for the federal

resources we do have to address we have

to wait for them to fall into finding a

bed in an emergency shelter or finding

themselves literally on the street which

is not really a good no long-term Sol

solution no that's for sure for your

future Workforce you know they also

there's a um statistic out there that

says every time a child has to move due

to housing instability they can lose on

average six months of

learning and what we see too is like

it's not just one move in a school year

it's usually four five and you could see

like why that becomes difficult then to

keep up and graduate even from high

school if you have just that probably

just perpetuates cycle exactly and then

they're more likely to be not as

educated as the median you know student

and then they become an adult and then

they're already starting behind the

eightball right so the other part

that's hard to keep up with while we are

making progress and I'm glad I'm going

to listen to your episode about the most

recent our election coming up in

November you know so that's the good

news we've done a ton of advocacy and

alongside others and we have seen our

local government here in the City of

Greenville use our own tax dollars to

help make more housing come

online and so that's a really

critical piece of like we can't just

hope that somebody else is going to

solve our problem that's you know if

Greenville had waited for that to happen

we wouldn't have the beautiful city we

have today so you know that's good

that we're doing it we are still not

doing it at the rate that the

Consultants who helped us look at the

problem said we should be but they're

try they're trying to get

there what needs to be done for us to

get there like

what or what are those numbers

of units or however you look at it

that we need to get to in order to

reach these goals that you would

have there is a strategy that's been put

out by the Greenville housing fund so

they are the entity that is looking more

alongside green bille housing

Redevelopment Authority so between those

two like they're really looking at the

housing situation across the entire

County and they've said in order to get

to the goal which would reduce our

shortage by a half is we need 10 million

from each local government entity per

year after year to drive that

number in half 10 million what if

you could just 10 million in in a

local Revenue like 10 million from the

city from million General operating

budget 10 million to go towards What

specifically, that goes into a fund like

if it's a city it goes into the

Greenville Housing Fund who holds the

those dollars and they become in some

cases like the last gap of

funding to help a deal pencil so we were

talking about the tax abatement that's

one way that you know when you're

trying to bring down the the cost to

the consumer you know being someone

trying in this case to exit

homelessness you got to find different

kinds of capital in order to do that so

they don't give all 10 million to one

partner you know it might be a recent

example could be like

500,000 was what that developer needed

to close that to get the bank to you

know agree for them to do this Housing

Development yep so they're called like

that last Gap funder and sometimes

they're the first to be paid back so

we're also trying where possible to

recycle dollars so then it's there to

help the

next project the camp pencil that makes

sense yeah well and I don't know how

much you run into this but one thing

that I talk a lot about on this show is

nimbyism not people that do not want

development to be in their backyard Nim

stands for not in my backyard and so

obviously, we see it all the time that

when a developer comes in more and more

there's there's pressure and rightfully

so for those developers to include

affordable units we you know I I

talked about again last episode about

people need to start being more aware

of the term Ami area median income that

developers are going to be forced to

to have you know units that are for

affordable for people that are 80% Ami

70% whatever the case may be but

there's a lot of because of this

anti-development sentiment that's in the

Greenville area people don't want any

people are just like Greenville's

growing too fast we need to stop all

developments out in easily in Pickin

County there's people threatening if if

I get into office I will do a

six-month moratorium on all developments

which is not good for housing

affordability just in

general but what are your thoughts on

that what would be your what's your

pitch to someone that's kind of

anti-development they don't want to see

they just want developers to stop

getting these tax rebates they aren't

happy about you know hearing these

affordable units coming in and being

subsidized by the government because

they feel like that's their tax dollars

going to towards making a city grow

beyond what they want it to grow as what

would be what would be your your pitch

to them what would you say to

them well we've spoken up for some of

those exact situations and our pitch has

been you know do you believe that

everyone should have the opportunity to

enjoy this beautiful place that we like

to call home and if you believe that

then you know you're going to have to

look for some of the best ways for us to

find

solutions that possibly like we spoke

for one called Renaissance Place and we

were the only voice of

support and you know it was very it's

right there not far from Bob Jones

University so close to grocery stores

very close to the bus line and you

know that has been a wonderful

opportunity it's for seniors they have

to be 55 or older to live there and

it's just quality housing that's right

you know in a great part of our city

it's actually right on the city county

