Episode Transcript
[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 guest 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.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Hi, my name is John Hollister. I currently live in the Pearl district. I am retired from a great career in a number of different fields. I'm really looking forward to going out with Alan. Alex on the ride along, seeing how they handle the situation on the street, and see if we can help some people. Looking forward to it.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: All right, Alex Stone here with John Ollister. Just left the office.
We're patrolling. Right? Doing the ride along.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm excited.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: It's good times.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: See if we can change people's lives.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: That's right. That's what it's about. So we're headed over to echelon hq. We're going to pick up Boca. Okay. Love walks. Great. Right? And, uh, hopefully we can find some folks. Right? I mean, definitely a lot of people in need.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Yeah, they're, uh.
I think they're around.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: So, John, back at the office, you discussed kind of some of the street work that you've engaged in before. Yeah, kind of. You know, do me. Give me an opener. If I was on the street, how would you contact me?
[00:01:46] Speaker B: The, uh, you know, it's the, uh.
I close. Tents closed. I let them know I kind of, like, knock on the top of their. Their tent. Or even before I do that, I just go, hello? Hello, welfare check this. John Hollis. You're just here to make sure.
See what you need.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. Yeah.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: And, you know, open it up like that. And normally I won't hear anything. And I say, hey, listen, you know, it's fine. You're probably not here, or you don't want to answer right now. I'll come back. I'm gonna come back tomorrow, and then I'll even say, hey, listen, there's a couple pieces of trash out here that look like it's probably just trash. Are you okay if I pick those up? And by that. By the time I do that, I finally get. I get some hits, and they. And then they're willing to start talking, but if not, that's the same routine. I would do that the next time, next two times. And when they tell me to f. Off, I say, hey, man, I totally understand see you tomorrow.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: My favorite thing is to get someone to tell their story.
What's your lead in for that?
[00:02:53] Speaker B: The, um. It's my lead into that is always. Let me ask you a question.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: And are you living your dream?
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Are you living your dream? That's good.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: And they never say no. I go, well, yeah, tell me about you.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: You mean they never say yes?
[00:03:10] Speaker B: They never say, yeah, they never say yes. That's the. Always the opening for me. And I go, hey, man, tell me more.
And then maybe what I'll do is I'll share some of my trauma with Alpha, and sometimes I share with them my history with aa and na.
So it's the.
And I just love talking to people.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: It's awesome. So you're really opening up to them.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Yes, I'll open up to them. It's the.
I got nothing to lose.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah, nothing to lose, man. Only. Only something to gain.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: It's good.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: How many different patrol officers do you have that's in the Portland metro area?
[00:03:54] Speaker A: About 100.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we have about 100 strong here in the Portland area.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: I remember when I first interviewed you four years ago, you had six.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: And so how have you been able to grow so fast? When I'm hearing so many of the different companies are having such problems getting.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: People recruitment is, you know, that's a great question. Right. If it, you know, I always think, like, who would I want to work for? And then we base our recruitment off of that model. And I want to work somewhere where I feel like I make a difference. And the majority of the security industry is not really delivering any results.
So what we find is a lot of people in the security industry are burnt out because they feel like they're just not doing anything right.
And then, you know, you always have people in the industry that are either coming from law enforcement, trying to get into law enforcement, and so we cater to them as well. You know, our training standards are very high. We do a lot of scenario training, and we offer real work. Work that if you go to a PD and you're like, this is what I did for three years, and you did direct services as a security guard. Right. On the streets, that's pretty impressive versus saying, I watched monitors.
Right?
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And I want to check with something that you said a while back and make sure I heard it right is only 25% of your people come from a police background.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: So. Buck.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: Hey, hey, hey.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Bach.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: That's right. We don't. We appreciate law enforcement. I'm from law enforcement. The other owner's from law enforcement. We support law enforcement when they do everything right. You know, ethically, morally, illegally. Right. But we're not trying to be law enforcement. So we're very cautious about letting the law enforcement culture change our culture. We want to have a unique, separate corporate culture as a company. And so we limit. We. We tried to limit how many people we have from law enforcement in our ranks. We keep that to a certain number. Yeah.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah. To that point, I met one of the. I met one of your guards and I'm trying to remember his name and I can't. He loved working at Echelon. He was. He was from law enforcement.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: But he said, you know what?
