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.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Hi, my name is Justice Rose. I'm a former executive protection agent, current corrections officer with the state of California. I'm here to do a ride along on the streets of Portland.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: We're on the ride along with Justice Rose. We're rolling out to meet a former marine.
Great guy, chase Wilming, and we're gonna be kicking it in downtown.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Patrolling the streets.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Patrolling the streets.
Justice Rose. Question, kel.
Have you been to Portland before?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: No, this is my first time.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: So this is your baptism by fire?
[00:01:22] Speaker C: That's it. Okay.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: So we're gonna get your honest and authentic take on the streets of Portland.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Sure, sounds good.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: My initial 36 hours thoughts are it's very similar to a San Francisco. Yeah, a little bit smaller.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Roger that.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: The homeless situation is a little bit better here in Portland in my early renditions, if you will. And it's. I love the food scene.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Food scene is great.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Food scene is out.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: We only have probably 5000 chronically homeless, 10,000 transitional.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: So again, we're much smaller city than like in LA, right?
[00:02:07] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: So they have probably 40,000. So they're ten times larger.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Well, it tracks. It extrapolates out.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: Right? Yeah.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: It's per capita.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: It's about the same question for you.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: I love questions. All right.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: How did you guys come across, come up with the business model of the community policing?
You know, just helping the homeless transition?
[00:02:30] Speaker C: I love it. Yeah. How do you come up with that?
[00:02:32] Speaker A: We don't call it community policing.
[00:02:33] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: And the reason is because policing is a.
Is a constitutional right granted by the authority. The authority within the executive powers portion.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Of the constitution. And policing is something that governments do to people. It's not something that private entities can do to people.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Great distinction.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: So we kind of, you know, both of, both me and my partner are both former cops. I'm prior military. So we did a deep dive when we came into this. We wanted to be a company that delivered results. And we recognized immediately that, that most companies are not actually delivering results. In the security realm, EP is different. You're keeping that one specific client safe. But when you're talking about safety in a region, you know, you try to. In the security industry, typically a company would measure their success metric on how well they did on that individual property. Right, right. And they'll say, oh, you know, 50% winners, 50% losers. But really, it's. In order to win long term, you have to win in the neighborhood. You have to win a geographic region.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense. You know, stop me if you've heard this before, but it sounds very much along the model of the hearts and minds.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: It is hearts and minds.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: So it's taking territory. It's land doctrine.
[00:03:54] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: So that took me back to the military, and I told my partner, I said, hey, man, we can't do the law enforcement model, this quasi law enforcement model, you know, we talked about it earlier in the studio where you're like, hey, we're gonna act like cops and scare people away. That scarecrow model or law enforcement model.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: It doesn't work long term. It causes retaliation.
Maybe not against the security guard, but maybe against the asset manager or the ownership. Property, even property. Come back and break a $20,000 window.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Yep. How's that helpful?
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Not at all. Who's paying for it?
[00:04:26] Speaker A: So we went with what we. What we recognized overseas as that nation building model that's used by the CIA, you know, Green Berets, overseas, military, you know, NGO's, like the United nations.
And we were like, hey, what we're gonna do is we're going to. We're gonna go into neighborhoods and we're gonna. We're going to employ a community transformation model.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: I like it.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: And then we said, okay, in order to transform a community, what needs to happen?
[00:04:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Well, you need crime to go down.
Right.
Community transformation typically means higher levels of engagement, people doing things, people enjoying space.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: The sociological principle is called third space.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: Okay. Right.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Starbucks employs this idea where you have work home in the third place.
[00:05:14] Speaker C: Huh. Okay.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: And so we want to increase the value, increase public value of public space.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: That makes sense.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: And so how do you do that in a way that benefits clients on the private side.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense.
[00:05:30] Speaker C: Yes. Thank you.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: So what we determined was, and I have a very good friend named Leo kept, who's a former Green Beret. He owns a company called Public Value. I'm hoping to have him on. He helped me kind of forge through this as well. A lot of SocOm guys, a lot of soft guys, back and forth with intelligence people I know in the intelligence world. And I kind of developed this model. And I said, hey, we're going to build. We're going to rebuild our urban environments. We're going to rebuild our nation on the inside out.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: I like it. I mean, it's definitely from all my time and experience in security field, it's definitely a very unique approach, but it's one of those kind of aha things when you hear it, you're like. It just makes sense.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: You're like, duh.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: And obviously great ideas.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: So that's.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: It's pretty awesome.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Thanks, bro. You got it.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: So we're only a couple blocks away.
There's chase right there.
Look at that devil dog.
You know, I like to say that our guys had the best hair in the industry.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Good hair. I'm jealous.
[00:06:36] Speaker C: I.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: They got good hair, man. They got good hair.
We got one guy, he should be a hair model, this guy. We always tell him that he should be a spokesperson for a pomade company.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: Oh, that's funny. Yeah.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Dapper Dan kind of guy. All right, let's go gather Chase. We'll catch you on the streets.
[00:06:57] Speaker C: Chase.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: It's good to see you, brother. How are you, man?
[00:07:00] Speaker D: Not too bad. No complaints from me.
[00:07:02] Speaker C: How you doing, Chase?
[00:07:03] Speaker E: Nice to meet you.
[00:07:04] Speaker C: Nice to meet you, Chase. Justice.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Justice, Chase, I'm supposed to stand close to you to catch you on the mic because you're not mic'd up. So give us a little bit of background of who you are.
[00:07:13] Speaker D: Prior corrections. Prior Marine Corps, used to teach kids with autism.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Isn't that awesome? I know, I love the sport.
[00:07:19] Speaker D: A little variety, if you will.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: It's the spice of life.
[00:07:22] Speaker D: Yeah. Done a lot of different things. I mean, mechanics all the way to now. Security.
A little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Probably my favorite job, though. I mean, outside of the Marine Corps.
[00:07:33] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:07:33] Speaker D: It's rewarding almost to the point of, like, teaching kids with autism, because you get a kind of gather intel and then utilize that. Nice.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: You talking about here at echelon?
[00:07:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Awesome, bro.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: Thanks, man. It's.
[00:07:46] Speaker D: It kind of, it kind of goes hand in hand. A lot of the stuff that you, you learn whenever it comes to teaching kids with autism is all based off, like, functions of behavior.
[00:07:53] Speaker C: Uh huh.
[00:07:54] Speaker D: And it kind of works here as far as, like, if you do this, they will do this.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: So cross parallel skills.
[00:08:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Love it.
[00:08:02] Speaker D: So I think that job probably taught me the most. And bringing that into what I do.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Here, that mental health component.
[00:08:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Well, that's great, man.
