Job, Career or Vocation?
I’ve had jobs – and probably you have too – that were only about doing something for someone else in order to get paid. I have some great stories from some of those jobs (especially summer jobs during undergrad years). But when I have had jobs in my life, time off was critical – from milking every coffee break to downtime on the weekends to vacation time.
I’ve had career stops when I was truly a careerist. In those times in my life a lot of what I was involved in was not as much about the content of the tasks (though I did like a lot of what I did), but more about how far I could get up the ladder and how fast. It was about advancement. It was about status. I may not have called it that at the time, but upon reflection that is a lot of what was driving me at that time. In careerist mode, I worked loads of hours above and beyond what I was required to do because I wanted people to see my drive and pursuit. I was in work early and out later than most. I became frustrated when I couldn’t see a clear pathway to the next rung on the ladder up or when my ideas stopped getting traction or when I sensed competition from other careerists.
Since late 2009 I have been in vocation mode. The difference? I felt a calling…a summons of sort to do the sort of work I am doing now. From my career years to the present I have been heavily immersed in matters of homelessness, housing, social policy and leadership development. I don’t particularly love the title “consultant”, but my consulting years I think are the ones where I have had the broadest reach in making a lasting difference across the most lives. My love and passion in the vocation mode is the work itself. It has nothing to do with status or money. At all.
While I was in careerist mode, getting a raise with each advancement in my career was the reward. There was a value that could be attached to the status. Reaching six figures was a moment I won’t soon forget. Now I don’t find myself motivated to do this work because of money. In a perfect world, I would get to do all the things I do for free and have neither mortgage nor other family financial obligations to worry about, nor would any of the staff of OrgCode have to worry about their finances. So yes, having positive cash flow is necessary, but not a driver. We aren’t a typical for-profit business in that way. To me the measure of success in my vocation is not how much profit it yields me. There isn’t much about this job I don’t like, but a big one is negotiating prices for the work that we do.
I knew I was ready for the vocation stage of life when I started listening to my inner passion. I don’t really know how to describe this “listening to my inner passion”. I don’t mean to say there was a person talking to me or that I was hearing things that weren’t there. It was more of an emotional connection…the more I was engaged with people and projects that I thought could have a lasting impact on social issues in their community and it was aligned to my perspectives on justice, the more I wanted to be doing that thing.
Once I started listening the work became all about the passion. It was a passion to learn more. It was a passion to share more. It was a passion to have a larger impact on the world. It was a passion to make a difference.
As a trusted mentor to seven people currently in their journey towards awesomeness, I love the sessions I have with people about their feeling of vocation, career or job. I am in no way judging one as being better than the other because I think it is dependent on the needs and wants of each person. I feel a connection and kinship, though, with those that have found a vocation in life that brings them meaning beyond financial remuneration or status. For several people this has meant less pay but greater emotional rewards. For others finding the vocation has also meant finding a way to put other parts of life in balance. For others still it has meant similar trade-offs in life like mine (in order to follow my passion I end up spending less time in person that I love because so much travel is involved.) Those in the careerist mode have come to appreciate how their lives are made more productive if they embrace the role that people with a vocation play in their achievement and how people in job mode provide a foundation for their career to occur. And the one that I have in job mode has realized careerists and vocations people are not dismissive or judgmental of job mode folks.
The truth is, we need all three: jobs, careers and vocations. And a further truth is that many of us will experience two if not three of these throughout our life times. I consider it a moment of grace that in my late 30s I had the opportunity to listen to and follow my vocation. I don’t see myself turning back. This is truly whom I am and what I was called to do in this world. I am grateful and perhaps lucky, and meanwhile committed with fervour to embrace my vocation, open to wherever it takes me and however much money it loses me.
