The Lost and The Found

In an era where stories of triumph and redemption often stem from unlikely beginnings, "The Lost and The Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family, and Second Chances" presents a poignant narrative that resonates deeply with its audience. Authored by Kevin Fagan, the tale unfolds with an exploration of the human spirit's indomitable will to find belonging and transformation amidst life's adversities. Homelessness, a multifaceted crisis affecting millions worldwide, forms the foundational backdrop of this narrative. In this episode we dive into the intricacies of life without a permanent home, shedding light on the societal factors that contribute to this pervasive issue.

Show Notes:

• Further Reading: 
  • Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's urgent mission to bring healing to homeless people by Tracey Kidder
  • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!
• To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/

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Transcript

The Lost and the Found

​[00:00:00] 

Stephanie Rouse: [00:01:00] Welcome back, bookworms. I'm Stephanie Rouse. 

Jennifer Hiatt: And I'm Jennifer Hyatt. 

Stephanie Rouse: And we're the hosts of the Book Dom Planning podcast. In today's episode, we talked with author Kevin Fagan on his book, The Lost and Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family, and Second Chances. This is a book that I brought to Jennifer.

I thought it would be a really great read. It was a recommendation by one of my coworkers. We both work in kind of the world of continuum of cares and homeless outreach, and this is somewhat of a new career path, and so it was a really good book to understand, in the perspective of someone who's experiencing homelessness, what it's like and what they go through and how they make decisions and how hard it is just to get out of that situation.

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah, and even though I have had [00:02:00] some personal experience plus just some professional experience with people suffering from both drug and alcohol addiction, none of the people that I've worked with in that capacity have gotten all the way to homelessness, especially the chronic homelessness that this book covers.

So it was an interesting look at how deeply that slide can just occur, and how quickly it can as well. 

Stephanie Rouse: Yeah, and we talk about that a little bit with Kevin. And in the conversation I think he's very honest and very upfront about what causes our homeless crisis in the United States, and the kinds of solutions we need to focus on in order to reduce that amount.

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah, I really appreciated that Kevin points out that they are actually simple solutions, but simple doesn't always mean easy. 

Stephanie Rouse: Exactly. 

Jennifer Hiatt: So let's get into that conversation with author Kevin Fagan on his book The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family, and Second Chances. 

Stephanie Rouse: Kevin, thank you so much for joining us on Booked On [00:03:00] Planning to talk about your book, The Lost and Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family, and Second Chances. Can you start off by describing your background, life experiences that led you to eventually being able to write this book?

Kevin Fagan: I've been a reporter for a long time.

You can probably guess my age when I tell you for 50 years. I started out very young. I was raised kinda poor, kinda middle class, depending on what jobs dad had at the time, and then I got thrown out of the house when I was 16. Didn't obey orders very well, both Navy vets for parents. And put myself through college, and along the way I slept in my car, I slept in a- garage.

I, I figured things out. And I'd always wanted to be a journalist from the time I was 14 on up. my mom had been a journalist in the Navy and had told me it was the best job in the world, and I think she was right. And of course, given my background, they say write what you know, so I [00:04:00] focused on poverty from the get-go.

 I also became a specialist in crime and just about everything. I covered the American West, serial killers, murders of all kinds, mass murders, disasters. I witnessed more executions than anyone around here. I just liked intense stories, and the intensity led me to homelessness in a deep dive kinda way, 'cause I didn't wanna just do surface stories.

I wanted to immerse. And so I slept outside a lot. After college, I had been a s- traveling street singer hitchhiking around, playing in the streets all over Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. So The streets were not a stranger to me. I knew how to stay safe. I knew where to, to...

where to go, how to, how to negotiate. And so when I slept in the streets in San Francisco it was fun. I liked it. I liked being around people for the full s- life cycle of the day and the night, 'cause you hear things. You have conversations at 3:00 AM that you [00:05:00] don't have otherwise. And that's where I learned over the years, which I kinda knew and no one wants to be homeless.

That's the thing. They get lost in their dysfunction. They get lost in their survival instincts. Counselors, and I found this all over the country because over the course of my career, I did cover homelessness a lot of places. I did some in, overseas. I did a lot all over America.

 And, street counselors come by and say, "Gee, I've got a shelter spot for you," or "How would you like to go into some rehab?" or, "How would you like some mental health counseling or residential treatment?" And the automatic answer is usually, "Get lost." "Screw you." Because people are stuck in their survival modes.

