Many Brains. One Heart.

Heath Fletcher 0:02
Sit back, and let's get to the heart of the matter. Welcome, this is our first podcast! What we're here to find out is a little bit more about you and Turning Points Collaborative Society and find out what that organization does in this community. What you do for that organization, and and who you serve. So this give me a little high level recap of what the turning points collaborative is all about. Sure. Turning

Laurie Case 1:03
Points collaborative society is our full name. We serve people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in our community. So we're providing outreach, shelter services, addiction, support and housing. And we work everywhere from Enderby, to West Kelowna. So it's a pretty big area, our main offices in Vernon, but we've spread pretty far to meet the needs that are going on in our community right now.

Heath Fletcher 1:33
And it's grown a lot. Again, the time that I've been here, Turning Points wasn't always Turning Points. That's right, started off as a couple of different couple of different organizations, I guess.

Laurie Case 1:45
Yeah, formerly a John Howard society. And there was a point, let's say was about 2017, where the organization realized that the mandate was had sort of shifted, you know, there's still John Howard society's in Kelowna, and other parts of the province. But we were shifting a little bit. And so there was a name change I think you guys helped out with, which has really was important to reflect the current status of the organization and what the goals were. So I think the name has really secured itself too. And a lot of ways, one of the big parts of what I do as the Executive Director of Communications is my title is to create awareness about who we are, isn't necessarily brand awareness, but it's awareness of who provides the services in the community, and who they can, you know, who people can call, you know, to answer questions or reach out to for supports, and one of the things I do is sort of navigate those incoming questions and whose best to answer this, and, you know, who can support that person. And what I find amazing about our group, you know, there's between full time and part time staff, there's over 200 employees right now. So it's a big group. But the individual service that happens, you know, it still amazes me that, you know, when I walk into the shelter in Vernon, which is pretty big, our staff knows everybody by their first name, they could have just arrived and they know them personally, if I get an email from, you know, a specific person about their son or daughter, I know that when I send that off to our, our team, they're gonna get a phone call, they'll get a direct phone call. So there's this real one on one service, because our team just really cares a lot about making sure that people have access to housing.

Heath Fletcher 3:37
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, and having been in the community for these years, I've seen how many different components are and moving parts that have come along with that. it's never been more apparent, and being communications you probably hear everything and and manage the messaging and all that. So how has from that perspective, how do you manage that messaging piece?

Laurie Case 4:04
Yeah, there's, we've taken a really deliberate approach to not respond to the haters are going to hate, you know, and so we just don't apologize for who we are and what we do. You know, there are some segments of the population that just want someone to blame and, and that's, you know, human nature, I think. So. Our our goal is to just do the work and be present in the community. I want to be the first person to answer media requests. I want to make sure that if if media reaches out to us that we are the first to answer we want to answer we want to be seen as the ones who kind of know what's happening and are responding. And that's about sort of building trust in the community. So that can't just happen at a communications level. It has to actually be happening. And it does. I mean, I think our our executive team or our leadership team is very connected in the community and You know, just always, you know, the collaboration is in our name. And it's not. It's not by chance. It's it's an it was an important piece. I'm sure this was before my time, but the way collaboration works with our team and the community is such a critical piece of how we operate and why I think we've been successful. And I think it is a little bit of that special sauce of why Vernon is doing really well, when it comes to addressing homelessness. I mean, there's obviously lots of work still to be done. But the collaborative approach of having regular communications interactions, phone calls, meetings with committees, and, you know, other agencies, government bodies, all of that, and like we have, that's been a really important piece, and it works, you know, so I think that's one of the reasons why it's, it's working in Vernon, right. You know,

Heath Fletcher 5:58
How do you evaluate that when you say, when you compare how Vernon's doing compared to Kelowna, or Vancouver, or Nelson or whatever, how do you how do you evaluate?

