Transcripts For CSPAN3 Representative Paul Ryan R-WI On Combating Poverty In America 20240622

Whatever, whether thats right to say or not, has brought me to, it was such a blessing because now i really understand, i couldnt understand if i hadnt had that background and not only was i poor as a little girl, and i was then my husband, we went broke, my husband is an entrepreneur, as i said, and we went broke, so i was also broke with my children in my adult life but you know, with he came back. No, we dont have the race thing and my husband had a mentor, mr. Kaufman, who owned the Kansas City Royals at one time, who helped us take our 401 k and start my little 5 million business which sounds like a lot but it wasnt the the time but it made little alcohol sips and freps and we started from there, seven of our children worked for us and we were kind of a Family Business and the rest is history. But anyway, my point is, we want to give money. We want to give back but were giving it to the wrong when i met bob i was just, i was like its got to be organic, like one of you gentlemen said. Its got to be people, but we can be the foundation. We can support, like bob, who can then get the job done. But you know what . If washingtons not going to do it, were going around washington. Were not going to stop. [ applause ] i think your comments are a prime illustration of the truth of what deon was saying earlier, which is were all in the comeback trail, right, and its the degree, if wealthy people and people who are in authority and power, if they have the capacity to understand that they, too, you know, are on a comeback trail, they, too, are overcoming things. Its not just the folks who are here, you know, that weve all got stories like glen lowerys, and we have to be in touch with that story in order to understand the profundity of what these folks forring. Do we have time for just a quick yes. Why dont all you ph. D. S and pul i Pulitzer Prize winners take one last shot, right, at maybe at in response to what miss brandmire said. Yes or whatever anybody wants to do. I think what was said was terrific. The money that will come from people like you is much better than money that gets filtered through government. I think, and yes, its better if its done on the state level than done on the federal level, but its still better if its not done through government at all. Right. Bill, i would just say, i think one of the things weve seen and one of the things you see looking in any direction today is that were a country more divided than were used to being. Were polarized. Theres distances. Theres nothing more important now than bridges of the kind that bob woodson builds and i leave this day thinking, you know, thank god for bob woodson and if he didnt exist wed have to invent him. [ laughter ] here, here. So thank you. [ applause ] all right, i would agree with that and i think for people who are looking for places to put money to donate for their down face grants, i know its hard to shop around. Its easy to go to heads of government, mayors, governors, but this is why ive been happy to try to help publicize the good things that are happening with bobs organization, because there are a lot of great ideas out there and a lot of grassroots folks who once in a while they get a big high profile. The late bertha gilke in st. Louis, 06 minutes did a nice piece on her. There are a lot of 60 minutes worthy stories out there that arent being heard about. Im happy about the way youve been able to raise that profile. The thing is helping to raise the profile of Civil Society in general because we dont really think about it that much and its not focused on in the schools in that way so maybe were moving in that direction now. I was going to say nowadays ironically were in an era of sagging faith and institutions in general. People are questioning erg, even miss america, for heavens sake. Theres just no limits. So maybe were in the beginning of some type of a renaissance. Go ahead. Very good point to close with. When i heard what you said it reminded me of dr. Kings last speech that he had given in memphis, and what he said is, when the slaves get together, thats the beginning of the end of slavery and if i can paraphrase it and say when the committed, the public, the private, the community and the state get together, thats the beginning of the end of what we call a bureaucracy, thats number one. Number two, i hope the next person who decides to become or is elected president of the United States would change the language we use to talk about people. War on poverty, we use war to talk about port and when you look at poverty its women and chirp. Youre not going to say a war on women and children. Instead of war on poverty change the language and call it a mission for prosperity. Amen. [ applause ] let me just say a word here, because ive known bob woodson for 30 years. I mean, literally, and he still is standing. Right. And that aint a small accomplishment. I think it needs to be noted, before we lapse into despair. I agree. Thats right. Thats great. Hes not only standing but you know, ill say this about bob. Bob has been picked up and dropped by some of the best politicians in the country, and he has ive come to appreciate this more and more, ive known him for 40 years, he has worked tirelessly with the politicians to get the resources, to tell your stories to them, and they pick him up, you know, he will tell, you know, hell bring you to the attention of the public, they tire of it, they move on to something else, they win in election so they dont need bob anymore and they drop him, and bob has remained without bitterness through that whole thing, and in a way that amazes me. I would be so angry, right, if i experienced onethird of what bob woodson experienced from the politicians and the intellectuals and the elites who make this public our countrys Public Policy. Its an extraordinary testament to his character and we need to get his autobiography published as soon as possible because thats really where we hear about that kind of depth of character that were all familiar with. Anyway, so lets thank our panel for a terrific conversation. [ applause ] i want to thank everybody for coming. We want to start our conference, im bob woodson, founding president of the center for neighborhood enterprise, organization that i founded 34 years ago on the premise that people who are experiencing poverty are the experts on how to solve poverty, and so for the past 34 years, we have been like a Geiger Counter that has gone around the nation in some of the most crimeridden, druginfested neighborhoods and unlike the poverty industry, we go in looking for strengths. The traditional approach is to addressing poverty, they go into lowincome, highcrime neighborhoods and they want to know how many people are raising children that are dropping out of school, in jail, on drugs, and with this demographic profile, they go to foundations or government, apply for grants. The government then funds these professional organizations, who then parachute programs into lowincome neighborhoods with the expectation that poverty will be alleviated. 70 cents ofur every dollar spe on the poor goes not to the poor, but those that serve poor people, they ask not which problems are solvable but which ones are fundable this year, so as a consequence, we have created a commodity out of serving poor people and we wonder why we have failed. And so i think, and also the experts at solving poverty are the professional social scientists. I been in washington, d. C. , for over 40 years, and whenever a conference like this is convened, what you will see are academics, people who study the problem and then they provide Scientific Evidence about remedies, but when these are applied, we end up with a failed remedy. I think sew what we have done at the center is that we have brought the practitioners, the poverty warriors, the people that share the same cultural and geographic zip code as those experiencing the problem. I feel like that weve had in the last 50 years with 20 trillion spent on the poor its been like a team that has lost every game every year and we never think about changing the coach, the players or even the playbook. And so also i feel like im a fan that watches my team with all the best players on the bench. So this conference is intended to change that, the dialogue, but in order to do so i think its important to understand why we have failed to address poverty in a proper way because you cannot generalize about poor people. I believe there are four categories of poor people. There are those who are just broke, they dont have any money, a significant breadwinner has died or factory has moved away, or the company went bankrupt and theyre out of work. They use the welfare system the way it was intended as a temporary bridge over troubled times. They use it as an ambulance service, not an entire transportation system, and then you have those that are poor and are in need characters intact, but they look at the disincentives for working or marrying and they conclude that im going to lose more benefits if i am productive, and therefore ill just acquiesce and stay on welfare, and then the third category, those who are physically and mentally disabled, we must find a way to care for them. But the fourth category that concerns most of us are those who are poor because of the chances that they take and the choices that they make. They have character flaws, and so what the center for neighborhood enterprise does and the groups that you see assembled here, we specialize in category four. Our groups run to people everybody else runs away from. We operate within the zip code of those experiencing, they are like what i Call Community antibodies, the most effective way of treating the human body is strengthening its own immune system. You dont start with a transplant, so we believe that these poverty warriors that are indigenous to lowincome communities represent a new source of knowledge, a new a resource that, if properly resourced can really begin to bring about dramatic declines in poverty if we can only recognize them. As my friend bill chambra said years ago the qualities that make them recognizable make them invisible. Theyre not part of the victims league, theyre not whining, theyre not protesting anything. Theyre just busy doing their work. Theyre not looking for you. You have to go and find them. And so were just delighted to welcome you to hear our panelists. Afterwards were going to have a panel of thought leaders that are in the audience that will come up and the second half of this, and begin to respond to what our practitioners have said and done and ive asked them to share not just what they do but why they do it. What is the magic sauce, what is it that summons people to responsibility when prisons couldnt change