So what are you going to be when you grow up? I gave answers I thought people wanted to hear and little to what I really wanted. After grad school my answer to that question had more to do with careerist pursuits. Now, (well, as an aside I can tell you my father thinks it is possible I can get a real job after I get a haircut and take out my earrings so long as I hide all my tattoos) I can answer the question of what I want to be when I grow up with a lot more clarity: I want to be me; and, I want to be the best me possible making the biggest difference to complex social issues as I can. That is what I feel called to do. Whether or not I achieve that is what I should be measured against after my days on this earth are through.
Street Outreach and Coordinated Access
Recently in a community I had a well-established street outreach provider ask me how they can help explain their importance now that coordinated access was taking shape in the city. It seems that with the infrastructure of coordinated access taking root, the street outreach provider was facing questions from its primary funder of whether it should continue to exist.
The short answer is that yes, I think that street outreach should exist in a city that has coordinated access.
Now a longer answer…
Street outreach has merit as a service when it is connecting people to long-term solutions to her/his homelessness. Street outreach, in my opinion, has little merit if it just about providing food or socks or clothing or sleeping bags or prayer. Yes, those things can meet immediate needs, but it doesn’t solve the problem of having someone sleep outdoors, in whatever location they may be in. So, I think street outreach should continue to be funded in communities with coordinated access if there is a housing-focus to the street outreach.
To use an analogy that seemed to work well in a training I recently did with an outreach provider, street outreach is to coordinated access as fluffers are to the adult film industry. Yes, the (ahem) “money shot” (housing in the case of coordinated access) is the conclusion that is remembered, but it was only made possible because of everything that occurred behind the scenes up to that point that no one ever sees. The things street outreach workers see and experience day in and day out as they work with a person in getting them a step closer to being housed is beyond the imagination of many people.
Street outreach provides an important access point into the homeless service delivery system for those people that do not use shelters or cannot use shelters because they are barred/trespassed or have legal restrictions that prevent them from using the shelters. In some communities street outreach is the only access point to housing for people that use substances but there are no shelters that allow people to enter if they have been using substances.
When street outreach has a positive connection with police and paramedics and can respond to issues that are deemed to be a “social disorder” there is also considerable benefit in having them in the community. Skilled street outreach workers can deal with complex social situations that are not really an emergency warranting police or ambulance, thereby freeing up first responders to attend to other emergencies, while concurrently helping that individual start to get connected to the long-term solution to their homelessness and even connect into shelter if the person is willing to go (which can be made easier if the community is coordinated shelter access as well as coordinated access to housing).
Finally, let me leave you with this thought – because visible homelessness is most often what the general public sees and therefore how it judges a community’s response to homelessness (rightly or wrongly), I think it would be foolish to remove funding from a street outreach provider that is doing high-quality work because there is coordinated access. The general public cannot see nor can it easily understand coordinated access. What the general public can see is street outreach workers engaged with its most vulnerable people laying on street corners and camped out in parks.
Waiting Lists to Nowhere for the “Un-houseable”: How Not to Do Coordinated Access
Assessing for the sake of assessing sucks. That isn’t coordinated access. That is a bureaucratic response (and not just government) to the issue that solves nothing.
Recently I was in a community that has been putting coordinated access into place over the last few months. In an effort to get community buy-in, their weekly meeting of housing providers allows for over-ride of assessment if the person is deemed to be too complex. Want to guess what is happening? They have a list of dozens of names of people with higher acuity that no housing provider is stepping up to house.
Creating waiting lists of people with complex issues instead of solving their homelessness is not about ending homelessness. It is a waiting list to nowhere.
Who are these people on the waiting list? Yes, they all have higher acuity. To a person they have co-occurring, complex issues across quite a spectrum – substance use, mental health issues, physical health issues, involvement in high risk and exploitive situations, numerous interactions with emergency services, and more. But in addition to that, they are almost exclusively people that have been housed several times before. They are the waiting list of people waiting to be re-housed…people that previous attempts at housing have broken down because of partying, guests, drug use, noise complaints, loneliness, paranoia, etc.