Laurie Case 6:10
It's probably one of the biggest challenges I have and one of the first things I asked when I started, because I don't come from a specific communications background, I don't have a master's degree in communications. We'll talk about how I got here later. But that was one of the first questions I asked was, how can I show success? How can I say, like, look at the numbers, this is what we were, and this is where we are. But, you know, it kind of became really clear to me that individual success is what we're after, right? So success might look like, you know, Joe, at the shelter, learned how to do laundry today, right? You know, or, you know, somebody else got a job, you know, hasn't been able to hold down a job or, you know, somebody else is dealing with their addictions. So how do you evaluate from one person to the next what success is, it's not like we're moving, you know, cattle, these are human beings, and they all have different lived experiences, different challenges. But then, you know, on the, on the sort of bigger societal scale, we're dealing with housing crisis or rental crisis, we had the pandemic, we had fires all going on, and then we have, you know, the opioid poisoning crisis. So all of that is this massive piece of what we deal with. And so I think, take away all those big external factors, and we'd be able to show this person move through here, but we've got all these other things happening that are kind of putting additional pressure on creating this, you know, the numbers. So it's, it's hard to make it a numbers game,

Heath Fletcher 7:47
Of course, the public only evaluates them based on what they see. Right, which is what's happening on the streets or in the parks or wherever else. And that's how they evaluate it.

Laurie Case 7:57
Exactly, but I had, one of the ways I think that this really showed up is when we had the we're at the Community Expo last year, and the Mayor said this, but we also heard it from multiple people coming up to us, was like, what would it look like if Turning Points wasn't here? So you may see homelessness visibly, but if Turning Points wasn't providing the services here, like, I can't imagine what that was you know, so you know, we've got, we've got a shelter, we've got a couple of supportive housing buildings, we've got scattered site housing, we've got a motel program, we've got addiction services, like when you add all those things up, and then in Kelowna, and in West Kelowna, there, the numbers, you know, we're housing over 500 people at night, so imagine not having access to those services. And, and then, you know, I mean, everybody has different reasons for for maybe living rough if that's what people see. But that isn't the only that's not the only measure of homelessness, right? You know, you don't necessarily see the seventy year old man sleeping in his truck at McDonald's. You may not see it, you just see a truck there. And, you know, the response to something like that, in Vernon is incredible. That specific example is, I had forgotten about this when you were asking you before about, specific stories about communications, and my daughter was working at McDonald's, and I every time I dropped her off, I saw this man in his Dodge pickup and he looked like an older guy like 60s For sure. The truck is fully packed with stuff. And I after dropping her off for a couple of weeks, and like that, man is living there for sure. He's living out of his truck. And so I phoned her team and she literally drove over there and called me the day later thing yet we got him into a place. He had no idea what to do. He didn't know he doesn't want to navigate the service. Right, like it's, you've never been homeless before. How do you know? I think of my dad, my dad wouldn't know what to do, right? So this man was just like, well, I guess I'm gonna live in m truck. I can survive, I can do this on my own.

So she shows up, and this isn't a handout we're talking about, it's like, you can apply and qualify for certain subsidies when you're below, you know, a certain income level, right, he wouldn't have known that, you know, so got him into our motel program, that kind of thing. So that's sort of that's what I was saying before about that one on one support that happens in a small community in a way that maybe doesn't happen in larger centers. You know, I think this the service providers in a place like Vancouver, probably would argue that because in their, in their specific area of work, for sure they know everybody one on one, but you're dealing with multiple agencies and trying to collaborate in that environment would be pretty challenging I think.

Heath Fletcher 10:59
Yeah, it's probably surprise, it would be surprising for a lot of people to know who all the people are that you serve, because like you say, you know, when we, when we talk about homelessness, you know, there's stereotypes still, but we know that, you know, there are lots of other reasons why people end up homeless like that, for example, the gentleman in the truck. So maybe talk about a little bit about who all the different people are that you serve, and, and maybe there's some surprises there we don't even know about?

