EPISODE THREE: THE CHALLENGES OF HOMELESSNESS IN SARATOGA, THEN AND NOW
Lisa Mitzen, board member, Shelters of Saratoga and co-founder of Business for Good
Ed Mitzen, co-founder, Business for Good Foundation
Tony Mangano, former board member and current volunteer, Shelters of Saratoga
Duane Vaughn, Executive Director, Shelters of Saratoga
Transcript
LISA MITZEN (LM): I think we need to bring agencies together and say, “Look, we have a problem, and we all have the same problem. And you might have different ideas on the approach, but at the end of the day, these are people, and so we have to figure it out.”
INTRO: Welcome to Crossroads, the Shelters of Saratoga podcast, giving a voice to the many different challenges of homelessness in our community. Throughout our podcast series, we’ll be shining a light on the perception verses the reality of homelessness in the greater Saratoga community. The issues we’ll be talking about are more than a bed or a cot or a roof. The reality is that homelessness is an intricate ecosystem including mental and physical health, public safety, food security, resource navigation, community engagement, and longer-term sustainable housing solutions. However, perhaps most important, is recognizing that the majority of the challenges of the homeless in our community are invisible. We are at a crossroads, where the challenges of homelessness intersect.
DUANE VAUGHN (DV): Welcome to Crossroads, the Shelters of Saratoga podcast. I’m Duane Vaughn, executive director of Shelters of Saratoga. This is an exciting episode. We’ll be talking about the 30-year history of how Saratoga has tackled the challenges of homelessness in our community, how it all started, where we are today, what has changed, and what has not. The one constant with all the effort and good intentions, 30 years later we’re still fighting an uphill battle to help some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
In today’s conversation at Crossroads, we have Lisa Mitzen, co -founder of Business for Good Foundation. Lisa is also an SOS, a Shelters of Saratoga board member, a business leader and philanthropist. Welcome, Lisa.
LM: Thank you.
DV: And we have Ed Mitzen, who is also the co-founder of Business for Good Foundation. He’s an author, entrepreneur, and a philanthropist. Welcome, Ed.
ED MITZEN (EM): Thank you.
DV: And Tony Mangano, who is a former board member of Shelter of Saratoga. And Tony was instrumental in the founding of SOS and Code Blue. I kinda wanna start out to see where the landscape is shifted over time and so if we can go back, you know, 30 years ago and maybe Tony you could tell me what things were like in regards to homelessness in Saratoga.
TONY MANGANO (TM): Well it probably started, yeah, it’s about 30 years ago and initiated by the city, the Mayor and the head of, the commissioner department of public works called a public forum to discuss the homeless situation in Saratoga. At that point there were probably only about nine or ten actual street homeless, visible homeless, in town and one fellow who we probably have all recognized over time was the fellow who used to push his cart around town all the time, loaded up and he was sort of the initial homeless person in the city. But I think what motivated it for the city was this small group was becoming more visible and I think they really wanted to kind of clean up the street so to speak.
DV: So do you feel like back then even though there was a small group of homelessness that was appearing in the city that there was a lot of investment by the community?
TM: I wouldn’t say a lot because again, what the problem wasn’t that broad but the city actually had the biggest investment, I think, in initiating that. Now, maybe some of the local businesspeople were behind it, although, again, I think back then, I don’t think we — I think Broadway was just beginning to emerge into what it is now. But the — as I say, I think it mostly fell on the city. And so they called a small, a meeting, and it was a small group. And the city provided a trailer for, it was on the top of Congress Street, one of the city properties, for the first drop in beds for the homeless. And it was totally volunteer. I remember volunteering then and there was no, I mean people could just, police would drop somebody off, people could come in, there was no screening, there was no interviewing. It was just pretty much wide open.
DV: Do you think that back then that, whether it was city politics or the community or even some of the volunteers thought that this was going to be an ongoing and as serious as an issue as it is today?
TM: No, I don’t think any of us could have predicted the growth of this problem. And so I think again, I think the where the city had hoped for was just to get some kind of permanent housing actually for these folks, not necessarily a program just to kind of get them a place to stay, off the off the streets. What evolved from that was, as people became a little bit more savvy and understanding of the problem, was the development of a program rather than just beds. And so there was a, that’s when there was some conflict at that time between the city and the emerging board for the shelter because there were, excuse me, two different goals basically.
DV: Two different philosophies that were kind of around it.
TM: Exactly, yeah.
DV: Well, I mean, as we look at the issues today, you know, here we are 30 years later and the numbers have grown so greatly. I think we were looking at our November numbers at Code Blue and the other low-barrier shelter that’s in town that our numbers have more than doubled at the same time as this last year. So this obviously and now we’re talking, you know numbers in low barrier shelter a Code Blue in the hundred range now and not to mention that the amount of people that are in structured shelter programs throughout the county so if we were to take a step into today, you know, 30 years later, I’d like, either Ed or Lisa feel free to chime in, and what you think now is the community sentiment around homelessness.
LM: Well, I think — I don’t know, my feeling is that it doesn’t sound like it’s changed all that much in 30 years. There’s still a divide. And I think the approach to homelessness, I think that idea of we see it, and no one really knows what the right answer is, but there’s the belief that it seems housing will fix homelessness. Whereas the other side, if you will, not to put it on sides, but is that you need programming to tackle the situation. And so I think it sounds like from what Tony’s describing 30 years ago there was a little bit of that, you know, same struggle with 10 people and now the problem is 10 times worse. That’s sort of unfortunately, I think, where it sits.
DV: Now today local politics, we see how, well, recently over the summer or spring we had a homelessness task force that was put together right? And there was certain players at the table, and could you give me an idea what you think about that approach?
LM: I mean, I think that, you know, you’ve got to bring a lot of great minds together to solve the issue because it’s not unique to Saratoga Springs, right? This problem is countrywide. However, I feel like a great approach is to bring the agencies together, the people that are hands-on working with the individuals and experiencing solution-oriented approaches would be more beneficial than bringing some people like myself as a businessperson into a room. I don’t work hands-on with these folks. I think the agencies that are involved doing the hands-on work probably have the best ideas. So, I think I would probably create a task force that was more inclusive of all of those agencies.