them, psychiatrists couldnt change them, but somehow you inspired them to want redemption in their lives and then you provided them with the means on achieving redemption, and we want you to share with us what it is that you do that promotes that kind of transformation in people that results in the restoration of entire communities and im going to ask my comoderator, pastor buster sorres if he would offer some opening remarks and then we will start we want a die lale here, a conversation. Now i know why im here, im moderator. Ive been waiting to find out who i am and why im here, so thank you, bob. Let me thank the board and the staff of the center for neighborhood enterprise for the work that they do. They are similar to people that i read about who were assigned the task of making brick without straw. That group left the country. Promised land. But bob and his staff have persisted in this arduous task that is almost impossible, and i want to commend you, bob, for what you do, but let me just as comoderator describe the assumptions that were here to counter, that the presence of these panelists and those in the audience have a conis encuss around, assumption number one is that problems can be solved if enough money is spent. So if the problem is poverty, there is in the culture now a consensus that the more money government spends, the more commitment government has to solving the problems of poverty, and these men and women were invited but theyre not here yet, just know, for those who are concerned, these men are here to describe the work that they do that really offers an alternative view that the changes that happen in peoples lives that give them the capacity to overcome poverty and other personal challenges is not dependent upon levels of spending of government programs. Thats assumption number one. Assumption number two that has seemingly gripped the great part of our culture is that race is the undeniable predictor of all outcomes, particularly when it comes to black people, africanamericans, whatever term you use, and until the race issue is resolved, then neither poverty nor education, nor any of the social pathologies that we are concerned about can be successfully addressed, and that racism as a systemic evil is such a strong undercurrents that until racism is eradicated, then we can reasonably predict that a disproportionate amount of black people will be stuck in poverty and in negative outcomes. These men will counter that assumption. The third assumption that we have is that government ultimately is the preferred provider of services to solve problems, that government can do it more effectively, that government can do it more efficiently, and whats going to happen today is that were going to describe strategies that have tangible outcomes that were not in fact performed by government, although theres a role for government, none of these presenters today will assume that government could have done what they did better than they did it. Further, there are times when their work has been inhibited by government, by government programs, government regulations, and the reason our presence here today is important, therefore, is because unless voices like these are heard, we will continue to focus on assumptions which lead us to historical political, economic dead ends. The war on poverty has led us to a very expensive dead end, and after 50 years of fighting poverty with government spending, we now see higher rates of poverty and we see even deeper wounds created by the presence of poverty, and so if we continue doing the same thing the same way, we will certainly get the same results, and so our hope today is that those of you who are here and those who will tune in later as we record this, will be able to glean from these experts strategies that have measurable irrefutable outcomes that will inform both Public Policy and neighborhood practices. Good. Id like to just start by introducing someone ive known for a number of years, and as i introduce you, ill ask to you make remarks and then ill introduce the next person, but when this young man omar jawa, was 23 years old, working as a full time paid employee of the texas prison system inside gainesville prison, and he was paid to do gang mediation inside between black and brown gangs, between black and black gangs, and i was impressed with the fact that, as a full time employee, he was also trusted by all of the inmate factions, and he roamed freely in that environment, resolving conflicts, and i knew that this was a very special person, and so i said to him, if you can do this inside the prison, you can do that inside the community, and so we summoned him out and helped start vision regeneration in south dallas, and id like omar to talk about how have you been what have you been able to do in terms of reaching gang members, reaching people that everybody else said that are useless to try. First, bob, thank you for allowing us to come and i appreciate the opportunity to share and as bob said im amore jawa from dallas, texas. When i was much younger and much smaller, i was a prison worker, and i thinkojawa from dallas, texas. When i was much younger and much smaller, i was a prison worker, and i thinkmjawa from dallas, texas. When i was much younger and much smaller, i was a prison worker, and i thinkomajawa from dallas,. When i was much younger and much smaller, i was a prison worker, and i thinkrjawa from dallas, t. When i was much younger and much smaller, i was a prison worker, and i thinkomar jawa from dallas, texas. When i was much younger and much smaller, i was a prison worker, and i think i am asked how do you do it . I said you got to be young and unintellige unintelligent. [ laughter ] no, im just playing. You have to be a little offkilter to believe you could go into prison and do some of the stuff i was doing. Its funny, ill start with a story and answer your point. One of the young men in prison the way i met bob was through a prisoner. He was leaving the prison and he was going to coming to d. C. He was kicked out of texas. He could not return to texas. Thats how bad his behavior was and the state had banned him from being released to texas, so we found an aunt in d. C. And so he came to d. C. But he was still motivated by the teachings that we had taught him inside the prison, and his brother called me and said brother omar, i found this brother who talks just like you, acts just like you. The only difference is hes old. I said really . He said yeah, man, and so me being very, you know, i had a lot of vitriol and i was really serious about this so i called bob on the phone and i said to bob, if you are really that committed, brother, come to the prison. You know, i was in my heyday, and i was challenging him to come to the prison and do what you do in prison. He said ill be there tomorrow and he brought his whole team to the prison and did a book signing and gave books away to all of the inmates and said, and then he said those words that he just said to you, he said those to me. If you can do this in the prison, let me help you do it in the community. And so what weve done is, weve asked that in my opinion, the most effective tool in deterring violence in gangs are soldiers committed and not afraid but theyre usually the most underutilized because people are frayed to talk to the soldiers. If you dont know how or who to reach, you normally become, you become under siege by what you see, and you can misdiagnose them as all useless, but they are the most useful tools that you can ever have is a person who is committed and is not afraid. See, they are not afraid of the environment. They control the environment, and theyre committed and here is a second thing i want you to know, is that poverty and pain does not mean a person is not motivated. Right. They may be miscalculated but it dont mean they are lethargic. Most people assume that those who are in poverty think thats a permanent condition but in their mind, they coming out some way, just depends if you are able to help them reach their goal of resuscitation, revival, whatever theyre trying to do. You have to have someone who is saying your motivation is not wrong. Your tactics are. I used to tell young men in prison, i said your character is flawed, but your characteristics have a marked advantage. If i can help ship your character would you help use your characteristics as a leader . They would say yes. I did a bloods and cripp peace treaty, i asked all of the brothers i said i need to do an anecdotal diagnosis of you. I said this is not sociology. This is just my anecdotal diagnosis. I said how many of yall have baby mama trouble . Everybody raised their hand. I said how many of you all have money trouble . Raised their hand. I said how many of you all running from the law. Just from an anecdotal diagnosis what you doing aint working. So do you want me to help you . [ laughter ] yeah, i said all right, we can start from there. See, so our dialogue did not come from there being victims or victimizers. It was the condition is not permanent, can i help you change it . And so they then were led to a position of being a hero, rather than being a villain. So when you transform someones thought of themselves, its easy for them to translate that to others. So they start looking at themselves as a different person. Right. Then when i would lead them to bob in forums like this, they were surprised that there were more people for them than against them. Ooh. See, when they saw that they were needed, they became more necessary, so it was harder for them to just, you know, erase their personhood. See, if i can objectify a person, i can erase them from being important but once you see that you have value, its easier for you to straighten up and do the right thing, but i have some more advice. Curtis, i know, Curtis Watkins from washington, d. C. , and we go back a ways, and from the phelps National Homecoming association. What is your response to omars, saying that it takes people who perhaps have lived that experience who are witnesses to others that transformation is possible and that their condition is possible to change. What has been your experience . Tell us something about your background . I want to ditto what omar said and thank you, bob, for creating these forums because theyre so important because we learn from each other and we learn that our society is more alike than different. My experience based on what omar said is that theres a human touch element that exists that a lot of providers dont know how to reach people. They reach people through their programs, through a structure and im not down in structure, but people want to be humanly touched, and so the individuals we work with and work for, and i like to rephrase t we work for, these people we have relationships with. We build this trust and we build this respect that