Laurie Case 11:31
Well, I think one of the things that's happening now do these other big pressures is that gap is really growing, you know, from low income behind him, that middle group is at greater risk than ever before. And I think one of the one of the groups that, you know, probably breaks my heart the most is the seniors. And, you know, just like that, man, but it's, they don't know what to do, and why should they like, it's so angry about that these are the people that have worked their whole lives have given back to their community maybe volunteered in their community, and then they ended up on pension and can't afford rent period. And now, they're the ones that have to struggle through homelessness, the idea that, you know, folks who are working, who are maybe fleeing abuse, who are just on low income, are at serious risk, if not, you know, fully entrenched into homelessness, now, that group is growing, you know, at a rate that we've not seen before. And those other big pressures, you know, are happening and causing that. So single parents who are single parents are is a huge part, you know, we've got a motel program here that, you know, I was going door to door talking to some of them, and one man that I remember in particular, like he's, I don't know, maybe in his 40s, three kids on his own, he can't work. He's got three little kids, how was he supposed to afford a job and daycare, these little kids and can't find a house? Because who wants to rent to a man with three little kids? You know, and no job, that's not going to happen for him. So that's just like this vicious cycle for him? How does he get out of it? And so working with our team kind of helps him find access to the subsidies, maybe he would qualify for, actually help him have some of those interviews with landlords, but for now, you know, in our motel program, and at least having a roof over his head with his kids.

Heath Fletcher 13:28
You're right, navigating those, those processes and procedures, because they're still attached to bureaucracy and government applications and just having access to people who understand it is such a huge relief.

Laurie Case 13:41
Yeah, we have a homeless outreach program that kind of connects with people specifically for that to help them navigate those services, so that's just one of the in that phone rings off the hook for that. off the hook. So

Heath Fletcher 13:56
So there's room, there's room for growth?

Laurie Case 14:00
I think so. So but, you know, it's all comes down to funding. And I think one of the growth areas too, right now that really needs some focus is addiction services. We can't have enough of that right now. And I think every community in the province and the country would probably say the same thing about that, you know, our addictions services team is incredible. I feel like they literally see lives changed every day. Like, it's that's not an exaggeration, by any means, you know, so that program works and the in terms of statistics, it's at, you know, its success rate is higher than the national average by a longshot. So I think we could if we grew that, I think that would be I mean, that's a goal of ours, for sure. It comes down to kind of marketing and campaigns and those are hard to do as an agency that's a nonprofit, you know, we don't have you know, deep deep pockets to kind of dive into that kind of marketing, but that's definitely on the radar. And then The other thing right now that's getting a lot of traction, I think because it just makes sense, is we're calling it the scattered sites program. So when you're looking at a continuum of housing everywhere from shelter, shelter is not housing, that's just emergency services, all the way through supportive housing, to affordable housing, and then market housing, we're trying to address this problem of just access to that affordable and market housing because people can't move through the continuum if there's no housing on the other end. So people wonder why is nobody moving through supportive housing? Well, where are they going to move into, you know, it's hard for somebody with a full time job to find a rental right now, let alone someone who's maybe got some lived experience of homelessness and, you know, maintaining a job and that sort of thing to be an attractive rental tenant for a landlord. So what we're working on is this program where we will kind of broker that relationship between a tenant and a landlord. So for a year, we will sign the lease, and we will be that kind of backup. So I've got a tenant for you, Heath, and you're like, okay, but look, you know, Turning Points will sign the lease, to make sure and support him through that tenancy. So if they have problems meeting rent that year, we will be able to kind of back them up. I mean, the still the, the expectation is they'll pay rent, but that year is Turning Points supporting them to maintain tenancy and really understand how it works, right. And then at the end of the year, everything goes great. We will sign over the lease to the tenant and you guys have a an ongoing relationship. But then that's also protection for the landlord that if something does happen, not all tenancies are going to be successful, whether or not there's somebody that's come out of homelessness, oh, I mean, as a landlord, I've experienced that before. So it's protection for the landlord that we have experience and staff members who understand the residential tenancy branch and all of the bureaucracy that goes with that, and that's a whole other conversation and frustration for landlords as well as for tenants. So we're trying to broker that relationship to make it attractive for landlords to try and get us a little more, you know, we just want to have access to more rentals. We need more stock. Yeah, you know, for folks so we can move people through this. Yeah, so we just had a big fundraiser in Kelowna, last weekend, a comedy show and raised money for it. And it was really successful. I think we're at like, 77,000 we raised and so that's like that money is basically the kitty to keep that working in. It's a revolving fun, like, it's not one that should deplete if everything works successfully. It'll support the next person coming in and the next person coming in.

