December 11, 2024 • 15 mins
The man who started Amazon in his garage 40 years ago has become one of the richest people in the world. Jeff Bezos, who has promised to give away his billions in his lifetime has just changed lives again in Northern Kentucky, with a $1.25 million donation to Welcome House, a mission-driven non-profit committed to ending homelessness in the Tri-State. Today the CEO of Welcome House, Danielle Amrine explains how this second major grant from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund will change even more lives than the first one five years ago.
Click here to visit Welcome House
Click here to visit Welcome House
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Sandy Collins. This is iHeart Sinsey, a Tri State
public affairs show. My next guest is the CEO of
Welcome House, Danielle Amrin. Just learned that Welcome House in
Covington has received a second one point twenty five million
dollars grand from billionaire Jeff Bezos day One Family's fund
to continue their innovative solutions to homelessness for families here
(00:22):
in the Tri State.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hi, Danielle, welcome to iHeart Cincy. You are a social.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Worker who wants to reshape the affordable housing landscape. That's
a big, huge mission for your folks at Welcome House.
Why is it that homelessness is such an important issue
to you and that you've dedicated your career to it.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So I experienced homelessness myself as a young adult, So
I received a lot of help during that time, and
I wanted to make sure if I ever given the
opportunity again, that I would pay that forward. So this
is a very near and dear to my heart, cause
I'm very passionate about it and it's such an important
(01:09):
issue and topic in our community today. And this job
came available and I'm so excited about it and now
this is my opportunity to give back.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
To a population.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
And the way that I received that kind of grace
and compassion.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Tell us a little bit about Welcome House.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Welcome House is an amazing organization based out of Covington, Kentucky,
and we really work to take people from homeless to home.
So we want to prevent, reduce and in homelessness for
each person that we serve. We provide services in over
forty counties throughout the state of Kentucky. We provide over
(01:49):
thirty different programs and services to assist people, meet them
where they're at, provide trauma informed harm reduction practices to
really treat the whole person and help again prevent, reduce
and in homelessness for those that we serve.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Homelessness has become kind of a cultural flashpoint these days,
hasn't it. Oh, it has tell me about how that's
affecting things.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, I've dealt with this since I've been at
the organization. There's a lot of a lot of thoughts
and opinions on homelessness, and you know, I go back
to homelessness is a policy issue. It's not a characteristic
or it's not a personality trait that someone has. It
(02:39):
is a failed policy, and we are really working towards
changing that narrative and we can end homelessness. I firmly
believe that we can en homelessness and an affordable housing
and housing development is the way that we do that.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
You say it's failed policy, what do you mean by
homelessness is a result of failed policy.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So if you look back historically, back in the early seventies,
we had so much affordable housing that there were units
sitting empty. We were on pace, we were developing, we
were keeping consistent with wage and housing costs, and then
we stopped doing anything about it. And now even for
(03:22):
the state of Kentucky, we're about two hundred and fifty
thousand units short just in the state of Kentucky right now.
We're projecting it's going to be over three hundred thousand
by twenty twenty nine. Our policy has not kept up
with tax incentives. Our policies have not kept up with
(03:42):
scoring for affordable housing, a low income tax credit, projects,
development incentives to make sure that we are building enough
housing stock.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Not even for you know, subsidized housing.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
We're just talking about affordable housing in general.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Do you think that comes from people that in to
invest in housing projects and they don't want to rent
to lower income people who won't bring in as much
revenue for them.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Is that it the profitability of affordable housing is not
really there. It's not as attractive for developers to come
in and build those kind of developments, or private landlords
or people that are utilizing this as secondary income to
have real estate and investments. And you know, we support
(04:28):
those landlords and stuff as well.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
We know that people need to make a living and
that they deserve to.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
But I think there could be different investments made at
the local, state, and federal level that create incentives and
create you know, profitability for everyone when we're developing housing
that hits that middle gap of individuals who can't afford
you know, even single family dwellings as well as just
(04:54):
you know, affordable rental markets.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Welcome houses in Covington, but you also serve folks from
the greater Cincinnati area. So you're finding more and more
people are homeless because of failed policy. Would you say
that the prevailing reason is possibly mental health issues as
well as other policy concerns.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Actually, I don't really Yeah, that's all we hear. That's
all we hear, Danielle.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's just these people are mentally ill and they need help,
and we're not helping them the mental illness.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
But you don't find that.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I don't think that that is the primary driver of homelessness.