DV: So community support and investment now, I mean, I personally see kind of a divide. And I want to touch into the topic of NIMBYism, right, because that seems to be a big issue and it’s not just a Saratoga issue. That too is an issue around the country. In my opinion I think when somebody says not in my backyard but they don’t come with a solution what they’re saying is not in anybody’s backyard. Would you agree with that Ed?
EN: Yeah I mean when Lisa and I made the pledge in 2017 to build a permanent shelter I don’t think we ever imagined that we would be sued and there would be all these, you know, people would be up in arms, neighbors unionizing essentially to make sure the project didn’t go forward. And what’s frustrating to me is I see, I travel a lot around the country and I also am in Albany and Schenectady quite a bit. And I see down there, like I was at the Trinity Alliance yesterday. I was at City Mission in Schenectady two weeks ago. And there’s much more cooperation among a lot of different parties to help address the problems. You look at the Trinity Alliance, they’ve got a shelter, but they’ve got a food pantry, they’ve got child after care, they’ve got domestic violence treatment people, they’ve got substance abuse folks that, because what they find, and I’m sure you see it too Duane, is people come in with, you know, for one issue but they’ve got three or four others that are at the root cause of their challenges. I don’t see that level of cooperation necessarily in Saratoga. And I don’t know if it’s a, I hate to say it, but almost a race thing, in that in Albany, I think the community recognizes that they all have to pull together. Everybody’s important. They have to help everyone. Even if they don’t have a lot themselves, they’re the first people to give a kid a meal, buy a kid a coat, give somebody a place to stay. And I just don’t see that level of compassion and cooperation up here. It’s lawyers that get involved and there’s politics that gets involved and it’s disheartening.
DV: So, if we go back on the path of even trying to build that permanent Code Blue location, we go back to, I think you said, 2017, and that was when the attempt was made to make it next to the Walworth shelter, correct?
EM: Correct. And it was basically going next to an existing shelter that butted up against the Allerdice lumberyard. And so, we thought that it was the perfect location. Obviously neighbors disagreed. They sued under a zoning ordinance because that area wasn’t zoned for a homeless shelter. And what we learned during the process is there’s no place in Saratoga County that’s zoned for a homeless shelter. I think other than maybe one little stretch of Broadway. So we filed the paperwork under a rooming house designation because we thought that that was the closest we could find, and the judge sided with the neighbors and we wasted about a year and a half, and fast forward to today and we’re still not there.
TM: One thing about that, the city did support it. I mean, it passed the city council.
LM: It was unanimous.
EM: Zoning board, planning board, it was the appeal. Yeah. And I remember that the most heartbreaking thing for me, and I think Lisa shares this too, is we would go into these public forums at City Hall. And we had gotten at this point to know many of the homeless people by serving the meals, being there on Christmas Eve and just seeing them around town. And many of them were in attendance at the public hearing. And I remember neighbors, standing up and complaining that they’re dirty, they’re drug addicts, they’re rapists, all this kind of stuff. And meanwhile, they were in the room. And I don’t think the people knew that they were in the room. And it was just heartbreaking to see that level of just – hostility, and just ignorance. Like they didn’t know. And I remember one guy standing up and complaining that the homeless people were sleeping on his porch and you know he can’t have it and all I remember thinking was well wouldn’t it be great if he had a place to go?
TM: There was another guy at the meeting who said somebody stole his canoe and was sort of blaming the homeless for a canoe I mean it’s sort of at that level but I mean to take it back excuse me again 30 years, there was resistance, but it was mostly in terms of location in the west side, because there was a group that was feeling that the west side was becoming sort of the dumping ground for all of the, and for all the not-for-profit agencies and all that, but it wasn’t the kind of hostility and negativism that we were experiencing in the past six years.
EM: Yeah, it was what you’d never consider putting this on the East side. And that’s not true. We looked at a lot of different locations and found that that was the most logical given the surrounding services that were at that location. I think that was a big driving factor. And the fact that it was up against the lumberyard and Wally Allerdice supported it. And so we thought we were home free.
LM: Well, and I think that it goes back to, you know, you mentioned the people that were in attendance and the neighbors would stand up, you know, they smell bad and all the things, and I think it goes back to that stereotyping, right? You close your eyes and you picture what a homeless individual looks like, and we all think of the gentleman pushing the cart with all of his belongings, where, you know, the reality is you walk up and down Broadway and you are passing by numerous people that are struggling with homelessness, you just don’t realize it. And I think when I say you, I’m excluding the people in this conversation, obviously, but I know when the Code Blue shelter first opened and Ed and I decided to volunteer for a kitchen shift to sort of see firsthand what this is all about. And I remember that morning we were driving there, not really knowing what to expect. And Ed said to me, it’s Saratoga. There’s probably going to be 10, 12 people there.
And we were shocked. And this was actually when it was in the Salvation Army location. We were shocked. There were like 50 people on cots and no food. So Ed ran over to the Price Chopper and filled up a couple of cartloads. And we started making breakfast. And we were like… wow, this is a far bigger challenge than we had ever realized. But we also realized there were different categories of people that were facing this struggle, and that they don’t all look alike, and they’re people.
EM: And being in advertising, you tend to segment people, right? Look at different slices of who’s in there. And from what I could tell, a third, you know, had some mental illness clearly they needed some mental assistance, you had probably 20 to 30 percent probably substance abuse something like that and then I would say a good chunk, more than a third, just had some really bad breaks like it wasn’t that they, you know, that that they there was some underlying condition they might have had a bad divorce. They might have had substance issues and now cleaned themselves up and I remember thinking when I was meeting some of these folks, you know, graduates of Shenendhowa High School. They had jobs. They take the bus to work. They just couldn’t afford a place to stay and they probably had burned all their bridges with family and friends in the past so that no one would give them a couch in the in the rec room and I remember thinking back to all the stupid stuff I’ve done in my life. And you know, I know I can say confidently that I’ve driven when I probably shouldn’t have. And by the grace of God, I didn’t kill anybody and go to jail and get addicted to painkillers and then come out and be unemployable. And I’ve always felt that there’s a really fine line between super successful people and those that are in a shelter. And I think that’s, in this community, I think that’s lost. I don’t think people realize that. I think there’s a sense that these people are lazy, they’re drug addicts, they don’t care. Why should I help them if they’re not gonna help themselves. There’s plenty of jobs out there, they could go work, and they just don’t have an understanding of the struggles that these people are going through.