Heath Fletcher 17:54
So that program was cross inter-city?

Laurie Case 17:59
We were focusing on Kelowna with that one, but we started that program in burnin, as well.

Heath Fletcher 18:04
Yeah. Could see that going? Well, yeah, that's risk free. Really. I mean, you're doing you're doing something really good. You're providing a service as a as a landowner or homeowner. But you're also collaborating with Turning Points?

Laurie Case 18:18
You can see success with it. That's the thing. Folks who want to contribute to an agency want to see success, they want to understand how does it work? So, you know, this one allows you to see, Brian got access to a house, we're supporting him. And at the end of the year, Brian is taking over, you know, Brian is okay, now Brian is taken care of, that's the, that's easy to see and wrap your head around, you know, and Brian is an actual person that I interviewed him for a little video I did for the, for the fundraiser. But it was not meant to be that, you know, this is the nuts and bolts of the program was meant to be, this is who you're helping. And this is how it helps. And it's just that concept of access to a basic human right, to have a roof over your head. And it was one of these like moments. I mean, you would know as a filmmaker to like, I wrote out what I wanted it to look like, and sound like and it was literally a minute, that's, that's all I needed it to be was. I'm not a cinematographer. So I just had my cell phone and I'm like, Okay, I just set myself up for success here. So I just want to shoot a couple of shots of his environment where he's living, and record him telling me what it means what it means to him. And so I wrote out this description of what his apartment looked like, and I walked in and I swear to God, it was exactly how I described it, like right down to the Louis L'Amour book sitting on his side table. So I was like, Okay, I shot this stuff and then interviewed him and he was One of the best interviews I've probably ever done in my career, and I've got a 30 year career of interviewing a lot of people. And he just kind of hit it out of the park. And one of the things he said was, this place is like heaven to me, like, and this is the most sparsely decorated little apartment you've ever seen. And he was like, I have died and gone to heaven. That's what he told me. Wow, you know, he's like, I never thought I would have a place this nice. Wow. And he's this funny seven year old crotchety old guy with a bit of a twinkle in his eye, right, you know, one of those guys? And he said to me, as well, I'm not I'm not the poster child, you know. And I'm like, you kind of are actually because, you know, seventy years old, he was 13 years living out of his truck and on the street, because he couldn't work because he broke his back. So the way he described it is he kind of fell into poor health and poverty.

Was this the guy at McDonald's? No, this is a whole differnt guy. That's how common it is? Right? Just a very similar story. Yeah, exactly. So 13 years , and he was kind of funny. He's like, 13 years of navigating government agencies, and I couldn't figure it out. And then six months with turning points, and I'm in an apartment like this, and holy cow, it's, it's done. You know, so he's just one of those amazing stories. But that's the that's can be really common, you know, when you're providing the continuum, when you have the support services, he's, we have a support worker that goes to see him once a week, once every couple of weeks is to check in on him. And he's like, it's nice. I've got I've got a guy, Jeff, he'll come he'll pick me up from a medical appointment if I need or whatever. And so kind of just getting him on his feet. So it's just one of those stories that will probably sit with me for a long time.

Heath Fletcher 21:43
It's just such evidence for you, that what you guys are doing works exactly where it's needed. Yeah. And it's not just there's not just one solution.

Laurie Case 21:54
Exactly. And that's the thing, I want to shout from the rooftops, especially when it comes to addiction services, that it's not just, you know, force people into, you know, forced addiction treatment, you know, that might work for this person, but then the next person, we need to wait, like we need to have services where harm reduction is available, and services where it is abstinent like we need all of it. So that silver bullet, I think if it existed, we would have figured it out by now. So I think we need in this a wide range of, of services to meet those needs.

Heath Fletcher 22:30
You brought this up earlier, you talked about that, you know, this is a nonprofit organization. It's a business. And you're part of the sort of marketing component. And it's a business that needs to be marketed, and it needs to raise awareness, it needs to raise money. What are some of the challenges you experience as a nonprofit in this sort of, you know, you're in a very social problem solving industry? How do you do that?

