The Hard Realities of Homelessness. Anthony Brown Talks to Armstrong & Getty

Published Jun 7, 2021, 8:39 PM

In the first of our series of A&G Extra Large Podcasts dedicated to the homeless crisis, we talk to Anthony Brown, a former addict and drug dealer who was homeless for 23 years.

Mr. Brown's life is remarkable in many ways, particularly in regards to the hard-earned street wisdom that he now applies to his efforts to help others clean up the get off the streets.

Brown says that there is no easy solution to the issue, but "I think that more that we are aware of what is really driving this issue, the easier it will be for us to apply the solution.".

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We talk a lot about homelessness on the Armstrong and Getty shown. Maybe we got an answer here. It's Armstrong and Getty extra large because four hours, simply enough, this is Armstrong and Getty extra large. Anthony Brown is a former drug addict and drug dealer who is homeless for twenty three years, incarcerated a bunch of times, got sober, turned his life around, became an author, speaker, business owner, college professor, counselor, registered nurse, and he says he knows what needs to be done to get people off the streets, which is an answer we're always looking for. We live in California where there's a lot of homeless and it's growing all across the country. Let's get to the answer. Anthony, welcome, How are you, sir? I'm well, thank you excellent. It's we're really glad you're spending a few minutes with us because we are about solutions. You know, we certainly have our beliefs. But if we're wrong about him, uh, we stand ready to be corrected because the situation California, really all over America can't continue. So why don't I hit you with this? Jack, having given a brief version of your back story, and I'm sure we could talk for an hour about it easily. But if someone had, for instance, gotten you an apartment, gotten new housing in the midst of the drug abuse and the rest of it, would that have turned your life around? Is that the answer? Um? Just housing alone? Now, that wouldnt I would have probably recreated the environment that I came from, exactly where I was. Yeah. Yeah, So what did turn your story around? What did it take? Well? First, I had to realize that I had a problem. That was the first thing. Because the way I was living it became my norm. So I didn't think I had a problem. Even though I've been incarcerated several times and I've been homeless for a long time. I didn't think anything was wrong with that. So I had to become aware of that issue first. Then from there got no go ahead, finish your story okay, yeah? And then from there I was brought into an environment, got sober, and then started living in the environment that I was brought into as I continue to stay sober. So when you were on the street twenty three years homeless is a long time. I imagine you ran into a lot of people. Is there a um uh, a single quality or or type of person or can you paint the homeless situation with a broad brush at all? Or is everybody's situation different? Um? My situation. I come from domestic violence and abused childhood. So I I left when I was fourteen, and I stopped a matt Is when I was thirty seven, So that was my twenty three years. And I know, as I got educated, I discovered that I had a lot of repressed childhood issues that wasn't dealt with. That my coping skills was drug abused, and I didn't have any living skills without selling, and that led to incarceration and all of that. And once I am in that environment, I just grow and thrive. It's in a homeless environment. Interesting, So I think what what Jack who's driving at is is a lot of homeless advocates claim that all homeless people just got hit with one more medical building they could handle, or housing prices are are just high and that's why people are homeless. Aren't there like separate groups? For instance, the people who stay in shelters, Are they different than the people in the tent camps? Yeah? I think I'm there. There's different levels of homelessness. I mean, if we're gonna categorize, I mean there's people who UM are CouchSurfing so to speak. There's people that are living in hotel rooms. You know, there's different levels, and as you experience one more traumatic event or one more loss, and you go one more level low, and so shelters UM either people are on their way up or trying to get up, or they're on their way down. Because once you hit the streets, you pretty much have just given up on UM. Any you want to change, but you give up that UM that drive to make it happen. How many of people you run into on the streets are alcoholics or drug addicts? Quite a few, actually, UM, I would say probably, yeah, maybe that's pretty high. Yeah, And would you agree that? I mean, the mere presence of drug rehabilitation programs is not going to get somebody sober. They have to really really want to be sober. Yes, do you have to? In my case? And I remember right the option the drugs. After a long period of time doing drugs, you're not really getting high, you're just doing them. It's just second nature. And basically I I used them to escape UM and after that didn't happen anymore. I just used it