EP007: But first, housing
Transcript available here.
Links to projects mentioned in this episode
Elizabeth Gregory Home
The Existence Project
Sinan and Three Stars in 2014
Sinan in 2014
Sinan in 2022
Conversation Transcript
Rex 00:02
This podcast contains potentially sensitive topics and strong language, listener discretion is advised.
Sinan 00:14
It is a fact that people who didn't have a lot of money used to be able to put a roof over their heads for literally pennies a day. And that's changed, you know, over the course of 20 or 30 years in Seattle, about 15,000 units of really like low income housing, people with low income could afford were lost. That was the net loss. And if you look at the annual homeless count, it's about that number. So do the math. It's the housing stupid.
Rex 00:46
When I was growing up, I remember the adult saying, as long as you don't talk about religion and politics, everything will be a okay. To be honest, I never really understood that it felt like you should be able to talk about anything. I mean, you were just talking after all, what could be so difficult about that. And while I still believe we should be able to talk about anything and everything I understand now, more clearly what was meant that hot topics are emotional, and too often send folks on their separate way. We see it today happening on almost every important issue facing society. Rather than pulling us together, we find that the issues needing to be addressed, are actually pushing us apart. Both sides often see the other as being insensitive, uncaring and even intransigent to the conditions and solutions at hand. However, the truth is, and I know we all know this. People are sensitive and caring. We all share common feelings about family, friendship, and community. Everyone wants the problem being discussed, to be resolved. So how do we bridge the gap between the opposite sides of an issue, such as homelessness? How do we come together so we can get to work solving the problem, rather than just spending all of our time bickering about it? For starters, we need the willingness to come closer, not only to those that we disagree with, but also to ourselves to reflect on why are we feeling the way we're feeling. It takes time and patience to create the space for this the bandwidth, but it's important. Additionally, it takes education. Learning the history of what took place yesterday around an issue is always part of the understanding of what is going on today. Today, I have the sincere pleasure of sharing with you a conversation I had with my dear friends and on Demerol. We talked about the issue of homelessness first, from a historical perspective, to better understand how we got to this crisis point. And then a bit about solutions needed from the community and our government. But before we begin, I want to share a quick story about how I met Sunan. I had been running my own architectural firm for 25 years in Seattle, when I moved my office to the Fremont neighborhood. There I met a number of folks living homeless along the Ship Canal. And to make a long story short, it was from those friendships that I decided to start a Facebook page sharing black and white photos and personal stories of those struggling outside. I had this idea this singular intent to share the beauty I was seeing in each person in hopes of bringing community into the task of ending homelessness. About six months into posting stories. The page had swelled in the number of likes, and there was this vibrant community involvement going on. So much so to the degree that I ultimately shut my architecture practice down and began the nonprofit facing homelessness. One day. Still very early on in this journey. I got a phone call from Tim Harris, the founding executive director for the local street newspaper real change. I immediately perked up because he was a big name. Big deal in the Homeless Advocacy community. The first thing he said to me even before it's Saying hello was and I quote, I fucking fucking fucking. And then there was a long pause before he said I love what you're doing. Now, since I didn't really know what I was doing. My first thought when I heard him swearing at me was that I had been doing something wrong. Needless to say, we became fast friends. And one of his very first bits of advice for me was to call Sunan Demerol and take him out to lunch to hear the important things he had to say about homelessness. That was great advice. So we're talking to Sinan Demerol, and you've heard it before, but I am, I am forever grateful to you for helping me make this switch from architecture over to 10 years of facing homelessness. And a lot of that is the encouragement and support that you gave me some. I'm just appreciative for you. And all you do.
Sinan 06:05
Oh, well, you're very welcome Rex, and I'm thankful to you for helping me look at the work that I was doing through a different lens and to think about things in a different way. And to really recognize what community can do and how crucial community is to solving this crisis.
Rex 06:25
I want to start by letting you tell the listeners like who you are. And because you've had a pretty long journey with regards to community, but also addressing homelessness, and can you give us the you know, the shortened version, because it's a long story.
Sinan 06:41
Yeah. I grew up in Iowa, and a family of Turkish American immigrants. And I moved to Seattle in 1988. And right away with him, I think less than a year started volunteering, and in soup kitchens, and food banks and things like that. And it was a few years later when I went back to graduate school, and was looking at what I wanted to study. And it didn't feel right to be studying homeless people. But at a point, I had an epiphany that I could study the people who are trying to organize homeless people to take political action, or were just being advocates and allies out there, and that I would focus my study on them and tell the story of homelessness, specifically in the Seattle area through that lens. And from there after I finished my doctoral work, I wrote my dissertation on those organizing groups, specifically on the displacement coalition, Operation homestead and shear wheel. And from there, my first job out of grad school was a statewide study of homeless families. And I just, I didn't see a lot of good coming out of the report that we submitted to the governor, I didn't see anything changing. And I had an opportunity to do direct service about that I had started while in grad school, a community meal in memory of my mother who had died while I was in grad school. And that meal has been around now Friday feast for over 25 years. And it's never missed a Friday, even during the pandemic when they were sending meals out to go. And the church where we eventually moved that meal from one church to another. They were starting a shelter program for young people, there had already been a shelter for youth up to age 20 in the university district in Seattle. But that age demographic was changing. And there were young adults aging out of the youth shelter with nowhere to go. So the church where I had the community meal, had a one night pilot project to do shelter for young people. And I expanded that to seven nights a week. I was there for eight years and moved from there to another U district organization that was struggling. And we righted that ship. Elizabeth Gregory home now has de center and transitional housing for women in the U district. And and then after that, and at
Rex 09:33
the US shelter, that was roots that was roots, and you were the executive director.