DV: Sure, and as, you know, we’ll probably go back to more of the location thing, because we’ve done so much work on that over the past couple of years, but you bring up an interesting point. When I was over at Code Blue the other night, and I was doing some repairs on one of the rooms, and there’s three gentlemen that are roomed together, and they’re all previously in the service. So we had two Army guys and one Navy guy, and probably some of the best conversations I have had with anybody over the past few months have been with these three gentlemen, and none of these guys have substance abuse issues and none of these guys have, they don’t drink, they don’t have alcohol in the rooms, anything like that. They’re just down on their luck. And I think we’re seeing a lot of those same type of fractional numbers as you saw back then. I think we’re still, and Tony, you’re still there quite a bit, right? Wouldn’t you say the same?
TM: Yes, I would. I think that, what impressed me is a number of, excuse me, senior and elderly homeless people that we’re encountering and taking in Code Blue that that seems to have increased.
DV: Yeah we’ve got multiple people that are in their 70s and 80s at Code Blue this year and that’s something that I, in my past career I focused more on homeless youth, so that was kind of a shocker to me. And I reflect back on, I think it was two years ago, we had a senior citizen, a 77-year-old man who was a veteran, and he passed away during the winter. And they had his funeral services, and at the funeral services, there were four people. And here’s a veteran, a senior citizen, and three of the four people were staff members of SOS. And I thought to myself, how tragic is this? Is that these, this person, you know, in one way I’m grateful that at least he had the company of other people that were Code Blue and he wasn’t out by himself. And then he did have, you know, staff support there. And we were, you know, unfortunately, had to go to his funeral but to me that just seemed mind-blowing to me like I couldn’t conceptualize how we could have a senior citizen and a veteran, right, on the street, dying on the street homeless.
So I wanted to touch back on the different locations and this has been, you know, it’s something we’re still thinking about. We know that we’re not going to stay at the current location because we’ve already outgrown this location, so of all the places that, if we go back, it’s been what nine ten years now years yeah ten years that we’ve had Code Blue started out where?
DV, TM, LM, EM: St. Peter’s. And then it went to Salvation Army, then Soul Saving Station on Henry Street. Did it go to Adelphi Street after that? So it there was something in between. Well, they were out at the county jail behind the animal shelter while they were getting Adelphi ready. They spent some time in the senior citizen center, during COVID, a group that stayed at the Holiday Inn. That was kind of a hybrid between a Code Blue bed situation and a program, because there were more rules and all. There was an overflow at the New England First Presbyterian Church. They’ve done overflow there. But I think, yeah. And then Adelphi, right? And then Adelphi Street.
TM: Well, yeah, where we are now, but it seemed like for several, I mean there’s always been a committee to find the place.
DV: Yes and we need to form another committee. So here we are, you know, countless locations later still not having that permanent location, probably not going to be able to find that location that is most suitable and closest to where people are, right, so we’re unable to bring the services to where people are at, right? Which is critically important when it comes to human services. So we’re starting to venture out. We’ve approached a few surrounding communities outside of Saratoga. We’ve been shut down in two different directions. Now we’re going to head into another direction and see where that goes. We’ve got a meeting coming up that hopefully we’ll have some good news.
EM: Isn’t that the county’s job? To figure that?
TM: I mean, the mandate is to the county in terms of the governor’s directive at the time to provide a Code Blue type of housing.
EM: But it just seems inefficient while you’re trying to run a shelter to be hunting around for real estate and things like that when it’s the county’s responsibility to provide it.
DV: Well, I think the one part is that it’s the county’s responsibility to have a plan and are they the best at providing a Code Blue shelter or is it an agency? That’s the big question, a million-dollar question. They’ve contracted with us for, you know, quite a few years now. I think we’re the only agency that’s actually run Code Blue and the problem that I think that we face at Shelters of Saratoga is that we’re always having to fit something into where it really doesn’t belong. And I don’t mean the area, I mean the building. You know, we’re being forced to, you know, because we can’t find anything else to find something that will just be, will hold the capacity.
EM: Right. And to be able to plan for five times the volume in five years, potentially, based on how things are going around the country.
LM: Well, and you have to be close to the bus lines. I mean, several of the individuals work and need to be able to access their services and so it can’t, it’s not like the whole idea of let’s just find a building out in the middle of nowhere and put everyone in it. That doesn’t solve the problem and it doesn’t…
EM: That was that was one of the suggestions that was made when we were being sued back in 2017, was let’s put it out, I can’t remember where, Schuylerville and then bus them into the city. And you know I was thinking, well what are you gonna do the first time somebody misses the bus and freezes on the sidewalk, right you know?
LM: Well, not to mention that doesn’t allow access to services, which is you know, you ultimately hope that some of the individuals that are at Code Blue are going to be able to move over to the regular shelter where they can get services and work towards being housed.
DV: So Code Blue is really aligning with the other, the identical services that are needed above Code Blue, like whether it’s more structured shelter or if it’s permanent supportive housing, it’s gotta be someplace where it could be accessible or people can get to it, people can get to the other services they need, and that’s the ongoing struggle that we’re gonna continue to run into over and over until a community finally says, “Listen, we’ve all had enough. Here’s your spot.” Or let’s, we’ve got to say, all right, maybe I said not in my backyard before, but now I’m saying that we’ve got to come together. It doesn’t mean not in anybody’s backyard. That’s the point that we’ve got to get to. So, how do you, and anybody can chime in here today? I think that one thing that I see in the past, and the recent past is that the concern has been more about what’s visually happening in the community, right, well there’s homeless we want to take care of them but can you just do it where we can’t see it would you be in agreement to that?
