The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Rethinking Homelessness: Why “Housing First” Isn’t Enough with Michele Steeb

Summary

The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Rethinking Homelessness—Why “Housing First” Isn’t Enough

Guest: Michele Steeb
Date: September 17, 2025
Podcast: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (iHeartPodcasts)
Host: Tudor Dixon

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deeply into the pressing and persistent issue of homelessness in the United States, specifically challenging the “Housing First” model that has dominated federal and state policy for over a decade. Tudor Dixon hosts Michele Steeb, a seasoned expert who has spent 13 years as CEO of Northern California’s largest homeless program and authored Answers Behind the Red: Battling the Homelessness Epidemic. Together, they discuss why simply providing housing to the homeless is failing, the bureaucratic and political obstacles to real solutions, and hopeful, human-focused alternatives to current policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Critique of "Housing First" Policy

Timestamps: 03:37–10:42

• "Housing First" Model Origins and Flaws

  • Introduced in 2008 for the “chronically homeless” (10–20% of the population) under Bush; expanded nationwide without evidence in 2013 by the Obama administration ([03:37]).
  • Promised to end homelessness in a decade, but it’s up nearly 35% since implementation.
  • “It’s been a disaster at every level of the system. It’s destroyed lives. It’s destroyed communities.” — Michele Steeb [03:37]

• Defunding Support Services

  • HUD redirected funding away from mental health care, addiction treatment, and job training, focusing resources almost exclusively on housing subsidies ([08:03]).

• Fatal Flaws in the Philosophy

  • "They believed that once the homeless were housed, they would...desire services and they could request those services. But what no one talks about is when...they rolled out Housing first as a one size fits all approach in 2013, HUD actually defunded services like mental health treatment, drug and alcohol counseling, employment training." — Michele Steeb [08:03]
  • Study in Boston: Of the chronically homeless placed in housing, nearly 50% had died within 10 years, often from untreated addiction or mental illness ([08:48–10:09]).

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2. The Role of Bureaucracy and Lack of Accountability

Timestamps: 05:17–07:14, 22:56–25:53

• Massive Spending, Minimal Results

  • "In San Francisco alone, there are 12 nonprofits...under investigation for misuse of funds and/or fraud." — Michele Steeb [06:02]
  • Suggestion that entrenched bureaucracies and nonprofits have little incentive to end homelessness: “Once you get to a point where you have a government agency that has a $600 million budget, who wants to shut down their own department, right?” — Tudor Dixon [05:17]

• Culture of Corruption and Scandal

  • L.A. county homelessness agency cited for misuse of funds and hiring questionable contractors ([06:28]).

• Policy Decisions Without Accountability

  • California doubled down on “Housing First” in 2016 and kept local governments locked into it.
  • “He (Newsom) has kept counties and cities under the thumb of housing first. They have no other alternative but to build more housing units and subsidize them with the funding that they get from, you know, the state.” — Michele Steeb [24:19]

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3. Why “Housing First” Isn't Enough: Ignoring Mental Health and Addiction

Timestamps: 07:19–12:15, 14:34–16:24

• Mental Health and Anosognosia

  • Up to 80% of the homeless struggle with mental illness and/or addiction; many lack self-awareness of their disease, making voluntary treatment extremely unlikely ([08:48]).
  • “[When] we put people in a house...we isolate them from community...expect them to gain some, you know, miraculous clarity that they really need help. It’s just not happening.” — Michele Steeb [10:07]

• Institutional Failure and Historical Context

  • Past federal psychiatric institutions had poor outcomes and were closed during the Reagan era, but the vacuum of treatment systems has never properly been filled ([10:42]).

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4. A Human-First Approach: What Actually Works

Timestamps: 12:15–16:24, 26:53–31:09

• Comprehensive, Structured Programs

  • For women and children, Michele’s model involved 12–18 months of:
    • Sober, accountable community living
    • Mental health and addiction counseling
    • Employment training (via on-site restaurants and daycare)
    • Robust children’s programming
    • Financial literacy, fine resolution, and life skills development
  • “All of those things need to be addressed...you really can’t underestimate the fundamentals, right, the basics. But you also can’t underestimate the lack of role models they've had in their lives of people who are working, who are self-sustaining and thriving.” — Michele Steeb [14:34]

• Defining Real Success

  • Old metric: simply getting someone keys to a unit.
  • New metric: stability, recovery, independence, job readiness, healthy family life.
  • “We wanted to support these women in becoming the primary providers of their families and no longer being dependent on government and on substances...” — Michele Steeb [26:53]

• Gradual, Individualized Recovery

  • Recovery and stabilization built “an hour at a time,” especially early in recovery from addiction or mental illness ([26:53]).

