Rex Hohlbein 0:01

This podcast contains potentially sensitive topics and strong language listener discretion is advised.

It'd be a long night, my little tip here at tensity three water coming in like crazy. Now I'm just bedding down for the night, hoping that I stay warm and dry. You can hear it's raining pretty hard out there and can smell the wet trying to keep the water out. But it's how many. And it's going to be a wet night. And what's amazing to me is I do this one night, in the winter, and folks intensity three, deal with the elements every single night. But frankly, I don't know how they do it. And you know, my heart goes out to them, or just the courage and strength to face this all winter long. Morning will can't come fast enough. I'm Rex Holbein and welcome to you know me now, a podcast conversation that strives to amplify the unheard voices in our community. For the past 13 years, I've been fortunate to meet and spend a great deal of time with 1000s of folks living homeless. Through those conversations and friendships. I learned how destructive and baseless the dehumanizing effects of the negative stereotype are against ordinary people, people who quite frankly, are just like you and me. In these episodes, I want to remind all of our listeners that the folks who share here, do so with a great deal of vulnerability, and courage, they share a common hope that by giving all of us a window into their world, they're opening an increased level of awareness, understanding and connection within our own community. What's going on here that makes this place special,

Speaker 1 2:16

the family that I got to pick you when when you're born into a family or you're adopted into a family, you don't pick that family, they, they honestly they they are supposed to pick you you're born, your parents kept you your they picked you. You your adopted, they picked you, but everybody that's here. And some sort of way I've got to pick them as family. And I know this isn't a journey, like everybody stays here forever, eventually I'll be moving on to. But the people who no matter what stage they are, I know I can 100% trust them, I know that they have my back. They know I have their backs. I know that I can freely cry about something without ever feeling like fingers are being pointed at me and my my feelings are being laughed at. I'm safe. And there's a community here. I've witnessed new people come in who have absolutely nothing, no clothes or anything. We had donation coordinator and she immediately goes gets everything. Make sure everybody's properly closed, which is more than I've ever seen anybody doing in my lifetime? How much people take care of people here and take care of people honestly, who are in the streets, we cannot. How's everybody, you have to have an idea to stay here can be on a sex offender list. And so we have people who come by that don't have an ID clearly on something and all they want is like a plate of food or a sweater. And we're like the third largest donations in Seattle. And so we have a policy of if you ask you when you will get it. A lot of us have been getting more into like actual city politics and stuff I've been to I think it's two or three rallies now about stopping the sweeps and why the Sweeps are so harmful. I feel like people really need to stop fighting homelessness and start fighting poverty, more housing, things like that. It's not being homeless. That's the issue. It's poverty of it. Yeah. I'm currently homeless because I was laid off. I can go get a job. I can probably go now and save up get housing, but I'm not ready to go back to work yet and I'm not ready to leave the people here. There are people here who cannot do what I can do.

Rex Hohlbein 4:53

That was Kendra speaking with us. She came to Tent City three in June of last year after losing her job working in food service at the time, she was also in an abusive relationship. How is it that Kendra ended up attensity Three. Most of us have had barriers in our life, such as losing jobs or being in bad relationships and have not ended up homeless. To know why any of us are where we are in life. We need to come closer to know more than just what is going on in the moment. For Kendra, she was in foster care system by the age of three due to abuse. She went through 37 different foster and group homes. As a foster child, she has struggled with rejection and depression. The trauma of her childhood, deeply affected her. Now in her 20s She's working on developing a strong sense of self she has high aspirations to go to college and get into coding and is glad to have tensity three as a place to regroup and plan her next move in life. Kendra is a success story in the making. She is also a reminder for us that we don't all start at the same start line, some of us have to travel a good distance forward just to get to where everyone else began their journey. In other words, judging people by where they are, doesn't tell the whole story doesn't tell us where they came from. There is a wide diversity of people who make up the population of 10 city three. For every person living there, you will find a profound reason for why this is their best choice for now. For some folks, the stay is short, while others stay longer to work things out while having shelter from the storm. And still others arrive and discover their mission in life turning their experiences from hindrances into assets. For folks who don't know, Tent City three is operated by the 501 C three nonprofit called Share wheel, which stands for Seattle Housing and resource effort and its partner organization, women's housing equality and enhancement League. Both organizations have deep roots in Seattle with their birth during the 1990 Goodwill Games. The Self Managed community model that share we'll developed in the 1990s is one of the first in the country. From the beginning. tensity three has moved quarterly to different host locations throughout the city, mostly to church parking lots. In early January for this episode, I spent two days and one night at tensity. Three, they were located on a small parking lot between the Husky Stadium and Lake Washington on the U DUB campus. Well, I got to know a number of residents during the time there such as Kendra OSH, Andrew Ryan, Sebastian, Rebecca and others. Most of my time was spent hanging out with Sean Smith. Sean is one of the camp leaders who has years of experience operating 10 cities. And his time we share goes back really to the beginning of the organization. We started our conversation with his childhood memories. So

