[00:00:02] Speaker A: I'm Alex Stone, former military service member and law enforcement officer, now CEO of Echelon Protected Services, one of the fastest growing private security firms on the west coast. And this is ride along, where our guests and I witness firsthand the issues affecting our community.
I believe our proven method of enacting meaningful change through compassion and understanding is the best way to make our streets a safer place and truly achieve security through community.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Christy Carver. I'm the managing director of interurban real Estate, and I'm here today with Alex of Echelon to go on a ride along on the streets of Portland.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Hey, Alex Stone here, host of Ride along. Welcome back. We have a great guest today. Her name is Christy Carver. She's a CEO, principal of Interurban Real Estate, a fantastic real estate company here in the Portland metro area. And she's also a client. And we're here today because we're going to discuss just that overlap of property management and security. Christy, you want to tell everyone?
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Hi.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Hi, everyone. I am Christy. Thank you for that introduction, Alex.
Interurban real estate is a commercial real estate management company in Portland, Oregon. We are a certified women owned business, and we manage historic office buildings downtown, specifically nine of them in Old Town. So that's how Alex and I came to know each.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Right. And so trying to talk about the history. But before we get there, of how we met, I'm kind of interested in how you got into property management.
[00:01:53] Speaker D: Sure. Yeah.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I mean, that's actually kind of a long story. But I got into property management out of college. I was in sales, and I didn't love my job, so I started working for a development company, which sparked my interest. And from there, I just started working for, actually at a very early age for some pretty large corporations, and got into corporate real estate and then worked for very high level institutional clients. So after years of that type of experience, I decided I didn't want to be in the corporate world anymore, but I wanted to take that experience and have a more personal level, nimble experience, and that's when I started in urban real estate in 2015.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: So it's 2015, you just start your company.
[00:02:39] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: There's a pretty decent boom in real estate, right?
[00:02:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Things are going well. Yeah, things are going well. It was a good time to do it.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: It was a good time, yeah.
As we creep into 1617 and 18, we start coming into a lot of, I would say, the atmosphere in the downtown corridor, both on the east and west side of the river, started to change.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: 100%. Yeah, definitely. We're seeing it. We're feeling it.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: And I would say as someone back then I was in law enforcement, we saw the change and the way that we looked at it, and professionals in law enforcement, we just go, oh, crime is cyclical. You have waves. It's generational. And so this is just a regular generational increase in crime.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: But in property management, when you have major changes in culture, this affects rents and occupancy rates.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: So what was going through your mind during this time?
[00:03:48] Speaker B: I mean, I think during that time, we were just having a little bit of an uptick of things going on the street, but it wasn't at that time a major concern, I don't think. We obviously didn't see what was coming. So, you know, we were just taking on extra security measures and things like that. But it wasn't a situation where we were fearful that we were going to actually have material reduction in rates, material occupancy dips and things like that.
[00:04:23] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: So it was probably more slow.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: It was slow enough to kind of.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Like the old story of the frog in the water.
[00:04:32] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: They don't know it's coming because the change is so boiling.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:37] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: At what point did you realize as an owner of, I mean, this is major commercial areas, and you tell your team you're finally going to have that talk with your team. I think the water is boiling. What did that look like?
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Well, I mean, maybe this is a little bit.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: And there were riots going on. There were a lot of rioting going on, $20,000 windows being broken every day, social upheaval all across the nation. But a unique sense of that occurring within Portland because it became super politicized on the right and the left, and you had right and left factions in the streets every day, which is, I've never seen that before in America. And on top of that, you had this general increase of crime. You had the deregulation or decriminalization of narcotics.
All of this kind of occurring at the same time with no expectation and no, really, leadership from government as to what we're going to expect. No one was forecasting what this was going to do. It was just kind of like, we're hoping for the best here.
[00:05:48] Speaker C: Right?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Gosh, you're bringing up back some memories here.
Yeah, you nailed it.
Not a surprise to anyone. It was just as the pandemic was hitting, March of 2020, I mean, maybe earlier in the year, we were starting to see some uptick in things, but certainly the watch started spinning as soon as things shut down. We had some of the first shutdowns. People left their offices.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: In March. So for a lot of people, that nobody came back to the office on March 16.
I can't remember. Some of the restaurants shut down right thereafter.
[00:06:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: There's, like, a mandatory one or two week shutdown.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Right?
[00:06:32] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: And I just want to remind everyone this was the pandemic that was shutting things down later on in May. End of May is when George Floyd was murdered, which added a whole nother aspect to upheaval and a whole different dynamic to the streets. So just between March 13 into May was simply people living at home, not coming into the office, restaurants shutting down.
That was a dynamic on its own. I mean, never mind that we are dealing with handling our tenants concerns, not being able to pay rent, shutting down their businesses, and things like that. We are protecting the buildings. We are boarding up windows because every.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Building was boarded up.
[00:07:26] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: We had to navigate that whole situation because no one was on the streets. The city of Portland, the county, no one was able to, for instance, not able to go into Old Town because that was too dangerous for people to be there because of the virus and things.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: And therefore, all of the small business who have no choice but to try and keep their business alive are making choices about how to protect their buildings. And as a property management company, we're down there boarding up windows. But before we could do that to all of our properties. I mean, here's an example. We had one building on the edge of Old Town that sustained almost $20,000 of broken windows on March 30.
And people will. When I tell the story about that property, which was a property that was already struggling a little bit, revenue wise, and with the restaurants there, they like to. Oh, the protesters. Protesters. And I say, oh, no, this was March 30. This was before George Floyd died. It was just the lack of presence of our city workers, police, and things.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Going on, and the lack of, I would even say a lack of mental health care. A lot of the broken windows were occurring, at least from the reports that were later received and persons identified from persons who were not receiving proper medical care.
[00:09:03] Speaker D: Right.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Mental health care.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: This was literally someone who just like, oh, no one's around. Let me just break some windows. This is real fine.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: And with the shutdown, the COVID shutdowns, there were a lack of desire to want to bring people into medical institutions.
[00:09:20] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Especially the mental health institutions.
[00:09:22] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: So a lot of the.
Unfortunately, a lot of the mentally ill suffered forcibly living on the streets, essentially. And so you have all of these cross sections, all this intersectionality occurring. So what did that conversation. When did you go to your team and say, we need a solution?
It's kind of like Jerry Maguire moment. Does anyone have any ideas?
Can we think outside the box? What are we doing here?
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Right.
I think we were having those conversations immediately, but it was just tough because we couldn't have all of our conversations around security. It was around health, too, and a lot of other things that were going on at that time.
But I think it really hit a fervor once we started having protests in downtown Portland after George Floyd, and we had that added dynamic to the know. The other thing we have to remember at that time is we thought that we were going to have a shutdown for a matter of weeks, a month. Yeah, exactly two know, and we didn't anticipate the know. The George Floyd addition to that. And so the combination of an extended shutdown, the virus, George Floyd happening, the protests, I think it was really around June 1 that we really rallied together and said, we have to do something ourselves to figure out how to protect our properties from all the various elements that are going on out there and to protect our employees who still, I mean, some of our employees never went home. Our building technicians and engineers still had to be on site of the properties and maintaining cleanliness for any businesses that were remaining open.
Maintenance and things like that.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Wiping the elevator down ten times a day, wiping the buttons down, wiping the doors down.
These mandatory jobs.
[00:11:36] Speaker D: Right.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: These technicians were part of that mandatory labor pool.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah, they were essential.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: They were essential. Yeah, I remember that word.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: So they're downtown. They're downtown. And even I remember getting reports as your security team, multiple persons within your company had been assaulted.
[00:11:57] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Someone had a firearm pulled on them.
[00:12:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: And so this is not normal.
