Shelters of Saratoga and Saratoga Springs Police Department: A Partnership in Safety and Wellbeing

Duane Vaughn, Executive Director, Shelters of Saratoga
Stephanie Romeo, Associate Executive Director, Shelters of Saratoga
Officer Zach Ferris, Community Engagement Officer, Saratoga Springs Police Department

Transcript

Welcome to this episode of Crossroads. I’m Duane Vaughn, the Executive Director of

Shelters of Saratoga. Today is an important conversation to share with you. We’re

going to be talking about partnership, how Shelters of Saratoga, and particularly our

Code Blue program works closely with the City of Saratoga Springs Police Department.

We want to highlight the commitment to public safety and the safety and well-being

of our guests. I’m here first with Stephanie Romeo, our Associate Executive Director,

Shelta Saratoga. Welcome, Stephanie. Hi, Duane. And we want to welcome a special

guest, Officer Zach Ferris, one of the city’s Community Engagement Officers. Welcome,

Officer Ferris. Thanks. Can I call you Zach? Zach works better. Thanks. I appreciate

that. Well, let’s get started. The Community Engagement Officer, or CEO, as we might

have heard about or read about in the press is a relatively new program for all of

Let’s start with giving our listeners some insight into the role of Saratoga

Springs Police Department’s Community Engagement Officer Program. Could you help explain

it to us, Zach? So the role of the CEO is really to partner with the community.

So part of our mission, the department’s mission, is the first line is in

partnership with the community. So if you want to take that seriously, you need to

have an officer to partner with the community, to reach out, make those connections,

and that was one of the goals behind the CEO, and the role is to partner with the

community for downtown issues, BLA’s on with the partners like you guys,

and go from there. Is it typically the daytime when the shifts are running for

CEOs? – Yes, so we work 11 a .m. to 11 p .m. So me and Officer Nicholson work

opposite schedules, so if I’m working one day, he is off. So it is,

you’re working seven days and two weeks. – Okay. So, and how long has the program

been up and running?

– Since probably last spring or last summer, Officer Stryme started. And then we went

from there to I started last fall and now the program with two of us has been

running since January. Okay so you’ve got two CEOs currently on the work for on the

police force that are working 11 to 11 correct is that what you yes 11 a .m.

to 11 p .m. okay and obviously you know having two officers now it that’s a pretty

good indication that the program is going well. I think so. I think it’s working

well. I think we have made a lot of connections with the community. We’ve met a

lot of people and we’ve helped a lot of people. So I think those are good

indicators that we’re doing something right. Can you define for me a little bit more

about what working means? Like, you know, what do you consider it to be? What part

of it do you consider to be successful? So if you’re looking at an approach of a

police department, you can look at it from a proactive approach or a reactive

approach. So to me, the community engagement officer has more of a proactive approach

to issues that the community is facing. So if you’re working with a, say,

take you guys, if we’re working with you guys, we can hopefully get ahead of some

problems before they arise. And when you’re working with the community, they’re going

to bring up issues that we maybe had no idea what it was happening. I see. You

know I want to talk a little bit about you. So tell us a little bit about

yourself. What’s your world like outside of work? So I have a wife and two kids.

Asher is three and Candon is one. So that has been that’s been something for me.

So far so good. And outside of work I play in a men’s baseball league.

It’s a old man’s league 28 and over. So I’m still trying to keep that dream alive.

Oh, and that’s fast pitch. Yeah Oh, yeah. Oh really? I used to play myself. That’s

pretty neat. Where do you guys play locally in Saratoga? Yeah, it’s a Saratoga men’s

baseball league. So it’s it’s throughout Saratoga and it’s It’s something so I like

to do outdoor stuff Do a little hunting so so your CEO or because that helped with

having a three -year -old and a one -year -old? (laughing) – Maybe a little bit more

patience. (laughing) – Okay. So how long have you been on the city’s police force?

– I started in January of 2020. So I’m coming up on five years here soon and a

quarter of the way there. – From the retirement? – To the retirement. – Yeah, so were

you a police officer or any place else before this? – Nope. – Was it your first?

Before this, so I started at the age of 27. Before this, I was a personal trainer.

