Episode transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
A note from the producer
Lauren Cuevas: Hey, producer Lauren here with just a quick note about today’s episode. We had a little bit of technical difficulties with mics and setup, but we really wanted to be sure that you got today’s episode into your feed. We’re really excited to talk with our workforce development specialists. I think you will love this episode. It’s really important information, but just bear with us while the sound quality is not so great today. It’ll be better next episode, I promise.
Thanks for sticking with us as we’re starting this journey of podcasting with The City Mission. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.
The stories behind the statistics
Jaime Buxton: Have you ever looked at someone’s life and wondered, “I wonder how they got there.” Maybe it’s a woman at an intersection, a man panhandling outside of a sports venue. Maybe it’s that same child who gets dropped off at school every day, hungry and disheveled. But what if your knee-jerk reaction was wrong? What if the people we so quickly judge are more like us than we think? This is the Not That Different podcast where we look at the stories behind the statistics because when we really lean in and listen, I think we find something surprising that people who are experiencing homelessness are really not that different from us.
They’re our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers. They’re our neighbors, the people God calls us to love. I’m Jaime Buxton and I’m the senior manager of community engagement at The City Mission in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve dedicated my entire career to working with the vulnerable population of people experiencing homelessness in Cleveland. The whole point of this podcast is to allow you to join us and hopefully to destigmatize what you think about homelessness. Today, I’m joined by two amazing colleagues who work with our residents providing career service and development for the men and women that we serve here.
Please welcome Sarah and Raquel.
Sarah Cody: Hey.
Raquel Nashe: Hello.
Jaime Buxton: Hi guys.
Sarah Cody: Thank you for having us.
Meet the workforce development specialists
Jaime Buxton: I’m so happy to have you join me. As we know, I am new at this whole podcast thing, but I love you and I love the work that you’re doing there and it’s so important here at the mission. So, let’s just take a few minutes to introduce yourselves. And I think the real question is why you would want this job. What keeps you coming back every day?
Sarah Cody: Sure. So I’m Sarah Cody and I’m over at the men’s location at Crossroads. And I am the workforce development specialist and What keeps me coming back every day? I volunteered for a long time over at Laura’s Home and I am passionate about God’s people, but specifically those who are unhoused and unsheltered and being able to get them closer to God through being able to minister to them or help them. And I take my job very seriously.
It’s my passion.
Raquel Nashe: I am Raquel Nashe, workforce development specialist for The City Mission Laura’s Home. I believe that the Lord opened this door for me. I’ve never had experience in this field, but the Lord has been equipping me to do this job and do it, you know, with excellence. I have a heart to love God and love people. And that’s his greatest commands for us to do that. And this job allows me to do that.
And give it, you know, my all. And I want to do that. First, I want to glorify God and serve him through this work and I’ve been given the opportunity to be able to do that. I couldn’t be here today without the help of a lot of people along the way, without the prayers of a lot of people. So, I you know can connect with the residents here and I understand and I know some of the struggles that they face or some of the stigmas that they face.
But I want to be a testament to them that God can do miraculous things and he can do a mighty work to transform someone who feels like they’re not worth it or they’re too lost or there’s no hope for them. You know, I just want to help them know that, you know, there is hope. That’s what keeps me coming back is I just want to spread that message.
Jaime Buxton: Oh, I love that. Thank you. Just a little side note for the people tuning into this. We are at Laura’s Home Women’s Crisis Center today. So that’s one part of The City Mission kind of located on the west side of Cleveland. And where Sarah works primarily is with our men where we serve men at Crossroads Men’s Crisis Center in the Midtown area of Cleveland. So just wanted to avoid any confusion for the people who are watching or listening to this.
Okay.
A day in the resource center
Jaime Buxton: So both of you have the same title. You’re the workforce development specialist, right? And like we said, Sarah works with the men, Raquel with the women. Tell me what it’s like a day in the resource center at either of your locations.