I think lack of affordable housing, lack of transitional housing,
shelter space is a primary driver. So if you look
statistically nationally, we have a record number of first time
homeless that is being driven by economic factors. I mean
(05:54):
it has been the re record number of first time homeless,
a record inc in first time homelessness post pandemic. We
are seeing new faces, new families, people living in cars,
people living in storage units, and these individuals don't all
have mental health issues. You are more likely if you're
a substance user or have mental health problems, you are
(06:17):
ninety nine percent more likely to be housed than unhoused.
So I think it's combating this narrative of the reason
why people are homeless. It's very easy to attribute it
to something specific with that individual because it helps people differentiate, Well,
that can't happen to me, because I don't do this
or I don't have this.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So that's why it's.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Happening to these people instead of taking a step back
and say this is a result of failed policy. In Kentucky,
we are required to have an animal shelter in every
single county, but we are not required to have a
shelter for human beings. Wow, so how is somebody supposed
to be outside and not have a stable place to
(06:59):
go because we do not have enough shelter beds in
our community. We do not have enough housing in our
community for people to be able to apply for jobs,
you know, make sure that they're getting their needs met
when they don't even know where they're going to eat
or sleep or be safe that night. So our brain
goes into survival.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Mode, so a lot of us can think long term.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
We can think about what we're going to do next month,
or what Christmas gifts we're going.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
To get our family this year.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
When you're in survival mode, your prefrontal cortex will not
allow you to think that far ahead. So people are
able to make those kind of decisions to line them
up when they're concerned.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
About am I going to freeze to death?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Where am I going to sleep? Am I going to
be able to get into the shelter? Tonight and where
am I going to eat? So we're looking at this
whole chain of events, and again the predictive model does
not substantiate that homelessness is caused by mental health or
substance abuse issues.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
This is iHeart Cincy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I'm your host Sandy Collins today talking with the sea
CEO of Welcome House in Covington.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's a homeless program.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
With the CEO, Danielle Amrin, you're talking about shelters, and
we're here to talk about the Bezos grant, which Welcome
House got, which is just an amazing investment in helping
your mission.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
But I do want to talk about the shelters.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You built your first shelter with the Bezos grant, what
was it five years ago, and you've been helping families
transition and most of those families, I think it's what
was your statistics, seventy four to seventy five percent we're
homeless and now they're staying housed. So you're finding great success.
(08:40):
What are you going to do with this second million
in a quarter from the Jeff Bezos Day one Families Fund.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Ah, this was such a blessing. This funding.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
It allows us to be innovative. It allows us to
really invest in the communities by being strategic.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
So one area that we plan to invest in is
our street outreach teams.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
A majority of the counties that we serve are predominantly rural,
so you aren't seeing homelessness the same way it presents
in an urban community.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
This is usually a hidden population.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
They are very maybe deep into industrial parks, out in encampment,
sometimes a mile or two into the woods where you
don't even realize that there are people living. There's a
lot of distrust, fear, and unwillingness to leave encampments because
they don't want them to be removed or you know,
other people coming in and taking what little resources that
(09:39):
they have. So our street outreach teams are critical and
going out into the woods, going out into these encampments
on the river banks and engaging with people, building trust,
building relationships, and being able to get those individuals into
shelters or into housing. Also landlord incentives to help in
sidivize lands lords to take individuals that have either housing
(10:03):
vouchers or get rapid rehousing or permanent support of housing
subsidized programs through Welcome House or some of our other
community partners.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
There's a fear.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Sometimes we have damages that happen to units, so you know,
creating a fund where landlords can apply to have some
of those damages covered might be a more incentive to
get some of these families that are in shelter out
of shelter.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
And back into stability.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And then creating written deposit and utility or rearage services
for people that might not qualify for a rapid rehousing
or a permanent support of housing program. We're trying to
expedite where housing first organization, so we believe that housing
is the priority.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Housing is the human right.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
When we get somebody housed, any other challenges or barriers
we can work through much easier if somebody has a
roof over their head and they're not worried about where
they're going to sleep that night, where they're going to
get their next meal.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And their kids as well.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, we're the only shelter in the region that shelter
moms with kids, dads with kids, and two parent.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Families with kids.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
There's no other shelter in the entire region that provides
that service.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
You know, you're talking about going to shelters and then
you find people on the streets to say, well, I
don't want to go to a shelter. When you ask
them why they don't want to go to a shelter,
oftentimes they say, I don't want to go because I
won't be safe. Someone will steal my stuff. The last
time I got there, I got into a fight and
I got beat up.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Whatever. How do you address the safety issue at Welcome House?
