Shining the Light on the Homeless Issue in America - Dr. Robert Marbut

0:00 Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen Strang, and welcome to the Strang Report podcast. And today, we're going to talk about a very important problem in our culture. It's that of homelessness. You know, America is arguably the richest country in the world, yet we have a terrible problem with homelessness. My guest today is Dr. Robert Marbet, and he has written a book. He's just come out with an interactive study guide that I have right here. They're doing a documentary and a movie.

0:42 And he is the president and CEO of Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas. He was appointed by governor by President Trump and also served under President Biden as sort of the czar of the homeless or something like that. So let me thank you first of all for taking time from your very, very busy schedule. I know you're traveling all over the country. Today, you're talking to me from Seattle, Washington. We're down here in Florida. It's amazing what this technology will do. And it gives us an opportunity to do a little bit of a deep dive into this problem, because really, the church has been involved with helping the homeless, going all the way back to the Civil War. Maybe you can tell us a little more about that. But something happened in the 80s that kind of shifted that. Why don't you, and the problem has gotten much worse and seems to be getting worse almost by the day. So I want to find out from you what's happening and how we can get Christian believers involved in meeting the need. Well, the faith community really led the way in dealing with the first types of homeless we saw in America shortly after the Civil War. That's when the Salvation Army got set up in the United States. That's when the rescue missions, you know, Bowery, one of the, well, the oldest mission in America, and the American Red Cross. And I understand the American Red Cross has become more secular since then. But the other two are very

2:13 much grounded in the faith community. So for about 110 years, it was those three groups and other independent, like your church you were mentioning earlier, it has a program in its help. And so they led the way. We led the way. The faith community, the church community led the way for 110 years. And then in 1987, the federal government came to the table and said, we're going to get very deep into homelessness. And interesting enough, when the federal government got involved, things got worse. And there's some reasons to that. Some of that was happenstance, but some of it was what the federal government was asking groups to do. And then that sort of part of our number one mission with the interactive study guide, our Bible study, if you will, is how to get the faith community back into helping and be the leader like we used to be. And also, how do we improve and use modern technology and modern techniques to improve our response to homelessness?

3:16 We know since I started Charisma Magazine in 1975, we have covered these kinds of topics over the years. I've personally gotten involved in my own community, particularly in Sanford, Florida, which is right next door. It's kind of a small southern community. And the poverty we have there is more rural southern poverty than it is urban blight, so to speak. And I was actually on the board and raised a lot of money, you know, large for this local area for a rescue mission. In fact, that was their name, who helped the homeless, gave them food, kind of like a local version of the Salvation Army and fed them. They had a soup kitchen. And I know that they got hassled from the government because they got money from the government. They also got money from the United Way if they even had a cross-up. And in their case, they tried to get help people temporarily, not permanently. But you know, your interactive study guide goes into a lot of things.

4:21 You talk about how it's not really helpful to go out and pass out food in these tent cities that we see in the news along the streets in the major cities. And you talked about how most of the people, in fact, you talk about several myths. Maybe I could just ask you these myths. So respond to what I'm saying. And then there's these three myths that I want to talk through one by one. And one of the ones you just hit a second ago is the way I like to present it is grace with accountability, without accountability, is very enabling. And we need to, whatever we do, is move to a more engaging environment, engage people into programming and treatment and recovery, and don't enable people. That's why we talk so much about it's very devastating when you give cash out the window at a corner. Well over 90% of that goes to substance use disorders, alcohol, and prostitution. And nobody would ever roll up to a corner and say, let me give you a six-pack, let me give you a nickel bag of Coke. You would never think of that. But that's what we in essence do when you give money out the window. So instead of giving money out the window, give money to your rescue mission or to a Salvation Army that really runs a well-run program.