Sean Smith 8:09

I was born here in Seattle Maynard Hospital, which is now under the foot of the i Five bridge over the canal. Interesting.

Rex Hohlbein 8:20

How old are you?

Sean Smith 8:20

I'm 57 Or I'll be 57 this year. Okay. Yeah,

Rex Hohlbein 8:25

I was born here too. And I'm 64. So my guess is our paths probably crossed because back then Seattle is pretty small town. Well, yeah. A Little Big Town. Right? It was the Little Big 10 When neighborhood Did you grow up in Greenwood

Sean Smith 8:39

right off at what they call Licton Springs. Now it really is 76 and Aurora. And my parents bought a house there in the 70s. You know, it was one of those houses that was built the turn of the century and I remember the bare wires in the basement and the you know, the coal chute and the coal room.

Rex Hohlbein 9:08

Yeah, and the knob and tube. Yeah. wiring. Yeah.

Sean Smith 9:10

That house is a million plus now I'm like, Yeah, and it's the same shitty rundown house.

Rex Hohlbein 9:20

Anything to get my head around? So would your would your folks do for a living was your mama house mom, or did she work and what's your dad do?

Sean Smith 9:28

So that's interesting. You know, my mom didn't work for I'd probably say the first eight years of my life. And my dad worked as an insurance salesman for John Hancock. And then when my younger sister was born, right, things kind of got shook up and and you know, things started getting more expensive. So my mother took on a job with Washington quilt, sewing sleeping bags for Eddie Bauer. How

Rex Hohlbein 10:05

is that for you to change your life when she went to work had

Sean Smith 10:09

changed quite a bit, a few things. You know, the my dad was old fashion, you know some kind of shakeup at John Hancock lost him his job, where he worked, went to work, see warehouse Solly seed. He did that for a number of years. The fact that my mom went to work was a point of contention. You know, my mother, she she unionized Washington quote, she were she was part of a union movement. You know, in the 70s. That shook up that company. She got elected shop steward. She probably gave me my most important value. She she used to say to me, you don't think something's fair? Do something to change it.

Rex Hohlbein 10:59

That's a good value to have.

Sean Smith 11:01

Yeah. Don't complain about it, and do nothing. You actually have to do something in order to make things change.

Rex Hohlbein 11:11

Yeah. Sounds like she was a strong woman. She was at 17. Sean graduated high school and went straight into the army. He said he had Audie Murphy syndrome. For those of you that don't know about Audie Murphy, and I didn't, he was the most decorated Marine in US history.

Sean Smith 11:30

Audie Murphy was an actor. But during World War Two, he won the Congressional Medal of Honor. By standing on top of a burning tank in Bastogne, and covering his squad, with the 50 caliber, as Germans were were invading into the best own region. And he called it an artillery strike in and around himself.

Rex Hohlbein 12:06

It gives me shivers on my arms, actually, you know,

Sean Smith 12:09

and of course with Rambo, and, you know,

Rex Hohlbein 12:13

so you got a little bit of a hero.

Sean Smith 12:16

Or, you know, I want to shoot the film. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what? What red blooded American boy doesn't want to be the hero. Right?