They know where to go where their teeth won't get kicked in, they know where to get food they know who their friends are, they have their daily rounds. And if you're chronically homeless, which is about 30, 40% of the population, depending on the city, those are the ones who are out in the [00:06:00] street all the time.

The rest of them are in shelters or, places you don't see. And those guys are generally addicted to something or suffering from a mental health condition or both. And when you're stuck in that kind of dysfunction, you don't want people telling you what to do. You don't wanna go in a shelter where someone tells you can't fire up your fentanyl foil or shoot up whatever drugs you're doing.

Y- you, yeah, you're just hanging on by your fingernails for th- the life that you know how to do. So the job is to persuade them to take the help, ' cause there is help. There's not enough help, but there is help. And I've emphasized that over and over in all my reporting. I loved being able to do that, 'cause covering murder, I covered everything from the Zodiac Killer to Columbine High to 9/11, the mass murders out here in California. Y- you don't really learn anything from mass murders or serial killers, but you can learn something at least from covering them. You're not gonna learn anything from them themselves.

 But you can learn and pass on some knowledge and [00:07:00] suggestions when you're covering homelessness, and I loved doing that, 'cause it felt like I was making a difference in life. As my, again, my mom had told me, " Be a journalist." And, my parents and I, we made up after I became a, a fully functioning adult with a career, and we became great pals, right up to the...

They're both gone now, but we were, It's important to patch things up with your parents. That's one of my life lessons. And it's a it's an important one. But she was always very proud of my journalism career. And again, what I wanted to do was make a difference, and I have made a bit of a difference.

And doing this book was a joy to me. I just loved writing it. 

Jennifer Hiatt: I appreciate the comment of it's important to make up with your parents. I just lost my mom recently, and she- Sorry ... struggled for many years with alcoholism which is of course prominent in this story as well. So- we had our own journey, and it's interesting how those stories just cross lines of so many families, and that kind of strife.

And to that end, you follow throughout the book the story of Rita Grant and [00:08:00] Tyson Fieser? Fieser. So what was it that led you to focus on these two individuals out of the many people that you've interviewed? What drew you to their stories? 

Kevin Fagan: I could see a s- a story in them. As a writer, as a reporter you look for stories that you can turn into something that will have a narrative, a pull, a journey, a point.

And I met Rita, what is it now? 23 years ago when I was sleeping on the street for six months for a series in The Chronicle called Shame of the City. And I describe this in the book. She was remarkable. - She was in a colony called Homeless Island which was 12 addicted homeless people living on a traffic island right downtown just not far from City Hall in San Francisco, where the panhandling was really good at a couple of traffic lights.

And all of them at first told us to get lost. I was out there with Brandt Ward, my photography partner for many years on homeless stuff. And, when they tell you to do that, you just kinda smile, and you [00:09:00] keep showing up, and you shoot the shit with them when you talk. You don't, start grilling them on the street.

And they began to trust us. And Rita was a tough nut. She'd been on the streets for a lot of years. And when her sister read my story on Homeless Island back in Florida, read it online, she said, "Oh, I gotta... that's where Rita is, and that's what's going on." So she flew out, found her using the story, and- Rita was ready to take the help.

There, there's a situation on the street where they say you're cooked. That means you're ready to take the help. You're tired of the life. And she did. She went back, and she rehabbed beautifully. So we became friends, 'cause I did a follow-up story where I flew back to Florida, and it was wonderful.

She was in great shape. She needed teeth. I wrote a story. I mentioned that. A dentist gave her teeth. It was just all good. And we'd send Christmas cards. We'd talk on the phone. It was really fun for the next 20-odd years for the rest of her life. I don't wanna give away the whole book, but she eventually passed [00:10:00] away from cancer just so you know what the narrative is.

And Tyson I met, oh, just a few years ago. I was doing a story on a shelter, and he was sitting on a piece of cardboard near the place where the shelter was proposed. And I asked him, "What do you think of the idea?" And he was really smart, really cogent. He'd just, smoked up his drugs so his head was clear.

When you're talking to chronically homeless people, you wanna catch them at a time when they're not dope sick, so they get jittery and pissed off and... Or if they're having a mental episode, ' cause then they're screaming at a telephone pole or muttering to themselves. You catch them in between when you can have a real conversation.

 Otherwise, you're having a conversation with the dysfunction. And there's always a real conversation to be had with people when you catch them at the right time. He was great. I put him in a story with a bunch of other people, and his photo, and his brother called me from Ohio and said "That's my brother.