[00:08:10] Speaker D: Makes it a lot easier.
[00:08:11] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:08:12] Speaker D: Relatively smooth.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: It's funny, earlier in the studio. We talked about how my son has autism, and it does. You know, I went to a lot of training for that. We were my. I started as a therapeutic foster parent here in Oregon, and a lot of training behind that. Excellent. That training does come in handy a lot.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: We have a lot of similar paths, you and I. So you did marines? I did army corrections, currently with corrections with California.
The mental health aspect, I deal with a lot of.
We call them eops, but emotionally unstable inmates. So much to your point. It's like dealing with children sometimes and assessing and constantly reevaluating. So there's a lot of cross skill section.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: So. Awesome.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: I like it.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: Cool.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Well, we're gonna cut so we can mic him up, and then we're gonna start patrolling ASAP.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: Sounds good, guys.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Good to go.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Let's hit it. Hey, so we're on the streets patrolling with wilming in the back. Got rose in the front.
Wilming and rose. No, that is not a luxury item.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Place to buy your wife a gift or a lopper.
[00:09:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: So I was wondering if you could explain some of the more nuanced, you know, difficulties that you have to deal with patrolling these streets of Portland.
[00:09:33] Speaker D: I would say one of the hardest things is, for me personally, I'm a pretty literal person.
Try to stay as familiar with, like, the law as I can.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:43] Speaker D: I try to inform rather than just be the guy that's like, hey, you can't be on the building.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: Right.
[00:09:49] Speaker D: You know, where the boundaries of the building are and things like that. And some people are argumentative, to say the least. So they'll say, as long as I'm not on the building, I'm not on private property. And then if you bring up, you know, ada law or drip lines or anything like that, they're just like, well, that. That's not a real thing. You're just making that up to make me move.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:09] Speaker D: So it's kind of getting across that, like, I'm not just being an asshole. I'm doing my job as a standard of the property owner.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:15] Speaker D: What they expect, like, the expectation and fully within, like, the black and white, there is no gray area.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:10:22] Speaker D: And you just typically get a lot of negative feedback on that. So I would say that's probably the hardest thing is just.
[00:10:28] Speaker C: That makes sense. Yeah.
[00:10:29] Speaker D: Just grasping that and trying to get people to understand that we're not trying to be assholes. We're just doing your job.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:10:37] Speaker C: That's good. That is difficult. All right, we're about to jump out.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: We got a couple people that are sitting on our window sills. So we're gonna go talk to them, see what's going on. Like the gloves.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: Thank you.
How's it going, guys?
Good. How you doing, brother?
How's the pup?
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Need a cigarette?
[00:10:57] Speaker D: Got some little shoes on him.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Need a cigarette?
[00:11:00] Speaker C: Those are cool.
[00:11:01] Speaker D: The only thing is I can give you, like, 1015 minutes, obviously, I know they're on the bench, so there's not a whole lot of room, but just within, like, the next ten to 15, if you can. I'll give you time. How long do you think for the dog to rest?
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Five more minutes.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: All right.
[00:11:16] Speaker D: Can we meet in the middle, say ten? That work for you? You need some water or anything?
[00:11:20] Speaker B: For the pup or for yourself?
[00:11:23] Speaker D: I don't know if we have it. If not, I can bring it back once we're.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: We have.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: We have.
We have hand wipes and all kinds of stuff.
[00:11:31] Speaker D: You don't need nothing.
All right. What's your name? My name is Chase.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: Dustin.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: What's the dog's name, huh? Hey, blue.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: Got the little booties.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: I love it.
Yeah, those are awesome. We're shooting a documentary about homelessness. You want to talk to us?
[00:11:53] Speaker C: Huh?
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Briefly.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: Okay, cool.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: I really appreciate it, man. I was homeless as a kid from. With my mom for two years. We lived in our. In Houston, Texas, out of a vehicle, and then I actually lived at the McDonald's on Eon avenue on highway 30 for two years. I was almost there. And so we're doing this now to help people talk about, you know, how do people become homeless and why are people staying homeless? And what's the best way to help somebody, right?
[00:12:24] Speaker F: Relapse.
[00:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:25] Speaker F: And I just kind of went downhill south, nose end.
I am homeless.
I'm a survivor, you know?
[00:12:38] Speaker A: You grew up here in Oregon?
[00:12:40] Speaker F: Oregon, I. Washington.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: So pretty much a local in the northwest.
And so what led you? Like, for me, we just grew up really poor. My brother got adopted, my sister. We were always in out of different care, and so for me, being homeless was just a lifestyle. And what kind of started you on the pathway to homelessness?
[00:13:07] Speaker F: Like I said, it was my relapse.
I was clean.
[00:13:11] Speaker E: I was doing good.
[00:13:11] Speaker F: I was a supervisor for landscaping company.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: No shit.
[00:13:17] Speaker F: So from there about a year and a half ago to where I'm at now, Cannon, every day. That's how I survived. And I, you know, it's rough, but I know how you can help people out here is. Don't judge them.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah, of course.
[00:13:30] Speaker F: Yeah.
A lot of people do. That, you know, anyway, you know, don't help nobody, but I.
Yeah. Like I said, I always got a different story out there.
You said it was your lifestyle. I don't consider it a lifestyle for me. I mean, it's the lifestyle that I'm leaving, but I.
It's not the way I want to live.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: What would be the best way to help someone like yourself in your position to transition off the streets?
Obviously, you're probably still struggling with addiction, right?
[00:14:06] Speaker F: Yeah. I mean, my best answer is that I need to help myself.
I need to reach out for resources out there. I know they're out there.
[00:14:21] Speaker C: For the.
[00:14:22] Speaker F: Position that I'm in. That's what I feel like, what I need.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Do you have any family? Have you talked to your family recently?
You stay in touch pretty normal.
[00:14:34] Speaker F: Yeah. I mean, not like I work on soda, but I still. I still stay.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Do you have someone that you like?
[00:14:41] Speaker D: If you.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: If you got clean, is there a place that you could go and stay.
[00:14:48] Speaker F: Home? Whether I'm clean or not, I'm lucky to have a family that they don't agree with what I do.
[00:14:55] Speaker C: Of course.
Yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Well, it's good that you're in Portland, because you. You know, you're not going to get arrested for using, which is actually. I agree with that policy.
Is there anything else you want to tell us? I feel like. I appreciate you talking to us.
[00:15:09] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: What do you go by.
[00:15:15] Speaker C: Dustin? Yeah. Cool.
[00:15:18] Speaker F: Yeah, I don't feel like I really helped out. Too many answers that you were asking.