Hey, I'm going to start a property management company. I'm pretty sure you didn't think, someday I'm going to start a property management company, and my main concern is going to be how to protect my employees.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Absolutely not.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Absolutely not. Especially not in downtown Portland.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: But this becomes a major concern.
You have a great heart and you care about your folks, but also, I mean, insurance wise and for the safety of your client's property and the tenants, because if someone's going to pull a gun on a maintenance tech.
[00:12:31] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: How safe is your tenant?
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Right. And so how did you navigate that? And when did you finally decide that we needed essentially, to create this? I mean, you're kind of the impetus for our security model. Right.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Well, how did it come about?
It was around that time, sometime in June, maybe July, I was talking to a couple of key real estate clients that both of them at the time, I think both of them at the time, were housed in Old Town.
Maybe one had moved to the Pearl district. But I said, we're going to have to bind together here and create some sort of security district, especially in Old Town. And I was focused on Old Town because it was absolutely the worst of the worst.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: At this current time, we estimated that old town was housing 15% of the total houseless population of Portland.
[00:13:38] Speaker D: Is that all?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Because that seemed like it was more than that.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: It did around almost 450 to 600 people.
[00:13:45] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Believable. Yes, for sure.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: And this doesn't include all of the sheltering.
[00:13:48] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: And then the transient activity of people coming to get resources from nonprofits located in Old Town. But these are people actually living on the streets in Old Town, right?
[00:14:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Maybe I should talk about some of the conditions that were concerns from the perspective of not only the safety concerns of our tenants and our employees, but here we have a lot of small businesses in our buildings. We're a small business, and so we had to stay open during those times. But I'm thinking of the restaurants, the coffee shops, the other small little peril companies and things like that in these buildings. How do we figure out the balance of making sure that they feel safe going into their small business? They can maintain some level of running their business at that time.
[00:14:48] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: So we've got a houseless community. We've got a lot of criminal activity as well, and just sort of unchecked mental health stuff going on. All of this can be combined. We're separated. But a lot of it was happening in Old Town.
We had people stringing electrical cords into our second floor. There was a lot of things.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: And through the windows, through the windows, the residential windows coming down. And then that would be feeding an entire camp.
[00:15:23] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: And then that leads to the fact that there's tents on the sidewalk in front of our businesses. And we totally understand that. We've got a houseless community that needs a place to sleep, that needs compassion and resources, and a lot of those resources are in Old Town.
But as we all know, a community has to have balance. And oftentimes people talk about that being an ecosystem or a balance in community. And as part of that, you have to have some situation where we don't have a tent in front of a small business because we need that business to be able to run, to continue gaining revenue, continue paying their taxes, the taxes which help pay for some of these services, all of those things.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: It's like an ecosystem. Everything has to be doing its part to make sure everything's staying healthy and working.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:16:27] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: You have to keep.
When we say we need to move a tent away from a front door of a business, we are not saying we don't care about that person in that tent. We are saying we just need a win win situation, which we talk about a lot in real estate too, so that we can continue running that business and everyone can continue living a healthy and humane life. And that includes small business, and that also includes the houseless person in the tent. And we also, in addition to that, need to be able to have some visibility so that we're addressing crime that could be happening and hiding within and around the tents, that are blocking those front doors and things like that. Because that's another thing. When a tent is blocking a front door, you can't see the criminal activity that is going in between the tent and the front door. So anyway, those were the conditions. Those were the conditions. And at the time, we are not able to move tents off of the sidewalks or things like that.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: The city of Portland granted, well, they transformed the right of transportation on a private sidewalk, a privately owned sidewalk that's granted as a public easement for pedestrian traffic. That right of transportation was transformed into a right of accommodation.
[00:17:55] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: With the expectation that if someone moved a tent or forcibly attempted to move a tent off of their private sidewalk, that they're required by city charter to maintain.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: And the city's indemnified on.
[00:18:13] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: That you would likely be criminally charged with harassment or theft or some type of property crime, destruction of property, these.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Types of things, or minimally just vilified by a number of advocates for doing it.
And we want to be respectful too, and understand that these are people in these tents also. So we needed a unique solution, a.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: Unique solution for this dynamic.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: We did. And some of our properties had some levels of security at the time, but it was almost wholly ineffective towards this.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Environment that observe and report model.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: The observe and report model, who's going to show up?
No one.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: So it doesn't work. You're satisfying your insurance requirements at that point.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah, they're reporting there's a tent there. I did nothing.
Maybe I talked to the person and I moved on.
But anyway, so we thought we needed to combine our network of real estate people. That was my thought. Because that's who I know in the community, and I was focused on old Town because, yeah, it was the worst of the worst. We had three properties that we were managing already. We were taking six more on. I guess we had four, and then we were taking five more on in the coming couple of months. And so that's when I got connected, ultimately, with you and Reed.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah, my business partner.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Yes, we got connected.
[00:19:52] Speaker C: He's your favorite.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: I know he's your favorite.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: No, you guys are both my favorites. But I got connected with the two of you, along with our other partner, who was already negotiating some sort of a community leader. Community leader who was organizing some neighbors. And it just worked out perfect because I got connected with you guys. I got to know about Echelon and how that it was a more community based, outreach type security, a completely different model than what we were experiencing.
I don't know. It was amazing to find out that this existed. I learned about what you had done at one of your apartment buildings and kind of the turnaround that you guys had done there.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Highest call volume property for multifamily residential in the central district.
[00:20:47] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: So I got to learn about that. Learn about sort of how you approach that. And, I mean, I guess the main thing is that you did it by relationships coming in there, get out, force, all that stuff. You build relationships with the community. And I got to see that firsthand pretty early on, before, I think, we took on the contracts or maybe shortly thereafter, how, when your officers are walking down the street, the relationships are built so well that the houseless community or the different characters and folks on the street are actually coming up to your officers or like, hey, buddy. Hey, bro. And that was so huge to me, to see that happening.
That's what we needed. We needed the relationships built, because relationships, as we all know, foster influence.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: It's the only leverage you really have in a social dynamic is that relationship. And to accompany that, Reed and I knew that with the increase of crime and the pandemic, that we were losing that third place, this sociological principle of third place, which a major coffee company likes to use as kind of their marketing tool. But the idea is that people go home, they go to work, and then they have a third place, that they're emotionally invested in space, and that as humans, we have to emotionally invest in space, in real estate, as an emotional commodity, because it brings us comfort. People go to the park, they want to look at the river, things like this. And so we knew that there would be a dramatic loss over a several year period of people who are invested in space. So community engagement as a security company would be the only way to counteract that in that on the street kind of dynamic.
[00:22:50] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:22:51] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: And so that's what we did, and I think we did it pretty well. I think we're doing it really well still.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it was incredible. I mean, once we kind of gathered all of the different people that were willing to be involved, you guys added your foot patrols.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: To this group and started those relationships and that influence on the streets and that presence on the streets with the community and started your outreach, sending people to. Sometimes even in an Uber to.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, all the time.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: One of the shelters.
[00:23:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: I think last month we sent 121 people to some type of service shelter. Detox. Small home. Tiny home. Something like this.
[00:23:41] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Huge.
[00:23:44] Speaker D: It is, yeah.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: And I mean, just all the little things that you guys do. I mean, there's a lot that leads up to that confidence that the houseless folks in those tents, for them to get there. So it's like you're giving them resources. Socks or waters or all these things. That's so different than, obviously, other security companies.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: It is, yeah.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: I mean, it's almost hard to call it a security company, but that is an aspect. You're also there to provide security to the folks in the building and the building itself so that we can continue operating small business in Portland.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: And there was even a sense that there's always a criminal element within every aspect of society.
[00:24:30] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: All the way from Wall street all the way down to became very reed. And I wanted to make it very clear that we were also there for the security of the people living in tents.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: And the drug dealers and the pimps and the hardened criminals that utilize this population to make money?