Laurie Case 23:01
I don'y know Heath, help me out? It's interesting, because I, I come from a background of creating content for organizations that have sort of figured out their strategy or working on their strategy. And so now being embedded in it, and developing the strategy is sort of a different side. For me, I love our approach, I love that, you know, the plan is to just be proud of who we are, and just do the work, I find that really easy to kind of get behind and support. And so it's a little bit about just, you know, being at the events, networking, I'm not very good at that. And that's, you know, it's just me, but our whole team does it there around being being available at, you know, the Expo and Job Fairs and things like that. And we're actually noticing traction, improve social media, that kind of thing or website, the actual, the change with our website was a massive fix for us. And I knew when I when I landed in the job, that's not my forte, but that was the first thing that needed to be addressed. It wasn't good enough, and it wasn't clear. And now it is, and it's always a moving target, I think, and it can always do a little bit better. But that certainly helped. Yeah, I feel like we've got a we got to crack that nut a little bit more to it's a, like you say it is a business and we operate like a business. But we're also a business that's trying to kind of work ourselves out of a job. That's the whole point. Right, right. Right and wrong. It's hard to justify spending Exactly. But it's also hard to justify spending a whole lot of money on marketing, when that money can be, you know, put towards a program and I think we'll always kind of come down to that, you know, is what we're spending our time and money on actually serving people. Yeah, that's the goal. So I mean, the biggest challenge is obviously stereotyping. And just those, you know, working against the people that don't understand, you know, stigma is a huge piece of it.

Heath Fletcher 25:10
That story you told a Brian just now, for example, I mean, that, to me is it was the most compelling way to show and tell people what the organization does and who it supports. Because I mean, the more of those stories that get out there, and people see and hear from the people who are actually, you know, being impacted and getting the positive outcomes. That's really cool. Because that story for me, it was awesome.

Laurie Case 25:39
I would say, you walk through the shelter, and you stopped and interviewed every single person, you'd hear a story and you'd be like, Oh, wow, I never would have thought we were just I had a local filmmaker that came through and he's doing a piece for story hive, tell the story hive and he, he sat down and interviewed, he's interviewed a few people, but this one woman at the shelter, and she's a nurse, a couple kids, and you know how to whole life like married couple kids, full time job. And I think it was, you know, her family broke down and landed in addiction, like prescription drugs, right? Lost her kids, lost her house, lost her job lost, you know, and she's sitting at the shelter. So this is like, this is like me, I happen to me, right? Anyone? Any one of us? Yeah. And so I think if you walk through the shelter and talk to every single person the same way, you'd hear that story, same with the supportive housing, every one of them probably has the most fascinating background and lived experience. And getting that out is the challenge, right? Because I can tell all those stories. And that's like the dream job, right? Your storyteller? That's what I do. Yeah. How do you get it out there? They're like, I can produce the content. But then it's like the marketing piece. So yeah, that's why I, that's the challenge, I think, yeah.

Heath Fletcher 27:00
The Well, we met a little while ago, when we were meeting about doing a video for Turning Points, for me seeing seeing the spaces, because part of that video was about showing the spaces but not the faces, right, and really explaining what goes on in some of those facilities. And that was just a voiceover that was told by actual, actual participants from the program. That was very impactful. I mean, just listening to those stories during the filming of that, but also seeing the locations and how many people actually go through those facilities. It was really eye opening to is so it's showing it's, you know, that's a really, it's, that's the biggest part of that is storytelling and getting those out there.

Laurie Case 27:47
I think like, even just doing a podcast like this, there's, there's so much to that concept of the voices. Right? Like, yeah, do I need to see your face? Do I need to, you know, breach your privacy in order to understand your story? And I just, obviously never want to be in a position of exploiting someone. Yeah,

Heath Fletcher 28:08
that's so you get you get caught up in that level, you know, are you leveraging this person for that? Yes. And stuff like that, which is, I think, why you went down that road with that video was to kind of remove the face, but hear the story, hear the voice.

Laurie Case 28:22
And it does show to how a voice has so much character. If we had brought actors in to do that, it would have been so transparent that they were so you have, you know, the real voice with that gravelly sound or whatever it might be, you know, that's an actual person. And that's their actual story. Yeah. So and a good microphone makes all the difference. Oh, yes. Should we do some ASMR right now?