line and you know we're just like I

wanted to be welcomed I moved here in

1992 fresh out of college to work for

milting

company and you know I wanted to be

welcomed I didn't want somebody to go

you're gonna have to you know commute

from Clinton somewhere you know sure way

far out so I that's our best

argument is like how would you want to

be treated and if you care about this

community then you know we're going to

challenge you that jobs there's many

many jobs that are not paying you

know a person or a household enough as

well to live close to where they

work so it could be that burger that you

love you know that restaurant may go out

of business because they can't find

employees

now can afford to either Park in a

garage or drive you know that far to

work or their car breaks down you know

and they can't make it to work I mean

there's just so many factors of like if

you can have this diverse incomes it's

actually the most healthy way a

community can Thrive and you know

people can have access to employment

and then from there they have other

opportunities but you can't get them

here you're right yeah can't work yeah

you're yeah an area is either

growing or it's stagnating in in my

opinion and you know unfortunately a lot

of people don't realize that they think

they think we can just stay the same

but you can't just stay the same that

that's just a it just doesn't work that

way right so yeah no the other

thing I would say is like we do think

you have to be smart about where the

best places to build are in especially

in our County, that's so big and has a

lot of diversity in Opportunities

where land still exists you know I think

two-thirds of Greenville County is is

not

zoned and so you know we would say it's

better right now to build closer to

where we do have infrastructure like

water and sewer

y so you know it's just things like that

we're part of other coalitions that are

looking at what's the best way to use

the land and we work with Partners like

Upstate forever in that Coalition we

also you know what what is the

opportunity with our green link system

how can we help make sure housing that

we could build near those existing

routes gets developed to help serve you

know especially people whose income

really is going to rely on that

affordable Transportation option just

got like it takes a lot of

intentionality and planning ahead

yeah absolutely did now did

Greenville Homeless Alliance have any

input in like the very controversial

project woven were you guys involved

with that at all or what how did that

come

about yeah so we did attend a

lot of those public meetings and we do

encourage those who are part of our

coalition to also you know if they're

able to be a part of those public

meetings to give comment to be

aware I think that is a good

example of where the County's new tax

abatement policy made a difference and

helped increase the number of affordable

options in that new development and that

was they included

several at 80% Ami right is that is that

what that one was if I remember

correctly you know before they got

the approval for the new tax abatement

they did have a few but so it increased

even further and that now they've got

some at 80 some at 60 and some down at

40% of the area need inome yeah so so we

think you know that's also a smart way

we haven't touched on yet is like we

really can be a healthier Community

when you mix different incomes with each

other yeah so that does that they also

have some space for entrepreneurs

this in built into woven that we you

know I think see that Partners like M

Village

Ministries can help you know through

what they're incubating give people them

that permanent space to be the

entrepreneur and grow their own business

and you know that's a great way for

someone to be more successful in today's

economy and I

should I'm sorry I was just going to say

I should probably mention for those that

don't know I just kind of threw woven

out there woven is kind of a I

guess it would be considered kind of a

mixed-use but heavily residential on the

west side of Greenville I believe not

too far from un Unity Park if I'm not

mistaken yeah development that is

basically mixed market rate and mixed

affordable housing for those that

aren't familiar with it so sorry sorry

to interrupt you but I realized in the

middle of that that like some people

probably have no idea what that is

so yeah I think still what's hard and

you were touching on it a little bit

earlier is the the breadth of the

affordable equation continues to grow so

like our area Med income is continuing

to rise and where woven sits is

a historically black neighborhood and so

the neighbors that we heard come and

speak many of them said but this isn't

this is including affordable but it's

not affordable for what I need or what

my parents need now that they've aged

out of their home so sure that's that's

kind of the some of the hard

conversations because that even

with even with affordable housing and

Workforce housing that gentrification

still

happens it is and we with the

homeless Alliance are also focused

in at 30% and below the area median

income and it kind of just comes back to

like

75% of the people who make that

choice to enter our Emergency Shelters

have zero income yep you know so you're

not going to go from like zero to 70,000

gross anal income right imediately so

that all takes time and you have to have

that housing stability in order to be

you know to have the ability to work so

is the is kind of like you get those

people with that are not making any

money the first job is just to get

them into a shelter or perhaps maybe to

get them a Housing Voucher where they

can rent and start to get income history

and then is the next step to to

potentially get them into some of these