Rex Hohlbein 12:28

Yeah. And also, oh, by the way, feels invincible, right.

Sean Smith 12:32

So, you know, I went into the service with that attitude. So

Rex Hohlbein 12:37

an 18, what was going on in the world? When he went into the service? What was happening at that? So

Sean Smith 12:41

the Sandinistas had just overthrown the government in Nicaragua. There was a revolution afoot in El Salvador, and Guatemala. And I originally enlisted to be in a special forces school, or I wanted to be a Greenbrae you know, complete Rambo. And turns out the army Green Berets are not Rambo.

Rex Hohlbein 13:14

Right? So Hollywood got it wrong.

Sean Smith 13:20

They, you know, it gave me a perspective. I washed out a special forces school. But I completed Special Forces Pathfinder training, the army formed a new unit for its elite Flying Corps that they're enjoined operations with, with the Air Force. You're probably more familiar with it with the recent takedown of bin Laden. You know, the task force 160, has been around for a lot of years. And they're the ones that flew those helicopters in and flew the CLT men. But I was one of the guys that with a pathfinder, set up the drop zones and pickup zones for special forces operations.

Rex Hohlbein 14:18

So that's flying under the radar at night type stuff, or

Sean Smith 14:23

jump out of our aircraft, you know, 14 miles from a location there and glide in by parachute. So that's what you did. That's what I did.

Rex Hohlbein 14:36

As an older and wiser man, Shawn reflects on his military days in a different light.

Sean Smith 14:42

I mean, I bought I bought that whole hook line and sinker of, you know, we're fighting for freedom. And well, the truth is, is that we're fighting over the price of bananas. You know, throughout that whole time and such All America during the 80s and early 90s, it was about the price of bananas because nobody here is going to pay $5 for a banana. But the truth of it is, is that would it be, would be fair trade. The whole Nicaragua experience, right? Was because the Sandinistas came in. And one of the first things they did is to reclaim the land for the people in Nicaragua, right? For the cup of Ceanothus, are the farmers. Because us Fruit Company, aka Chiquita banana, held most of it, right? And a whole nation can't survive that way. The people who, you know, whose lives were directly affected, joined us, and then he said he can't blame them. No. But as Americans, we're we're, we're the modern room, right? Yeah, in a lot of ways. We have our consumerism stretches around the world.

Rex Hohlbein 16:18

And our control for that consumerism. Right. Remind me how did it end for Rome? You know? I think not good. Not good.

Sean Smith 16:30

My last overseas tour was Bosnia. I was absolutely sickened by what happened there.

Rex Hohlbein 16:38

Yeah. Ethnic cleansing. Yeah,

Sean Smith 16:41

I mean, it's, it's horrible what human beings can do to each other.

Rex Hohlbein 16:51

And you saw that firsthand, I did.

Sean Smith 16:55

And had my hands tight the whole time. I saw and I couldn't do anything about it, bear witness to that kind of thing. And not be able to do anything about it. goes against my very nature.

Rex Hohlbein 17:15

Shawn got out of the military in 1996. After 12 years of service, I asked him if those experiences are still part of him. Do those images. Find you today? Still?

Sean Smith 17:28

They do. You know, it's horrifying. But you know, it gives me perspective too. So, yeah.

Rex Hohlbein 17:36

Can you share a little about that perspective? Like an example? I mean, I've never seen war. I've never quite frankly, I haven't seen a lot when it comes to the ugly side of what humans can do to each other. Like, what? What kind of perspective did you gain?

Sean Smith 17:51

But I think you do. I really do. We see it all the time here. We don't realize. We throw out words like NIMBY, right. You know, meaning not in my backyard. But that cruelty of personality is even exist in here.

Rex Hohlbein 18:15

That's a form of it. Right? Granted,

Sean Smith 18:17

it doesn't result in soldiers coming into a village and rounding up every male and executing them no matter what their age, but we do it economically in this country.

Rex Hohlbein 18:32

It's such a good point you're making? Yeah, it's that indifference to cruelty to each other?