Speaker 4 (11:27):
So, luckily for us, we have a very safe shelter.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
So because we have, how you know, a shelter for kids,
our primary goal is the safety of the children and
of the families.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
So, you know, we allow people to come in and
take a.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Tour of our shelter first to see if that's something
that they would be interested in.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So it's kind of a baby steps. You know.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
If somebody's not interested in shelter, we're okay to support them.
We never tell somebody that they're doing something wrong by
being outside or the way that they're choosing to live
is in some way. We are there to meet them
where they're at and support them. And sometimes they just
want food or they're concerned about maybe their diabetes or
something else. So we try to meet them where they're
(12:10):
at and that builds the relationship and trust, and then
when they trust us, we can say, hey, these are
the other services that we have available, and we're able
to you know, guide them through that process in a
very trauma informed harm reduction way.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I wish we could go on and on about this
because there's so much more. We'll have to have you
come back here after the holidays and we'll continue to
talk about a welcome house in Covington for.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
People that you know.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Obviously, people that are listening to this program right now
in this iHeartRadio station, they're probably housed. So we're talking
more to housed individuals than we are unhoused individuals. So
when you have someone that you come across with that
you have an interaction with, who needs services and you're
on the street, you want to help them, but you
have no idea where to turn. What do you recommend
(12:59):
For folks in northern Kentucky in the greater Cincinnati area,
you know how to prepare themselves to help people when
they see that they need the help.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, So we always encourage people to have blessing bags
in their car if that's something that you know speaks
to them and speaks to their heart and our people
outside generally need socks, can openers. You know a lot
of people are able, They're able to go in and
get canned food, but they have no way of opening
it or eating it.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
So on our website we have all.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Lists of you know, items and supplies for blessing bags,
how people can have kind of event or a donation drive,
and what those items are.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Always.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
You know, people can reach out to us on Facebook.
They can call our office and say, hey, I saw
a gentleman on the corner of the street and the street,
or I know of a family that I think might
be experiencing homelessness, and we can send our street outreach
teams out to meet with that individual and get them
connected to services. And sometimes they may already be connected
to services. But you know, supporting the local agencies that
(14:04):
are doing this work, I think is also a good measure.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
We're out there every.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Single day, three hundred and sixty five days a year,
providing the service to our friends outside, making sure that
they're taken care of, making sure that they're supported, and
that our communities are safe. And you know that we're
providing that level of support to everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Danielle, Let's get that number right now, because people are saying, Okay,
what's the phone number? What's the phone number to call
Welcome House? I want to I want to call and
give more information.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
What is it? So let me pull up what our
specific street outreach number is because I have that in
my phone.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
So one second, our phone number.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
At Welcome House for anybody who wants to reach us
is eight five nine four three one eight seven one seven.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Danielle m Rin, the CEO of Welcome House in Covington,
thanks so much for your time and congratulations on that
Bezos grant.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Thank you. We are so appreciated of the Bezos fun
and everything that they've been able to do for us
with the you know, day one family's fun. We're excited
to you know, save some lives and you know, change
the world.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
That's iHeart Sinsey for this week. Let me know your
thoughts on what's happening here in the Tri State, what
problems you see, what solutions you found, or you can
comment or suggest topics or guests for the show. Just
send me an email to Iheartsinsey at iHeartMedia dot com.
