I’ve spent my entire life trying to make people happy. I’m a proverbial “people pleaser.”
As other people pleasers can testify, it’s never enough. Sooner or later you mess up and let someone down.
That’s what this story is about.
Last week was busy.
We sent a person to rehab. We are moving the Second Chance store to another part of the building. And I got the opportunity to get interviewed by Jennifer Conn from Cleveland.com.
It was a wonderful week. Until I messed it up.
The article Jennifer wrote was amazing! It captured our story perfectly.  You can check it out here if you want: Auctioneer starts Akron Homeless Charity to fill gaps in safety net | cleveland.com
It tells where we came from, where we are and also our first benefit concert and silent auction that’s coming up this Wednesday, June 14.
It was a really in-depth interview. She interviewed me at my desk and then took a tour of our entire facility.
At the end of the interview we came back to my desk and she asked me details about our benefit event.
This is where it all went wrong for me.
She asked if we were going to have a food truck. I said yes and that we were really excited.
She asked me if it was going to be Food Truck “A”.
I said yes.
Last week was also difficult.
If you recall, I wrote a piece on the hatred of the homeless. I referenced a woman who I overheard complaining about our facility at a neighborhood meeting.
What I didn’t tell you about was the death threat.
We have a neighbor behind our privacy fence who vehemently despises us.
He came to the Second Chance Store last week, as he and his wife have done before loudly complaining that we are in the neighborhood.
But this time was different.
He told me and several homeless people standing with me that if he EVER saw any of us near his property he was going to shoot us.
I’ve never had a face to face death threat before. It’s a surreal experience. Is he just bluffing? Is he for real?
I feel confident that he is definitely unhinged with anger. So I don’t put it past him.
On top of that I have an ongoing, lingering cold that won’t quit.
I tell you all that just to give you a feeling that I have a lot on my mind.
Additionally, all the bands (11 of them) and silent auction donors are rightfully interested in being promoted.
The first response I got from the article when it came out was why I didn’t mention all the bands in the article.
I should have made that a point. I’m sorry for that too.
But as J- was asking me about the event, we had just come back from our facility tour and I didn’t have my event notes in front of me.
When she asked me if our food truck was Food Truck “A”, I had remembered we had talked about them. So I said yes.
But that was wrong.
All our material. Everything we have ever put out was promoting the actual food truck we had scheduled: Food Truck “B”.
But I told J-: Food Truck “A”. And that’s what got printed.
This embarrassed the owner of Food Truck “A”. She felt that it made her look bad because they already were booked somewhere else. 
She, rightfully, wrote me incredibly upset. She wanted to know how this could happen and also wanted to let me know that this significantly damaged her brand. To be clear: she didn’t feel that being part of our event made her look bad. Being mentioned as coming to the event and not being able to due to a conflict of schedule made her look bad.
And then just as quickly, Food Truck “B” posted on our event page that he was not coming because we promoted the wrong food truck.
I was mortified.
When I upset people I feel like a deer standing in the middle of the road staring down a semi truck barreling right for me.
It’s sheer terror.
My muscles pulse with a vibrating electricity. My head swims in fear and shame.
HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID!!
But I was. And now it’s done.
All I have left is to say I’m sorry.
But otherwise, the show will go on.
We have an amazing lineup of bands. And we have an amazing lineup of silent auction items.
Additionally, this is happening right in and around our homeless center. This is a fully operational facility. And you will be enjoying the event with the homeless people that live there.
I’m SO excited for you to meet them. They all are at our place so they can move forward in their lives. They all are actively working on something to take the next step in their lives.
This will probably be the most unique, interesting venue for an event you will experience all year.
If you are a little nervous please don’t be. The people at our facility all are very kind and gentle. Plus, we will have our security team actively working as well.
We ask that this be an alcohol (and drug) free event. Many of the people at our center are actively trying to quit drinking or doing drugs. Seeing super cool people like yourselves drinking might be a pressure they don’t need.
We will have some light snacks and nonalcoholic drinks.
Our event is at:
15 Broad Street
Akron, Ohio
Wednesday, June 14 from 8pm-11pm.
You can make a donation to come if you want. But if you don’t have much money we definitely get it. Just come and hang out with us.
You can learn more about the event here:
Out Of The Shadows Benefit Concert and Silent Auction For Akron’s Homeless Tickets, Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 8:00 PM | Eventbrite
 

