Rex: [00:00:00] This podcast episode contains potentially sensitive topics around the issue of homelessness. Listener discretion is advised

Eric: Washington and Jefferson and others, uh, uh, 250 years ago bequeathed us a house, a structure, and it was deeply flawed and it was built in sin and it lay rested on a foundation that was half free and half slave.

And all the things that we know and all the things that many people today, many people on the left say, well, therefore burn it all down. The whole thing is illegitimate. The whole thing is wrong. And what Tacitus was saying is no re recognize the potential and the beauty and the power of the strong parts, the strong bones of that structure, the foundation.

And, and then do better.

Rex: I'm Rex Holbein and welcome to You Know Me Now, a podcast conversation that strives to amplify the unheard voices in our community, as well as the [00:01:00] individuals and organizations that are in service to those in need. In these episodes, I want to remind all of our listeners that the folks who share here do so with a great deal of courage and vulnerability.

They share a common hope that by giving all of us this window into their world, their opening and increased level of awareness, understanding, and perhaps most importantly, a connection within our own community.

As citizens of a community, whether you define that as your neighborhood or your city state or our American nation, what role as citizens do each of us play? This question is not in regards to our personal needs and wants, but rather to the collective health and welfare of all of us today. Do the words shared by President John F.

Kennedy 65 years ago, ask not what your [00:02:00] country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Still strike a chord and urge us into civic action. Specifically, do we feel a pull to be included in the solutions around our biggest societal issues such as homelessness? Today I'm excited to be discussing with Eric Luu what it means to be a citizen.

Eric is the co-founder and CEO of Citizen University. He is the author of numerous acclaimed books, including most recently Become America Civic Sermons on Love, responsibility, and Democracy, a New York Times New and Notable book, and Live Like A Citizen, eight Ways to Change Your Mindset and Our Country, which will be published in October of this year, 2026.

Eric served as a White House speech writer for President Bill Clinton and as the president's Deputy Domestic Policy advisor. He [00:03:00] was later appointed by President Barack Obama to the Board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School. Eric was elected in 2020 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Co-chairs our Common Purpose Commission.

He lives in Seattle, where he has served on the boards of the Seattle Public Library and the Washington State Board of Education. And with that, let's begin our conversation. Your bio is, is obviously lengthy and includes a lot, but I'd like to hear you talk a little bit about like what are the points in your life that have shaped you, that have, you know, that have really affected kind of your direction and your drive to do the work that you're doing?

Eric: Hmm. Well, first of all, just thanks for having me in this conversation. It's, uh, it's very meaningful. I, um, I, I actually would start as a, I often start with just the simple fact that I'm the child of immigrants. And that's not in my bio usually, but that's a [00:04:00] core fact. Uh, my parents were born in mainland China and went to Taiwan during the years of war and civil war and, and then came to the US and didn't meet till they were in the US and.

So I grew up outside of Poughkeepsie, New York. And, um, that is a signal fact because when you're second generation as I am, um, you grow up with a very acute sense. Doesn't have to be verbalized, but it's always there. That every opportunity you have is also an obligation. You know, I I, I had the dumb luck to be born here in 1968 in a time of peak American prosperity and power and all this stuff, and in a middle class upbringing in Poughkeepsie, which was then a very, you know, an IBM company town.

And, um, and so, you know, the, the, the implicit question is what was, what, what am I gonna do to earn it, you know, to be useful? And, uh. Uh, and so I think that's very foundational, uh, for me. Um, in terms of more conventional bio [00:05:00] things, uh, I mean, there are a few sig other signal things. I mean, I, I went to Yale College, I went to public schools in, outside of Poughkeepsie.

But Yale College was formative for me. Not just intellectually, but again, kind of values wise. It's, uh, um, the, the part of the culture of Yale that I absorbed was one.

Rex: Did they re kind of like, uh, like did they, um, substantiate the values you already had or did they actually turn you in? You know, how, like when you say they were Yeah.

Formative and,

Eric: uh, I would say a little bit of both. Um, I was predisposed to be public spirited.

Rex: Mm.

Eric: My paternal grandfather, who I never met, he died before I was born, um, was uh, the son of a farmer in Hunan Province who became a, went to the, the Republic of China's first military academy, became a pilot. Um, and then during these years of war in civil.

Um, ended up being the head of the nationalist Chinese Air Force, and his name in Chinese is Ko. Um, uh, and Lou is a family name. Koon basically [00:06:00] means deliverance of the nation, so, wow. Exactly. No pressure, right? Yeah.

Rex: Easy

Eric: peasy. Easy peasy. Yeah. Let's spill those cheese, which, you know, pretty audacious to think that his father, a farmer in Hunan Province, you know, just had this kind of vision of what his son would do and, um, and in a way he was part of the deliverance of that nation.

He was very involved in the kind of creation of the republic. And, um, and so growing up with that kind of legend of sorts, um, I was predisposed to think, well, how can I be useful to my country? How can I be

Rex: Yeah,

Eric: part of the kind of deliverance of this nation? And um,

Rex: and, and I will say, right, grow, growing up in America, we all are also fed this individualistic.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: You know, drive, right? Yeah. Like what, what do you wanna do when, you know, when you grow up?

Eric: Well, your question was really interesting because it, you, you asked about drive. What, what has, yeah. What has been the source of the drive? And, um, of course there are some [00:07:00] things that are about conventional notions of ambition.

And earlier my career, I, you know, I got a lot of gold stars, uh, you know, conventionally. Um, but, uh, but I think the deeper thing you're asking about drive, um, is about moral purpose. Um, and that was definitely formed by the family. I grew up in the college environment I was in. I mean, there's, there's actually the base of the, the Bell Tower, uh, at Yale, um, a quote engraved, uh, at the bottom, uh, by Nathan Hill, who, you know, uh, whose most famous quote we all know, right?

I, I, uh, I only regret, I only regret that I have one life to give from my country right before he was executed by the British for being a spy in the revolutionary. But what's engraved in the bottom of Harkness Tower is actually, um, a, a line he wrote in the letter in which he accepted that Fatal Spy Mission.

And the line is simply, I wish to be useful. I, and it's, you know, it's carved in their gothic lettering. I wish to be useful. Nathan Hale, class of [00:08:00] 1773. You know, for me, for a kid like me who was predisposed in this way, seeing that was like, okay, like I need to be useful, you know? Yeah. And, uh, um, you know, and then other parts of my career, you know, I did work in Washington DC I worked for President Clinton.

Um, by far the most meaningful part of that time was being involved in, I was a speech writer for him in the first term, um, and working on the president's speeches for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. And so to be a Gen X son of immigrant speech writer for the country's first baby boom president as he was trying to honor the GI generation.

Uh, you know, and he was a, he was a draft evader, so it was problematic, you know, relationship to begin with. And so to be, to have a hand in that kind of honoring and healing

Rex: yeah.