I lost him seven years ago. Help me find him." So he flew out, and I knew where to look. Tyson was just... He was just passing through that day I talked to him. But we found him, did a intervention, I [00:11:00] participated in the intervention. I didn't lead the way. Baron, his brother, had hired an interventionist, and Baron had was...

Oh, God, what a good heart that guy has. he was very invested in saving his brother. And I long ago abandoned the idea that I'm just a, robotic reporter, taking notes. "Hey, what are you doing, sir?" And no you're a human being first. So my message to Tyson was y- you take this help.

This is what you need. They... like Baron and Vicky, the interventionist, and I, our whole message was, " You, y- accept this or you're gonna die," ' cause that's what happens to people when you're on the streets forever forever being often just a few years, 'cause it's a hard way to live, and the drugs will kill you too.

 So he took it, and it was wonderful. And his life had a different arc. And after this whole tableau presented to myself, I, 

Jennifer Hiatt: um 

Kevin Fagan: Thought about it, and I thought, I got a yin and a yang here. I can stitch together some journeys," ' cause every story has to have a journey.

And along the way, I can [00:12:00] talk about some of the stuff that I've learned, what works, supportive housing, counseling rehab the kinds of things that this country doesn't have enough of. And I can also get on my, soapbox a bit which I left a lot of that to the end of the book, 'cause I wanted to just let the narrative play itself out so that you can follow this journey and pick up some things, and then I make some conclusions at the end.

 And I wanted to be able to impart this knowledge that I'd accumulated over all these years. And the book was... Actually, once I had the concept and I have an agent, and he sold the book, and someone said, "Here, take a few months off and write," it, the thing just spilled out. 'Cause hell, I've written thousands of stories.

At the Chronicle, I had to do a count. I think I wrote 6,000 stories just at the Chronicle, let alone the other places, BBC, the Oakland Tribune, Fremont. There, I worked at several places before I got to the Chron. so writing is, not hard. organize it, do a little outline, and then just read your notes and spew it out.

And it [00:13:00] was fun. I gotta say, it was really a joy to write. But the stories told themselves, which is what you want in a narrative. And the opportunity to be able to impart what I wanted to impart was terrific. I feel very grateful that I was able to sell a book or write a book and then sell it enough so that it's textbook in some universities, and hell, some guy in Nebraska read it.

I'm very grateful for that. And thank him please for suggesting it. 

Stephanie Rouse: Yes, I will do that. And I will say, after reading it, because it's such an immersive narrative experience, you really get to understand the experiences of both of these individuals and the factors that led them to become homeless and kept them in that situation for so many years.

And I wanted to be able to give this book out to elected officials and others that don't quite understand or maybe are suggesting things that we know the individuals that work in this day to day, that's not the approach. Yeah. And one thing with both Rita and Tyson's stories is that they both kind of show [00:14:00] how you can fall into homelessness from relatively stable backgrounds.

Yeah. So what does their trajectory tell us about any structural vulnerabilities that our society has that would allow you to fall into homelessness in such an easy manner? 

Kevin Fagan: Mental health and re- drug rehab, drug intervention, and alcohol intervention. Alcohol and drugs, it's the same thing to me.

They're both killers. And Jennifer as you mentioned, I just wrote the obituary for a very dear friend who drank himself to death, and I've known many people, which I think I mentioned in the book, too. It's a horror that it needs more help than just the family. There's this idea in this country that, .

everything you have to do, you have to do by your own bootstraps. That's bullshit, ' cause someone who is really immersed in a drug addiction or really immersed in a mental health difficulty needs outside help, professional help. ' Cause the homeless people who I've known in the street, and there have been [00:15:00] many you don't wind up there un- unless you've rattled down the ladder of all your resources.

First your family gets tired of you, then the counselors get tired of you, then your f- your friends get tired of you, and the shelters get tired of you. it's not a quick process. Some people it is. Th- then that's a catastrophe. But most people have to bang down all these these rungs till they hit the street, and this country doesn't do good rungs.

 I just... I lived overseas in New Zealand, Australia, and England, and all of those countries do better. They have national health, so when you need rehab for drugs or mental health, it's there. They have guaranteed housing, and they have living wage laws that mean that, you're not gonna be Making minimum wage and living in a shelter.

It's... This country, it's astounding to me. We have people who have to work three crappy jobs, and they still can't afford a place to rent. I did a bunch of those crappy jobs. I cleaned sewers with my hands. I was a janitor. I washed dishes, pumped [00:16:00] gas. So I know what it's like to do an honest day's work.

In fact, when I became a journalist there was still that feeling that I'm not really earning a paycheck unless my hands are dirty. Just typing, they're paying me for writing stuff? What the hell is that? you should be able to push a broom or punch a cash register and have full dignity and make a living that supports you.

