Banking on KC – Jana Loflin and Toni Casey of SAVE, Inc.
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode are Toni Casey and Jana Loflin from Save Inc, an organization that works toward a world free of homelessness and discrimination in housing. Welcome.
Jana Loflin:
Thank you.
Toni Casey:
Thank you.
Kelly Scanlon:
Glad to have you here. I think what I'd like to start out with, Jana, is something that I know your organization makes a point of saying, and that is housing is healthcare. What do you mean by that?
Jana Loflin:
Well, Kelly, if you imagine your daily life, you get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, you shower, you have coffee. Look at people on the streets. They can't do that. They wake up, they're under a bridge, they're in a sleeping bag trying to stay warm. They don't have access to a toothbrush or toothpaste, running water, electricity, anything that the regular person has, the person who is housed. They don't have a way to get any kind of money. Even if they're on Social Security, disability, the money can go to their card, but it could likely get stolen. If they go to apply for a job, they don't have an address to put down, so the person has no way of contacting them. So that's why we say that housing is healthcare.
Kelly Scanlon:
I would suspect too, that in addition to just the daily needs, like you mentioned, showering and brushing your teeth, just some of the basic hygiene things that we take for granted that help to keep us healthy. In addition to that, also subject to life on the street. You mentioned maybe their cards being stolen, but there's also other things that, the weather and other things too that they're susceptible to.
Jana Loflin:
Definitely. There are places where they can go to get healthcare. There's the Beehive at 750 Paseo Boulevard. Provide dental services, medical services, meals. So that's a place where people can go. But if they get a prescription for meds, then they're on the street again. What if somebody sees them and takes their medication? It's just hard to keep them on a regular regimen.
Kelly Scanlon:
Right. Toni, talk to us about how Save got started. I believe it started about 40 years ago almost.
Toni Casey:
In the '80s we started as a single building. It was a standalone house where it was a hospice home for those with HIV and AIDS, and then into the '90s with medical advancements to where people were living longer and fuller lives, we opened our doors to those with other diagnoses. So we now rent and provide vouchers to those with mental health, substance use disorder, as well as HIV and AIDS.
Kelly Scanlon:
What do you mean by a voucher provider? Tell us in a little bit more detail what you mean there.
Toni Casey:
We provide housing vouchers that clients can take to property managers or landlords in the area and obtain housing. Then I'm the property manager, so we also have permanent housing and apartments available through our company.
Kelly Scanlon:
Tell us a little bit more about the voucher program, Jana.
Jana Loflin:
We work with the Department of Mental Health and also the Health Department, Kansas City Health Department and the city. They provide us money and we provide the voucher services. If somebody is homeless, they can call the 211 line and they can do a homelessness assessment. Then they can be put on a waiting list through the coordinated entry system here in Kansas City. When their name comes up, they can be assigned a voucher, and from there we can help them find housing, do the inspection to make sure it's safe, decent, and affordable, and get them housed.
Kelly Scanlon:
You have your own properties, but you also help place people in other properties, is that correct?
Jana Loflin:
We have about 900 vouchers total. So we're the second-largest processing center in Kansas City, second to the Housing Authority, and we work with a lot of the community landlords to provide housing.
Kelly Scanlon:
How do you provide the housing solutions?
Toni Casey:
In our managed properties, the apartments that I manage, we operate under the Housing First model. In short it's just we have very few barriers and obstacles that someone would be dealing with to obtain housing with us. More frequently your landlord would not accept someone with certain felonies or who's actively using, but for us being Housing First, we accept people who may not be med compliant, may be in active use, may have a criminal background that's an obstacle as a result of their traumas that they've dealt with. We accept more than your average landlord. We also work with people who may not have an income at all, so we're subsidized in the same way that the vouchers are to where someone would pay 30% of their income, and then HUD will cover the rest. But if you're zero income, we will still rent to you.
Kelly Scanlon:
How many people are you serving on average at any given time?
Jana Loflin:
We have about 900 in my program.
Toni Casey:
I have about 200 permanent residents to include the different programs that we manage.
Kelly Scanlon:
So here we are in 2023. You've expanded to include a lot more people. I know that you have a lot of programs, but just give us an overview top level of some of the programs that you operate.
Jana Loflin:
We partner with the Department of Mental Health. All the people in our program do have some sort of mental health diagnosis. Dante, who runs the other program, they partner with the Health Department for people who have HIV/AIDS diagnosis and people who are victims of domestic partnership abuse.
Kelly Scanlon:
This falls under the voucher?
Jana Loflin:
Correct.
Kelly Scanlon:
Then I know you oversee several programs too, Toni. Talk to us about some of those.