Sarah Cody: You go first. When you think of the word crisis, we’re dealing with residents who are in crisis, right? So, you’re also dealing with people who, have a lot of broken promises from a lot of people along the way in their journey. And even though we are Christ-centered and we’re leading them to God, they may not be in a solid place with God yet. So, they’re not as trusting as some might be.
So, you know, when we give them commitments and they’re in crisis and they’ve already been, you know, let down by so many people, they want what they want right now. So, it is a tug-of-war kind of thing all day long. It is sometimes very taxing, but it requires a lot of prayer and a lot of time before God to be able to be equipped to pour into them everything that they need because their needs to them are the main priority of my day.
Jaime Buxton: Right. How about you?
Raquel Nashe: So you know definitely there are all different walks, all different stories. Everyone you know communicates in different ways or has different needs. My goal when I first arrived here was to be able to create a place that provided consistency, provided structure, provided, you know, an order in which when they came to the resource room, they knew what they were going to get every time. So, you know, I’ve developed or have put in place a schedule.
So, I see certain teams at certain times. You know, we work in different teams for different phases. They know that when they’re coming to see me at their specific time, they know they have all of me, all of my attention, and I’m able to see every single woman here every week and I’m able to meet with them. When they come to the resource room, it’s it’s not just workforce development. It’s not just financial literacy which are things we provide or it’s not you know a time to check out a computer or go to the library or work on your resume.
But I am trying to also cultivate you know rapport or cultivate a relationship with them that they know that they have someone in their corner. Because you know they’re feeling abandoned or they’re feeling not worth it or they’re feeling you know nobody’s going to give them the time of day at a job or why make the effort or anything like that. So outside of doing all those you know logistical things like résumés and workshops and you know digital literacy just also pouring into them to be able to build them up you know that’s a goal of mine as well.
The first days in the program
Jaime Buxton: Yeah. So, you both kind of alluded to different things that you do within the program here. I think I know how vast that is. So, I think we won’t talk much about kind of all of those little components, but it’s, you know, what’s it like on someone’s first day here? What is it like for someone’s first day?
Sarah Cody: Well, you could probably answer that first.
Raquel Nashe: Definitely each facility works a little bit different. When we have a woman with children or just a woman coming in we just want you to settle in and pause, stop and pause for just a just a moment. You know, we’re doing that intake. We’re meeting your basic needs first. Want to make sure you have, you know, the food, the clothes, and a bed. You’re settled down. What we don’t want to do is immediately throw them into a computer class and be like, “What’s your resume?
Where’s your last?” You know, that comes a couple weeks after. But when they first meet with me, I let them know this is what we do in the resource room. This is the point of this. This is who I am. This is you know, what I’m going to do for you. My whole purpose here is to help you. So on your journey here, I explain that to them and then I let them know, you know, we want to get all your documents.
We want to make sure that you have all your documents. We want to make sure that, you know, you are just well versed in what this is going to be like because we want to introduce them, not just kind of just throw them into things to be sensitive of, you know, they’re processing a lot and they’re going through a lot at this time. But the basic thing, one of the first things is we’ll start them off with the digital literacy class.
You know, it’s something that is not so taxing, but it’s a skill. It’s a skill that they need, and I want them to keep up with their skills. So, we kind of start with the small before we go into like more intense things like the work readiness workshop as they, you know, move on through the phases here.
Jaime Buxton: What’s different at Crossroads for the men?
Sarah Cody: Well, as far as their first day, like Raquel said, it’s intake, you know, and then it’s like, here’s a hot meal, here’s your bed, here’s your bag, you know, all the things that the RAs are really doing. So they don’t really make it to me right away until we do new resident orientation. And at that time, we talk to them about their OSS assignment or their STS now assignment that they’ll be doing, which is an on-site service that they’re required to do while they’re there.