And that was more possible in the old days. When I started out in the late '70s making minimum wage at little papers I could afford an apartment and a car. You can't do that now, at least not in any city, which is a tragedy. Those countries also have retirement plans that don't put you into poverty that help you, 'cause not everyone saves for their retirement the way they should.

 It takes a government plan or scheme, as they would call it overseas to help you do this. My dad used to tell me "Save your money, son," "Get an IRA." I did manage to, to plan for my retirement because I saw so many people who were living hand-to-mouth [00:17:00] or outside ' cause they got to retirement age, and they're screwed.

 It's a tragedy that we don't take care of people the way we do 

Jennifer Hiatt: Yeah, one of the things that struck me about the story, and I don't wanna give too much away either, is that Rita was in her 50s- ... by the time she found herself in Homeless Island, and I get it. My mom was in her 50s when she started her downward spiral as well, and we came from a relatively privileged background we were able to get her into rehab multiple times and make sure that she still had safe places to land as she navigated that.

But not everyone does, and it's not always the people that you think it's going to be. It is the 50-year-old suburban housewife sometimes too. So I think we should- Yeah ... be thinking about that. 

Kevin Fagan: I gotta say a lot of, maybe even most of the chronically homeless people that I've known were kinda shot down from the word go.

Everyone starts out as a baby with all the hope in the world. you're a kid, nothing's gone wrong yet. [00:18:00] You haven't done any wrong. And then as you grow things happen. And for a lot of the troubled people, this actually goes for in crime reporting too, they have abusive parents or neglectful parents, grew up in foster homes where they were abused, or the parents knocked them around, or they were addicted to dope and addicted them to dope and, you never had a chance to stand up.

So a lot of those folks, when you rescue them from the streets with programs and counseling, you're creating a life they never had. You're creating a successful life they need but never had. However, there are people like, Tyson and Rita. Rita ne- didn't grow up, rich or anything.

There were a bunch of kids in her household, but her mom worked really hard, provided well for them. She had every opportunity. Everyone has their different personalities that leads them to do what they do. Your mom in her 50s, people can go off the rails at any point in their lives, no matter what the resources are.

 There are plenty of drug addicts and alcoholics who are not homeless, of course. And it's [00:19:00] people need help. And like you said, rehab over and over. I think I- the statistic I've always heard is it often takes six shots of rehab before something sticks. And I've got family and friends, most people, I think just about everyone knows someone or has someone in their family, a friend who has struggled with this.

This is not something that just happens to other people, so screw them. No, it's very personal for just about everyone. And you just can't give up. You only give up when, the last breath happens. but you're right, the demographics, that's an important point.

It can be anyone, and both these people in my book there was no reason for them to go off the rails if we had adequate support.

 illness. Rita was dealing with drugs. It shouldn't have happened 

Jennifer Hiatt: And you mentioned earlier you've had to walk the line between being the investigative journalist but not being the cold-hearted person, and you've, you chose to actively help Rita and Tysan's families find them and bring them home.

 Can you talk about how you [00:20:00] think about that and how you navigate that line between the just cold, hard journalist and actually being a human? 

Kevin Fagan: Yeah, it's that's just how you have to do it in my mind. I lecture a lot of college classes. I always have. Did a little teaching at one point which is tough to do when you have a full-time job, but I thought it was worth a shot, and it was interesting.

 But my main message to students is the number one rule for me is don't be a dick. have a empathy, have a conscience. You're doing journalism because you love to write, you love to meet people, you want adventures. At least that was for me 'cause I went everywhere for, disasters and stuff, and the street life.

And you wanna make a difference in life. You wanna make life better. And showing and giving compassion to the people I write about once you've done it for a little while, you can learn how to set boundaries. I did not have Rita come live in my house. I didn't have Tyson meet my family and have Passover dinner.

have your boundaries, but you can listen with a compassionate ear and show empathy and care [00:21:00] about them. 'Cause if you don't care, homeless people in particular have really good bullshit radars. They can detect. They know when you're not sincere. And if you're just doing it 'cause it's a story your editor said to bang out with 800 words by 5:00 they'll pick it up.

And you're not gonna get really good information. You're not gonna get the best quotes. Be a human. When you first start interviewing people, my, my thing now is I just shoot the shit with them. "Hey, how's it going today?" If they're panhandling with a sign, I say, "How's business?"

