The Homeward Podcast

Episode 19: Fact or Fiction with Todd Gilbert

• Knox Area Rescue Ministries • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Sticky Notes:

  • Homelessness is incredibly complicated. People do not fall into homelessness for any one reason, and to get them out won't happen for any one reason. There are many stigmas, so get involved.

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Interested in learning more about us? Please visit karm.org or reach out to Celia at clively@karm.org today!

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to the Homeward Podcast, the show where we illuminate the human stories behind homelessness, redefine what home truly means through real voices, honest conversations, and education that fosters empathy, awareness, and action. Carm is highly rated by Charity Navigator, recognized as a best Christian workplace and a top workplace, and accredited by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. We are one of 30 rescue missions in the country rated as excellent and distinguished from Citigate. And most recently, we're an Emmy Award-winning organization with our documentary. You can click the link in the show notes to watch it today. I'm your host, Celia Lively, and today I'm on the mic with a Homeward Podcast favorite, Todd Gilbert. This is our first episode in a quarterly series that we'll be doing called Fact or Fiction. In these episodes, we'll take a real social media comment made by real people on post about CARM and decide if they are fact or you guessed it, fiction. Todd, welcome back to the show.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. It's good to be back.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, how are you feeling?

SPEAKER_00

I'm feeling good, but I gotta be honest with you. Um, the fact or fiction thing makes me a little bit nervous.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Now, if you were to say, Todd, what I want you to do is talk for an hour on each topic, I'd be like, let's do this. But since you labeled it down to two things, um, it it's tough. Um the worst tests I ever took were true-false tests. Overanalyzing until if if we had more time, I would tell you about the one question I missed on my driver's permit test. Oh. The one question I missed. And uh I'll just say this: it showed a hand with a thumb up and a circle around it with a line through it, which is clearly no hitchhoking.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And uh I literally in my mind was like, well, hitchhiking is illegal in all 50 states. Why would there be a sign about no hitchhiking since it's already illegal? So it must be something else.

SPEAKER_02

It must be.

SPEAKER_00

And as soon as I selected and it came up wrong, I was like, you know what? I shouldn't have been given four choices. Because I would have obviously got it had I not had the four choices.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So this could be fun.

SPEAKER_00

Sounds super simple, fact or fiction. Right. I may play this game really poorly.

SPEAKER_02

Hey, that's okay. We make the rules here. We'll see how it goes. All right, everyone. So these are broken up into three different categories. So this first category is money, budget, and stores. They all kind of group together in a way. So this first comment is from a user, and they say, I have a hard time believing that with the cost of your donated merchandise, you lack the funds to feed the homeless.

SPEAKER_00

Um I'm actually gonna say, yeah, fact on that, because we don't lack the funds to feed our homeless. But the reason why we don't lack the funds to feed our homeless is because the generosity of our donors and supporters. Right. Because of the success and how good the uh carm stores uh do. And I have a feeling we'll be talking more about funding. And so I'll save some of the details uh for later. But no, we we don't lack the funds. Um, but that's because of the generosity. Now, let's just say we live in a world where all of our donors stopped giving their money. If carm stores cease to exist, we would not have funds to benefit people.

SPEAKER_02

Right, people would go hungry.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. We don't we don't uh our our mission, we're not selling goods, and so we don't sell a Big Mac, and thus we bring in uh a certain percentage of of that as as revenue, that's just not what we do. And so all of our meals are given out for free. Uh the average cost per meal is$2.56, large in part due to the tremendous amount of donations we get, vendors, restaurants uh who partner alongside of us. But if we are providing, golly, anywhere between 750 and 1,000 meals a day at$2.56, we're talking about um a substantial budget. I think that'd be like$800, some thousand dollars. And so it's just it it that's a lot of money that's required. And so the comment I would say, yeah, it's a fact. We are not hurting. The reason why we're not is because people are generous and they donate to us, which allows us to feed people. So therefore, please don't stop giving because if you stop giving, we no longer then have the funds to be able to do something like this.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Exactly. I agree. This next one, you get enough money from overcharging stuff that's given to y'all for free. That's why all upper level leadership live in mansions.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

I left that second part in there because I thought I do not live in a mansion.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, and you are. Nobody on here would know that, but now Celia is a part of our upper management. So you didn't get the mansion package. Right. Okay, we'll talk about that off. We'll talk about that off uh off this podcast. So, yeah, that would be uh fiction. Nonprofit work is notorious for uh people being overworked and underpaid. I am so hear me, so proud of that I don't work for that organization.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

I don't work for an organization that's gonna be we boast in the fact that we work our people to death and underpay people. We have great work-life balance. We encourage people regularly to make sure that your family comes first.