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5. Political, Policy, and Social Implications

Timestamps: 19:17–25:53, 30:46–32:44

• Public Backlash and Propaganda

  • Attempts to clean up encampments facing organized resistance.
  • “My friend...who runs...‘We Heart Seattle’...is under constant physical, verbal and physical attack because she's helping these individuals in a way our government has failed them." — Michele Steeb [21:41]

• Need for PR and Narrative Change

  • “It sounds like a PR campaign is needed…because there are so many people…that don’t have the knowledge that you have that really there’s a solution to get people back on track.” — Tudor Dixon [30:46]

• Call for Accountability and System Reform

  • Federal executive orders are signaling a shift away from “Housing First” toward a treatment- and recovery-focused system.
  • Success will depend not just on federal, but strong state and local implementation ([32:02]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Failure of Housing First:
  “It’s been a disaster at every level of the system. It’s destroyed lives. It’s destroyed communities.”
  — Michele Steeb [03:37]

• On the Data:
  “Despite the promise [homelessness] would end in 10 years, it’s up 35%...when diseases go untreated, they get worse. And that’s what happen when we stick people in a house.”
  — Michele Steeb [08:48]

• On Systemic Incentives:
  “Once you get to a point where you have a government agency that has a $600 million budget, who wants to shut down their own department, right?”
  — Tudor Dixon [05:17]

• On Real Solutions:
  “All of those things need to be addressed...you really can’t underestimate the fundamentals, right, the basics. But you also can’t underestimate the lack of role models they’ve had in their lives of people who are working, who are self-sustaining and thriving.”
  — Michele Steeb [14:34]

• On Hope and Roadmap:
  “If I can leave your listeners with anything, it’s to have hope. And these executive...the executive order is exactly what we needed to build a system that will lead the homeless to hopeful, restored lives and our communities to the same.”
  — Michele Steeb [31:09]

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Timestamps for Other Important Topics

• Corruption and Scandals in Nonprofits: 06:02–07:14
• Mental Health Institutional History: 10:42–11:53
• Homelessness and Local Business Impact: 23:22–23:55
• Public Attitudes—“Free” vs. Accountability: 38:10–39:21
• Promoting Hope and Learning More: 31:09–40:04

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Final Thoughts

The episode builds a nuanced case that while providing a roof is necessary, true recovery from homelessness requires comprehensive, individualized support—mental health care, addiction treatment, life skills, job readiness, and community. “Housing First” as a mandated, one-size-fits-all policy, Steeb and Dixon argue, has failed both morally and in outcomes, leaving more people suffering and communities struggling.

Michele Steeb’s Book & Resources

• Book: Answers Behind the Red: Battling the Homelessness Epidemic (Available on Amazon) [39:21]
• Further Writing: www.micheleestieb.com

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This summary covers the full episode content, omitting advertisements and introductory material for clarity and focus on the discussion.

Transcript

[Michelle Stieb]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Tudor Dixon]

Welcome to the Tudor Dixon Podcast. Today we are going to be talking about an increasingly bigger problem in the United States every single day, and that is homelessness. We have an expert with us today. Her name is Michelle Stieb. And she actually authored a book recently in the last few years called Answers behind the Red Battling the Homelessness Epidemic. It's something that Michelle has dealt with for years. You've worked in California 13 years as the CEO of Northern California's largest program, and now you work on another program. You, you have a foundation and you work with Discovery Institute. I want talk to you about this issue today because I think a lot of people feel like there's not really an answer. But you have come up with an answer.

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, there's, there's more than one answer, but the answer that there is not is the approach that we've been under for the last 12 years. It's an approach called housing first. I'll explain what that is in a second. But this approach was designed for a very small segment of the homeless population, 10 to 20%, called the chronically homeless. And the George W. Bush administration introduced it in 2008 for that population. However, in 2013, without any evidence that it would work as a one size fits all approach to homelessness, the Obama administration rolled it out again as a one size fits all. And they promised, they literally promised, he did in writing, that it would end homelessness in a decade. And here we are 12 years later. We're at the highest point ever in our Nation's history. It's up 30, almost 35%. It's been a disaster at every level of the system. It's destroyed lives, it's destroyed communities. And thankfully, this president has said enough is enough with his executive order several weeks ago, has, as I describe it, turn the battleship in the right direction. But we now need to build a system that is going to help people actually get treatment and recover, which they can do. It's the reason I wrote the book. I have tremendous hope this can be turned around at the individual level and at the systemic level. And I'm looking forward to our discussion today.