If we want to truly end homelessness this is the exact population we need to figure out not only how to house, but how to keep housed. If we want coordinated access to work we can’t allow there to be an over-ride to not accept the “unhouseable” and instead we need to put our collective wisdom together to figure it out.
Study after study, community after community, shows that 80% or more of people with complex issues in a Housing First program will remain housed. That means that at least 20% in each community are not. I suspect that is the group on the waiting list to nowhere. It is when we figure out how to meaningfully house and support this group that coordinated access will really make a difference and we will truly end homelessness.
The Big Picture: A Statewide Approach to Common Assessment
I am writing this about halfway through the first leg of the statewide SPDAT tour of Michigan. Michigan, in all her VAST glory, has joined a number of states and provinces that have decided that they want the same common assessment tool used across the entire State. Not just a community-by-community decision – a full, statewide implementation. Every Continuum of Care…all programs that get funding through the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Department of Human Services or Department of Community Health…all regions…all types of communities (urban, rural, remote) – all using the exact same tool.
This was the State’s idea. OrgCode didn’t push it or sell them on the idea. And while they were not the first to go this route (hello forward thinking Newfoundland & Labrador), we applaud the State and the handful of other states and provinces that have gone this direction. We also hope that other States and Provinces considering going this route pay close attention.
It is a great idea to see the Big Picture and go statewide (or province wide) with implementation of the same common assessment tool. Here’s 10 reasons why:
Different funding sources doing work with the same population all work using the same language and approach to assessing needs, decreasing conflict across departments or funding sources.
State funding sources are aligned with federal funding sources in the use of the same tool.
The State doesn’t have to try and make sense of whether different tools are showing different acuity levels or really showing the same thing – or how to even translate it all – because they are all using the same tool throughout the entire state.
There is one State sponsored approach to training and creating an infrastructure of sustainability rather than Continuums trying to figure it out on their own.
There is a strong data infrastructure to make sense of how people’s lives are impacted statewide. How someone’s life is changed in Northern Michigan can be measured and understood exactly the same way as how we talk about someone’s life changing in Detroit.
There is a long-term view and commitment to common assessment. Because the state is implementing it across multiple Departments and making it statewide, this isn’t a “flash in the pan” decision to do something just to meet a HUD requirement. This is a thoughtful, long-term approach with requisite processes in place to ensure effectiveness.
It doesn’t matter if a person or family moves from one CoC to the next to get services. Their acuity score can follow them and/or the approach to measuring acuity will be the same. Service shopping across CoC borders is neutered.
It increases consistency in how coordinated access occurs. While there is still tweaking of processes at the local level, how and when the assessment fits into the mix is normalized.
It is fair and transparent to all people that experience homelessness in the State. A person who is homeless is not advantaged or disadvantaged by what tool may be in place and/or the training that goes into it based upon where in the state they try to access services.
It allows us (OrgCode) to more strategically provide longer-term support and work closely at the local and state level to ensure alignment with training objectives and approach with policy, funding and program expectations.
It is a great privilege to be part of this initiative in Michigan and to help better assess and support individuals and families experiencing homelessness statewide. We see the benefits from a policy, program and funding perspective. And we look forward to seeing the great volume of data that is likely to demonstrate how programs can also be improved on a statewide basis to ensure the state is moving even closer towards ending homelessness.
Ultracrepidarianism and Fauxpinions
The first is a real word. The second one is made up. They are both related.
The first is to have opinions outside of one’s area of expertise or knowledge.
The second is to present opinions as facts when the opinion is not based upon fact.
In the world of social change, both hamper and thwart efforts to be effective.
Consider that most public policy is crafted and approved by legislators that do not have subject matter expertise regarding the matter that they are enshrining into law, funding, rights, etc. But they do have opinions. Regardless of what the public service may have put before them by way of data, research, experience of other jurisdictions, framing of pros and cons, financial impacts, etc., it is always the prerogative in a democracy for elected officials to deviate from the advice they are given and craft an approach based upon opinions alone.