Eric: Across the generations was, um, a peak experience for me.

Rex: Right. Yeah. Studying for that. In writing that, how did it, how did it affect you?

Eric: Oh, what

Rex: happened for you?

Eric: Uh, you know, when, when you do a big set of speeches like that [00:09:00] for that commemoration months in advance? Yeah. We were just talking to, I mean, the president and his reflections on his family and, you know, so forth. But, um, but just interviewing all manner of veterans of the war, talking to historians, Stephen Ambrose, you know, um, you know, you can call anybody, right?

Uh, and, uh, and so we just, um, the Library of Congress, uh, or National Archives provided us with just reams of letters that, you know, soldiers had written then. And so some of the best lines in the speech that I ultimately wrote for the president for that. The speech he gave at the American Military Cemetery, uh, at on Omaha Beach, um, were not my lines.

They were taken from a letter that we found by Corporal Frank Elliot, you know? Yeah. And, uh,

Rex: but leaving that moment, how did it, like, did it, like I want like these big moments in life, right? Yeah. Like you, you get back and you reflect on them.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: And you go, wow, that, that moved me or changed me. Do you, do you know how that did it, did it alter a course for you?

Did it sharpen something for you [00:10:00] writing that?

Eric: It made me, it crystallized for me that, again, that, that the, that what gifts I have, I want to apply to not only public purpose generally, but to a specific kind of public purpose, which is to, um, make people feel like we are woven together in a bigger story of us.

And sometimes I can do that literally through writing or speaking, and other times I'll do that, um, you know, in other modes. But, um, that's what got kindled then. And you know, the last part of my answer, long answer to your question though, is. Although my bio, you know, the shiny parts of my bio are about two stints of the White House and blah, blah, blah, you know, uh, but actually I've been in Seattle now for 26 years, almost 26 years.

And in spite of my bio, I would actually say I've had the greater part of my education in democracy and citizenship, what I work on today, running Citizen University as a citizen of Seattle.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: As a citizen of [00:11:00] the state, you know, as a participant in the life of, um, of this place. And, um, and like you, that's because at different points, um, you know, I chose to pay attention to place and relationship and the history of things and, you know, your modality, uh, has been architecture.

And to think about the relationship between built environments and, and the kind of social and and spiritual infrastructure of a place and mine. Um, you know, in these years, just by getting involved in things and serving in different ways, uh, um, in the community, um, and then bringing some of Citizen University's work to bear in this community has also been about remembering actually in a way that DC doesn't teach you.

'cause DC is a weird Potemkin village, Kabuki theater, you know, it's, it's the appearance of politics or self-government, but it's, it's for show perform hard to get behind that facade. It's performative. Yeah. And, um, it was performative before we started talking about things as being [00:12:00] performative. And because DC is so transient, it's not, you know, unless you're a lifer, a career lifer, which I did not want to be.

It's a transient place, right? Yeah. And so Seattle

Rex: hard to, hard to sink deep roots.

Eric: It is. And here, um, in all the way, you know, as with you and everything you've done in your, um, civic life around homelessness. It's not all roses and happiness, it's, uh, it can be very disillusioning and very heartbreaking and it can be incredibly, um, inspiring and motivating, but most of all, uh, it's purposeful

Rex: Yeah.

To

Eric: be rooted in place

Rex: relationship. Yeah. When you said most of all, the first word that came to my mind before you said purposeful, which I totally agree with, was most of all it's real.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: Like I feel

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: I feel, I feel my humanity. Right. Which you can gloss over very easily when you're doing things that aren't activating you.

Yeah. Like you can get mundane and you just become almost robotic.

Eric: Totally.

Rex: In, in that. And that is the beauty I think of the things you're [00:13:00] talking about is activating not just democracy, but ourselves.

Eric: Yeah. Well, I think it actually begins with that. Right. And I don't know whether, uh, you know, if I were to ask, in fact I will, you know, like what, what would you say the origins are of your drive to.

To be real, to connect, right? I mean, there are various origin stories that you've told me and I've read, you know, about you being having an office maybe in Fremont or something, right? And looking out the window and seeing a guy with his shopping cart full of art and Yeah, in the pouring rain. And you invite him in for a cup of coffee and, you know, and that becomes this, wow, okay, this person is homeless, uh, this person is an artist.

This person has stories to tell. This person had a, I think a children's book he wanted to create, right? Yeah.

Rex: Good memory

Eric: and all these things that, but, but what at started with, um, not even, most of all, but first of all in your case was you had an a reflex, which I'm not even sure I would've had in that moment.

In fact, I'm almost sure I wouldn't have had in that moment. Um, you had a [00:14:00] reflex of radical welcome of not just like checking on this guy. Like, Hey, how you doing? Do you know? Can I give you a hand? But like, you, you literally brought him into your, what was your office? Not your house, right? Your office, and.

Do you feel like the origins of that are deep and you know, your version of, you know, having a grandfather named Lou Ian? Or was it just like more, you know, something that evolved as, as your professional work unfolded?

Rex: That's a really good question. You know, I've, I've defaulted to, um, when I've been asked that I've defaulted to that I was fortunate enough to have a mother that hugged and kissed me maybe too much, right?

Like, you know, and whatever genetic pool, Petri dish that I got to come up out of. Yeah. I, I don't know. I, I think meeting Chaka, the person that you're talking about was a moment. It preceded meeting other folks that were homeless out on the bench below my office. But I think, and this is what I love about your work, everybody has a moment [00:15:00] where something shifted for them and they went in this new beautiful direction because of it.

And the problem is, you can't go to the grocery store and buy those moments. Hmm. Right. You can't orchestrate it. Mm-hmm. So I, I think the answer. Is that we have to prepare for those moments so when they show up, we're ready for them. Mm-hmm. Right. We can take full advantage. Yeah. I, uh, I think my preparing is that I am infinitely curious about people.

Yes. And I, and I love, I love the individuality that each person brings and how, how wonderful that is. Yes. Any person can become your new best friend on any given day.

Eric: Yes.

Rex: And, uh, I think, I think that's pulls me in, but I think it also prepares me for if something big like Chika shows up in my life.

Eric: Mm-hmm.

Rex: So, but I don't know the real answer to,

Eric: well, no, I think that is a real answer. I mean, the, that that combination of you, you yourself, had a deep foundation of loving and being loved, uh, made you primed. Then when you combine that with a reflex of curiosity to treat [00:16:00] anybody who you encounter as a potential, you know, new, best friend.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: But I, I do think curiosity is key, uh, to that and, um, uh, and a willingness to. To, in a sense, be vulnerable yourself and open.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, yourself,

Rex: I wanna tell you a quick story that just happened to me as a lead in to a question for, um, that I have for you. And, and so my wife and I, and, and actually our two daughters and their kids, we all just went to Europe, uh, to visit relatives and, and family.