I'm learning new language and new engagement strategies and that it's the. And he says, it just feels so much nicer. I don't feel like I'm creating an adversarial relationship with people. I'm actually. It feels like I'm caring more about the individual and how I can help them rather than just, you know, be a police officer.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: And not that being a police officer is. No, you know, there's only. It's only not one dimensional. It is multidimensional.
But unfortunately, we get stuck. When you're running code and you're going call to call, you're basically just stuck in that mindset. Go, go, go. It becomes very difficult to be a member of the community while you're serving the community.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Well, and so much of your work and when I talk to police officers and why they have told me they love echelon is if they never get another call for a mental health illness situation, they would love it. So they love you doing all that work.
So that is so good. Whether it's actually a lower person or someone like Bach, they're all doing the same stuff, which is what the police don't want to be doing.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Yeah. They need to be out there doing their job and we try to facilitate and do work on our end to make their job easier.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Or for them not to have to do certain jobs at all.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: That's ideal. That would be ideal.
Well, sure. You don't come out of retirement.
Yeah.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Talk to my wife.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
Buck. Sup, bro? Busy day.
Awesome.
18th style. Just leave the door open.
Ninja roll out.
I love it. Alright, so we got Bach Bakasaurus in the back and we're rolling to a property that we've, you know, obviously I've had a lot of contact at.
And, you know, the folks at home, y'all been there with us, a lot of high traffic stuff going on, a lot of drug trafficking, wholesale. Right.
And we're approaching. We've been working with the property owner, and literally just a week ago, there were anywhere from 20 to, what, 50.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: People, maybe buck, depending on the time of day.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: There was a lot of time of day. Just an open fentanyl market. People passing out, overdosing, fed multiple overdoses on both sides of the street right here. And so they've kind of taken into account what we've asked them to do, and we're going to make an assessment as to where we are with the security situation here. And, John, you're gonna help us do that.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Great.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: All right. So just jumping out.
Oh, you know. Well, okay, cool. So we just jumped out, obviously, as we described in the van, this is a site that really was an open fentanyl market for. For a while. We don't mention owners names, ownership groups, and locations. But again, 40 to 50 people at a time using, selling, openly selling.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: Don't forget your cash, Donny.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Sorry.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: And so.
And he just dropped some money out of the floor. That's why he said that. And this is a place where, you know, we told the owners, we made some suggestions, and one of them was, you know, they had just put millions of dollars into renovating this site, and they wanted to make sure that it was safe, that the windows would be safe, that we could at least reduce some of the graffiti. And I had to explain to them, you know, when you put a fence around a property, you're essentially telling that the public, this is abandoned.
Right. We don't have security. We can't protect ourselves.
No one cares about this property. Right. There's no one here that cares. That's what you're communicating with. A sign. And not only that, but you're actually stopping someone from touching the side of the building, which is actually what you don't want. You know, you don't want to create a space where someone can lean against an object that isn't your building, because you're actually just creating a lounge. It's essentially in an urban downtown area you're putting a lounge in. Right. And you don't want to do that. Right. You want to communicate to people that, hey, this is our building, we care. We're here. People are watching the building. We want people to be here. We want to interact with the community. We're engaging the community. A fence communicates lack of engagement. Right. And so just removing that fence has cleared about 80% to 90% of that drug activity.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: At least today.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: At least today, right? And so that's really fantastic.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: So why don't we check needles in there, my man? I just saw them, so watch your hands.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
It's all good with me, bro. I don't mind if you do that. But, I mean, I'm just saying, I was. He literally opened it up, and I'm looking at needles. I don't want you getting stuck. Okay?