I worked in kind of the fitness area. And I enjoyed it, but I knew it wasn’t

really what I wanted to do. And I’ve met some people through that that were in law

enforcement and they said, “Look into it, you might be decent at it.” And it took

me some time and then I took some tests and did it And here we are.

– So let’s talk about a little bit more about the process. What’s the process of

actually becoming a CEO?

– Police officer or the CEO itself? – So after you become a police officer, so how

do you go to CEO? – So it was something that the department put out, they wanted

and they just put it out. Hey, if you’re interested in this, write up a little

memo saying why you think you’d be good at it and why you would want to do it.

And that was kind of the driving factor because I believe it’s a position that you

have to want to do You can’t tell someone hey, you have to do this role They

probably won’t be effective that makes complete sense, you know, and I noticed it it

does You get a lot of support from the commissioner and the police chief They seem

to be this is something that they seem to be invested in which is great. – Yes,

they really are invested in it and they’ve given us kind of the freedoms,

probably not the best word, but the ability to kind of just go after it and do

what we want to do. And they’ve been supportive the whole time. – Yeah, Stephanie.

– I think that you and Ryan have done an amazing job. I was just wondering what

made you want to do it in the first place. – Initially, it was just something

different. I didn’t know too much about it and kind of, you know, for example, the

services I were offered. So it was more of a selfish thing at first. Like, I don’t

know too much about it. Let me give a shot. And then from there, after I started

doing it, I started realizing how much I actually enjoy doing it. And it,

so it did over the years, it kind of transformed for me a little bit. First, I

kind of did as a, I want to learn for myself. and then it turned into enjoying it

a lot. – So you kind of cross reference in here a little bit about what it takes

to be a good CEO. So I think you kind of sum it up really well is you have to

want to do that job, you have to want to help people and get in a more proactive

approach into policing. So I think that’s great. Do you know of any other programs

like this in small cities in – New York? – A lot of police, it’s becoming more

popular. So we call it community engagement. Other places call it community policing.

They vary slightly, but every police department has their own version of it.

So for example, a lot of the other police departments in the area have a community

policing unit or they have a community engagement unit. They all do different roles.

So it has gained in popularity, especially since 2020,

the police reforms, you’ve seen a lot more community policing. But every community

should be different. So how a community engagement unit or officer in Saratoga

Springs is gonna do different things than a community engagement officer in Albany.

Different communities, different issues. – What’s your favorite part about how Saratoga

does it. – I believe that Saratoga County and all the organizations in Saratoga

County work incredible together. I think if we go to these meetings and we meet

more people, how Saratoga County and the services work together I think is

incredible. – So walk me through a typical day. I mean, how did your day start?

– So every day starts with showing up to your roll call, getting whatever information

the officers need. And we spend a lot of, so me and Ryan spend a lot of time

downtown is what we do. So we’ll, in the summer we’ll walk. I like riding the

bike. I try to lose some weight so that helped with that.

You get paid to exercise. You can’t complain too much about that. – Right. – So

we’ll spend a lot of time downtown. I’ll stop in some of the shelters, kind of

just hang out, spend some time there, and just we’ll do some meetings if there’s an

issue. If say a church in the area has an issue with something, we’ll go talk to

them and figure out what we can do. It’s more of just a presence and problem

solving kind of position. I think when we see you at Code Blue,

you’re not on a call and it kind of changes the feeling and the presence there.

It’s not like you’re there to arrest somebody or give somebody a bunch of crap or

whatever it might be. Exactly. So, in building relationships. Yeah, exactly. And it’s

a different approach, but I’ve already seen it work. So by going and just spending

time at Code Blue, just hanging out. At first, when I first started doing it,

everyone’s giving me weird looks like, what is this guy doing? (laughs) But it’s

worked. So I’ve had, I’ve just been hanging out and I’ve had someone come up to me

like, “Hey, Zach, it’s time, I wanna go to detox.” Or, “Hey, Zach, I gotta go talk

to someone.” Just like, all those stories show that just being there works.