 And, if they've got the drug work sitting next to them, I say, "You feeling okay? Did you get enough today?" I'm not there to make them stop doing drugs. I'm there to see what their lives are about. and you have to be sincere. You actually have to care.

If you don't care, if homeless people scare you or anyone you're talking to scares you or repulses you then do some other kind of reporting. There's a lot of different kinds of reporting. You can do politicians, murderers, homeless people, [00:22:00] man on the street things. I always like talking to homeless people more than most politicians 'cause they're more fun, they're more honest, and they have better jokes.

Stephanie Rouse: That made me think about I'm pretty sure it was Tyson's story, but about how at one point he had mentioned how he hadn't talked to anyone, like no one on the streets, they just walk by him and ignore him and how lonely that felt that people would just act like he wasn't there. And you'll start to lose a little bit of your humanity when everyone just continues with their day and doesn't engage because they might feel threatened or fear them probably unfounded.

Kevin Fagan: Yeah, and it hammers you even further into your own isolation where you turn for relief from things like drugs, maybe sex in the alley. I don't know, everyone's got their thing. but it's it's terrible. Most people walk by, they either feel disgust or fear or super sorrow, or they want to ignore them, or give them a sad look, it's not so often when people actually wanna stop and talk. But I often [00:23:00] get asked what can we do for homeless people?" first off, it's a policy issue, national and local which is a whole conversation. Do the typical volunteer things, food banks, soup kitchens. But as much as anything, stop and give people the dignity and grace of a conversation, of being seen for a moment.

It's important 'cause like you say, most people just walk on by. ' Let them know 

Jennifer Hiatt: that, 

Kevin Fagan: that... Reminds them that they're a worthwhile human being worth talking to. And of course, again, don't talk to someone who's going through an episode of some kind, but, get them at a time when they're ready to talk.

And y- you can hear some crap that, a lot of people will say, You stop to talk, and they say, "Give me a dollar," or, "I really need five bucks for the bus," or whatever. It's it's the conversation that matters more than the buck or the sandwich. The sandwich is always a good idea. Donuts, I like donuts for giving out.

Cigarettes, I forget if I put that in the book, but I hand out cigarettes 'cause You're a moment of relief, and it reminds them of what life could [00:24:00] be like just in the slightest of ways ' cause we're all ripples in the water for people. And enough of those interactions, and they finally decide, " Okay, I'll give it a shot.

I I wanna have a more normal life." And you can contribute to that. 

Stephanie Rouse: So here in Lincoln, we're working on trying to get our first low-barrier shelter built. We have the People's City Mission that's been around for over 100 years now, I think, but not anything that has no barriers to entry. And I think it, it sounds like the same thing that you were describing in your book with the nav centers, and that is a relatively new concept.

I thought these were standard practice, they'd been around forever, but it sounds like these kind of low-barrier, no-barrier facilities are pretty new. Can you talk about what they are and how they help? 

Kevin Fagan: Yeah, there have been different versions of them. Back in, oh, hell mid to late 1980s, San Francisco actually opened up its first navigation center.

Back then it was called a multi-service center opened up by Mayor Art Agnos. [00:25:00] It was a great idea but what happens in most communities, and what happened here was you get so many people in and you only have so much staff to help them, eventually it just becomes a place where you can sleep and get a meal.

And some counselors are available but they aren't able to give the kind of attention to people that they should get. So then in 2015 we had a homeless director at the time called Bevan Dufty who rediscovered the concept to bring people in, and that the key to that, the absolute key to those kinds of centers is to have enough staff of counselors rehab specialists.

 You need some guards or, low-level guards to keep the peace in there because people can... you get dope sick, you get pissed off, Someone steals some shit out of your bed. Stuff happens. But you need enough staff there to make it a useful intervention.

So they're inside, and then the- once they're inside you know the term that a lot of counselors use, you wanna meet them where they're at? You want them to be at a shelter with a roof where they don't have to [00:26:00] worry about that, and then you can start intervening with the kinds of help and the attention and the navigating to resources that these folks need.

 Otherwise it's not as successful. And what's happened with navigation centers here in San Francisco and in a lot of places is the mission creep. So many people need the thing, and it doesn't, it's not intensive enough. Now San Francisco has had another really terrific phase of leaning in on pulling people in and then working on it not just giving them the bed and the sandwich.

 it's very important if you're gonna do a low-barrier shelter. What kind of barrier did you have before? 

Stephanie Rouse: Right now in our system, you can't be high or using or you can get kicked out if you're not participating in chores from what I've heard. I'm not super familiar, but there's seems to be a lot of barriers to getting into our one homeless shelter that we have here in Lincoln.

