04-10-17 Health and Public Safety (AM)

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same time we had a gentleman by the name of Andrae Bailey, who is the CEO of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness. He came out with a very intense awareness campaign for the City of Orlando. All of these things fell into place accidentally at the same time. So we had an intense awareness campaign, lots of media in town because of the new shelter, and then a teacher who was living homeless on the streets. The media thought it was very interesting and for the last sixteen(16) or seventeen(17) days of my thirty (3 0) days on the street, it was on the news every night. It really changed the game. Not specifically my campaign, but with these three (3) issues happening all at once, I watched my community change. It used to be that people thought the Mayor of Orlando hated the homeless. Since then, I have lived homeless in thirteen (13) different cities across the United States,voluntarily. What I found was a hole in homeless services. Mr. Rebman continued, There isn't a lot of good guidance out there, business wise. What I mean by that is you have the United States Interagency Council, which is the federal authority that is giving guidance, and then each state takes that guidance and tailors it to themselves. They all have the same rules,but they all operate under different means. What I saw was a disconnect. For example if we took someone from Hope Ministries or any other service providers we have here today, what executive director there, or city or county councilperson has the time to go review everything that everyone has done nation-wide to find out what works and what doesn't work?I don't think any of the non-profit executive directors have the time to do that. So that's why I did what I did. Since then, I have been studying homelessness throughout the nation. I visited with literally every continuative caregiver in Florida. I am data-driven and have done all of the research and there is a big hole between continuums that want to improve,to improve. To get them all of the knowledge through both research and best practices is critical. Mr. Rebman went on,Now, I'll share with you how I got to South Bend. When I was living homeless,there were over 1 million people at one (1)point or another, following my posts. Social media helped introduce me to some of the services and the leaders in the South Bend community. Mr. Kevin Smith is who I started talking with initially last November. What I saw here is a community that is absolutely poised to be a national model. I go all over the country and I'm not going to say that anywhere else. I don't want you to think this is a sales pitch, it's not. South Bend has the best chance for success than any other city I've been in. In every other community I go to,my biggest goal is to get engagement from the people that are needed to fix this problem because it is a very complex problem. There is a medical aspect of it, there is a law enforcement aspect of it, and the list can go on with the people needing to be engaged.No one has the engagement that South Bend does. People are trying to work toward that engagement. Everyone in South Bend is truly excited for coming up with a solution in South Bend. Though it is a complex problem,this is a very solvable problem. A lot of people when they think homelessness for some reason think it's a big complex enigma that can't be fixed. Well the truth is, we have great model throughout the country of people that are doing things right. The guidance is out there,the funding is there, so it is a very solvable problem. All that is truly needed to solve this is community and political will. Mr. Rebman explained, There are three (3)things that exist within every city that has had success. The first thing every community had was a point person, a face. Let me be clear, this is not somebody that is knowledgeable about homelessness. What they do is they are a 2