SGV Connect 129: Shawn Morrissey on Measure A

CG: Okay, welcome to SGV Connect. We're here at MLA studios. We were just attending a CalMatters deep dive on Measure A and we're speaking with Shawn Morrissey, Vice President of advocacy and community engagement for Union Station homeless services. They are nonprofit, serving primarily, I'd say, the Pasadena area, but with services across LA County, is that right, Shawn?
SM: Mostly San Gabriel Valley. Pasadena is where we're headquartered, mostly San Gabriel Valley, which is considered what they call service planning area three. We're the lead service provider for that area, San Gabriel.
CG: Well, that's good, and I should know that, because I'm the San Gabriel Valley reporter for streets blog. So we just watched this presentation, and as I just mentioned you, we're going to cover some similar ground, but there's a pretty common refrain about measure H, what has it actually done for people? So what has it actually done for people?
SM: Yeah, I think that, and I've realized this over the past few years, the thing that the community sees or perceives is very different from what service providers see and perceive. So I think the community sees that we've spent a whole bunch of money since 2017 and homelessness is as bad as ever, and what we see on the ground is that we have helped over 100,000 people in the past five years get into permanent housing. We've seen lives saved. We've seen people begin to thrive. What I think doesn't get -- the message that doesn't get disseminated enough is this idea of as we're housing people every year - for instance, last year, we housed 27,000 people - an equal number fell newly into homelessness, and that wasn't folks making bad decisions. It wasn't drug addiction, it wasn't substance misuse. It's really a  socioeconomic issue. People are being priced out of their housing, and I think we know that being this close to it. But I think what the community tends to see is there's still folks on the street. So the challenge, I think, is not what Measure H has been doing and what Measure A promises to do, because I think it promises to continue that trajectory of 25-28,000 people per year being housed. The problem is the inflow, and I think Measure A is set up to address that in its really deep creation of affordable housing to prevent homelessness, to prevent people from falling into homelessness. So it's a no brainer for us, because we've seen it working in ways that we've never seen anything work in the history of modern day homelessness. We are -- it is producing prodigious results. And you know, I would just add that as a dedicated homeless service provider and as a formerly homeless man myself, if this was not working, we wouldn't want anything to do with it. We wouldn't be supporting it. We wouldn't be doing these programs. It would be the exact opposite, but it's working, and we're seeing it work.
CG: And Union Station homeless services is privately funded. Is it not?
SM: For a long time, it was almost exclusively private dollars, but a lot of our work is funded through Measure H will be funded through Measure A a lot of federal, state, county, city contracts that we work under. So the lion's share of the funding we receive are those types of dollars. And then we do a lot of private fundraising to pay for things that those dollars won't pay for, things like furniture for people, clothing for folks. There's a lot that those monies will not pay for and we also try to pay our staff more by raising private funds, because the contracts as they exist now, just don't pay people a living wage. 
CG: So costs of living continue to rise, as you said, as everybody knows, and new housing continues to be unaffordable, even when it's affordable. So what efforts do you hope to see bolstered under Measure A or even innovations?
SM: Yeah, so Measure A promises to create real affordable housing at scale under the oversight of LA CASA, which is the entity that was created to oversee that we have enough affordable housing in Los Angeles County. And by affordable housing, we mean real affordable housing not going from, you know, 70% of you know, income being or 90% going toward your housing to 50% we're talking about real affordable housing that people of all statuses and all income can afford.
CG: Okay, so we got the idea to pay you a visit off of the back of a county CEO report saying that about another 1000 people could end up on San Gabriel Valley streets without a measure in place to replace H after 2027 when. It expires, and I don't know whether you can say exactly where people would be hit the hardest in the entirety of the San Gabriel Valley. It's a large region. But in the meantime, with things as they are, with Measure H still in place for a few more years, what do you find are the most important preventative programs, because we've talked a lot about, you know, reacting to the issues today.
SM: Housing all the way. That's what it's about. I think that the cities that are going to be hit the hardest are the ones who haven't yet or are not willing to invest in programs, support services and housing. You know, if you look at Pasadena, we have this amazing kind of relationship with the city of Pasadena, its housing department and nonprofits and support services. And over the past 10 years, we have seen a reduction in homelessness year after year. So the trajectory has been going down. So over the years, as other cities or counties have been going up, Pasadena has been going down, and that, I think, is the just the deep services that we've embedded into the community and the collaboration between nonprofits, faith groups, the city of Pasadena, and I think every city in San Gabriel Valley can do that. We're happy to come along and partner with cities to do that as well, but I think you're going to see the greatest impacts in the cities that have not invested in housing, or just aren't there yet philosophically, or don't think that that's the way to go.
CG: And you talked a bit during the presentation about the importance of addiction care, if not fully, getting people, as you said, totally abstinent, at least partial, removing some of the major stressors in their life. Could you describe for people how preventative care might work with that?
SM: Absolutely, yeah. I think we think of addiction as being a response to pain. And there's a great quote by a Hungarian physician named Gabor Mate, and he says, We need to stop asking why so much addiction, and we need to start asking why so much pain. And basically, what that means is that people are using because of pain environments, it's easy to see how homelessness can be one of those environments. So a lot of the model that we work under is this highly relational model of housing, first, harm reduction, trauma, informed care, and that is about seeing the individual as the full human being they are with all their talents, skills, longings, hopes and dreams, and not just the sum of their pathology or their addiction, and also helping people have purpose and meaning in their lives. So it's one thing to stick someone in a house when they've been homeless for many years, and it's another thing to help someone into housing and then come and wrap around them with, you know, love, nurture resources and services and help them become a part of I think that's most important. When people feel like they have something to offer, they begin to hold their own value. And I think a lot of issues start to become addressed at that kind of foundational point, when you put all of these other things in place, where you don't focus necessarily on the addiction is primary, but you focus on the quality of life that needs to happen for that individual. The other stuff starts to fall into place.