 They do relax them on inclement weather when it's below zero or extremely hot, [00:27:00] so there is that. But there's definitely a need for kind of a low to no barrier entry in our city. 

Kevin Fagan: Yeah, you guys get snow. I was just in- Yeah ... oh, St. Louis and a couple other places where the snow was, you die in the snow.

It's bad. And that's one reason people come to San Francisco, either homeless or not 'cause you're not gonna die outside generally. It get, it can get kinda cold, but nothing like that. And the trouble with no barrier or the challenge with no barrier is that people are, they're messed up.

They need their dope, A lot of people don't wanna go into shelters because they don't want someone telling them what to do. They're used to doing whatever they're gonna do, which, frankly, if you're a full-on drug addict in the streets sleeping in a tent, you're gonna have to go steal shit usually to pay for your habit.

 Maybe deal a little bit on the side. You get your dope, and then you cut it with something crappy like talcum powder or something. And then you sell bits. It... But generally, you gotta do stuff that, that's not good. [00:28:00] And so if you're in a shelter, you got people telling you what to do, and, have a curfew.

 Don't light up that meth pipe on your bed. if you're gonna do low barrier, they're gonna do their drugs. Let them do that shit outside when they wanna do it. 'Cause otherwise you're gonna get dope sick people beating each other up 'cause they're pissed off and they're going through the shakes.

But it's better than having requirements because you'll reach more people, and you wanna reach them. You wanna have have access to them so that you can do your magic. You can work on it, and that's makes a difference. San Francisco is finding, once again, that, having adequate services in whatever shelter you got does make a difference.

They're getting a significant portion of people who go into their newly rehabbed shelters they're getting them into services. Services meaning, drug rehabilitation, board and care homes hopefully inpatient drug rehabilitation services, job services ...

Stabilization, making lives better, and you can't do that [00:29:00] if they're in the street. No one in the street is gonna make it to some appointment. You go talk to Joe sitting on a piece of cardboard and say meet me at 6:00 tomorrow, and we'll see what we can do about getting you a job."

No. It's just doesn't really happen. 

Stephanie Rouse: Which is what is so alarming about what the current administration is doing, turning everything on its head where for, a decade now, we've been talking about housing first, getting people housed, and then you can work on treatments, and they're flipping that to be a treatment-first approach, and as you're saying, like, how do you get someone to come in and engage when they're living on the streets?

Whereas you're much more likely to engage and get them the help they need if they've satisfied their basic need of housing first. 

Kevin Fagan: Yeah. That's frustrating. I didn't expect Any more from this administration. The problem is national, and then local communities have to deal with what shouldn't have happened to begin with.

Like I say in my book, it's about 30% of the country lives at an actual poverty level hand-to-mouth. 60 to [00:30:00] 70% doesn't have more than 400 bucks in the bank. That's why whenever these shutdowns happen federally, people start freaking out after a few weeks, 'cause they can't make it without a paycheck.

What the hell is that? It's, it... Yeah. And the current emphasis of of defunding supportive housing, come on, that's exactly what you need. You need people inside with the support that is supportive housing. I can see where that, this mentality came from because this country goes through compassion fatigue.

 You've probably heard that term, right? It's it's where the people get tired of the, the new surge of trying to help people happens, goes on for a few years, and people get impatient and pissed off. There's still too many bums in the street. Try something else. Get hard, throw them in jail, kick them out of town.

The... and then you go through a period where you see gee, that doesn't work, so then 

let's do the more compassionate thing. And then you go through a period where you see, gee, there's still a lot of homeless people out. Do something else. So we're in that do something else phase right now, which, when you're coercing people, [00:31:00] there are a couple of lockdown camps in what?

Idaho and Salt Lake, where they're just trucking homeless people and locking them up, saying, "You're not getting out till you're fixed, till you do rehab." Now the idea that, you can't get out until you do rehab at least says that someone in that chain wants people to have their lives better.

On the other hand is locking people up what we wanna be doing? yeah, we're in a bad place right now in this country in terms of trying to do the right thing. it's not complicated. It's just the proper kind of emphasis in funding. This all comes down to money. Plus, not creating the problem to begin with.

We don't have national health. We don't have guaranteed housing. We have shitty minimum wage laws. You fix those kinds of things, and you're not gonna see homeless people. I was just spent three weeks in Australia. I used to play music down there too, and so I went to see my old, me old mates.