things get done and then its a high expectation thats put on them as it relates to in order to be the person you want to be, you want to do the things that give you credibility in the community, and that transformation takes place in a way that this individual, like in our case, we make sure kids get safely to school. That within itself, at one point some of the people that work with us were the people who were terrorizing the community, so now theyre in a position where they are making sure people get safely to school to and from, the little kids. That boosts their selfesteem. It gives them credibility in the community whereas people start valuing them and they start valuing themselves. This is so important, because a lot of the people that we work with, and myself included, were broken people and this gives them the ability to move from point a to point b. So that human touch is so important and a lot of people dont know how to get to people from a humanistic standpoint but we offer that, i call it that ingredient that allows people to know that we care about them beyond 9 00 to 5 00. They can call us at any time, and were going to be there for them, and i want to say this one thing. Recently, in this Community Called kenneth work parkside in d. C. , which was kimmy grays first resident management pioneer community, i found a couple in that community who basically was doing something different. Their kids are extremely successful in the midst of living in a Public Housing environment with a lot of chaos going on but the kids are getting scholarships to college, theyre successful, honor roll, all that, but she shared something with me one day, and what she shared was that one of her kids went away from the house and they didnt know where the kid was, and the community got in kind of like an uproar, they thought somebody snatched her kid, and so come to find out the kid was next door, and everybody in that community was waiting for her, once they found out where the kid was, to go off on her kid and say some very colorful things to huge way that i get to learn from people who say that theyre not teachable people or people who cannot teach you anything because they living in a certain condition. Thats not the case with us. Pastor Darrel Webster from Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church in indianapolis, indiana, you live in one of the highest crime zip codes in the city of indianapolis, and you chose to rebuild in your church there instead of in the suburbs, and tell us about the very unique way that you have i visited your church many times, and i see hundreds of men pouring into your church at 5 30 in the morning. Im not one of them. [ laughter ] tell us about that, and how you use your ministry to reach people as these gentlemen were saying, through your witness, not your advocacy. I think you just first have to be crazy. But i want to say thanks, first of all, to buster for introducing me to you, thats first of all, and what you both represent. Secondly i want to say also when you talk about poverty, i think poverty is multifaceted. I think it is, not only deals with social and economic poverty. From my perspective its also spiritual, emotional, and intellectual, and i deal with a whole lot of people in that neighborhood who only makes from zero to 20,000 a year. Nine mile radius probably 20,000 to 30,000 people live in the Martindale Brightwood area. It has been ranked as the worst zip code in the city of indianapolis, more people come from the penal system back into my zip code, and we could have moved out. Youre exactly right. But somebody has to care. Somebody has to stay there to save us. So we decided to build our new church in that zip code. The reason i started to camp is because there were so many shootings and killings in that neighborhood, i wanted to do something to help fathers and families. So when we came up with 5 45 a. M. In the morning i figured if you come at 5 45, you want some help. We dont serve coffee, doughnuts, we dont give away food. I think if you make a way to meet peoples needs, because all of us have unresolved issues on the inside, if someone begins to find out how to reach them and speak into them, the guys will keep coming. I started with about 50 and ten years later we probably served over 1,000 guys right in that neighborhood. This year alone ive done a marriage boot camp, ive done a fathers and sons boot camp leading to fathers day. When i started it it was for the inner city people. Now folks from the suburbs are driving in which tells me all of us have some unresolved issues that nobody has dealt with. Tell us what happens at, how many days do they commit to coming and walk us through a typical boot camp and what does that mean, what is the acronym . Because of others testimony christ has answers my prayer. All of us have a story. Oprah is great sharing life stories on sundays, a lot of us watch her just talking about stories. We do the same thing, were just not on tv. We allow folks to tell their lives stories. When they come in the morning we do aerobics, we have a principle of the day, one of the principle is like the law of diminishing intent, the longer you get up and talk to it, the longer you wait to do something, chances are youll probably never do it. Another principle, life is not a dress rehearsal, its the real thing, and you only get one trip through here to live it. Then i go into putting them in, we have groups of to leaders with about 15 to ten guys, along with a group of young boys between the ages, listen to this, 6 and 13 years old. When i started the camp in the morning, i didnt start it for kids but because of the single parent households, and the fatherless problem in america, Robert Putnam says in his book if we get fathers back in the home, they can solve americas problems, but my thing is, you know, trying to do that, you know, and how to do that has opinion very tough, but the boot camp now has a Great Success rate in not only getting fathers back into the home, we teach lessons, but we also are offering life skills number one because if i get him a job and they dont have life styles they wont get there on time or if i get them a job, they dont have life skills theyre liable to have some type of tension between their employees and them. So now we teach life skills and we got the private sector coming alongside of us saying well hire your guys. For instance, after we get through teaching we hold them accountable. We put them with an accountability partner. Every day they get a text. Every day somebody contacts them. Every day they have when they start their morning out, we have also a phone conference line, you can call in monday through friday from 6 30 to 6 45, and so after we teach them a lesson we give them those principles, we say to them, you have a responsibility to give back to your society. Now, 21 days straight, i used to do 21 days straight at 5 45 a. M. Ive done that for over seven years. Well, then the last three years i changed it from 21 days straight. I do three mini camps a year. I do come back resurrection camp around easter, one leading into fathers day, i do 14 days in the fall. Once a month we have an accountability meeting whereby we bring all of these guys together and we talk about the issues that theyre dealing with as a father, as a husband, as a man, as a boy. Were also nurturing single parent boys who doesnt have fathers in the home and several of them now are enrolled and in college, they have a mentor to follow them all the way through high school and college, so you know, you get me rolling on this, this is my passion, but you know, i think its a phenomenon. I never meant for it to happen this way, but when god gets behind something he introduces to you people like bob and buster, and they cheer you on to keep going and doing positive things. Well, thats good, thank you. And were going to discuss that, but i just want to remind everybody that the reason that we were able to get people together, congress and paul ryan. Yes. Two years ago asked me would i come and assemble a group people of grassroots leaders in ohio, and so he can learn. It was the month before the campaign was over and so i through Bishop Marvin mitchell, we have leaders in every state so i called Marvin Mitchell and i said marvin i need within four days the names of 20 grassroots leaders in ohio that can come together and meet with paul ryan. She called them up and because she had the trust of them, i had the trust of them. Thats how our network works. And so they met and it was interesting, we met in Cleveland State university, is it . Yep. In an auditorium and paul ryan was the Vice President ial candidate so he had security and Connor Sweeney who was on pauls staff, i had to give him the names in advance, i gave him the names and connor and Steve Spurrell called me and said bob, three of these people have criminal records. I said no, i thought all of them did. [ laughter ] whats the problem . He said ill get back to you. So they went to paul ryan and paul said, bob trusts them, i trust them, and so we came in and we shared with paul, and pastor paul reddell said to me, we can lay our hands on paul and pray for him at the meeting. I said im not sure that works with catholics. But lets try it. So after that meeting was over, and you could see when they came in, seeing this guy with tags all on and something else, they got all uptight and im telling you, they were in taeears. They were. Midway through and when paul got up and put his hands on him we gathered around paul and prayed. I looked at the secret service guys and they were just in tears and paul says it had a profound impact on his life so thats a good segue into this here. I want to thank you. You had to rescue me because i was the last one in line to go back there and the secret service got in front of me and said you cant go back there and i said im with them and they go, no, youre not. I said i really am. [ laughter ] for whatever reason they didnt believe me. I dont know. So you had to come back and rescue me. You did and thank you. I said no, because he came on his harley with his wife of 30 years behind him. I said oh, yeah, hes one of us. Cant you tell . I have my best suit on. I got it on today. So thank you. Thank you, and its been a blessing to just meet you and hang out. Im privileged to be part of the family now. Yes. So thank you. Tell us something about you. We pastor a church my wife and i pastor a church in leary, ohio, and its actually in a place where its 54 poverty rate, and the lord led us there. Its, you know, not a normal place where you would think about starting a church, but the lord called us there, and 21 years ago, i was one of those addicts that was running the streets shooting heroin and this was before the heroin epidemic that has now hit this country, but 21 years ago i was