because that was just the thing to do at the moment when. Um were you ever a beggar? A beggar? Yeah? Panhandled? Yeah? Um, I did whatever it took. I mean I I stole stuff, I sold drugs, I asked for money. Um what whatever, whatever it took for me to get whatever it is I had to get at the moment. Yeah. Well, so what did you usually do with the money you or anybody else that was panhandling? Where'd the money go? My money usually went towards getting drunks. Yeah, that's the assumption a lot of us have. That's why I don't give money to beggars generally, So, Anthony, the various governments, whether cities, counties, or the state of California, UM, for instance, at are talking about spending billions and billions of dollars to quote unquote, you know, get people off the streets, help the homeless. If you were in charge of, UM, finding a solution to the growing homeless problem in California, for instance, where would you start? I would start, We'll take in one of these institutions that leaves close. Because I thought about this, UM, there's a lot of hospitals or prisons or um old developmental centers that the state has shut down, and I would take that and sort of recreate, for lack of a better term, a homeless village. I would allow people to stay there. I would teach them vocational skills, whether it's cutting the grants around and facility um, culinary skills, whether you're working in the kitchen. I would give them some sort of vocation in their environment. And I would even allow them to create some sort of small city council so that they can have some ownership to their environment and help promote their their software, staying in self worth. That would be my solution. It seems pretty obvious us to us that the places that have the most money being spent on the homeless situation have the most homeless. How do you avoid that catch twenty two? Well, we we tend to um They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expect of different results. And we seemed to keep trying the same methods that hasn't worked, but somehow we sold that they're gonna work eventually. We need we knew we need new thinking, and that's where I think the funding should go. So did you did you stay where you grew up or where you started your time being homeless, or did you go to places that had more benefits and say gentler laws about camping out? Well, when I was homeless, I started when I was fourteen, and I'm from another state, Ohio, And when I ran away from home, I was living in the banding houses and I worked for carnival and things of that nature. And then when I turned eighteen, my friend said, well, let's just go to California. And I thought, well, California was better than what I was experiencing in Ohio. So I came out here and became homeless, and we're in California. Um. I started out in um Lynnwood and then I migrated down Orange County to Costa Mesa. Why did you make that move? Because in in Lynnwood, UM, I had got a job working at a fast food place and I was still eat money and the heat was on, so I just get transferred to a different place to still money. Oh wow, Okay, so you personally didn't like go to the softest, cushiest place for homeless people. No, I just went wherever the wind blew me. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna kind of ask about that, Like, how much thought dude, when you're sitting around with other homeless people, do you talk much about how we're going to get out of this situation? Or is it more of a just like getting through today? You don't think ahead. There's there's moments when you're sitting around and you're sad and you know you want something different, but you don't know how to get something different. It's it's one of those situations, one of those situations where you know you know something isn't right, but you don't know exactly what's wrong. Yeah, if you were a mayor of a city, I'll go ahead. If you have more thoughts on that, go ahead. No, no, no, got got that's that's I was just gonna say, if you were the mayor of a city, would you perfor would you permit tent encampments in your city? Uh? Tents not necessarily because they're not really sanitary and they're temporary. I would. I would try to find a location um like said, one of these um old prisons or something and refurbish that and turn that into a small environment. Yeah, so you can understand people who have say they're their kid's favorite park is now full of tents with people doing drugs and pooping and leaving needles or or whatever. You understand the frustration that people here have rather seeing their neighborhood go that route. I understand the frustration. But just saying that, I think people lose track is all of those people in those tents are are somebody's others, brothers, daughters, you know, there's somebody's child. I mean, they're just like me. And yes, it can get frustrating seeing what you see, but what are we gonna do about it? And we could talk about it, we can get mad about it, but what are we actually willing to do about it? What do you think? So one thing that's different about you versus homeless people that haven't escaped that what what what's different about you? Or what did you do different? Mm hmm. What I did different was I just got to the point