That's Iheartsinsey with an I at iHeartMedia dot com. This
show can be heard and shared from iHeart dot com
(15:34):
and the iHeartRadio app. Just search under podcasts for my
name Sandy Collins, Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
iHeart Sinsey is a production of iHeartMedia, Cincinnati,
I'm Sandy Collins. This is iHeart Sinsey, a Tri State
public affairs show. My next guest is the CEO of
Welcome House, Danielle Amrin. Just learned that Welcome House in
Covington has received a second one point twenty five million
dollars grand from billionaire Jeff Bezos day One Family's fund
to continue their innovative solutions to homelessness for families here
(00:22):
in the Tri State.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hi, Danielle, welcome to iHeart Cincy. You are a social.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Worker who wants to reshape the affordable housing landscape. That's
a big, huge mission for your folks at Welcome House.
Why is it that homelessness is such an important issue
to you and that you've dedicated your career to it.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So I experienced homelessness myself as a young adult, So
I received a lot of help during that time, and
I wanted to make sure if I ever given the
opportunity again, that I would pay that forward. So this
is a very near and dear to my heart, cause
I'm very passionate about it and it's such an important
(01:09):
issue and topic in our community today. And this job
came available and I'm so excited about it and now
this is my opportunity to give back.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
To a population.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
And the way that I received that kind of grace
and compassion.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Tell us a little bit about Welcome House.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Welcome House is an amazing organization based out of Covington, Kentucky,
and we really work to take people from homeless to home.
So we want to prevent, reduce and in homelessness for
each person that we serve. We provide services in over
forty counties throughout the state of Kentucky. We provide over
(01:49):
thirty different programs and services to assist people, meet them
where they're at, provide trauma informed harm reduction practices to
really treat the whole person and help again prevent, reduce
and in homelessness for those that we serve.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Homelessness has become kind of a cultural flashpoint these days,
hasn't it. Oh, it has tell me about how that's
affecting things.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, I've dealt with this since I've been at
the organization. There's a lot of a lot of thoughts
and opinions on homelessness, and you know, I go back
to homelessness is a policy issue. It's not a characteristic
or it's not a personality trait that someone has. It
(02:39):
is a failed policy, and we are really working towards
changing that narrative and we can end homelessness. I firmly
believe that we can en homelessness and an affordable housing
and housing development is the way that we do that.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
You say it's failed policy, what do you mean by
homelessness is a result of failed policy.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So if you look back historically, back in the early seventies,
we had so much affordable housing that there were units
sitting empty. We were on pace, we were developing, we
were keeping consistent with wage and housing costs, and then
we stopped doing anything about it. And now even for
(03:22):
the state of Kentucky, we're about two hundred and fifty
thousand units short just in the state of Kentucky right now.
We're projecting it's going to be over three hundred thousand
by twenty twenty nine. Our policy has not kept up
with tax incentives. Our policies have not kept up with
(03:42):
scoring for affordable housing, a low income tax credit, projects,
development incentives to make sure that we are building enough
housing stock.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Not even for you know, subsidized housing.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
We're just talking about affordable housing in general.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Do you think that comes from people that in to
invest in housing projects and they don't want to rent
to lower income people who won't bring in as much
revenue for them.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Is that it the profitability of affordable housing is not
really there. It's not as attractive for developers to come
in and build those kind of developments, or private landlords
or people that are utilizing this as secondary income to
have real estate and investments. And you know, we support
(04:28):
those landlords and stuff as well.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
We know that people need to make a living and
that they deserve to.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
But I think there could be different investments made at
the local, state, and federal level that create incentives and
create you know, profitability for everyone when we're developing housing
that hits that middle gap of individuals who can't afford
you know, even single family dwellings as well as just
(04:54):
you know, affordable rental markets.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Welcome houses in Covington, but you also serve folks from
the greater Cincinnati area. So you're finding more and more
people are homeless because of failed policy. Would you say
that the prevailing reason is possibly mental health issues as
well as other policy concerns.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Actually, I don't really Yeah, that's all we hear. That's
all we hear, Danielle.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's just these people are mentally ill and they need help,
and we're not helping them the mental illness.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
But you don't find that.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
I don't think that that is the primary driver of homelessness.