[Tudor Dixon]

Well, I think that what you said is true. I think there is, we do have a president now who's looking at this in a different way. But you are also fighting a bureaucracy across this country, and you know that better than most in California. I mean, I remember we were working out in San Francisco in 2018, and I think Back then just the city of San Francisco had 600 million dedicated to homelessness every year. And that was to like 15,000 homeless people in the city of San Francisco. To me, the question is, once you get to a point where you have a government agency that has a $600 million budget who wants to shut down their own department. Right. Why does homelessness not end? I mean, maybe it's because are making a lot of money on homelessness.

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, you're exactly right. In fact, I just posted today in, in San Francisco alone, there are 12 nonprofits under investigate, Homeless serving nonprofits under investigation for misuse of funds and, and, or fraud. In la, I just. Wait, wait, wait.

[Tudor Dixon]

Are these. Just a question, when you say misuse of funds, are those nonprofits getting taxpayer funds?

[Michelle Stieb]

Oh, yes, absolutely. And then in la, the agency that oversees homelessness at the county, at the COC level, Karen Bass, best friend, was appointed to head up that agency and she mysteriously left after about, I don't know, a year, year and a half. And it turns out that there was a lot of misuse of funds. There were some whistleblowers who called that to attention. That's now being invest investigated. And one of the misuses of funds is that she hired a contractor who within a day of, of his being on board, gave her a lap dance. I'd love to see the scope of work in that contract.

[Tudor Dixon]

Whoa. That was not where I thought that was gonna go. That's. Oh yeah, crazy.

[Michelle Stieb]

Yes. So there's, you know, that the problem with the system. So let me describe what Housing First, Housing first says we need to put everyone who experiences homelessness in a housing unit for life without any conditions. Without any conditions.

[Tudor Dixon]

So nobody helping them. This is not like a health institution where people are actually getting rehab or being taken care of. They're providing a home, which in my experience, or from what I've been told, it's not that they just need a place to live. There are many different factors as to why they are homeless. So it's not like you're going to build a bunch of housing and put people there and walk away from them and their lives are going to improve.

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, that's exactly what the philosophy was. And again, President Obama promised this would end homelessness in a decade. The fallacy is they believed that once the homeless were housed, they would all of a sudden desire services and they could request those services. But what no one talks about is when again, when they rolled out Housing first as a one size fits all approach in 2013, HUD actually defunded services like mental health treatment, drug and alcohol counseling, employment training. And they put all of that money into housing subsidies.

[Tudor Dixon]

So they took away the services and used that money to build buildings.

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, to fund further housing subsidies. Build buildings was part of it as well. But, but all of it, all of that money went into housing. And again, the results are that despite the promise it would end in 10 years, it's up 35%. What people don't understand is that when about 80% of the homeless population are struggling with mental illness and, or addiction, when they are struggling with those diseases, they're often struggling with another disease of the brain classified by cdc, which is called anosognosia. And that's a deficit of self awareness. So the notion that they're going to be placed into housing and all of a sudden it's going to become clear that they have an addiction problem or that they really struggle with severe mental illness, that's a fallacy. There's a study, the only long term study that we've been able to find that was done in Boston, that followed the chronically homeless placed in housing for over 10 years after year five, nearly 50% of the cohort died. They did not decide that they wanted treatment. They did not decide that they died.

[Tudor Dixon]

Of drug overdoses or what happened.

[Michelle Stieb]

There's a myriad of causes. You know, I can send you the study, but it, it was largely untreated mental illness and addiction. Right. These are diseases of the brain. When diseases go untreated, they get worse. And that's what happen when we stick people in a house. We isolate them from community, which is what individual housing units does. And when we expect them to all of a sudden gain some, you know, miraculous clarity that they really need help, it's just not happening.

[Tudor Dixon]

The other day the President talked about bringing mental health institutions back. What is your opinion of that?