I said no. I myself feel like. Like, you know, the answer to what I need to do is to kick myself my own ass. I know what I need to do.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we work with a group called loving one another. You know, Spencer, big spence.
[00:15:37] Speaker C: No.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: We get people into detox all the time.
So when you're ready, we'll make a call, get you in Vancouver or Esticada. Somewhere nice, out of the city, you know?
Is that something you're interested in right now?
[00:15:52] Speaker F: Out into? You know, I've been doing before. It's really not my thing.
That's what I should do. Yeah.
[00:16:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: I'm not trying to press you, bro.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: I'm just.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: You've been on the streets for how long?
[00:16:11] Speaker C: That's gotta be hard waiting for that.
[00:16:13] Speaker F: You know, the day, you know, kick myself in the ass and do what I gotta do.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Well, I hope you. I hope you make that decision. I really do, bro. Because, you know, we're out here because we love people and we think that you're important.
Your life matters. You're not just trash. You're not just some fucking gonna side of road that we're not gonna pay attention to and not look at. We want to stop and talk to you because you're important, man.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Yeah. Thanks.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Thanks for talking to us, bro. Appreciate it. And I hope blue enjoys his blue slippers. Those are legit.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Love those.
[00:16:47] Speaker F: He does.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: Awesome, man.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
Have a good day, bro.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: If you see us rolling around, this guy's with echelon right here. You ever see a guy with that patch? We can get you into rehab or detox.
[00:17:02] Speaker F: I appreciate it.
[00:17:03] Speaker C: Yeah. All right, bro. Have a good day. Cool.
[00:17:10] Speaker D: Best of luck, bro.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Awesome. All right, cool.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: So we're out patrolling. We have wilming in the back rows in the front. And we'll get a little, you know, maybe an AaR from you after action from you. But sure. Basically, we're rolling around. We have a very prominent property here in the downtown corridor. We patrolled a little bit around. We decided to park. It was very active. Looked like probably drug dealing going on, to be honest.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: And essentially, Dustin told us that he's never been homeless before. He didn't grow up homeless, came from a good home.
He was a supervisor for a large landscaping company and started using drugs, got drug addicted, relapsed a year and a half ago, and has been on the streets about a year ago and has been on the streets ever since. That's one contact. Hopefully over the next two, three months, we'll contact him again. He knows to look for echelon. He knows to look for Spencer at loving one another. We'll ask him four, five, six times. You know, the idea is that when you.
[00:18:11] Speaker C: Usually.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: If you. If we contacted 100 people today, we might find ten or 15 that would be interested in resources. But during that seven day period, they're interested twice.
So, yeah, there's a. There's. The interest level is only 15% if you're only going once a month, one random day. But if you contact the same people every day in our districts, like Chase does, every single day, the likelihood that someone's gonna want to change their life for the better is actually pretty high.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: Right. That's pretty cool.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Chase, what are your thoughts?
[00:18:41] Speaker D: I personally would like to see him make that change. I feel like out of most of the contacts you get, most of the time, they're not super humble, super polite, super respectful. And, you know, he was super calm demeanor, was willing to not just talk, but open up a little bit.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:18:59] Speaker D: It wasn't just like a basic conversation. You know, he went in depth and told a little bit of his background, which, I mean, you know, is a little bit courageous for him because, one, he doesn't need to do it. He could have just got up and walked away.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:19:10] Speaker D: So I personally think in the up and coming months, there's definitely a possibility to. To get him into some form of assistance for himself and get him back into, you know, maybe what. What was once a better life. Yeah, that's what I would personally like to see. And I. I haven't actually seen him around before.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Me neither.
[00:19:32] Speaker D: So, yeah, he didn't say when he.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Came here, but I have a feeling it was pretty recent.
[00:19:36] Speaker D: I've been talking to a lot of people who are very, very recent in the area, like, within the last couple of months. And, I mean, you can even see that there's just a lot of unfamiliar faces versus last year, especially last summer. I mean, it's summer. Most people are out and about, and there's just a lot of unfamiliar faces on the streets. And it's super unfortunate for that. So hopefully we can get out and make the more familiar faces.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:20:01] Speaker D: Let them know what options they have.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Make those contacts. Justice.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: Thoughts?
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah. As an outsider, you know, with that being my 1st. 1st contact, you know, with your company and talking to individual on the street, it was. It was really cool. It was fun to kind of watch how that transpired techniques, you know, getting down on his level, talking to him in a good, you know, approachable manner.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Informing him, inverting the power dynamic.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, informing him of, you know, his options, asking what he wants to do.
It was courageous of him to open up. And I did feel he was receptive to the point where he was not hard, non receptive.
[00:20:43] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: He wasn't like, no, this is what I'm gonna kick rocks. You know, whatever four letter expletive might be in vogue.
He was not opposed. And I thought that was pretty cool myself. I was just kind of. You guys were doing the approach. I was kind of more looking. All right, what's going around on the background scene of it? Paying attention to other people, trying to read their signs of aggression, if any. And that's right. Just kind of keep it moving. So it was cool.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Awesome, man.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: Good.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: You ever experienced anything like that before?
[00:21:12] Speaker C: No.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: From a security company?
[00:21:14] Speaker B: No, definitely not from. I mean, community outreach maybe, but even that, it's. It's. The approach might be similar, but like you said, they only get out from time to time, and they're so overwhelmed and there's so few of them, you know, per capita that. Yeah, you guys get to make more of a difference because you have the numbers, because you have your regular patrols where you get to know these people and they get to know. And more to the point, they get to know and trust you.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: So that was pretty cool.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Awesome, man. Well, thanks for the feedback. We're gonna keep patrolling and we're gonna help people and we're going to make the area safe.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Sounds good.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: What's up, bro?
[00:21:52] Speaker C: How's it going, man?
[00:21:54] Speaker A: You doing okay today?
My name's Alex. You look familiar. I think we've spoken before.
We work with Spencer from loving one another while also with Echelon, the security company.
Thanks, bro. You need a cigarette?
[00:22:08] Speaker C: Yeah, bro, what's your name again?
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Robert. I'm Alex. You doing okay today?
[00:22:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Could you do me a huge favor? Could you not do it here?
[00:22:18] Speaker C: Is that okay?
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Pick another building. I appreciate it, man. It means a lot to me.
I. Bro, take your time, man. You gotta hurry. No hurry.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Cool. Yeah.
[00:22:31] Speaker D: Up here on the left along the fence.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:34] Speaker D: Pretty. Pretty decent group. Some are obviously on public. Well, that's technically the drip line on this covers the whole, the whole sidewalk on that other side, I'm pretty sure. But there's a lot that were hanging out. Up against the fence.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Hanging out against the fence.
[00:22:51] Speaker C: Cool.