you become a homeowner in an area able

unit or perhaps a h habitat home or

something like that like is that kind of

the goal when someone has no

income or do you guys think of it in

like a different

way I would say like when we try to

think about a person-centered approach

and recognizing that that person knows

best like their own goals for themselves

and what hopefully we can do is as a

collection of service providers come

around them to help those barriers out

of the way to let them Reach those goals

so it's hard to say I would say like

related to the housing voucher

there's a small handful of vouchers that

it's almost nearly impossible to make

that resource match up with someone

who's in a shelter so that is that's

because the federal government is

really sending those you know here and

it's hard to get more so y

understandably

but in terms of work there's a lot of

Partnerships that help people maybe they

have always had a goal to you know do

something that they haven't had the

ability to have that support and

training to to gain that skill and so

sometimes while people are in shelter

they may be working also with a coach

through United Ministries with their

striving to thrive model and helping

people okay what's what can we do to

help you gain those skills so that when

you are ready to exit your income is

higher and your likelihood of being able

to afford all the different components

to remain stable are available to you

yeah that's great what we yeah so what

we hear though is like there's such a

there's such a strong desire to work

once people gain that kind of they you

know they're in shelter they're feeling

like more stable

safe that they could just walk down Main

Street and they do that and they come

back with a job in one of our local

restaurants or a even a national chain

and unfortunately, it's really hard then

to match the housing right with that

income and keep them close enough to

that place they've taken the job with

and I've seen some instances with people

with vouchers that they get a job and

now they don't now their voucher you

know the value of their voucher has gone

down perhaps you know they're in a

different income bracket so now they

don't qualify for as high of a Housing

Voucher so now even though they're

making more money they're now also

having to spend more money in order to

rent because now they have a co-pay that

they're having to pay in addition to

their vouchers that's like a whole

separate you know issue where sometimes

people are disincentivized to make

income based on how you know that

social safety net system is

structured right right and all those

different pieces of that net don't line

up at the same income so you know

that's one thing I do think if your

listeners aren't familiar with the work

of United Ministries they are doing an

incredible job with some new software

that helps people look at like I am I

approaching that and if so like I might

lose you know my ability to cover child

care you know and so it just helps

instead of just finding out after the

fact which is how it happens for most

people today sends you into that crisis

so they're really working to get more

proactive interesting which is great

which so they are they are they is that

a Standalone charity or are they

affiliated with any with anyone they are

Standalone nonprofit

okay yeah that's great we'll we'll

definitely have to m if you could

send me a link to them I can link to

them in the show notes I also link to

Greenville Homeless Alliance as well

anyone that you want me to link to I'll

link to in the show notes yeah we

like to give them a shout out too

because they give us office space and

treat us like employees which is helpful

with this new way of working that

we're doing you know which is a little

harder to find grants to cover because

we're not providing those Direct

Services sure so so we're located here

in their Administrative Building oh

that's yeah that's fantastic so we only

have a few minutes left and you've been

very generous with your time so I

appreciate that so I just a

few quick questions here and then

we'll let you

go what would you say are perhaps

some misconceptions that people have

about homeless people in

general there's a lot out there so we

I'll just give a quick plug we have some

Mythbusters you maybe could also Link in

the show notes short videos that if

people are interested they could watch

those and

one of the

misconceptions is maybe that you know

people don't want to

work or you know choosing to remain

homeless and I think you know what we

hear so often is

like if they had a choice if they had an

option they wouldn't be choosing

this right it's we don't have the

choices yep

yep or if you said to me

you can stay here or you know give up U

95% of your income to have that roof

over your head what choice would you

choose right yeah it's not it's not

quite as simple and straightforward as

as you might think right right but

definitely the myth-buster we also

hear a lot of people ask about

panhandling we have one that addresses

that as well okay yeah and one thing one

thing I've you know

there are sometimes that we'll see you

know people on the side of the road you

know asking for money or you know or for

food or whatever the case may be and

I've talked to my children about it

sometimes and it's like these aren't

people who don't want to work they're

working harder than in a lot of ways

than me like on the side of the road

like in the cold weather and whatnot

like out there you know that that's work

it's just for some reason they are in

this position that they're in we don't

know why it could be could be education

it could be you know perhaps some kind

of substance abuse it could be a lot of

different things but that's one

thing I that I hear a lot is that it's