[00:24:59] Speaker B: They hide within. Right.
[00:25:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: A lot of them will hide within, but actually don't live on the street. They have apartments.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Oh, that's lovely.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: They just come out.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: And so we had several factions in charge. We probably, at that time, had eight separate factions in charge of old Town, subdivided into groups. And it became very apparent very quickly that they knew that we were going to protect the rights and integrity of everyone in that neighborhood.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: And it became a place where they realized it made it harder for them to make money.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Perfect.
[00:25:39] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Because everything's an economic decision. Right, exactly. It drove them to have to leave at the end of the day, because they said, well, why would I want to make 25% less in this neighborhood if I could go to another area and make my money there.
[00:25:55] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:56] Speaker D: Perfect.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: And so, yeah, that was kind of the model kind of moving forward.
We've been in partnership with you for almost three years now.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: I think.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: That's so hard to believe. It's gone by so fast.
Can I make one other point that.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: I think is really.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: You're the guest.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: I mean, it's, like, really important point about that time and the aspects going on there. So we talked about the houseless. Obviously, a lot ramped up with just the lack of presence from police and everything during that time, and just people in general, everybody was at home. But one of the concerns with us adding a different security group, town, our old town buildings and our downtown buildings, a huge part of that was so sensitive around the recency of George Floyd.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: Yeah, his murder.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: His murder that happened on May 25 of 2020.
So we were talking in June, right thereafter June, July.
That was really important to me to make sure that we address this concern with our clients and our tenants and our small business owners and our buildings.
One thing that really I found when I dug in, we are having armed security. We need to have armed security in old Town downtown.
I wouldn't want to go out and protect other people on the streets of old Town or the buildings without being armed.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah, and by armed, we mean with a firearm.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: With a firearm.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: And I don't think a firearm is always. Firearms aren't the answer to community transformation.
[00:27:50] Speaker D: Right.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: And I think that you obviously agree with me on that.
[00:27:53] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: And our model is community transformation. But at some point, when you have the rioters. Right. Getting in shootouts with the criminal and houseless population.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Because they were actually fighting over territory. And this was multiple times in old town shootouts with all these random groups that were coming in.
It was scary. And there's still shootouts, and I'm not trying to.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: There was, like a shootout the first night you guys worked.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: I was going to try to bring. It was actually a client.
They were a tenant of yours. There was a criminal organization that had been breaking in and stealing everything in their shop. Small business.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Small business.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: And we knew who the individual was. This individual was a shot caller in a criminal organization.
[00:28:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Him and his son actually got arrested for the attempted murder of a police officer with a vehicle. They struck a police officer. And so he's actually in prison now. But, yeah, that night, they were assaulting your client tenant, and it was probably 20 on four, and they happened to have a shotgun. So they fired a shotgun.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Tenant did.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: The tenant. They fired a shotgun in the air to keep the people from assaulting them. And, yeah, this was our first night patrol in Old Town.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: Under the loose.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah, under this security district, model district, where we're trying to de escalate and be a community presence to stop things like this.
I've obviously been in law enforcement, and so none of this rattled us because everyone on that, on patrol that night had really great security.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: I was getting my question. Why didn't you quit?
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I think everyone with us that night had a very strong background. Yeah, very strong background. And so we just told them, hey, this isn't your territory.
You're treating this business like you can come in here and rob them like you own the streets. And you don't own these streets. You don't own these streets. These streets are owned by a community and not a criminal organization.
There was one little property that's now our client. That wasn't our client then. And they go, okay, well, we own this block. And we were like. And we said, that's not our block.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: But it will be soon.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: It did become a block.
I would say it was normal during that time.
[00:30:46] Speaker C: It was actually.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: It was wild. It was the wild west, for sure.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it was the wild west. I mean, Cadillac converters were going was. It was a wild time standard.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: I guess the point that I was wanting to make is that an important thing for us was to ensure that with having armed security in Old Town, how are we going to make sure that we are being equitable and addressing the concerns of our BIPOC community and our BIPOC allies and know the whole George Floyd thing had just happened. And I wanted to make sure we're not just a replacement for the police and who, everyone was concerned about their tactics and things and sort of the racist activities that have been going on with the police force.
I was concerned that they were just going to view echelon as a replacement for police and that we were going to be dealing with the same things, or at least the same perception.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: And this was a concern.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: This was a concern. This was a concern.
I asked you and your partner, Reed, what are you doing to ensure that we are addressing people in an equitable and fair fashion? And how do you approach in a non brutality way, I guess. And so I got to learn more about your training. Do you want to talk about a little bit of that, I guess, relationships wise, rather than.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: So everything that we do is based on community engagement.
[00:32:38] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: And really, this is the correct model for private security when you're law enforcement. Law enforcement is, and I know a lot of people. You have to dig in and dive in and be there for years to understand why we have law enforcement in America. But essentially, it's because there are people that are out there hurting other people. Either they're taking their property, destroying their property, or they're causing physical harm to people.
[00:33:09] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: And in order to stop that activity, investigate that activity, and bring those people to justice, law enforcement has to exist now for law enforcement to do their job, which is to stop you, detain you, conduct an investigation while you're detained, and then possibly arrest you and put you in jail and or prison long term through a criminal process. Right.
All of those things require slight increases of rights violations. Right. So at the bottom core of what law enforcement does in order to keep our society safe is, to the best of their ability, acting legally, ethically, and morally attempt to determine who among us in our community are committing crimes.
What is the best way to go about increasing the violation of their rights in such a way that I can conduct a professional, thorough investigation that can be delivered with the suspect to a criminal justice process that will then act equitably and fairly to provide the correct results of guilty, not guilty.
[00:34:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: That's law enforcement.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: And I think a lot of people think that law enforcement and security are really very closely related. Which was your concern? Oh, they're Blackwater.
It's private policing. Right.
That was a concern, yeah. And the reality is, what stops private policing is a healthy, robust private security element that's driven and that is overseen by a government entity like Department of public safety here in Oregon. And so private policing is really when you have a private company that is granted the right of policing what private security is. Private security doesn't have the right to police.
That's why it can't be private policing. Policing is the ability to legally and ethically and morally suspend someone's rights in order to bring about a criminal justice outcome.
[00:35:37] Speaker B: But don't you think there's a lot of security companies that sort of mimic policing?
[00:35:41] Speaker A: They do, and I didn't want that. No. And unfortunately, the mimicking of law enforcement, we call it that false law enforcement model.
[00:35:48] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: The mimicking of law enforcement actually does bring some positive results to crime reduction. I would say it's probably 20% to 25% effective in the short term. But as that company continues alongside that contract, they begin hurting people's feelings because they're acting like law enforcement without the authority to do so.
And then law enforcement or the criminal element begins to understand this really isn't law enforcement so they come back to the property at the end of the day, because what law enforcement does is typically escalatory by nature.
[00:36:26] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: I mean, no one likes to get pulled over.
[00:36:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:28] Speaker D: Right.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: At the end of the day, when a security company does that and someone feels escalated and that can turn into conflict, that security company can't back it up.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: So this is a short, short, short term solution.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: You get short term solutions, but long term, you actually exasperate the issue. Because if someone feels violated, they're going to retaliate.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:36:52] Speaker A: And when they retaliate, what happens? They break your windows.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: So if you roll up on a tent of guys, four or five are just homeless, people are probably drug addicted. They really need resources. They need to get off the street, maybe mental health. And the drug dealer is over here, and you're kind of mean to all of them because you just want them to get off my property.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:37:11] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: And they're going to be like, oh, we'll get off your property. Yeah, no problem. We'll leave right now and they'll leave. And then two days later, you get broken into and your windows get broken, and the property owner is like, well.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: They did such a good job getting.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Rid of all the criminal element.