But that on-site service is actually a blessing to them also because it’s allowing them to get back into the habit of doing work. And in doing that, we’re actually utilizing that as a reference for them on their resumes, which is invaluable to a lot of people that have gaps on their resume because they’ve been incarcerated or in the street homeless or never even had a legal job for that matter. So that’s kind of like the first things that I do with them is work with them on that OSS.
Make sure that they’re going every day, making sure that they’re meeting with the team lead of those things, which is like the kitchen, the warehouse, the laundry, and the facilities maintenance. And they’re doing daily devotionals and getting used to getting into the work habit. They don’t actually start coming to my class until they’ve been there almost 60 days. And then that’s when they actually enter into resource center classes, which we call pre-phase.
So, it’s a lot different than what they’re doing. Yeah. And in the first 60 days, I’m making sure that they have their birth certificate, Social Security cards, IDs, so that we can get them on housing lists and they’re prepared with all the documents that they need. And mostly just everybody kind of knows who I am. So, someone another resident will say, “Hey, go see Sarah. She knows what to do.” You know, and that just kind of really just gives me an opportunity to be able to get to know who they are, their story, and minister to them more so than starting to throw teaching at them.
Yeah.
Jaime Buxton: Right. Yeah.
Identification, confidence, and preparing for work
Jaime Buxton: One of the things that I teach and have when we had interns and even when I’m out in the community talking about what we do is help people understand how important those documents are. Having an ID or your birth certificate because you can’t do anything without those. You know, I used to send interns to the library and say go try to get a library card but tell them you don’t have a birth certificate or a state ID.
It’s impossible. You know, and so simple things that I think people take for granted when just, oh, go get a job. You have to have all those building blocks in place. How often are you doing things like that when someone comes in, like helping them get an ID or track down their birth certificate, things like that?
Sarah Cody: So, when we do the new resident orientations, we usually have, I would say, five to maybe 15 a week that are new. And I pass around a board and probably out of 15 there’s probably 10 that need something that they don’t have. I mean, if you’re living on the street for a long period of time and you don’t have those documents, one would say, “Well, why do you care now? You know, you just signed in.
You don’t need them right away. Just chill out. Wait.” but they start to feel like, “Okay, well, I need to have my identification now.” Not only because I know you can help me get it, but because I’ve made the decision to try to turn my life around. And this may be the very first thing that they’re stepping into doing to take responsibility for. So, helping them to do that is really important.
Jaime Buxton: Yeah.
Raquel Nashe: Yeah, definitely. I would say high percentage, we’re talking about 85 to almost 90% of those that come in do not have one or more of those documents that you need. ID, Social Security card, birth certificate. They’ve lost it with, you know, might have been a lot of moves, might have been just, you know, never, you know, got it from their parents or it was never given to them or, you know, just damaged because it could be a house fire, people coming in for that and, you know, documents that could have been damaged, you know, through different things.
But that’s definitely high percentage that they don’t have it. And a lot of times you can’t get an ID if you don’t have an address to put on it.
Jaime Buxton: So I feel like getting these sorts of things in order are building their confidence. What would you say if you had to tell me confidence building versus resume building? Like which is more important in the relationship that you have? Because I think when I see workforce development specialists, they’re they’re going to be expert resume writers, and I’m sure you are, and job connectors also, I’m sure you are. Yeah. But how much of that is actually helping someone feel employable and worthy of work?
And
Sarah Cody: Yeah, I’d say that like the pouring into them and building up their work experience. Again, on my end, things are a lot different. The men have been institutionalized or have been out in the street or never had a legal job. So building them up in those areas that they may have never had to even exercise, you know, soft skills, hard skills, those kind of things. Getting them to feel like they are employable, right?
And making sure that they know how to interview well and all of those things. I actually do resumes with them last right before it’s time to put those applications in. And not because I’m trying to hold on to that or anything. It’s really more so like you don’t really need that right now. What you need is to know that you are employable, that you can work a legal job, that being gainfully employed and having finances the legal way is what God wants for you.
Jaime Buxton: Yeah.