CG: There's a generalized stigma about unhoused people, that they're -- you can't trust them. You should be afraid. It's unsafe to be around them. And that seems to be the kind of rallying cry, I'd say, behind a lot of people who don't support these types of measures or legislation. How do you respond to that? I'm, you know, I feel like a bit of an asshole for asking it, but how do you respond to that as somebody who not only has been working as a service provider for many years, but somebody who lived on the street themselves?
SM: My response, I think, was that I didn't realize we could swear in this interview. But no, I think my response to that is the idea that homelessness has a very specific kind of out- physical presentation. Mental illness has a presentation, and I think it feels very different and other to most of us. And so consequently, things that look different or feel different or are other become scary. Statistically, people who are experiencing homelessness are much more likely to have violence visited upon them than they are to be the  people who are committing violence or crime. Most of the criminals that we have to worry about are in housing and have never been homeless and I think the same goes for people who are substance users are people who have untreated mental illness, most of the people who you know, if you want to know who's doing all the drugs, it's not homeless people. It's like, you know, white, white male homeowners. You know those are, that's the statistic of people who are doing most of the drugs. But because homelessness is happening, on display for everyone to see, like all of your shortcomings are on display, and that's not to minimize substance use or mental illness or any of those things or make light of it. I think the idea here is that we need to normalize the idea that people are experiencing trauma in front of us and being forced to sleep outside. And are we more interested in what they're putting into their bodies, or are we more interested into the journey that brought them to that place and help them try to move forward? So there's kind of in my mind, I try to normalize a mental health experience. I try to normalize substance use. You know, it wasn't that long ago that we saw people in wheelchairs, and that seemed to be a weird thing, you know, but we've created all of these ADA guidelines and help for people who are disabled. And I think that in the same way that we've made so many things kind of handicap accessible, if you will. I have a good friend who says, We need, "how do you make psychosis accessible? You know? How do you make mental health and substance use accessible?" How do you make spaces where people can be living with those types of things and not have the shame and stigma attached to them, so that they can kind of come out of the dark into the light and receive the help that they deserve and need.
CG: And just, just to put a cap on the naysayer arguments, you know, to those who argue this bill would be a burden on the poor. What do you say?
SM: I mean, the statistic that we heard today is for a household that is lower income, this tax of Measure A, the extra quarter cent sales tax would represent--
CG: This would be an extra half cent for Measure A.
SM: Measure H already has a quarter cent in place, so this would be an additional quarter cent, half cent, half cent total, I guess is what I mean. Yeah, cumulative, a lower income household, for all the things that they would buy in a month, would spend approximately an additional $2.50 and a regular household would spend approximately $5 and it's helpful to know that there are a lot of things that are exempt, such as groceries and things like that. So yeah, I mean, I don't, for me personally, that doesn't feel like a hardship. It feels like the right thing to do, and that feels like something I can certainly get on board with.
CG: So before we wrap things up, what kind of accountability measures do you think service providers should be subject to? We talked a bit in the presentation about the accountability measures that service providers are already subject to. Are there more that you envision, or a more comprehensive or streamlined approach that you imagine? This is where, if you aren't already, talk to me like I'm stupid.
SM: Okay, I wish I had the paperwork in front of me. Tommy [Newman, Vice President of Public Affairs and Activation at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles]  in the meeting, cited it. There are five legal outcomes and accountability measures that will that all agencies and all people working within the homeless service sector will be held to under Measure A and that has to do with a reduction of homelessness, a reduction of inflow into homelessness, a reduction of people experiencing mental illness and substance use, who are on the street, and I can't remember the other two; but there are a set of guidelines that I think we we missed in with Measure H that are definitely in place for Measure A to hold service providers accountable. And the idea is that if you're not performing, you'll be given a chance to correct that. But, you know, they're not going to waste a lot of time that that funding or money will be redirected to an agency that is producing those outcomes. I'd like to think I work for one of those agencies. We have a 97% retention rate for people who are chronically homeless with a lot of needs and challenges going into housing and retaining their housing and beginning to thrive, and that's because we're using these best practice models that I described earlier. That's a key part of this, and it's what Measure A promises to fund housing first, harm reduction, trauma informed care, the things that we know move people forward and help them begin to thrive.
CG: And lastly, do you believe LA voters and San Gabriel Valley voters will continue to support this Measure? I mean, we're seeing A then as a child of H.
SM: Yeah, I sure hope so. Because I think that, you know, we've learned a lot along the way, and I think that what Measure A does is it makes corrections to the things that might have been missed or that we didn't know we needed under Measure H. And so I'm really hopeful. I'm a big accountability fan, so I want us to have oversight. I want us to have accountability, because I know we have a lot of accountability at my agency internally, and I know the results that happen when you have those kinds of measures of accountability and oversight in place.
CG: Hey, Shawn Morrissey, thanks so much for joining us for a moment on SGV Connect.
SM: Thank you, Chris.
CG: And there's that powerful handshake again. All right. Thanks.