– In this process, What do you find is the most gratifying? What do you like the

best about it? – Working with people. So I like talking to people. I like getting

to know people and meeting people throughout, you know, whether it be the homeless

population, downtown businesses, organizations we work with,

working with people to kind of solve issues for the future is what I enjoy out of

So if it’s an issue downtown for next summer or if it’s working with you guys

to how can we work with cold blue and cut down on issues that’s the stuff that I

enjoy doing the position wasn’t created just for homeless issues correct it was

created for all of encompassing quality of life downtown not just homeless working

with you guys and working with the homeless population is definitely a part of it

that’s not gonna go anywhere that’s That’s gonna be around, but it’s just one part

of it. We work with the downtown businesses. I do a lot of work with Healing

Springs.

Anybody really. – We’re grateful that you’re there. We’ve seen a difference, but how

do you think that the rest of the community has responded to the role or the CEO

program? – Overall, it’s been really good. When I first started, we did a lot of

just walking into as downtown, walking into organizations and just introducing

ourselves. And at first I was a little, I wasn’t sure how it was gonna go,

but I was actually really surprised at how positive it was and how open everybody

was. And since then it’s kind of continued. We haven’t really gotten much negativity

from what we’ve been doing. – We really value our working relationship with the city.

So Working with you, having the CEO program in place, has been incredibly important

in enhancing our working relationship. Can you or Stephanie or both give me a few

examples of what those benefits have been? – Yeah, absolutely. So I think, so me and

Stephanie work together a lot. Constantly texting, emailing, calling. And I think it’s

helped streamline our communication as a police department with your guys’

organization. So I think having that one person for you guys to reach out to, to

shoot a text to, or just email or call, makes everything so much easier.

Whether it be an issue that’s currently happening, or an issue in the future, having

that one person to go to and communicate with makes everything a lot easier. – I

would agree and It feels good to be able to just send a text message or an email

because then I feel like we’re not wasting resources Because sometimes it is not a

police matter, but I can just shoot Zach a text and be like can you help with

this? Or am I asking the wrong person or he just has insight on like who I can

reach out to if there’s an issue But even beyond that, I mean, it’s been super

helpful in training our staff. So obviously we were just opening up co blue and

Zach and I Met and discussed what the training should be regarding police calls in

advance of the season so that the staff can be trained appropriately on police calls

as well which that’s not something we’ve necessarily had the opportunity to do before

so I know that not just myself but all the staff at Koblu appreciate the feedback

that Zach’s able to give again at quick text of the button.

I noticed every year we get better at working together which has been really great.

We seemed really prepared for this year’s Code Blue. So, you know, you just, you

guys both just talked about, you know, learning how to best communicate in context

of the demands of the city police department. Do you feel that it, that it does

help the police department in their everyday work? I mean, the other officers.

Absolutely. And I think if you’re looking at Code Boost specifically, the staff there

It’s a very tough job, so if there’s any issues,

they really are the first responders before a police officer gets there, before EMS

gets there. They are the ones first dealing with whatever the issue may be. And

from looking at it in that perspective, it’s an important relationship to have

because if they call 911 and it takes a police officer three minutes to get there.

Three minutes for whatever’s going on could be a long time and that’s a long time

for a staff member to deal with whatever could be happening. So having the

relationship with the staff members, having them understand what a police officer can

and cannot do in certain situations will ultimately help everybody.

It’ll help the staff, it’ll help the police officers that respond to the call and

it will help just make everything a lot more simple for everybody. And we appreciate

it too. I mean, sometimes it’s that Zach or Ryan’s going to come over and have a

conversation with someone. It’s not necessarily a crime or a public safety matter,

but getting that person to a better place, encouraging them to utilize services

differently. And Ryan and Zach add that component to Cobalubal and we’re able to

reach out to them directly. – Can you give me like an example of that? – Okay, so

yeah, there was one time last year where what someone was doing could have been an

arrestable offense, and instead we called Zach and we were able to talk to the

person, and that person instead of necessarily just going to jail or going to court

or whatever, then they were able to get help instead. Not being locked up for a

week or two or a month coming right back out and probably doing the same thing

again but you’re seeing people get help so that they can sustain better behavior and

better public safety long term. So I think it circles back to what Zach was saying

about that’s the proactive part versus the reactive part. So you know, we think that

the community will appreciate knowing how we work together. For community safety, as

public service, as well as respecting the unique needs of our guests in the

community.

and what I’ve learned, I could see transferring into some of the other officers and

them responding to calls and just their knowledge on the topic too. So having just

like anything else, having someone who has more knowledge in it to help the other

officers has been seen. I don’t know, Stephanie might agree or disagree.