DATE AND TIME

LOCATION

ALL DONATIONS GO DIRECTLY TO THE HOMELESS CHARITY
The event is going to be on Wednesday, June 14. It’s going to be from 8:00pm to 11:00pm.
This is going to be a SUPER fun event that you aren’t going to want to miss.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND GET TICKETS TO OUR FIRST ANNUAL OUT OF THE SHADOWS BENEFIT CONCERT AND SILENT AUCTION.

I was at a community meeting last night run by a local church. The minister is incredibly supportive of our work with the homeless. So much so that he often delivers leftover food to us from his events.
The meeting was wrapping up. As I was walking out I overhead an older lady complaining to one of the police officers that came to the event.
“What can you do about the homeless behind my apartment?”
“The yard is filled with tents! No one wants to live near the homeless. No one wants to look at that!”
He knows all about our facility. He works with us. He recommended we designate security people and get them security shirts. We did that.
The homeless security volunteers take their positions very seriously. They’ve set up security cameras. They monitor the facility constantly. And they work with law enforcement all the time. If you do anything illegal on our property you will be caught and prosecuted. Their focus is: We are here to help the homeless that want help. If you don’t want help and don’t want to move to the next stage of your life you can’t be here.
If anything, by having the homeless in one place under close supervision and security, we are making the community safer. Otherwise they’d be in the woods or under bridges completely alone and unsupervised.
But it’s not about that. That’s not what she was upset about.
It’s about the homeless themselves. They are an inconvenient truth.
It is very obvious that no one wants to look at homeless people. We had to build a fence so our neighbor in his $16,000 rundown home doesn’t have to look at the homeless. He wants us to buy his house so he can get away as soon as possible.

And it’s not that this woman is afraid that the homeless are going to break into her secure apartment building. We are separated by a 10 foot wall and a large chain-link fence on top of that. If anything, the people in the facility are more of a danger to us than we are to them. We once had a kid throw a rock over the fence at the homeless.

 
I’m not totally sure what it is exactly.
– Long hair
– Lack of teeth
It can’t be that though. There are plenty of homeless that are well kept. Short hair and fine looking teeth.
In fact, we have a couple women that are just plain beautiful. And Paul, our director, he looks like Hugh Jackman in the movie Logan.


So being ugly isn’t it.
It’s fear.
People are afraid of the homeless.
They aren’t behaving the way people are “supposed” to behave.
“Just get a job. Get an apartment. And be like us.”
That’s the problem. They can’t be like us.
We’re working with a woman who has a young child. We recently helped get her out of a shelter and into an apartment.
The only work she has ever done is fast food. And she’d love to go do that again.
But she can’t. She has carpel tunnel and recently had surgery. She would need to wear wrist braces. But it’s a safety hazard. They won’t hire her.
So we’re brainstorming work ideas for her.

Our facility is filled with people with stories like this.
You might not believe me. But please try. There are people who can’t get work. There are people who have zero income, zero services. They have nothing.
These are the extreme cases of homelessness that we specialize in.
All they want is a slight bit of stability and a sliver of dignity. They just want a place to quietly live in peace.
We work with people that are quitting drinking, quitting drugs, dealing with mental health. We work with people that are ready to take their lives to the next level.
We have 25 people and 10 tents of people like this. If you aren’t here to better yourself you are out. We will help you setup a tent in the woods and you can come use our laundry, food and shower any time you are sober. But you can’t stay with us if you aren’t trying to better yourself.
And we have a waiting list. We have a man who is coming from Pittsburgh to be part of our tent community.
We are a positive force in our community.
But our neighbors hate us. No one wants to live next to the homeless no matter how put together they are.
I know hate is a strong word. But the fear is extreme and it leads to hate. It’s just nothing other than hate.
And while we can all sit back and judge them, you probably wouldn’t like it if I brought my tent city to your neighbor’s backyard either.
Homelessness is a problem that people acknowledge but don’t want to deal with. “Not in my backyard” is a real issue in working with the homeless.
And the funny thing is we are in one of the absolute shittiest parts of Akron. Houses sell for less than $20,000. There are prostitutes, drug dealers and abandoned homes everywhere. I couldn’t find a more bombed out slum if I tried.
And we’ve secluded them incredibly well. There is no street you can drive down where you will see our homeless living. Our fence hides them from the one home that can see them. All we have is an apartment building that if you look down your back window you will see 10 tents.
If not here then where?
We joked about digging a hole and putting them underground. If I had the money I’d probably try it.