This is the wretched, recurring uhtceare moment for the skeptical empiricist that would rather see evidence drive us to discussion and deliberation rather than opinion. Examples: mandatory minimums do not deter crime, but we seem to have an opinion that they do so and legislators create more reasons and longer sentences; sobriety is not a precondition for success in housing, but we seem to still fund and support a litany of recovery services that masquerade as homeless services and reinforce a false notion that people can only remain housed if they are sober; countries that have a long history of same-sex marriages and unions have not seen a deterioration of their moral fabric or destruction of opposite-sex marriages and unions, yet there remain some circles that fear-monger and suggest that such a thing will occur.
While we can see the snollygoster making such opinions possible in the realm of policy – and the populace is mumbudget – perhaps it is worse when fauxpinion takes fervent root. Another way of looking at the fauxpinion – the repeat of a lie enough times that people come to accept it as truth.
The master of the fauxpinion exists in just about every community. I find they are often long-term disciples within the service they work. They are held with reverence or placated rather than challenged. They hold power because they have woven their fauxpinions into some semblance of truth that has actually formed the foundation of the approach to addressing the social issue. Examples: the provision of survival supports like sleeping bags and food as a necessary ingredient to get people off the streets; addressing economic poverty is the only true way to combat housing instability; chronically homeless people (or a large subset thereof) prefers to be homeless than housed.
We need to shine a light on data in meaningful ways to get it into the discussion of public policy and social change. We need to present it with certainty and in terms that lay people can understand and use immediately. And we need to be assured because we can prove it that decisions based upon sound data and research is better than approaches founded solely on opinions that are beyond the subject matter expertise of the decision-maker, or based solely upon false facts that have tried to translate opinions into sounding like facts.
Peddlers of Hope
(My thanks to Johnny Mac in Rhode Island for introducing me to the phrase “Peddlers of Hope”, which I have gone on to use quite extensively in my training on effective housing-based case management.)
We are peddlers of hope. Hope for those who feel no ability to hope. Providers of hope who need a bit more to get to the next stage of recovery. Champions of tomorrows, not yesterdays.
Our hope is not blind. It is not unrealistic. It is not a panacea for pain. Hope does not erase history, it merely provides the opportunity to recover and grow from it.
Hope is not a promise, but it is less than delusional dream. It is the fuel that makes life turn out more positively than it currently is, anchored in who we are and the capabilities as a person. We can speak a language of hope because we have seen so many take brave steps out of catastrophe or excruciating illness to tackle the empty feelings in their heart.
We can’t touch hope. But we know it exists.
We can’t create one roadmap of how to turn hope into a journey towards better days. We know that hope lends itself to a person journey.
We know that hope is more than just one thing. Hope is many things…a plan, a feeling, an attitude, motivation, belief in self, protection from more misery.
What makes us a peddler is our desire to spread hope widely and universally. We are persistent in our approach to being hopeful about hope.
Too often we keep people looking backwards, not forwards. “Tell me your story…”; “Tell me what happened…”;”And then what…” The past creates a picture of the present, but as peddlers of hope we need to then focus the discussion into the future. “What will your story be…”
Ours is not a false hope. Ours is not another promise to be broken. Our is not a guarantee that everything will be alright.
Crippled by remorse and shame, we can exude positivity in appropriate doses to help others see the power of hope. Devastated by broken promises and shattered relationships, we can exude positivity in appropriate doses to help others see the power of hope. Hurting from self-inflicted harm to person or spirit, we can exude positivity in appropriate doses to help others see the power of hope.
As a peddler of hope, we know that hope is intentional. As a peddler of hope, we embrace the possibilities that can realistically occur. As a peddler of hope, share the desire for better things to happen – and provide the fuel to make that possible when the individual/family has no hope of her/his own.