that guy, and hopeless. I didnt know where to turn to, and somebody reached me with the gospel, changed my life, and so since then, always been in my heart to never forget where you came from. We started that church with that principle, and so i ended up meeting greg, who that was part of the comeback series, and i remember meeting greg, and going to his moms house and he had struggled and fallen a lot of times, and i was just there as a witness to show him that, you know what . Anythings possible. And so what the amazing thing, so now what we do as a church is we reach the people that would normally not come into a church, and so we go out on the streets, and we meet people right where theyre at, and because we are them. I mean, i think thats the misconception, that people have about other people is that were all, we all struggle with something, and so we have a staff of about 15, 16 people on staff at church, and 90 of the people on our staff are former alcoholics and addicts, and so its a domino effect. It takes a person thats been there to bring hope into somebodys life thats currently there right now. So thats the basis of our ministry, and we are currently right now working on opening up a home for addicts, and thats why meeting jewel was a blessing. What hes doing in san antonio is what we want to be doing. Were doing that now only on a smaller scale but you know as you told me, we need to hang out with people that, where we want to be. So but again, its just were meeting people where theyre at, and working with people to get them off drugs, alcohol, and to show them hope, what its about. Thats great. Were joined by pastor shirley holloway. Again, another place where paul ryan we visited Bishop Holloway twice here in washington, d. C. I met her maybe 18 years ago when this executive with the post office pastor comes from a family of pastors, living in the suburbs, and went to speak at a homeless shelter, but all have bling on, as she said, and when all the women she was going back and just pulled over the side of the road and asked the lord to speak to her about why, what she was doing and then committed herself, and i remember her taking homeless men and women into her home in gaithersburg, which did not please the neighbors, and so then she moved into the neighborhood where there was a problem and a runned down house. Ill let her pick it up from there to talk about what she does at the house of help in the city of hope. Absolutely. Thank you, bob. Good afternoon good evening good morning, everybody. Ive been working really hard. Its all right. House of help, city of hope is a nonprofit faithbased organization that helps its residents and also helps its volunteers, and just recently we had to downsize, but downsize sometimes is a nasty word but its a good thing. It all determines on how you see it and how you shift. So we decided to downsize and while we were downsizing to make what we did a quality of what we do better, even if we couldnt increase the quantity, and so i just left my staff, we just put in for a 1 million grant to take in juveniles. We house women. We house children. We do domestic violence. Whatever a person comes in, we give them a personal prescription, and i think thats what creates a problem and makes it bigger. We want to throw everybody in a pot and give them the same thing and folks are unique and different. Thats right. And so you have to find a unique and different approach so weve taken anywhere from rapists to pedophiles, something i thought i would never do but god said to me if you dont help them, who will . If you dont stop them, who will . And so sometimes you have to take the hard cases even if you dont want to do it, because if you dont do it, who will . So i like to think that were in the business of doing what other people dont like to do. Were in the business of helping people that other people dont want to help, and so we have to forgive, forget, release, and relinqui relinquish. Theyll never go to where they can go, so we always see where theyre going, not where they are. We always see what theyre gonna do, not what theyve done and we keep preaching that and we keep speaking that but of course those are just words. You have to have behavior and action, and so what we do is we put them in a program where we give them an opportunity to grow slowly. Theyre obtainable, not easily manipulated so thats a unique design because most players know how to play the game. Thats right. But the one who is in charge of the game got to change the rules so they cant get adapted to the game, so that causes them to eventually have to get real, and so we have a roll up your sleeves and get down dirty ministry, and i love it. I wouldnt trade it for anything in the world. Ive seen pedophiles change. Ive seen them in my program for six years, seen them adapt to rules and regulations we give them. Ive seen drug addicts in my program for 17 years, now entrepreneurs they will submit to a urine test just like that because they are deployed themselves of their ego and once you deploy yourselves of your ego victory sets in. Victory cannot come in until your ego goes. Wherever your ego is, it will keep new bondage and lock new your madness, but when you humble yourself and that means you have nothing to hide, no fig leaves, no masses, you are what you are, you are where you are, and once you do that, then god, he says i will exalt the humble. Thats right. And i humble the exalted, so we teach them to be humble, first to yourself, then to others first to god, then to yourself, and then to others. Weve helped over 60,000 families. Recently the last two months we have to shift into our ward location and everybody is down at grace field. I said god whats next . He said i want to you redevelop their mind that they are now not just fishing but they are the pond owners. Im going to say that again. First you fish for them and you feed them. Then you teach them how to fish, and then you teach them to be the owners of the pond. Thats a whole different game. Thats a whole different mindset. And for the next 90 days, thats what im teaching the people that ive helped that are coming to help me help others. Youre no longer just fishing. You now own the pond. Thank you so much for long. Id like to talk about the whole issue of validation. I remember many years ago when my daughter tanya was 13 and my son jamal was 16 i spent a week outcry for the value of the ministry and midway through that trip, nefia garcia jubel who couldnt be here, mother and father started that Ministry Said to these two women, i want you to take bobs daughter and my three granddaughters in the van, take them to dinner, take them to the Amusement Park and i want you to have them back by 9 00 at night and so they were leaving she said bob, relax, theyre exprostitutes and heroin addicts. The kids will be just fine. And i said that when i was given testimony with three psychiatrists before the congressional hearing, and i turned to this psychiatrist and i said how many of you would trust your therapeutic intervention to the point where you would turn over your children the keys to them . I said i would turn over my children to any one of the people who declared them cured. Yep. And one of the reasons that i had that confidence and i want you to discuss this is that evidently you cannot be hustled, which means that people have difficult fooling you, talk to me about that. How do awe firm that somebody has really changed or are they just displaying games. Its interesting you bring that up, because we have a couple that almost two years ago they started coming to beyond the walls and they were current heroin addicts, they were shooting up in the parking lot to be able to come in to church and not be sick, and so if you come out to beyond the walls and you see some things in the parking lot, dont get alarmed, anyways, their name is victor and jamie, and we just met them where theyre at and just allowed them to continue to come and we encouraged them, pray with them, love with them, loved on them. Jamie ended up going into a treatment center. Victor took him a little longer, but they now, i now have given them the keys to the church. They clean the church, they just recently just last weekend they got married. She had lost custody of her five children, she was seven months pregnant shooting dope when she was coming to beyond the walls, and her little girl lotus was born heroin free. Wow. That was a sign to jamie that god really does love her, and so because we came from that, i could tell when they were ready to be trusted with the keys to the church. So now theyre on staff, and so yes, a hustler knows a hustler. Absolutely. But the person sitting behind the desk thats a social worker thats gone to college, not lived the life, its easy to play them. Yes. The other thing is, that person sitting behind the desk thats gone to college and gotten degrees and im okay for higher education, believe me, i dont have any, but thats that person treats that person on the other side like just a number. We met jamie and victor where they were at. And we treated them like a person. Not like a heroin addict, not like because whether youre a heroin addict, a pedophile, a rapist, a whatever, youre still a person. And you cant if you always keep people in categories, youll never get them out of that category. Lets go ahead. You know, bob, pauls right. I think stylistically it is an intrusive model. I tell people the difference between what we do and what other people do is i wont be that crude because you got cameras here, i wont be that crude, but i just said, like this, we are not this far away. We are very close to the people who are being treated. So what has to happen is you have to get in the scripture, jesus had a girl who was he said she was not dead, she was sleeping. Other people laugh. But i tell people, you got to get close enough to the victim to do proper diagnosis. Some people do drive by diagnosis, so they cant see the difference. They cant see the nuances. See, there is a difference, there is a fundamental difference in a person when youre close enough to hear what theyre thinking, hear what theyre breathing. So the difference between what we do, and what someone else will do, they were trying to treat them at arms length. See, and you cannot do that when you have critical behavior changes that youre trying to do. So really doesnt matter if you have higher education, if youre from the hood, it is the it is the strategy, and the strategy for us is very intrusive. We, you know, we dont say here is your cup and you go in the rest rom, we say were going in the restroom with the cup with you. We will all just wait. Were going to see. Thats the difference. And to me, bob, thats what you get when you have these type of intervention strategies. They are close enough to where it is not that you