Raquel Nashe: Yeah. For sure. So, in talking about getting, you know, documents to, these residents, it gives them, that’s one aspect of giving them confidence. I remember being in the BMV with a resident getting their ID and they finally received the last piece of all their documents. Their quote was, you know, “Thank you so much. I finally feel like a real person.” because having no identity or no way to prove your identity, you know, people, you know, judge you, you know, and they don’t really know who you are.
And for the person to be able to be like, “This is who I am. This is my birth certificate. This is my social. She’s like, “I finally feel seen. I finally feel like a real person.” small things like that, you know, make me like really well up inside. And even just getting somebody an ID is, you know, feels like it’s so small, but it’s so big of a part of that confidence building
Jaime Buxton: For sure.
Raquel Nashe: Because now they feel like an actual person, right? You know, like we pass by homeless people or think about homeless people and we don’t take time to think about how they’re feeling about themselves. But one of the affirmations that I give them all the time is you are worth the effort that it takes to learn, to grow, to expand. Because a lot of times they don’t think that they’re worth it because a lot of people have made them feel as such.
They’re not worth it. They’re they’re the invisible thing that we all ignore, you know, don’t pay much attention to or give much effort to. But, you know, I let them know that. And in everything that I do, I want them to know that my mission is to love God, love people. And I affirm that with that quote, you are worth the effort it takes to grow, to learn, you know, to expand.
And résumés take about 3% of my energy and time. Because I can, you know, whip up a resume really quick. But it’s really the teaching them how to interview, you know, how to have good communication, how to have good conversation, how their body language matters, you know, how when we walk into a room, you know, we want to be dressed in a certain way that, you know, commands respect and, just teaching them all those kinds of things.
That’s really where like a lot of my energy, you know, goes into a resume.
Jaime Buxton: Yeah, I think we got Raquel a little excited. You got a little powerful over there and I love it. You are worth the effort and that’s awesome.
Stories of transformation
Jaime Buxton: Sarah, tell me what is your favorite part of your job? Is there a class? Is there what is it in the process that is like your favorite part or a story that stands out?
Sarah Cody: My favorite part is when I you know I see a guy on the first day and they send him to me. He comes to me and he’s like, “Hey, Sarah. I need this.” And I’m like, “Okay, you just got here.” And I’ll joke with them. I usually refer to them as fresh off the block, you know, whoever they are, right? And I’ll be like, “You guys are fresh off the block. What are you looking for me already?” You know, and they’re like, “Well, they said you can do this.” I’m like, “Well, I absolutely can, but I’m going to need you to just wait on God.
I need you to just take these 30 days and I need you to sit on your hands.” I tell them that all the time, especially if there’s somebody who’s coming from a situation where they may have been incarcerated for selling drugs or something. I always say, just sit on your hands, let God process you in these 30 days. Let him get a hold of you. You get a hold of him and see what God is capable of doing just in 30 days.
And then being able to when they do come to my class, see the difference in how they are talking versus how they were when they arrived. How they’ve calmed down. They’re not all over the place trying to like get everything right now, right now, right now. I always say like you’re trying to work your own hands, okay? But God’s hands need to be worked here, you know? And then it’s just amazing to be able to see, okay, they’ve grasped it or, you know, like some of them may not actually, and they may come to me and they could be the exact same person, but I just feel like it’s an opportunity for me to then speak to, okay, well, you know, we talked about this 30 days ago and you’re still doing the same stuff.
And really try to just get them to slow down, you know, and just see like this is an opportunity that many people don’t get. Not the homeless part, right? The part where we can sit in the presence of God and we can not have to worry about work. We can not have to worry about how I’m going to eat. We can not have to worry about how am I going to get my documents and those things because these things are all being provided for you right now.
But more so worry about my salvation. More so worry about how did I get here and how will I not come back, you know, and become the man that God intended you to be. As far as like a story that stands out, I have so many, right? But I would say like the main one is I had a young man who used to sell drugs with his mom from the age of eight.
