How One Organization is Addressing Homelessness through Connection and Care
8 million home shortage in the US (and 1.6 Billion worldwide who lack adequate housing).
Those experiencing homelessness suffer from relationship poverty as well – being cut off from loved ones and support networks.
Kevin F. Adler with Miracle Messages provides family reunification services, a phone buddy program, and basic income pilots for people experiencing homelessness.
They have rejoined over 1,000 families and distributed $1.1m to Miracle Messages participants with Miracle Money, a basic income pilot program.
What’s his big ask?
1. He’d love a connection to David Brooks with The New York Times.
2. Looking for board members – in tech, storytelling, NGO / policy level
Podcast Transcript
Jacob: [00:00:00] Welcome to Impact Stories, I’m here with Kevin. Please introduce yourself.
Kevin: I’m Kevin. I’m the founder of Miracle Messages, a nonprofit that helps people experiencing homelessness, rebuild their social support systems and their financial security. My background is as a social entrepreneur, a sociologist, and born and raised in the Bay Area.
Jacob: We had the privilege of meeting several years ago at Silicon Slopes, the Tech for Good session. And I’ve been enthralled with the work that you’re doing since then. Tell me that sort of origin story that got you onto this path.
Kevin: Thanks, Jacob. So a bit of the origin story of Miracle Messages, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I didn’t know a thing about homelessness. I didn’t think much about homelessness. It was maybe in my top 10 issues that I care about. But, my connection really begins with my uncle who experienced homelessness for 30 years, my uncle, Mark. I just never thought of him as a homeless man, just a beloved member of my family. And you know, when I was in college, I got a call from my dad one day, he was crying and he said that Uncle Mark had been found deceased. He was 50 years old. So after he died I just started thinking, gosh, [00:01:00] everyone I’m walking by, that’s someone’s son or daughter, brother, sister, some kid’s beloved uncle or aunt. And honestly, Jacob, I just started thinking, well, why is it that I don’t even see these individuals in the same line as my uncle? I see them as problems to be solved, not people to be loved.
And so I started out doing this kind of storytelling project as a side project, where for one year I invited 24 individuals experiencing homelessness to wear GoPro cameras around their chests and narrate their experience of what life is like on the streets. The premise was simple. Hey, I just walked by you, you’re still here. What’s it like to be you? And I watched dozens of hours of heartbreaking footage. And in one of the clips, I heard something that really set the course for Miracle Messages. And the person said, you know, I never realized I was homeless when I lost my housing, only when I lost my family and friends. So that little kernel of an insight into what I have come to call relational poverty as an overlooked form of poverty. Extreme isolation, extreme loneliness, disconnection, and often [00:02:00] facing a level of stigma and shame that makes it very hard to build or form relationships or reconnect to past ones.
And so, long story short December 2014, took a walk down Market Street, downtown San Francisco, went up to everyone I saw who was visibly homeless, sat down and introduced myself, and just said, hey, would you like to reconnect to a loved one that maybe you haven’t seen in a while and record a message? First guy I met, his name’s Jeffrey. He hadn’t seen his family in 22 years. I recorded a short video to his niece, his nephew, his sister, his dad. Went home, found a Facebook group connected to his hometown, posted it there with a little note, and then the rest is history.
Within an hour, went viral, made the local news that night. Classmates started commenting, Hey, I went to high school with Jeffrey, I work in construction, does he need a job? I work at the congressman’s office, does he need healthcare? And in the first 20 minutes, his sister got tagged. We got on the phone the next day and she told me that Jeffrey had been a missing person for 12 years. So that prompted me to quit my job and start doing this work full time because I knew Jeffrey [00:03:00] wasn’t the only one and this shouldn’t be happening. That was 10 years ago.
Jacob: Wow. And so tell me about the structure of Miracle Messages. Is it primarily focused on the reconnection?
Kevin: Yeah, so Miracle Messages 101. It’s not just me wandering around the streets with a smartphone and GoPro cameras and blasting things on social media anymore. We have long since developed better practices.
So today there’s a few programs that we offer. First with a reunification program, the way it works is a person who’s experiencing homelessness can reach out to us if they want. We have a hotline. The phone number is 1 800 MISS YOU. Or a caseworker, a social worker, a volunteer, a staff member on their behalf can either call 1 800 MISS YOU or go to our website, MiracleMessages.org, and fill out an online intake form. Once a message comes into our system, we have a network of volunteer digital detectives. So, these are everyday people, some of whom have. detective backgrounds, P.I. backgrounds, but a lot of them are just digital sleuths and they’re using their digital savvy to make phone [00:04:00] calls, write letters, do Internet searches. We partner with a bunch of. online people directories. So we have access to ancestry, people, fast people search, a bunch of others, and we’ll search these databases to try to find the loved ones that the person who’s experiencing homelessness wants to reconnect with, reach out, make a connection. That’s led to about a thousand reunifications over the last 10 years. We also work that process in reverse. So families will reach out to us and say, hey, I have a missing relative. They’re somewhere in Salt Lake City, they’re somewhere in San Francisco, I haven’t seen them in years, can you help me find them? And that’s our Find Them service. So we do that as well.