Sean Smith 18:37

Yeah. You know, I remember a time when in fact, right there on Saturday, where we knew our neighbors. Right. I got a big wheel when I was 876 as a hill. And it is ready to rock. And I would start at the top and I would start at the top of the hill. And my mother would get three phone calls before I reached our house.

Rex Hohlbein 19:08

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Was community looking out for each other. Right.

Sean Smith 19:12

Right. Here we are. 50 years later, what the hell happened? We lost that ability to care about one another as neighbors.

Rex Hohlbein 19:21

Yeah, that's big. Yeah, I'm glad you connected. That perspective that you talked about to just the everyday cruelty that goes on right around us, that we that we've actually made normal,

Sean Smith 19:36

right? It's always been things of the haves to try to diminish the have nots, right. That's as old as men having wealth.

Rex Hohlbein 19:50

King in the mountain man on top right.

Sean Smith 19:53

Control the resources you know, and you control the power but You know, for a time it was community banding together, right? I hate to use the word settle. Right. But the way the West was settled was by communities banded together. Right?

Rex Hohlbein 20:20

Yeah. Safety. Resources. Right. Work all of it. Right.

Sean Smith 20:26

But it was community building all the time. Basically, that's what I do here. Yeah. That

Rex Hohlbein 20:33

is what you're doing here, your community building. And I think that's something our neighborhoods don't know anything about, in general, right. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to, like, label all the neighborhoods in Seattle. But I, but I know I've lived in a number of them. And you get to know the few folks around your house. Yeah, you know, but, but you don't feel necessarily like a community not like, I know that 10 city. Small House villages have had that feeling. Yeah. After his military service, Sean traveled the country a bit. He went to college, and also got involved in the food scene. As Sean put it, he dicked around a dicked

Sean Smith 21:13

around, you know, are you in Seattle? Seattle, I traveled the country a little bit. took up the profession of cooking. You go to school? Or? I did I went to Austin Peay University and got a degree in socio anthropology.

Rex Hohlbein 21:31

Nice. Was that a good time in your life? It was

Sean Smith 21:35

interesting. I mean, it's an absolutely useless degree without a master's but

Rex Hohlbein 21:44

but more perspective, and

Sean Smith 21:46

it's actually something I use utilize here every day, you know, it's socio anthropology being the understanding of culture and cultural

Rex Hohlbein 21:54

development. And and when you finished, you went cooking, or went cooking, or like, what were you cooking was, Are these fine dining establishments, fine

Sean Smith 22:06

dining establishments, or I befriended a guy here in Seattle, who was doing Asian fusion? I got in on the cutting edge of that.

Rex Hohlbein 22:19

I mean, I would think that'd be pretty exciting time traveling around and, and restaurant life and no heart. No restaurant life is hard work. It's hard. But but also, it's very, I mean, you're a people person, right? That seems pretty obvious. And it and you're around people, like a lot of people. And so

Sean Smith 22:37

when you're in the back of the kitchen, you're not around a lot of people. You're around a few select

Rex Hohlbein 22:42

people. Yeah. Who,

Sean Smith 22:46

for the most part is passionate about what you're doing. Yeah, there's you are so yeah, so I cooked for nearly 25 years. About eight years ago, the injuries from cooking, you know, falls you take falls all the time. Really? In the kitchen. Yeah. Just

Rex Hohlbein 23:10

like slippery, greasy floors. Yeah.

Sean Smith 23:14

Came down on my tailbone more than once. And that accumulated into spiral fractures. Wow. And the lower back. osteoarthritis. So, you know, when when you work multiple states, you know, nobody wants to take it on. And I gave up on fighting with Social Security a couple of years ago.

Rex Hohlbein 23:45

So so just to be clear, you got to a point where you just couldn't work anymore.

Sean Smith 23:49

Yeah, I can't stand on my feet for eight hours. You know. And when you work in high end kitchen, it's 12 to 16 hours a day.

Rex Hohlbein 24:00

And at that point, did you was that your entry into homelessness? So

Sean Smith 24:07

cooking in Seattle? Sucks. Or it used to suck. The most you hope to make was 950. And Seattle's been expensive for 30 years. Yeah. 950 never paid the rent.