Believe it or not, there is a point to all of this.

In a country where 70% of the adult population identifies as Christian we are talking about burying the homeless.
I understand that there are debatable topics in Christianity.

• Does God hate fags?
• Should we ban Muslims from coming into America?

These are topics debated in Christian circles. I’d call those topics intermediate-level Christianity challenges.
But I have never once heard a Christian ever say the words: God hates the homeless.
On top of that, most of the people we work with are Christian. I bet I hear “have a blessed day” or “I’m blessed” a dozen times a day.
And if you are a little uncomfortable about minorities the vast majority of people are white men. The next major group are white women. There are only a couple African Americans that even stop by our facility. Oh! There is one Ukrainian. He has an accent. But still. He’s very, very white.
It’s as if God is playing a game with us.
The game is called: “How Christian are you?”
He is making the game as easy as possible. It’s like playing on Novice mode in a video game. It couldn’t be easier.
White men (some of which are veterans) and women who have fallen through all the safety nets of society. They are standing looking at you. And God says: “It’s your turn. What’s your move?”
Be honest. How would you feel if 20 homeless people were camped out in your neighbor’s backyard?
This isn’t about judging people. This isn’t some sort of reverse condemnation. Your feelings don’t make you bad or evil.
God is simply offering you a chance to grow. He’s asking you to consider your faith and decide what being a Christian means to you.
The homeless of America are giving you more than you could ever give them. They are giving you the opportunity to find the love Jesus asked you 2000 years ago to try and find.
Most people haven’t learned that love playing the game for 2000 years. Maybe 2017 is the year people finally learn what Jesus was saying and make it part of their lives.
 
 
 

We are very new.
Even as an entrepreneur who is used to moving fast and pivoting quickly, things are moving faster than maybe anything I’ve ever dealt with before.
We started with The Second Chance Store when the Summit Metro Parks told 50 homeless men and women on January 7, 2017 to move out of their camps to make way for Freedom Trail.
(I love the Metro Parks and support their trail building. But I find the name of their trail, “Freedom Trail” a little ironic given this situation.)
So people started coming to our facility.
In 5 months we have built a Day Center, Tent City, Wood Working Shop, Raised Bed Gardens, Thrift Store and Food Distribution center.
It’s the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done in my life. I’m nearly obsessed with it.
But we often find that we are getting ahead of ourselves.
We are building the airplane in midair.
We have approximately 20 people living in 10 tents in our backyard and about 8 people living indoors. The indoor people are called The Crew. They fill jobs like:

• Security
• Administration
• Overseeing cleaning and organization
• Running the computer lab, woodworking shop and gardens

They are the leaders.
One of the interesting strategies we are testing is making the facility completely homeless run and operated.
We have no “professional” administrators or outside volunteers in any position of authority.
I make it a big point to not be the deciding factor on anything. I always am pushing decisions back to them.
That has been the best decision we’ve made so far.
These people have an invested interest in making The Homeless Charity be a place that is safe and valuable to the homeless that come here.
As long as the mission, vision and values are continually discussed and internalized, you can’t make a wrong decision.
Stability is the first thing we’re trying to provide. Then we try to offer our guests a platform where they can take their next step:

• Quit drinking
• Stop using drugs
• Go to the doctor
• Get a job
• Learn a skill