[00:37:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: But it's weird. We got broken into, and I'm like, yeah, you got broken into because they're retaliating against that tactic.
[00:37:40] Speaker C: Right?
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: And what we do is completely different.
[00:37:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: You build a positive relationship with people.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: Even the drug dealers.
[00:37:48] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: And we're like, hey, you need to change your life, man. You're going to get killed. You're going to go to prison, you're throwing away your life.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: You got a kid.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: You got a kid, man. See, you're a father. You have two children. You think this is positive for them? You're going to bring them into this life.
[00:38:02] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: You're mentoring your children to come out here and get shot on the street, and you actually try to change their mind, and you make them feel uncomfortable with the decisions within them, the conscience that they have, that what you're doing isn't right.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Connecting with them on a human level.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:38:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: It's more of a therapeutic, even maybe pastoral type of role. Right. Love it.
It's almost a humanitarian aid situation.
[00:38:30] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Where we're deconflicting areas and we're trying to bring about peace treaties, we're trying to bring about pacts between groups and organizations to deconflict.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: So, I mean, talking about your deescalation tactics and building relationships and things like that. One of the main concerns I had was with the optics of some of our, maybe our tenants and clients being concerned about the police brutality. That was such a concern in the time, and it was again, near the George Floyd death.
So I needed that question answered, and I needed a lot of understanding about how people were going to be treated and how people.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: How would our guards relate to people of color? Yes, on patrol.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: On patrol, I mean, everyone, but also that. And how we would be treating people fairly, equitably.
And so finally, you know, Christy, if you're concerned about my moral and ethical character, Google me. And so I. You're the CEO of Echelon. I googled you and I discovered some articles about you having turned in a police chief that you used to work for when you were a police officer for being racist. And I read through that.
I think I understanding the blue line and things like that, how that works, how hard that must have been. And obviously it changed your career as a police officer as well as the police chiefs.
That said everything to me. And that's what I needed to know, to know that I was working with a group with integrity and that trains people the right way and has the right moral compass.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: I was like, do you want to talk more about that?
[00:40:42] Speaker A: You are such a great leader and the fact that you did that. And I don't know if you know this, but I signed a nondisclosure agreement.
[00:40:52] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: So I actually can't discuss that.
[00:40:54] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: But a lot of people, this is very normal. Everyone Googles everybody now.
[00:41:01] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: Especially public knowledge. There's articles on that.
[00:41:03] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: New York Daily News, CNN. I mean, even the french press picked it up. I think BBC picked it up. Local. It was local, very local as.
So I can't really speak to that. But what I can say is that if we don't care about people, then communities won't change.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Well said.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: You can't expect to transform a community unless everyone in the community feels loved.
And so that truly is our moral compass and the basis of every action we take.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: It's beautiful.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: That was our model. And it really comes down to how do you hire and train a guard to go out and treat people with dignity? And not only that, but to instill within people who have no agency and sense of self worth.
How do we, over a period of time, through a relationship, instill agency and worth into an individual that will then lead to them choosing to get help?
[00:42:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: You care about them.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: You have to care about them and you have to be the one person that comes by that they know is going to come by every day with a good word, with a hug, with just a conversation, hey, how are you doing today? And with supplies and resources. And that's what we became. We became that relationship builder.
[00:42:42] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: That catalyst.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: I mean, and it worked. And it worked fast.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: It worked fast. It did. We were actually shocked how fast it worked.
[00:42:49] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: It was truly unbelievable.
I can't even express probably in statistics or words, there were probably a number of small businesses that literally scraped by and survived because of your abilities to build those relationships and get people help and just pull, I guess, influence some tents away from those front doorways just to, again, help the security situation and just help allow customers to come back into these small businesses. And that's just the perfect example of a win win situation.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: So we've talked a lot about this, which is great.
[00:43:35] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: So easy to talk to, and I think we're winning the battle in the community. It's always going to be a process. Transformation is ongoing. Right. So currently you're headquartered in Portland.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: That's correct.
[00:43:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:43:50] Speaker A: But you're moving into other.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: So give us a little glimpse into the future of interurban real estate. But before we do that, I just want to say you're probably the most professional company we deal with, and I know a lot of my clients are going to probably watch this, but your people are always professional.
I've never had a bad experience with anyone on your team, and I can tell that you have a personal culture and mission that everyone's bought into at your company.
[00:44:22] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: And your team really respects you. And so I know that you're going to continue to grow. I know that you're going to be all over the place.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Explain your strategy and where you're going next.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much.
I don't think I've ever told you this before, but our guiding principle within our urban real estate is to seek Harmony. So I actually think that transfers to what you guys do.
[00:44:46] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: So I always tell our team that means if you're talking on the phone with somebody and they're upset. So your goal, however that needs to be, is to seek Harmony between the two of you and the situation. So it also applies to our maintenance technicians, if they're, like, working on the HVAC unit, if it's not working properly, you need to find the harmony in that and put that together and get it done. So if anything, if you kind of forget the other values of the company, have a moment or whatever. If you just remember to seek Harmony, that is going to solve your problem or guide you to the right place. So I feel like that's kind of the same thing with echelon on the streets and even Loa. But to get back to where the company is going, we had intended to move into Washington in 2020, actually, but we had to change our focus to.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: Hard to do that during a pandemic.
[00:45:48] Speaker D: Right?
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Yeah, the pandemic hit, and actually, we had the opportunity to grow as a company during that time because conditions were so challenging. We had a lot of experienced people on our team. We took on more business and nearly doubled the company in size.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: Good job.
[00:46:06] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:46:07] Speaker A: You did a good job.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: We focused on that and doubled our situation in Portland, but now we're refocused on going into Washington to start with and just becoming a little bit more regional. So we have gotten our license in Washington, and we'll be moving into Vancouver soon.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: That's great. I love.
[00:46:25] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:46:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: So that's exciting.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it is.
[00:46:27] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: Congratulations. Thank you.
Well, I'm really excited to have you on the show. I want to get out of the studio because I feel like.
[00:46:39] Speaker C: Everyone that.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: Was watching and plus, you and I, we get more out of it when we're in the field. So I'm thinking that we should definitely go visit some Loa staff members and kind of catch up with them on.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: The streets, loving one another.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Loving one another, see them and how they're interacting with the houseless population, possibly even around your buildings. And then maybe we go check out one of your sites. Obviously, we don't talk about clients names and addresses, but we'd love to. I think it's a really good idea. And then maybe even do a little patrolling around, maybe make some contacts ourselves. Maybe I'll put you on the spot and make you make the contact.
Okay, let's go.
[00:47:19] Speaker C: Let's do it today. What up, T?
[00:47:35] Speaker E: Hey, how's it going?
[00:47:36] Speaker C: Deal. Christy.
[00:47:38] Speaker F: So they can come in. Sometimes they don't want to shop. We'll get it for them. Sometimes they do. So they'll come in and look through it and find out what they want. We have shoes right back here. So we have three, four layered levels of shoes. We have up to brand new boots back here that we get donated so they can come in. We let them get one pair of shoes and one pair of sandals in the summertime. So we usually get here, like, around 334 o'clock. We'll be here for an hour. And we first got here we'd probably have one or two people. Now we have up to 30 people a day.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: Let's hit the field. Where are we going?
[00:48:11] Speaker F: Let's go pass out water in a pit. You want to do that?
[00:48:13] Speaker C: Okay, I'm down. Okay.
[00:48:14] Speaker F: All right.
[00:48:16] Speaker G: Is this leaking now?
[00:48:18] Speaker E: He's just at the top.
[00:48:19] Speaker C: We'll take the car.
[00:48:19] Speaker F: Oh, is it?
[00:48:20] Speaker C: All right, we'll meet you all there. Okay.
[00:48:21] Speaker E: Got you.
[00:48:22] Speaker F: Sounds good.