Toni Casey:
Yeah. Within our managed properties, we have multiple programs for each building. The majority of managed properties is permanent housing. It's just people with our qualifying diagnoses who ideally will live with us forever. But then we also have different programs like STAIR or Stepping Stones, which are university health programs where they're transitional living, residential care. Then we also manage a youth shelter. And we also have a transitional program, if you will, that focuses on families who are addressing financial hardships and obtaining a trade.
Kelly Scanlon:
In addition to the housing do you provide any counseling, resources, life skills, maybe financial basics, things like that?
Toni Casey:
In my programs, we work in partnership with agencies that our clients are already receiving services through like KC CARE or Swope Behavioral Health, University Health. But we also have an onsite case manager who does help with maybe paperwork or any life skills that someone may need assistance with.
Jana Loflin:
We also partner with people in the community. We partner with Swope Health, Vivent University Health, KC CARE, anybody you can think of, because we don't have the capacity to have case managers work with us. One of the grants we have through the Department of Mental Health actually got funded for two case managers, and those case managers do well-being checks with each person monthly. Sometimes they go out to the house and see how people are doing or at least make a phone call.
In my experience, when people get placed in an apartment, sometimes they're just like, "Here you go. You have a house to live in. We've done our job," and then that's it. But people who have been living on the streets, they want to move their friends in because they're happy that they have a roof over their heads. Sometimes they just don't have the life skills. They want to keep their place clean. But some people who I've met, they don't have the skills. They've never learned how to clean their house. So we need to partner with organizations who can come in and spend the time to teach them.
Kelly Scanlon:
I heard you say something about the people trying to be reunited, families being reunited. There's probably parenting skills too that play a role in them being able to get their children back and so you help assist with getting those kinds of services for them.
Toni Casey:
Absolutely. Yeah. Similar to what Jana said, we work with other agencies in their goals or their treatment plans, and we try to meet our clients where they're at and wherever that may be. Jana spoke on wanting to bring their friends in. We struggle with that too, and our managed properties and because the reality is is living on the streets, it's a pack mentality. Then you go into this house and yes, you're housed and that's awesome, but now you're lonely or now you're bored. I think giving them that resource and just saying like, "Hey, we understand this is an adjustment. How can we help you," and then finding those resources for them and kind of being that connection.
Jana Loflin:
People who are used to living in the woods, some people really like it, and then it gets cold, and then they move into a place and they have their own apartment, but they also miss being out around campfires and talking to their friends and their buddies. So it's important to tell them that they don't have to stay in their apartment all the time. Even if they start off spending the night there two or three nights a week and they go and spend the night at the camp, that's fine.
Kelly Scanlon:
But they have a place they know that can offer them shelter and just basic necessities as a result of your programs. I think it's really eyeopening to hear what you're saying because I think a lot of people think, okay, homelessness, get somebody in a house, get them shelter. But there's all of these other things too. Sometimes the things that you're trying to help them with are the reason that they may be homeless to begin with.
Toni Casey:
Yes. Kelly, I just want to say that you just encapsulated Housing First. That's our motto because you start with putting someone in housing, but that is not addressing why they were homeless. The lack of a house sounds like the definition of homelessness, but really that's then where we come in and say, "Okay, what traumas have you experienced that have resulted in your substance use, that have been resulted in your criminal backgrounds that are all hindering you from housing?" Or, "How can we get you med compliant? Because on the street you've not been able to keep track of them." You truly start with putting them in house, but that's not where it ends. In fact, that's just opening the door.
Kelly Scanlon:
What would you say are some of the systemic causes of homelessness?
Toni Casey:
Healthcare, criminal justice, economy, and education. I think that we in general just as a society, we shun people for their struggles. As a result, we create more for them. So kind of like we were talking about your traumas that resulted in your substance use or maybe you're self-medicating and then now you have a criminal background.
Jana Loflin:
We don't have enough housing for people that's affordable. We're talking about people who are already traumatized. Basically by criminalizing homelessness, we're adding more trauma to the trauma, so we have layers and layers. Meanwhile, we're not creating enough low barrier housing for people to have a place to live. By low barrier, I mean, just what Toni was saying earlier, we meet people where we're at.
Kelly Scanlon:
We often stigmatize homelessness. That somebody made bad choices or somebody's just not willing to work. There's a whole bunch of excuses out there for why people are homeless, but there are a lot of people that could one day be homeless themselves because of medical bankruptcies. I mean, you hear about those things. People just really don't understand sometimes what a fine line it is, and I'm sure you see some of that.
Jana Loflin:
Yeah, we definitely see some of that. People lose their jobs. What is it? One paycheck away from becoming homeless. It's just tough out there. The truth is we don't even know how many people really are homeless. Sometimes we do the point-in-time count in the city. We do that in January. It's coming up January 24th and 25th. We take a count, but still, how many people are we not accounting for who go to work every day or just sleep in their car?