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, I want to clarify, you know, at the federal level, we didn't deal with mental at all. It was really left to the states and to, you know, communities. But under jfk, he had some advisors who were physicians, not really even experts in mental illness, who convinced him to build a mental health system at the federal level, to drive it at the federal level. It was Reagan who indeed shut these institutions down because the outcomes were so poor. And the intention was, I don't know what happened, but the intention was that Congress would come up with a new system. But those institutions weren't shut down because Reagan was a horrible guy. He shut them down because the outcomes were horrible. So to your question, Tudor, if we, we do need to build a lot more mental health capacity, but we don't need to go back to the system that was developed in the 60s that failed. You know, those struggling with mental illness in a massive way.

[Tudor Dixon]

You dealt with a lot of women and children and obviously children in this situation is devastating. And we've seen it out on the streets. We've seen people, whole families living in encampments on the streets. What did you see was helping the most with women who were homeless and they were trying to raise their children on the streets?

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, there's a lot of. So let me step back and I shared earlier the data around the overall homeless population, our women in. And we, I mean, I probably served in my time, my 13 years there, about 15,000 women and children. 78% of our women were struggling with addiction, 70% with domestic violence, 68% with criminal histories, 70% mental illness, 55% didn't have a high school diploma or GED. Right. So our program was a 12 to 18 month comprehensive program that helped them address all of those issues in an accountability, sober environment. That is really, really crucial. All of the. If, even if you want to get better in this current system, again, the system the president has, you know, asked us on the front lines to change. Even if you want to get better, your next door neighbor is likely using because he or she can. It is really hard to recover and to, you know, get on a different path when you're surrounded by chaos and drugs and people that, whose mental illness is not being treated. So that's the whole system that we've built in the last 12 years. And that's the system we have to get rid of and rebuild under the president's executive orders. At St. John's the program I ran, we had mental health counseling, we had drug and alcohol counseling. I actually started two restaurants in a daycare program that were hands on employment training programs for the women and children. We had a robust children's program. We had, you know, an ability for them to get a bank account to create a budget to start to save money to pay off fines. A lot of the homeless have years of fines that they're maybe not even aware of, but you want to get them aware of those early on so that when they do get a job and they're in stable housing, their wages are not all of a sudden garnished because the IRS or whoever, whatever agency has caught up with them. You got to start to address those things early.

[Tudor Dixon]

These are fines from like tickets that.

[Michelle Stieb]

They'Ve had while they're in the public transportation system without a ticket, parking illegally, driving without a driver's license. And when those fines are not addressed, they accumulate, right? We were able to get some taken off the books, but a lot of our women just needed to set up a payment plan, you know, very slowly start to address those things, show, show that they wanted and sometimes and get those paid off and sometimes they were forgiven after the women demonstrated, you know, an eagerness to do that. But all of those things need to be addressed. And so when they're in their own housing, they know how to, you know, at our program, the women had chores every day. They were taught how to, you know, clean bathrooms, how to, you know, prepare dinner, how to clean up after dinner, how to do laundry the proper way, how to, you know, think about if they're taking public transportation, planning for that, planning for eventualities that, you know, they, some that, you know, something maybe not on time and then getting to your appointment in time, right? All of those things. Learning how to talk to a teacher of, of your child that they've never really been been engaged with. So you really can't underestimate the fundamentals, right, the basics. But you also can't underestimate the lack of role models they've had in their lives of people who are working, who are self sustaining and thriving. And we needed to teach all of that under our 12 to 18 month roof.

[Tudor Dixon]

Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tudor Dixon podcast.

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[Tudor Dixon]

Well, let me ask you. We saw what Donald Trump did in Washington, D.C. when he removed the homeless encampments. And I wonder how we got to this point in society where we see these homeless encampments and we say that people living in tents on public property is humane and trying to take them out of that situation is inhumane because there was a lot of uproar about how can you take these people's property? How can you remove them from this situation? When did we get to the point where we said this is how we want people in the United States living? Because it's really hard to reverse that mindset.

[Michelle Stieb]

Absolutely. And you know what? I wish I had an answer for you. The best answer I can come up with is again, when they rolled this out and you know, Obama was on the front lines, but he had a lot of people behind him saying this is going to end it. And when they realize what a disaster it has been, they don't have A better answer. And so they're sticking to their gu guns. There's they, they keep saying to us, this is evidence based, it just needs more money. By the way, I didn't even mention under housing first homelessness funding at the, at the federal level went up 300%. 300%. And they want more money. A lack of funding.