And we had this beautiful time and the last week of it, um, they flew home and my wife and I went to Ireland. We'd never been. And we just had this idea that we wanted to pub hop for a week and just, and, and specifically for me, I, I really wanted to ask every person I met. Uh, so what do you think of America these days?

Right? Like, really lean into that and, and my wife was a little worried that maybe people wouldn't be [00:17:00] happy with us being American, right? Like you could see easily why, um, we've, the table has been flipped over and on the last day we ended up. Uh, you know, in this little neighborhood pub in, in Dublin, and it's almost like we stumbled into a private party 'cause everybody seemed to know each other.

And there was a guy up in the front singing 70 eighties, nineties hit number one songs, right? With a microphone and a little box. It was packed. It was one little table with two chairs. So we right in the front. So we sat down there and every third song people would be out dancing. One 80-year-old woman pulled my wife out on the dance floor.

It was very trying to give you the sense that it was very warm and, and beautiful and we were just soaking it all in. And the last song of the evening was Neil Diamond's America Song. And this individual, this performer that had the mic belting out the song when he would get to, you know, the chorus, they're coming to America, [00:18:00] right?

He would take it to people in, in the, in the pub and they would belt it out and everybody was up. Dancing and ch and I started, I started to tear up.

Eric: Hmm.

Rex: Right. And, um, I'm not, I don't think of myself as an overly patriotic person. I, I do love Seattle. Mm-hmm. And I do love community and neighborhood and, and I'm very grateful I grew up in America.

Eric: Mm-hmm.

Rex: But I'm not rah rah, fly my flag individual. But it, but I could feel my patriotism, my, my sense of belonging, um, in that moment. And I had the same feeling reading your book, uh, become America.

Eric: Hmm.

Rex: You know, that really at times made me, made me well up. And I, I'd love to have you talk about that, like that, a little bit about that feeling

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: That you were expressing in, in that book. Because I think we all need to feel that not in a America's the best, but in a sense of we have something beautiful here and we need to take care of it.

Eric: Yeah. Thank you for [00:19:00] sharing that story and how it affected you. Um. Well become America, uh, is a book, uh, that collects a whole set of, uh, what I call civic sermons, uh, that I delivered over a few years, um, in, uh, the first, I dunno, 18 or 19, of these gatherings that, uh, citizen University pioneered called Civic Saturdays.

Um, and Civic Saturdays are essentially a civic analog to a faith gathering. Um, they have the arc and the flow and the shape of church or synagogue and, and, you know, you're singing together, you're turning to strangers and being asked to not only greet them, but kind of answer a, a question. Um, their readings of text, um, that are not, um, biblical texts, but are, um, pieces of civic scripture from different parts of the American tradition, either famous or not famous.

Um, and then someone gives a civic sermon. And, um, and these have been very meaningful, powerful gatherings, uh, at a time where so many people have lost faith in [00:20:00] America, in democracy, in the idea that. A diverse society can actually live together without people either completely segregating themselves off by ideology, race, class, or whatever, or killing each other, right?

We've lost faith. And, um, and so we felt like, okay, this is actually, this is not like a, a cutesy, little metaphorical play like, to, to, to create a civic analog of a faith gathering, is to recognize that, um, what it means to live in this country is to remember that we are bound together only by a set of ideas and ideals, right?

And some of those are cradle words, like all men are created equal and, um, you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and others are the feeling that you had when you were in that pub and they were singing, you know, coming to America and the mic was getting passed around and you could feel. Um, you could feel history and the present all fusing together and you could remember, and it's totally that, you know, that there were generations of people who [00:21:00] left Ireland for America and that the people who are in, in Ireland today, yeah.

Both honor them, envy them, wonder about them, are glad they're not them. Like it's all mixed together. Right. Yeah. Um, but there are something still magnetic about the idea of America. Right. And uh, um, and I think, you know, your use of the word patriotism I think is super important because a lot of, I would suspect a lot of the listeners to this conversation, like you would say, oh, I'm not patriotic.

I'm not a rah rah. You know, in fact, I kind of quite dislike patriotism and jingoism 'cause it's been so co-opted and, uh, uh, but I, I believe it's super important for us

Rex: mm-hmm.

Eric: When we're taking responsibility for the life of a community to remember that in the American context, true patriotism is not rah rah, we're number one.

We can kick anybody's ass. Um, what true patriotism is, is recognizing we have a creed, a set of ideas and ideals that we inherited, and then we have our deeds, our [00:22:00] everyday, whether we're walking past the person who's homeless, whether we are letting, um, a city like Seattle get so tipped over unequal, um, that it becomes hard to live here.

Um, you know, whether we just eventually get numb to the erosion of the rule of law and our job as true patriotism is closing the gap between our creed and our deeds.

Rex: Mm-hmm. That's

Eric: beautiful. It's all about the creed deed gap, right? Yeah. And so to, in my words, live like a citizen, but also to, you know, express patriotism for real is not to say, you know, we're awesome freedom, but actually to ask what does it mean to manifest freedom in the places where you move and live in the communities that you have some direct.

Uh, impact on. Right. And so, um, that's what that book tried to express in all those civic sermons, some of which I gave here in Seattle. Others were delivered in other parts of the country.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, but that too, like you can go to Kansas City or Wichita or, you know, uh, Fresno or whatever, and [00:23:00] um, and find in just the ways that you did in that pub in Dublin.

Um, people having this mix of aspiration, yearning, melancholy kind of regret, lost faith, you know, broken promises, grief, right. Yeah. It's all in there. Yeah. It's a

Rex: complicated mix.

Eric: It's all in there.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, and I think back to where you were starting, like we've got to be able to have some baseline mindfulness and heartfulness to be able to tune into that so that we're not just left with a cartoon Fox News version of patriotism, which is just

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Big flags flying and guns blazing and um,

Rex: yeah.

Eric: You know, no descent.

Rex: Yeah. The, the, the one liner that's, that wants to somehow define it as this when it's, when it's so much bigger than that.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: Right.

Eric: I recently came upon there, there is, because it's the two 50th. The, there are all kinds of interesting exhibitions and projects about America.

But I went to one recently that was about the history of American patriotism and I found this speech, uh, [00:24:00] um, that quoted the, the ancient Roman TAUs, um, whose definition of patriotism. Uh, I won't get it exactly right. The adjective is not right, but it was something like, be patriotism is beneficial competition with our ancestors.

Rex: It's the, it's walking the fine line between holding onto these traditional, beautiful, foundational aspects of our society. And at the same time. Doing a remodel. Like, like

Exactly.

Rex: Making it, making it exactly. To use architecture terms.

Eric: It don't no, it's 100% architectural term. His word was praiseworthy.