Sinan 09:38
I yeah, I was initially the first program director and then I became the first executive director. Yeah. Yeah. And, and about that time, you know, while I was still at roots, I met my future wife. And a couple months into our relationship. She asked me two questions and one was, do you have room in your life for another person? One and two, are you ready to start taking care of yourself and not just everybody else. And about that time roots got a $2 million grant, I thought, What a time to leave, and said, Honey, I'm leaving, I'm just gonna go to this other organizations for a few months, they're having some financial troubles, we'll write the ship, and I'll move on. And it took two years. And it was a very stressful two years, but we had a board with a lot of commitment. And we saved the organization.
Rex 10:30
And I'm going to share what Elizabeth Gregory House does. Yeah. So
Sinan 10:33
Elizabeth Gregory, home has the only day center, I think, still north of the Ship Canal for women experiencing homelessness in Seattle. So there was a real gap there. And that day center in the U district, it has been renovated a couple of times, and it's just doing a wide gamut of services for and there's also a wheel shelter in the same building. So it's a place for women to leave the shelter in the morning and have somewhere to go
Rex 11:06
up and share wheel the wheel portion. Can you explain that is for women, right?
Sinan 11:11
Yeah. So let me just finish with the other program Elizabeth Gregory home has is a transitional housing, it's actually a house, it's a home, where up to I think it's still eight women at a time can transition. And because the funding is mostly private, we're not stuck as much in the rigid time limits. So when women reached the end of the year and a half program, and they're still working to find housing, if they don't have it, yet, those deadlines can be, you know, loose. And you asked about we'll share began after the Goodwill Games in Seattle in 1990. As a self organized organization of men who are experiencing homelessness, to take action. And also there is a component always of providing life saving services. So share with operate shelters, storage locker, other programs that were always self managed by the people living in them. And when the organizer who started share, Scott Morrow, went away to Africa for a few months, he asked one thing, which was just don't start any big new initiatives while I'm gone. And when he got back six months later, we'll have started because women who were coming to the organization, were saying, well, there's not a place specifically for us. And this is really big, and in part because the large majority of people on the streets, especially at that time were men, but there was still a significant proportion, a quarter to a third were women. And we all grew out of their initiative to create programs in places that were specifically for women.
Rex 13:16
Yeah. And how to? I'm curious, because I've never understood this myself. How how do share slash wheel actually relate? Are they part of the same nonprofit? Or are they Yeah, they are. They're there. They're under one nonprofit?
Sinan 13:31
Yes. And I don't know if to this day share we'll ever incorporated they had when I was involved with them, were always under the sponsorship of another nonprofit I see. But it was always share we all together.
Rex 13:50
And a lot of people might know of like nickelsville, which was also under share. Well, is that is that is that murky?
Sinan 13:59
It's murky? Because there had been an agreement when the initial tent cities were established. And I should back up and say that tent city one came out of the Goodwill Games in 1990. Tent City two ended up being taken down within a few weeks and a number of arrests. And I can tell that story later, it was an effort to establish a foothold, you know, maybe close to 10 years after the Goodwill Games to establish tent cities in the city. So then a year or two later, Tent City three emerged and that's the one that took
Rex 14:42
and that was the they had the consent decree Yeah. With the city
Sinan 14:45
and then Tent City for established hence cities on the east side, in a broader King County. And at that point, an agreement was made okay. They won't share we'll will not Start other 10 cities, there was still a need. So Scott Morrow actually resigned from share and independently started nickelsville with, again, a self managed community of people who wanted to take action together
Rex 15:17
and was the first nickelsville across the first house Street bridge down there.
Sinan 15:22
Yeah, by the alarm by the Duwamish. Yes to the Duwamish. A pretty big encampment, it was there and is very interesting. So day one, David bloom, and I cooked a meal over at the roots kitchen and at the church and took it over there. And a few days later, I was being fined $75 a day, as was David bloom as was roots as well, there was a long list of people, including an organization named shear in Vancouver that had nothing to do with it. And nothing to do with shear up here completely different for wide net, it was a wide net. And you know, what I said to the deputy mayor at the time is why don't you just implicate the whole concept of sharing, if that's what you're going after? That's very funny. And and he became a little sheepish? And he said, Okay, the fines go away, so I never actually had to pay because it was for the entire existence of nickelsville, which, you know, is certainly in the 1000s of days at this point. So it would be a very hefty fine if they ever tried
Rex 16:27
to come was that private or public land that city land or? Well, that's
Sinan 16:31
another interesting piece of it. And often, there was brilliant strategy on the part of Scott Morrow over the years. And there were also just there was tactical brilliance as well. So the land that the first nickelsville went on, sort of straddled city land and State Department of Transportation land, and I might get the order reverse but I believe they were first on city land. And when the authorities showed up at the deadline to you know, this is the make or break at moment lever be arrested. They happen to have moved a few feet over and we're on D O T land now. And then jurisdictions got murky and confused and there was a foothold.
Rex 17:18
Yeah, they were in. They were, they were also on land that was toxic to Yeah, that was also another bit of a I know when I started to visit nickelsville It was like this, especially I remember one time I visited and it rained for like three days, and the place was flooded. And you were walking on pallet boards and intense were sitting in water and it was just it was it was a it was a mess. Yeah,
Sinan 17:41
it was that first sight. It became awful because it would flood and it was very wet. And everything was on pallets, tents were on pallets, the walkways were pallets. And that little gap, you know, in the pallets that couple inches had became, yeah, but also became a Rat City, because it's a little city under the you know, between those pallet trail. Yeah. And I do remember Reverend Rick Reynolds from Operation Nightwatch. And I decided to build one of the first tiny houses that became the bread and butter of nickelsville, I think was the second one built Denis de Papp. May he rest in peace, a local architect who is very involved with the interfaith taskforce on homelessness and, and other initiatives, he designed the initial house that we built. And Rick and I raised and I think it cost us about 1500 bucks, we quickly raised the money from friends, family supporters, bought all the materials. And we built the thing soup to nuts in one day with a bunch of volunteers and also volunteers from the camp, one of the campers who really took a leadership role in in the building effort, not knowing who was going to get the dwelling, you know, he got the dwelling. And then, you know, the designs have changed over the years. And I don't know how many tiny houses there are now in the various nickelsville villages.