And they don't have homelessness like this. they... I think I mentioned this in the book. Melbourne city the core inner city is half a million [00:32:00] people. They were freaking out 'cause they had 300 people sleeping in the streets. All of England has their homeless population is about the same as San Francisco's.

But they actually care and try to treat these folks in the street. I've talked to homeless directors of both those countries. And it's easier because they don't have the crisis to begin with the way we do. It's just this country can just be heartless. A lot of great people, a lot of great ideas, great motives, and then a lot of assholes in charge.

It's not good 

Jennifer Hiatt: Lot of assholes in charge. So I loved your subtitle and how it talks about found family along the way. And how did the informal networks and communities that Rita and Tyson did actually build up on the streets? Because, we're talking about the stories of two people, but there were many supporting characters throughout the whole book.

So how did those networks serve them as they were in their homeless journey? And then the dynamic did change some when biological families [00:33:00] entered back into the picture. So can you talk about that a little bit? 

Kevin Fagan: It's again about survival and community. Everyone living in a house or living in a tent, you want community.

You want people around you who you want friends, you want a feeling of safety. And the found family they had, people grouped together, just like we do, housed people group together. You got your circle of friends. Homeless folks too, you group together. People who think the same way as you, who have similar values.

A lot of times it's less so now, but a lot... historically it's been kinda grouped by what kinda dope you're doing. I did a map in 2003 when I spent six months sleeping outside for this series called Shame of the City. It was a five-day series I wrote at the end of it. I did a map And I originally wanted to, there are two languages you can speak. There's English and there's street. And in, polite English, it's substance use. People suffering from substance use. In the street, you're a junkie. It's [00:34:00] a... And people, street people talk that way. So I made this map. I had crack land heroin land.

I broke it up into nations and they, the editors made me turn it into territories. So it wasn't quite as catchy, but nonetheless, people did group. The heroin junkies hung out with each other. The meth guys hung out with each other. Meth guys were generally a little further from downtown where the best dealers were because they had all this energy, and they'd get on their bicycles.

They'd run, you shoot up or you smoke up a bunch of meth, and you're you're kinda high-powered. Heroin guys, they'd get, they get the nods, and they just wanna chill out. So you gotta have other people around to, to watch your back. It was interesting, but these days most people do a little of everything.

It's less pure. Like fentanyl, a lot of people do fentanyl, and then fentanyl puts you sleepy. Meth kinda wakes you up, so they do what they call a goofball, a little of both. That way you don't get the super fentanyl folds, but you don't get super high, super energetic. And not [00:35:00] everyone in the street is addicted to something, but the chronics usually are That and cheap booze. You're not drinking fine wine. You're drinking Royal Gate Vodka, 2.75 a pint. 

Stephanie Rouse: So what message would you want readers of your book, listeners of this podcast to take away? What is your main goal for having written this book? 

Kevin Fagan: Help foster a nationally community-minded, compassionate- Frame of mind. Stop this horseshit about, national health is, "Oh, it'll be terrible."

No, I've lived under national health in other countries. I've got friends in national health in other countries. It's great. it beats the hell out of what we got here. If you got enough money to afford a really good health plan, sure, it's great. but if you don't, if you're working hand to mouth, or you're working at some place that either doesn't give you health insurance and then you can't afford the thousand bucks a month to have a plan for you and maybe your family which would be even more it's terrible.

You wait forever to get [00:36:00] anything done, if you get anything done at all. You go to the emergency room Thank God at least emergency rooms have to take you. But those ones, they patch you up, and then you're back out again. It's just stupid the way we do that, and it's stupid the way we can't get a grip on wage laws so that you can have a dignified paycheck working.

And the way we have I always hear these complaints that says, national healthcare would be terrible." Ah they're full of crap. And you raise minimum wage, it destroys jobs. That's full of crap. i've written about that over the years too.

It does not happen. You get a little, and then it evens out, and then everyone's lives are better. It's propaganda that, that prevents us from moving forward. And it's so irritating, and it's so not community-minded. When I was, in, in Australia just a few weeks ago, their big crisis was how to restructure their mental health treatment system so that it's more community-based.

They actually have a mental health system that helps [00:37:00] people, meaning you can be in your home with counseling or you can be in a board and care. Here in this country, board and cares shut down because they don't get enough funding. And this bit of, cutting taxes for the super rich and companies, sure, I th- you know, getting rich, sure.

Get rich, that's fine. Make a ton of money as a company. But, do fair taxation. I didn't pay any more taxes in Australia and England than I did here. But you hear, "Oh, God, if we do socialism like those other countries, you'll get taxed to death."