Rex Hohlbein 24:25

And that's only gotten worse. Yeah. So you were not only hurting. You were also bleeding your money, any kind of savings or yeah, basically, we're living month to month at some point, paycheck to paycheck.

Sean Smith 24:39

Most of the time, and this is like my third trip in homelessness. My my first trip was in the late 90s. I ran across this organization that was doing shelter, right. They had, you know, success. Fully negotiated with the city to create shelter, right. Same organization, you know, record the first tent city at the foot of the kingdom and parlayed that into the bus bar. And from the bus bar and was born to share,

Rex Hohlbein 25:26

Sean's life story is woven in and out of the complicated last 30 years of homelessness advocacy in Seattle. He holds a perspective that has been informed by being involved in many of the protests and direct action taken around housing and services. Nonprofits, such as low income housing Institute, and share wheel were born in the 90s and rose to become large established service providers in the city. This history is still being written with current events unfolding, such as tiny home villages, and service providers adjusting to the growing needs of our homeless population. With Shawn, having been intimately involved with so many efforts to address homelessness, I asked him what made tent city so special, tell me what's so beautiful about Tent City three, and maybe start with what is 10? City three, because a certain number of listeners aren't going to know, know what that is two words.

Sean Smith 26:26

Living democracy, we talk a lot about democracy in this country. But very few people practice it. Here it is practiced religiously. Now, part of the problem that we have is the same problem that society has. Democracy doesn't thrive with complacency. People get complacent. And democracy suffers as a result. But that's what this is so beautiful about this place is that, you know, 10 city three is not a social service organization. We're not. We're a self help group.

Rex Hohlbein 27:13

Because you are self managed as well. Yeah. Self Managed

Sean Smith 27:16

means that not only are we making the decisions, we're doing the work to a lot of people coming in don't understand that. At first. It is a adjustment period for them. Because, yeah, they're used to making decisions. You know, maybe they have to do a little bit something here a little bit something there. But here, it's really Yeah, we got to talk about the decisions we make. Because we're going to end up doing the

Rex Hohlbein 27:51

work to it. Yeah, we're going to implement it, right? It's

Sean Smith 27:55

not like you say you want to shower, right? You want to show a trailer? Well, who's going to? Who's going to get that? We don't have staff to do that. Yeah. We're the ones that do it.

Rex Hohlbein 28:11

And then he's going to maintain it, who's going to clean it break? All of it? How is

Sean Smith 28:15

it gonna run? And how are we paying for it? And I mean, one of the other beautiful things that happens here is skills that people had, that it might be dormant, or they didn't even know that they had come to the fore here, and they discovered it. You literally watch people grow.

Rex Hohlbein 28:40

That's beautiful, was actually going to be one of my questions to you is, you know, is this form of shelter? You know, is it just that is it just shelter and getting people through? Or do you see growth and development? And, you know, it depends

Sean Smith 28:56

on how people treat it when they're here, right? The community here has a lot of demand, you know, that we do have people that come in and they just want to lay their head down. I get that, you know, you come out come out of survival mode here. Right. But this place commands that you come out of survival mode. Participation is a requirement.

Rex Hohlbein 29:20

Seems healing to me. I haven't gone through, you know, the kind of trauma that probably a lot of folks here have experienced either trauma that brought them to homelessness or the fact that homelessness is traumatic.

Sean Smith 29:31

I don't think the society really appreciates that that gut wrenching feeling when you find yourself homeless, that that is a seriously traumatic event.

Rex Hohlbein 29:48

I'm sure you're 100% Correct. I don't think people do data. I don't think people including myself, having met 1000s of people that are homeless at this point, I don't think I still can even come close to understanding the feeling of that moment. Yeah, that people must experience when they realize, Wow, I'm outside. And I don't have anything. Yeah.

Sean Smith 30:12

It's devastating. Yeah, in this society where everything is a fingertips reach,

Rex Hohlbein 30:24

but still unattainable. Yeah. It's right there. But not for you. Yeah.

Sean Smith 30:33

And that moment of realization is, is very traumatic.