Oh, yeah.
[00:22:59] Speaker D: Village.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: This is crazy.
Is it usually this busy?
[00:23:05] Speaker D: Yeah, this is one of the new hotspots.
[00:23:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we're doing a documentary about homelessness.
[00:23:10] Speaker C: Hey. Hey.
[00:23:11] Speaker G: I just came out here like 2 seconds ago.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah, we mic you up.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: Yeah, what's up, man?
[00:23:21] Speaker A: You remember me? I'm little, little Spencer's brother. Big, you know Big Spencer.
I work with loving one another.
Yeah, you see it, bro?
[00:23:34] Speaker G: What's the topic?
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Oh, you got a mic?
[00:23:37] Speaker C: Okay, good.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:40] Speaker D: All right.
[00:23:41] Speaker G: I got an LLC coming though, because I got motivated for being homeless.
[00:23:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I got you.
[00:23:46] Speaker G: So now I'm looking at the generation, like, okay, a lot of stuff could be prevented. Like, we had housing, so I just noticed that. So now I'm like, I'm young and I'm trying to make sure everybody, I want to be a life coach anyway, but basically trying to tell me, like, the concrete don't fit our body, though. You gotta stay motivated from 08:00 to 05:00 p.m. They got resources. So this is. Don't be out here just chilling sometimes, you feel me? If you do go, at least check one building or one place off on research out and use it because weather's changing.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: You don't want to do weather's changing, bro.
Yeah, it's about to get wet.
[00:24:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:19] Speaker G: So I'm about to make sure that I do everything the south way. But when you're not homeless, whatever it is, your brain, better therapy, like, better mental health status.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: What's your name?
[00:24:29] Speaker G: My name is Rome.
[00:24:30] Speaker C: Rome.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Alex. What led to you being on the streets?
[00:24:33] Speaker G: Oh, I'm not sure.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Kicking it?
[00:24:36] Speaker G: No, not actually. I just came to visit a friend, like 2 seconds.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Oh, nice.
[00:24:41] Speaker G: Public telling.
[00:24:43] Speaker C: How they doing.
[00:24:43] Speaker G: I'll be saying, like, everybody every day, though. But basically I'm like, I got. I was home. I was a CCC builders and everything, though. And it took like six months real hard working education to get up. Like, they got jobs, you know, like tip services. So I did all temperature.
[00:24:58] Speaker C: So now, oh, that's dope.
[00:24:59] Speaker G: I made it so certain place where, like, I'm retired. I'm in the true year because I work so hard.
So now I'm just, like, just chilling now. I'm just working on my llc. I design shoes now.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: I'm just telling everybody, those are some flat shoes, bro.
[00:25:13] Speaker G: I'm just making sure. I just out the way.
[00:25:15] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:25:15] Speaker G: And I'm like, hey, they got, like, resources. I'm like, CCC didn't work for me, though, so I got new narrative.
Okay, so, yeah, everybody go to the mirror to go.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: New narratives.
New narratives is a great nonprofit.
[00:25:29] Speaker G: Yeah, nonprofit.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Fantastic, man.
[00:25:31] Speaker G: So narrative and just like, stay out of trouble. Neglect drama and accept God, though.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: So awesome.
[00:25:39] Speaker G: There's a will, there's a way.
[00:25:40] Speaker C: That's dope. You feel me?
[00:25:41] Speaker G: And everybody in 24 hours can do it, though. Like, in 24 hours, you do a lot. So I just be preaching to everybody, putting it in their ear.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: I love your positivity, bro.
Thanks for talking to us, man. Appreciate it. Take care.
[00:25:54] Speaker G: It's called G Troy Getroit 1313.
[00:25:59] Speaker E: About start my llc.
[00:26:00] Speaker G: And I'm about to start, like, entertainment.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:26:03] Speaker G: So everybody got. Everybody got talent. So I'm about to just be like Professor Xavier tv.
[00:26:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:11] Speaker G: But God bless y'all.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Appreciate it, brother.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: Thanks.
Good.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Ruby, you good? Need another cigarette?
[00:26:27] Speaker C: Yep.
How's it going, my man?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: You doing okay today?
[00:26:38] Speaker C: You good, bro? Yeah.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: You need a cigarette?
I don't have a light, bro.
[00:26:45] Speaker C: I don't smoke.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: I just carry these for other folks.
[00:26:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Y'all doing okay today?
[00:26:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
Awesome.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Y'all know Spencer or echelon big Spencer? We work with Spencer, with loving one another. We're just out hanging out with folks, seeing what's going on, making sure y'all are good.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: Because I thought you was gonna say something bad.
[00:27:12] Speaker E: I was gonna say, don't say nothing happened that day.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: No, no, no. Okay, good. Good.
Yeah.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: My name is Alex.
Nice to meet y'all.
Yeah, Spencer's the best.
[00:27:25] Speaker C: Yeah, he does.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: He's a hundred. All the time.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: All the time.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: All right, well, nice to meet y'all. We're just checking in on people.
[00:27:34] Speaker C: Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: My man got one right here in the cigarette.
[00:27:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Bro, if you see this echelon, we're here to protect you too.
So if anyone's fucking with you, you can call on us.
[00:27:48] Speaker C: Okay?
All right. All right.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Love y'all. Y'all be good.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I got. You seem to have more rapport than I do here.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Why don't you make some contacts? Yeah.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:02] Speaker E: Hey, y'all.
Hello.
[00:28:05] Speaker D: I'm over here.
[00:28:06] Speaker E: Hello.
[00:28:07] Speaker C: I just.
[00:28:07] Speaker D: Security for the property was. I seen how everyone's doing today.
Y'all doing okay? You need a cigarette? All right. Your friends are sleeping.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: They doing okay?
[00:28:18] Speaker D: All right, y'all. Have y'all heard of echelon or loving one another with Spencer?
[00:28:24] Speaker E: So.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: We do. We do.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Like.
[00:28:26] Speaker D: I'll come down here a little bit. We do, like, community outreach, getting people into housing off the streets and stuff. Is that something you're interested in? Yeah.
[00:28:37] Speaker F: Is there.
[00:28:37] Speaker D: Is there anything I can call you?
[00:28:38] Speaker C: My name is Chase.
[00:28:39] Speaker D: Teresa. Nice to meet you.
We can. I'll get with Spencer and let him know that you're over here. Is this where you typically hang out at or. Okay, I can get with him.
[00:28:50] Speaker E: How old are you?
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Roughly 60.