Heath Fletcher 28:56
That's actually a good segue to talk about you a little bit and where you came from before you got to Vernon? So give us a little insight on that.

Laurie Case 29:07
Enderby girl, don't judge me. I love Enderby, I love my hometown and sort of grew up knowing I wanted to be in television and just kind of set the path and made my way did BCIT and then worked in television and documentary production, some scripted as well and Vancouver for 30 years and then you know, like so many other people COVID hit and my husband and I had talked about moving to the Okanagan for retirement and COVID just sort of allowed it to happen sooner so we kind of it's not early retirement because I feel like I'm working more now than ever but we made our way to the Okanagan and you know, just love it. I love being near my my dad and our cabin on the lake and just sort of being at the end of the day being where you want to be. That was that was the hard part was in Vancouver. I mean, I loved our little community. But I was always trying to leave. I was always trying to get out of town. And getting out of town out of Vancouver is not fun. Yeah, traffic wise. So yeah, oh, my whole career of television film back to television. And I'm still doing that, though. It's still do that sort of in parallel to the work. So the Turning Points work is, you know, halftime and then the other halftime I'm still producing documentaries, to going right now with CBC. And it's, it's great still happening?

Heath Fletcher 30:35
Well, I've enjoyed getting to know you, because that was, was right about it was during COVID when you moved here, right. So then that was when we were sort of shifting how we were able to contribute to community organizations and that and we decided to start doing some video production for for nonprofits. And I picked Turning Points not even knowing Yeah, where you came from, but I knew you were new to town.

Laurie Case 31:01
When you offer that I was like, I know the value of this, like, this is incredible. It really is incredible. And that still sits on the front page of our website and is used all the time, as a way to really explain who we are in a quick and easy way that you know, people really understand. Yeah, so yeah, that's an incredible donation.

Heath Fletcher 31:22
It's a big part of the community and always has been. So it's like, to me. It was really important one to get in there. So we can continue doing that in the community. But it was a great one to start with. And also great too in the fact that here you came from being a producer for 30 years. Yeah, it was a great experience.

Laurie Case 31:41
So surreal for me. I'm a client. It's weird. To me to ask the questions, is really weird. But Awesome. Yeah, you guys are great.

Heath Fletcher 31:57
I was a little intimidated. I got it. She's the real deal.

Laurie Case 32:04
Scary Laurie comes out. You have felt that way about me in the edit. I'm sure. I'm also an editor by trade so stop with the notes already.

Heath Fletcher 32:20
It's good. So what do you what are you liking about Vernon? What's what's your favorite stuff to do here places to go now that you're

Laurie Case 32:29
you're asked about like, hidden gems and I don't think it's all that hidden but like it's all about food for me. To right across the street from each other. Raku Ramen and Kawakubo the best the Raku Ramen tonight? Oh, yeah. I'm home alone with my son. And I'm like, you want to go for Ramen? Yeah, I do.

Heath Fletcher 32:54
Chicken Vermicelli? Oh, yeah. Very good. Oh, no. So So chicken ramen bowl. Love that. So Turning Points, talk a little bit about this organization and how it fits on the world stage in relation to social change.