[00:11:09] Speaker A: So why don't you give us your assessment?
[00:11:12] Speaker C: Cool. It's clean. Cleaner than what it was before. Donnie, be careful. There's needles in there, buddy. There's a needle down by your foot.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Little fall a buck a little bit. Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is an example of a. Of a trash can that's. That does not have the inside can.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: So this. This one. This is one that needs to be reported to the trash gods to. They need to have a replacement cannon.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: Often they're caught on fire or deliberately lit on fire.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: Donnie, you doing all right, my man?
Do you need anything? Donnie?
Donnie, do you need anything? What do you need, buddy?
Donnie, I can't give you that.
You know where you can get food, right, buddy?
Huh? Okay.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: All right. All right.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: So you known him for a while? Is that mental illness? Is that drug?
[00:12:26] Speaker C: No, it's methamphetamine.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:12:28] Speaker C: Hi.
It's a combination of mental illness and method.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:32] Speaker C: He.
It's really sad because he's in that state frequently.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Is he ever in a more calmer state where you can talk to him?
[00:12:41] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: They did a great job remodeling here.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Very pretty.
Howdy.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: How are you doing?
Doing good. I work for the property here. You guys doing okay?
[00:12:56] Speaker A: That's an awesome chair, man. Love that chair.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Oh, no, you're fine, man.
[00:13:06] Speaker C: Awesome. I'd offer you a cigarette, but it looks like you've got one.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: How was she doing? It's. I mean, does she have a place where she can stay inside?
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Oh, good. Do you stay with her?
[00:13:20] Speaker A: No.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: I'm mostly inside.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Uh huh.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: I'm usually inside.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Out of curiosity, is it to one of the shelters?
[00:13:31] Speaker C: No.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Okay, well, my name is Alex, man. Nice to meet you. I used to smoke newports. Cools in a box in newports.
Cool.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: All right, well, we'll come back around in a bit.
That's where the drug dealers have been posted up.
[00:13:47] Speaker C: Yeah, historically, right there around the corner where he was.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: I think that he's working for the kind of heavy set blonde chick that had $250 glasses.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Where the property owner came by. She goes, gosh, the homeless people. I'm like, hey. I was like, hey, owner.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: They're not.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: That person's not homeless. She's. She has $250 ray bans on. She has a Fendi purse. She's probably selling five to a $1,000 worth of drugs a day. And so that person, that's where she was posted up. And so that person, she's probably out doing whatever she's doing, and that person works for her. And that person's watching her stuff. Yeah.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: That's what's great. Wow.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: And so they realized, hey, there's a lot of activity. They're changing things around here. The fence is gone. They're gonna open up. Business is coming back. Right. So whoever owns the block, they put one person there to sell rather than three or four.
Right. And they're probably telling people when they use, hey, I'm going to sell to you on this block. Don't stay here and use.
They don't want to draw attention to themselves.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: That makes sense. So you're changing the culture and dynamic, then that forces them to change their business model.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Is this your lot, too?
[00:14:54] Speaker A: This is all of our lot. Yeah. All of us.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: So we'll just walk. We'll just walk around. Yeah, sounds good. Camera guy. All right. Love it.
Yeah. Looks a lot better. Even this side would. We each had dozens of people here.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: So this is. This is the property. What's the property? That they had all the 50 cops come into.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: So right there.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Right there.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: That little luggage.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Yes, that's our building.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: We've cleared that beyond it, where the plywood is.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Okay. Got it.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: Yeah. They've actually entered into the. See where that green Osh is? They went in. In that direction.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Rock and I have cleared that so many times. When we first got that building, there were. There was a heroin den in there with multiple beds that people were running commercially, sexualized, exploited persons were engaged in activities in that building.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: It's gross. I mean.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Bad.
[00:15:53] Speaker C: Now, I haven't been in the months, but I. But nobody's been in there to clean it ever since.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Ever since we got the fence removed.