I agree. I think co -blue wasn’t anyone’s favorite place to necessarily have a call,

But, you know, in the past year, I would agree with Zach that it’s gotten better

and I think the staff work really well with the police now, no matter who’s

responding, so I appreciate that. Well, I think that’s a good point, would you say?

I agree. And so like this past cold blue season, when I go and it’s another

officer that’s not a CEO, goes and shakes the employee’s hand and they know each

other’s name that’s a good sign that something’s something’s going good so has the

idea of the CEO evolved from your experience or you know what have you learned from

like reporting back to leadership it hasn’t evolved so much in the past year I

think when I first started it wasn’t me kind of just putting myself out there and

seeing what is it I can do or what is it we can do because there wasn’t as much

of a defined this is you know every minute of the day this is what you’re going

to be doing and it has evolved in some ways where just I mean in community

policing the issues constantly change so downtown the issues are always changing a

couple a couple months there might be a vandalism’s a hot topic and then in a

couple other months it might be something else. So the issues that the community

faces does change throughout, throughout time and you have to evolve with that.

So I want to, I want to go back and talk a little bit more how SOS Code Blue

and the CEOs and the Saratoga Springs Police Department. One of the things that I

think I’m curious about is, you know, are you personally familiar with a lot of the

guests that we serve. – I am, I am very familiar with a lot of the guests.

And the relationship, it really, I think a lot of people look at it as, “What can

the police do to help you guys?” But from what I see too, it’s your guys’ staff

helping the police in many ways too. So it could be an officer with somebody at 3

a .m. in middle of February, not having any idea what to do with this person. This

person says they’re freezing and they need help and the officers just look at him

like, “I do not know what to do right now.” And they brought him down to Code

Blue and Code Blue’s, you know, the staff’s there. We’ll handle it, we’ll call DSS,

we’ll do this, this, this and this. So it’s just as much your guy’s staff helping

us as it is a police officer helping your guy’s staff. So, do you ever feel like

that, is there any other expectations that you have from Code Blue or the staff at

Code Blue that could help you more?

Not so much. The last year I thought went pretty well. I think we worked well

together last year and I think we really, it was a two -way street last year in my

opinion and hopefully that continues. Yeah, so let’s let’s talk about some of the

interactions and some of the successes that we’ve seen with With with Zach and and

co blue or some of the folks that we see at co blue or staff Stephanie can you

talk about that a little bit? Sure? I mean even just for how staff feel They feel

better knowing that they can reach out to the outreach officers. They feel safer

Like Zach last year came at the beginning of co -blue and was just a presence and

he’s done a great job of making connections with the population. So, you know,

people are saying hi to him on their way in the door. And it’s not, you know,

this looming fear of the police on their way into co -blue, but just Zach’s at co

-blue. And it makes our staff feel better and it makes the guests feel comfortable

as well. – Zach, can you dive into some specific examples that you could think of?

– So going based off of that, when I first started just showing up to code blue

and just being present, part of it was me trying to figure out my role and getting

into it. And then doing that, everyone has their idea of what they think a homeless

person is, right? And I had an idea, but I wasn’t too sure. So I started doing

that. I start just talking to people, hanging out pretty much. And it really changed

what I thought, for example, I met a person who was a police officer,

who was last winter, who was homeless, and he used to be a police officer. And

that one kind of hit me. It was like, this really could happen to anybody. That

could happen to me. You just, you do not know. I’ve met corrections officers. I’ve

met anything you can think of and everyone’s story is different. So for me meeting

somebody who was a police officer who was currently homeless and struggling with his

own issues really, really hit home for me. That’s a great example. One of the

things that we’re trying to do with these podcasts too was to spell the myths of

homelessness and humanize the issue much more and that’s very helpful to everybody to

