BeckyKanis

Nice question! The biggest misconception that I see is that people think becoming/staying homeless is a choice that people make. While I'm not saying that we don't all have agency and we aren't all responsible for our decisions, I do think that we should take into consideration that the vast majority of people who are on the streets for a long time are experiencing some kind of disabling condition, and blaming them for their situation is pretty cruel, actually. I do think it is possible to hold someone accountable for their decisions, while at the same time ALSO holding ourselves responsible for the kind of society we're creating together. You don't end up on the streets without a long string of bad personal decisions AND a dog pile of institutional failures - all the safety net protections that should help you out having failed. It's not an either or - it's usually both. You probably see this, too, but when people say, "oh they just want to be homeless" my response to that is, "have you literally walked up to them and handed them keys to an apartment? because if you haven't, you don't know whether or not they want an apartment, you just know whether or not they trust you at this point in time, and maybe they don't yet. So what are you gonna do about that?"

What do you see as the #1 misconception?

Did you know that over a billion people in the world don't have access to a toilet? Which means they just go to the bathroom the best as they can, and that makes all the water polluted, and then people get sick, and well all the bad things that come from just not having a place to go to the bathroom - where does it end? And a BILLION people? The thing that intrigues me about that, though, is that putting in plumbing would also have unintended consequences, too. I get really interested in how solving one problem actually creates another, and I love thinking about what's the root root root root big problem that would fix all kinds of other problems. There's lots of other things that lend themselves to a Campaign style intervention, but that's the one that comes to mind right now. We built this campaign off the successful 100,000 Lives Campaign run by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. It's a great model for scale and spread and I learned from Joe McCannon how to do it. What would you like to see tackled?

Definitely. Thanks for asking this. So much of how I approach leading social change is informed by what I learned at West Point and during my 9 years of service as an Army Officer. There's too much to share here, but one core value is "Mission First, Troops Always." Get the job done no matter what, and take care of your people. I think that's a good way to approach making the world a better place, too, and to extend the "taking care of your troops" to include ALL people, not just people who report to you at work. Thanks for asking that!

What I've found over the years I've been doing this is that almost everyone wants to work, even people who are tremendously disabled. So many of the people our enrolled communities help house are so mentally ill or disabled that they're not eligible for work. Still, though, plenty do go on to get jobs and fully integrate back into the work-force.

I love stirring the pot - helping people see that something is possible. And most of all I love working with my team and the leaders from across the country who have joined the movement. I love the people I get to work with everyday. Thanks for asking!