Because it had a fence around it.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: And the boards have been put up. No, no problem. Right. So, again, it's about changing the culture and changing the look of ownership.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Right. That's how you're gonna change the street culture. The drug dealer is gonna look at it differently now.
Right.
I mean, just walking around feels much better. Right.
[00:16:21] Speaker C: It's different down here. Right now.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: So is it too dangerous for the guys to go in that place where it's a.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: It's more of a health hazard.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a health hazard now.
[00:16:29] Speaker C: Like, there's mold. There are spores of mold and fungi growing that are, like, as big as your shoes.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah. It's really gonna be scheduled to be knocked down.
They're gonna tear it down.
And there was. They had one last client in there at the very bottom.
And it was a.
It was a carrier sometimes carrier company, intel or, I mean, mobile. Mobile carrier. Well, I don't think it's the name, but it was. There was a large level of infrastructure in that building that was required until they could build it and recreate that somewhere else. Got it.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: Got it.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: And so that client is finally out. That tenant's finally out.
So this is a problem. For some reason, the urine, for some reason, someone wants to be there, probably because of lack of lighting there, probably because it's not good lighting right there at night.
We have a cleaning company that's going to be coming here at power washing in the morning as well, just to show activity. That'll help on that pee, just to show some engagement.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: What?
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Oh, t shirt. T shirt, bro, did we bring any clothes with us?
[00:17:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I've got some.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Okay, we'll go. We'll go check the van and come back.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: I just took a huge hit. Yeah, yeah. What the hell is that?
[00:17:57] Speaker C: Hey, my man, you can't smoke here. Okay, buddy?
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we all just inhale that.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Home that is, man. Okay. Yeah. No, no fentanyl on the property, please.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: What is it?
[00:18:10] Speaker C: It's fentanyl.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: We just inhaled fentanyl.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: I just. Just took a big breath of it.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: Yeah, me too.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: It's got a very, very strong.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: You see the tattoo above his left eye? That's a star. It looks like the Houston Astro star. So there's a. There's a gang and in Texas called Dango blast or Hugh Stone, because in. In Texas, the prisons are based upon units and units are based upon location. So you have the Houston unit, Taskita, etcetera. Right. Bastrop unit.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: You doing all right, my man?
Good.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Have a good day. So he's a member of Houston. Right, which is Dango Blast, which is the largest prison gang actually now in Texas.
[00:18:48] Speaker C: He's smoking right now.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: He's right next to the guy that's carrying it. What's that? He just passed the guard there that's carrying. That's the same guy?
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Yeah, different guard.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Let's go get him a shirt.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Donnie, you want a shirt?
Come on, buddy.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: So inter dispersed amongst every population is going to be criminals, right? You're going to have people that are working for nonprofits, people that are lawyers. You're gonna have different professions, different types of people. And so we just ran into a legit, a legit gang guy. Legit dude did time, got down with the prison gang, and so much so that he tattooed their. Their gang symbol, right? Houston Astro symbol on his left eye. So, you know, most people on the street, that's not who they are. When I was homeless, you know, you're just running into people that just need help, usually, so.
God, that tasted horrible.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: It was terrible.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Everyone feeling okay?
[00:20:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Gosh.
I'm gonna unlock it for you.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: I might grab my water, though.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
You feeling okay, Buck?
Yeah, I'm feeling a little lightheaded, to be honest.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: It's gross, man.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Not gonna lie.
[00:20:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
Donnie, my man.
It's the best I got.
I hope you're a fan of South Ridge wrestling, as you are now.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: All right.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: Shove your money in your pocket, my Mandez.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: Got it.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Have a good day, Donnie.
All right, well, I think we wrap it up, guys. We've looked at the property again. We always want to do post assessments for the folks that are watching. We want you to see what we're dealing with. And this is a transformation we're engaging in every day, not just with people, but with property. Right. You transform the individual, then you transform the community. And this is part of that. Right. Coming back and making sure that what we're telling the owners to do, that it's happening and that we're seeing success, we're getting traction when it comes to getting people off the streets into services and making properties beautiful again.