Praiseworthy competition with our ancestors. Right. And to me that's like, yes. So Washington and Jefferson and others, uh, uh, 250 years ago bequeathed us a house, a structure, um, and it was deeply flawed and it was built in sin. Yeah. And it lay rested on a foundation that was half free and half slave. And uh, and all the things that we know and all the things that many people today, many people on the left say, well, [00:25:00] therefore burn it all down.

The whole thing is illegitimate. The whole thing is wrong. And what Tacitus was saying is no, like, re recognize the potential and the beauty and the power of the strong parts, the strong bones of foundation that structure the foundation and, and then do better. You, you know, you can name the fact in which you can name the fact that Jefferson and Washington, where Hypocrites and you know, so forth.

Do better? Are you a hypocrite about freedom now? Are you someone who preaches equality and fairness and social justice and then, you know, complains when our taxes goes up, go up, or whatever it is. Like, you know, that that benefit praiseworthy competition with our ancestors.

Rex: I love that

Eric: is um, you know, is a high-minded way of saying show up and do better, you know, leave the place better in better shape than you found it.

Rex: Just because there are parts of it. And I know with Jefferson this, we just went to Monticello recently too, and you really get this, this full on tidal wave of the complexity, the con, the conflicting, uh,

Eric: well it's just in the last decade that [00:26:00] they have taken responsibility for retelling how they tell their story and Jefferson and Hemmings story.

Um, and that too. And that was before, maybe it's more than decade, it was before the first Trump administration. Mm-hmm. They were already at this work, kind of, you know, doing this in a way that was. Um, not quote unquote woke, not some like radical parachuting in, you know, but it was like in consultation with the deep historical community there, uh, and the people who, you know, had generations upon generations of attachment and pride to the place and saying, you know, I mean, your project called Facing Homelessness to me, um, always invokes to me a, a great organization called Facing History and Ourselves.

Rex: Mm-hmm.

Eric: Um, which is a nonprofit, uh, that started in Boston, works around the country that

Rex: mm-hmm. I'll look into it.

Eric: Yeah. It teaches, I mean, they, they create curricula for students that began as a Holocaust education program, but then, you know, basically expanded out to Moral Choice making. So they use the civil rights [00:27:00] movement, they use the.

Kind of, uh, Balkan genocides and, you know, ethnic cleansings and, you know, other, um, historical situations to, to

Rex: to exercise their heart. Moral

Eric: Yeah, exactly. Muscle. And, but, but it's, but it begins with facing,

Rex: yeah.

Eric: Both history and ourselves.

Rex: Yeah. Another question that I have for you, like, you're, you're a, you're a gifted writer.

Like, I love reading how you phrase, um, these complicated, you know, intellectual and emotional, uh, topics. But in, in, in your work, when you have, um, classes and, and people coming together to do this work, tell me, tell me how you've seen it actually manifest as it moves forward. Um, and I'm, and I'm asking selfishly because, you know, for facing homelessness, this is an ever, ever constant question.

How do we move, um, the awareness, the, you know, we have a just say hello campaign, right? How do we move from just say hello to [00:28:00] actually. Caring for each other in a way that, that, um, you know, addresses and it ultimately ends homelessness. Mm-hmm. And I wonder what you've seen, how, how that's moved forward for you.

Eric: Yeah. Well, um, I actually, um, I, I actually wanna start with just say hello, um, because just say hello, um, is a very wise invitation, entry point, uh, to people that you all at facing homelessness, uh, offer, right? And, uh, it's an invitation that says you don't have to feel intimidated that you gotta solve this multifactorial, very complex thing.

You don't have to feel pressure even in the moment in a single person to person interaction to take out your wallet or whatever. Um, that actually the deepest kind of harm that's being done on a, on a non-material level is the draining away of dignity. Uh, that comes when people stop seeing. Wh when people who are not [00:29:00] homeless refuse to see people who are homeless.

Now they, they obviously, they, their eyeballs register them, but they're not socially seeing them. And so we're, we're creating social deaths over and over again among people who are walking and living among us. Right? Yeah. And so just say hello is profound. It's deep. It's not just say hello. It's just take a minute and recognize that without a reciprocal spirit of human dignity, we're all screwed.

Yeah. You know, and, uh, and well

Rex: this is also when atrocities happen, and

Eric: this is when atrocities

Rex: and homelessness is an atrocity, but

Eric: when we can Yeah. But then it becomes very easy, you know, I mean Exactly. If we, you know, I, I, I'm actually in this time where things have gotten so dehumanized and um, and we're talking about warehousing undocumented immigrants and, you know, sending 'em to third party countries that you know are incredibly dangerous.

Um. I, I almost hesitate to say this, but it has somewhat shocked me that, um, we [00:30:00] haven't yet heard people taking that same approach to just homelessness. Like, you know, uh, that, that kind of brutally dehumanizing like, wipe this off my streets and just, you know, I'm sure you know, people, that

narrative

Rex: is out

Eric: there.

It's out there. Yeah. And people feel it. And good Seattle progressives feel it in some part of their hearts, you know? Yeah. Um, uh, but I think, you know, anyway, I, I, I name, I, I I shine the light back on. Just say hello because it's an example to more directly answer your question of what I see in our work.

Rex: Mm-hmm.

Eric: Um, our work is focused on building what we call habits of heart and mind. That, you know, ultimately we're trying to, we're trying in place-based ways to strengthen and fortify and create a culture of powerful citizenship, a culture in which people see each other, recognize each other, take responsibility for things that may not seem to be their problem.

Um. Uh, and commit to a longer time horizon of, um, of mutual obligation. [00:31:00] Right? Yeah. And those things only come, they can't come with a lecture. They can't come with even a very, a moving spirited sermon. Uh, like I might give, they come with the invitation to exercise small habits, just say hello and then over time build small habits into the next tier of habits.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: So, I mean, if I were you, I would make a whole suite of invitations that's tiered. And so start with just say hello.

Rex: Mm-hmm.

Eric: And then it's like, just learn about, uh, homelessness in your neighborhood, you know, and then it's just, you know, go visit, uh, a shelter and then just, you know, but like make a step ladder of just

Rex: Yeah.

Provide

Eric: that, you know,

Rex: provide that path.

Eric: Provide that path, right. Yeah. I think you're right. And as Citizen University, that is what we have seen where, you know, like vivid on my mind right now 'cause I've just been communicating with them, is a group of people we've trained, um, in Akron, Ohio. Um, you know, northeast Ohio, uh, hard hit in every way.

That is kind of cliche now, right? But, uh, in Akron, this multi [00:32:00] multiracial, multi-faith, multi-class, um, group of civic catalysts in the community who are musicians and teachers and, um, you know, people, uh, in their eighties and people in their twenties, um, coming together to um, you know, we train them how to lead Civic Saturdays.