[00:48:22] Speaker C: All right, cool. So this is the pit county property, managed by the city through contract. And the majority of the houses population have kind of been forced into this corridor. See if we can get anyone to get into a shelter. It's quite too late today, but it's definitely good. Leads for the next day. Usually during a seven day period. They're at that place in their life twice. So if we contact them every day.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Okay, that's good.
[00:48:56] Speaker C: How are you doing?
[00:48:58] Speaker F: I'm ordering them a pizza.
[00:48:59] Speaker C: Oh, nice. I don't need pork.
Nice. Where's Fred?
[00:49:07] Speaker E: Red dog?
[00:49:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:08] Speaker E: Oh, he's not out here today. I think he's.
[00:49:10] Speaker C: Oh, for real?
Full time in the shelter. Oh, damn. Okay.
It's hot, man. Do you think anyone's home?
[00:49:20] Speaker E: Of course. Yeah. We're going to walk around. We was waiting till you guys. We was going to walk around, see if these guys would like some water and go out to them because some of them too hot to. Don't want to come out.
[00:49:30] Speaker C: That looks abandoned, bro. It is.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: Is this like the normal population in this area for the pet?
[00:49:37] Speaker E: Yeah, sometimes more.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: You come here, they see you day after day. You build the trust in the relationship, and then eventually they're ready.
[00:49:44] Speaker E: Most definitely. So from the first contact, it maybe only take us most of the times. Anywhere from two to four weeks. It could last longer. Depends on their trust level with us.
[00:49:56] Speaker F: We just had a barbecue.
[00:49:57] Speaker C: What?
[00:49:57] Speaker F: Two weeks ago, we fed 529, 20 some people.
[00:50:01] Speaker C: Served about 750 meals.
[00:50:03] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:50:04] Speaker F: Yeah, it was crazy.
[00:50:06] Speaker E: Yeah, it was.
[00:50:06] Speaker F: Kept coming.
[00:50:07] Speaker C: Yeah. We thought we would maybe serve 200, maybe.
[00:50:10] Speaker B: And how much time was that?
[00:50:13] Speaker F: 6 hours of cooking?
[00:50:14] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:50:15] Speaker F: Constant. I had no hair left in my arm when I got done.
[00:50:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:18] Speaker F: I'm going to walk down, give them.
[00:50:19] Speaker E: Some water, walk around, give us some water.
[00:50:22] Speaker F: You guys got pizza coming, too. You're welcome.
Hey, you want some water?
[00:50:36] Speaker C: And so this little area is kind of deceptive.
[00:50:39] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:50:39] Speaker C: Unless you're in the middle of it, you don't really know how many tents are actually here.
[00:50:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Because you kind of come down here and you see so many more.
[00:50:47] Speaker C: Good man.
And so if you're just driving by.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: You don't really see everything.
[00:50:53] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:50:55] Speaker C: Especially because even just down, we don't point on the street, but right here, that little corridor with the iron fence.
[00:51:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:51:00] Speaker C: You go down there, that's even a bunch more tense.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I can see a lot.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: More violent people that run the show.
[00:51:06] Speaker G: That's where they're at.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:51:10] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: This is kind of a hidden spot from where, at least where I normally go.
[00:51:19] Speaker C: Look across the street.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: There's no one over there that's looking.
[00:51:23] Speaker B: At this every day.
[00:51:24] Speaker C: The only people looking at this every day is inside that building and inside the JLo mall. What's up, Makisha?
That's what I'm talking about, though. Pimp my tent. Pimp my tent.
Rats are a huge problem.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: Oh, I can imagine. I mean, they've become a huge problem in old Town in general, but I can't imagine what it's like in this kind of situation.
[00:52:02] Speaker F: What's up, big dog?
You need to want some cold water.
[00:52:06] Speaker C: How's it going? I got you.
[00:52:11] Speaker F: You want some water, brother?
How about you, ma'am?
No?
[00:52:17] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:52:18] Speaker F: Where are your parents at?
[00:52:20] Speaker C: Where were they living before going down there?
[00:52:22] Speaker A: She was missing her arm.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: Oh, I saw her earlier.
[00:52:26] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:52:27] Speaker C: She got doped up, passed out and trained.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: Took her arm off.
[00:52:33] Speaker C: That happened right when we first came.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: In, around the time you heard.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: Really?
Wow. You know a little bit about everyone.
[00:52:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: Which is the point.
[00:52:44] Speaker C: That's the point.
[00:52:45] Speaker F: Are you trying to get into a shelter?
[00:52:48] Speaker B: No, that's not good enough.
[00:52:51] Speaker E: Why?
[00:52:53] Speaker B: A room? They could give me my own room so I could self care a minute, so I could get my business head on.
[00:52:59] Speaker E: The shelter is not just now. Where's that?
[00:53:00] Speaker B: I give a fuck about anybody.
[00:53:02] Speaker D: Really?
[00:53:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: And I.
[00:53:07] Speaker F: Stable.
She has grandioso ideas and stuff like that.
[00:53:13] Speaker C: So I just.
[00:53:14] Speaker F: I just appease her and make sure she stays calm. Otherwise, sometimes you just got to know when to hold them and know when to phone them.
What about tiny home? Yeah. Would you want to go into tiny home?
[00:53:28] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:53:28] Speaker B: Anything inside where I'm safe.
[00:53:30] Speaker E: Okay.
[00:53:31] Speaker B: Because I felt good there. I could have been there, and I was feeling adjusted.
[00:53:35] Speaker C: So as summer happens, you get more activity during the daytime. People sleep or pass out, and you get more activity at night.
[00:53:45] Speaker B: I see.
[00:53:46] Speaker C: And then during the winter.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: That makes sense.
[00:53:47] Speaker C: Sleep at night, and there's a lot more activity during the day.
So people drive by here and be like, well, there's a lot of tents.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: But there's not a lot of activity because they're sleeping. They're sleeping or they're all getting a meal.
[00:54:00] Speaker C: So part of the issue is like.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: They just passed a new law about camping.
[00:54:05] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:54:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:54:06] Speaker B: So what is the basis? I mean, like, because of the lawsuit. Right?
[00:54:11] Speaker C: Ada lawsuit.
[00:54:12] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:54:13] Speaker C: So do you see an ADA sidewalk anywhere around here?
[00:54:16] Speaker B: No.
[00:54:16] Speaker C: Over there, that building, but yeah. What about any. There's no sidewalk.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: Right. So there's nothing to do here.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: I mean, this is what I'm.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that only addresses one thing. Yeah, but it addresses something that is important.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: It does.
[00:54:36] Speaker B: I mean, a couple of things that are important.
[00:54:38] Speaker C: It does, but that's if they had the bam or the force strength to actually do anything about it.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, exactly. But I mean, it does at least help small business.
[00:54:49] Speaker C: And if they can actually get people.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: To show up, the disabled people to.
[00:54:56] Speaker C: Hand out a ticket, because you have to hand them a ticket and then you have to wait five days.
You have to give them five days.
[00:55:03] Speaker A: To move and then they come back.
[00:55:06] Speaker G: And then it's a crime.
[00:55:07] Speaker D: Got it.
[00:55:07] Speaker C: But how do you know if that's the same person unless that same police.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: Officer, essentially we just need to keep doing the same things we're doing, which is just making relationships.
[00:55:15] Speaker C: So if you have 100 people that are contacted in old town and the parole, are they going to keep a.
[00:55:22] Speaker A: Log of the names and the locations.
[00:55:24] Speaker C: Of all those contacts?
Is it going to be the same.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Police officer five days later that goes by?
[00:55:32] Speaker B: Are we just counting on people being responsible or like, following the law? Because we stopped doing that.
[00:55:38] Speaker C: Everyone did none of that. I don't think any of that's going to help. What helps is actually coming out, getting.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: To know people, having a conversation with them, and then them finally coming to the realization they need.