SPEAKER_02

You literally told me that in a meeting right before this.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, for yes, we were in a one-on-one right before this, and we were just talking about the importance of that. And so um, we don't overwork people to death. And again, more related to this question is we are competitive in pay. So let's talk about two ways. We are uh a part of City Gate, as you mentioned in your intro to the podcast. We are part of a Citigate network. Um, 300 plus rescue missions are part of this network. Uh we are part, we take part into a compensation survey, and we are in the upper end of that, both nationally and more in our district, which is called the Blue Bluegrass District. We pay more than most rescue missions do. Uh, and then we look at it in Knoxville. How competitive are we in Knoxville? There was a time, I would say about six years ago, we weren't very competitive in Knoxville, and our staffing showed that we were severely understaffed, couldn't figure out why we were understaffed. We decided to look at the landscape of the Knoxville market compared to what we were paying. We realized, oh my goodness, we are not competitive in that. And so we we did a market adjustment, and we now are no longer struggling with our staffing models. Uh, we are proper appropriately and properly staffed. And so we pay people competitively. Now, if you looked at on a landscaping of like nonprofits, it's a little skewed. We are actually underpaid, but that's because on the nonprofit landscape, you can't really, and at least what I've been able to find, you can't really take out the covenant health who's a nonprofit, or a UT Medical who's a nonprofit.

SPEAKER_01

Fair.

SPEAKER_00

And their budgets are just they dwarf ours. And so they're able to pay um uh more people uh or pay people at a higher level than we can. But for a nonprofit uh in Knoxville, we are very competitive, we take care of our employees, and that's important. But the idea that we're rich, it's it's it's crazy. In fact, um two pieces to this. One would be on that competitive scale, which we have the data, as the positions get higher, as titles get higher and responsibility increases, the gap in pay actually increases. So meaning our C level are paid at a lower rate compared to our entry level when factoring in uh local markets.

SPEAKER_01

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00

So our entry-level staff make actually a higher rate than most nonprofits pay at an entry level, but our C level make less than most nonprofits pay at a C level.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So it actually gets less. So congratulations on finding that out. Thank you so much. So it actually gets less. Um the gap increases as the titles go up. But the second, again, you are a senior leader. I've been a senior leader now for six years. No, seven years, so since 2019. And uh I still live in the same house I did when I first moved to Knoxville in 2011. So I'm from the Tri-Cities, moved to Texas, came back uh to Knoxville in 2011 where I served as a youth pastor. And so um uh the same house I bought in 2011 as a youth pastor and a church near Coryton, Tennessee is the same house I'm in now as a senior leader um at CARM. So yeah, that is greatly fiction. Um greatly fiction. And and I am not uh gonna be ashamed that Knoxville at CARM, we take care of our employees.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

We pay them appropriately. We are um rated excellent, better as a better business bureau, we're excellent in Cherry Navigator. Our ECFA is always in excellent condition. Um we we take um money very seriously that every penny we have, we want to be great stewards of.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Um and so um it matters. So we want to take care of our employees at an appropriate rate.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. You have 30 stores and an annual budget of 83 million. Where's the money going? You kind of alluded to that a little bit with we pay our people well, but also you want to get into the rest of it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, this is an interesting one because part of it is fiction, part of it's fact, and we've got to make sure we clarify the part that looks like it's a fact.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So we don't have 30 stores, we have 26 stores, and let's break this out in chunks. There's three pieces here. So you have 30 stores, that's one piece. 83 million dollars, that's piece two. We're gonna skip that one for just a second. We're gonna go from one is 30 million or 30 stores. We'll skip to 83 million. And I think your third part was where's the money going? So that's the third piece to this statement. We have 26 stores. Um, our stores operate as a social enterprise that support our ministry. Um after the stores pay their operational expenses, the remaining proceeds that fund our res uh the remaining proceeds go to our rescue mission that funds our programs. So you have donor support, you have grants we write for, and then you have CARM stores, which help us fund the ministry. So the third part, which is like, where does that money go? Where does all the money go? Well, the money goes to 14 different service pathways. So when you come to CARM, there are essentially one of 14 different places you can go or some combination. We have emergency shelter, we provide mills, we provide clothing assistance, we provide case management, workforce development programs, which are three different programs in that one. We have residential recovery programs for men and women, we have guest development classes, we have medical services, everything ranging from a summit clinic in our main campus to home care services that are provided uh uh with a partnership with Covenant Home Care. And we have different transitional and supportive programming. So all the money is going to fund all of those different programs, in addition to the food operations, utilities. I mean, if you just think about what it cost, I go to Sam's to get toilet paper for my family of four. Right. And I'm just like, every time I buy the toilet paper for my family of four, I'm like, oh my goodness, this stings a little bit. We have 450 people we're providing toilet paper for.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