like well these people just don't want

to work and it's like if you actually

look at a lot of the people that are

Street Homeless they're working often

times harder than us quite frankly

but it's just not in a conventional job

and you know if we could if we could

get that level of work ethic and channel

in the right direction, they could

benefit themselves but also benefit

everyone else you know in the

economy yeah yeah what so let's say

that

that you know I don't know if there

will be anyone listening to the show

that would potentially be in a situation

where they might find eles homeless but

we have to operate under the assumption

that there might be so if someone is

in that situation what's the first thing

that they should

do we have some great tools on our

website again things that didn't exist

before we were created so we have a get

help page and on that there's some very

simple tools you know if you need

emergency shelter we try to make it very

easy we also just recently added a

different tab under our Resource page

that's a fil you can use filters so the

intent there was to try to help you more

quickly understand what based on my

situation is the best fit for

me to be a little bit overwhelming

because we have so many resources here

in GRE County so you start applying the

filters and it takes you more quickly

and then you can see from there the

number to call the address the website

you just click you know and so we also

encourage people to be familiar with

that yourself so that if someone asks

you

we have things on that page that you if

someone is hungry you can eat really

seven days a week in

Greenville if you know if you're can

get make sure you can get there but a

lot of people that are panhandling are

very close to these locations okay and

so just educating yourself saying you

know the best thing that we can do is

direct you to The

Experts anything that I you know could

give as a regular everyday resident is

probably what we would call A band-aid

and may just continue to keep that

person more in that state of

Crisis what we want them to do is move

out of that state of Crisis and get

stable be contributing parts of our

community and have all those you know

benefits that we enjoy absolutely

so practically speaking what can the

average listener on here who is in a

home and and it desires to help with the

homeless situation in Greenville or

perhaps even outside of Greenville P but

this is a Greenville show so practically

what can people do to to contribute

towards solving this

problem well we would first invite

everyone to sign up to get our e

communication so we only send two things

a month and outside of that we might

ever so often send what we call a call

to action alert and that is one way

we're trying to mobilize people to help

show up and maybe be the yes in my

backyard and combat what typically is

always going to show up the no in my

backyard right so we don't we yeah we

we we're we're a big this show is a big

yimi supporter yes in my back we to

have more support of that you know it

truly takes a lot of voices to convince

the policy makers and so sign up for

that and then we feature a lot of the

partners who you know we would encourage

you if you're living in housing that's

affordable that means you probably

should have some extra income available

and that's always welcome money solves

problems that's right

absolutely and I and you can choose

I've seen on your on the Greenville

homeless Alliance page there's a donate

button that people can that people can

click and I assume it's it's pretty

straightforward in terms of donating on

there

it is it is and currently depending

on how soon this airs we have our

one time-of-year event where we you

know have a luncheon and on November the

14th it's during the national hunger and

homelessness awareness week and that's a

way you could be a sponsor you know join

us for that and those dollars are going

to help ensure that we keep this entity

of the alliance going and and this year

we're actually having a fun nighttime

event it's kicking off a six Monon

exhibit awesome it's gonna be right off

of Main Street yeah that's fantastic

I'll definitely have to look into that

yeah so that but you know just

educating yourself educating those who

you know in your circle of influence is

also as important as those financial

dollars yeah

100% so last

question because this is a you know a

little bit more

sobering episode obviously we're

talking about a major problem children

not in homes people you know out on the

street um but to end on a positive note

what is what are some of the things in

the future that have you excited um that

that we can that we are contributing

towards getting more people off the

streets or out of you know motels that

they can't afford and into homes what

are some of the things that have you

excited thank you for that question we

are very excited that we are undertaking

the second-largest public art commission

mural in the City of Greenville oh wow

where's that gonna be and it's on the

back of trying Mercy Center Sanctuary so

you're familiar with Stone

Avenue about 14,000 cars or vehicles per

day travel just in that one direction

towards this future mural yeah I go

through that area all the time yeah so

pretty soon you'll see a boom lift on

site and we've got a local artist

creating this mural that depicts stories

of

Hope and our hope is that more people

become curious about what are those

stories of Hope what did it take it'll

hopefully dispel some of those myths but

we know the solutions to homelessness we

truly believe we just need more people

to join us in creating those Solutions

and so you know those 14,000 per day we

hope are just little seeds that get

planted that turn into you know