LM: Oh absolutely.
EM: Yeah, and I think some of their concerns are valid. I mean you know I’m in San Francisco all the time and you drive through that city now, and it’s like one encampment after another, people shooting up right on the streets. You wouldn’t want to put a business down there. They’re all leaving. So I do understand that point of view.
DV: Well, and a lot of the things that come along with it, like, for example, panhandling is economics, which we’ve talked about, right? So, you know, I was asked once, well, why is this person panhandling on my corner? Well why is your, and I didn’t mean it to be you know insensitive, but I said well why is your business there? It’s because it’s a great location, it’s an economically sound place to have my business. Well that’s probably gonna be an economically sound place for somebody to panhandle. I don’t think you’re gonna find somebody panhandling at a four corners out in Greenfield, right.
TM: I mean that is one of the big changes I’ve seen over the years in Saratoga is the panhandling, a number of folks doing that. But you know I was thinking you really can have different reasons and come to a good goal. So maybe you know, for some folks just want to get these people off the streets, out of the garage, whatever, and we want to get them into a situation where they can get programming. If we can come up, if we can come together, even our, you know, motivation might be different.
EM: Yeah, and there are a lot of really good people in this community that are trying like hell to do what they think is right. And, everybody’s got different opinions to your point, and I think everybody at the end of the day is good and wants to try to help these people, despite having other motives as well.
I agree with that.
DV: So you had talked, Lisa, at least I think you had talked about, or maybe I’m sorry, it might have been Tony, but said that you got to know a few people at Code Blue years ago. Do you have any situations where you remember building a relationship with somebody or having conversations with or maybe that you still do that was at Code Blue?
LM: I remember one gentleman in particular and we were serving breakfast…
EM: The engineer.
LM: You see, you steal my – he took my punchline – I want that noted somewhere (laughs). So I was, you know, serving breakfast and I was trying to put together breakfast sandwiches And this gentleman was watching me struggle and he said, you know if you put the sausage on first and then the scrambled eggs, it’ll sit nicer on the roll and then I said oh, that’s a good idea. And he said well once an engineer always an engineer and I remember thinking to myself, wow…
EM: He worked at GE I think.
LM: Yeah, he worked at GE. And he’s still around. I see him out and about occasionally. But I think it’s just, you know, it’s hard when you bring up and you talk about like all the different individuals, and I see so many of them still in the area. And watching the numbers grow, we’ve been over to the new Code Blue where it is this year. And there’s so many individuals that we don’t recognize that I’ve not seen before. And so I feel like we’re getting a lot of visitors from other counties.
DV: Oh, we are. So, you know, and we kind of go back and forth to why is that, right? So we know there’s an increase in homeless populations, right? That’s just a given. We know that we’re going to have it, you know, we’ve had increases every year. The Point in Time count has shown that, you know, just generally looking at the news will tell you that that’s happening. And then, you know, we wonder, you know, with the start of a year-round 24/7, 365 shelter, is that attractive to people outside of the community? Or could people have looked at our current model, being hotel rooms, people thinking, “Oh, if I go up to Saratoga, will I have my own room for the whole season?” or something, could that be the case which by the way it’s not, you know, we’re putting three people per room, they’re small rooms but we’re trying to make things comfortable for people, so yes, to your point, we’re definitely seeing people from outside the county.
LM: Well and also there’s, I mean Code Blue, the program the way it’s designed and it’s my understanding that we don’t actually have to provide meals. You have to provide shelter when the temperature dips below 32 degrees or there’s more than 12 inches of snow. But we provide meals, right? And most of the Code Blues, I think, do in other counties. Is that correct?
DV: Yeah. I think a majority of them I think do now. I was just on the phone with Warren County social services, they had a few questions about Code Blue for me and that’s in the budget there too, but it’s not in every one, and the budgets vary from county to county, and this year things have even changed more where each county’s given an allocation and you’ve got to make your budget fit that allocation which has been difficult. We’re very lucky, I think we’ve had a really wonderful and cooperative relationship with Saratoga County, but the budget was $450 ,000. So we submitted what we feel that we’re going to, and we have a pretty good grasp on it after running it for multiple years, how much this is going to cost, especially with the, you know, having to change up our locations and some locations will cost more than others, like this one currently does. And we almost exceeded the total budget, and the counties also need some part of that leftover budget to put people in motels if they’re not appropriate for a facility or something like that. So, and oddly enough, the budgets vary significantly from county to county. And I think Onondaga County, which is where Syracuse is, the budget is something under $10,000. And because they have a lot of other shelters, so they have places for people to go. We have counties up north that are very rural that are actually double what our budget is, which is mind blowing. I’m like, wow, you’re spending nearly a million dollars on this and Code Blue. So that’s always an adjustment that we have to make. And I think that the county works really well with Shelters of Saratoga and makes sure that they can accommodate us and the people that we serve as best they can. So…
TM: I think that’s definitely improved since you’ve become the director. And over time, it seems to go back and forth either, we have a good relationship with the city and not so good with the county and vice versa and sometimes get caught up in that, the politics of the county and city.
DV: The forest for the trees or whatever.
LM: And I think there’s so much confusion surrounding the different terminology, right? What is a low-barrier shelter? And I feel like there’s a lot of people in this community that don’t understand the definition of a low-barrier shelter, an emergency shelter. You hear a lot of the different terms, right? And I think that that’s important to clarify, to get everyone on the same page. At least some of the individuals that I spoke to in the recent months didn’t really understand what is a low-barrier shelter and what does that mean? And, you know, there’s that whole if you build it, they will come, right? So, there’s a concern in my eyes, seeing the great work that Shelters of Saratoga does that if we have a 24/7, 365-day shelter that we will be inviting more and more from other counties to come here.