In addition to just utilities, giving a life on. And so it's just wild. So every night we're serving, you know, anywhere from the low of 400 to 450 people throughout five different campuses, five different properties. People really just know of our one at the 400 block of Broadway. But we have four other properties where people are receiving programming. And so um that's where that's where the money goes. Yeah. And again, I know that you mentioned that the topic one deals a lot with budgeting and funding. And so I won't open up the entire can on this one question. Um, but we operate really on a flat budget. What we say we're gonna bring in, we say we're gonna spend. And what we say we're gonna spend, we say we're gonna bring in. Right. It's pretty much a flat budget, a zero budget. So now for the the big one um that was shimmied right there in the middle. Yeah. Right? So you have 30 stores, fiction. We don't have 30 stores. Um, and where does the all money go to? That's neither a fact or fiction, that's just a question.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Now, what about this 83 million? So the 83 million is just a misunderstanding of how a 990 works. And I want to expect anyone listening to this to be an expert on how to research and understand a 990 form. But my assumption is that's where it's coming from. Right. Is that somebody's pulling up CARM 990, looking at that, and then seeing this number and saying, oh, they don't need any money from us because they have$83 million. Well, let's get the big headline out of the way. The big headline is that no, we do not sit on$83 million. Uh Knox Air Rescue Ministry, our mission, CARM, where we work at, our budget is$16.5 million. That's how much money we expect to bring in. We expect to spend roughly$16.5 million. Right. So it's not$83. So the question is, is where does the$83 come from? Well, 83 comes from the fact that CARM Stores and CARM will call us CARM Mission, just for the help of understanding the difference. Sure. Um, we file underneath the same organizational structure and FEI and number because CARM Stores operates as a part of our overall ministry structure. So therefore, on a 990, you see CARM store revenue and you see our donated inventory and goods. So on a 990, you have CARM store donated inventory and donated goods, CARM donated inventory and donated goods, and they're all counted as contributed assets of revenue. And what's important is when someone donates a large uh tote of clothes. And so it's you see those totes outside the carm stores where they fill up with bags and clothes. There's a lot of clothes in those totes. Yeah. And they go, and sometimes they make it to the racks right away, sometimes they sit and they make to the racks later. But when they do a 990, every single bit of inventory you have is counted as a future asset. Right. So even though it hasn't even hit a rack to be sold, it counts as money.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so what you have on 990, again, is CARMS donated goods, which is income that people have donated money to us. You have CARM stores, actual income they produce from selling goods. And you also have the donated assets, which are future income.

SPEAKER_02

I think that's where people get hung up on.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. And it's all three. Well, I think it's two pieces. They definitely get they probably don't know that, hey, we're counting in assets that have yet to turn into money as money, because you have to in order to be do this right. But most people probably don't realize that the stores are also in that. In fact, two-thirds of it is the stores. Correct. The money they actually brought in, and then the assets they have. And the other third is CARM.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Mission. CARM mission.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so again, a lot of you are probably asleep now after that explanation of 990. So let's bring you back awake to the headline. Does CARM mission have$83 million investing into homeless services? No, that is not what we have at all. What we have is$16.5 million, and how CARM Stores gives us money is 100% of what they make. After paying their bills, so they have to pay their lights, they have to pay their staff, they have to pay their leases or their mortgage if we own the store. After they pay their bills, 100% of the money comes back into CARM. And that isn't an additional to the 16.5, that money is a part of the 16.5.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So when I say, hey, we have 16.5 million dollars of income, that counts CARM store income.

SPEAKER_02

Correct.

SPEAKER_00

And so uh there's no funny money there. You would just really need to see uh the 990 and understand what you're looking at. Um no. 83 looks very confusing.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Do we wish we had 83 million?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But we don't.

SPEAKER_00

I think 83 million would go a long way in helping homelessness out here in Knoxville. Yes, agreed. Absolutely. So do we wish it? Yes. Is it to build our own kingdom and establish a car monopoly? Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02

No way.

SPEAKER_00

But if we had another shelter, how awesome would that be?