Laurie Case 33:16
Yeah, there's a couple pieces. When you asked that question before, you know, and just sort of prepping for this that I think it's interesting because we're in such a small community. And I was like, We fit on the world stage. And then it just sort of hit me that homelessness is not a Vernon problem, not a BC problem, not a Canada problem. It's a world problem. And my career, huge part of my career and a huge part of my identity in my career has been working with a nonprofit out of New West, that is a development agency. So I've traveled the world to film stories of people living in poverty all around the world. And it occurred to me that homelessness may look different and burnin than it does in Ethiopia, or Cambodia or Bangladesh or wherever. But the problems the same. And you know, it's still a person requiring a roof over their head and trying to provide for their family. And that's ultimately what this is. And, you know, we think we're in a first world country, and yet we've got people living in their truck. Like, why, what what's happening here. And so I think we fit there, because the approach is is very similar to that agency that I work with, which is you know, we're not going to come in and tell you what you need, we're going to work with you. You tell us what you need, and you are needing to do the work. You know, it's not us providing this handout, it's getting you on your feet so that you can do the work and that, you know, we go back to the Brian story. He's like, I want to pay rent, that's, I want to be contributing to society. I can pay rent, I just can't pay an exorbitant amount of rent, you know. So I think that's the other misconception that we're doing. Dealing with is that these these handouts, and we're, you know, just doling money out to people. And that's not the goal, the goal is to get people on their feet to be contributing members of society. Because I'd say most of the people want that want to do that, you know, like you said, there's pride involved in this. And I say, every single person I talked to around the world said the same thing. You know, I want to do this, I want to be able to have clean water have a roof over my head, same as Brian out of his truck, you know. So that's one of the pieces. And then the other one is just this, one of the things that we're really proud of it turning points as we've kind of become a knowledge base. And we're looked to for advice and consultation from other nonprofits. So everything we learn, we want to be able to pass on, like, we're not in competition with each other. Yeah, it's like, if we've learned a lesson, we want every provider to understand, you know, what we learned, and maybe they can apply it that way. So it's not we're not in competition, you know, we're all here to have the same end goal. You know, we want to end chronic homelessness, that's the end goal, right? So whatever we can do to pass on, and that's, we're really proud of that. And I, and it's something we take, we think it's really important in the work we do. We get phone calls, weekly, I'd say multiple calls weekly, from other agencies around the province asking us about, you know, could be applying for a grant or how did you deal with this issue? Or vice versa?

Heath Fletcher 36:31
I heard that actually, which is kind of one of the reasons why I asked that question was I heard that people were, were coming to Turning Points to find out how are you doing this? Well, how did you manage this? How did you succeeded at this? Yeah. Are you finding it's coming from beyond BC?

Laurie Case 36:47
Yeah, we have we have had it from, you know, I would say it's for sure, within Canada, but, you know, a couple of other referrals from the United States have come in. And I don't know how the word gets out that far. But that's amazing. I think it does a lot. And, you know, it's a shout out to our leadership, for sure. You know, there's a really clear vision from the top from Randy, in our CEO, and she's just really clear about our approach. And one of the things I think that also allows us to really respond is just that we're not we're a non government organization, so we can be nimble and innovative and adapt and move quickly. You know, when we see something not working, we can adjust, you know, we can respond to needs quickly, and, you have to be creative, you know, and she's got so much energy and so many ideas that, you know, she sees the need, and, and how, how we need to adapt to it. So we can move quickly that way. So I think that's another reason why it's successful, that it can't just be a government response, you know, it would probably move a lot slower. Yeah, you know, with our funding, a lot of our funding comes from the provincial government from BC Housing. But, you know, we are sort of responding to the individual needs on the ground so we can see them and respond to them. Yeah, you know, yeah. I think that's the other reason.

Heath Fletcher 38:16
What challenges are you for seeing for the organization in the coming years?

Laurie Case 38:23
Well, I just hope the big social challenges don't get any bigger. You know, I feel like our, our team had must have some PTSD after, especially after the fires, because that was sort of like the one last big thing, like, how can we deal with anymore? It was, at the time it was all going on, you know, you all just sort of deal with it. But when you kind of come down afterwards, and I'd say we're now in this place, where now what we're dealing with are the housing crisis, and the opioid crisis, those are huge issues. But, you know, when you're adding pandemic, and fires and all those other things on top of it, it just got overwhelming. So hopefully, those things kind of stay at bay, and we can tackle the addiction crisis is, is huge. And so advocacy is a big part of what we want to be participating in, you know, at the government level, and it's another amazing thing about being in a small community is to have access to our elected officials. In a way that's personal, right. I feel like we can, I can make phone calls and we can have conversations and we and we have, you know, really caring officials in our office in our area right now that understand what's going on. They're part of the community today. And I don't really care what political stripe you are, right? You know, I may not agree with with everybody's methodology, but I think at the end, everybody really just wants to make sure people are housed and cared for. So it's just a matter of how do we get, you know, what's, what's the plan to get there? Right. So, you know, I don't have a lot of time for the, you know, they'll ship them out and move them, you know, are the lies that I mean that that's the other one, you know, for wanting to talk about what some of the challenges are the, the, you know, the social media chaos that comes with, you know, dealing with, with something like homelessness, which is always a flashpoint issue. You know, if you go on Vernon rant and rave or something like that, you're just gonna lose your mind, because it's, it's way more rant and rave. And it's a lot of, you know, misinformation and straight out lies and personal opinions. Yeah. And personal attacks. Yeah. And you see that happening. And I, I think, you know, again, I ground myself in our plan of, we're just not going to, we're not going to respond to that kind of activity and just be proud of who we are and, and go forward. But I think, you know, social media chaos, is it massive challenge, I think,