Rex Hohlbein 30:39

How was that for you? Like, when you the first time you experienced homelessness, did it? Did it floor, you

Sean Smith 30:47

know, I had lost my wife, cancer took her and I was trying to kill myself at that time.

Rex Hohlbein 30:57

Because of the grief of that, yeah. Shawn,

Sean Smith 31:02

you know, and I wasn't doing it in a nice way, I was trying to draw myself in a bottle. You know, then I discovered this place, you know, people who are new, encourage me to come here, it literally turned on the light. So I mean, you know, in a lot of ways this place saved me normally get it saved me, it gave me a renewed sense of purpose.

Rex Hohlbein 31:31

Shawn was recently elected as a camp advisor, a title that still has to go through the process of being ratified. Myself

Sean Smith 31:39

and another individual have been recently elected by the camp is camp advisors. A good analogy would be that were the elders of the community and have a great deal of knowledge about the history and workings of density three, that still has to be vetted through the share staff, and then ultimately, by the larger organizational meeting, which are what we call power lunch. Remember the power lenses? Right? Both those entities need to approve before that it's official.

Rex Hohlbein 32:30

Yeah. Shawn, tell me. I mean, it's, it's obvious, I think, to most people that a community like tensity three, how constructive that can be for the resonance, tell me why it's also constructive for the communities that you guys go into and explain a little bit about the consent decree where you have to move.

Sean Smith 32:49

So the consent decree ran from 2006 to 2016, the consent decree which for 10 years, and that was a hard fought battle. I mean, it goes back to why we did this. We started this as a challenge to the city codification, which wouldn't permit and attend encampment, anywhere in the city. They wouldn't issue a permit. And the first couple of years were rough. You know, we would set up and you know, swept, no, not get swept, they didn't sweep us they, they would come through and threaten the church with fines and they didn't dare sweep us on on church property. So in 2004, we went to El Centro de la casa, a good friend of mine, Roberto, my estrus whom I've known for many years, said, don't move. We'll fight with you. That led us to, you know, Superior Court in the state of Washington. And the judge basically said that the city cannot regulate in such a way as to prevent a church from fulfilling their mission. Right. That makes sense, or their religious mission. Right. And he ordered arbitration between us in the city. And from that we got the consent decree. Wow. That consent decree said that, you know, we would not stay any one place less than a minimum of three months. maximum of six. You know, no open flames within the camp. We had to check for sex offenders. We basically moved Now, because it's hard for, you know, churches with a shrieking congregation to give up their parking lots, you know, for long periods of time.

Rex Hohlbein 35:12

So it's really out of respect to the church that you guys continue to move every three months. Yeah, it is that you hold to that pretty well, three months, for the most part. Yeah. What I know about tensity, three, two. And the reason I asked the question about what does it mean for the communities is that I've seen it firsthand, and I've heard it multiple times is that you guys move into a neighborhood. There's an initial, you know, ruckus of community, with their with the typical NIMBY worry. Right. But by the time you leave, you've made believers of, of everybody. And I know, it's not like ironclad every time, but it's, it's pretty much, right. I mean, yeah, it's

Sean Smith 35:55

pretty much and you know, it's amazing. I mean, if you look at the statistical data, the police department gathered around us, I think it's 10 years ago now. They said 10 years ago, that crime dropped 40% in the area that would 10. City three occupied? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a lot of eyes and ears,

Rex Hohlbein 36:18

which equates to more security, less litter, and connection. Yeah. With people that probably for people living in homes, that probably many have never had a relationship of any kind with someone that's outside homeless, get alone their neighbors, and let alone their neighbors. Yeah. I see that as a extremely important facet of what TC three does. Yeah. I think it's part of tearing down the negative stereotype.

Sean Smith 36:48

You know, negativity always comes from fear. Right. You know, we've heard it. I mean, it was all over the Seattle Times, of course, you know, the this fear of, well, I'm not going to be able to use my backyard because the homeless people there. And what they're fearing, is the other epidemic that is happening in our country. Right. And it is a it's a frightening epidemic of fentanyl. Right? Yep. Well, we don't have drugs use here. nicotine, caffeine, are the drugs within TC three, you know, we don't allow alcohol or marijuana.