SPEAKER_02

Right? Absolutely. Yep. Okay, these next three kind of go together, but I wanted to put them all separately. So this first one, another store? How much do y'all pay in rent at your stores? Couldn't that money be better spent opening more shelters? The next one in this, out of those stores, why can't y'all make beds for the homeless instead of opening another store to take everybody's money? And the third one with this, over 25 stores with 100% markup because everything is donated. Open more rescue ministries.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So uh there's a lot to go there. And so how much do you all pay in rent in stores? Couldn't that money be better spent in operating more shelters? Again, that's not fact or fiction. It's a question. That's someone who's upset at something. Yeah. And so they ask a question which I don't think they care the answer to. And so, which is how much do we pay in rent in our stores? Again, we own some store locations, we lease others. Our lease locations are negotiated at competitive market rates based on area, building size, economic location, just like anybody else. And I doubt anybody wants me to go store by store, lease by lease. This is what we do for that. Yes, I know that we're all eager, and I'm I'm going to disappoint you by not giving you that content, but I don't think that's really where the heart of that social media response is. It's probably in the second piece, which is couldn't that money be better spent in operating um shelters? And what I would say is um um absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh absolutely, but we need to understand that opening more shelter capacity requires more shelter infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You don't just get to say, man, we need another shelter, and then snap our fingers. And our entire community, if you understand if you're involved in the homeless sector at all, whether it be if you work in it or if you volunteer in it, would tell you that right now, because having another shelter has been one of the top priorities of our city for a long time now, for a number of years. And there still isn't one.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Because how how incredibly hard and cost prohibitive it is. It is incredibly taxing and it costs a lot of money to do. So, in other words, you want another carm. So the question is is can CARM just create another CARM? Well, yeah, technically we could, in so much that we literally duplicate our income. So I just got through explaining it takes$16.5 million to do what we do.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And a large portion of that$16.5 million comes from our stores. So which means if we want to open up another carm entirely, copy and paste all the services we do, because we're not just in the business of warehousing people. We don't want to just create a large building that just has a number of beds, absent of people in investment. Stay here at this bed and we'll leave you in your trauma and your addiction and your hurt and your struggles in this bed in this vacant uh building. Um we don't do that. So if we want to copy and paste our services, we have to copy and paste our infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Which means I need another 26 stores.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You can't say stop investing in the stores and build another shelter because the stores actually supply a large portion of our income, which allows us to do what we do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Imagine McDonald's saying, Man, we want to open up 10 more restaurants. And how we're gonna do that is we're gonna stop selling product. You're not going to accomplish what you need to. In fact, it's the selling, it's the selling of product which is gonna allow you to expand. And so our the carm stores generate a large portion of the income that falls comes back into our rescue mission. A large portion of that. I think it's 47% of CARM's income comes from the stores. So if we stop expanding the stores or the stores that stop existing, we have no shot to expand services.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

No shot.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So what I would want to tell this person is do you truly want us to expand? Then welcome another store.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Because for every time we get to plant another store, that's more income that comes back into the mission, which means we can take that income and then do what we're about to do, which is launch another campus.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

We are opening up another campus, another shelter. It'll be totally dedicated to women and children. And so, and it's not just gonna be, hey, what we do at 418, the 400 block of Broadway, we're gonna do at ninth, but we're gonna actually expand the number of beds. We're gonna go from 120 beds for women to 200 beds for women. We're gonna go from two family beds or two family rooms for families. That's pretty redundant there, like that. Allow myself to introduce myself. Sorry. Uh we're gonna go from two rooms for families to 20 rooms for families. And then once we do that, we'll be able to uh we'll have the chance to do the same thing for the 400 block of Broadway for men to not only improve the facility, but also look at how we expand the number of beds. And so theoretically, we could go from um right now we have 330 emergency beds. I said we had 406 total beds, but we have 330 emergency beds. We could be up upwards near 550 emergency beds, over 600 total beds by the time this is finished. And it's because of uh the people listening to this, your generosity, and how you believe in what we do, and how you how you know when we say we're gonna do something, we do it, and we do it with integrity and and transparency. Transparency. And um it's because of uh how good God is. And I believe uh fully in the Christian response is based on who God is that we hate falsehood because he's truth. Um and we love because he first loved. And um We we we learned the most popular verse ever that God gave, and so therefore we give. And so it's because of your generosity and it's because of the stores.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