TM: And that was an issue, right, one of the issues at the beginning of the Shelters at Saratoga was just that, will start people will start coming in, build it and they will come, and even though the city sort of initiated it all, then they started to backtrack a little bit because they were concerned that we, as a program developed, that we’d be getting more and more homeless folks into the community.
LM: Is it true too that being a certified shelter, you have access to more state and federal funding, whereas if you’re not a certified shelter, then more of that onus falls on you? The community to support it. So I think from a financial responsibility part of all of this, we have to be cautious in what that solution looks like as far as the strain that that could be on the community and on the city.
DV: Sure. And on the other hand, too, and you’re exactly right, Lisa, on the other hand, too, is that if you do not receive state or federal funding, you really don’t have to follow any structure or any rules or any guidelines, or like, for example, Shelters of Saratoga and our Code Blue are monitored by the state. We have to abide by certain rules and guidelines, and there’s a lot of paperwork involved for sure. When you become a certified shelter and now in New York state all structure shelters, non-Code Blue shelters have to be certified by the state if they receive any funding whatsoever that’s federal or state. And that really has happened over the last couple of years.
We’re going to take a short break and be back in about a minute.
BREAK: Hi, and thanks for listening. I’m Stephanie Romeo, the Associate Executive Director at Shelters of Saratoga.
I invite all our listeners to find out more about everything we do at Shelters of Saratoga. Our work involves so much more than just the shelter we provide throughout the year. Along with our emergency and supported housing efforts, we run Code Blue during the winter. We also provide health and medical resource navigation. We offer work and life-skill guidance for our guests. Maybe just as important, our guests know that we truly care. I’m so proud of all the good work our team provides every day of the year. Find out more at Shelters of Saratoga dot org and thank you for all your support.
DV: We’re back and thanks for listening. Continuing our conversation with Lisa and Ed Mitzen and Tony Mangano, we’ll be talking about ideas that work in other communities and what we can learn. I want to mention Ed’s latest book, Wealthy and White, Ed’s unflinching look at the responsibility of the wealthy to use their good fortune to do good. It’s a great read.
So going to, Ed, you’ve spent some time in other communities. Have you seen some best practices, anything? I know you touched on a little bit. Things that have impressed you.
EM: Yeah. The City Mission in Schenectady, I don’t know if you’re familiar with them…
DV: Oh, Mike Saccocio. He’s awesome.
EM: They have basically, for lack of a better word, a compound, and they’ve got a female with children apartments, they’ve got apartments for men, shelter for males only, they’ve got, the whole campus is surrounded by affordable apartments so that they can transition these people from the shelter to the apartments. They’ve got a beautiful cafeteria, and they serve meals there, I think they get lunch and dinner, and it looks like something you’d see in a ski lodge I mean, it’s really, really nice. And then they’ve got all these surroundings, you know, they got places for the children to play. They’ve got, there’s a little library there. They’ve got access to different caseworkers and things like that and from what I can tell talking to Michael that the community is completely behind them, like they don’t collect any money from the state, I think because they don’t want to be regulated they want to be able to do things their way and from what I can tell it’s a really, really cool model. And I was impressed that right in the middle of downtown Schenectady is this oasis if you will like, you drive by this thing and never know that it was, it looks like a senior citizens home or something like that like. It’s really nice well
DV: I think they’ve also rehabbed, you know, a lot of those buildings around there to make them permanent housing or permanent supportive housing. So they’ve actually made the community look nicer in the process. I even think they have a little park.
EM: Yeah, they do. There’s like a quad, like a grass area where the kids can play in between the buildings, like a grass foyer, if you will. It’s really cool.
TM: Now, do they offer a low-barrier housing as well?
EM: Yes.
DV: So, one of the things that Michael does, down at Schenectady Mission is they have a program called the Ambassador Program with Proctors, and it’s been very successful with them, and we’re just getting into…they came up and said, hey, Duane, well, how about go connect with UPH and try to do that same thing? So, we are in the process of hiring some of the folks that are in the shelter to be part of the Ambassador Program at UPH. So far, we’ve got three people that have signed up. They’ll be employees of Shelters of Saratoga. We do have a small grant amount. I think it’s about $5 ,000 that we’re able to use to pay those folks to do their job. And maybe you can enlighten me and tell me what your opinions are, any of you on this, is that one of the concerns I had is that being that Saratoga is a smaller community than the greater Capital Region, one of my concerns was is that will our folks that are gonna be working at UPH, do you think that they would be labeled?
LM: I don’t think so, I think that program is great. I think it’s a great opportunity for them to have a sense of purpose and to feel more of a part of the community than to be labeled or I don’t know. I think it’s a nice opportunity for those individuals.
TM: I agree. And I think it gives another perception of the homeless versus the handful of folks at 10 or 20, whatever it is, or who had been hanging out and kind of panhandling and all that, and provides a really good contrast.
LM: Because those individuals are not being plucked out of the low-barrier shelter for that opportunity. They’re people that are working on a path towards getting back on their feet, working on themselves. So I think it’s a great chance for them to take that a step farther.
EM: Lisa and I are working with the BFG staff at Hattie’s in downtown Albany to hire folks that were recently out of incarceration and they’re homeless for the most part. There’s four apartments in the downtown Hattie’s on Madison Avenue in Albany so we’re able to provide them housing and then pay them a decent wage to work in the restaurant and get, you know, just to help them. It’s just an awareness that sometimes people need a little bit of an extra boost.
LM: They need an opportunity that might not be given.
EM: And not everyone’s going to work out. We know that, but, you know, you take some swings.
TM: I thought a couple of years ago, a few years ago, um, we were looking at that ambassador program where we, and that was even beyond like UPH would kind of on the streets and sort of like, I’m a local. Can I help you, type of a representative?
DV: I think COVID was the big killer when it came to that program. It looked like it was, had some traction by my predecessor and that COVID came and hit and dissolved that pretty quick. So yeah we’re making an effort now to try to get that launched back up hopefully the end of this month or maybe even as early as January. And in UPH is actually such a great venue you know it’s a place that people are going to frequent. It’s a great opportunity, I think, for anybody.