That's bullshit. It's just-- The trouble is our country's so big, most people don't ever go outside of it. Or if they do, they bounce through, on a quick trip to the bars in London or something. I don't... it's a lack of awareness of what life is like outside of here. And that conversation, I get really tired of it.

I spent those 50 years as a reporter t- thinking I was, part of a system making life better. Now there's enough of the country that just doesn't understand, [00:38:00] doesn't listen, or is mean, or, Generally, I think the American soul is a good soul, but we're just not moving the direction we should.

And efforts like you're talking about, low-barrier shelter, do your thing locally. That's the thing. It, the change has to bubble up from the ground, Getting counseling, though, getting the right kinda case managers, and getting enough case managers, that'll be key.

Otherwise, the community's gonna get pissed off, 'cause you're gonna get people coming into the low barrier, and if they're not I don't know if supervise is the right word, but if things go wrong in and around the shelter, people just get mad. 

Stephanie Rouse: we just completed our first poverty elimination action plan, and it was actually came from our state legislature.

One of our senators had passed a bill two years ago, I think it is now, to require the two biggest cities, Lincoln and Omaha, to adopt these plans. And going through that process, we could see the poverty rates going up in Lincoln, definitely concentrated in certain census tracks. But in doing the outreach and speaking with [00:39:00] individuals that are experiencing poverty, it's just such a fractured system of if I need help just getting food there's eight or nine different centers that you can go to, but some are open on this days and other days.

And so trying to piece together just the philanthropic side of assistance is challenging, let alone navigating any sort of state and federal government subsidies. So it's just another issue with the way our system is set up these days. 

Kevin Fagan: It's a lot of work being homeless or poor. trying to get help, trying to get funding endless bureaucracy that gets in the way, and like you said, Oh, gee, go across town on Tuesday between 2:00 and 3:00."

I'm taking care of my kid, or I'm working my shitty job that doesn't pay enough. I don't have time to go over there. It's... We just make it... And childcare. Now, don't get me going on childcare. What the hell? Even in the late '70s when I worked at the BBC, they had childcare on site. You come to work, you drop your kid off on the first floor, and there's childcare.

Not even a [00:40:00] question of... Now it takes a practically a full paycheck to get childcare for your kid. It's nuts.

Jennifer Hiatt: So you mentioned earlier that it is difficult to get people to read books these days, but you happen to have a broad listenership here who loves books, and this is Booked on Planning, so what books would you recommend people check out? 

Kevin Fagan: let's see. Let me look over on my shelf here. Tracy Kidder had wrote one called Rough Sleepers about a great doctor in Boston who helped the chronically homeless folks.

 Yeah, Jim O'Connell's the doctor. I just did a panel with him a month or two ago. A great guy. And Tracy essentially follows him around and talks to him or portrays what life is like in the street, and I think street life is very important to get across to folks in a realistic way.

 Of course, the book Evicted by Matt Desmond. Great guy. Won the Pulitzer a few years ago. these aren't easy reads but they're super useful. I tried to write mine as a, in a [00:41:00] novelistic kind of fashion as much as I could.

 I wanted it to be a quick read. As a reporter, we always joke that the highest compliment men- you can get from your editors or people, is that they read it all, read the story all the way to the end ' cause most people, you get bored, you get tired, you get busy. I wanted people to be able to pull through.

And both those books are really worth it. I gotta tell you Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. If you've never read that one, boy, that guy can write. And it, it's gives the vision of poverty that totally pertains to today. And it works on your compassion button. It helps 

Stephanie Rouse: Yeah.

 Evicted, Grapes of Wrath, both really great books. Been quite a while since I've read Grapes of Wrath, though. I'll have to go revisit that one. 

Kevin Fagan: I pick 'em up again now and then. It's it's good. It's e- and you read things differently at different times in your life. I read it differently than I did as a 20-year-old.

Stephanie Rouse: That is so true. Yeah. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast to talk about your book, The Lost and Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found [00:42:00] Family, and Second Chances. 

Kevin Fagan: Thank you. Thanks. You guys were a delight to talk with, and I wish you all the luck in the world on the programs that you're doing or that your city is doing.

 And it's really great that you're, doing this and pushing this message out love it. It's a very important one. Yes, absolutely. All right. 

We hope you enjoyed this conversation with author Kevin Fagan on his book, The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family, and Second Chances.

 You can get your own copy through the publisher at One Signal Publishers by supporting your local bookstore, or support the show through our page at bookshop.org/shop/bookdomplanning. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and please rate, review, and share the show. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time on Book Dom Planning [00:43:00]