Rex 19:17
Yeah, and these are being managed by Lehi now. Right? Yes. I mean, that's, that's kind of the structural process that's going on. And
Sinan 19:29
I and I don't know where things ended up after I moved away from Seattle. But there was a struggle between nickelsville and Lehigh over that management and nickelsville or I should say that share and Lehigh had struggled in earlier years over the self management principle. And it's been a real sticking point. Yeah. And I know that at one point, there was still a nickelsville camp that had I kind of barricaded the entrance, and we're staying independent. So I don't know where all that yeah,
Rex 20:05
it's an evolution. I know that. You know, Tomas, who you also know, was instrumental in helping camp second chance to actually build homes move from tents to to structures. And now though, that's the model for Lehigh, but it's interesting to talk about just this the management difference of a nonprofit managing villages versus self management,
Sinan 20:29
right. And then there were also offshoots of couple offshoots of folks who had disagreements in their involvement in the shear villages, and or nickelsville, and went independent. So there is that what went to Bellevue, and that they broke off. Yeah, there's one that broke off in the east side. And then there was also sick. If I was on the board, I should remember the name of accuse. Camp United camp united, we stepped. I remember that one. Yeah. And that's still going. Yeah.
Rex 21:07
Do you have opinions about villages about like, what their place is in the overall solution for addressing homelessness? Like, like, where? How do you see them? Because there's a, there's some real advocates, and then there are people also that talk about setting the bar too low, right, or worrying about a city that now becomes full of these kind of shacks, so to speak. And I'm curious to hear like, when you see the larger landscape, where do you see villages fitting into the issue of homelessness
Sinan 22:07
will what we call villages could be applied to a wide variety of different models and, and types of housing. And the basic concept of the village of people living together and helping together I love. I know, there was for many years a push to better integrate into the community. So all the poor people housing wasn't in one place. And we were all integrated as a community. And that's a laudable goal. But we are living now through a tremendous humanitarian catastrophe. And we you and I were talking about this a little yesterday about how you know, this is just sort of one degree at a time, the water has gotten warmer and warmer, and we just didn't notice when it boiled. And we've accepted and we are accepting a situation that we never would have accepted. 4050 years ago, we made it normal. Yeah, it's been normalized, and it's not normal. And there was a time when we invested in social housing, and there was a time where there was still, you know, housing that was maybe subpar. But because of that, it was much more affordable. And it created an ecosystem where people who didn't have a lot of money, not only could put a roof over their head for a few pennies a day, and this is where community comes in. They also have, you know, taverns and day work offices, and little corner cafes, and all kinds of places where there was a fabric of community.
Rex 23:58
Yeah, I totally resonates with me that thought or that observation that, that the in between spaces were there. Yeah. And it feels like the in between spaces are getting filled.
Sinan 24:10
Right. And so now let me come back to villages. If we're in the midst of this catastrophe, this humanitarian crisis of huge proportions. When we say emergency, if we said state of emergency because an earthquake had occurred in Seattle, man, there would be tents on the courthouse lawn right away. And we're not treating it, like the emergency that it is. And so number one, people safe and off the street, and the vulnerabilities of sleeping outside rough. If we can affordably put up a lot of tiny houses quickly. And if they're clustered in villages where people can support each other and be in a place where they could commune and be in a place where the broader community can reach them and provide services. I think it's kind of a no brainer, given the situation that we're in.
Rex 25:11
Yeah. I, as I'm hearing you talk, I'm looking at your shirt, which says But first, comma, housing. Yeah. Which seems like a like, again, a no brainer.
Sinan 25:20
Yeah. And one thing I like to say when when I talk about the issue of where homelessness came from, it is a fact that people who didn't have a lot of money used to be able to put a roof over their heads for literally pennies a day. And that's changed, you know, over the course of 20 or 30 years in Seattle. About 15,000 units of really like low income housing, people with low income could afford were lost. That was the net loss. And if you look at the annual homeless count, it's about that number. Yeah. So do the math. It's the housing stupid.
Rex 26:03
Yeah. Can you talk just because I know you've written articles on this. I know you have you have knowledge about this. This, you're talking about single room occupancy? Hotels as well, can you because I think a lot of people don't understand that, that that was actually part of our fabric, and then was taken away?
Sinan 26:21
Yeah. So yeah, let me go into that in more detail. But the last point I wanted to make about this loss of housing is that if that housing is gone, and we simply do not have units that people with low income can afford, we are going to have a certain amount of homelessness. And, you know, there's been various studies where, if you show me, you know, the increase in rents in a city, I think one study was saying that for every $100 increase in rent, average rent, you could expect a 15% increase in homelessness, and I looked at a five year period in Seattle, and oh, my god, the rents went up $500. And what happened with the homeless count over that time, went up 75%. It's like the math work. So if we're ensuring that a certain number of people are going to become homeless, we can, more or less predict that we can plan we can plan down. It shouldn't be a surprise that the first people who become homeless are the ones who have some vulnerability. And then we become 100% focused on fixing their vulnerabilities, their deficits, where, you know, fix their deficits, get them housing, there's gonna be another 10 people to take their place. It's the housing stupid. Yeah.
Rex 27:41
Yeah. And And can you talk a little bit about the single room occupancies? Because I, I know when I learned that I was, and I've lived here my whole life. And I was unaware of it. And when I hand them an architect, you would think I would, like somehow understood that that was happening to our built environment. Yeah. But it's, it was kind of a quiet, steady as it went. And suddenly you turn around, and all those buildings are gone.
