Heroes of The Homeless Crisis: How Sherman S Haggerty Is Helping To Support Some Of The Most Vulnerable People In Our Communities
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
I do believe we have the capacity to reach the point in our communities where we can look at what we have accomplished as a “job well done” and be proud of the effort we made in providing the most humane effort possible. It is going to require just about every segment of our community to take some responsibility for the effort.
Sherman S. Haggerty served on Volunteers of America (VOA) Board of Directors, from 2005 to 2013 and in 2014 became the director at Mather Campus where VOA served over one thousand homeless clients through 2019. In 2019, he finished his work to become an ordained minister with VOA, focusing on trauma and moral injury. Sherman has spent 35 years as a homebuilding executive and was voted into the California Homebuilding Foundation Hall of Fame in 2011 with particular emphasis on his record of community service.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know you’ a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your personal background, and how you grew up?
I grew up in Northern New Jersey, just outside of New York City. My father is the son of a Scottish immigrant and my mother the daughter of an Italian immigrant. Both sides of the family were heavily influenced by their heritage which was entertaining, and my early childhood, most of which took place in the 1950s, was thankfully uneventful. Major impact moments included being among the first to participate in national vaccines with the polio vaccine. There were national scary moments with the cold war nuclear threat and the bombing drills in grade school.
Is there a particular story or incident that inspired you to get involved in your work helping people who are homeless?
While serving on the Board of Directors for Volunteers of America (VOA) in Northern California, I attended the graduation of student clients, most of whom were over 40 years old, from their transitional housing program at Mather community campus. We got to hear the backstory from a few of these graduates. Their stories of overcoming incredible odds to turn their lives around to where they had become self-sufficient were awe inspiring, and there were hundreds of them leaving homelessness for good with employment and housing.
Homelessness has been a problem for a long time in the United States. But it seems that it has gotten a lot worse over the past five years, particularly in the large cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. Can you explain to our readers what brought us to this place? Where did this crisis come from?
There is no simple answer here. The root of the current problem started with change in federal policy that stifled funding for critical services. Bad policy was followed up with poor strategic planning based on a lack of understanding of the service structures and the housing supply the population would need. These issues led directly to the recent growth in the population. The problems of alcohol and drug addictions and mental health have been severely underestimated as has the need to regulate this crisis on its own. We can’t continue to put people in housing they are not capable of maintaining. The services required to prepare people to move into independent housing continue to be inadequate. These problems continue to be compounded by a severe lack of supply of affordable housing.
For the benefit of our readers, can you describe the typical progression of how one starts as a healthy young person with a place to live, a job, an education, a family support system, a social support system, a community support system, to an individual who is sleeping on the ground at night? How does that progression occur?
There have been a number of issues that have derailed people who seemed to be in control of their lives. Most people believe this rapid fall usually occurs because of alcohol or drug abuse and addiction. This is not universally the case, but it has been the case in far too many instances. The physical and psychological needs caused by addiction are capable of altering the most basic, fundamental decision-making processes regarding family, money, and career. Then there are many individuals and families who live paycheck to paycheck, lose their jobs, and eventually run out of family and other public options for the funds needed to keep them housed (this situation was particularly prevalent during the economic downturn of 2006 through 2009). Virtually anyone who is forced to live on the street for any extended period-of-time will develop PTSD and the need to self-medicate. There are an equal number of people living on the street who come from broken homes, generational poverty and abusive households who were never on that path to the good life.
A question that many people who are not familiar with the intricacies of this problem ask is, “Why don’t homeless people just move to a city that has cheaper housing?” How do you answer this question?
The issues keeping people homeless are far more reaching than just affordability. Those that I served over seven years had multiple barriers to overcome from their time on the street including addictions, criminal records, the lack of any vocational skill, no driver’s license, no savings, no other tangible assets and were surviving on the public benefits and assistance that was available to them because they were a resident of that county. For most, if they chose to move, they would lose access to the few benefits they have as local residents.
If someone passes a homeless person on the street, what is the best way to help them?
For me it depends: If it is a woman, woman with children, or a senior citizen asking for money I will almost always give something. If they are not asking for anything I will at least acknowledge their presence with a “Hello.” Most homeless live unseen and unwanted lives. Young men I will usually refer to our agency.
What is the best way to respond if a homeless person asks for money for rent or gas?
See the above. This is very personal so I do not want to pass judgement, but if you have the means, it will usually help.
Can you describe to our readers how your work is making an impact battling this crisis?
Northern California and Northern Nevada affiliate provides vital services for almost 2,000 people every day in the form of shelter, food, clothing, and vital services including recovery and housing assistance where possible. My book is a cry for more cohesive services focused on helping more people reach independence, leave homelessness behind, and end the cycle of generational poverty all at the same time.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the homeless crisis, and the homeless community? Also how has it affected your ability to help people?
Yes, it has impacted the homelessness crisis. It has greatly restricted the movement into programs because people are not leaving.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
I hope this “teaser” will compel people to read my book, Hope Disappearing: A Population Left Behind (Izzard Ink, November 9, 2021). It is a compelling story of accomplishment and divine intervention that is woven together through the stories of three individuals. One of these individuals was a staff member at a transitional housing program for the homeless in Sacramento County. The other two were clients in that program; one female, one male from incredibly diverse backgrounds. The two became intertwined forever through a recreational activity (soccer) at the program and eventually were elevated to national recognition and then international competition through the vision and obsession of the staff member previously mentioned. It is a fascinating sequence of events that is still reaping benefits in our community. It is a real-life story that could not be made up.