His mother was a cocaine dealer and she had him serving drugs at 8 years old while she was at work working a legal job. So people would come to the house. He was not under the care of a babysitter during summer months or during after school hours and they would come and he would distribute drugs to them that she had already prepackaged. In doing that she ended up going to prison and then he ended up going to prison.
And he was 13 years old and tried as a drug dealer at 13 years old. And he actually ended up in federal prison because they had started to transport drugs over the state line. At that point, I feel like she may have gotten really comfortable using him and realized how easy it was. And of course, when we get caught up in those things, like you just you’re in the moment, a tyranny of the moment.
You teach that Bridges Out of Poverty, right? So, in doing that, they ended up both of them in federal prison. Obviously separate because male and female don’t come together. But so when he came out, sheriffs had dropped him off to us. And he had never been anything other than a little boy who had been selling drugs for his mom, right? So no education, no self-worth, not understanding what it meant to be a man, not even having the opportunity to be a man.
But when he walked out of there, he had 12 certificates that he obtained along the way. He got his GED. He did like a program where he could become a independent contractor. He left out of there licensed to fly drones and all kinds of things. He went to the ACCESS to Manufacturing program. Any opportunity that he was presented with he faced it and he did it well and he obtained the document.
He finished it right. Now he is working through the ACCESS to Manufacturing program with Lincoln Electric and he has his own place. He does have a son and he’s got his son in his place and he’s able to be the man that God has intended for him to be all along and he comes back like probably more than he should maybe like twice a month to see me and he’ll he calls me mom you know and he runs in and he hugs me and he’s so thankful for what he’s been able to accomplish and the encouragement that he was given along the way is what he holds on to tells me all the time, “Thank you for encouraging me.
Thank you for pouring into me. Thank you for knowing that I was capable of being something other than a drug dealer.” And ironically, he brought his mother to the graduation. And I went over and I hugged her and I said, “Hey, mom. I’m mom also.” And it takes a village and it’s okay that you needed help with your son, but he’s a great man of God now. And it was awesome to be able to look her in the eyes and say that I was a part of transforming his life that way.
And now she’s that way as well. He actually has brought her closer to Christ also. They go to church together and she’s no longer living that life either. So that’s my favorite.
Jaime Buxton: That’s going to be hard to top in some way. But I know we all have our stories. Do you have one that you’d like to share? Of course with dignity. Thanks for not sharing any names for sure.
Raquel Nashe: I’ve just, you know, been so grateful to be able to just be a part of anyone’s journey, of anyone’s story. I’ve seen definite transformation happen. Especially with those that get the opportunity to go over to Rothstein Village, I get to be a part of that story just a little bit longer and I get to see a lot more or hear about a lot more transformation for a longer period of time. And I do, you know, want to highlight, you know, that we do have a person that I was able to work along with, you know, in work readiness and preparing them for interviews, getting them through legal matters and legal things that they were going through.
Being able to recommend them to go over to Rothstein Village because they had excelled in all their programs, because they conquered achieving and obtaining their GED or adult diploma. They were even able to be on staff here, you know, and that whole transformation came. And I do remember the struggles that they had when they first got here. You know, being able to stay consistently clean, being able to work through traumas, you know, of having their mother die while they were here.
Navigating that, navigating child care and securing safety for their child and just the transformation of you know this is what I want to work towards. This is what I want for my child for our future. And having seen the opportunity presented to them to be able to, you know, go over to transitional, but to see their continued growth because I do see them here and how much they have changed and transformed and are thirsty for God, are thirsty to change not just physical, you know, things or, you know, logistical things or tangible things, but now spiritually and I get to continue to see that growth.
And it’s it’s just such a blessing. It’s a blessing to be here to be able to see that and to be able to just see the power of God and how he works through each person that comes through here. Yeah. You know, if they let God, if they let go and they let God, right?
Jaime Buxton: Yes. Absolutely.