[00:21:24] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: John, thoughts?
[00:21:27] Speaker B: What about these guys over here?
[00:21:30] Speaker A: Well, so. Good question.
[00:21:35] Speaker C: Wolfly, engaging of narcotics?
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep.
[00:21:38] Speaker C: That's how I would describe it.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: And so you don't want to dust, like, the closest 24 hours market in the area as a drug, as someone who's going to engage in criminal activity or drugs, you don't want to piss off that place because that's the only place you're going to be able to go and get your food and your. Whatever you're getting. Right.
And so typically, they don't want to hang out over there, but it does look like people are posted up selling some dope. And so buck and I have. We got other things going on that we can't talk about, but there are things you could do about places like that. That isn't our block. None of those people are our clients. Yeah, we have clients all around us, but that building actually is not a client. So at this point, I'm not going to worry about that.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, from legal issues, you can't do. You can't, you know, I think no.
[00:22:30] Speaker C: No reason or no ability from the property management to engage in them, I can do it as a private citizen. Hey, buddy, I'm concerned about you, but in terms of making any action, it's not. So in a case like that, you can offer resources, you can go say hello, you can offer food, water, whatever, but that's it.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that'd be a great place for load up to, you know, interact.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: In fact.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: But I think Pete should become a client.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah. We were here last week, and we got a couple people into shelters and a hospital, and this is where we actually ended up parking with. There are a couple cops over here. We had a transport vehicle and ourselves. And so, yeah, we do engage off property, but that's not enough for us to be concerned about. See how everyone left, right. Just having him here. You know, we had. We saw the security guy walk by earlier, but no one's hanging out.
You can't just walk around and just keep walking. You gotta. You gotta own space. You gotta stand out in the block, t off like you would if you're a gang member and be like, hey, this is my block. Like, I'm own this shit. And you tee off and you look at people and you look down your. You look down your alleys, your corridors, and people that are looking at this place to sell dope, they're gonna see me with him standing here, and they'll be like, hey, someone, don't go there. We don't know who that guy is. Yeah, he's looking and talking like a gangster from afar, but he's with the security guard, so what's the chance?
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Our little buddy there now who is under the thing is using.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's how you. If you're gonna smoke, that's how you should smoke. So people like us don't in Helfentan, which is what just happened.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:11] Speaker C: Encapsulating all of the fumes so you get more of it.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: So.
All right, let's roll, man. This site's secure. Let's go.
So we're just clearing this property. I'm really happy about this. We're going to continue success here because we're going to. They're implementing our programming, and so I'm really happy about that. We gotta check other places. This is only one block in a city of, what, almost a million people. So let's keep rolling. Yeah.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: I'm very impressed.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Oh, thanks, man.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: Can we roll up the windows or roll them down?
[00:24:50] Speaker B: I mean.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I just wanna keep some air flowing is all. It's a.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Sorry, man.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: That was. No, it's not your fault. It's just me taking both nostrils of that dude's Tudor.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: I mean, it knocked me about, knocked me over.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: I was like, whoa. Yeah, that was rough.
[00:25:13] Speaker C: It was rough.
I'm not. Yeah, I don't. I don't even know.
You know, as a kid, you drink a. You drink a beer thinking it's cool, and then you spit it out because you think it's awful. And.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Oh, or you chug another one.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: And you're like, I guess this is what being an adult means.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: I'm seeing some people on the street, but it's nothing like what I've seen down here, say, three months ago. Yeah. What do you find in, with your properties in general?
[00:25:47] Speaker A: I mean, overall, we have seen, well, number one, it's the dog days of summer. So we're at the. We were at the highest, highest peak of our homelessness rate about probably three weeks ago. Right. And so right now is when you start seeing those numbers decline, the homeless population pretty much doubles. Right.