The stores are a large part. Forty-seven percent of our income happens because of the stores. So do you want us to expand? Welcome another store.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. There you have it. Let's switch gears a little bit and think about programming. So this comment says, why aren't we building tiny homes and letting the homeless stay there?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, um, again, that's uh not a fact or fiction. And if if anything, I'll if I had to go on one side, I'll say, hey, let's just let's just go fact there. I'm all about uh uh housing um and building tiny homes. It's just not been our Sure. It's just not been our vision yet. And so in our five-year master plan, housing is uh a large part. It's one-fifth of our five-year master plan. We are in year two of our five-year master plan, about to go on year three. Um, and I don't want to talk about housing too much with that because it's something that's to come. So stay tuned on what Karm is gonna do with housing. But I doubt strongly it's gonna be tiny homes. It doesn't look to be that's gonna be our vision for it. And that's not to say it's bad or good, because any housing is better than no housing. Uh well, with the people who are doing tiny homes, their hearts are good at like Angelic Ministries, I know has done a wonderful job setting up. I know there's something called Heroes Hill being worked on. And so that those are fantastic. Um, and uh there's a niche for that. And we I don't think that's the route we're gonna go with tiny homes, but I do see us looking, I do see us in the very near future over the next two years, three years, uh finding what what lane does CARM want to get into housing and how can we help um people get into housing? What does that look like for us? And uh side note is we've set records two years in a row on housing, helping people get there. It matters. Um we don't want to be an end-stop for homelessness. Um and so we want to help people exit well. And so housing needs to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_02

Agreed. This next comment: you should help them find jobs. Handouts don't help people become self-sufficient.

SPEAKER_00

Uh fact.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I would say uh yes, yes, and amen to that. Right. Uh you should help them find jobs. Uh can't agree more. And guess what? We we do. We do. And uh what was the second part? Handouts don't help people uh become self-sufficient. We would totally agree. The very first book I was handed to when I started working at CARM was Toxic Charity. Me too. And uh when helping hurts, and understanding that you can be toxic in your charity. And so you can do something you think is good, and what you're doing is actually stripping them of empowerment. And um, and anytime you strip them to empowerment, you can actually lead into entitlement. So we would agree. Uh, we would agree that simply handing out things is not good without helping them move forward uh towards something like stability, without moving forward towards something like housing, and we don't want to create dependency. And in fact, our entire model, program model has been restructured uh for this very thing.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And so people can come into CARM now. And so when I let's just go, uh let's take a step back. When I first came to CARM um in 2015, you can come in and stay as long as you want to. Um, in fact, last year I could walk into the dorm and see somebody who was um here when I worked in the dorm nine years.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that was just their life. CARM was operating as that constant safety net. And I heard somebody uh who's been on your show several times on the podcast, uh, Andrew Church.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He has several times said um CARM was operating as a um indefinite emergency shelter, a permanent emergency shelter. And that's not good. And so now when somebody comes into CARM, they have 28 days. And that 28 days, they get to manage their crisis. And every crisis deserves a crisis response.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

And so we are meeting them in that crisis, assisting them. But after a few days, that crisis seems to wane off. And they're still dealing with the consequences and trauma of that crisis, but the crisis has been managed. They have safety and shelter, they have clothing, they have food, they have shower, um, and and and they're in a place that shouldn't be their permanent community, but they're in a place where they're loved. So there's community. So we need to remove to the chronic response, and that's where they enter into a program at CARM. That's when they start working with a VMC, a Salvation Army, ACAC, all these incredible programs, uh, ministries around our city. That's where they start working with them to move forward. And so we are no longer being toxic even in our model.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

If you're staying at CARM, you are moving forward. 100% of our guests have a case manager now.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Which is incredible. When I started working at CARM, we only had, I think, one case manager at the emergency shelter.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Serenity, I believe, had case management, but we only had one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so of the 300 people who'd be staying with us, we could case manage 30 people. So now we have over 400 people on a caseload. Right. People are moving forward. And we have uh a work development track. And so workforce development. We have three workforce uh development tracks Clean Start, ALK, HBI, whether it's doing janitorial housekeeping, whether it's working um uh in a kitchen and getting your surface aid certification so you have a leg up on the competition when you apply for a job, or whether it's working with HBI and construction or trades, um, we are helping people get employment. And just like housing, the last two years we've helped more people get employment than any time at CARMS history. And so we're setting records and helping people get uh stable and meaningful employment. So to that question, I'd say yes, yes, and amen.

SPEAKER_02

Right. All fact. And we're doing it.