where I was tired and I think I was given I've been given many opportunities. A lot of people ask me if I wanted some help, but I didn't want to help at that time, and I just hit a bottom in which I was willing to do anything. And it was a struggle. It was it was a struggle but people around me understood that it is a struggle, and it was more supportive of nurturing as I grew and tried out on my own feet and then just flourished. Okay, I don't I don't mean to be at all insensitive in this. I just we we around here have the philosophy that people are responsible for their own lives, and that if you enable people to be drug addicts, they will be drug addicts for a longer time. And if you have a set of policies that enable drug addiction, you will get more drug drug addicts in your town. Is that not right? Is the sympathetic, soft approach really the way to go? Do you think? Well? Drug addiction is, in my opinion, a disease, and I think we can it's it's easy to get somebody sober. I mean there streatment centers all over the place. The same thing with mental illness. The thing is is what happens? Want somebody to decide they want treatment? Is it available? Um? As far as one fanatic always fanatic, I I myself I consider myself an alcohol canatic. I will always be an alcoholic canatic, and I cannot safely ingest anything. But I had to learn that, and I've done it from trial and error throughout my whole history. I could, I could never start and stop. And so to be sympathetic, yes, to be compassionate, yes, to be firm, absolutely yeah, but once once you tell us hey stop, Okay, what's the alternative? Right? So let me hit you with this. If if there were absolutely treatment options available, but the cops ran you out of where you were like sleeping in a tent every night, to the point that it was just no way to live, do you think more people would go for treatment sooner? I think? Um. One of my turning points was a police officer that continued to arrest me because I didn't know that cops worked a certain beat and I just went got to start in place, and so I continue to get arrested by the same officer over and over and over again. And then one day he just asked me, is like, don't you think you want to do something different? And at that point I said yes, And then he had connections to treatment sent there. That scholarship makes that no money and the rest in its history. But as far as UM constantly having your property thrown away and all of that, if there's no alternative, then you're just gonna return back to what you know. Yeah. Interesting, Hey Anthony, we really appreciate the time and enjoy the chat. Like we said, we're just trying to dig into the question and deal with reality as opposed to you know, slogans and throwing money around, right, And I think that's what we need. We need reality. We need to be able to look at this because I think about this all the time because I've been there and I've done that. I'm doing my best to try to help other people. We need to have a collect of a group of individuals rather as sociologists to see what's going on in that environment, behavioral list to see how we can change the way we active think. Whether it's a psychologist, psychiatrist, um addiction counselors. We need the whole group, not just one person said my way is better. Do this because homelessness is not a one size fit all solution. Right, all right, good to talk to you, Thanks Anthony. So one of the problems where the rubber meets the road I think a lot is you know it worked for Anthony because for whatever reason, and this is the magic or miracle or whatever of people who do get sober. Nobody knows what causes some people to do that, but most people don't. And the success rate of these places is very, very low. And I don't, I don't. I just dot how you deal with the reality of that. Yeah, and I will I will continue to stay partly because I know me, and I know what the devil on the one shoulder is saying, and I know what the angel on the other shoulder is saying and has been saying to me my entire life. I continue to believe that that cop saved Anthony's life because he made it impossible to be comfortable as a junkie. And and you know, it's always a combination of push and pull factors I think that get people to make the right decision and and go the right route in life, whether you're talking about you know, just motivation in general, or or substances or whatever excess you're involved in. Um, it's it's never just pull factors. You realize this sucks, and I don't want it anymore, and so I I just I will continue to maintain. If you make it effortless for people to be junkies, you will get more junkies, and they will be junkies for a longer time, and then practically unanswerable question of how many shots do you give some at a rehab and continue to let them hang out on your streets? Well, I liked his his idea of having some sort of centers somewhere, but you know, and and none other than London breed the way left Mayor of San Francisco said, Look, we're gonna have all sorts of places and all sorts of programs, and one place you're not gonna be is on the street in a tent. Can't have it anymore, and good for her. Extra large

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