Heath Fletcher 41:02
I can imagine. From your role. You have to deal with it head on.

Laurie Case 41:07
I tend to just not respond, right? Because I think it just almost hurts us more than helps us. Right. You know, because a lot of it is just chaos for the sake of chaos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We saw plenty of that this year. Yeah. I don't need to jump into that. And there are certain individuals who love to create the chaos. And so, you know, face to face, let's have the chat, but not on social media.

Heath Fletcher 41:35
Exactly. Okay. This has been awesome.

Laurie Case 41:37
So find me talking about myself and what we do. Passion involved.

Heath Fletcher 41:45
Yeah, it's just think about it, everybody, there's you guys are all passionate, I love what you do. And you can see that you can see it in in every aspect of it, you know, having been been able to meet some of the people over the last several years, and visit the facilities and and connect, it's just like, the people behind the scenes are amazing.

Laurie Case 42:07
They are incredible like to dedicate your life to do the work is you have to be as a special kind of person. And that's not me, I am a I'm a step removed from it. So our team who are, you know, boots on the ground are the ones that they just have the biggest hearts. And I heard, it was in the Naomi she's our site manager at the shelter. And she makes me cry on pretty much every time she speaks, because she just is so present and comes from such a caring place. But you know, her her idea is just that everybody's everybody is somebody somebody. So she wants to be that person that maybe they don't have their somebody with them, right? She wants to be that somebody she is that somebody and it's so hard to not take that home with you. But that's what brings her back every day, you know. So those are the kinds of people that we've got working for us. They're just incredible. And it's a 24 hour job, like you may go home to your family, but you're probably still thinking about it. And you know, it's a part of who you are.

Heath Fletcher 43:09
I'm sure connections get made. Between Oh, yeah. Staff and the clients.

Laurie Case 43:15
You should bring them in. Because seriously their stories. I mean, I'm I shouldn't be the one to pass on their stories, right. They have so much to tell to laser grid. Yeah, totally. And a lot of them come from lived experience as well. Yeah, we have a site. She works at the supportive housing, building. And she just celebrated her 1000th day of sobriety. And she's got a lived experience of homelessness, too. And now she's in this position of supporting the folks in our supportive housing, and it's just, she's just a shining light. All right. And so her story is just, you could do like a whole podcast series about her and other folks like her.

Heath Fletcher 43:57
I really enjoyed getting to know Sarah, a gateway during the Behind the Mask Project, and seeing the engagement with her and the participants in that. And in that environment it was really, really cool. It's, you just have to see it and experience that. Yeah, those those people were so it was amazing to watch them sort of open up and light up and participate in that activity. And Sarah was amazing.

Laurie Case 44:26
She's incredible. And she's she, you know, she's dealing. She's at our outreach clinic. And so she's seeing the stories of folks that are, you know, presently, living rough. And so in their darkest time, it's frontline. And that's frontline. Exactly. And it's a special kind of person for sure to do that. And she's incredible. We're so lucky to have her.

Heath Fletcher 44:50
Well, we're lucky to have you all. Thank you, the whole organization as a community, so thank you for what you do. It's important to all of us and I know everyone recognizes it just doesn't always get said.

Laurie Case 45:02
Well, thanks for the platform to let us talk about ourselves.

Heath Fletcher 45:05
You'll come back?

Laurie Case 45:06
Anytime. Okay.

Heath Fletcher 45:11
All right. That's a wrap. Thanks for coming and thanks for listening!