just cant be fooled, youre watching every subtle nuance. Ive seen all of you. There is also in each of you an assumption going in, that every caterpillar can be a butterfly. Absolutely. Amen. Every caterpillar. Absolutely. Thats true. Because if there is an industry that needs caterpillars to stay caterpillars. Because if youre paid to care for caterpillars, when they become a butterfly, you lose money. Absolutely. So there is a vested interest that some people have in keeping caterpillars caterpillars where as youre trying to work yourself out of a job as it were. These people are not clients. They are butterflies in the making. Absolutely. Thats right. Thats a good point, because i dont treat the people i work for and work with as clients. They are friends. They are fathers, husbands. They are people at the end of the day. And one of the things that keeps me grounded is that i realize that we all are decision away from a mistake. And if i understand that, in a true essence of it is just because you make a mistake, doesnt mean youre a bad person. Some ive had situations where some of the individuals work with me and have been caught with a pistol. But that individual before it came public told me, came to me, and said, mr. Curtis, i want to let you know, because i value what were doing as a group that i want you to know what i did and why i did what i did. And that alone gave me a greater understanding that we all are a decision away from a mistake, but that person, his characteristics as you talked about, omar, is off the chain. Hes a good person. Hes a good person. Hes the person that will go out in the community and do what need to be done and say this is what were going to do because hes a leader. He just made a mistake. Just like antong lucky who is here. You mackke a great point. He used to be the leader of the bloods in dallas. He was one of the ones you feared. I trust him with my life, literally. It is not a day that goes by that i dont talk to him. And i learn thats another thing. I believe i learned from people who are talking to me. I dont just i dont just listen to them so they can get they can get through so i can tell them what you want to im listening and learning from them, but, like you said, i used to tell people, when they would say things about antong before he was totally transformed, they would say he had a gun. I said, did he shoot you . Thats an improvement. He improved. He didnt rob you. You made a difference. No, just he didnt shoot nobody. But just making a joke. But i think from my experience with these men and women, from my own personal observation, but you also are willing to lay down your life. Absolutely. I remember when i first met omar, there was a young hispanic man going to be paroled to san antonio. A condition of his parole was he couldnt be a gang member. But a condition of his coming back, he had to be a gang member. So omar got on the plane, never been to san antonio, accompanied this young man and met with the head of the Mexican Mafia. In their room. And as they said, they were laughing and speaking in spanish talking about who was going to kill him. But omar appealed to them to give him his life and they said, if you have enough courage, a black man to come and sit here to ask for his life, were going to give him to you. And thats the kind of commitment. And then other young Mexican Mafia men approached him and said i wish i could be could exit. Thats typical of what curtis, when we were negotiating the gang truce down in benning and im driving home and curtis calls me on the phone because these two huge guys started to fight in front of the kids, and curtis said to me, bob, these guys are fighting i heard curtis intervene in between and he dropped his cell phone and i rushed back. And one of them actually did something to the other, he was in the hospital, i went to the hospital, curtis stayed on the scene, and we were able to resolve it. But the very fact that curtis coming from he was not always this quiet mild mannered guy you see here. When he was in high school, they would say hes here. For curtis to come from that background and do physically intervene in between i heard him say, if you guys want to hit somebody, hit me. And he wasnt challenging them to fight. He said, take your anger out on me. I wept as i heard it on the phone. But it speaks to the kind of sacrifices and chances that you grassroots leaders do every day. And darryl talked to me because when i sit in your boot camp and a round table that we have, i see men, some of them older than you, but they listen and they are they learn. Tell us about curt moore, who i met. Bob, let me also say this quickly about making an impact. We live with these people. Thats one of the reasons why they cant pull the wool over our eyes. We know them. You know. And were one step away every day. Every day we get up, we have to recommit to what we do. And when you talk about really impacting people, we have to make that choice daily to help people. I like what one of the fellows said, ill put it another way, buster talked about the caterpillar and the butterfly. Peoples present situation dont dictate their final destination. They can go to a real transformation. When they meet us, because were practitioners of transforming people, curt moore done 11 years in federal prison system. Rote me a letter when he was getting ready to come out and reenter into society. And asked me could i help him to reconnect. And he got out, joined the church, no job. You know, 11 years in the penal system, felony. One of the boot camp guys, travis reed, gave him a job. Travis is a collision repair guy who fixed cars. Curt went there and just started washing cars. You know. Talk about real transformation, and knowing when people have changed, it is a transformation of belief, a transformation of behavior and a transformation of character. I think education is the segue to opportunity, but transformation will keep you on the job. And so curt moore, he begin to wash cars and when he began to wash cars, we helped him get a truck, just old raggedy van. And he began to go around doing mobile car washing. And, you know, a lot of guys come out and say you cant find a job. Create one. Create one. Thats it. You know. And so with curt, and this is a true story, curt started with that raggedy mobile car, i let him wash my car. And he messed it up. Streaks everywhere. But we gave him a chance. Now curt moore has 20 dealerships. Him and travis reed, the guy who gave him a job, just closed on their first building and that 46218 zip code, the worst zip code in the city of indianapolis, they just bought a building there and theyre going to detail cars and theyre going to do collision repair work. You see, i about 15 employees. And curt has, yes, he has no, no, not 15, he has 25. Wow. Employees. You talk about the grassroots people, real change comes from the bottom up. Not top down. Bureaucrats cannot change the grassroots people. You think about making real, real, real impact in the lives of people, when i think about curt, and this is amazing to me, bob, it is amazing to me, he has two locations now. A guy who just got out of prison, six years ago, but not only is there a curt moore, there is mark webster. These are boot camp guys. Mark has a catering business. Nobody would hire them. There is capacity in a lot of grassroots people. We just need an opportunity. Absolutely. Bob. Yes. Were going to segue into the next segment. As we do, let me somewhat launch the q a. Yes. How do you all pay for this . I want you to talk about resources. You talked about downsizing. All these miracles. How do you finance what you just described and what are the challenges . Thats good. Thats good. I can start. One of the ways we do is is we have a housing development. So the people that we help, when they leave from house of help, they go to city of hope, we help them get a job and then theyre able to pay for their rentals. That brings income into the ministry. We also do catering. We would do rental of our facilities. Creative ways comes as you go. You know, as the talent comes in, and you work with them, and they come together, then you work with that talent. One of the things that i wanted to say was practicality in making sure a person stays focused is that for the first 90 days we dont let them go anywhere. Somebody goes with them. And also we also go when they finish the 90 days, we call it icu, icu is where you have to have a wrap around service. A lot of times when theyre coming through, their mind was to change, but their habit doesnt. You have to make the habit and the mind and emotions come together. And so you got to work with them, just like you would a little baby child, you are to hold their hand and they need that 90 days until their thoughts are strengthened. Once their thoughts are strengthened, we didnt give them a little window, and then we go in the bathroom with them. We hear what you say. But heres the cup. Then after we finish with that, phase with. A and you have completed six months to nine months of that and you humbled to that. Then we Start Building you. Thats why we say we cant give hope until you get help. What the problem with the bureaucracy is they want to give hope, but theyre not giving no help. Thats wasted money. Thats wasted resources. Then what we do is every week we bring you to what we call a relapse prevention meeting. Where you sit down and you talk about how youre coping with life. Then we go to your apartment and we check and see, if your apartment is not clean, then you are a step from using. If your apartment is unorganized you cant obey some of the rules, you got to obey all of the rules. So what we do then is we Start Building with them, and this is one of the things i say after 60,000 families and 20 years of this, you cant build them i dont look for poster boys or girls. How you develop is up to your developmentation. You take your time and develop. Nobody needs to be a testimony. Your testimony comes when your test is over. If it takes you one year, if it takes you three years, if it takes you five years, if you got to come into the program four times, what if you quit on the first time or second time, they werent ready. They thought they were. They were getting ready, but they didnt get ready until they got tired of failure. Thats what i think our uniqueness is. That well go to the Long Distance with you as long as you got to go. And until the breath leaves your body, ill be there for you. So how we deal with money is i do rentals, i do housing. I just opened up a resource department. And, you know, we dont have time god said, youre crazy. Thats what he said to me. Im giving you an opportunity to help you do what i called you to do, now build the people. I put all my people in college. Everybody is getting their college degree. Whatever area they want. And now