During the summertime, people from other locations that can't really make it like, you know, like Minnesota.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Or really cold places, they come to the west coast and they hit up cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, because they're easier to survive in. Road flows ahead. Right.
And so what you're gonna start seeing.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Is.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: That people are gonna, you know, we're gonna start losing population. People are gonna. During the winter when it becomes a little bit harder. Right. People are gonna start going back towards the south, going back to New Mexico, Texas, areas like that. So you are gonna see dwindling numbers.
That's part of it. I think overall, though, what you're also seeing is just a lot of the programming that we have in place on our buildings.
Even for a small organization, if you're transitioning 150 to 200 people a month off the streets into some type of better environment, and you do that for a year, you're talking almost 13, 1400 people.
Right. And if you have a good success rate, let's say you say a 50% success rate, that's 700 people that are no longer going to be homeless. The people we choose to partner with. And the places that we choose to place people at typically have anywhere from a 70% to 85% success rate of keeping people off the streets, keeping them clean, sober, and in a livable situation, like with family.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: You said something there that's interesting, is what I hear and what I read about is so many of these nonprofits that are helping the homeless are so siloed and don't talk to each other.
What I've been hearing about your model, what I'm hearing, maybe I didn't hear right, is it seems like that's the opposite of the way that you guys work as far as, you know, inclusive with other nonprofits. How does that work, and how do the other nonprofits respond to that?
[00:28:06] Speaker A: You know, that's a really good question. And I'm not trying to say that, oh, these people are doing a horrible job.
Oh, these people are great. They're the best. I mean, the reality is, five to six years ago, people could have ran Siloed programs. Right. Five to ten years ago, we didn't need this level of effort on the street in order to manage this. But this has become a true humanitarian crisis to the point where people can no longer remain to be siloed. Unfortunately, those programs and those entities that are siloed, that's the way they've always been. It's part of their culture. It's in their DNA. They've always ran that way. And so we've come along as a new organization, and we're just organizing ourselves according to the need of the street.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: And the need of the street requires you to be not siloed.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Well, then, really, you're not changing your culture. You are just starting with a different culture.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: So we're not in competition with other people. We're not creating. We're not attempting to create something that's in competition. We actually want to use all those programs that are siloed. We just want to be a communicative function within those existing entities, nonprofits, programs, whether it's a city program, county program, whether it's a religious based program. We just want to help people get off the streets and get into the program that suits their needs best.
So, again, we're still patrolling. We just ran into some other guys. They were patrolling out of the location. It was very active. We didn't want to stop.
You know, they had everything under control, and it was more about talking to people, and they had some stuff they needed to do. What we're not what we're about to do is we're about to go to a park, and this park in particular, we have a lot of nonprofit dispatches here for loving one another, which you're familiar with. This is your hood, actually.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah, we're in your hood. So I figured, let's go check this park out. I actually haven't been there in about a month. Month.
So.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Well, I'm looking right up and down.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: Tent.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: When we pass by it, it looks. There used to be a lot of tent activity there, and I didn't see one.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: No, no. So in the studio, you were talking about how you purposely chose this neighborhood to live in.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: Yes, yes. I mean, it was famous.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Still is.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: And, you know, and we.
We basically made a decision in February to. We're both bored, and we were in our new place in May, and so it was really fast. We were both on the. Deb and I were on the same page, and we loved it, and we still love it, and that's why I'm fighting hard for our community.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Good for you, man. It's awesome.
I'm proud to be fighting alongside you.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's great.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: So, again, we're about to pull up and park at this location. This location is, again, very close to a retail location that we drove by, where my guards were at. And so it's a lot of high traffic.
Drug dealers like, traffic, like anything. Location, location, location. This is business. Right? Trying to sell drugs. Higher foot traffic, the more likely you are to sell more drugs. And so retail locations are great for this, especially corner stores. Right. And this is strategically diagonal, essentially, from that corner store where we have high levels of activity. So it makes sense that people are going to get their drugs. They're going to exchange bottles, cans. That's going to allow them to purchase drugs from the drug dealer that owns that block. And then where are they going to go to use park? The park. Right. So this isn't rocket science.