We talked about panhandling earlier. And if somebody in Saratoga, which panhandling can be quite lucrative sometimes, somebody could make 150, 200 or more dollars a day, do you think it’s an obstacle, Ed, for somebody to take those hourly jobs that may pay, you know, 16, 17, 18 bucks an hour?
EM: Yeah, I think it’s a fair, definitely a fair point. The jobs that have to be available, and we see this a lot in the work that we’re doing in downtown Albany, has to be, the pay scale has to be enough that it takes into account all the subsidies, whether or not it’s panhandling or Section 8 housing or food stamps or child care tax credits that it gets them beyond that threshold and gives them a sense of respect, dignity and a decent wage, like we like to talk about we want to give people good paying jobs not livable wages. Because livable wages, you know, what does that mean?
LM: And also health insurance. You’re not gonna have health insurance if you’re panhandling, and housing,
EM: And I gotta think that most people would much rather not panhandle. I mean, I think that they do it out of a sense of – it’s gotta be embarrassing as hell. It’s gotta be really, really uncomfortable in bad weather. And, you know, I think that you just have to show people that there’s another way. And that we give a crap, and are willing to take some risks with them to help them get out of their situation. But I think you’re always going to have somebody that’s going to say, “It’s not for me.”
TM: “I’m going to stand out here and do the best I can.” They’re independent. They maybe don’t want to take orders from you.
EM: I don’t have to pay taxes. Yep.
TM: So you’re not going to be 100 percent?
EM: Yeah. I don’t have to pay child support if I’m doing this because it’s not… You can’t track it. I mean, there’s a lot of things working against you, right?
DV: So in a perfect world, if we had, in Saratoga, what do you think that we need? Do you think that we need to become a program like Mike Saccocio that’s connected to the mission? Do you think that could ever be viable in our community?
EM: I’m not on your board, so I’m probably the least knowledgeable person on this, but I would say that there’s got to be a collaboration, a strong collaboration effort with all the different nonprofits in the community that all work together and it seems to me as an outsider somewhat very fragmented and everybody’s hearts in the right spot, but they’re not, they don’t appear to be working together.
LM: I think to piggyback on that I would say that I agree, which I rarely agree with him (laughs). So I agree that the agencies need to come together, they need to work in collaboration, and I think that unfortunately, I’m just gonna say the thing, but unfortunately I think there have been some other agendas, and which is too bad, because that doesn’t do any good to serve the people here that we really need to serve. So I think we need to bring agencies together and say, look, we have a problem and we all have the same problem. And you might have different ideas on the approach, but at the end of the day, these are people. And so we have to figure it out. I mean, I remember Duane, when you first came to Shelters of Saratoga, you said that your goal would be to put yourself out of a job, right? Which would be amazing, right? If you could just fix homelessness, but we’re not gonna fix it. And we’re certainly not gonna fix it the way that it’s going right now. So I think we have to come together and find a solution that doesn’t include anybody else’s agendas, that only focuses on the people struggling, and that falls somewhere between a 24/7 low-barrier, 365 day-a-year shelter, and, you know, perhaps having the shelter be heavily regulated and everybody have to be vetted before they walk through the door. We have to find a solution somewhere in the middle of all that.
DV: Yeah, I think over the past few years, what I’ve seen, and I talked about this in a previous podcast, is that 20 some years ago when I wrote my first grant in regards to homelessness funding, is that you, especially if it was a federal grant, you had to put in there a 10-year plan to end homelessness. So I was naive enough to think 21, 22 years ago that when we had that plan in there that it was actually gonna happen, that I would actually be looking for a different job in 10 years. And instead what I’ve seen, I’ve seen the populations explode virtually.
LM: But don’t you think that all goes into what’s just happening on a broader spectrum? I mean, Ed and I talk about this all the time with Business for Good, and that is the vast difference between the haves and the have-nots. And I think that we need to figure out a short-term solution, which is how do we house everyone? How do we keep everyone safe? How do we feed them? And then the long-term situation of how do we close the income gap, get people up the income curve, and fix the underlying root cause issues. Because what– we’re all doing right now by having tons of food pantries and tons of shelters is not working. The problem is getting worse. But somewhere we have to do it all.
DV: You know, and Ed, in reading your book, by the way, Ed wrote a wonderful book and talks about the disparity in what people are making and wealth. And, um, I don’t remember that being a topic 20 years ago, like it is today. So, and I think a lot of the nonprofits, when we talk about, we do have the collective, we have the Continuum of Care, which includes a lot of the nonprofits. I think that the focus is to try to get better on working together because times have been difficult. And grants haven’t kept up with our wages and things like that and what we should be to keep good staff is that I think some of the nonprofits go into self -preservation mode and say I can’t worry about Duane’s issue I’ve got to worry about my issue right now but I think looking long term until we start to look at that exactly that way, that’s not going to change, right?
TM: So I think you need to somehow have personnel that are client or focused, guest focused, whatever rather, like you say, rather than their own self -preservation. And what became of the study that we had Erin Healy come in, just before you got on board?
DV: Well, that was, that wrapped up in 2019, 2020, I believe. I was able to read it. There are pieces of it that are still being used today. I think that we’ve kind of elected to go back. It’s something that’s so applicable to what’s going on. I mean, it was very comprehensive. There was a lot of work involved in not just doing the study, but in what happens afterwards. And now we’re at that stage where we’ve got to get to work on pieces of that plan. So it’s still there.
LM: I was involved in some of those meetings. And I remember the biggest thing that that I learned throughout that process was the need for, yes, the shelter and a permanent location for Code Blue, but also the importance of the navigation center. And that was what I had always, you know, that’s like, I love the work that Shelters of Saratoga does and I feel like we have like a mini navigation center over on Walworth where you try to do all the things, but there’s just not the space or the collaboration at this point. And I think that it’s too bad that we haven’t been able to find that solution in addition. to a permanent Code Blue location.