Sinan 28:03
Yeah. So there was a lot of factors involved in this happened in cities throughout the United States. It was not unique to Seattle, there are some unique factors in Seattle, that I think accelerated the process. But there was a push through the 60s for urban development, redevelopment, and uplifting these communities. And that brought a lot of federal funds into, you know, taking down these buildings, which were not replaced by housing that was immediately affordable. I like to say that all of this new housing that we're building, and we're being told that this increased demand, will just by the laws of supply and demand, reduce the rent, and it will, those new dwellings will become affordable. And it'll take about 35 to 40 years. And in the meantime, what do we do? And it's not like supply and demand is working in a closed system. We're building these spectacular cities that are attracting more and more people with higher incomes, who need the services that are being provided by the people of lower incomes who now cannot live in those cities and are forced to commute Yeah, hours and you know, I've worked with people who are riding the bus hours a day just to be able to work and, and barely keep their heads above water and what happens when you have one emergency in the midst of something like that. So those SRO hotels, boarding houses, rooming houses were all over the downtown core. And this was in an era where you know, suburbanization was the was the route to go if you were upwardly mobile in the cities, the center. The city centers were deteriorating. So there was a lot of housing in the downtown core in Seattle. That was substandard. That was not fancy. The SRO is single room occupancy generally meant you had a room with maybe a wash basin, and then maybe you shared a toilet down the hall. And maybe there was a kitchen, a shared congregate kitchen. Or maybe you were getting your meals at the little corner diners that were very affordable and catered to the living downtown.
Rex 30:22
And in a city like Seattle, a maritime sport, right? There were a lot of men that would go fishing be gone a certain portion of the year show back up in Seattle, and wouldn't necessarily have a permanent residents. So those those flop houses or those SROs actually were quite, you know, convenient in the sense that that allowed them to just come into town and get a place to stay
Sinan 30:49
fishing, logging, mining, all agriculture, all the extractive industries. There was not manufacturing industry in Seattle prior to World War One, not significantly, which would which would demand stable housing? Yeah, year round. Yeah. And so there was a lot of kind of seasonal need for these SRO hotels, especially. And I was looking at a city study that was done, I think, in the early 80s. And essentially, it looked at what happened throughout the 60s. And the perfect storm in Seattle was, you know, you had the interstate highway i Five coming through downtown, and that was being built in the 60s. And then you have the kingdom in the early 70s being built. And those projects took out a lot of those SROs. So in around 1960. This study that the city did estimated that there were maybe around 20,000 units, whether this meant an SRO room or
Rex 31:52
a pillow. Yeah, it was a pillow and 20,000 plays and right or a little
Sinan 31:55
studio or whatever, affordable for people with low incomes, there were about 20,000 units downtown. And this study found that in around 1980, that has gone down to around 7600. Yeah, and that's what I did the math. Yeah, there it is. That's the homeless count. Right there.
Rex 32:13
Yeah, ouch. Yeah, I want to talk. I mean, my head, I want to talk, jump into the community conversation. But I think just real quickly, because I don't want to leave it only at housing, because I also have this strong feeling from meeting literally 1000s of people that are living homeless. It's, it is housing, stupid. It's the housing stupid, but it's also a lot more. Yeah, right. I mean, mental health, a big problem. And and, you know, the ability to keep a job even is is a big part of it. And even if you make affordable, very affordable housing, you still have to have a job held down. And and so something else was happening at that same time, which is we were closing institutions, and we were not yet picking up the responsibility of caring for each other. Yeah. Can you speak into that at all?
Sinan 33:11
So I think you're speaking specifically about deinstitutionalization from, from mental health hospitals that happened during the 60s and 70s. And it you know, it was both Democratic and Republican administrations that were culpable here. It started under the Kennedy administration, with the laudable goal of getting people out of these mental hospitals, which were really unhealthy places to be. And this happened, it was the
Rex 33:43
involuntary placement to Right, right. I mean, that that's a that's a really hot conversation, because that bar has become so much higher. Yeah. You can't just take somebody and institutionalize them now against their own will. Right. You know, the bar is is hired to do that self harm, harm to others. type thing.
Sinan 34:03
Yeah. Well, one thing I, I wonder about, and I think we all grapple with in this crisis is, you know, what came first, the mental illness, or the substance abuse, or the loss of the housing? Because there's the they all exacerbate each other, right?
Rex 34:27
Yeah, I would, not potentially for this talk. But you know, we also I know you personally have have a friendship with Gabor Ma Tei. And he talks about childhood trauma. Sure. And following that, and in that vein, you would, you would say, because, because I think most people outside of the street are suffering through trauma, and either trauma that brought them to homelessness, or of course, the trauma of living homeless, but however you got there trauma is is there and that definitely affects the ability to hold a job and keep housing.
Sinan 35:02
Sure. And, you know, people have always had problems. And I will grant them and be very interested in talking about how this particular moment we're living through has just magnified and increased those challenges. But people have always had these kinds of challenges. And that didn't use to mean a ticket to the street.
Rex 35:30
True. Absolutely. That was that in between spaces we were talking about, yeah, basement mother in laws, or SROs. Or, yeah,
Sinan 35:39
whatever. And family ties have changed over the decades, you know, where I think there are fewer people able to depend on friends and families and community in that way.