5:52 You know, one of the myths that I want to discuss is that adult street-level homelessness is actually a hunger problem. What is the real problem? Yeah. And what we have found in street-level homeless, and the federal government has 10 definitions. So street-level homeless is the two definitions of literally what you see on the street under the curves. I've been to your community. So, you know, it's under the underpasses out in the lake areas and some of the waterways areas and some of behind the malls and such. And the people that are in and out of rescue missions or a Salvation Army, that group has 75% of that group has a substance use disorder and 75% of that group has an untreated mental illness and often it's self-medicating. It's not recreational. There's some recreational in that, but most is self-medicating. And so when you hand money out the window, you end up funding that habit, not helping that habit. And so that's one of the biggest myths. Every Salvation Army I've ever been to, every rescue mission I've ever been to has plenty of food. It provides a, in fact, a very nutrition-balanced type of meal setup. So all three meals are coordinated and such.

7:11 And so this idea that you hand out donuts out the window and a $5 bill is just really unproductive, but that's one of the myths. And there's this myth that homeless and hunger come hand to hand, and they absolutely not. That they're not connected whatsoever. And also another myth is that all homelessness is the same. You actually touched on that a minute ago and a lot of the homeless are actually children who for some reason or other are living in a car with a mom or something like that. In fact, just yesterday I drove by one of these extended stay motels. It's not a slum, but it's a cheap hotel. And someone had told me that there were a lot of people that couldn't afford an apartment who were based semi-homeless, I guess, they don't have a real home. And I was behind a school bus and they must have let 15 or 20 kids out at that hotel. And I thought, those poor children are in some, they don't have a real home. Would that be one of the categories? Absolutely. And those are what you described are actually come under the five categories of Department of Education and with Families with Children, they're 1.5 million kiddos in America. Think about that. 1.5 million people under the age of 18 and most advocates, by the way, think we're underestimating that number, under counting that number. And those come from two or three sort of causalities. One is

8:47 fostering out is a big part of it. There's a lot of media around that. But the other part and the biggest part is domestic violence, where the partner starts beating up mom. Normally, it's the husband or the boyfriend beating up mom. And then mom starts worrying about the safety of the children to escape the guy. And now they lose part of the income and then they have to move location. And that causes all sorts of trauma in the children. And what we know is the most important thing you can do for a kid to be successful is to stay through the same academic year all the way through in that same classroom.

9:28 And so domestic violence breaks that up and makes it impossible. And so domestic violence is a number one problem. And then probably next to that would be fostering out. And so that's obviously very different than the street level adult male and adult female, which is different than a post-traumatic stress soldier or service person. Somebody who fought veteran, combat veteran in particular, who has a lot of that stress related to the combat. Here's the other myth, the third one, to solve homelessness. We need to give away tents, sleeping bags into food so people can camp in public. And when you see these, they look like tent cities.

10:18 And I've been told that sometimes these people don't even want to stay in a regular shelter. And you've got a particular problem in Florida. Like I've done a lot of work in Florida and worked in over half the counties in Florida and used to live in Southern Florida. And because of the weather, you get everybody from the Northeast coming down. A lot of homelessness are seasonal and come down. And I literally went to a church very near you. I don't want to, I'm a big believer you don't sort of out people in public and you do it in private, but there's a pretty famous church in your area that was handing out tents and sleeping bags in camping equipment in little small Coleman stoles, you know, with those heater things on the bottom. That's the most unproductive, unhelpful thing we can do. Instead, use that money, use that funds to get people into treatment, get people into recovery. Let's deal with the untreated mental illness. Let's deal with the substance abuse. Once you do those two, then you do workforce development, job training and employment. And if you do those three things, we can be very, very successful. Likewise, if you just enable a person to stay on the street or an encampment or in the mangroves or under the back behind the mall or under an overpass, that's very, very unproductive. And all we're doing is helping a person staying homeless rather than helping

11:49 them exit homelessness. And your goal, you told me earlier before we started the podcast, is actually to help reengage the church. That's why you have this interactive study guide that goes over a lot of the things that we've been discussing. And you've also done a documentary and a movie. And you told me that the documentary is being privately screened even today out there in Seattle. And then it's going to go through the... We call it the festival circuit. Festival circuit. Thank you. And then it's streaming. And then you're going to do the movie later. So the streaming is this summer and the movies in the fall. Tell us about it so that people can get involved and learn about this. And then as we wrap up the podcast, I want you to tell people what individuals can do to help.