DV: We were pretty close. The senior center was supposed to be the navigation center and essentially the trifecta in Saratoga horse terms where you know, we would have a navigation center and the seniors would get a new location and the Y would benefit from having the seniors at the Y. So unfortunately it didn’t happen. But I think moving forward that, you know, as Stephanie, our associate ED, who has been on a few of the podcasts, it’s still the focus, you know, our focus moving forward is to try to find that spot, right? We got to find the spot first and we want to try to meet people where they’re at.
Frankly, we would love to see a place where we have a permanent Code Blue location and navigation center where we have even a spot where some people could camp, where they feel safe, and then maybe even progress them into tiny pod homes or something like that, you know, as they as they move up the ladder into permanent or permanent supportive housing. So that’s still a dream of SOS. We’re just still out there looking for that right location. And going back to location, we can talk about safety. Of course, I know you never know what’s going to happen anytime you run any type of a program, but I think overall all of you have been in Code Blue before. I’ve been at Code Blue. I think that many of the clientele that we serve, the people that we serve are grateful and thankful and actually help out a lot of times. I’m sure you’ve all seen that. Tony, how many days a week are you at Code Blue now?
TM: Well, right now I’m only doing it once a month. I’ve gotta do the training, get back into the gear here, but I think that’s one thing that, my wife volunteers also, and she’s always impressed and comes back with just that how grateful the folks are.
EM: Lisa and I drop off pizzas on Sunday nights, and there’s always people. people coming outside to help us unload. And you know, they’re very appreciative. And I think too, you guys have done a great job of making it a safe place. I remember four or five years ago, the cops were getting called twice a night, right? For something, some kind of disturbance or, and is that accurate?
LM: Yeah, I think it’s definitely improved. And I think too, that when you talk about the people and you go back to, you had asked earlier about, was there anyone in particular we remembered? And I remember one woman who has passed away, unfortunately, but she was so nice. And I remember when we first started volunteering, I wasn’t sure if she was a volunteer or a guest. And Tony probably knows who I’m talking about. And, you know, she was hands-on, helpful, appreciative. She was a little bit bossy, but I realized that she was actually a guest and I helped her with a situation. She camped and she had a cat and I helped her out when her cat was sick one time. And she actually dropped off at Finger Paint at the front desk, a handwritten thank-you note that I still have and it was just so thoughtful and kind. And when you think about what it took for her to go, I mean, I can run in my office and grab a note and a pen. But when you think she had to go somewhere and get that card and write that note and find a way to get it to me. And it was just so kind.
EM: How did she pass away? I don’t know if I knew that.
LM: Actually, she had went into cardiac arrest out by the train station and we were out of town. But I got a phone call.
EM: Yeah, she was a nice lady. She was always bringing books, right? Didn’t she, wasn’t she a big reader?
LM: That was the other lady.
EM: I remember the cat lady.
LM: We exchanged books. I remember the other one too that you talked about. But anyway, so it’s just, you know, it’s those acts of kindness that you don’t necessarily expect. But again, it goes back to the, I think, and Ed mentioned it earlier, you know, you don’t blame people for having a fear, but a lot of that fear is that it’s uncomfortable. They don’t know any better than what they might see or hear through the rumor mill. And in any segment of our society, there are some bad apples, right? And the bad apples spoil the bunch.
DV: Well, we see the humanity from the people that we serve, not just from the people that are serving our clientele. And yes, they do have pets. They do have companions. They do have boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives sometimes. And I think currently at Code Blue, I think we have two dogs, I’m pretty sure. And right now, that relationship is so important to them. How could we possibly split that up, right? So we’re trying our best to accommodate that and where we’re at at 120 South Broadway.
TM: Like the woman you were talking about, she also was helping other folks. Outreach, getting them meals, checking in on them. And I think that happens a lot.
LM: They take care of one another.
TM: They take care of one another and they sometimes fight with one another, you know.
EM: And I think too, like your point about just thinking a little bit differently, right? Like Lisa’s building this doggy daycare and she’s gonna have a foster area for people that go into rehab because she learned through the research that a lot of people will not go in and get cleaned up because they’re afraid that they’re gonna lose their pets. So she holds it for 60 days. I mean, it’s end to your point. it’s just thinking differently with the dogs and not wanting to split them up and…
LM: Well, having that safe haven, and you know, at the end of the day, those dogs don’t know that they’re homeless, right? They know that they’re loved, and I’m sure that they’re loved very much. So if someone says, well, I don’t want to go in inpatient to be treated for alcoholism, maybe they would if they knew that their pet would be safe and comfortable and waiting for them when they get out.
DV: That’s awesome.
EM: So it’s, yeah. yeah, it’s an exceptional– – It’s a great idea.
LM: I mean, it’s, well, it’s not my original idea. –
EM: But it’s thinking differently.
LM: I stole it from other places that…
EM: Thinking differently, you know?
DV: You know, we’ve got a lot of agencies that are, you know, sometimes we’re a little bit siloed. And I’m seeing that one of the problems that sometimes we have is we have trouble getting out of our own way. I know that that’s my problem sometimes, right? And so how can, when we, you know, to continue to look forward and to think about tomorrow, sometimes we get so stuck in today. And so I guess I’m asking the group here is, how do you see how, you know, the community, the politicos, the other agencies can work together better?
EM: I think some of it has to be driven by the people that are donating the money, because I think that we are in a position where we can encourage collaboration across organizations. Lisa and I get asked by everyone for donations.
LM: I think I just heard Ed volunteer to start a task force on his own. Is that what everybody else heard?
EM: No, no, no. This is the longest I’ve sat in one place in 10 years. (Laughter) I think a lot of it too has to be on the nonprofits. I think you guys have to figure out a way where, you know, you start with three or four allies and you broaden the group out and you create this bond amongst the different organizations that you feel would be good partners. I got to think that Schenectady has politics issues. I got to think they got funding issues. I got to think that they’ve got board members who are a pain in the ass. But they figure out a way to – I wasn’t looking at you sweetheart – but I think I think it’s got to be driven by multiple people that would be in my opinion and again I don’t I don’t have the answers, but you know It’s frustrating when you’re on our side you get asked to help this shelter, this shelter, this substance abuse program, this domestic violence organization, this rape crisis center, this da -da -da -da -da, and it can be numbing. And you wanna just throw money at everybody, but you realize that at some point, at something to your point, something’s gotta change. It’s gotta, ’cause, it’s not working.