[00:55:52] Speaker C: Eventually, nothing else matters.
Spencer wanted to handle that. She has some mental health issues.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought it'd be best to take her away.
So many.
[00:56:06] Speaker D: Just.
[00:56:07] Speaker C: Y'all need a water?
It's ICE cold.
All right.
[00:56:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:56:17] Speaker C: Hey, you all need some water?
[00:56:19] Speaker B: Anybody need anybody? Water over here?
[00:56:22] Speaker C: ICE cold. Here you go.
Anytime.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: Water.
There you go. Yeah, you bet.
Somebody in there need a water? Yeah, they're wrong.
We're on the other side. There you are.
[00:56:37] Speaker C: You need a water?
[00:56:38] Speaker D: There you go.
[00:56:39] Speaker C: Anybody home?
[00:56:41] Speaker B: Think we got another one. Yeah, he needs another one.
[00:56:46] Speaker C: All right, man.
[00:56:47] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:56:50] Speaker C: She going to roll out that lady.
[00:56:59] Speaker E: Make some phone calls.
[00:57:03] Speaker C: Thirsty? You good?
Need a water?
Yeah. Awesome, bro. Nice to meet you. Have a good day.
Yes, ma'am.
[00:57:25] Speaker F: They're gonna be here between three and 315 with pizza.
[00:57:28] Speaker D: Oh, yeah.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: I'm gonna stand right here for.
[00:57:31] Speaker C: All right.
Nice.
[00:57:37] Speaker F: It's a working relationship.
It's not just us doing everything for them. They help us, too.
[00:57:43] Speaker B: That's wonderful.
[00:57:44] Speaker F: I've had a hit put out on me down here, right? And other people find out about it.
[00:57:49] Speaker E: And they're like, hey, man, no, you ain't doing it.
[00:57:52] Speaker F: So it's not just us doing things for them.
[00:57:58] Speaker B: It is beautiful. It's kind of a little micro community.
[00:58:01] Speaker F: Well, it is like two and a half.
[00:58:04] Speaker E: Yeah, that'd be good. You see? Fact, he done drunk enough in his cold water.
[00:58:12] Speaker C: Yeah, we were talking about that earlier.
[00:58:15] Speaker B: We were talking about the first night.
[00:58:17] Speaker C: It seemed insurmountable. Oh, no shit. Yeah.
[00:58:21] Speaker F: That's awesome. That's the guy in the white t shirt right there. He used to pull guns on us and all kinds of stuff. And now he asked me to get into a shelter, like, a month ago.
[00:58:29] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:58:29] Speaker F: Crazy.
[00:58:30] Speaker C: So it's really easy, if you know the body language, to determine who is part of that criminal element.
[00:58:37] Speaker A: But no one else has done that here.
[00:58:39] Speaker C: You see what I'm saying?
[00:58:40] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:58:40] Speaker B: I mean, you guys spend the time building these relationships. You know what's going on.
[00:58:44] Speaker C: People always want to, I think, take the homeless and put them all in one bath.
[00:58:46] Speaker F: You have to work down here. You have to understand, there are certain things you talk about, certain things you don't talk about. There are certain things you can ask about, certain things you can ask about. There are certain things you can say, certain things you can't say. And that's why not everybody could do this.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:58:58] Speaker F: You have to understand, we've had other people try to come down here and do this. It's just not their cup of tea.
[00:59:02] Speaker B: Well, people really oversimplify the problem. I mean, I think we all know that.
[00:59:06] Speaker E: Of course, that's the blind gentleman that we have.
[00:59:09] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:59:09] Speaker F: Hey, Taz, you want some water?
It's Spencer and Terry. How you doing, brother?
[00:59:16] Speaker E: You got to know him straight away, but he's blind.
[00:59:19] Speaker F: Doing okay? Hold on.
[00:59:22] Speaker C: Hello. Give me a couple of clucks.
Yeah, what do you need?
[00:59:32] Speaker E: How did I doing?
[00:59:33] Speaker C: I came out and then went back in for my eye.
They just kept me out. I.
[00:59:47] Speaker E: Got you. Is it anything that we can do for you today?
[00:59:50] Speaker F: No.
[00:59:50] Speaker E: Anything you need.
[00:59:53] Speaker C: I love crystal piping.
[01:00:03] Speaker F: I'm saying, what can we help you.
[01:00:04] Speaker E: With when you need something more clothes, stuff like that. Hygiene.
What can I help you with?
Some what? Some clothes.
[01:00:17] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:00:17] Speaker E: Yeah, I can get you some clothes.
Where are you going to be? You coming back to the pit? Do you want me to bring them to you?
[01:00:25] Speaker C: We got three pizzas showing up in, like, 15 minutes over here.
[01:00:28] Speaker E: Oh, okay.
[01:00:29] Speaker C: Yeah. You know my Keisha.
[01:00:33] Speaker E: Now, he don't know my Keisha, but we have three pieces that we're going to be giving out right here on the corner. So I can go to the resource center and grab you some clothes and then bring them down to you. Okay. What's your sizes?
[01:00:47] Speaker C: Medium.
[01:00:52] Speaker E: Medium. Okay, I got you. We got you. I can get you taken care of. Okay. Just be down here for me. Okay.
[01:00:59] Speaker C: All right.
[01:01:00] Speaker E: He needs some clothes, too, so I'm going to go get him some clothes. I'm going to go get him some clothes, too.
[01:01:05] Speaker C: When?
[01:01:05] Speaker F: On the way.
[01:01:06] Speaker E: On the way down here, man.
[01:01:08] Speaker F: Go get yourself some eat. There you go.
All right, Taz, we'll see you a little bit later.
[01:01:12] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:01:13] Speaker F: All right.
[01:01:13] Speaker C: I've actually arrested him twice.
[01:01:15] Speaker E: Taz.
[01:01:16] Speaker C: Yeah. His name's Tazfaye. Yeah, he's from Ethiopia.
[01:01:21] Speaker E: He wasn't blind when he first got down.
[01:01:22] Speaker C: No. At all.
[01:01:24] Speaker E: Yeah, he said he's totally losing all of it. Like his old site, man.
[01:01:28] Speaker F: Obviously all his clothes are inside out and backwards.
[01:01:31] Speaker C: Yeah. See that?
[01:01:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:33] Speaker C: Where are they?
[01:01:34] Speaker G: Well, they kind of do helping with houses and stuff like that. They moved up on 120 second. I live over there.
[01:01:38] Speaker C: 120 2nd.
[01:01:39] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:01:39] Speaker A: Cultivated initiative.
[01:01:41] Speaker C: I've heard of that.
[01:01:43] Speaker F: You're looking for them down here?
[01:01:44] Speaker G: Oh, no, I'm not looking for them down here. I just seen what you guys are doing.
[01:01:46] Speaker F: Oh, right on.
[01:01:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:01:47] Speaker G: Rob love.
[01:01:47] Speaker C: Alex Stone. Pleasure to meet you.
[01:01:49] Speaker F: Hi, I'm Chris Spencer.
[01:01:51] Speaker C: Oh, really? That's awesome.
[01:01:53] Speaker G: Help women, minorities, emergency procurement practices. But one thing that I was going to say about the initiative solutions is we came there and we live off 122nd, so they already gentrify a lot of stuff.
[01:02:05] Speaker C: Anybody's of color, of course.
[01:02:07] Speaker G: And just because we're people of color doesn't mean that we don't want the same thing that somebody in Lake El Sugo goes.
[01:02:11] Speaker C: Exactly.
[01:02:12] Speaker G: Tell what they're doing is the closest place to downtown is Lake El Sugo and West Lane and stuff. But there's no homeless people there.
[01:02:18] Speaker C: No.