Rex Hohlbein 37:33

There's there's less drugs in TC three than in the homes in the neighborhoods that you are. Yeah,

Sean Smith 37:38

we were a little sanctuary. In the midst of a fentanyl explosion, you know, well, if you actually read the coroner's report, you'll find that the majority of the overdoses are in homes. Wow.

Rex Hohlbein 37:56

That tells you that tells you something there doesn't it with regards to people's feelings that the drug crisis is a homelessness issue. It's it's it's no it's it's running across this whole country,

Sean Smith 38:11

the worst meth epidemic to hit the country is in Dearborn, Michigan. But they don't have a homeless crisis. in Dearborn, Michigan.

Rex Hohlbein 38:23

Well, this is part of the the solidity of the negative stereotype. Right? Yeah. Like, you know, somebody loses a bike. And instantly it was someone that was homeless, it's stolen. I mean, that's a crime, litter, all of it is immediately attached to homelessness. Because the effectiveness of the negative stereotype I mean, it's kind of ironclad. Right? You know, and, and it kind of makes sense to Right. Like, if you don't have any experience with somebody that has gone through homelessness, that means you're kind of an empty vessel. So the negative stereotype comes in, nothing to challenge it with. And that's, I think, one of the powers of TC three is going into a community. And now you're giving somebody some other information with regards to what homelessness is. I think that's, that's the brilliant, I think that's the brilliant part of the three month moving is how effective that is. There's

Sean Smith 39:20

a move heart. Yeah, we refer to it as organized chaos. It's a hell of a thing to pick up a community and move it. Yeah. Any distance.

Rex Hohlbein 39:32

Again, how many people are here? Currently, presently?

Sean Smith 39:35

I believe we're 38 and we have a capacity of 100.

Rex Hohlbein 39:43

Okay. What 38 Is that? Is that been pretty average lately? Like, do you go lower to go higher?

Sean Smith 39:49

So we were hired before the move. We dropped way below that. Wow. Once we completed the move Yeah, we're we're slowly building their numbers back up. And

Rex Hohlbein 40:04

that's correct me if I'm wrong, but that's pretty typical around moves. Right you, people fairly typical

Sean Smith 40:10

and you know the holidays and the the smashing week of weather that we had here the first week, the ice storm? Well, I mean, it started with the day of the move, you know, it snowed for about 10 minutes it rained that and then we got hit with snow, real snow that melted away. And then we got hit with ice storm. And then we got hit with a windstorm.

Rex Hohlbein 40:50

The makeup of 38 people roughly what's the percentage male to female?

Sean Smith 40:54

I want to say there's about eight women presently? And

Rex Hohlbein 41:00

is that also a rough out? Are you kind of on the average? Or at least a

Sean Smith 41:05

little bit? below average? We tend to run fairly close to even most of

Rex Hohlbein 41:12

the time. And what about the age? The average age

Sean Smith 41:15

here? Now that that is my question. I mean, I've got a seven year old in camp. And I think the youngest is 22. I have a lot of Gen Z years. I want to save six to eight Gen Zers.

Rex Hohlbein 41:34

that age bracket Gen Z is like 20 to 25. Yeah, 26, something like that. Yeah, I know you were expressing, like seeing that many folks in that age bracket. And what they're struggling with is, is concerning for you. It's

Sean Smith 41:49

very concerning. It speaks volumes to what we're dealing with economically here. But you know, the question is how far abroad across the nation does that really? What does that represent for us? You know, where's this going?

Rex Hohlbein 42:11

Yeah. Are they a canary in the coal mine?

Sean Smith 42:13

Yeah.

Rex Hohlbein 42:14

Are they telling us their predicament is that? What's that telling us about the predicament of where we are?

Sean Smith 42:19

That it's getting bad out there? You know, we will we said the we're one event from the dam breaking. Right? We're the little Dutch boy with a finger in the dike. Right?