[00:28:52] Speaker D: Okay. That's just stuff they'll ask me. So if I already have it ahead of time, it saves him a little time. Maybe you can get him out here speedier because he's a busy guy. There's only a few people that work there, so they try to go as quick as, like, as quick as they can. So it may not be like today tomorrow kind of thing, but I'll try to get him out here. Do you normally stay here all day or do you have, like, a schedule? I just don't want to have them come over here and then you're not here. You know what I mean?
[00:29:16] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:29:16] Speaker D: That's very. I'll try to get with him and see if we can come up with maybe a time and then. And then get it either passed back to you via me or another one of our guys that work here. Okay. All right. You don't need anything for the rest.
[00:29:29] Speaker F: Of the day, though. You doing okay?
[00:29:32] Speaker D: A lighter. I got a lighter for you. I can't give it to you, but I can let you use it.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Hey, I'm gonna check on your man right here. Are you good, bro?
[00:29:40] Speaker C: Are you good?
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Making sure when you. When you use and pass out that way, that's the worst thing for your lungs to be, that it's better to be on your side, on your back.
[00:29:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: You got a lighter? So when people use, if they. If they fall asleep hunched over you, you lose a lot of your lung capacity. That is the worst position to be in after you use a type of narcotic. And so it's very easy to have your oxygen levels just plummet. So we always want to make sure people are not in that position leads to overdose.
[00:30:15] Speaker C: So.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: We don't. But we're gonna send Spencer by.
[00:30:20] Speaker D: Yeah, Spencer was loving one. Another will be by. I talked to her and told her.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: You know, Big Spence. Big Spence.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
Cool. Yeah.
[00:30:31] Speaker E: Thanks, y'all.
[00:30:32] Speaker D: If you need anything, feel free to reach out to one of us. Thank you.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: We're doing a documentary on houselessness in Portland. So we're following a security company around, and we follow a nonprofit around called loving one another.
Well, I was actually homeless as a child and an adult for two years, and so we're here to offer people resources.
Do you know Spencer? Big Spencer.
Like, last. Last month, we transitioned 176 people off the street.
[00:31:06] Speaker C: How do you do it?
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Well, we work directly on the street. We go in all the downtown neighborhoods. We patrol, like, five, six times, or seven days a week.
We get to know people and we say, hey, I know Ruby down there. Teresa. I know a lot of these folks. Hey, how y'all doing today? Didn't want to get into shelter. Everybody want to get into a detox. When someone says yes, we call the team in, and they work with them that entire day until we can get them into a shelter or detox center.
Well, you have the right to do that. Yeah, we're not here to make anyone.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: Yeah. You know.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Hooper is actually pretty easy to get into. You have to do the. You want to do the paperwork ahead of time the day before, and then you want to get there. Around 730 in the morning.
[00:32:08] Speaker C: Yeah. But, um.
[00:32:10] Speaker E: But referral would guarantee me in that.
[00:32:13] Speaker C: Next day when I show 100%. Yep. Yeah. So how would I get one of those?
[00:32:17] Speaker A: We can have. We're going to have Spencer stop by hearing about maybe an hour, so if you're still here, he's a big white dude, and he's wearing really funny looking snowboarding sunglasses today.
[00:32:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: What's your name?
[00:32:28] Speaker C: Justine.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: I'm Alex.
[00:32:29] Speaker C: Nice to meet you.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: I'll tell him to look for you.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: Sounds good. Okay, cool. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Awesome.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: So we'll just walk the block.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: Cool. Right.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Hey, found a penny.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: So just our engagement on that street increased the population by at least 50%, maybe two thirds. When we first turned the corner, there were like, what, 50, 60 people.
[00:32:59] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: By the time we left, there's maybe 15.
[00:33:01] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: So just that constant engagement is going to make it so that the area, there's less drug dealing, prostitution, less crime going on.
Right. We don't want to stigmatize and we don't want to discriminate.
So we're not going to assume who's the drug dealer, who's the bad, who are the bad people. We just go and be community oriented. We're engaging the community in such a way that we show them that we care and that alone is going to make drug dealing and crimes go down as community engagement increases. Criminal engagement decreases, absolutely. Because they want to go somewhere where they're not going to be bothered. And there's no eyeballs. Right.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Just mere presence.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Just the presence alone. Two thirds. The bad actors typically are the first ones to leave.
The people that stay are people. Just regular people.
[00:33:47] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: No, you see the bad actors quickly.
[00:33:50] Speaker C: Boom, boom, boom. Yep. Right.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: So let's call Spencer and let's have him do a stop here today. My phone's back at the van, though.
[00:33:57] Speaker D: The one individual is a little bit against the idea. And one of them, I mean, even at first, the individual you spoke with, kind of hostile. Yeah, she was against it. And then once you spoke with.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: She's like, oh, wait, you can get me into detox. I need to get into Hooper. I'm like, yeah, we can make that happen. Like, in a couple days.
[00:34:12] Speaker D: When they see that, it's not like, oh, we're just out here filming for, like, exploiting.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Yeah, exploiting their. Their oppression. Right.
Which is we're not here. We're here to help you. We're giving you a hand up and.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: You'Re giving them a voice. Yeah, this just take the time out, lets them kind of be heard, and it travels word of mouth. I mean, it's so fast.
[00:34:32] Speaker C: Especially.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: You guys have a recognizable patch. Recognizable presence. Uniform is pretty consistent. You know, those things will stick out. Even just word of mouth. So that was pretty cool.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Awesome, man.
[00:34:45] Speaker D: Right? Maybe we're the ones that always hand out cigarettes.
[00:34:48] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:48] Speaker D: Some people to others, it's.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: Hey, you guys are the ones that actually help people.
[00:34:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I try to give people.
[00:34:53] Speaker D: Yeah. That's why it's a real rewarding company to work for. There's a more of a purpose behind the job than just doing basic level security.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:03] Speaker D: Or even, you know, intermediate level security. There's an end goal, and that's to help people. And if we all did that, we wouldn't be here.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: Exactly, bro. Yeah, exactly.
[00:35:12] Speaker D: Honestly, trying to work myself out of a career field. You know what I mean?
[00:35:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:15] Speaker D: Like, if I do my job good enough, then I won't have to work here anymore.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: Even the little interaction you had with the gentleman who looked like you passed out, you just kind of educated him.
[00:35:26] Speaker G: Hey, look, if you're going to use.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Can you pass that? That's the most dangerous way.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Yeah, just the whole thing.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Like, if you're going to do it, we want you to be.
[00:35:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Try to go to your side.
[00:35:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: The rescue position.
[00:35:37] Speaker C: Right. Yeah, exactly.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: So that was pretty cool.
[00:35:40] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Well, let's call Spencer and go back on patrol.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Sounds good. Yeah. Hello? Hey.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: What up, Spence? Alex.
Hey, what's up?