Rex 35:52
Okay, can I you know, why is that? I want to hear your Is it because we're all just that much closer to a full life that's anxious and get too many things on to do list? Or is it? I mean, that's I know, that's a big question. That's
Sinan 36:05
a huge question. And I think well, because I know you and I have talked about this, we all land, you and I land in a similar place around, you know, consumer culture, and how we've been, become so focused on these toys that aren't making us happy and aren't enriching our lives. And and, you know, one thing you and I have talked about is just this parallel between, there's the, we have lots of environmental friends. And we have lots of social justice friends who are fighting for these causes, and so often are talking past each other, and not stopping to realize that I, for me, it's a spiritual crisis. What's driving inequality is exactly the same thing that's driving us to destroy the environment. And it is just continuing to scratch and seek meaning in attaining more and more material things more shit we just don't need. And it's not actually making us happy. Exactly. Yeah. And it's Yeah. And we, that has created blinders about so much. Yeah,
Rex 37:18
I have a, I have a visual in my head about that dynamic. It's that we're told that the more we can get meaning material things, the happier we'll be, right. So we go to we go to college, we get the big job, whatever, however you got there, and we start engaging in higher income, we buy more things. And we realize, Well, that wasn't quite enough, because we're not happy yet. So we work harder, we buy more things in meanwhile, we're spiraling tighter and tighter into that. And at the end of your life, you've got all this shit. And you're detached from friendships and happiness, versus the other spiral, which is, I'm going to have less, which means I'm going to work less. And I'm finding myself happier, because of the friendships and the connections I have in my life. So I buy even less. And because I'm buying less, I can work less. And pretty soon, instead of spiraling tight into this bound condition that's isolating, you've actually kind of opened yourself up, and you might not have anything in the world, but you have an infinite connection to friends and family.
Sinan 38:22
And that opening I think, feels vulnerable in a way that just tightening up and having higher walls and more stuff. And false safety. Yeah, is a false safety. Yeah. Yeah. And I know the
Rex 38:39
stuff is addressed, and how do you start addressing the housing
Sinan 38:42
keeps getting more expensive, and the stuff keeps getting cheaper, and it's not even worth fixing it anymore? You know, it's cheaper to throw and, and so much of the fabric of our community, you know, I think about like we should have like little tinkerers and fix it shops. There. People used to make a life doing things like small motor repair. Yeah, now, it's just just cheaper to throw it away and start over.
Rex 39:09
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit? I mentioned this in the beginning about your somehow at a very early age, you you learned the community was important. And, and it's certainly it's for me, it's the answer to addressing homelessness. Right. And can you talk about that, like, what does it mean to you and and what part does it play in your life? And
Sinan 39:34
yeah, I don't know that. I'd say that it came to me at an early time in life but I, I think by osmosis it was, you know, I grew up in Iowa. Very different sensibility. Then we I guess you even find in Iowa Now it was people who have differences found ways to coexist together and actually help each other. And I think for me growing up in a Muslim immigrant family in Iowa, made me sensitive to being in some ways excluded from that, and having a hunger for that. And I think, you know, like by osmosis, some of these ideas started to percolate. And
Rex 40:23
hunger is a good word. Right? Because one of your first community acts was to start a soup kitchen.
Sinan 40:30
Yeah. And that was it seemed like something that while you were in school, yeah, while I was in school, was something that people could really agree on. Even when they weren't agreeing about housing, and this and that, the other thing that, yeah, when people are hungry, it's a good idea to feed them. So that seemed to be a good place to start. And kind of a wedge, you know, kind of a weigh in the door. And I was sort of finding my sea legs too, and figuring out well, but do I think about this issue? And where do I fit in all this? And it was a bit of an experiment in anarchy. We were mostly sociology, grad students, and I thought this would be an experiment in Can we just like without any organization, without naming ourselves without having formal relationships with nonprofits? Could we just show up every Friday and cook a meal? Yeah. And we dumpster dove a lot of the food and we found grocery stores willing to let us go through their stuff before it went in the dumpster, and bakeries willing to give us bread. And, and our, you know, friends and supporters who liked what we were doing gave us a little bit of money. I even found to be unnamed, social service center that was getting government commodity foods. And so yeah, you can just you can buy some of it off the side.
Rex 41:55
And did those experiences, then? Do you think that's a direct relation to what followed in your life? I mean, seemed that seems very fertile. With regards to understanding, you talked about getting your legs underneath all of this social justice work that you've spent your life doing
Sinan 42:09
Yeah. Oh, very much. So I was on an academic track, I was, you know, pursuing a degree program where it made sense that I would become a college professor or, you know, go into Applied Research somewhere. And it was very much I think, the starting of that meal program. And, and a few other things that I was doing with community organizers that really was how I found what to me was meaningful work a meaningful life's work.
Rex 42:44
Yeah, you're calling. So let's jump to today. Like, I'd love to hear you talk about like the importance and the part that community plays in addressing homelessness, like what does that look like for you
Sinan 42:56
like? Well, I think that the ability of the institutions that we've created to address homelessness has frayed over the years, because the crisis is so huge, and we're not solving the housing issue that's at the foundation of it. So it's become more and more difficult for nonprofits. And I've the pandemic, just finally snapped that frayed string and broke the system. And we're scrambling in the midst of that right now. And we're, as we talked about, sort of accepting and normalizing that, oh, okay, this is this is the reality that we live in is the landscape. And this would have been just an unacceptable thing 3040 years ago, and in our culture, and we've gradually come to accept it. So when you're in the midst of that kind of situation, and regular folks, regular house folks are looking out their window and seeing this, it just behooves us to respond to the emergency. And that has been my experience here in Victoria during the pandemic, when there had been restrictions on camping 24/7 in the parks. So people were allowed to camp overnight and then leave first thing in the morning that was relaxed during the pandemic. And some of us neighbors just we didn't know what else to do. We just started wandering into the parks, and asking people what they needed. Yeah. And then we started meeting each other that, oh, you're a house neighbor also doing this. And we started meeting and in maybe a half a dozen or more situations, groups of neighbors clustered around and unhoused neighbor found housing for them, and then strategize how do we stay in really ship and keep this sustainable. Now, if we had a few 1000 more people doing that, that would address this emergency crisis, it wouldn't solve the situation. But it would address the immediate emergency, and maybe motivate all these people who are responding to it to look up river and ask, you know, where is this coming from?