SPEAKER_00

And that's what we do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Please, if if you don't know that, uh just hit pause and go to our website and sign up to get a tour. Yes. And come see it firsthand. That way it's not just listening to me uh ramble on a podcast, but you can actually see what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02

Come see our training facility. Okay, this next one. For$2.56, I pray the food is good. That's not a lot of money to make good food to begin with.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um I would say, again, this is an oddly phrased statement. Um it seems$2.56 does seem low, and I would say fact.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And the part I would just caution is the fact that we do make good food, and let's just provide understanding around it. And so it it it does seem difficult that we could pull off so many meals uh at$2.56. But I think it was the very first question you asked. It goes back to the fact that uh we receive gift in kind uh donations from uh vendors, from restaurants, from organizations all across uh Knoxville uh that allow that cost to go down. And there's still an extraordinary uh amount of food. The grocery bill alone at Carm is over$400,000. So to run the entire operation, again, it's it's it's well over$400,000. Again, it's$256 times whatever meals we provide that year, you're looking you're looking at over$800,000. But our grocery bill each year annually is over$400,000 across the ministry. And so um it costs a lot to feed a lot of people. We do so incredibly well with um um great shopping for value, um, and we rely heavily on uh gift and kind uh donations.

SPEAKER_02

And our kitchen staff is so creative.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

I am not creative in the kitchen. I don't like cooking. Yeah, I'm a crock pot girl, dump and go, you know? There you go. And so to see our kitchen staff take what they've been donated, whether that's from a UT sporting event, whether that's from Chick-fil-A, and turn it into something, you can do it for$256 because they do it every day.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And again, this isn't new, so um, this isn't like uh special to CARM. Every rescue mission across the nation does this and does this well.

SPEAKER_01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

And so this isn't like most rescue missions are dropping$1.5 million on groceries, and here we are dropping$400,000. Most people are spending$6 per mil, and CARM's doing it for$256. They've learned the art of how do you build relationships in the community. We live in a very generous community, uh, that not just with people, but with partners and other restaurants who um give out of their abundance and um allows us to bless our guests with um with quality food.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. This next comment is probably one of the meaner ones.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

And it says, homeless people want no accountability. They only want their addiction cravings. They made their bed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's um that's pretty harsh. So I'll see that in three pieces actually. So homeless people want no accountability, and the other two were they don't want their, they only want their addiction addiction cravings. And the third piece was They made their bed. They made their bed. Um So homeless people want no accountability is a universal statement. And anytime you say universal statement, chances are it's not true.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Right? You just universalized. All homeless people, all people experiencing homelessness, none of them want accountability. Um let's just get honest. How many of us want accountability in our lives?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it kind of hurts.

SPEAKER_00

It it accountability is not something we often seek out, first off. Um and it's it's pretty special when you do. Um and to generalize to say all homeless people don't is wrong. And then when you actually think about people experiencing homelessness who don't seek it out, I'll just ask you do you seek it out in all areas of life?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And let's just change it from accountability. And so um, again, we don't need to go down this road. This is totally off subject, but I'm gonna bring it back. Um, I think about health, and I've gotten on a new like health kick in since uh about October of this past year. And um I have accountability um with uh a friend of mine, his name's uh Jeremiah, he works here at CARM and um and and Jeremiah uh goes with me to the gym every morning at 5 a.m. We're at the gym, um pretty much five days a week. Um, and sometimes I wish I didn't have him as an accountability partner.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00

There are many mornings where I would love um to not go, and the reason I go is because um he's there.

SPEAKER_02

You know he's gonna be there.

SPEAKER_00

I know he's gonna be there. And so um sometimes I wish I didn't have the accountability. Um other times I'm so thankful I have it in my life. But when I think about my life prior to November and prior to him, he and I start working out in January, and uh where I had that accountability, was it that I had no accountability for my health that caused me not to work out, or was it something else? And to me it was apathy. Um I just didn't care.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I had no thought. There was no thought about wanting to get healthy. There was no thought about um um seeking something else out there that was uh better for me. I just had nothing. It wasn't an act of thought of no, I don't want to work out. It wasn't where I'm going is this. Our people aren't struggling with accountability, they struggle with apathy, the want and desire for very little in life. Um a lot of that's due to the lies they've believed, um, such as the statement that homeless people want no accountability. Sometimes you say that and the person on the other end believes it. And I want you to really count the cost of what you just said, especially when they believe it. Um so they've believed a lot of lies. They've gone through a tremendous um amount of trauma, most of them at a young age, um, a lot of it sexually, um, a lot of it leading to drugs and alcohol at a young age, um, a lot of the struggle with mental health and physical health um issues, um, and there is just an apathy around their life. And so what we try to do is turn apathy to hope. And when we are able to do that, um we have some of the most driven, amazing, successful people um that you'll ever see. Um there is so much power behind a second chance, so much power. And so I would ask this person to really re-evaluate the idea that um homeless people don't want accountability and again quickly they uh they only want their cravings. They're addiction to their cravings. Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, by nature, if you're addicted to something, you crave it.