hear that. Do you feel like it also humanizes things more for, you know,

there’s a lot of people that we all have to report to up to chain, is it helpful

in that way? – I would think so. I mean, if you look at, like I said, going into

it, I thought I knew what was going on and I had no idea. So meeting people from

all different walks of life and there are reasons for becoming homeless, you couldn’t

put a finger on it. It is so many different things and it’s just so many factors

that can contribute to it. To where knowing that and understanding that, it

definitely changes your idea of your approach, I believe. – Do you think that the

general consensus of the people that are using Code Blue is calmer and that we have

less issues with CEOs there? Yeah, for the most part, I mean, they still see a

police officer and they’re more likely to behave while he’s there, certainly. But I

think it’s nice too, is because we’ve set the precedence of if you need the help,

then that’s what everyone’s actually here for. So I would say the tone is calmer,

but also people aren’t afraid to be themselves. And that might sometimes open the

door to a deeper conversation of let’s get you some help and the CEOs are a great

addition to that because they also want to see people do well and get the help

that they need so they can be successful long -term. Yeah, so you have connections

to other agencies too. I know you mentioned Healing Springs. Yes, we work with,

me and Ryan work with Healing Springs, RISE, a lot of Seattle County organizations,

the Department of Health, the hospital. We’ve met a lot of people through this work.

And it’s, they all kind of work together. So that’s what, before I mentioned, I

believe that Saratrua County does a great job of all the organizations working

together. And I think that’s why you see a lot of success in this area is that

exact reason everyone’s, everyone has the same goal and everyone’s willing to help

each other to get to that goal. Do you ever have people that maybe downtown and

don’t know about Coblew and other officers may not be sure what to do if somebody

shows up and presents this homelessness. So have you ever run into that word where

you’re meeting somebody for the first time? Our homeless population downtown does

fluctuate especially outside of Coblew season. It goes,

you see a lot of up and down in the summer. You’ll see new people come in, you’ll

see people leave, but you do see more people popping up and I think that goes

towards why Code Blue was so full, so quick last year was it’s you do see people

popping up that we don’t know all the time and it it hopefully you can get them

to the services they need sometimes they’re not as willing they just want to do

their thing and they don’t want to help But if you can get them to cold blue or

somewhere else, it does certainly help, right? So Zach, can you talk about any

circumstance where you’ve seen somebody outside the workplace that you might have Seen

it one of the shelters or cold blue or anything like that? Yes, so I’ve seen my

work Also outside of work So I could be walking downtown and somebody will recognize

me outside of work if I’m just walking on Broadway a couple months

law enforcement setting. He was never in trouble, never arrested, just needed help

and needed somebody to talk to a lot of the times. – Yeah, that’s great. That’s

great to hear.

– And I’m sure Stephanie has, that happened to her all the time. (laughing) – Well,

let’s talk about it. So when else, when does it happen to you? – Actually, I mean,

similarly to Zach, usually just like walking down Broadway I see people and they say

hi and I will never say hi first because I don’t want to suggest that I know

someone unless they open the conversation so when they say hi I say hi back and

probably knowing you though you still keep more of your work hat on yes that

doesn’t usually come off yeah not even when traveling well at first I was a little

nervous you know because you’re you’re the police officer. So if you’re walking, say

you’re walking downtown outside of work, you don’t know what someone’s going to say

or how they’re going to react. So at first you’re a little nervous about it, but

my guard has come down a little bit when it comes to that stuff because of these

positive interactions I’ve had and because this year I’ve had so many of them where

they recognize me outside of work and it goes and it’s great. So my guard has

definitely come down with those situations for sure. – Yeah, well, I think that’s so

important to let the community know is that these are, this is a human issue, and

that normal interactions happen all the time. You know, sometimes that people are in

a tight spot and find themselves at a code blue or a shelter for a brief period

of time, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t recover and move forward and get on

with their life and have normal interactions, even with people that they’ve seen in

the past. We had a lot of people last year, we were averaging up to full most of

the time, 75 people.

Interactions with Zach and the CEOs that helped us get through an evening or an

incident or a potential incident. – It started off slow where he’s coming to CoBlue

And I think none of us really knew what it would turn into or how we would help

each other. But over time, like we’ve had really productive conversations about how

to make like the bigger systems better. Like when it comes to band notices and

training staff, just like we’ve had more expansive conversations about working together

and what that would look like and some direction.