DV: Yeah, well, it keeps people in silos, right?
LM: Well, and I think too, that there’s so much that has happened, apparently starting 30 years ago, because it sounds like it was a challenge back then. But in the last 10 years, which is what I feel we’ve really been involved since they started Code Blue here in town, I think a lot’s happened between the different agencies without giving a lot of specific examples, I think a lot of things have happened between, whether it’s politics, not in my backyard, you know, all different things, changes in leadership and organizations. There’s been bad tastes left in a lot of people’s mouths and I think everybody needs to get over it and, clean slate and let’s get back to getting down to business. Because I think Tony mentioned earlier, and it’s true, at the end of the day, we’re all serving the same people and we all want the same thing. So, I think sometimes those egos get kinda, kind of you know, backs up against the wall and I know what’s best and you don’t, that wasn’t directed at you, but I think that’s where you have to start hey clean slate check your ego at the door and let’s get to work.
EM: We have a lot of very, very successful people in this town and at times that can probably work against us because everybody including myself always thinks they’re right all the time and you know if you go into Schenectady or Albany or Troy, you’ve got successful business people, but there’s much more of an understanding and a visual representation of the haves and the have-nots. You see it every day. You don’t see it here. Everybody looks like they’re in the upper 1% for the most part, walking down Broadway with the exception of the one or two people you see sleeping under a sleeping bag. And it’s, I think we have to work on that, you know, breaking down those egos. And I put myself in that category.
DV: Well, you know, we, you know, all of us at SOS too, we’ve kind of had to reflect back on it. It wasn’t, it wasn’t particularly the most pleasant year. 2023 wasn’t super great, right? But maybe it’s time that, you know, we have to, I can’t stop and think, you know, this horrible thing happened, this horrible thing happened. It’s time to put it aside and just get to work. You know, and I think that I notice from a lot of the other agencies, including myself, is that we get very protective over our staff and our agency. And sometimes we even have to let our guard down a little bit there and say, listen, we’re gonna take some risks. We’re gonna say, listen, we don’t have to stand in front. We can three or four steps back. How can we keep the mission moving forward?
EM: Yeah, the other option, too, is you look at, as a board, you look at strategic mergers, if you say that we need to have a mental health organization at your side. So maybe you go and you combine forces,
formally, legally. Same thing with, you know, if you need substance abuse. You know, you’ve got to have these people on site ready to go. Maybe that’s the way to do it.
TM: When you’re talking about a navigation center.
EM: Yeah, just start building out all the services that you need, even if it’s not geographically all together right away.
TM: It seems like somebody, maybe you, Duane, needs to call a summit, you know, to get other agencies, got to be feeling the same way.
EM: Oh gosh, I’m sure.
TM: And just to get everybody and just laid out in the table, who agrees, I mean, this is where we’re at. Let’s like say, clean slate.
DV: Well, I think even in the COC, you know, you have your monthly meetings and your biannual meetings where the whole COC is getting together and you, we may not even realize that we’re just doing the same steps over and over and over when it’s time to say, hold on. Let’s look at this a little differently.
LM: I think you have to. Everything’s changing, but the one thing that isn’t changing is the problem is not getting better. So I think it’s time to think differently about how we approach everything from fundraising as an organization to how are we gonna tackle this? Because we need a new location for Code Blue next year.
TM: Yeah. Under the new administration in the city, is it feasible that somebody outside of the agencies would call together a meeting? Just to that point.
DV: I’ve had a couple meetings with the people that are going to be coming in and they seem to be interested and they recognize past mistakes that were made in the community. I think that they want to move forward and they want to address the issues and I think they’re definitely interested in talking to the people who work in the field which I think is going to be very beneficial.
EM: It’s a clean slate right? It’s a nice opportunity.
TM: When Code Blue started ten years ago it really was before what came to SOS it was managed by a coalition of the different agencies, DSS, domestic violence, Catholic Charities, and they were working together.
DV: I’ve even seen the changes in how Code Blue is required to be managed by the state now. It’s become much more of a specific line item and it has to be done and this is what you have to do and there’s not a lot of freedom. I think the freedom that we do have is afforded to us by the county that they’re flexible in some of the things that we can do and like I think you said earlier you know you don’t have to serve a meal, we think that that’s an absolute it must happen, you actually don’t have to have a bed or a cot and we see that as an absolute Those things have to happen.
So I think in winding things up here, I want to thank Ed and Lisa Mitzen and Tony Mangano. I appreciate you guys coming. Any closing thoughts that you might have as we wrap things up today?
EM: It’s cold out. Good luck this winter. Thank you. It always amazed me that it. 32 degrees or under,
it’s, you know, you have to be open, but at 34 and 6 inches of snow, you don’t.
TM: When it, when it’s Code Blue first started, it was 10 degrees. Yeah. You need to get down to 10 before.
EM: Wow. That’s crazy.
DV: Well, thank you, everyone.
EM, LM, TM: Thank you. It was fun. Yeah. That was great.
DV: Thank you for listening to this episode of Crossroads. We covered a lot of ground. But I think there’s value in understanding where we started 30 years ago and how all the efforts to address the many challenges of homelessness have evolved. We can use that perspective to be smart in how we move forward. Many thanks to Tony Mangano, who helped start Shelters of Saratoga and Code Blue, and to Lisa and Ed Mitzen for their extraordinary support of Shelters of Saratoga, Code Blue, and so many other deserving individuals and organizations.
CLOSE: Crossroads is produced by Shelters of Saratoga, a non-profit human services agency serving the greater Saratoga area. Our mission is to transform the lives of our neighbors facing homelessness with support services, safe shelter, and a path to independence. Your support keeps our mission alive. Find out more about how you can help at Shelters of Saratoga dot org.