were defining their strengths with where they can help the people. What you just described violates the model for 90 of the Funding Sources in the world because funders want you to get people on their feet, off drugs, within the funding cycle, which is generally one to three years. Yes. So what you just said answers one of our questions, that is that you are not fundable by most sources. No. Right. Anybody else want to all of ours is funded by the giving of the church, the people of the church. We have a couple outside business men that hear what were doing and they sell into that. We recently just acquired a ministry called advent ministries, which is we started manufacturing bunkbeds, and we bought it as a turnkey i put it right in the building of the church, and the vision of that is to hire men that are hard to find employing because of felony convictions. So the vision of that is to manufacture bed bunks or the bunkbeds that really high quality, we do inhouse, everything is done right there, and eventually thats going to be a profit for arm. And then the other thing is i got a Printing Press and i just print the money. Hes got to stop giving the beds away. We also the church also comes alongside and it helps us out with money. Then we ask some of the guys who are part of the boot camp who believes in the boot camp to give a donation to the boot camp. Here recently i was on a radio with bob, and the Greg Garrison show and they heard my story and we got some funding through the Greg Garrison show. But we just we have a 46,000 square feet building donated to us and what were getting ready to do now is we painted it, getting electricity in it, were going to start making furniture. And reupholstering furniture to try to also to get some funding. Pretty much thats pretty much how were funded. Wow. We have contracts with the School System because as i said, once these guys are transformed, they have a market advantage when it comes down to security and community liaison. We do some contracts. We apply for grants. We have donations and i guess sense you all i guess ill get in the furniture business. Im going to start making some. For us, we get Small Contracts and it is not enough. And i dont think truly we ever are going to get enough money to do what we really need to do, but what we do is when we make the means in by getting enough money so we can give some of the money to the guys and they can do what they need to do. But the reality is that we dont get enough funding to sustain what we do. Part of what the center for neighborhood enterprise does, we dont operate programs but we serve them. I remember what im always trolling for people like george kettle, the late george kettle, 74, retired, one of the cofounders of century 21, i recruited george and his son to come visit shirley and her ministry and when he saw what she was doing, he was so moved, and she knew that she wanted to buy this 48 unit apartment complex that was run by drug dealers. George put up a half million to buy it and another half million to renovate it using her people and his own contractor. And we so now that building, we did the same thing with jubal. When i met pastor freddie, i said to him, in 1990, they were operating out of old barracks, i said, the fir department, the Health Department could close them down overnight. But i said, freddie, im going to help you get a new building and i was blessed to organize a meeting of grassroots leaders and funder and one of them pledged a Million Dollars but wanted this million to be in last. So local Business Leaders were recruited and we built a 3. 5 million brandnew facility in san antonio that they used as their primary treatment center. So when the center hopes to do is by working with opportunity lives, our partner here, that is responsible has been clara burns has been going around with us, and visiting each of these communities and videotaping and telling their stories through opportunity lives. And thats a public platform and they we have the series, comeback, we hope viewers will tune in, going to the opportunity lives website or center for neighborhood enterprise website, so you can see first hand their stories and we hope that by advertising and letting people know when works that perhaps a fraction of the funding that goes into attack ads for political parties, theyll invest a portion of that into life saving enterprises in these communities. Thats a goal of the center in terms of being a resource to help. So right now we would like to open up and ask for a few minutes some of our leaders to ask any questions you may have of the panel. And then i would like to ask members of the audience, if you have questions for tom, we can take those as well. Yes. You want to introduce yourself . Sure, gerard robinson. First of all, thank you for the very powerful testimony youve given and the work you do. Im in education. Two questions. Number one, you work with a lot of adults who transition out of prison or out of challenging situations. What can we do on our side of the fence to better reach out and support you as you help adults and particularly you, you work with young people, exgang members, what are some opportunities for us to help that target population . I think the first thing is to, i think institutional challenge is necessary in this sense. Some of the some of the previous ideas that dont work, which have been, you know, funded fully, and researched well, we should have that same litmus test applied to us. See, so we need people like American Enterprise institute and others to come behind us and follow us and say what is what is the process . Sometimes like were doing here, were describing what we do, but i think there is a thought that it wont intellectually hold up. And it can. But we need intellectuals to hold up our testimony and say it makes sense, not just it makes change. See. Sometimes they say, yeah, hes changed, but it dont make sense. You see . Thats a real thats a real thing we need to me right now. And then when you talk about manageable outcomes and what we do, you know, you cant manage it if you dont research it. For instance, the graduate school of social work was going into the prisons in indianapolis, working with males, iupui and they couldnt get results with the males. They came to me and asked me to colecture with them. Now, they were getting paid. But i was getting results. So if you come up with you have to come along and put research to what were doing and then hold us side by side and you really Start Talking about the whole manageable outcomes, you know. I guarantee ours will line up with theirs. I have to offer a comment. I remember one of my criticisms for ten years, kenley gray sent the defied all the odds as a result of the resonance taking charge. They sent 800 kids to college in a tenyear period without any of the parents getting married. And they were able to but not a single researcher from any of the universities ever came down to inquire how they did it, and what lessons can be drawn from it. We 18 years ago, with curtis and i involved with where there were 53 murders in a five square block area in two years and we worked with the alliance of concerned got the leaders, brought them to our office and negotiated a gang truce and that gang truce lasted for 12 years without a single gangrelated murder in 12 years. Not a single researcher ever came to inquire how you did it, pbs did a special on it, all the Networks Found us, and they reported it, but not a single researcher from harvard, princeton or none of the think tanks came down to inquire of these folks how did you accomplish what you did . And what is the consequence for change Public Policy . And that is one of the reasons we wanted to convene this session and have you. Yes, glen. So, again, thank you. Very powerful and very inspiring. I say that in part because this is about getting to scale. It is about the difference between im going to use the word anecdote, but i dont mean any disrespect. Im talking about specific individual gifted leaders, and a National Program that can reach hundreds of thousands and millions of people. And our concern here is where as the quality of the leaders that we are graced with their presence today is one thing, and massive effort to replicate what they do will draw in people who may not be of the same caliber, commitment, talent, selflessness, integrity. So when you talk about a program, you talk about policy, and a country of 300 Million People, you have to think through how youre going to go from the specific examples to this larger, larger thing and im just wondering what your thoughts are about that. I wanted to answer that too and then thats what i was saying is critical. This is what i was saying that the that this is not that we are unique and probably our the way we do what we do. This is not unique to what we do. See, there is an approach that is necessary. So, first, you have to have an intrusive strategy. Thats what i was saying that. It is not just you have to have intrusive people, strategically the way you platform is this has to be an intrusive strategy, you have to have an invasive strategy, which is culturally invasive. In other words, you need people would are cultural leaders that people can trust. And thirdly, you got to have institutional think tanks like bob is doing. And so what that does is it gives you the platform by which you can really build the scale. If you do it just anecdotally, just going to different neighborhoods, trying to figure it out, you cant do it. And then it is going to bring some people that are not as potent, but every team has some weak links, but at least you have a team to build from. And i think that if we do it that way, see, if we say this is an example, if you say every program that you perform, whether it is drug rehabilitation, pregnancy, whatever you want to call it, every program we do must have an intrusive model. And to define what an intrusive model it, you then will be able to really propagate the right type of people to come to that type of program. You see what im saying . If the practitioners are that way, then they will give you if you can scale it up that way. It is not only one antong, hes the best, but it is hundreds of thousands of them, you see what im saying . Let me just say, glen, that thats why the word enterprise is in our name. We believe that the principles that operate in the market economy should operate in the social economy. We know that in a market economy only 3 of the people are entrepreneurs. This was something that didnt exist six years ago and so what we do is we believe that the principles that you that you heard here are like the platform. What we are seeking is advice and counsel from Business People who know how to take an idea from someones kitchen and generate a fortune 500 company. That happens along a trajectory, that