Like that was their initial thing. But then they've taken that and they still do run Civic Saturdays, but they've now built so many things around it. They've created the thing called the Longest Table, which is just big collective, you know, um, communal meals in community where it's, you know, come one, come all housed, not housed, you know, and um, and they're just finding new ways to extend and expand this invitation

Rex: and completely and completely outside of like the nonprofit world or a religion like a church.

Yeah. This is just community coming

Eric: together. This is community coming together and saying. No one, no one's gonna build it. Let's, let's build it.

Rex: Yep.

Eric: And the thing, the containers that might have existed for previous generation, um, either don't exist or are, you know, fractured. Um, [00:33:00] so let's not wait around and make excuses.

Let's just, you've already heard me use the word invite like five times. Like invite, let's invite. Right, right. And that's to me one of the core habits. Yeah.

Rex: Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. I think you're right about the stepping stones. You know, I, the, the other thing that has become apparent to me over these last 15 years, and we all know this, but I think at least I need to be reminded of it.

And that is that we're all, we're all on our own little journey and, and whatever direction we point in, whether it's taking care of cats or being mindful of who the homeless are and, and acting kind, we're all on each of those lines radiating out from us. We have different skill sets and we have different experiences.

And so for some, they don't need a path. They can walk up and see somebody that's hungry and, and find a quick way to get them some food, right? Mm-hmm. But somebody else [00:34:00] truly not because they're not being compassionate, they just don't have that skillset. Mm-hmm. And I think showing that path, I think is, is, is an important step in this.

Eric: Yeah. And they may, you know, for some people it will be more comfortable and more in their wheelhouse to get involved with, um, an organization that's looking at more systemic, uh, solutions, uh, or get involved in a hands-on way to build tiny homes or whatever it might be. Right. And, uh, um, but yeah, I think having that range of, again, it's not just invitations, it's invitations tuned to different ways to build habits.

Ultimately what we're trying to do is build habits. Right. And, um, I think about the farmer's market that I go to in the central district, um, you know, in the spring and summer. Um, and how for many years, um, uh, there's been, uh, a guy who I don't think is actually homeless anymore, um, but remains out of loyalty and kind of community, um, a vendor for real change.

Um, [00:35:00] and uh, his name is Yemeni, you know, and, uh, and you may know him.

Rex: I think I do,

Eric: yeah. Um, and just a fascinating guy with, you know, I mean from, uh, east Africa and

Rex: mm-hmm.

Eric: You know, has raised family here, has family there, and, um, and um, and he continues doing this. Uh, I think he has other sources of income, but he does this in part now.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, because it's become his habit to, in a sense, like I'm relatively okay and now I feel like it's sort of my job to keep on humanizing for people who are coming to the Madrona Central District Farmer's Market. Yeah. You know, um, uh, somebody who has experienced homelessness and um, and that is. You know, getting to know him and

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: You know, in that kind of, um, you know, there's a, there's a social science phrase that is, um, this, uh, incredible SI think, uh, psychologist, uh, or maybe political scientist, uh, mark Granovetter, um, wrote, uh, which [00:36:00] was the strength of weak ties. So like a community is resilient and strong, not when, when it has not just super bonded Right.

You know, um, strong relationships among people, but when all these weak ties Yeah. Me bumping into Yemeni, you know, maybe six times in a season.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, or you know, you encountering people where it's more than just a nod. It's more than just a hello. Um, but you know, we're, we're not,

Rex: yeah,

Eric: we're not gonna become best buds.

But it's like that in between space, it's the filler. It's really important. It's really important to a healthy community, but it's. Again, vitally important to the,

Rex: yeah.

Eric: To the stepping stone of humanizing people who are experiencing or have experience, homelessness.

Rex: We all, we all need to fit.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: And I think what you're talking about is allowing us to fit, right.

Like into a much larger fabric. Yeah. Like we get, we may not be attached to you many in this way that, you know, um, we're seeing 'em all the time, but [00:37:00] the fact that when we do see 'em

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: We have a connection. Yeah. That, that's,

Eric: there's a warmth and there's a feeling of

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: You know, again, recognition.

Rex: Yeah.

What do you think Seattle's problem is with homelessness? Because, you know, it's, it's, I mean, it's clearly our issue.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: At this point, it wasn't, you know, when I, I grew up here, we didn't have homelessness in Seattle. And that's the other thing that's quite alarming to me personally, is, uh, for people that move here or are younger and they see homelessness, they think well.

This is the way it's always been.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: But, but no, you know, there were a few people in Pioneer Square that were battling their a alcoholism and, and there were some people along the waterfront that were seasonal workers, but that was it.

Eric: Mm-hmm.

Rex: And now we have a, a tidal wave.

Eric: Yeah. I mean, in terms of the causes, uh, there, there's, there's one part of the answer, which is about causes.

And then there's another part of the answer, which may be more to the heart of your question, which is why we are failing [00:38:00] to solve this. Right?

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, causes, I think, you know, inequality, displacement, that, you know, economic displacement, uh, um, the breakdown of the mental health care system, anxiety, housing, affordability, all, all these things.

Um, but, but the deeper question of why are we unable to solve this or to significantly address this,

Rex: and I'll throw one quick thing in. If you asked a hundred people. Just pick random a hundred people. Would you like to see homelessness be ended? There's no divide here. There's no,

Eric: yeah.

Rex: Every single person would say Absolutely.

I don't, I I don't like seeing people suffer. Yeah. I don't, I don't want that to happen.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: But there, you spoke of a gap earlier of Creed and

Eric: Indeed

Rex: and de you know, there's a gap.

Eric: There's a gap. This is a huge gap. Um, I mean, I think one is our, uh, systems. There's something about the way the Seattle way of governing, um, Seattle process, [00:39:00] you know, lots of buy-in, which is on some levels beneficial.

Um, but when you couple that with a lot of rigid ideology, um, you know, I, I have not followed this nearly as closely as you have or have had to. Um, but just the travails of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, um, is to me a case study in kind of what's what has infected the left broadly, which is.

Kind of ideological purity thinking and ideas of there's one right, right. Way to do this. And if you, you know, and it's an insult to not do it, you know, to, to, it

Rex: demonized if, if you

Eric: don't, if you don't get on the board, on board with this one right. Way to do it. And there's just an utter lack of pragmatism and an utter lack of actual solutions orientation.

It is a, again, a spinoff of this culture of performative, I'm, you know, holier than thou performativity. Right. And I think that is for sure one part of it that has slowed government action.

Rex: Well, it perpetuates the other as well, which is the exact opposite of what [00:40:00] needs to be done. Yeah. Because if you holier than thou on someone else, you've just separated yourself.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: From them.

Eric: From them. And you've just kind of made a feeling of, instead of starting with what you started with, which is if you asked a hundred people, all 100 would say, I'd like to do this. Now you've basically split this into people who are. You know, righteous and people who are selfish jerks, right?