Rex 45:26
Is it in your opinion? Are we going to end homelessness without those extra couple 1000 people in, you know, in a in a community, like, for instance, Victoria, where you are now? Or in Seattle 10,000. Community members? I mean, are we realistically going to address homelessness without community involvement? Or is that vital to the solution?
Sinan 45:48
I think it's vital to the solution of so many competing crises that we're facing right now that we are seeing an unraveling occur. And this is a historic time that we're living through, and how we respond to that unraveling will tell the story of our future. And for that story, to be a good one and a life affirming one means necessarily to me, that folks in the community, step up and take ownership. And when our leaders aren't solving it, you know, we insist and push until we start addressing these things that are going to bring our society down if we don't.
Rex 46:39
Can you tell us? On that note, can you tell us what the existence project is doing which you are now is consuming a lot of your time in work?
Sinan 46:49
Yeah. So I've recently became the associate director of the existence project, I was not part of the existence project when their small team started coming in to the same park that I was meeting other neighbors in. They were coming into the park and with a camera. And they didn't know what they were going to do for why they were doing it. But over the months, what became clear was, they were making a movie. And the movie was made by two pretty recent graduates of the University of Victoria are one of them actually moved from Alberta to recent college graduates, who had never made a film. Didn't know a lot about making a film and just made this amazing documentary called Moving day about the day that 24/7 Camping ended, and people had to leave the park and people who had been promised that from there, they were going to move to housing and what actually happened
Rex 47:58
and they had been given, you know, what, a month or a month and a half notice. The camper, the residents in the park.
Sinan 48:06
Yeah, a notice had been given. And as that date approached, the time period was extended by a month. And there was a scramble happening. There was actually an arena, a hockey arena, performance arena that was turned in to emergency housing and a few hotels were bought. And you know, people a couple 100 People were moved off the street quickly, but not everybody. And those folks were then scattered and directed to other parks. And also, there's one street here in Victoria Pandora where there's a corridor of a few blocks where there's just an amazing amount of human misery people just living out in the open. Because there simply is not the housing.
Rex 49:00
And what's the intent for the existence project? What what are you all trying to do?
Sinan 49:06
The now the existence project is to humanize the issue of homelessness. And similar to what Rex you are doing at facing homelessness to tell the stories of real people so that the negative stereotypes are dissipated. And you must see the person as a person Yeah, seeing the person rather than the issue. There's a quote I'll probably butcher from Longfellow that really it's one of my favorite quotes and it tells tells this mission to me and poetic terms. If we could know the secret history of our enemies we would find in each man's each person's life, sorrow and suffering enough to dissolve all hostility
Rex 49:57
Bam. Yeah, I put much sums that up. And that seems like this comes back to building community, right? Because also community building community is about closing the separation between us like, like actually seeing each other and realizing I mean, as you described, you had different groups of people coming on their own for their own reasons to the park. And then, you know, looking for the commonality and finding a way to band together and you eventually joining the existence project out of out of your heart kind of motivation to go to the park. Yeah. And
Sinan 50:31
let me tell you, one of the one of the women I met much later, and I asked her to tell me the story, because I'm actually writing a report about all this. And she helped with housing to guys who then were able to move on to a better situation. And she was the block watch kept. And she came to the park because neighbors started calling her, your the block, watch captain, people sleeping in the park, do something. So she figures the first thing I need to do is just just walk into the park and observe. And she starts to talk with the guys and get to know them and develop a relationship. And then one day, I think is like January, December or January, and it's cold, and it's raining. And she's sat and visited with these two guys. And she's walking out of the park. And as she walks out of the park, she just something snaps in her. And she just says Not one more night, I'm getting him out of the park. And she calls the hostel the next day. And the hostel says, oh, yeah, we know those two guys, when they get their checks at the beginning of the month. They sometimes come here and spend a night or two to get a shower, do their laundry. They're great, guys. We'd love to have him here. And she pays. She says, What do you have two rooms available? And so she pays for two months of there. Wow. Yeah. It's beautiful. And she's still in relationship with one of them. She's still in contact. Yeah.
Rex 52:06
That's the power of coming closer. Yeah, absolutely. So you and I could talk all day about community and, and you know, the Just Say, Hello moment, the moment that you see it differently, as you said, she snapped, and it changed her and she altered her course, and made a difference for those two men, and probably most importantly made a difference for herself. In that in that awareness. On the other end of the spectrum, is our government. And and what are we doing, and I know that this polarized conversation around homelessness can pit advocates, advocates against politicians and advocates of the homeless against business community leaders, when in fact we're we should all be really on the same page, we're all have the same goal, which is, is to really address the suffering of people outside. I was actually my mind was kind of like activated hearing that Victoria, which you moved from Seattle to Victoria recently. Has a homeless population of about 1500. And I think you said something around 250 300 that are actually outside,
Sinan 53:19
maybe less, maybe less. In
Rex 53:21
my brain goes, Oh, my God, you're right there. You're so close. Because we're 15,000 in Seattle, and I think it's 40,000 in King County. Those are numbers that are very hard to get your head around. If you were, if you were, you know, in charge of directing services and solutions for this issue in Victoria. Like what what should our politicians what should our government be doing in concert with community?