[Tudor Dixon]

I'm seeing that this is the highest homelessness has ever been in the United States.

[Michelle Stieb]

Yes. Ever recorded.

[Tudor Dixon]

And the most money we've ever spent on it.

[Michelle Stieb]

The most money we've ever spent by far. And the national alliance to End Homelessness. And some of you know, I always say the advocates and air quotes, they are suing the Trump administration for addressing this. They just filed a lawsuit on Thursday. They're in essence defending status quo. It's incredible.

[Tudor Dixon]

This is what I mean when you come out and you say we want to make sure these people are not living in a terrible situation. And let's face it, when you walk by a homeless in kitchen, you know that people are being abused, that they are unhealthy, they're not getting health care. I mean the proponents of everybody should have health care. These people don't have health care and they don't have showers. I mean, there's no health involved in this situation. And yet we have heard stories of people who have worked to get people off the streets and clean up these encampments and they are attacked by radical leftists who say, don't you dare clean up the encampment.

[Michelle Stieb]

Why do you want people living like this exactly. In Seattle, My friend who runs a fantastic program there called We Heart Seattle, she and her volunteers, it's volunteer led program who go in and clean up encampments and lead those that were living in the encampments into treatment. She is under constant physical, verbal and physical attack because she's helping these individuals in a way that our government has failed them.

[Tudor Dixon]

This is, I mean that to me is, it's not shocking. I would say it's shocking Today. I think nothing is shocking. Right. But I think it's a sign of how lost we are and how much this propaganda, government propaganda, because I believe that this happened with the Obama administration. I think in the first administration of the Trump administration, there wasn't an emphasis on homelessness. I don't think there was an emphasis on it in the Biden administration. But I do think that Gavin Newsom has kept it like this because there's a massive amount of funding that goes into these programs and it is a malicious programming now. Malicious to keep people in the situation. Because if you keep people in the situation, you have to continue to have this program.

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, I fully agree with you. And I would say the other thing is, is that voters have become complacent. We need to start holding our, our elected leaders responsible for their promises. Evan Newsom, in 2020, promised, literally stood up and promised to end family homelessness in five years. It is up 38% now under his watch, and there's no accountability for it. It's just.

[Tudor Dixon]

Karen, it's not just hurting the people, though, that are in the homeless encampments. I mean, you have businesses who have said they can't get people to come anymore because they have so many people living on the sidewalk in front of their business. I mean, obviously, Gavin Newsom knows it's a problem. When he had the president come China, he removed everybody from the streets, and then where did they go? Nobody ever talked about that. Oh, well, this is important because we've got a communist coming.

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, and to the accountability point, why didn't anyone hold him accountable when it went back to normal three weeks later after President Xi came?

[Tudor Dixon]

Yes, exactly. I mean, and what did he do? What did he do in that period of time? Obviously, that, to me, proves that he knows homelessness is a problem. Gavin Newsom knows that he has let the streets of California become completely out of control, unsafe and unhealthy, totally disgusting, and yet he is unwilling to come out and say he will do something for humanity.

[Michelle Stieb]

Yep. And, and, and again, endless promises about addressing it. Now he's trying to shift the blame. About three or four months ago, he's now saying, we have done enough. We have raised all this money for you. It is up to the local governments to do their job. And it's, you know what? He's not, what he's not talking about, obviously, and I didn't even mention this. When the federal government adopted housing first in 2013, the state of California doubled down on that. They adopted housing first as their one size fits all approach. In 2016, Pat Newsom has so all. When, when federal or state money is spent on homelessness, it's largely spent at the local level. It's, it's distributed at the local level. He has kept counties and cities under the thumb of housing first. They have no other alternative but to build more housing units and subsidize them with the funding that they get from, you know, the state. And thankfully, the federal government funding will give them a lot more flexibility now. But, but he is, he has created this problem it is his problem. He is documented a million times as saying he, you know, was making it a prior, he was going to end it, but no one's holding him accountable. So, you know, at the end of the day, we need to start holding people accountable for, you know, the results, the outcomes of the policies they support, and accountable for shifting gears when it's not working.