Or short term fools. And you know, the people who are like, again, am I saying tiny homes are the be all and end all? No, but like the fact that there was a strange ideological battle about tiny homes, um, to the lay person like me was like, this is weird because like right now here and now if you got me 75, you know, new tiny homes as the mayor just announced, you know, um, uh, that would be 75 people who are

Rex: no longer sleeping on

Eric: your bridge, no longer sleeping on the streets.

And is it the long term solution? No. But like, so part of it is ideological purity. Part of it is this kind of, again, um, this [00:41:00] thing in which the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. Um, but that too is connected to an insufficient relentlessness about actual practical solutions. And, you know, I compare our community to Denver where my friend Mike Johnston, you know, has been mayor just for a couple of years now,

Rex: and they're.

Eric: They're moving the dial. They are moving

Rex: the dial.

Eric: And here's how, and this is you, like Seattle needs to take a page or a bunch of pages and not like Mayor Wilson needs to take a page, although she c should we, you and I need to take a page from what the people there did. What Mike, uh, and his wife Courtney did.

Um, Mike was a longtime TFA teacher and leader and all that. So he, he understood how to do community invitation and organizing, right? And they activated a whole of city effort to get nonprofits, faith, community, um, you know, business community oriented around some big goals together. And then to have kind of continual measurable, um, processes and check-ins for what piece are you taking on, what [00:42:00] piece are you taking on?

How are we gonna do this? And, you know, they, and we have it easy compared to them because then they, they also got thanks to Greg Abbott in Texas, a migrant crisis on top of their homelessness crisis, right? And so they had kind of got this double whammy, um, and they did not buckle. They just said, we are in it together.

That is a level of public leadership that also has been lacking in our city for, you know, the last whatever, 10, 15 years. Right? That kind of catalytic. Um, can you pull together not just government agencies, but get, um, a whole variety of people who right now think, I'm not talking about downtown association or Chamber of Commerce or like they already are stakeholders, but, um, you know, we're sitting here in Capitol Hill, if you just talk to, you know, Capitol Hill business owners, if you talk to neighborhood groups or you know, the, the PTAs in, in Denver, they got that kind of whole of city effort going.

Rex: It'd be interesting to learn how they got that buy-in. Right? Yeah. Because I agree with that. Um, [00:43:00] and I think we don't do a good job of finding the common goal, right? Yeah. Like we do, we do separate in our language. Yeah. And, um, I think, I think sweeps are a perfect. Uh, you know, conversation on this is that it doesn't need to divide the community, but the sweeps have divided this community like crazy between the activists and the people that, that don't want to see sweeps happen and then the business community and they've they've made them into opponents.

Yeah. When they really aren't.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: Um,

Eric: yeah,

Rex: that kind of, that kind of, um, as you said, leadership, right. Has, has there missing, it's

Eric: a leadership that takes us beyond false choices. Like, uh, you know, it, it is possible to say and believe two things at once. Number one, sustained encampments and street homelessness, um, uh, creates a general disorder that erodes the safety and vitality of a neighborhood and community period, as well as the business, you know, the life of the small business.

It's possible both to acknowledge that and at the same time to say, and [00:44:00] simply sweeping for cosmetics and then, you know, relocating and playing whack-a-mole. Um, is an irresponsible thing, an inhumane thing to do.

Rex: It

Eric: is. And so, and so the solution has to be a, we need to do it's a both and not an either or.

Yeah. Right. The, the answer can't be, well then either we should do all sweeps or no sweeps. Well, no, no, no. Actually, what a grownup would do is to say we're going to clear encampments, uh, in a timely manner, uh, that is humane and, uh, we're going to, uh, build the systems housing support as an non-expert. Yeah.

I would say it is befuddled to me that we haven't had a process much less a, a public leadership narrative in this city that says, you know, there's no one size fits all homeless, uh, situation. There's one lane that is addiction and, you know, severe mental illness. There's one lane that is more short term economic displacement and upheaval.

You know, there's one lane that is a

Rex: mental health.

Eric: Mental [00:45:00] health. Right. Um, uh, and we need to actually organize all of our. Municipal and civic efforts into the structure of those three lanes.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, and, and of course you know that some people are gonna be combinations of those, but like, just as a simple clarifying matter to recognize that yes, we're going to kind of treat this big vague, kind of overwhelming problem as a set of discreet versions of a problem that we can kind of take a bite and, and, and actually chew it, you know, and, um, well

Rex: that's, that's also been the problem with homelessness in the negative stereotype is we see the group as one group.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: We don't, we don't see the individual needs within it, whether it's personal, individual needs or larger categories of what the struggle is.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: Right. But that, the problem that I think that sweeps have caused not to go down this path of sweeps too far, but is that when you sweep, you are doing it because the business community has [00:46:00] complained enough.

Right. So then they, they come and show up. Well, what happens is. When you sweep, you just move them in front of another set of businesses. The, the business where they were before does not, has become radicalized. They don't go back to being un radicalized. So now they have a very negative opinion about the homeless because they took the brunt Yeah.

Of a societal failure.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: They alone took that brunt. Right. Now you've moved it to another business and now they are being radicalized and so you're systemically, you're systematically radicalizing the city against the homeless as opposed to if you, instead of spending all the money on a sweep, you actually spent that money on helping the people in the encampment and also helping the business being impacted.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: Right. Like saying, look at, you're experiencing what hopefully is now gonna be a short term situation because we're gonna try to. Resolve whatever is going on. And maybe it is separating it out into those three camps that you talked about and said, look, we've got some people that have mental health issues here.

We're gonna be bringing [00:47:00] mental health counselors. Yeah. We have people here that are a addicted and we're going, you know, substance use disorder and we're gonna be trying,

Eric: these are not, these are known things. I mean, any number of specific, uh, entities, you know, the block project being one, you know, DESC being another, like smart people, understand that this is not one blob of a problem and that you can, you know, chunk it into these discreet things and address it in these ways.

And yet citywide and regionwide countywide leadership, um, has not connected those dots in that way. And I feel like, you know, I, I will say, I mean the, you know, en suite, it's not just the business community, um, small business owners, right? I mean, it's, the election results of the last few times tell us it's not just business owners.

Yeah. You know, I, I remember a headline. Of a piece that David from wrote in the Atlantic last, you know, maybe during the election year in early 24. This is not about homelessness. This is about the, the southern border.

Rex: Mm-hmm.

Eric: And the headline was, uh, Democrats need to get [00:48:00] control of the border or fascists will, and that is how I feel about homelessness.

Yeah. Progressives need to actually get comfortable with, you know what, humans need some baseline level of order, and you can do that in a humane way. Or if you just ideologically refuse to create order.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Then fascists will say, thank you, I will take it from here.

Rex: Right. Well, that's happening. And if you keep punting Yeah.