You're good, bro. I just spent a couple. I spent, like 30, 40 minutes at Central Plaza.
Could you or Terrance stop by? And we talked to a lady named Teresa and a lady named Justine.
Both white females.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: I know both of them. I just told them yesterday when I cleared this. Pita Plaza. Yeah.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Justine wants to get into Hooper, so I'll try to.
[00:36:12] Speaker E: I'll try to get over there as.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: Quick as I can.
[00:36:15] Speaker E: I know who they are.
[00:36:16] Speaker C: So I will go talk to them.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Yeah, they're gonna be there for, like, several more hours.
[00:36:20] Speaker C: Of course they are. That's where they hang out. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Text me the names of them again, just so I have on fit my tongue. I broke.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Good talk.
[00:36:29] Speaker C: All right, goodbye.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: It really individuals like how people became homeless and then what's what they think is the best way for them to receive help. Okay, so you wanna talk to us?
[00:36:40] Speaker C: I'll talk to you. Yeah. Hell, yeah.
[00:36:42] Speaker E: Would you guys be willing to walk with me as we do this? Or do you want me to be stationary?
[00:36:46] Speaker D: We can walk a little bit that way.
[00:36:48] Speaker C: Okay.
Awesome.
[00:36:50] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: So, my name is Alex.
[00:36:52] Speaker E: What's up, Alex?
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Nice to meet you, bro. So, you approached us, you asked what we're doing. We're doing a documentary on being homeless. Tell us your story.
[00:37:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:01] Speaker E: So my story right now is. Well, I've been. I've been homeless before in the past when they had the process going on for Occupy Portland.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: That's right. That's right.
[00:37:12] Speaker E: I was addicted to heroin, and I had never tried treatment for this, but at that time, I believe it was back in 2009, 2010, around there. It was probably some time ago, but my story was, I thought I could go there to get some help, get off the streets, and leave with the tools and medication I needed to be successful.
[00:37:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:38] Speaker E: And successful to me is being sober and maintaining that sobriety.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: Now.
[00:37:43] Speaker E: The situation then that I'm in now is simply the fact that it's a fucking struggle to live. I have my Beyonce, I have my two sons, six year old, three month old, and we were all just living in three bedroom, two bathroom house in Gladstone, Oregon. It's a very expensive little town.
[00:38:06] Speaker C: Yeah, totally.
[00:38:07] Speaker E: But that's where we wanted to be. Right. We want to be somewhere where it's clean and safe, not somewhere where you walk down the streets and you have to worry about needles, you know?
[00:38:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:16] Speaker E: Other paraphernalia.
[00:38:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:38:19] Speaker E: Being laid out on the floor. So, long story short, I don't live there anymore because my landlord decided I don't want to renew the lease, and he only gave me 30 days to kind of figure out where to go from there.
[00:38:32] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:38:33] Speaker E: So because I didn't figure that out, we had to move into my father in laws.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:40] Speaker E: And that's me, my two kids, and my spouse.
[00:38:45] Speaker C: So that sounds tough. It's tough.
[00:38:47] Speaker E: Got real tough. We started fighting with each other, and we were at our neck so goddamn much that I got to the point where I'm like, fuck it, I'm leaving, you know?
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I left.
[00:38:58] Speaker E: I came back. She allowed me to come back. I left, I came back. And then finally she said, don't fucking come back. And now I'm here. I'm down here. I have a tent, and I have a sleeping bag and I have pillows.
[00:39:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:12] Speaker E: And I do have to go, you know, figure out where I'm gonna get my next meal. And I do have to, you know, watch my back because there's so many people out here that care about making profits off drugs. People down here who are really struggling and need help.
[00:39:27] Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:39:28] Speaker E: And it's not always drugs. You know, there's people who might have been veterans, you know.
[00:39:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:34] Speaker E: World War Two, and they have PTSD so fucking bad that, you know, they just can't function.
[00:39:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:41] Speaker E: They were locked up their entire life, and then they get leased to normal life.
[00:39:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:48] Speaker E: So anyhow, being down here, being homeless, it's an issue. And I think the most important thing about homelessness is the resources that are provided from the leaders. It starts at the top.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: It does 100%.
[00:40:07] Speaker E: I mean, you could take a look at county and compare it to Clackamas county or Yakima County, Marion county, whatever county you want to look at. But really, the policies is what makes the bread and butter.
Ever since measure 110, I was actually one of the ones that voted for that actually thought that it was a good idea. I thought that it would steer them in the right direction with treatment, but it completely did the opposite. We have a free open range drug market here. This area here. Harvey Milk start? Yeah, 6th Avenue, Fifth Avenue. I mean, it's pretty laid back right now, but later in the evening, man, you'll just see huddles of people just buying drugs, shooting drugs, smoking drugs, and that's not cool, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's not good for anybody.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: It's not, bro. It's not.
[00:41:00] Speaker E: Yeah, we have children walking around and they'll be like, hey, hey, we got a child walking by it. You know, put it down for a second. But it goes right back up when, you know, they pass.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: What's the best thing for you right now? If someone was going to offer you resources to get off the street, to get cleaned, what would that look like?
[00:41:17] Speaker E: So that's a good question. If somebody said they had some resources available to me and they wanted to know what resources I needed, I would see. I would say that the specific thing that I need is shelter. Because, number one, if you don't have shelter, you are ultimately going to be dealing with all of those different elements and aspects that really fuck us all.
And I think it's important that each individual has a bed to lay their head. They have their own space, cupboards, closet, you know, to put their clothes.
[00:41:56] Speaker C: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
[00:41:57] Speaker E: You know, washer and dryer and all that. So they could stay clean, keep up on their hygiene shower, because we don't have any of that out.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: No, none of that exists here.
[00:42:07] Speaker E: No, not at all. I mean, you can have a conversation with some of these clean and safe guys and, you know, they could tell you, hey, call 211, or, you know, we got St. Vincent de Paul, or you call these guys and they're so full that you can't even get in there.
[00:42:21] Speaker C: You can't.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: It's very hard.
[00:42:22] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, that's a problem. So a lot of people don't even try anymore.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Have you heard of Spencer? You know Spencer, big Spencer, Spencer loving one another. It's a nonprofit.
[00:42:33] Speaker C: No. Okay.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: So we work with an organization that helps people transition into sheltering or detox.
And what we do is we spend most of our time on the streets just asking people, hey, you want to get to a shelter, you want to get into a detox, right?
[00:42:49] Speaker E: So what's the answer that you get? Do you have more people that are willing and accept it or about.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: If we contact 100 people, about ten to 15 will say yes. But what we've realized is about during a seven week, seven day period, so one week, if we contact that person every single day, there were two times during that day when they were ready to transition, or two times during that week.