Sinan 53:50
Well, I hope it's not game over on affordable housing. Because one thing that we should have been doing for the past decades, and we should still do, to the extent that it's possible, is to stop the loss of existing affordable housing. I once heard a Republican county council member say one of the smartest things I ever heard from a politician, and it was, you know, you don't build affordable housing, you age it. So that's a piece of it. That's not the only piece and you don't tear it down. You don't tear it down. Because the development on steroids, I think, helped to create the crisis in that. There's, I think, a natural rhythm to housing and a community that housing gets old. It's ready to be replaced. It gets replaced with something of comparable scale. Maybe there is some growth you know, in upscale against density in certain places. But this isn't happening. on steroids, this is happening at a human pace. What's happened over the past few decades and seems to accelerated this decade is this push to just develop the last of this valuable land that we have, and to upzoning, which makes the land become so much more expensive and so much more valuable, because he can build so many more dwellings on it, that we have to quickly last, what remained affordable to people with low income. So number one, fix that piece, give people with low income buildings that are going to be sold, give the right of first refusal to the people already living there, you know, create incentives to actually build mixed income housing, on site where now developers can pay a percentage if they don't want to put it on the site, you know, actually ensure that we're not losing with all these projects. The last of our affordable housing, that there's not a net loss. And when you're telling us there's not a net loss in this project, when I look with a magnifying glass and see that you actually used funds that were meant to create new affordable housing to replace the Affordable Housing You just destroyed. You don't let stop doing things like that. Yeah.
Rex 56:35
But it's not just so I understand what you're what you're talking about is government assistance to either property owners or, or government purchasing of land, because because in our current capitalistic system that that encourages developers to get highest and best use right of property, you are, you're in or you're, you're, you're you're coming into the middle of that, and somehow having to navigate that with a property owner. So are you saying that government should then sign on for long term to pay that property owner? Compensating money for the loss? Or are you saying that we're purchasing? I mean, I'm, I don't know if you know the answer to that. But it's it quickly gets complicated when we interrupt the the process is in place for property owners to develop as they see fit. Yeah, that seems hugely difficult.
Sinan 57:35
Well, there's two things that need to be happening simultaneously. One is that we need to reinvest at the governmental level in social housing. And in both the United States and Canada, you can track the homelessness crisis, to the disinvestment from social housing. That's number one. But also, the other side of it is that local municipalities have passed laws and consistently legislated to make the housing environment more friendly to developers, and less caring of the folks who are struggling out there,
Rex 58:25
which are usually people in poverty, people of color.
Sinan 58:30
So we've incentivize the redevelopment of their housing through urban renewal through all sorts of programs. We've incentivized the builders to increase the density and to do all these things. Without incentivizing the affordable housing piece. Yeah.
Rex 58:49
Agreed. I know also another another prong of that, that complicates it is that, you know, 3030 years ago, maybe I can't remember when the Growth Management Act was passed, but, you know, trying to create inner city density to save our farmlands and yeah, and sprawl, and that that growth management act effectively create up zoning, right, like you had to create density.
Sinan 59:14
Well, it did. But there was a serious community process that happened with that. And this got codified in the Growth Management Act. And if you look across the board in Seattle, there are neighborhoods that are far and away meeting their growth targets under the Growth Management Act, where we're now legislating to increase that and put way more growth into those neighborhoods. Yeah. So we're not even following the Growth Management Act.
Rex 59:44
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the fact is, we're, we're geared towards creating capital and investment, right. Yeah. And that's and that's without the social fabric in mind.
Sinan 1:00:00
Yeah, it's a model. It's an economic model that requires constant unbridled growth. What else follows that kind of model? Cancer?
Rex 1:00:15
Yeah. How does that how does that end? Yeah. Yeah. How does Canada respond? Or I should say, Victoria locally here, respond to mental health issues and drug rehab? Are those are those lacking as well, as we see in Seattle? Oh, yeah,
Sinan 1:00:31
it's, it's terrible. And there's so many institutions fraying in so many nations right now that we're facing a real Reckoning and how we respond to all sorts of crises, but especially this one. And I'll give you just one example, that there, I'm doing some work with a local church here, and they had a guy camping out there. And it was creating some real problems with neighbors, because of the ways he was acting out. And he had a serious drug issue that was driving a lot of this and he was extremely motivated to go into treatment. And finally, we heard from his caseworker that he had a treatment date to go in. And we were telling that to the neighbors that we don't want to call the cops. He's on Friday, he's going to treat it. That morning, he went, he made his appointment. God bless the minister, and the former social justice director there, they brought their pickup trucks, they loaded all his stuff, they moved it to the park, his friends, who are living in the Park sat vigil with his stuff to protect it. His caseworker, accompany to him and went to the appointment and left him there at detox. And detox said his behavior was too erratic. And they sent him to withdrawal services instead. And then he was released from there within a day. And he was back in front of the church. And I'm told that he has an October 31 date for treatment now. And then I was told a few days later that but yeah, but that's not really set in stone either. Yeah, so here's a guy who's in the throes of addiction, he desperately wants help. And this is his experience to get to treatment. So to get from point A to point B, is not a straight line. I don't even know how to describe the chaos of this line.
Rex 1:02:40
It's it's the same line that exists in Seattle. Yeah. And in this discussion with you, and coming up to visit you. Part of the hope in these conversations was to say, Okay, here's what Victoria is doing. Are there lessons for Seattle, and vice versa, and vice versa? And, you know, we had this really beautiful conversation with the existence project staff. And I think we had a meeting of minds and hearts over the conversation, but I don't know that there was any, it feels like the struggles are the same. Like when I come up here, and I and, you know, the gathering in the park yesterday with, you know, with House folks bringing food and conversation. It's just 100% familiar to the same experiences going on in Seattle. And, and then when you discuss the impasses and the barriers, they're this, they're exactly the same. That seems crazy. Yeah.