SPEAKER_02

You crave it.

SPEAKER_00

And so um again, so let's just make sure we knock something out of the out really quickly. Not every single people person experiencing homelessness is addicted to drugs and alcohol. In fact, it's a very low percentage. Uh nationally and Knoxville, we rate about the same. Nationally, it's about 19%, Knoxville, it's about 18%. Um, struggle with uh alcohol um or a drug and or a drug. And so it's a very low number, about two of every single 10 people. And of those two, and let's just say, let's just say if you raise it up a little bit and say it's 30%, it's an undercount, 30%. If three of every 10 people did, yeah, they're addicted. That's part of an addiction. And I would ask you to look internally and what are you addicted to? My chances are if you're listening to this, the last thing you'll do before you go to sleep tonight is look at your phone.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I'll watch an episode of reality television.

SPEAKER_00

There you go. And the first thing you'll do when you wake up is probably look at your phone.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I challenge everybody, uh, swap down your phone or hit that little search button at the top and search screen time.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And let's all broadcast what our screen time is. There's a chance, there's a chance we're addicted.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Are you craving that phone? Guys, addiction's addiction. When people are struggling with addiction, they're gonna have cravings, they're gonna have struggles. Here's what I know that's so not important. What is important is that one, not every single person experiencing homelessness is addiction. Two, the numbers are really low. And three, universally across the board, I've never encountered a single person in addiction who says, I'm so happy I'm an addiction.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Never. Yeah, never. People long to get out of it. People long, wish they had never started. It is not something they relish, it is not something they cherish, even when their body is craving it because they are addicted. They wish they had never started. And so, um, and then the last comment: I'm not gonna give it too much. You said they made their bed. Praise God. Thank I'm so thankful that Jesus Christ didn't look at me that way.

SPEAKER_02

Same.

SPEAKER_00

Our own faith is built off the opposite of that. That while I was at my worst, Christ Jesus died for me and hung on a cross, died the death of a cursed man at my worst. And um, I have made my bed. And God said, uh, because of his grace and his love, he's not gonna give me the bed that I laid. Yeah. And so I'll make it every um bit of passion I have and desire I have, I'll make it my ambition in my life here at Karm that will never do the same.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, we'll will never be the organization that says, Well, you made your bed, we'll lie in it. But what we'll do is we'll be exactly what Jesus did. He met people's physical needs and meet their spiritual needs. And um, that's what we do. And so we'll say, Hey, you made your bed, but let me show you a new bed. Let me show you a new set of sheets uh that's much more comfortable over here. And so um yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, praise God.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

This next question, I can answer this one actually. All right. It says, Do they mind you taking pictures of them? I've always wondered if they got anything in exchange for allowing you to use their image. Yes. So that is fact. We ask their permission to take pictures of it. We get a written release. If anybody takes a picture of someone staying at CARM without that release, they get in trouble by me. I take that very seriously. I'm very vain, Todd. I don't know if you knew that, but I hate it when people take my picture when I'm not posing for it. I hate a candidate I it makes me so mad because I'm vain and I want to look good in a picture. But I apply that to our guest here of like, this is your house, and somebody just comes in with a camera and broadcast it to wherever, whoever, whatever social media. So, yes, we take this piece very seriously. And on the release, we actually did it in pretty intense, I think. Of are we allowed to use your voice? Are we allowed to use your picture? Are we allowed to use your video? Do you want us to use a real name, or would you like to help us come up with a fake name? Because I take this so seriously. So if and if somebody ever says no, we don't take their picture. I delete them all.

SPEAKER_00

And I think too, uh just something to add clarity to is um a lot of the stories we present are buttoned up, right? They're the ones that have graduated, they've moved into housing. It's pretty at the end. Yeah, it's the it's it's the end version of it, and it's the pretty version of it. And so we do that intentionally a lot of times, um, just for the rights of the people. But those individuals are also super proud of their stories most of the time. They're not proud of what got them into the mess, but they are super proud of how God's led them out of that mess. They've worked hard to get from where they were to where they are now. And so they love a lot of them love sharing those stories.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Okay, we're gonna think about city and county thing right now. This is our last section.

SPEAKER_00

All right.