And then the other programs we’ve developed over the last 10 years, it’s a bit more developed than when I started it. We realized that for many people, even if they’re experiencing relational poverty, family might be part of the problem, not part of the solution. How do you tackle social isolation and disconnection if family isn’t a viable part of it? That’s where we developed a phone buddy program. So we match everyday volunteers all around the country for [00:05:00] weekly phone calls and text messages with unhoused neighbors, kind of like a digital pen pal. Those conversations have been logged. There’s been over 250 000 conversation minutes logged.
And then finally, December 2020, we heard from our volunteers, Hey, you’ve asked me to be friends with folks and we’re now in these relationships and we trust each other. But it’s very hard to turn a blind eye when my friend, who I care about, they don’t know how they’re going to get dinner tonight, or they don’t know how they’re going to get gas for their car to get back to work on Monday. So how do we support these other needs? And we decided to offer what turned out to be one of the first basic income pilots for people experiencing homelessness in the country. Gave out initially 500 bucks a month for 6 months, 14 individuals, no strings attached. Had some extraordinary outcomes from that where two-thirds of people got housed, and they use the money better than we could have used for them. This last year, we did a 2.1 million dollar randomized controlled trial where we gave out a bunch of money to unhoused individuals throughout the state of California. This year we’re expanding it [00:06:00] to new subpopulations and communities.
Jacob: Talk to me as far as the naysayers or the concerns about unrestricted cash donations to those experiencing homelessness. How has it actually proven out in the test results?
Kevin: One of the things that has both been a benefit and a challenge in our nation’s zeitgeist is this idea of rugged individualism. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work hard, and you could make it. And hey, that can drive an entrepreneurial spirit that brings people from all over the world to want to craft a better life for themselves and their kids. That’s a beautiful thing. But if that mindset is taken to an extreme. What does that mean? If you’re poor in America, let alone if you’re experiencing homelessness. Does that mean you’re deservedly poor? Did you do something where you’re just not smart enough, not working hard enough, and you fell short of what you could have achieved?
I think that’s nonsense. When we think of homelessness, we got to almost think of this game of musical chairs. Where the music stops, there’s not enough chairs for everyone. In fact, there’s an 8 million unit shortage of affordable [00:07:00] housing in the United States. So, if you look at that, and all the other systems that are broken, foster care. Let me just give you a quick stat, 1 out of every 3 kids who age out of foster care by the time they’re 25 years old, will have experienced homelessness. And for black young kids, that goes up to 60%.
So when you hear stats like that, and then you think about, even if you are successful, I’m sure you can close your eyes and think about all the friends, mentors, networks, people who believed in you, sometimes at critical junctures in your life, where it could have gone one way or another, and you really had someone to support you. For our neighbors experiencing homelessness, many of them either lost that, or the resources that were available in those networks were not nearly as robust as they could have been.
Jacob: What do you see as the biggest hurdle for your work?
Kevin: So there’s this cognitive dissonance, this kind of Implicit explanation that I think exists in most people’s minds that like, well, you wouldn’t be in this situation if you didn’t deserve it. That’s a huge issue.
I think the other piece to it is this feeling of learned helplessness. What can I [00:08:00] possibly do on this issue to make a difference? It feels too daunting. I don’t know where to start. and frankly, homeless service providers and the homeless government agencies, have not done a great job dispelling that. There’s a best practice that’s termed housing first, which is really this basic idea in order to address the underlying issues that may have contributed to someone’s situation of homelessness. You have to start with housing because it’s very hard to go through a recovery program or to deal with your severe mental health issue if you’re insecurely housed. But the problem with housing first is people don’t think of it as housing first as part of a 5-pillared strategy. They think of it as housing only.
My mindset is we got to look at all those pillars in the 5th pillar of Housing First is community and social integration. And let’s be honest, that fifth pillar is community integration, that’s seen as let’s get you a cupcake once you ever move in, but you’ll never get to that point. it’s not seen seriously.
Our work at Miracle Messages and my work with When We Walk By it inverts that. And it says, let’s focus on that because that’s something we can all [00:09:00] contribute to. It’s very tangible, that’s a good starting point. And I think with the issue and people getting involved, we need everyday people on this issue. We talk a lot about homelessness. We don’t talk nearly enough about housed people. How everyday housed people need to be part of the solution.
And the last thing I’ll just say to kind of wrap up this thought is during the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, in thinking about his strategies, understood that it was flawed public consensus in addition to flawed public policy, at the root of racial oppression. We talk about the flawed public policy as it relates to homelessness, but then there’s this flawed public consensus part. Like the hearts and minds, how we see our unhoused neighbors, what’s the presumption of why people are homeless? That part doesn’t get talked about or thought about nearly enough, and I think that’s an oversight that needs to be addressed.