[Tudor Dixon]

It's something we don't want to talk about, I think, because we have so many people in this situation that have lost contact with their loved ones. It's not necessarily something that every family deals with. It's not. It's kind of an out of sight, out of mind, to the point where I read an article this morning that said the city of Kalamazoo is actually in Michigan is actually putting people on a bus with $10,000 and just shipping them out of town. And people are like, where are they going? And I think it's kind of an out of sight, out of mind. Oh, we took care of it. They're not here anymore. Okay, but on the human aspect of this, where are they? Oh, we got them back with family. We got them with a program. I don't believe that for a second. So take us through a little bit. If you do have this situation where you're dealing with a mom, she comes in with kids, every sit is different. I know that. I think that that is part of the problem is that every dynamic, every person has different dynamics. But when you see that, how do you combat it? What do you go? How do you immediately respond?

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, you got to start with, what's the definition of success? Right. Under the old system, the. The current system, housing first, the definition of success is getting someone keys to an apartment unit. That's it. There's no tracking of, you know, did they engage in services to make their lives better? Did they get a job? Did they increase their income, kids in school? None of that is happening. We need to start with a definition of success, which is something to the effect of. At St. John's it's. We wanted to support these women in becoming the primary providers of their families and no longer being dependent on government and on substances so that they could provide for their families. And that was the path, you know, so everything we did was the pathway to that. Right. So at the beginning, you need to really focus on stability and. And for someone who's struggling with addict, you cannot talk about, you know, 18 months ahead. You need to talk about, okay, let's just focus on being sober for an hour, and then let's Focus on being sober for eight hours and then let's focus on 24, right? And it's these baby steps. And then it's the same with mental, mental illness, right? You start to stabilize them, you get them some counseling, and they start to have hope. They have clarity because their mind is clear of drugs or alcohol, but they also start to have hope. And then as they have hope, you can start to stair step them into more classes, more services, the hands on employment training, domestic violence counseling, if that was your issue. But you need to. We know what the North Star is, but we can't be focused with them on the North Star just yet. We need to really start in small increments. They build capacity and as they build stamina, you know, on this pathway, then you start to introduce more autonomy, right? More they can set to some degree their own roles and they can start to be more involved in what the goals are beyond St. John's so it's a very individualized, we call it a human first approach versus a housing first approach. But you really have to start with what's your definition of success? And that's why I'm so delighted by these executive orders, because the President is talking about a definition of success that is recovery and treatment focused. And that's where we need to be focused as a system.

[Tudor Dixon]

You just told us, whether it is mental health or drug addiction, you are bringing these people into a situation where it is an hour by hour recovery. And yet the solution on the mainstream is right now to just put them in a house and walk away. As far as I'm concerned, what you told me is that we are putting millions of dollars into failure. For sure.

[Michelle Stieb]

Yep, 1,000%. 1. You know, the, the notion that just this, this. The notion that everyone who struggles with homelessness needs a house that's subsidized for life. I, that's crazy. We could never build our. You know, when we started this in 2013, we already were in an affordable housing crisis as a nation. The housing that we're setting aside us is a portion of that affordable housing. So our solution was dead on arrival. There was never enough affordable housing back then. There will never be enough if we, you know, because that housing is there for the individuals that are housed for life. We will never build our way out of that. And most of the homeless population don't need that. What they need is the support and the services that lead them to recovery and restoration and to be able to afford that housing on their own.

[Tudor Dixon]

I think right now you're telling us we are in a situation where not only do we need to change the way we are managing homelessness in this country, but we are going to have to have almost. This is crazy, but sounds like a PR campaign around it because there are so many people on either side of this issue that don't have the knowledge that you have that really there's a solution to get people back on track.

[Michelle Stieb]

Absolutely there is. And that's why I wrote the book. It's, you know, I in my book told the stories of 10 women who came, came to us at the depths of despair. I mean, you would not believe some of the challenges that they had in front of them. And they are now thriving and many are homeowners and, you know, married and healthy relationships now working. It's, it's that there is a roadmap to this. It's not going to happen overnight, but if I can leave your listeners with anything, it's, it's to have hope. And these executive that the executive order is exactly what we needed to build a system that will lead the homeless to hopeful, restored lives and our communities to the same.

[Tudor Dixon]

But the system still needs to be built. Is that on a state level or a federal level?