[01:02:18] Speaker G: Do they skip next door, which is way closer to 126. How do they skip it? So when they came there, one of the things that we were like, okay, we want to help these solutions and stuff, but we also want to make sure that our neighborhood, like our kids go to our bus stop and they'll step on heroin needles.
[01:02:31] Speaker C: That's right.
[01:02:32] Speaker G: We grew up in the 90s, African Americans. We know there's a difference between a drug problem and a homeless problem.
[01:02:36] Speaker C: That's right.
[01:02:37] Speaker G: Because in the 90s, we couldn't even sit on the corner with our homies.
[01:02:39] Speaker F: And drink a 40.
[01:02:41] Speaker G: So with us, we were saying that, and then, I remember, went and talked to the lady, and she was like, well, unfortunately, these people can. Since we're here, they can live wherever they want to live. So our neighborhood went from this to that, and they got evicted from the neighborhood. So I was always saying with these programs is, you got to work hand in hand with the people that live there. You got to care about the people that live there as much as the.
[01:02:58] Speaker A: People that you're introduced to the area.
[01:03:00] Speaker G: And so that's one thing that I was just saying about this program. That's cool that I think you guys are doing. I see you guys walking around.
[01:03:05] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:03:05] Speaker G: And stuff, because it doesn't seem like you talked to somebody like, hey, I've lived in this historic building for 100 years. How can I work with you guys do this? And you're like, well, we can't do nothing about it. People can live wherever they want to live.
[01:03:14] Speaker C: So chrissy is the CEO of a woman owned business and does property management.
[01:03:19] Speaker F: Do you have a card?
[01:03:21] Speaker B: Not with me. I'm sorry. Bare bones right now.
[01:03:24] Speaker G: Rob Lowe, like the actor ohsu.edu. We're looking for women businesses for all of our business practices.
[01:03:31] Speaker B: I will remember that.
[01:03:32] Speaker G: I'm headed to amina right now to talk about how we spread that. So this is millions of dollars, and if somebody doesn't come claim it in the back, back in the day, somebody could be like, here's my cousin. So that's where nepotism was a huge.
[01:03:43] Speaker F: What's your email again?
[01:03:44] Speaker G: Lowrob
[email protected]. And this is women, emergent small businesses, minority owned businesses, veteran disabled.
[01:03:52] Speaker C: I had my cousin reach out. He's Mexican, and he owns community action PDX. And what they do is they help homeless people, kind of what we do, but they do it in large projects. Yeah.
[01:04:03] Speaker G: And so even with some of these people that are housing or whatnot, if they start a business, I remember there's a newspaper. I forgot what it's called. But stuff like that. Your woman and your homeless, what is it? Sexual assault against women is like 60% of homelessness. So we're really trying to get them to start their businesses. And that's one of the things why in our neighborhood, I'm like, if my neighborhood is 0% and you put a homeless bunch of homeless caps outside my house. What happens when my fiancee goes to the store, goes buy a bag of chips? She's automatically walking from 0% to 50%. Or our kids going to the bus stop? There was people camping at our bus stop. What happens when our kids step on a needle? We don't care about your cultivated solutions. If it doesn't help, if we're not.
[01:04:42] Speaker C: Doing something for everybody, it's community transformation.
[01:04:45] Speaker G: Community transformation. Right. It's letting them know, hey, this community wants you here and wants to help you, but you have to work hand in hand.
[01:04:51] Speaker C: You have to engage with us. All stakeholders for transformation. Exactly.
[01:04:56] Speaker G: And if in the 90s, my friends, if they tell them that they can't do something, then why can't we just create a space to where it's like, this is where resources are.
[01:05:03] Speaker F: This is where we can get our resources. Instead of working against the community, working with the community.
[01:05:06] Speaker G: So that's one thing that I want to.
[01:05:07] Speaker C: Yeah, man.
[01:05:08] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:05:09] Speaker C: I want some of that dynamite that you got.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[01:05:12] Speaker C: I love it, man. All right.
That was awesome. Hey, man, just walking around. See, this is what community engagement is about. Right.
[01:05:22] Speaker F: You can only do that if you're out here on the street.
[01:05:24] Speaker C: Exactly.
[01:05:24] Speaker B: Right.
Don't forget that.
[01:05:30] Speaker C: But what we really need more is just engagement.
[01:05:33] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:05:34] Speaker C: Engagement. Engagement. Engagement.
[01:05:35] Speaker B: What's so weird that, I mean, you guys are doing such a good job of this, but I can't believe that no one else has caught on and grabbed this ball.
[01:05:46] Speaker C: They're scared.
People that work in these buildings for all these nonprofits, they are scared to come to the tent.
[01:05:54] Speaker D: Well.
[01:05:57] Speaker B: Sorry.
[01:05:58] Speaker C: There's probably 40, 50 guns in this pit right here.
[01:06:01] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:06:02] Speaker C: All illegal. They no longer know how to be effective.
[01:06:04] Speaker B: There we go.
[01:06:06] Speaker C: Right.
[01:06:06] Speaker B: Their motivation.
[01:06:07] Speaker C: They're using a business model from, like, the 1950s.
[01:06:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they've lost their.
[01:06:11] Speaker A: We're a church with a shelter, and.
[01:06:14] Speaker C: You'Re like, okay, what are you doing about the cartels, the Armenians?
[01:06:22] Speaker B: How are you growing and adapting to address the needs of today?
[01:06:26] Speaker C: And so you got to be out in the street.
[01:06:28] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:06:29] Speaker C: You can't just be. In fact, we did this during civil rights movement. In the civil rights movement, we knew that if we owned the streets, that the people that were perpetrating evils would realize that and be too scared to continue to perpetrate evil. So when you own the street, through engagement, the criminal element, they leave.
They take the path of least resistance.
[01:06:52] Speaker B: Sure. They don't want to be bothered whether it's correct, it's helpful or not.
[01:06:58] Speaker C: You can't make money when you have all of us walking around with cameras.
[01:07:02] Speaker B: Right.
[01:07:03] Speaker A: And so even those two drug dealers.
[01:07:05] Speaker B: That we were talking to, they were out of here.
[01:07:10] Speaker C: So pizza already came and left. We already fed everybody.
I love that shield, bro.
Having a pizza party.
[01:07:20] Speaker B: That's what's up.
[01:07:28] Speaker C: This is kind of weird to say this, but these people live in a community.
[01:07:35] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:07:36] Speaker C: They're protecting each other, care of each other. Someone perpetrates, they kick them out. They're ostracized. So why would anyone here leave and go to a shelter?
You see what I'm saying?
[01:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:52] Speaker C: Other than the fact that they want to get off of drugs and change their life, and they no longer want to be homeless. So you have to build that vision in someone.
It says that people forget the mission and vision and values of their culture. Every 21 days. Every 21 days, we have to reignite the flame of vision in our employees, our staff members, our friends, even within ourselves, we get lost. Right?
[01:08:18] Speaker D: Sure.
[01:08:19] Speaker C: And so people here, we have to contact them every day to keep the idea of hope alive, of the ability. Hey, you don't have to live here. We can get you out. We can get you into a tiny home. We can get you into a shelter.
And if someone's not here casting that dream and giving them hope, then maybe it just becomes a community of hopelessness. But again, it's a process.
[01:08:42] Speaker B: But it also just demonstrates that just continue contact.
It's not a storybook situation, not made.