youve taken an idea, and then you invest in it, because a venture capitalist looks for an entrepreneur and then what do they bring . Capital, but also knowledge about how to grow the event. Too much capital can suffocate it. Too little can strangle it to death. Too much can strangle it. Too little can suffocate it. So what we are doing at the center is we are inviting Business Leaders who know how to grow a company, and to come alongside of us to counsel and coach us to take this to scale. But you got to believe it is possible to go to scale and even to invest. But if people were unwilling to invest, even in the documentation of success, how convinced would they be to help it to grow . You cant even convince them to come and take a look at what works. So how can you then ever talk about growing it. If you dont even believe it exists. Or has any value for you to inquire about it. With that, i think we need to move and i would like to ask any questions from the audience, i think we have a microphone. Does this work . Any questions from the audience . Yes. One back there. Yes, maam. Do you want to take this, please . Thank you. Pastor shirley, you mentioned about starting to look into grants. And i was also wondering about everyone else on the panel that has experience with this, if in the sort of traditional grant structure if the fact that faith plays such an Important Role in what you do, if thats been a hindrance to getting funding for your organization. We look for grants for what we do, so if the grant coincides to what we service and applies to what we provide, thats a grantable fund. If it changes what we do and how we do it, then i wont apply for it. We dont shop for money. We shop for assistance. The second thing is, does faith does my faith stop it . Im getting ready to take lgbt classes because i need to know how to i need to know how to relate to that population, not from my religion, but from my help. I can help anybody. I dont need religion to do that. I just need relationship. So i dont try to apostlize people for my help. Thats Holding People captive. Thats saying you do this and then ill do this. No. We go help you regardless to what your faith is. Ive taken in muslims. Ive taken in atheists. Ive taken in whatever. And theyll say to me, are you willing to help me . Well, if i cant convince you of my love, i cant convince you of my god. I dont want to give you my god, i want to give you my love. That doesnt cost you anything. There are some there are some if you look at it from a faith perspective, there are some barriers. But if you look at it from a functional perspective, perhaps a larger barrier. Number one, most of them, us, dont have time to raise money. Yes. Youre so busy doing what you do. Right, right. So then you have to hire someone to raise the money, but you need the money to hire the people to raise the money. Absolutely. Thats another barrier. The third barrier are the requirements of the grant. Absolutely. If the grant says we have to give a grant back in our neighborhood. We had warring reality between two gangs. They lived on two sides of our church, which is on the county line. So the state gave us a grant to work with the juveniles, but because they came from two di b different counties and the money was for one county, the kids from the other county couldnt eat the pizza at the meetings. So we had to give the grant back because the requirements for the grant were written by pads who never come to the neighborhood. So that was a third barrier. And then the final barrier for the grant was that the relationships that you need, you know. Grant fundraising is a science. And it is a skill that most of us just dont have. And so you end up making beds, you know, and selling pies because you know how to do that. You can control it. And you dont have to be audited. The audit the audit, you know, the grant assumes you have general operating funds. So if you dont have general operating you have to have someone manage the grant because you cant take indirect cost out of the grant, then you need money to pay the auditor for the grant, and a lot of nonprofits end up not being able to afford the audit of the grant they so it is then you go to jail. Not because youre corrupt, but because you are underfunded. And thats why glen, what bob is talking about is taking this to scale, but more than enterprise model, the way you take an idea to a vc, you go to a venture capitalist and they invest in an idea. And then you use the capital to build out the enterprise. Well, what all of the if these guys had a Business Plan that could yield a return on investment in capital, they could go to a whole different community, make their presentation, and there are billions of dollars being invested every week in businesses by people who want a financial return. We got to find the resources in this country that want a return in human capital. Yes, maam. This cant be a new idea but it just occurred to me, if you could demonstrate to the government authorities that the success of your interaction with your clients was saving the state 100, and they get to give you back 30 for every 100 you save or lets make it 60 right. Let me give you an example in the city of milwaukee, wisconsin, running rebels organization, one of our they operate out of a Violence Free zone, they have an interesting relationship with the county. For the past ten years they have taken young violent offenders who would otherwise be remanded to the adult facility to spend 20 years, they stay theyre remanded to custody in their homes, supervised by exoffenders in that community, the ratio is six to one, because the people monitor them, theyre in the same neighborhood, they have to check in three times a day, but theyre required to go to training and what not, well, 80 of the young men who completed a program are successful. Last year, the running rebels presented the county a mock check for 63 million that the county determined was the money that they saved by not sending these young men to prison. And so they take a portion of that and give it to the running rebels, i think, 2 million, and that carries the cost of the program into the future. So even in a situation where we have demonstrated cost benefit, there is no rush to embrace it. I think people dont understand how entrenched the poverty industry is in maintaining their control. Yeah. I mean, so we have made the case. And our Violence Free zone, were able to show that we can reduce violence in schools by 25 in three months, which means that we reduce costs and expulsions, Police Service calls, all of that, we have demonstrated it, Baylor University did a threeyear study. It has been accepted for academic review. And even with that validation, glen, there is just no rush to come to us and say, okay, you have passed the validation test, now heres the investment in this great idea of yours. Thats what were fighting against. So with that, i want to segue into the next panel, but i see our special guest has arrived. Congressman paul ryan. And this is a good time, paul, you couldnt have been perfect. Come on up and i want our panel, to thank them. Take your bottles and please how are you doing . Good to see you. Hey, shirley. How are you . Im good. Have you tried the yet . Yes. You did . Where do you want to do it . Right here. Isnt primetime coming . This is good time. We have been as i said, one of the first times in this city where the principle presenters were practitioners and our thought leaders are here and theyre going to come and actually as respondents to our grassroots leaders and i think we had a spirited conversation and the grassroots and the off i tower. And our other special guest showed up right away. Come on up, deion. Good to see you again. We just got here. We just had deion, youve been working with omar in dallas, and you know and also you have been one of the few celebrities that spent a lot of time in the hood, operating a school, operating a sports program, and i wish, paul, you would talk about why you got this thing going when we first met and ill ask you the question we asked on the video, as a former vp candidate, and now chairman of ways and means committee, why are you interested in this issue . Okay, first of all, because we can do a lot better than what we have been doing. It is just that simple. And then if you want to do better on restoring and funding poverty, you got to figure out what works. And when you get out of the city, and get around america, you can find people like omar, like shirley, like paul and everybody else, darryl, you can find things that work. And so as policymakers, it is our job to go learn and listen. Thats what thats what the comeback is all about. You have the video. Thats what that is about, showing there are Amazing Things happening. We should learn from them. And then when we try to do policy at any level of government, that policy ought to be respectful of and supportive of what works and not dismiss of and displacing of what works. And thats basically what were trying to accomplish here. And that simple. Tell us about your work with omar and why you have signed on to kind of be a supporter of the movement. It is genuine, it is authentic. When you alluded to the word comeback, i think all of us are dealing with some type of comeback in our lives. Every last one of us. Thats a commonality we all share. Thats what ties us together. We all have come through trials and tribulations and were here. Some of us are still making a comeback as i speak. This is real. This is so authentic and it is where we came from. My mother, single mother. Father, not in my life. Stepfather, biological father. They never played the position well enough that i would deem them to be a father. I never call the man daddy. So im dealing with a plethora of single mothers at school. And inner city. And it is my heart beat, it is my passion to give them a way up. And a way out. Not a handout. But for them to understand there is different resources. We just had a phenomenal structured organization and structured event this past thursday that we called single but not alone. So we called all of the Single Parents in the dallas metroplex to come to this one location at school where we brought them help from health care, we brought them job employment, we brought them resources for transportation. We brought them someone stood up and said i have 14 jobs you can start today and be paid by next friday. And thats a resource. Thats the way you mackke a comeback. Not i have a check here and you pay this bill and be in the same situation. Thats my heart beat. We all say we want to help poverty, we want to help kids, we want to rescue secure education, but were dropping these kids off to school, repeatedly but not doing nothing for the parents thats dropping them off. So if we build that, if we build that