And kicking the ball down, you know, the field just not moving. That's not the right, that's not the right if you, if you're not moving the ball Yeah. Down the field, you're just continually, uh, throwing your arms up Yeah. And saying, Hey, we can't do this, or we can't do that. Yeah. It, the anger in the community is rising.

And it will become more and more acceptable to see things being done to those that are experiencing homelessness that maybe they wouldn't have done three or four or five, 10 years before.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: It's, it's, um, people are getting frustrated and, and upset and radicalized, right. As those sweeps happen and people are being, um, inundated [00:49:00] and the problem isn't being solved, it's just being kicked to the next corner.

Um,

Eric: yeah. People are losing their patience. Let's also be real. I think part of being a, a leader being real in this time is to say, not all this problems gonna be solved. There are some people who have deep perpetual challenges, mental health or addiction that, you know, you can kind of stabilize.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, and then you know that, you know, things can't stay stable forever.

But that's life and that's, you know, yeah. That's true. On other things that aren't homelessness. That's true in, yeah. Housing instability and healthcare, like nothing is stable forever, but we have a mutual responsibility to, to create the conditions where people have a shot at stability.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: There is a layer of this that.

Elected and other, uh, leaders of government entities can be doing a better job of providing that kind of values framework. And, uh, and just a simple narrative of a game plan. Mm-hmm. Like, that's why I wanna say like, you know, give me a simple PowerPoint or a simple poster that says, here's the three lanes.

Here's how we're, here's how we're approaching it, here's [00:50:00] how we're mobilizing nonprofits, faith, community, you know, parent groups, da dah dah, dah. You know, like, here's a, here's an actual plan of action. That's like a, um, that's a strategy side, but on a leadership level. But I think part of what led us to have this conversation is not, you know, we're not here to just critique le elected leaders.

Not at all. This is asking like, what do we as citizens and neighbors do, and how do we take a piece of this? Right. And I think one thing that, um, you know, is just coming to mind as we're talking here is like, what would it look like, you know, as one of the stepping stones from just say hello, um, to have neighborhood based, um.

Just come learn about this issue sessions, um, at a community center, at the library outdoors, in a park, like, and learn from Yemeni as well as the person who works at the housing authority or the home, you know, uh, the homelessness authority. Um, to have people come and talk about what they're experiencing in [00:51:00] a way that is not pre polarized, that is not mm-hmm.

You know, but is just like, let's actually humanize this in mutual learning and relational kind of experience.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: At a scale of, you know, 30 people.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Right. Not a, and it's not a shout fest at a city council hearing, and it's not a, um, thing where I love that people are P prime, but like, you know, um, facing homelessness has the standing to just invite people into that kind of community conversation, you know?

And um, and if you did that in. You know, there are 27, I know this 'cause I serve in the Seattle, Seattle public library board. Right. There are 27, uh, branches, uh, plus the central library.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, and if every one of them hosted one of these, um, you'd be shifting a little something

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: At a neighborhood scale, which is the only way in a city

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, to, to change culture.

Rex: I I love that. Um, you know, the back and forth of this is that, 'cause we've, we've, I've also given so many talks, [00:52:00] right. And I, I don't know if you experienced this maybe with your university, with your, with your workshops, you, you've gotten past this, but there is still this separation that happens when people listen as opposed to

Eric: Yes.

Rex: Doing yes. And I, you know, when you say the library meetings or community center meetings, it's my brain right away goes, I, it's almost like there needs to be a task to work together on Yes. Or a meal shared or something. Yes,

Eric: absolutely.

Rex: Uh, because

Eric: Yeah, absolutely. I, I agree 100%. You know, some of these civic Saturdays that have been happening around the country in Akron and Flint and other places, um, civic Saturdays, the way we've trained people to lead these, at the end, um, people form into civic circles and they sometimes talk, but they often do.

Mm-hmm. Right. Um, and it might be filling, um, you know, uh, backpacks for school supplies for kids, or it might be, you know, doing something that might be preparing meals, uh, uh, for people who need them working with a food bank. Um, and [00:53:00] what you're putting your finger on is don't just then do that task together, but actually while people are doing that, it actually have someone talking to them about the larger issue.

Yeah. Right. So it's kind of like you're Yeah. You know, you're like, if you were, if it was a knitting circle Yeah. And people were knitting and someone was telling them about this issue, like they'd learn it in a way that was both in their head and in their hands. Right? Yeah. And so it doesn't have to be a knitting, it can be filling a lunchbox.

Rex: No,

I

Eric: actually love the knitting

Rex: idea.

Eric: It could be knitting. Yeah. Let's have a knitting circle where someone talks about. You know, this issue, but you're also knitting the social fabric and what you're knitting is socks for people who could use some socks or whatever. Right.

That's

Rex: beautiful. Yeah. How, how is your, your Seattle chapter going?

Tell me a little bit about

Eric: Well, we don't operate in chapters so much. Okay. Okay. We, we have just trained people in a whole stream of programs. I've talked about one, uh, called Civic Saturdays.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: But we have a youth, uh, program. We have other programs, uh, that are teaching people the, these basic habits of how to practice power in a community and how to [00:54:00] couple that practice of power with a grounding in civic character.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Right. We have this equation that power plus character equals citizenship. And so all of our programs are teaching that in different ways. And we've trained people around the country, including many here in Seattle or in the Seattle region, you know, uh, the third place, uh, commons up in, you know, uh, lake Forest Park, um, has a huge community of people who, who started with some of our workshops and trainings, but now have built, um.

A much bigger community around the ways that they invite people into joint action. Uh, there, um, and in Seattle you have people like Caroline, sir. You have others who are, um, uh, doing, um, similar kind of hyperlocal work. Yeah. Um, uh, and yeah, that's what we are, we're trying to do is just, um, uh, we're not organized as chapters, but what we do is we have a big nationwide alumni network that regularly kind of convenes both in person and, um, [00:55:00] online to exchange notes about what's working, what's and what are they finding, what's broken.

And, um,

Rex: what is new in, in your book, uh, that's coming out? Um, or just came out?

Eric: Uh, it comes out, um, in October. Um, this book, uh, I've got a book coming out called, uh, live Like A Citizen.

Rex: Yep.

Eric: Um, and what's new about it, um, is that it's not about. Trump or politics, uh, as we currently understand it. Um, the premise of this book is that we live in a time right now, and this goes straight to the heart of your work, Rex.

We live in a time right now where like the big incentives and patterns and um, driving forces of our shared lives are forces that are dehumanizing us, um, that are making us treat each other as objects or as obstacles, uh, and making people inclined to kind of solve those [00:56:00] problems or remove those obstacles by wiping people off the, you know, off their screen mm-hmm.