This is just common sense, typical human behavior.
So, again, we got. Someone crashed out and saw that.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Let's go check on it, make sure they're not overdosing. Is that Amy right in front of us?
[00:32:21] Speaker B: I.
[00:32:22] Speaker C: That might be Amy.
Hi, Amyde. How you doing?
Doing okay.
If you need a cigarette, man, I'll get you one.
How are things going?
[00:32:42] Speaker A: So, in a typical fashion, we're out with Bach. And he knows everybody, just like all of our guards know everybody. And he recognized this lady, knew her name, said hi, she asked for a cigarette. We always have cigarettes.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: Good to see you again. Hope you're doing okay.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Great icebreaker. Great communications star. Right. It gives you that seven minute window during that smoking of the cigarette to start that conversation. Check up with people, ask them how they're doing.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: All right.
[00:33:06] Speaker C: You're welcome. Have a wonderful day.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Are you still trying to get off the streets? Stuff like that. That's cool.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: Where's she on the wanting help, leader.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Hard life?
[00:33:18] Speaker C: Yeah, she just doesn't. It's not. She's nothing. She's not ready yet.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Yeah. People need to know her for a long time. Years, I'm sure.
[00:33:29] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. Years. Known her for at least three and a half years.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:35] Speaker C: I see her all over the place.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: And it's in various stages of intoxication.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Uh huh.
[00:33:42] Speaker C: Some of it's really bad to watch. Really hard to watch. She's, you know, literally digging in the. I don't know what for, but you won't be able to get her to stop when she starts. It's pretty. It's pretty rough.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: And more likely not. She's here because this is one of the safest places you can be.
[00:33:58] Speaker C: It's a relaxing place, especially during the day.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: So cool. She's not ready for anything.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: I don't think so.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: So the person's in a cinema position. Right.
They fell asleep on their side, so that's always a good indicator.
[00:34:18] Speaker C: Sleeping.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Sleeping.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:20] Speaker C: Position of comfort, breathing air. Okay.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Okay, cool. Yeah. Nice.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: So, John, what are your thoughts? We're walking in your neighborhood and when your neighborhood parks. What are you thinking right now?
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Well, let me look around here because so the. This is an interesting location right here in front of pearl court. And the lot of is the section eight place.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So you got some lower income housing mixed in with market rate housing.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Yep. Right.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: Which is a great model.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: And it's a. It's a great location for. This is a great location for them to come out and enjoy this beautiful park.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: And back to your traffic thing. But it's also where you see the intermingling of the people that are trying to pick on these vulnerable people.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's what we're looking for.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: We're. We're looking for wolves. We're looking for folks that. Criminals that are trying to do their. Their deeds.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: And if we can help someone along the way. Perfect.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Awesome. Patti.
[00:35:24] Speaker C: Howdy, everybody.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: Thank you for doing whatever you're doing. Right. Yeah.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Again, you know, we can talk to people all day long and you're always going to get the same. Same answers. It's a sense of general frustration that the captain's not at the wheel. You know, nothing's directionally correct.
People want to either know if we're making progress or not in every place in their life. Right. And people just have this general sense that at least here in Portland, are we making progress. We're not making progress.
You know? And if not, why? And no one seems to have those answers. Right.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think what you are making a difference, and the reason we're partnering with you is you're making a difference in our small community here.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: And, you know, I look at this as something that with our continued fundraising, that we'll be able to expand the efforts and go into other neighborhoods and be able to. A lot of people are seeing what we're doing and want to be involved.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: It's awesome, isn't it? They are. Yeah. I love it.
Patrolling in this park is a pleasure.
[00:36:34] Speaker C: It's not really all that hard.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: It's like patrolling paradise, man. It's like, hey, Honolulu PD. Yeah, sign me up.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: Honolulu PD.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: You know, like. Sure.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And this will be.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Have you on surf patrol?