Without sharing real names, can you share a story with our readers about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your work?
I did not include Nick’s story in the book, but he is another example of the kind of work we are capable of doing in homeless services with the right tools and programs. Nick has been very open with his story in hopes of helping others. He is currently serving as the Chair of the local Board of Directors for Volunteers of America in Northern California and Northern Nevada. Here is the abridged version of his story: In the early 2000s Nick was homeless. He was living with his significant other on the street. They were heavily involved with drug use, and he was stealing to support their habits. They were constantly on the run and at one point Nick had 34 outstanding warrants for his arrest. Nick reached a point where he realized his plight was hopeless and he was no longer able to support and protect is significant other. That is when he walked into a homeless shelter and soon after went to turn himself into the police. The police offered to drop his warrants if he agreed to enter a recovery program and get clean. He did and through that process he ended up at our Transitional Housing Program at Mather Community Campus. Nick will tell you the program saved his life and put him back on track to becoming a contributing member of society. Soon after Nick entered Mather his significant other was accepted. To make this long story short, during their two-year stay they ended up getting married, getting jobs and, when they finished the program, moving out into their own market rate housing. Today Nick is the owner of his own Electrical Contracting Company. He employs dozens of others in his tireless advocacy for the homeless.
Can you share three things that the community and society can do to help you address the root of this crisis? Can you give some examples?
First, we need to have consistent policy to deal with drug and alcohol proliferation that is impacting the homeless population. It is a major contributing factor toward the increase in mental health problems and drug related crime. This has become a very complicated space for effective policy which generally leads to no policy or failed policy. This is where we are, and it is a huge obstacle. Second, we need to do a better job of triaging our homeless clients who are coming in for help so they can be referred to services that address their core issues first. This process would further highlight the need to increase our public alcohol and drug rehabilitation services and our public mental health services. Third, we need substantial increases in workforce development programs for the segment of the population that can and eventually want to go back to work. This is great place for the private sector to jump in and create opportunity. We need political leadership behind these initiatives.
If you had the power to influence legislation, which three laws would you like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
This question is very difficult, because the legislation impacting the future of homelessness has gotten very complex and too complicated to put into meaningful practice. But here are a few ideas:
- Simplify and broaden the definition of homelessness (HUD’s final rule). The current definitions exclude large numbers of people from being eligible for public services.
- Re-examine the “harm reduction” policies that handcuff the need to restrict drug use in housing programs and eventually lead to failed placements.
- Restore the opportunities for people who need more help to move through levels of programming prior to being placed in housing without excluding them from the funding they need to complete their steps.
I know that this is not easy work. What keeps you going?
I have seen, firsthand, what can be accomplished with comprehensive, empathetic and caring services for large segments of our unsheltered population. I am fighting for the changes needed to bring those services back into programing at the local levels. I believe I make a compelling argument in my book based both on outcomes and return on investment to seriously consider funding the necessary rehabilitative services, vocational training, employment placement that can lead people back to self-sufficiency.
Do you have hope that one day this great social challenge can be solved completely?
I am not sure anything ever gets completely solved. I do believe we have the capacity to reach the point in our communities where we can look at what we have accomplished as a “job well done” and be proud of the effort we made in providing the most humane effort possible. It is going to require just about every segment of our community to take some responsibility for the effort.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
These are the five things related to working with the homeless populations that I have come to know:
- There are very few, if any, people living on the street who wanted to end up there.
- You can’t see the real person behind a drug or alcohol addiction.
- Mental health symptoms can be directly (sometimes completely) linked to drug and alcohol use.
- Drug addiction is not a choice. It is a pervasive disease and must be treated as such.
- You can’t begin to see the potential of someone who has been homeless based on any kind of initial screening.
Before working with the homeless directly I had a very homogenized view of the population, believing that being there, using drugs and panhandling were all habits of choice and not things of necessity for survival. I have now worked with hundreds who turned their lives around, found work, recovered from addiction, reunited with lost family members, and are really contributing in every way in their community. And there were many whom I would have had to bet against, heavily, from achieving any of that when we first met. I now know these are someone’s brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers, and mother; all wonderfully made and all with more potential than we know.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I want to continue to fight for the homeless. I would want every individual to experience a week or two in the kind of community environment we had at Mather Campus from 2000 through 2018. It is not possible now, so I urge people to read my book to see what can be accomplished with right people, community support and reasonable resources. There are hundreds who would echo these sentiments; the hundred plus people who worked there, student/clients who completed the program, friends of the program who came from the business community or the faith community, county workers who were there during this period and a few politicians who faithfully supported the program over the years.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
This quote is from Mother Theresa: “I have come more and more to realize that it is being unwanted that is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.”
This quote embodies the plight of the homeless. It is a devastating reminder of what they face every day they are on the street. They are looked on as human trash and an irritant in the process of our day-to-day experience. It would be a mistake to think that they don’t feel that vibe.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
-Oprah Winfrey
-Laura Ingraham
I feel that both of these individuals are working in their own way to improve the lives of the people in our country. They may differ politically, but I feel strongly they are fighting for individual rights and care about the struggles of the oppressed.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can learn more me and my book, Hope Disappearing: A Population Left Behind (Izzard Ink, November 9, 2021), at pastorhaggerty.com and follow me on Facebook @PastorHaggerty.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much!
Heroes of The Homeless Crisis: How Sherman S Haggerty Is Helping To Support Some Of The Most Vulner was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.