SPEAKER_02

So this comment, I don't want my tax dollars to go there.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, well, great. Great. They don't they don't. That's that's a good thing. Yeah. Um again, CARM is funded through three primary ways. One, I believe it's um 48% from private donors, generosity of people. 47%, making sure my math is accurate as I do this. 47% counting up here with me, 47% is CARM stores, and I believe that other 5% is through grants. So we'll write the occasional grant, um, and that that brings in um uh income or like an estate gift, something like that. So um none of that is through city, state, or federal grants. And so we've been existing for 66 years. We haven't taken any federal money uh to date. It doesn't mean we won't in the future. I'm not trying to say never, never's a long time. Um but we have we haven't. And uh we have taken money from a federal home loan bank, F H L B, but that's actually private dollars. Those aren't that's not federal dollars, that's private dollars. It's a forgivable loan. And so we've helped do a couple capital projects in our history with that. But again, that's private, even though it has the word federal in it. Just trying to make sure I'm transparent here. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I learned that. Yeah, so if you don't want to give, then uh to you don't want the taxes to become the carm?

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Congratulations, they don't.

SPEAKER_02

They don't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Should be happy.

SPEAKER_02

Easy enough.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

This next one, y'all get paid for them being homeless. And I think what they mean by that is we get some kind of money from the city, state, whoever, per homeless person.

SPEAKER_00

I've heard that. When I worked when I worked in the program area, I used to hear that we got paid every time we scanned a card. Every time we did a mill and tracked a mill or tracked a bed, we we got we got paid. And so that is fiction.

SPEAKER_02

That is very fictional.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that is that is fiction. We do not receive any money uh when it comes to like per person homelessness. And again, the city, um, um, state, um, federal government doesn't pay us. We we have not received any money from city, um, state or federal. So no. That's completely a fiction.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Okay, this is the last comment.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Knox County needs to provide more resources for the homeless instead of worrying about what attracts tourists.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's um very complicated question. Um, and I think it's complicated because the question is actually bigger than any one organization, any one church, any one department, any one um office can handle. Um I believe that our city, and I believe our city's leaders deeply care about people experiencing homelessness. I believe they put their money to towards it. In fact, the budget just got approved for this upcoming fiscal year, I believe, and I believe it set a record for money going towards homeless services. And so again, you think about the question one right before was like, I don't want any of my tax dollars. Right. And here's somebody saying that all of it, you know, more of it should be.

SPEAKER_02

Right, it kind of contradicts.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and so um I also believe it's complicated because I don't believe it's just a government issue. I don't believe it's just a just a city issue to solve. Agreed. I also don't believe it's not a city issue. I believe it's both and.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Where it is a city-county issue, but more so I believe it's a community issue, homeless is community issues. I believe churches have a role, I believe nonprofits have a role, I believe businesses have a role, I believe community neighbors, commun community members meaning their neighbors.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Our neighbors have a role. Like, what would it look like if our churches thought differently of our benevolence funds? If we saw less about taking care of our walls and using it more towards the people who are coming into the community. What would it look like for our if our neighborhoods truly took care of our neighbors?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And what would that look like if that's what we really did? And I and I have a feeling homelessness would decrease. I don't believe homelessness will ever end, but I do believe it would. Um I do believe it would decrease.

SPEAKER_02

I agree. I agree. Okay, well, that's all of our social media comments, but you've been on the show before, so you know what I like to do. What would be your sticky note for today? What do you want people to walk away with?

SPEAKER_00

Homelessness is incredibly complicated, and people do not fall into homelessness for any one reason. And uh to get them out, it's not gonna happen for any one reason. It's incredibly complicated. Um, and there are a lot of misnomers out there about homelessness, about stigmas about them as individuals. And of course, it comes along with that with with uh karm, stigmas about karm and what we do. And so I would say get involved. It's a very complicated issue. Um, get involved and learn more about what we do, who we serve, um, and how we operate. Um take a tour and see for yourself.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, agreed. Okay, my last question is what does Home mean to you? Last time you answered about your family, would it still be the same today?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's the same. Yeah. Every day I get older, obviously, and I find myself getting more uh emotional and sentimental with age. And so I find I'm trying to do my best to slow time down when it comes to my family.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so how can I make memories last longer? And um, yeah. So home is where my family is.

SPEAKER_02

Good answer. Good answer. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening today. You can find all the information at the links in our show notes, and I will see y'all at home.

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Celia Lively

Host
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Will Taylor

Producer
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Laura Lee Cochran

Editor