[00:43:12] Speaker E: And that is key, because they did have a project going on where they had a select few of homeless people, like, directly off the streets. They went around to tents, asking them, hey, would you like to get a room? Would you like to get shelter? And of course, there was a handful that said yes. There was also some that just flat out said no.
[00:43:30] Speaker C: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
[00:43:31] Speaker E: You know, some people want to be down here. You know, they're just like, bucket, why do I need to go. Go get a house and have the responsibility of paying rent this and that, whatever? So, yeah, that's your business. I mean, I would have a little bit different policies in place to prevent that.
[00:43:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:46] Speaker E: Going back to what I was saying, these people that got free rent for a month, well, their time has ran out, and they actually extended it an additional few months, and they're gonna be evicted and kicked out, right back on the streets. Because any case management, they had nobody know, you know, communicate with them to see how are you doing? You know, are you going in any groups? Are you, you know, using? Are you clean? What's going on?
[00:44:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, of course.
[00:44:14] Speaker E: Are you working? None of that. I think when people don't have, like, an individual, an actual human being to speak to, I think they're gonna be lost.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: And for 100%, yes.
[00:44:28] Speaker E: And when they're lost, they're just gonna go back to what they know best.
[00:44:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: People need to be in community, and if they don't have it, they're gonna go back to the community they had on the street.
[00:44:36] Speaker G: Correct.
[00:44:37] Speaker E: Because it does feel like to them, like they have family.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Exactly, bro. Yes, exactly.
[00:44:42] Speaker E: And the hard thing about it, too, with the people on the streets, whether they are dealing with mental health or addiction, you know, I honestly think that it should all be in the same mental health. Because they say addiction is a disease. Right?
[00:44:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:56] Speaker E: So why doesn't that count for mental health.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: I actually say this all the time. This is one of the main arguments I make all the time. Addiction is a disease, so it needs to be treated like a mental health problem. Right. Or a medical problem.
[00:45:06] Speaker E: Right.
[00:45:06] Speaker A: At least.
[00:45:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:07] Speaker E: But we have separate clinics. We have separate, you know, separate skills.
[00:45:12] Speaker C: Mm hmm.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: And separate funding.
[00:45:14] Speaker E: Right, exactly.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Which is what? Where's the money?
[00:45:17] Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:45:18] Speaker E: And they don't really do a good job at tracking where the money goes, but they just shell it out.
Okay, well, that didn't work. Let's just send them more. So, I think the real big challenges are, of course, you know, it starts at the top. The policies that are put in place right now, I think, you know, Mayor Ted Wheeler just needs to say, hey, you know what? I made some really bad decisions, and we need to reverse some of these policies that couldn't be. And start over from scratch, you know?
[00:45:48] Speaker A: I. Yeah. Start over from scratch. That's one of the smartest things I've heard ever said.
I agree, bro.
[00:45:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:55] Speaker E: So, I mean, I'm just speaking from the heart because, honestly, guys, I lived here for.
Let's see, since I was about where I was born here.
[00:46:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:05] Speaker E: So, I mean, it's been 32 years. I'm 32 years old, so I remember it wasn't like. Like this with all the tents and everything. It's been getting gradually worse throughout the years.
[00:46:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:17] Speaker E: But, you know, that's a combination of things. I mean, it's not only policies.
[00:46:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:46:21] Speaker E: I mean, we have fentanyl that just came in. The fentanyl is destroying everybody, like all other drug I've seen. It's horrible, and it is so sad, man.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: I don't know your name, and I'm not gonna ask your name, but you seem very intelligent.
[00:46:35] Speaker C: Right.
[00:46:35] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: You could probably have a master's degree.
Sociology or something.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: And social worker. Right.
What is it gonna take to get you off the streets and to get you clean?
[00:46:46] Speaker E: Yeah. So I. I was presented with that challenge today because I haven't been the best spouse.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: I don't want to. I don't want to make you feel bad. This isn't about all the bad things you've done.
[00:47:00] Speaker E: You're not gonna make me feel bad.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: We've all done bad things.
[00:47:02] Speaker C: Right. Right.
[00:47:02] Speaker E: And I own everything that I've done bad. I'm not that type of person that'll sit there and, oh, pity me, point fingers and say, hey, it's all your guys, you know. Mayor Ted Wheeler.
[00:47:11] Speaker C: Fuck you.
[00:47:12] Speaker E: It's your fault.
[00:47:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:14] Speaker E: I'm gonna own that shit, and I'm gonna do what I can to make sure I better myself, because I definitely don't want to end up like some of the people out here. But what I would need personally is I need structure. I need shelter. I need a curriculum. I need support. And.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: Do you have a phone on you? Do you have a phone?
[00:47:35] Speaker E: Well, I just got a new phone yesterday from assurance wireless on the corner. They're giving out free phones.
[00:47:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:41] Speaker E: And I fell asleep at the max stop.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: Somebody.
[00:47:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
Boom. Just like that. Okay.
[00:47:47] Speaker E: You know, and I was just genuinely tired. Yeah, I was pretty upset, but what am I gonna do, you know?
[00:47:54] Speaker A: If you fall asleep, you get robbed.
[00:47:55] Speaker C: Right?
[00:47:56] Speaker A: That's the street. I was homeless as an adult and a child.
[00:48:00] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: And if you fall asleep, you're gonna get robbed.
[00:48:03] Speaker E: Right?
[00:48:04] Speaker A: That's the game, bro. That's the game.
[00:48:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:07] Speaker E: But it's so much worse now because I've actually had an individual who took just one hit of fentanyl, and they fell out. They went down to the ground, and it took about four narcans to bring them back. But it gets a lot of attention from people around.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, you know, someone want.
[00:48:26] Speaker E: To help him out. But others, you know, this dude came over, starts cleaning out his pockets.
[00:48:31] Speaker F: Right.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: And horrible, bro.
[00:48:33] Speaker E: Yeah, no, I was like, wow, what the fuck are you doing?
[00:48:36] Speaker A: Robbing the dead as they're dying.
[00:48:37] Speaker E: Right, so he didn't die, but that's the kind of world that we live in now. So the biggest things to help the homelessness is we gotta separate each individual from the problem. The problem is here, downtown. The drugs are all here. You could get whatever drug it is you want. It's so readily available, the cops aren't gonna pull you over and tell you you can't smoke. So we gotta make sure that we get these individuals not put in jail with a record. That's gonna make it more difficult to get a job or get housing. But we need to start, you know, building actual facilities and sober homes with strong curriculums that are going to be successful.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:49:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:22] Speaker E: My mother, she just got her certificate for drug and alcohol counseling, and she had me do her last assignment, and one of the things that I read about was ibogaine. Have you ever heard of ibogaine?