Raquel Nashe: You know, there’s there’s just such powerful transformation that happens.
Challenging misconceptions about homelessness
Jaime Buxton: Well, this has been awesome spending time with you two. I think before we end this session, that’s what we’re going to call it. Before we end this recording or this episode, I would love for you, this is where I get the most feisty. This is why I love what we’re doing is what’s the biggest misconception people have when they see that panhandler or that person at the intersection or they have that knee-jerk reaction?
What’s the biggest misconception that they have that you could just say that really that’s so not right?
Sarah Cody: That they’re lazy, that they want to be homeless, that they don’t want to do anything with themselves or they’re like government, you know, like trying to take from the government and they want to live off the government and they don’t want to have anything for themselves. But that’s that’s so not true. I mean sometimes they just don’t know how and they just need somebody to help you know to show them like okay you know I think of it like God you know if we allow God and we just take his hand and he leads us and guides us and we trust him with that right but if we become that person for him before he gets to God and we say okay come on I got you I will show you how to do that right you know a lot of times we talk about empowering them and sometimes they just need somebody to empower them to show them that the way that you’re living can change just by making one change, right?
You’re not lazy. You’re not what they say you are.
Jaime Buxton: Yeah. I think you hit it on the head earlier when you said you are worth the effort. I love that.
Raquel Nashe: And it’s it’s not only you’re worth the effort, like our effort, but you’re worth putting effort into yourself. Yes. Because I’m, you know, a lot of the residents that come in here, they do have traumatic backgrounds of people telling them they’re every single thing else but worth it.
Sarah Cody: Amen.
Raquel Nashe: But worth giving it a try, giving it your all. And a lot of times I’m having conversations where they just don’t know. They don’t know. Especially the 18 to 24 year old community that is coming in here. They didn’t have they don’t have that guidance,
Jaime Buxton: Right?
Raquel Nashe: That fell through for them. They don’t know they don’t know what their options are or what their opportunities are. They only know what they see around. And it’s not because they don’t want to do the right thing. It’s because they don’t know what the right thing is. But you know Keeping in mind that mental health plays a lot. It’s not that I’m choosing to have a mental health issue. I have it, but now I don’t know how to navigate living with it.
So it’s a lot of miseducation they just don’t know but it’s because they don’t know where to get the education or what to where to get advice or where to get poured into. And we’re trying to be that plug for them, you know, to educate them, to elevate them, to help them build communities and networks and things and have outlets where they can continue to grow. And it’s, you know, unfortunate that people place stigmas on homeless when there’s just so many different factors.
Every single person that walks through here has a different story. It’s not the same. It’s not the same. Some person could have just went through a series of unfortunate events that were just completely out of their control. If they don’t have support systems, if they don’t have anybody to help them watch their children, it’s hard. But it’s not that I don’t want to work, right? It’s just they can’t because there’s no one, you know, that they can go to for help.
But we want to plug them in. We want to give them the knowledge, the power of knowledge of knowing how they can be successful, how they can be stable, how they can have consistency in their life. And it’s a lot of times it’s just because they just don’t know.
How to get involved
Jaime Buxton: Well, thank you ladies. It is a joy and a privilege to work with you and to get to be out in the community and share the work that you’re doing. It’s so important and I’m so grateful for both of you. Thanks for listening or watching this episode of Not That Different. We hope that this episode in particular reminds you that the people experiencing homelessness around you are really not that different from you.
If this episode resonates with you or you got excited about something we said, we encourage you to look for ministries in your area that support people who are experiencing homelessness. If you’re around Cleveland, please go to our website, thecitymission.org. Connect with us for prayer opportunities, volunteer opportunities, and of course, donating. And hey, if you happen to be an employer or someone who makes employment decisions today, reach out to us at our email at connect@thecitymission.org.
I’d love to get you connected to these ladies. If you want to help find valuable employment for the people that we serve, we appreciate you. Hit like or subscribe.