Sinan 1:03:42
Those were beautiful experiences. We had the meeting of the church and the meeting in the park. It was beautiful, isn't it? Absolutely. You'll notice that these were all just folks, we didn't really have people from the social service agencies from the government. We had folks who wandered into the park and so you met housed and unhoused neighbors. That's all you met those two days. And that was so inspiring, as inspiring as it may have been to you it was even more inspiring, I think to the folks who are meeting you and we're making this connection that hears across an international border to communities of people trying to do the same thing. We need to be talking with each other Yeah, yeah, we need to be swapping stories and telling each other stories and you know, incubating our own ideas in the laboratory and sharing those when we when you started talking about the block project with people here racks I saw their eyes open and we need a block project here.
Rex 1:04:50
Let's make it happen. Yeah. But um, I and I agree and I found it very inspirational and kind of like it helps fill you up when you meet and talk with people that have the same kind of views about the world we're living in. I also was also was saying to Cindy, you know, when we were chatting afterwards that it, it just seems dumbfounding to me. And I've gone to visit my sister in Houston at times and met with people outside. And it's, it's like, everywhere you go, it's the exact same thing and folding, which, to me feels like Can't we should be smarter than this.
Sinan 1:05:29
Yeah, we should. And I'll just, you know, you mentioned Houston. Houston has no zoning laws. There's no zoning.
Rex 1:05:38
I did not know that.
Sinan 1:05:39
I mean, there's I think there's other laws that kind of accomplish that. So you can't put an oil derrick in your lawn or something. But there's no zoning in Houston. So I think we need to look at how we're doing cities, how we're doing community period. And how that evolved from a place where everybody had somewhere to live to a place where larger and larger and larger numbers every year just can't make it. Like, how did we get to that? And how do we get either back to what we had before or move forward into something with new new solution that works for all the people in a community? Because right now, it's untenable
Rex 1:06:26
Yeah. The last question, I know that, you know, you have been moved by the work you do, like it's changed, it's probably it's probably defined you completely, like, I think one of the one of the things that's, I'm always surprised at is how hesitant people are to jump in and do work for others, at their own peril, in the sense that it doesn't feel like there's anything that gives more to you than giving to others, you know, then we have plenty of, of sayings and understandings of that, you know, better to give than to receive and they're they're endless on those, right. But yet, there's still an impasse. And it's connected, in my own thinking about how do you get community to jump forward and take care of these issues, because I firmly believe we're, we're never going to end homelessness, even if the government's doing everything correctly, and all the nonprofits are doing everything correctly. I really do believe where it's wishful thinking until all of us put that lens on and actually move towards solving these issues as community. And but what keeps us from it? And I wanted to so sorry for the long question. But like, I wanted you to first share, like, what it has meant to you to have these experiences in the park with someone that you told me yesterday about the person that you were sitting with. And and you ask Is there anything you can do any any ask for a hug? Yeah, right. Like these things are like even me saying that makes me want to tear up. These are really beautiful moments. And so what have they been for you? And why are we so resistant?
Sinan 1:08:06
Yeah, they're life changing moments, right? And I think the key is making the first step. And I'll talk about my own history in my own life. But let me just mention, I told you the story about the block watch captain who ended up you know, not another night in the park for these guys. Before she went to the park. She called somebody from another neighborhood that she'd heard about. She didn't know this woman, but she's like, how do you go in the park? And the woman's like, Well, do you want me to just go with you? It's easy. So they go into the park. And this woman just starts talking to people in tents. And, you know, this other woman is observing and she realizes it's easy. And I can remember one time driving with a friend who didn't volunteer with our stuff. And I had to grab something from the shelter, and we pulled up in front of routes, and there's people lined up to get in. She's like, how do you like, how do you go home at night and not just be depressed? And I told her that, well, for the most part, I do what I can do. And I know that I've done all that I can do. And I go home and I don't carry that with me. There's a few times few cases where, you know, it gets to you, and you do carry it. But you figure that piece out too. And my life is so much more enriched by having met all the people I've met over the years and been engaged in something that makes me feel like I can go to bed at night and think that I've done something to make the world a little better today. Yeah, and the friend chips that I've made out there, like you mentioned the guy who like, like, I got you food I did this, I don't know what else I can do, can I just have a hug. And I've made connections with people who've just become dear friends out there, who, you know, I would have never met.
Rex 1:10:20
Yeah, that's beautiful. And it also attaches itself to the connection and feelings, you you get that directly from that work. But like my feelings for you, my love for you, is increased tenfold, not because you're also this amazing musician, and this smart man and all these things that are attributes to who you are. But also, I see your heart. And that's because of the work that you're doing. And I think that has a ripple effect. It affects the circles around you. And I think that's, that goes back to community.
Sinan 1:10:57
Yeah. And I think, you know, Rex, that was the decision that you made to change your life and go in this new direction. What that is done for other people thinking that, you know, they want to make a difference to and how do we start? That that's been an inspiration and, and a modeling, that what all of us who are going out there into the community are doing is modeling what a different world could look like. And when our institutions aren't doing that, when we don't see our government doing that? Yes, we have to insist that they step up and do these things that are their responsibility. But when it's not happening, we got a model what it looks like,
Rex 1:11:43
well, even when it's happening, we gotta model it. Yeah. I mean, it's just got to be a way of life. Yeah, for us. Sinad thank you for sharing all of that. And I think that was beautiful to get a little recap and also tie it to community and, and kind of that bridge between community and government. I think you hold those spaces beautifully. So thank you for sharing that.
Sinan 1:12:08
Oh, thank you. Brexit is always a pleasure and an inspiration to talk with you.
Rex 1:12:13
You know, me now is produced, written and edited by Tomas Vernadsky. And me Rex Holbein. We would like to give a heartfelt thanks to Sunan for taking the time to speak with all of us. You know me now has a Facebook and Instagram page where you can join in on the conversation. We also have a website@www.ru Noemi now.com, where you can see photos of Cinnabon, as well as read other stories of folks we feel you should get to know. Thanks as always, for listening