Kelly Scanlon:
Or maybe crash at a friend's house until they're tired of them being there, and then they have to find somebody else to sleep.
Jana Loflin:
Kansas City, our rents just keep going up and we're building more housing that's luxury housing, and we need to start creating more low income housing.
Kelly Scanlon:
How do you think we are going to solve that problem? What's it going to take to get more affordable housing, to get people to rally around that?
Jana Loflin:
We did tours at Save yesterday, and I brought up social entrepreneurship, and I think we really need to push that.
Kelly Scanlon:
What does social entrepreneurship look like when you talk about investing in housing in your own community? Tell us about how that works.
Jana Loflin:
It means you get some people together who have housing as an end goal for the city, and you pool your money and you buy housing, and you figure out how to split the profits of that money. But I do want to bring up, there is something called functional zero, and that's what Kansas City is going for. That's the point when a community's homeless services system is able to prevent homelessness whenever there's an occurrence and that homelessness is a rare, brief and one time.
Kelly Scanlon:
So that it doesn't become a way of life.
Jana Loflin:
Yeah. Well said.
Kelly Scanlon:
What's your long-term vision, whether it's functional zero or whatever it may be, what is your long-term vision for homelessness? Do you really think it can be completely eradicated?
Jana Loflin:
No, I don't think it can be eradicated. I think it's good to have hope. Gloria Steinem says, "Hope is a form of planning." Some people have versions of like dreaming is a form of planning. It's good. You have to keep your spirits up. You have to push for the best outcome.
Toni Casey:
A part of our mission statement is to empower socially and medically disadvantaged people to improve their health and lead stable lives with personal dignity. I think that that kind of dives into what our goal is. I mean, obviously we prioritize housing everyone. We want them to have a safe and stable place, but we want them to be safe and stable, whatever that looks like internally. We are very aware that there are people who opt to be unhoused so that's how they feel. But we don't want to see discrimination in their housing opportunity based on that decision or where they're at mentally in their journey. I think that a part of solving homelessness ... I don't think it will ever be eradicated, but I do think that if we look at the root cause and the root in each individual person, I think it's support, I think it's resources, I think it's mental health, I think it's healthcare. If we focus on all of those items as a result, I think we could see a decrease in homelessness.
Kelly Scanlon:
You both mentioned the lack of affordable housing here in Kansas City. There's been a lot more said about that lately. I think that that message is getting out a lot more now, whether people are hearing it and doing anything about it. Do you think that there's more of an awareness and that that awareness is creating action? Are we improving at least in that area?
Toni Casey:
I think that people are saying we need more affordable housing. But what was it last year, affordable was just deemed 1,050 for a one bedroom. Kansas City voted 1,050 as affordable for a one bedroom apartment. So the term affordable housing and people saying we want affordable housing, yeah, sure is thrown around a lot now. I think there's attention to it, but I think understanding what affordable housing is, in my opinion, I think maybe that is still not where it should be.
Jana Loflin:
I was on a committee one time, it was over in Kansas City, Kansas, and we were trying to define what affordable meant. I think we spent probably two or three days talking about what affordable means, and affordable is based on the money you make. So somebody who I could look at and say they're wealthy and their taxes are $6,000 a year, they would say maybe that's not affordable for them. So it's very interesting to be in a dialogue about what affordable means.
Kelly Scanlon:
Thank you so much for the work that you are doing. Homelessness, as you say, is something that is always probably going to be with us, but with some of your efforts and the organizations that you work with, certainly you're making inroads into improving that situation. If any of our listeners are interested in learning more about any of your programs or perhaps volunteering, what's the best way to find out more about those things?
Jana Loflin:
I would say visit our website and look for volunteer opportunities. For my programs, we can always use, we provide something called a Welcome Bucket that has cleaning supplies, toilet paper, everything you would need when you move to a new place to start off a new household.
Kelly Scanlon:
You have things like that that you can donate. Then there's probably also landscaping perhaps, and services that maybe you have a skill at or just enjoy doing that people can help you with.
Toni Casey:
Yeah, absolutely. Under the volunteer opportunities, we can always use hands on our property.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. Well, again, thank you so much for all of the work that you're doing. I know this is a very big issue. We're hearing more and more about it, and it's not going to get solved overnight. So thank you for your persistence and for your dedication to this.
Toni Casey:
Thanks, Kelly.
Jana Loflin:
Thanks for having us.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, President of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Toni Casey and Jana Loflin for being our guests on this episode of Banking on KC. Save has spent nearly 40 years working to alleviate homelessness and to educate the community about the complexities of homelessness. As Toni and Jana point out, we may never see homelessness eradicated. Remember, however, that change begins with understanding, and it actually happens through the collective efforts of each of us. So in whatever ways each of us can, let's work together to build a world where everyone has a place to call home. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City. Country Club Bank member FDIC.