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah. On a weekend. There'll be 30 kids here.
[00:36:48] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Playing all. Yeah, all the time. Dogs. Everyone playing, everyone happy.
Oh, are those on timers? The waterfall.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It actually, on the other side, there is an underneath village where they have unbelievable elaborate filter system.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: It's half the length of that and it's probably 20ft down.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
I thought that was a. A bag. A rolling suitcase.
[00:37:22] Speaker C: Would you like a cigarette?
Okay.
What are you doing down there?
[00:37:31] Speaker A: Okay.
I love walk.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: He's.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: He's so caring.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: You know, all of our guards are really. I mean, we just. We try to hire.
Makes it a little bit more difficult, but you get the right people, man, you can handle 20 problems really well versus having someone else who can only do ten.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:52] Speaker C: I've never met your husband before, but you and I have talked a lot.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: So.
[00:37:58] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: When I pull back away.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Well, if you're ready to. If you change your mind, let me know. We see each other all the time, so hit me up. All right. Have a good day.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: And he was. He was knocking on all the windows.
[00:38:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Fort.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Really?
[00:38:15] Speaker B: And, you know, and then he got really defensive.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: Who did?
[00:38:19] Speaker B: The guy going, hey, what's going on?
[00:38:23] Speaker C: Good luck. Okay.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: And. Yeah, yeah. Now we have some. We have some park rangers.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: Uh huh.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Cool. I've never seen a park ranger in depression.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: I have never seen one either.
[00:38:54] Speaker C: Good.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: How are you?
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Indeed it is gorgeous.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: So Amy's good.
[00:39:00] Speaker C: She doesn't want shelter, doesn't want help getting into treatment, doesn't want anything. Still same condition as before. No change. And this guy, we've had this conversation.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: This guy's. It's just had moved, and the park rangers already contacted him, so he's definitely not a risk of.
[00:39:15] Speaker C: This is just not a high narcotics use spot. The other spots where we were at before was a much higher.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: You know, percentage. So not saying it doesn't happen here. Yeah.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: And our little drug dealer buddy that we met.
[00:39:27] Speaker C: Yeah. He.
He definitely was not, you know, excited about me being in the area. Yeah, he definitely was not.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: No.
[00:39:36] Speaker C: Or you saying hello.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Very interesting.
Just, again, we always talk about how as community engagement increases, criminals disengage, the criminal element will decrease. And so park rangers are here. We got a camera here. We got security here. That level of engagement is going to keep criminal activity down.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: It's a consistent touch, those consistent touches, but not from one agency, from multiple agencies, multiple places.
[00:40:07] Speaker C: Partnerships. Partnerships.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: Partnerships.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Well, this is great, guys. Thank you so much.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: Thanks for joining the ride.
[00:40:15] Speaker C: One, John.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Thank you very much. Okay. All right. Take care, guys.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: Yeah. If there's any takeaways. Right. Partnerships.
What else?
The, you know, don't inhale fentanyl smoke.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Yeah. It's partnerships, and it really gets back to giving the community some hope.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: And giving them, you know, an ally in this whole thing.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: Yeah. That guy, he needed hope.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: People who feel like we're not making steps forward, they need to see something and feel something and be told something.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Right. And what you're doing is that. Is that step forward.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Well. And we can't do without. Without loa and echelon. So thank you, guys.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Absolutely, man. We're happy to be a partner.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Let's.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Let's grow this puppy.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, well, the ride along's over today, but you can check us out in the future. We're gonna have more of these. We're gonna be on the streets of Portland. We're gonna be with. We're gonna be with all kinds of interesting leaders. Check us out on our social media page. And don't forget to like us. And don't forget to be thankful for that camera guy who also inhaled the fentanyl smoke. Right. It's hard work out here.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:28] Speaker A: All right. Check us out next time. Okay?