Jacob: What’s your take on how best to address that as far as the hearts and mind question of shifting public perception and paradigms?
Kevin: Ask stupid questions. Ask dumb, whatever questions you feel like. There’s [00:10:00] so many issues right now where we feel like we have to self-monitor and filter what’s on our minds, and whatever the issue, and unfortunately that creates this spiral where it’s like, I don’t want to get it wrong. I don’t want to be canceled. I want to make mistakes, walking on eggshells. That is baloney on almost any issue, but especially on homelessness, because the truth is, if you haven’t experienced homelessness, how would you know anything about it? How would you know what to say? How do you know the right terms?
But I think we should be politically and culturally a group that embraces hard, courageous, but important conversations. And in order to have those conversations it requires building trust, having courage. It requires relationships, and I don’t just mean with neighbors experiencing homelessness and their loved ones. I mean, with us and them.
So, when I give a talk, I’ll ask two questions. How many of you care about the issue of homelessness? Every hand shoots up, right? Second question, how many of you know someone who’s currently experiencing homelessness? Never more than maybe at most 5 percent of people raise their hands. As gently and but firmly as I can share, Jacob, I say, well, that might be part of the issue. [00:11:00] We don’t know who they are. It’s this abstraction. We need to know Joseph, Javier, and Camelia. We need to know someone by name. Once we get past all the BS, how could you ever move forward? Whether it’s through miracle messages, volunteering, going to a local shelter, doing a phone buddy program, watching stuff online is better than nothing, but just getting to know people experiencing homelessness and hearing their stories and sharing a bit of your own, I think goes a long way.
Jacob: What is it that you? personally, or as an organization, what are you most looking for right now?
Kevin: Hope, feels very heavy. Whatever your politics are right now, everything’s so tense, everything’s so heavy and I think one of the best ways to feel hopeful is to feel empowered, feel a sense of agency. It’s not out of your control. You make a difference. I have seen over and over again in my life, 10 years ago, compared to today, all that I’ve learned, written a book on homelessness, led an organization for 10 years. built that up, given hundreds of talks, scores of podcast interviews. I feel [00:12:00] more hopeful today than I did 10 years ago. On this issue.
Even if I’ve seen the complexity, the broken systems, the numbers not looking good. And my sense of hope is because I’ve seen people get housed, seeing people get off the streets. I’ve seen what it takes. And sometimes it’s not as tricky and complicated on an individual basis, as you might think. Sometimes it is. Homelessness is not a binary, it’s a housing and security spectrum. But I feel there’s a lack of hope on this issue.
Jacob: What type of connections would be most valuable, what are those bridges you’re looking to build?
Kevin: So my initial thought was whether you see homelessness as your issue or not, it actually doesn’t matter. Finding a way that your values intersect with this issue. Whether it’s you have a passion for survivors of domestic violence, which is a huge group of people experiencing homelessness. You have a passion for young people, one of the largest groups of people experiencing homelessness, kids under 18. The number one predictor of adult homelessness is youth homelessness. Whether you have a passion for returning citizens from incarceration and criminal justice reform.
[00:13:00] Beyond that, we are looking at Miracle Messages for a couple more potential board members over the next year. We have a small, but mighty board of directors. There’s seven of us on it now. And, you know, some of the skills that I think are prioritized right now, having someone who has more of a technologist background could help us think about the systems and products that we develop and how that streamlines our programs even more. Marketing and communications, like the narrative change elements, how do you change hearts and minds on this issue? What are ways to tell stories in a way that’s not exploitative or heuristic, but very effective? And then others who care about the issue of homelessness, and whether you work at a nonprofit or government agency, wanting to think about relational poverty, and how that can apply to the people that you serve.
Jacob: If someone was interested in learning more, what’s the best way for them to either connect with you or the organization?
Kevin: Instagram, LinkedIn, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Instagram, Kevin F Adler. Miraclemessages.org, it’s our website, and then there’s a get involved form on the website. So just fill out the get involved form, it’ll keep you in the [00:14:00] loop and you can share a little bit more about yourself and we can follow up from there.
Jacob: Thank you so much for the work that you do for showing up and the decade-plus that you’ve been at it. There must be some renewable fuel source for your drive to do this.
Kevin: It’s the best work I’ve ever had. I am so grateful and blessed to have had this journey. This work has just been so gratifying. Again, all roads can lead to homelessness and there’s so much opportunity, creativity, innovation, really just wonderful people. My faith in humanity is constantly being reaffirmed in the community that is part of Miracle Messages. It’s my pleasure. It really is.
Jacob: Thank you, Kevin. And God bless you in the work that you do.
Kevin: Thanks. You too, Jacob. Appreciate you. Good seeing you.
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