I think lack of affordable housing, lack of transitional housing,
shelter space is a primary driver. So if you look
statistically nationally, we have a record number of first time
homeless that is being driven by economic factors. I mean
(05:54):
it has been the re record number of first time homeless,
a record inc in first time homelessness post pandemic. We
are seeing new faces, new families, people living in cars,
people living in storage units, and these individuals don't all
have mental health issues. You are more likely if you're
a substance user or have mental health problems, you are
(06:17):
ninety nine percent more likely to be housed than unhoused.
So I think it's combating this narrative of the reason
why people are homeless. It's very easy to attribute it
to something specific with that individual because it helps people differentiate, Well,
that can't happen to me, because I don't do this
or I don't have this.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So that's why it's.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Happening to these people instead of taking a step back
and say this is a result of failed policy. In Kentucky,
we are required to have an animal shelter in every
single county, but we are not required to have a
shelter for human beings. Wow, so how is somebody supposed
to be outside and not have a stable place to
(06:59):
go because we do not have enough shelter beds in
our community. We do not have enough housing in our
community for people to be able to apply for jobs,
you know, make sure that they're getting their needs met
when they don't even know where they're going to eat
or sleep or be safe that night. So our brain
goes into survival.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Mode, so a lot of us can think long term.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
We can think about what we're going to do next month,
or what Christmas gifts we're going.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
To get our family this year.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
When you're in survival mode, your prefrontal cortex will not
allow you to think that far ahead. So people are
able to make those kind of decisions to line them
up when they're concerned.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
About am I going to freeze to death?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Where am I going to sleep? Am I going to
be able to get into the shelter? Tonight and where
am I going to eat? So we're looking at this
whole chain of events, and again the predictive model does
not substantiate that homelessness is caused by mental health or
substance abuse issues.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
This is iHeart Cincy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I'm your host Sandy Collins today talking with the sea
CEO of Welcome House in Covington.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's a homeless program.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
With the CEO, Danielle Amrin, you're talking about shelters, and
we're here to talk about the Bezos grant, which Welcome
House got, which is just an amazing investment in helping
your mission.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
But I do want to talk about the shelters.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
You built your first shelter with the Bezos grant, what
was it five years ago, and you've been helping families
transition and most of those families, I think it's what
was your statistics, seventy four to seventy five percent we're
homeless and now they're staying housed. So you're finding great success.
(08:40):
What are you going to do with this second million
in a quarter from the Jeff Bezos Day one Families Fund.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Ah, this was such a blessing. This funding.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
It allows us to be innovative. It allows us to
really invest in the communities by being strategic.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
So one area that we plan to invest in is
our street outreach teams.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
A majority of the counties that we serve are predominantly rural,
so you aren't seeing homelessness the same way it presents
in an urban community.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
This is usually a hidden population.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
They are very maybe deep into industrial parks, out in encampment,
sometimes a mile or two into the woods where you
don't even realize that there are people living. There's a
lot of distrust, fear, and unwillingness to leave encampments because
they don't want them to be removed or you know,
other people coming in and taking what little resources that
(09:39):
they have. So our street outreach teams are critical and
going out into the woods, going out into these encampments
on the river banks and engaging with people, building trust,
building relationships, and being able to get those individuals into
shelters or into housing. Also landlord incentives to help in
sidivize lands lords to take individuals that have either housing
(10:03):
vouchers or get rapid rehousing or permanent support of housing
subsidized programs through Welcome House or some of our other
community partners.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
There's a fear.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Sometimes we have damages that happen to units, so you know,
creating a fund where landlords can apply to have some
of those damages covered might be a more incentive to
get some of these families that are in shelter out
of shelter.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
And back into stability.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And then creating written deposit and utility or rearage services
for people that might not qualify for a rapid rehousing
or a permanent support of housing program. We're trying to
expedite where housing first organization, so we believe that housing
is the priority.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Housing is the human right.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
When we get somebody housed, any other challenges or barriers
we can work through much easier if somebody has a
roof over their head and they're not worried about where
they're going to sleep that night, where they're going to
get their next meal.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And their kids as well.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, we're the only shelter in the region that shelter
moms with kids, dads with kids, and two parent.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Families with kids.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
There's no other shelter in the entire region that provides
that service.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
You know, you're talking about going to shelters and then
you find people on the streets to say, well, I
don't want to go to a shelter. When you ask
them why they don't want to go to a shelter,
oftentimes they say, I don't want to go because I
won't be safe. Someone will steal my stuff. The last
time I got there, I got into a fight and
I got beat up.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Whatever. How do you address the safety issue at Welcome House?