blossoming flowers trees you know things

to come for Greenville that makes it

such a better place for the long term so

that's really exciting to us and the

people that are featured in there also

like tears came to their eyes when they

knew that that we they'd been

chosen to be the face of trying to bring

hope you know they've come out of such

dark difficult circumstances and now so

it's really me mean f to us that we can

lift up that and that they're willing to

share that

experience so as that comes to

completion we are also launching in

November what we're calling the gvl so

Greenville ignite fund so stay tuned to

hear about that but we want to work with

housing providers and just figure out

what can we do to help it make it easy

as possible to house our most vulnerable

residents you know we want it to be

win-win so that again our community

becomes a place where everyone has that

access so that is exciting it brings us

a lot sounds

amazing yeah thank you yeah I love all

that it's solvable that's what people

should know yes yes it's it's yeah it's

solvable um it it just it it takes more

than just you and a few City officials

it takes you know I know it's cliche but

it does take all of us you know at the

end of the day and um and so that's why

I wanted to to get this episode out um

you know I have a lot of other people

that I want to interview um but I really

wanted to get this out because I just

felt

like the sooner people kind of

understand why affordable housing is

important and and you know understanding

that just because they're not seeing you

know these tent cities

everywhere doesn't mean that there isn't

a problem and that doesn't mean

that that doesn't mean that we can just

ignore it and just coast and just you

know it'll solve itself it's not going

to solve itself and you know that as

much as anyone um and so thank you so

much for what you're doing and any

of your any of your partners or

Affiliated organizations that might be

listening

if you're listening thank you to all

of y'all as well because it it like I

said it benefits all of us when people

have have a safe roof over their heads

that it is the best thing for the for

the entire city for the county for the

upstate as a

whole it does and we know that it's it's

not like there we have data we could go

on I know for longer but there is data

to show most of those people we've

talked about today their last permanent

address was right here so it's a

homegrown issue yep that it's going to

take a homegrown response that yeah

that's interesting so what you're saying

is that most of the homeless in our

area are not coming here from from

another

area

yeah and I do want to ask one

followup and then I promise I'll let you

go

okay um this is a big topic of

discussion it is and so so those people

are they getting priced out what what

what is the reason for for that

happening yes we hear almost daily from

people who have done nothing wrong but

maybe you know they have been a

long-term renter and their person

they're or you know entity they're

renting from has decided it's time to

sell and they might get a 30-day notice

and it's virtually impossible to find

especially if you've been a long-term

renter and they haven't increased your

rent dramatically over that time you're

GNA be shocked with what you know market

rate rent is and so it's really really

tough so that's yeah um that is what's

happening

um and if someone does move here

thinking it's going to be better in

Greenville than it was where they came

from United Ministries where we are

located if they get here realize you

know what this didn't work out for me

and I really need to get back they work

with people to arrange transportation

back to where you know the family and

other resources exist so that people can

not be trapped here yeah

absolutely well um that was all great

Susan thank you so much for coming on

the show um we send me whatever links

you want me to include in the show notes

and I'll put them in there but if

people want to get a hold of you or want

to get a hold of Grenville's Homeless

Alliance or whatever what's the best way

for them to do that yes on our website

we have a tab with the connect

with us what is your what is the URL for

your

website it is

gvl homes with the S the number four

followed by the word all so it should

sound like Greenville homesforall.org

but we shorten it to GBL perfect and

that and like I said that'll be we'll

put that in the show notes as well gvl

holes 4 number four all.org correct

so perfect yeah I've got it pulled up

here and yep I see the I see the connect

there there's a b there's all sorts of

things on here so be sure if you're

listening be sure to check out the gvo

homes for all homesfor all.org

website at the very least look at

that we'll link to a few other things in

the show notes and

we're we're just we're just hoping to

get people into into homes reduce the

homeless problem in Greenville and I'm

just grateful that there's people like

you on the front lines of that to be

able to you know for those of us that

are passionate about it but maybe are

not able for whatever reasons to be on

the front line we can support people

like you who are on the front Lin and

I'm just very grateful for that thank

you well I'm really grateful for our

partners that you know help us in terms

of day in Day Out meet people who are in

true crisis so they inspire me and give

you know give us a lot of Hope about

what's possible for this community

absolutely well Susan thank you so much

for coming on the show thank you

to our listeners for listening as always

you can find all of my contact

information in the show notes along with

the links that Susan's going to be

sending me if you like the show

Please Subscribe like rate review all of

those good things and