[01:08:54] Speaker F: For TV, and there are some that are. We've had lots of situations where it has turned out really, really well. There's so many. And if we had the right resources in this city, we'd have a lot more success stories. But unfortunately, we don't have enough mental health beds. We don't have enough drug treatment beds. We don't have those things, and they're not ready available. If I talk to somebody and they're in crisis, I can't say, well, I guess they can get you in two weeks. It doesn't work like that. They have to go now. And that's why we contact people every day. We might contact somebody 99 times, and they go, you know what? I'm good. And then the 100 time, they're like, I need to get off the streets, Vince. We want to be able to take them and get them off the streets. And when I was working security, I would call each individual shelter. I'd be on the phone for 2 hours just to be told no. And I'm like, you know what? I'm bypassing all this. I'm going to start building relationships with those individual places because when they're in crisis, they need help. Now they don't need help. Two weeks from now, they don't want.
[01:09:51] Speaker C: To be number four.
[01:09:52] Speaker F: Even the next day. I've had people like, hey, meet me here the next. Tomorrow, I'm going to take you. You never find them. You never see them again because they use, they use.
[01:10:01] Speaker C: They get high or they have an abusive boyfriend, girlfriend.
[01:10:05] Speaker E: Even a bad night, they pull them.
[01:10:06] Speaker C: Back down into something.
[01:10:10] Speaker F: Yesterday, we were going to get into a tiny home. She was all excited. She's like, I got to go pat my stuff. And I couldn't find her. She never came back. And so I finally went and drove and drove, drove and drove and drove and finally found her. And her boyfriend didn't want her to go, but she finally was like, you know what? I'm going to go. So I took her.
[01:10:25] Speaker C: Oh, good job.
[01:10:25] Speaker F: Yeah, so I took her.
[01:10:26] Speaker D: Wow.
[01:10:26] Speaker B: Nice work.
[01:10:29] Speaker F: You got to be persistent. If you're not persistent, you're not going to survive out here.
[01:10:32] Speaker E: And that's just another thing, too. A lot of them need the extra push. Like, that little extra push goes a long way with them when they see someone, like, motivating and just pushing to get them in or just to do better. Some take good effect and they capitalize off the mistakes.
[01:10:46] Speaker C: That's right. You can't get in the field with them. You can be a cheerleader most. Absolutely.
Cool. All right. I love you, bro.
[01:10:54] Speaker F: Love you, too, man. You're the man.
[01:10:56] Speaker C: Good to see you, Christy.
[01:10:58] Speaker F: Great to see you again, obviously. You're welcome.
[01:11:02] Speaker B: Nice to meet you. Or see you again.
[01:11:05] Speaker C: Yeah. All right, man. Good talk. You ready to roll?
[01:11:09] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:11:10] Speaker B: Let's.
[01:11:24] Speaker C: Hear. Right?
[01:11:25] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:11:28] Speaker C: That's beautiful. So, again, tell me, why so unique about it?
[01:11:34] Speaker B: Well, it's a living building. One of the few office buildings in the world that is a living building.
The toilets in this building actually turn in, are composted. The items from the toilets are composted in the basement of this building, and.
[01:11:52] Speaker C: Then it's repurposed as, like, soil.
[01:11:54] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:11:55] Speaker B: So the urine from the toilets is actually turned into fertilizer taken off site and used in farms.
[01:12:01] Speaker C: That's incredible. Okay.
[01:12:03] Speaker B: It's got its own cistern, and there are plants that are on the planter boxes in this building that are also.
[01:12:13] Speaker C: So there's a water cistern. Is that because the water is being recycled?
[01:12:17] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:12:18] Speaker C: I'm assuming there's also solar panels.
[01:12:20] Speaker B: There are solar panels all over the roof.
[01:12:22] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:12:22] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:12:23] Speaker B: This building will eventually be a net zero building.
It produces its own energy.
[01:12:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:12:33] Speaker B: And essentially it's a living building on the edge of old town.
[01:12:41] Speaker C: And so we were just here a couple of weeks ago with Jason. No. Who was an owner of SD Plex, a tech from out of Korea, and PK Gupta, a tech from here out of Beaverton, Oregon.
[01:12:55] Speaker A: They're our partners. They're our tech partners and our tech side.
[01:12:59] Speaker C: And so we're running analytics on this property and we tested the analytics right here at this location.
[01:13:04] Speaker B: Oh, excellent.
[01:13:05] Speaker C: And we basically stood in there and pretended like we were doing something to the door, and the guard showed up in a minute and 47 seconds.
[01:13:14] Speaker B: That's incredible.
[01:13:15] Speaker A: I know.
[01:13:15] Speaker C: Yeah. We hadn't seen him, so we didn't even know where he was. He was just out. He happened to be.
There was someone trespassing over here at a parking lot by the police blocks. And so he just happened to be right there. And he actually was able to tell her, hey, hold on, be right back. Because she was gathering her stuff, came over here, checked in on us, said, okay, what are you all doing? We're testing the facility of the site.
[01:13:40] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:13:40] Speaker C: And then he just jumped back over.
[01:13:41] Speaker A: There and handled the situation.
[01:13:42] Speaker C: So very seamless. Very seamless.
[01:13:45] Speaker B: Love it.
[01:13:46] Speaker C: We just came from a more highly dense residential area to a less dense residential area.
[01:13:53] Speaker B: Sure.
[01:13:53] Speaker C: And there's less people on the streets.
[01:13:55] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:13:56] Speaker C: Less eyes during the daytime, which means the likelihood that someone's car will get broken into is greater, unfortunately. But this is why the district model is so important.
[01:14:05] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:14:05] Speaker C: Because as we're walking around, we're engaging with folks and they're seeing us, we're.
[01:14:11] Speaker A: Contacting them, even if they're suspicious.
[01:14:13] Speaker C: Right. Yeah, we'll still contact them. What a great building.
[01:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely gorgeous.
It's pretty exciting to have that here. And I feel like that's where we've got a situation, where we've got the future is here.
[01:14:31] Speaker C: Yes.
But we're still living in the past.
[01:14:33] Speaker B: On the street, living in the past right over there.
[01:14:36] Speaker C: And for some reason, people can be so innovative when it comes to buildings, but when it comes to security or handling homelessness, it's like we're out of ideas. We're just going to throw our hands dust. We don't know.
[01:14:49] Speaker B: Well, you guys aren't.
[01:14:50] Speaker C: We don't. But I think. I hate always saying the city or the government, but people that have the majority of the control over society just don't have an idea. They don't know what they're doing.
[01:15:01] Speaker B: Key is you guys are on the streets like we just saw. You guys are on the streets. You're engaging, and that's why you know what's happening and know the solutions to that. Whereas a lot of other private, public, political situations, they're not here.
Maybe they're in their office, maybe.
But even then, they need to be out here on the street and engaging to understand what is actually happening.
[01:15:32] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, I'm so glad that you came and did the ride along.
[01:15:36] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[01:15:37] Speaker C: You're one of my favorite people. I think that you know that.
[01:15:39] Speaker B: I love you.
[01:15:40] Speaker C: You're so sweet. Thanks.
[01:15:42] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:15:42] Speaker C: Christy Carver, interurban real estate.
Check her out online.
Fantastic company. If I was in the property management industry, I would want to work for you.
[01:15:54] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:15:55] Speaker C: And I say that knowing a lot of people in this industry.
[01:15:57] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:15:57] Speaker B: Well, vice versa.
[01:15:58] Speaker C: Especially if I was a woman looking for a mentor, looking for another woman in the industry that's a mover and shaker, and that's serious. That's getting things done. I would look to you as someone that I would want to be. And even as a man, I'd look.
[01:16:10] Speaker A: To you as someone I want to be.
[01:16:11] Speaker D: Right.
[01:16:11] Speaker C: But specifically, women who might feel that they don't have the opportunity that men do in this industry. I'm so glad that you're doing what you're doing.
[01:16:19] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.
[01:16:20] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:16:21] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
[01:16:22] Speaker C: Yeah, totally.
[01:16:22] Speaker B: Breaking down barriers on all sides.
[01:16:23] Speaker C: Let's go back and hit the road.
[01:16:25] Speaker D: Okay. Let's go.