Speaker 4 (11:27):
So, luckily for us, we have a very safe shelter.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
So because we have, how you know, a shelter for kids,
our primary goal is the safety of the children and
of the families.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
So, you know, we allow people to come in and
take a.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Tour of our shelter first to see if that's something
that they would be interested in.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So it's kind of a baby steps. You know.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
If somebody's not interested in shelter, we're okay to support them.
We never tell somebody that they're doing something wrong by
being outside or the way that they're choosing to live
is in some way. We are there to meet them
where they're at and support them. And sometimes they just
want food or they're concerned about maybe their diabetes or
something else. So we try to meet them where they're
(12:10):
at and that builds the relationship and trust, and then
when they trust us, we can say, hey, these are
the other services that we have available, and we're able
to you know, guide them through that process in a
very trauma informed harm reduction way.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I wish we could go on and on about this
because there's so much more. We'll have to have you
come back here after the holidays and we'll continue to
talk about a welcome house in Covington for.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
People that you know.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Obviously, people that are listening to this program right now
in this iHeartRadio station, they're probably housed. So we're talking
more to housed individuals than we are unhoused individuals. So
when you have someone that you come across with that
you have an interaction with, who needs services and you're
on the street, you want to help them, but you
have no idea where to turn. What do you recommend
(12:59):
For folks in northern Kentucky in the greater Cincinnati area,
you know how to prepare themselves to help people when
they see that they need the help.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, So we always encourage people to have blessing bags
in their car if that's something that you know speaks
to them and speaks to their heart and our people
outside generally need socks, can openers. You know a lot
of people are able, They're able to go in and
get canned food, but they have no way of opening
it or eating it.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
So on our website we have all.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Lists of you know, items and supplies for blessing bags,
how people can have kind of event or a donation drive,
and what those items are.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Always.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
You know, people can reach out to us on Facebook.
They can call our office and say, hey, I saw
a gentleman on the corner of the street and the street,
or I know of a family that I think might
be experiencing homelessness, and we can send our street outreach
teams out to meet with that individual and get them
connected to services. And sometimes they may already be connected
to services. But you know, supporting the local agencies that
(14:04):
are doing this work, I think is also a good measure.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
We're out there every.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Single day, three hundred and sixty five days a year,
providing the service to our friends outside, making sure that
they're taken care of, making sure that they're supported, and
that our communities are safe. And you know that we're
providing that level of support to everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Danielle, Let's get that number right now, because people are saying, Okay,
what's the phone number? What's the phone number to call
Welcome House? I want to I want to call and
give more information.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
What is it? So let me pull up what our
specific street outreach number is because I have that in
my phone.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
So one second, our phone number.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
At Welcome House for anybody who wants to reach us
is eight five nine four three one eight seven one seven.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Danielle m Rin, the CEO of Welcome House in Covington,
thanks so much for your time and congratulations on that
Bezos grant.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Thank you. We are so appreciated of the Bezos fun
and everything that they've been able to do for us
with the you know, day one family's fun. We're excited
to you know, save some lives and you know, change
the world.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
That's iHeart Sinsey for this week. Let me know your
thoughts on what's happening here in the Tri State, what
problems you see, what solutions you found, or you can
comment or suggest topics or guests for the show. Just
send me an email to Iheartsinsey at iHeartMedia dot com.
That's Iheartsinsey with an I at iHeartMedia dot com. This
show can be heard and shared from iHeart dot com
(15:34):
and the iHeartRadio app. Just search under podcasts for my
name Sandy Collins, Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
iHeart Sinsey is a production of iHeartMedia, Cincinnati,
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