[Michelle Stieb]

Well, federal funding is going to provide some of the funding for this and we're waiting to see. The executive order happened three weeks ago. We're waiting on what's called, called the nofa that HUD will issue that, what's called the notice of funding availability. We'll see what they are funding, how they're funding it. But, but the federal government hasn't. They're the largest funder of homelessness, but they're not the only ones and they need states and communities to rally around and support this new direction as well. But yes, there's a lot of work ahead because the system, as we discussed it was all about, about apartment keys and nothing else. And that's failed.

[Tudor Dixon]

Matt, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on the Tudor Dixon Podcast.

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[Tudor Dixon]

So we were a little distracted in 2020 by some other things and I I mean rightfully so. But I also think that we've been honestly, I do think that distraction is a good word for this because I think we've been distracted from homelessness and this problem for so long. I mean just look at what we are seeing from last week. There is a lot of political chaos in this country and I think a lot of times we feel like we have to stand on one side or another side of this issue. I think you very clearly just stated there's not two different sides of this issue. The side is compassion and care and getting people back the lives they want. And I really think that the majority of Americans are on that side. Tell us a little bit about the. The book before I let you go. So people can realize that this is like, there's not one answer. It's multiple different answers. But there is a solution that can get people back to the lives that they should be living in this country.

[Michelle Stieb]

Yes. And again, I wanted to provide that hope, but also provide the roadmap through sharing these stories. So there's, I think, 11 women that I profiled. There's so many hundreds of others. I just wrote a story about another woman, Michelle, who, you know, was there at the tail end of my time at St. John's and she's now remarried and, you know, had children and sober and just, you know, thriving in such a significant way. So I continue to write these stories. Recovery doesn't happen overnight. But I really wanted to demonstrate the, you know, hope that this can be turned around. And the roadmap for that. I will say that we. The other real key here is, is accountability. We talked about this a little bit earlier. People, human beings fundamentally need to be productive, and they need community. And one thing that's lacking from this current system are those two things, right? There's no accountability. You can be in housing for life. You never have to. To worry about being kicked out. You can use drugs. You can, you know, not address your. Your illnesses. And that's okay in the current system. And that's a fundamental flaw. The other flaw is isolation in, in the addiction and mental health worlds, you. It's a no, no to isolate people that are struggling with those. Those issues. So we really need a system that is community accountability and restorative focused, which is what I'm very excited to build as we go forward.

[Tudor Dixon]

Well, that is something that I will just say I think is hard to compete with right now, the idea of free, because I think people think free is compassion. But there's pride in ownership and there's. You treat things differently when you have actually earned the ability to partake in that, whether it is a home, whether it is public transit. And so we do have that competing idea right now out there. And we've seen a lot of crime on public transit. We've seen even crime on the streets because there are people who are unhealthy. And that's something that I think has gotten a lot of pushback to people like, oh, you can't just chalk it up to mental illness. Well, we have not figured out a way to care for people who are on the streets. I mean, what happened in Michigan at the Walmart with the stabbing, that was a situation of someone who should have been in care, similar to what happened in North Carolina. And people are like, you can't say that about the North Carolina situation. That person should have been in jail. Well, I mean, maybe that still should have been a treatment system for this person, because I don't know about you, but that's just not a natural thing to go out and murder someone. There's something else going on and we as a country have to figure out what the solutions are. So I appreciate. Tell us the name of the book one more time and where you can get it.

[Michelle Stieb]

Sure. Answers behind the Red Battling the Homeless Epidemic. It's available on Amazon. And I also do a lot of writing on this topic and that can be accessed all of those [e-mail] and.

[Tudor Dixon]

I think that's important because people who are listening, I know so many people who listen to this podcast are interested in public office. They're interested in all these topics. And a lot of times when we go out and we campaign, we don't really know how to talk about this. So having someone who's been on the front lines that you can learn and you can read and always, I always encourage people to continue to learn about these things. Go out there and read this and then you can talk intelligently about it as well. We appreciate you so much. Michelle. Michelle Steve, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

[Michelle Stieb]

Thank you so much for having me and caring enough to have this discussion on this topic.

[Tudor Dixon]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you all for joining the Tutor Dixon podcast. Remember, you can get it wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch it on Rumble or YouTube Dixon and make sure you join us next time. Have a blessed day.

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[Michelle Stieb]

Free.

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Check us [e-mail] America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC.

[Tristan Redman]

I'm Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Michelle Stieb]

This is an iHeart podcast.