And also off the face of the earth and mm-hmm. Um, and that can take the form of political violence, but it can also just take the form of the way we talk to each other, or fail to see, we see each other. And so, um, this book is fundamentally about how to be and how to be with

Rex: Mm.

Eric: Um, in a diverse democracy.

And it's organized around eight verbs. Um, that we have forgotten in this age of inequality, in this age of tech and social media and AI now. Uh, and the verbs are how to see, how to listen, how to feel, how to join, how to fight, how to change, how to imagine, and how to commit.

Rex: Hmm.

Eric: Those are elemental things that we have, we have let our muscles atrophy around.

Yeah. And, um, you know, just the chapter on how to feel, um, alone, that chapter alone, um, is about civic love, civic grief, and civic joy. [00:57:00] All those, you know, love and joy. People are very like, um, have very mixed feelings about right now. And um, 'cause it seems like with the world on fire, it seems like the wrong note or an indulgence to talk about love and joy.

Um, but as you know, in working on something as Sisyphean and relentlessly kind of burdensome as addressing homelessness. That if you don't keep building the muscle of love and actually find a capacity in the most painful times for joy, um, then you'll give up and you'll quit and the thing will crush you.

Right? Yeah. And, but that also necessitates facing civic grief. And this is, um, you know, we haven't talked about this either, but you, you know, my, my, uh, my wife Jana Kane, who's the co-founder of Citizen University, my partner in everything that, you know, all our, um, we didn't have a child, but this is our baby.

Uh, um, our DNA is in this, uh, Janae died, uh, two and a half years ago. Um, long, uh, journey with cancer, with [00:58:00] non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And this time since she's, uh, since she died, has been a time in which I've become so much more attuned to the layer upon layer upon layer of grief and loss and pain that's everywhere in our society that isn't getting named, isn't getting addressed.

Isn't getting faced.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: Um, and not being

Rex: given space.

Eric: And is not being given space, you know? And so I have like a, you know, unfortunately I've been given the gift of these antenna right now.

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: And you're feeling it. I am feeling it. And I wanna find ways to be, um, to, to be useful in this time, you know?

And I feel like one of the things, like if one of the things we did and maybe literally we could do together around homelessness is just to actually create, um, an initial gathering of people that just acknowledges the grief around this, the grief of those certainly who are suffering, homelessness and experiencing it.

The grief of [00:59:00] the people in their families and lives, um, who have been, you know, under so much strain, the grief of the people in this community who are under strain and stress and feeling zero sum already. And like, Hey, I got problems. Why do I have to deal with, you know, excrement or needles on the ground?

Like, you know, like I, I like I my. My city's falling apart, my life is falling apart. Like all these layers of grief that people just haven't been able to name. And so, you know what happens when you smush down grief and you don't give it space? People act out, and you get this kind of weaponizing, polarizing kind of political culture, and we've got to kind of on the front end detoxify some of that.

Rex: Yeah. Eric, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. That's, that really struck a chord, um, that is missing

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: In the conversation on homelessness and across so many issues.

Eric: Yes.

Rex: Right. I mean, you could, you could talk about that with cl the climate crisis. Oh

Eric: yeah,

Rex: absolutely. There's literally now

Eric: psychology profession has identified a thing called climate grief.

Yeah. And [01:00:00] you know, it's a disorder. It's a, it's a thing, you know,

Rex: you know, one of the things that, um, I'm glad you brought that up, because in this journey, for me personally, we're all on our own little journey, right? Trying to figure this out. Yes, we need solid leaders. Yes, we need a plan. Yes, we need resources, we need all this.

But for me. And facing homelessness. Like, it, it hyper focuses, I think correctly on, on each of our own personal journeys. Right? Like Yes. And it, and it comes down to an issue of proximity.

Eric: Yes.

Rex: If we distance ourself, we don't feel that joy, we don't feel that grief. We don't, we don't feel actually the answers

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: The solutions. And in a way, you know,

Eric: everything gets abstracted. Yeah. And it becomes that same kabuki theater BS kind of performative thing and

Rex: Yeah.

Eric: You're not feeling it.

Rex: Yeah. And I think part of this is how do we bring people closer together so that they can, um, feel it, they can see the beauty, you know, if, if, if you come close to [01:01:00] somebody that's homeless Right.

And you don't see the beauty. It's not because the beauty's not there.

Eric: Yeah.

Rex: The beauty is there. That's a, that's a human being that has infinite beauty. And if you spend time with that person, it will begin to reveal itself. But we have to be able to get over our own insecurities, our own

Eric: fears,

Rex: um, our own fears, right.

Our own, uh, inability to set boundaries. Like if somebody says, Hey man, thanks for sitting with me. I really need 20 bucks from you now. And you have to be able to be okay saying, Hey man, I'm, you know, I really, really appreciate you and I, and I, I feel for what you're going through. But to be honest, I can't give you $20 right now.

Right. And have to be okay. Yeah. Saying that or being okay, saying, yeah, man, here's $20. I, I'm, I hope, I hope that helps you out. Yeah. Right. And, but whatever that is, to be able to own that, it, it so quickly becomes a personal journey that we're all going through.

Eric: Presidents can break a lot of things from the top down, but only we.

Making [01:02:00] choices like that and facing ourselves and facing what's around us, um, from the inside out can heal what's broken in the body politic. And that is slow work. That, that is much slower than the speed of things getting broken. Um, but that's okay because that's, at the end of the day, the thing that will give any scale, a neighborhood, a community, a city, a country, you know, the resilience to go through the next wave of brokenness.

Brokenness is forever. Like we're, we're not gonna, you know,

Rex: keep remaking

Eric: and refining it. Yeah. Brokenness is forever. And Seattle, um, is straining and breaking in some ways that, um, you know, I don't think of as end times. I think of it as, you know, an opening. This is

Rex: where we're at.

Eric: This is where we're at.

Yeah. And there's an opening for people like you to invite others who are listening and their neighbors. 'cause probably somebody's listening to this conversation, they're already somewhat primed. Um, but it's now kind of. Activating the listener. If you're listening to us right now, you know, to think like, how can I invite a group of people in my, [01:03:00] um, on my block or in my circle kind of dinner circle or my book club or whatever my, my, uh, you know, kids' school, um, to just do, create an experience where we are learning, feeling, doing, and opening around Yeah.

Um, how we together can address homelessness. Yeah.

Rex: We're hoping that this conversation with Eric today will set into motion a reexamining of our responsibilities when living in community with those around us. Both housed and unhoused. We wanna give a heartfelt thank you to Eric for so beautifully articulating his vision on what it means to be a citizen.

You know me now is a project under the nonprofit facing Homelessness. It is produced, written and edited by Temas Bruski and me Rex Holbein. Please join the 50,000 plus followers on our very active facing homelessness Facebook and Instagram pages where you can join [01:04:00] in on the conversation. Thank you for listening to this episode of You Know Me Now.