I almost think that sometimes there’s an accidental disconnect between police forbuses

and agencies and I think this has been really important to kind of tie us together.

I think it’s gone really good so far and I think I was about to be fired. So

this year we kind of I wouldn’t say got ahead of the game but I had a lot of

conversations about what we can do for this upcoming code blue season. And really

the importance is the safety for everybody, the safety for your guys staff, the

safety for your guests, the safety for the officers when they show up. And it’s a

good partnership to have ’cause somebody’s there to get help and they just need that

roof over their head while they figure out life. So to provide that with the

officers, your guys staff and the other guests is really the most important thing.

Yeah, and I think you highlight really well that Code Blue just doesn’t decide to

open and we’re ready to go November 1st and it ends April 30th or whatever that

date is, is that there’s a lot of preparation that goes into place and those

communications happen between the CEOs and Stephanie and staff and it just helps the

whole year go much smoother. Right, and we don’t want to waste a resource of

constantly calling the police That’s why it’s so nice having the CEO is because when

it is just a conversation or a light redirection with one of the guests there, we

have Zach and Ryan instead of having to waste a resource where it could take away

from the safety within the community elsewhere. And having that one person to text,

call, email and show up and having that past history with them makes it easier for

sure. Absolutely. I I know the person who’s gonna show up to assist us is someone

who likely knows the client that I’m calling about, which is immensely more helpful.

– Right, so Zach, as we start to wrap up the podcast, one thing that I’m noticing

from the conversation, and I don’t even see it as much as Stephanie does or you

do, but now it feels to me like the police force is more ingrained in being a

partner and helping us with the issue of homelessness in our community, wouldn’t you

agree to that? I agree and there’s so many organizations out there and a lot more

than I realized when I first got into it. And there’s so many people out there

willing to help and willing to work towards that goal and working with all of the

organizations together has made me realize that everyone has the same goal and

everyone is pushing towards that goal, it’s just done differently. – And you know,

when you were talking, when both you and Stephanie were talking about some of the

examples of, you know, running into people that were previously homeless or are

currently homeless and, you know, humanizing that issue was really important to me

and I think it’s important for the community to know. And I think you’ve helped

with that a lot and I think that’s the piece that is now in place with the city

to be able to make that connection across the board.

To remember those interactions because without being in the context of Work and being

at the homeless shelter It’s just someone that I know and I wouldn’t have otherwise

known that they had experienced homelessness or were currently homeless I just have

the opportunity to know that because I work at a homeless organization but otherwise

I Would never know when I challenge any of our listeners to and anyone around you

you might interact with at the grocery store, walking up and down Broadway, anywhere

else, how many of those people might be homeless as well. – So you know what, I

want to give an example of that because– – Ooh, not a Duane example. – In my

past, you know, previously to come into Shelters of Saratoga, I ran The WAIT

House, which is a youth homeless shelter in Glens Falls. And one of the things that

I remember that kind of humanized things for me is it was probably in my year 13

or 14 that we were looking for a donation of a double,

one of those carriages for babies, you know,

but we somebody had twins that was in our shelter. And so we put that on our

Facebook and we actually had somebody donate a brand new twin baby stroller and it

happened to be a previous client from about 10 years previous that who eventually

got married, got a great job, actually married somebody that was in the Navy and

donated back to the shelter and that to me kind of brought it full circle. So it’s

really nice to hear that, you know, we’re putting a more humanistic face to

homelessness, which I think is really lacking in, especially in the media today,

you know, it’s looked at as a burden. So that’s really great to hear.

Twins are the best. So I want to, as we wrap things up here, I just really want

to thank Stephanie, as always, for coming on and CEO,

Zach Ferris, he did a great job. We really appreciate you coming on. It really

helped us understand things much better. Thank you. It was fun. Yeah, good.

Duane Vaughn, Executive Director, Shelters of Saratoga
Stephanie Romeo, Associate Executive Director, Shelters of Saratoga
Sgt. Zach Ferris, Saratoga Springs Police Department