12:44 Because I know in my own circle, I mentioned that I've had a heart for this, but I've seen... You know, I'll have panhandlers come up to me when I pull off the interstate on a trip to, you know, get a hamburger and they'll want money. And I sort of understood intuitively what you're saying, that you don't give them money because it's pretty obvious that they have some kind of substance abuse program. And several times, I've offered and I've gone in and actually bought them a meal so that I wasn't giving them cash. But I've also had people turn me down for that.

13:26 But I'm just using that as an example of how I know how I feel. And I'm guessing that a lot of people that are watching and listening will feel the same way. So what can people do to help? Well, that's exactly why we've come up with these communication devices. So one is the Interactive Study Guide or a Bible study. And that's supposed to re-engage the faith community to come back and start re-helping like they led the way for 110 years. We did. And then also do it in a smart way with the understanding and logic of the new information we have. The documentary has sort of a different target market. That's for the sort of wonky political activists, the Capitol Hill staff, Congress people, governors, mayors, senators. And so the documentary that we're starting to privately screen now and we'll be taking on the festival circuit for a premiere later date than ultimately streaming, that's for the policymakers. That's for the people who are making federal policy. And I know we don't have time to go through it, but the federal policy that has sort of pushed out the faith community or limited the faith community ability to handle it, that's a lot of what we spend time talking about there. And for the general public, we have the movie, a novel, and a soundtrack. And that's trying to get the overall general public engaged, come up and help a salvation army, come up and help a rescue mission, stand beside and help

14:58 and stop giving money out the windows, stop bringing a hamburger to a park. That just doesn't work. That doesn't get people out of homelessness. And tell people how they can connect with you. Of course, this would be available on Amazon and other online book sellers, but you also have a website. Tell us how people can connect with you. And if you just type in no address, the movie or no address movie, you'll see our website come up. And from there, you can learn about our five different things. We have some connectivity for if you're a service nonprofit service agency, we have a program for that called the big game. We want to be able to help those groups so you can come in and click on there. If you have a Bible study or a small group, the interactive study guide that you can get on Amazon, and you can go click on it too. So there are a lot of ways to plug in, but the best way is start at our website. And or if you want to go ahead and buy a Bible study for yourself or a small group, go to Amazon, and you can click on and get that real quickly.

16:08 And I noticed one of the things in the study guide that you said was you encourage people to pray. You have like essays by a lot of different people. I thought it was very interesting how you put it together. And one of them kind of focused on that. So as we wrap up this podcast, are you comfortable with leading in prayer? And I'm going to ask people who are watching and listening to join with us in prayer. There's so many things we need to pray about. The poor, helpless, homeless people that need a change in their lives, but also the attitude and our culture among the policymakers, the media, the general public. Would you just pray and we believe in the power of prayer.

16:54 And I believe that it's important not to just talk about it, but to pray. Oh, Lord, thank you so much for the opportunities and for being on a show such like this and having such a host who has such a loving, caring heart for the people experiencing homelessness. And always remember to have a tender, outreaching heart toward people experiencing homelessness. And please be with family members who have family members who are experiencing homeless and give them the patient, give them the wisdom, give them the old, the new. And give them the wisdom, give them the hope to help and give special blessings to all the different workers and volunteers inside of Salvation Armies and Rescue Mission. And thank you for the heart you've given them to help people that are often the least, the last, the lonely, the forgotten. And please give us all faith, give us hope to help us address this issue in a positive way, in a way that really helps to reduce homelessness and help our communities and most importantly, help the people who are experiencing homelessness. In the name of Jesus, Christ we pray, amen. Amen. And remember that Jesus said that when you do it to one of the least of these, and in our culture, other than maybe people on their deathbed, there's no one lower or more in need than people who are homeless, who are living on the streets or some variation of that,

18:24 living in a car or whatever. And when we help them, we're doing it as unto our Lord. Thank you for tuning in to The Strang Report. I encourage that you send this to people, post it on social media. If you like what you hear, subscribe to my Strang Report podcast, click the little bell so you know when we're on live Tuesdays and Thursdays, Eastern time at 4 p.m. Thank you for watching and