Rex Hohlbein 42:34

Hoping more holes don't show up. Right? Because we're out of fingers. Yeah. Yeah. What else should I know statistically about about TC three,

Sean Smith 42:43

you know, the month before we moved, we had three people go in successfully into housing. From here, there's so much talk about outcomes. Right? I don't concern myself so much without booms. I'm after one number. One number specifically, and that is zero deaths outside or by violence of homeless people. That's what I'm after. 238 last year. If it were a disease, we would have the CDC investigating would we not? If it were gangland violence, we'd have the police investigating. If it was a disaster, citizens would be worried. But we've seen it every day for a person to die nearly every day.

Rex Hohlbein 43:50

Yeah. Those were 238 people that were living in Laurelhurst Wallingford Blue Ridge, you know, we would we would be going stir crazy mad with that kind of number. Right? And it just quietly slips under the radar.

Sean Smith 44:10

A lot of ways we're taught in society be angry at ourselves for this situation. Right. Now, it's not 100% our fault, you know? And it's hard to to grasp that. You know, I could go into all the societal shifts and unfair economic practices that that we do as a society. Yeah. You know, but it is much simpler to say the, you know, the, the existence of homelessness in the United States. The richest country in the world is a matter of economics. And we saw a little bit of that with 1% movement. People were being exposed to that Warren Buffett said, said it best. You know, he said, You're right. There has been a war, an economic war in the richer one. Yeah. What happened in the days of 20%? Profit? It's 100 150 200% profit. Now we've codified this at the national level, right? A corporation is required to make the maximum profit for their shareholders. Yeah. You know, I've come to the point in my life where I realized that we have we have a little niche that we work in. Right. There's my little niche in the world that I can affect change.

Rex Hohlbein 45:43

What's what's in your future? what's ahead for Sean?

Sean Smith 45:48

I have visions. Yeah. What are the things? You know, I've been? I'm a published poet. I dabbled in, in art. For a while. I was part of streetlife gallery. When I was just doing type of art. Do you do abstract surrealism?

Rex Hohlbein 46:07

Am I able to find your poetry online? Yeah,

Sean Smith 46:11

you can find it. You run my name. Okay. And the real change archives, and I think my favorite piece I wrote, appeared in an editorial section. It was called Blue papers for

Rex Hohlbein 46:24

Edie. In and what was it about?

Sean Smith 46:27

There's an abstract character. Right, a conglomeration of many people that I've met. The Edie was a world war two veteran. Right, and a father and a grandfather had open heart surgery and slept in a shelter. And

Rex Hohlbein 46:50

you're just given given homage to him. Yeah. What's the what's the reader left with?

Sean Smith 46:57

You know, that there are people out there? The, in other circumstances we'd look at, look to as heroes.

Rex Hohlbein 47:07

You know, in Passover, when they're not in Yeah, you know, they're not meeting all the other societal expectations. Yeah. What's your what's the end goal, the vision, what do you want to see?

Sean Smith 47:21

I want to see neighborhoods coming together and saying, No, we can't let our neighbor fall out into the street. I want to I want to see a drive across the country where, you know, we just don't rob people of the rights, because they fall in and a hard time. We tend to do that we try to minimize a person's rights, because they're asking for help. Now they're less. Yeah, they're not equal,

Rex Hohlbein 47:56

or deserving, right. I have this belief that we are all infinitely beautiful and worthwhile, in difficult moments, around any issue, when we're not seeing someone else's beauty or their worth. It does not mean it's not there. It simply means we're not seeing it, and that we need to keep looking. Rather than walking away. We need to come closer in our society, good and compassionate people are walking away from those that are suffering. How does that happen? And how do we stop it from happening? You know, me now is produced, written and edited by Tomas Vernadsky. And me, Rex Holbein. We would like to thank Kendra and Shawn, for taking the time to speak with us. And the folks that 10 City three for hosting me for one, seriously wet, cold, windy, rainy January night. You know me now has a Facebook and Instagram page where you can join in on the conversation. We also have a website at WWW dot you know me now.com Where you can see photos of Kendra and Shawn, while at tensity three, we also have stories of other folks we feel you should get to know. Thanks as always for listening