young man and that young woman, thats currently making a comeback, just like our comeback, now, were putting a stronghold on poverty. And were helping one person at a time. Yeah. I feel sort of underdressed sitting next to him. I wanted to be conservative, but effective. Well, we understand youre from wisconsin. They dont even wear seersucker suits in wisconsin. But these trips, paul, tell us about your journey. I know that what was your biggest surprise, i guess, or that you did not anticipate . Tell me. Well, number one, i think it is important to know we all share the same values and principles and we express them differently. And what i learned was there is a lot to learn. And what happens is policymakers, they dont view the human side of policymaking. They do sort of the analytical side. They do the ivory tower side. They do the, you know, the old thinking, i think, in a war on poverty is kick it upstairs, the federal government, and then you can be more efficient in how to deploy resources and fix problems. And what you end up doing is you reduce these ties that bind people together, which is people, together, fighting poverty eye to eye, soul to soul, person to person. And it is connecting people together in the communities who are helping each other, that is really what matters. And so you cant get that in some program run by some, you know, building over here. And thats one thing i really learned, and so we shouldnt be at odds with each other in this war on poverty where government does this and Civil Society does that. One should respect the other. And thats what i kind of learn from a policy standpoint, but from just a human standpoint, we need to redeem the idea that redemption is really cool. We need to redeem the idea that redemption is the Success Story in peoples lives and our communities that we want to see more and more and more and more of. And that that, to me, is the probably the biggest thing i got out of this, that is to see redeemed souls and the people who do the redeeming, it is just heroic, it is exciting, it is infectious, and we just we need to do everything we can to make that a normal idea in society again. We just got word that you met curt moore at indianapolis. Well, curt now has coowner of a building in the community, has 25 employees, and they have contracts with 22 dealerships. So hes yeah, yeah. We want to see this. The question was raised before about why there is not an embrace of this, this idea, and i talked about the resistance were getting from the poverty pentagon. Yeah. Well, there is that. It is basically the status quo. The status quo has its adherence that, like this status quo, theyre doing well on the status quo, right, so we see this in Congress Every day. So how do you break that up . The way i look at it is focus on outcomes and results. The policy side, if we can focus on what works, and not on the status quo, i think we can win the argument. So that the argument isnt republicans or democrats or liberals or conservative, but what work and doesnt work f you go out in the communities and find out what work and support that, and make that the outcome, then it is not a partisan thing or not an ideological thing, just a what works thing. That to me is the kind of conversation we ought to have. Thats why patty murray and i are doing this bill to move our Measurement System on measuring the effectiveness and the war on poverty from inputs and effort, you know, programs and spending and bureaucracies to outcomes, results, are we getting people out of poverty. Is it working . And what that ends up doing is it propels the resources and the power into the hands of local Community Poverty fighters who are actually succeeding and when they can show what works and you can cross pollinate. Thats what cne does. Darryl has this Great Program at boot camp. Perhaps you can share what boot camp does in indianapolis, martin woodbright maybe you can share that with kansas city or dallas, or, you know, omar, in dallas, we have milwaukee vfc, cross pollinate, share ideas, thats what we want to see more of instead of a bureaucrat and a person with a ph. D. And i dont know anything about fighting poverty and bureaucracy is trying to put rules and regulations that prevent that kind of thing from happening. So, to me, it is about changing the approach, not based on input and top down, but on organic grassroots bottom up. And then to show with what work and go with what works. It is a results Oriented Approach to fighting poverty. To me, that is how you successfully take on the poverty pentagon by saying justify the results, they cant. And then lets focus on results. And that, to me, is the way that this debate should evolve and it shouldnt be read versus blue, it should just be what works and what doesnt work. There is no one way. Thats exactly right. Im not a math major. But three plus one equals four. Two plus two equates to four. Zero plus four equates to the same thing. There is no one way to get to the same solution. But it all works. What works at indy may not work in dallas. What may work in dallas may not work in austin. But were working towards the same goal. Oftentimes the people are making crazy decisions and have never set foot in the inner city unless it is a photoop. And thats why i have a problem. What about the people that are really doing it and pushing the envelope, antong lucky, living it day by day, week by week, month by month, were seeing the single mother, the father that the reason he results to a life of crime is because he sees no way up and no way out. He doesnt want a handout. Hes willing to work but he cannot find employment. So it is no one way to do this. I just wish as people like you that take the initiative, so powerful when i looked in your eyes in your office and i said, why do you do this . And you said, eloquently, because i want to provoke change. I want to provoke change. And thats what youre doing. And it is a lot of people trickortreating in these wonderful offices. And it is not even october. But the man im sitting by, im telling you, hes real. I would not waste my time. I got a wonderful life. And i have means. So i would not waste my time to come here had i thought and had i known that hes trickortreating. It is real. It is authentic. I love what youre doing. I love what you stand for. Were really trying to provoke change and we will provoke change. But if we can have more help in and assistance, we can do it e expeditious expeditiously. Right now were doing it one step at a time. You also, i think part of our challenge is to give the kind of recognition to this movement that it deserves. Opportunity lives has been really an effective partner in getting this out. I think we have seen i think over 6 Million People went on the website to look at the series and, see, this is first time that we have ever had this kind of recognition and it is the first time that a celebrity like you would take the time to try to i had a gift that i maximized my moments. I like that. Too many times against green bay if you ask me. Love brett favre but had to do what i had to do. But i really think that it is critical to get this word out and im really glad that we hope this comeback movement will get moved to the kind of scale that, again, glen asked how can we replicate this, how can we take it to scale . I just said there is a lack of imagination. 60 of apples income came from a product that didnt exist six years ago. Why cant we take the same level of imagination and invest in promoting this kind of comeback movement so that the thirst is there. When you hear homeless man in boston who turns over with 46,000 in it, and somebody posts his name and face and tries to raise money, and they raise 93,000 in two days, because that says that there is a thirst on the part of the American Public to support virtue of our founders. And there are four situations like that. The marathon man up in detroit that was walking to work. 230,000 was raised for him. And so what i hope this comeback movement will do with the help of you and paul is to promote the actions of our leaders so that they will become household words and that people will begin to invest in them and i think it is the only salvation of this country. It is the mind set on what the public thinks is the war on poverty that were trying to attack, which is this it has mistakenly reinforced this notion that this is governments responsibility. I dont have to do anything about this. I pay my taxes. I do my job. I send my money to washington. Theyll fix this. And what we have done as a result of that is we have isolated and marginalized the poor from among us. And what youre showing, what these leaders are showing, it is the opposite of that. Everybody has a stake and everybody can do something. So what were trying to do is break down that mind set, which is everyone, no matter who they are, no matter what their income is or where they live, they can do something positive, make a difference. In order to fix this, they have to. Thats what were trying to do is say that this isnt a government responsibility, it is a responsibility of our communities. And so that we can reintegrate people, and actually bolster the fact that these home grown organic bottom up Grassroots Efforts are the best ever and that it is not better or more efficient to displace that and just kick it upstairs to some federal program. The federal government can provide resources and it is good at that. But it cant displace just the human interactions, the faith, the personal touch that occurs when you do this at the local Grassroots Level and you reinforce the idea that everybody has a responsibility in their communities to do something, whatever they can in their xurcurrent capacity. Thats what were trying to reinforce here. We think if we can do that, change the way people look at fighting poverty and get behind the solutions that work, and get people more involved, then we can really start moving the needle. Thats the thinking. The commonality that our country shares as well is heart. All the different instances you told me about, the guy with the backpack, heart. But no one wants to be first. No one wants to be a leader. No one wants to stand alone as well. When we play place something on website to raise money or allocate funds, as long as were not first, were willing to do it. Not a lot of leaders. Not a lot of people willing to sit on the front row or be on the front line. When someone takes an initiative and says, you know what, im going to fight poverty, im going to stand in, you stand right next to me, then another person is propelled to stand. Now were fighting this with a young vibrant army. No one wants to make that first initiative. The commonality once again we share, this country has heart. We got to uncover it with all the trials and tribulations and pain and nonsense we go tgh