[00:49:36] Speaker C: No.
[00:49:37] Speaker E: So I began a hallucinogen. It comes from a bark from a tree, and they use it on people who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, especially, and also people who have mental illness.
However, you can only do this in Mexico, Thailand, you know, countries that are.
[00:49:57] Speaker C: Not the United States.
[00:49:58] Speaker E: And the question is, well, why don't they. Why don't they want to practice that gear if it's. Yeah, 80% cure rate with these guys, you know? And they had a part where they actually had some patients go through the experience and how they felt after.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: Really?
[00:50:13] Speaker C: Wow. Wow.
[00:50:13] Speaker E: And it is really.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: I begain.
I began. I'm gonna check it out.
[00:50:17] Speaker E: Well, the reason is, is because America is all about money. It's pharmaceutical companies biggest business we have. And if you have a cure rather than treatment, then it's just gonna put you out. Right. I mean, they're not gonna have to go to the methadone clinic every day anymore, spend money on methadone, or they don't need to go to their doctor anymore and get suboxone, you know, till the day they die.
[00:50:42] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:50:43] Speaker E: They just go get the ibogaine.
[00:50:44] Speaker C: You're right, bro.
[00:50:45] Speaker E: It's a successful experience. They're done. It's over.
[00:50:48] Speaker C: Cool.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: As an organization, except for the pharmaceutical company, we use $60,000 worth of narcane a year that the Oregon health plan pays for.
[00:50:56] Speaker E: Wow.
[00:50:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: So there's a lot of money.
[00:50:59] Speaker C: There is.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: Hey, I hate to cut you off, but he has a flight. We have to get him back to his flight.
[00:51:04] Speaker E: Totally. Where did you guys fly from?
[00:51:06] Speaker A: He flew from Sacramento.
[00:51:07] Speaker C: Sacramento? Yeah.
[00:51:08] Speaker E: Sacramento.
[00:51:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:09] Speaker E: I used to live out in California. San Francisco. That's another story.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: Do you want to get into a shelter?
[00:51:16] Speaker E: Yes. Yes.
[00:51:17] Speaker C: When?
[00:51:18] Speaker E: I mean, if you had a shelter for me today.
I mean, I don't want to get into a shelter where it's a bunch of users and, you know, people got lice and scabies.
[00:51:27] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: Where's. Have you heard of city team?
[00:51:29] Speaker E: I've not.
[00:51:31] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: Hey, JJ, can you call victory outreach or city team and see if.
[00:51:35] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: That's my cousin JJ. Can you talk to him and see and help him out?
[00:51:40] Speaker C: Jay? Yeah. Okay.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: We're gonna finish wrapping up here, but it was a pleasure to meet you.
[00:51:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: We're not gonna put your name out there or anything like that.
[00:51:47] Speaker C: Oh, man.
[00:51:47] Speaker E: No worries. I mean, I've seen a lot of people out here that know me, and I've been doing it since I was 15 years old. So it's funny because everybody who talked down on me and said, oh, he's just a heroin addict. He's never gonna do nothing.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: Don't listen to that, bro.
[00:52:01] Speaker C: Right.
[00:52:01] Speaker E: Well, hey, those same people actually are addicted to drugs today, and I'm the only one who's you know, been working all my life making one hundred k. I just filed over 100k last year, man.
[00:52:12] Speaker C: Crazy.
[00:52:12] Speaker E: You know, working as a production manager.
[00:52:15] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:15] Speaker E: I mean, there's functioning alcoholics. There's functioning.
[00:52:19] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:52:19] Speaker E: But me personally, I'm doing the methadone at a medically assisted treatment program.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome, bro.
[00:52:25] Speaker E: That's working for me.
[00:52:26] Speaker C: And that's good, man.
[00:52:27] Speaker E: Continue it.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: Good, because I don't want to fall.
[00:52:29] Speaker E: Back on this shit.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: That's awesome, man.
[00:52:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. JJ, my cousin, he'll take care of you. We're gonna wrap this up real quick. Is that okay?
[00:52:37] Speaker C: Okay. All right.
[00:52:39] Speaker E: Awesome, guys. What's your name?
[00:52:40] Speaker C: Take care.
Okay, cool.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: Well, let's do a wrap.
[00:52:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:45] Speaker A: Are we rolling?
[00:52:46] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: Well, cheers.
We're here in Portland. We have justice out. We have wilming out. Kind of final wrap up. We hit the studio. We talked about executive protection. We talked about all your work in executive protection, all your work in corrections. The overlaps to our community program here and how we do our. What we call security through community. Right. Give us your last thoughts, and then I'd like to hear from you, Chase, as well.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: Well, first, this was my first excursion to Portland. It was awesome. You guys got a great team. You got a great business model. I love the community outreach and support that you guys are continuing to talk about, and I think it's fantastic. I'm definitely going to encourage anybody who asked me in the security field to reach out about this business.
[00:53:31] Speaker A: Awesome, bro.
[00:53:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:53:32] Speaker B: The gentleman we just talked about, talked to was great. I'm actually. There was a lot of cross parallels. I'm looking at being a counselor in corrections, and that's some of the same talks that we're constantly getting. So it's funny how often things just kind of come together. So, yeah, it was great. Had a great first time, and I appreciate you.
[00:53:50] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Chase, last thoughts?
[00:53:55] Speaker D: I thought, well, just talking to him, he made a lot of honest and solid points. Yeah, they kind of really showed a lot of light. Most people that you talk to, you know, kind of cut corners and they'll, you know, keep it in the shadows of the things going on, and it's kind of hidden, you know, via news and stuff like that. But he brought it from a first person perspective and how he sees it on the streets. And it was just honestly eye opening. I mean, even if someone is pretty aware of what's going on around here, it was still super eye opening to sit there and listen to them from a first hand experience. So overall, I think, I mean, we got a got a lot of knowledge passed today, I think so to us and from us. So overall, it was pretty successful. I think so.
[00:54:40] Speaker C: Justice it was.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: It was, it was nice meeting you.
[00:54:42] Speaker C: Awesome. Take care.
[00:54:43] Speaker A: Thanks, Chase. And thank you for watching the ride along. You know, the work we do is important. It's not just about making money. It's about changing lives and changing communities. That's what we're trying to do here and that's what everyone needs to be doing everywhere. That's the only thing that really matters in life, right? Who are you affecting? How are you affecting them and what kind of legacy do you want to leave? Those are the questions we ask ourselves. Justice wilming, appreciate you coming on the ride along.
[00:55:09] Speaker C: We'll see you next time.