Each person here has a different path. We’re trying to give them a place where they can move down that path a little bit further.
All that said, safety and security are foundational to our program.
If people aren’t safe and secure then nothing else matters. Stability can’t happen without safety.
This becomes an incredibly challenging balance.
We don’t want to become a prison. But we don’t want to become the Wild West either.
This is a daily process we are working through.
The first thing we did was create The Homeless Charity Code of Conduct. We are very careful to not just continue to throw endless rules at people.
The homeless are, by definition, outsiders. Many homeless that come to us have issues that make it difficult for them to exist in traditional society. So we are very conscious of being understanding of the mentality of an outsider.
But we also can’t let people run wild through the facility.
To address this we’ve developed a 3 Strike System.
If you violate the Code of Conduct 3 times you are kicked out for 30 days. If you come back and get another 3 strikes you are kicked out for 60 days. If it happens again you are permanently kicked out.
Unfortunately, we have people violating the Code of Conduct regularly. (That said, most people have never gotten a single strike.)
The positive side of that is that we have continual calls for people that want to get into our tent city. So we can quickly fill spots that become open.
We never ever accuse people that get kicked out as being bad or less than others. We simply see them as not ready for what we have to offer.
We’re trying to create something innovative here. We’re trying to be the next step in these people’s lives. We’re trying to be their “Second Chance”. Which is what we call our store. 
The reason for me writing this post today is because we had an interesting issue over the weekend.
We had a person who was given a third strike. (A woman who has a crack dealer looking for her.) She was asked to leave that night.
But the issue was that she was given her third strike based on a questionable infraction.
She was accused of stealing a vacuum.
Allegedly she had taken a vacuum that belonged to another guest and hid it in the area where she stays.
There are several extenuating circumstances to this accusation:

1. No one saw her take it.
2. There is a question as to whether the vacuum actually belonged to the other guest.
3. It was under a tarp in an area where other items are being stored for our store and auctions.
4. And then we have the whole being a woman with a crack dealer bounty on her head.

Paul, our director of services, and I talked. I advocated for this woman and said that the accusation seemed iffy. But I made it a clear point that I was not the deciding factor. I made Paul decide.
He chose to remove the strike. That meant she could stay.
This happened on Friday.
The problems with this decision were brought to me almost as soon as I walked in the door this morning. (I did get to go to the bathroom first which I was very thankful for.)
The problem is that this undermined the authority of our security people.
It also suggests that perhaps the rules don’t actually matter. That there is no real “Rule of Law” at our facility.
You should also know that we are extremely vigilant about adhering to traditional laws. We are very, very sensitive to our relationship with the police, fire and EMS. We want them to feel very welcome here and that we are great supporters of them.
So, all regular society laws are strictly enforced here.
But what happens when a strike is given for which the accused may be innocent?
So later today Paul and I will likely talk about this. I’m going to suggest that people can be given one appeal if they choose. The appeal process would possibly include the security officer who gave the strike, the defendant and then our director, Paul. Paul would then make the final decision.
I also feel like the safety of women and people under 18 needs to be a priority. I would like to see us have a transition solution for these people. So maybe we could try to get them into another facility and they wouldn’t have to be put on the street.
The larger problem with that is that these people that cause trouble are often kicked out of other facilities and programs as well. So it’s quite feasible that we would be forced to put them on the street because they have no other options.
It’s a difficult process. But it’s also extremely interesting and meaningful.
We have so many people in America that just want a safe place to put their tent. (I have to make a call right after this post letting a woman know that we don’t have space right now.)
If we can’t give people a place to put a tent in America then what can we do? This is the great American tragedy of the 21st Century.
The difficulties that come with creating this community are far outweighed by the opportunities we are giving to those Americans who have absolutely nothing.
It’s all worth it.
 
 

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Today we talk with Paul Hays. He has lived in a tent for 7 years. Now he is the director of services at The Homeless Charity.

We talk about what it’s like to be homeless that long and what is going on at The Homeless Charity.

If you can, please help support The Homeless Charity.

GO HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HOMELESS CHARITY.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSOR!

DATE AND TIME
Wed, June 14, 2017
8:00 PM – 11:00 PM EDT
LOCATION
The Homeless Charity
15 Broad Street
Akron, OH 44305
This is turning into a super exciting event.
All proceeds go to The Homeless Charity. So it’s a good cause AND super fun.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.