brian david and i'm here this morning with my wife cher and i want to clear up some misnomers that people have about homelessness in america there's a misnomer in this country in particular that people that are homeless deserve to be homeless and i'm here this morning to say that every american is one paycheck away from being homeless we never asked for it we simply went in to pay a rent one day and we were told that our annual lease had expired by a few years that we had been on the month to month basis and according to washington state law we would only have twenty days to move out the reality is the landlord wanted to remodel the unit that's all they don't need any other reason than that the cording of the law they have twenty days we could not come up with first last security deposits we didn't have reserve cash of the bank and so as a consequence we ended up without a home well it seems like people think there's like like you said like a stigma where just anybody who has no brains or whatever can be homeless or that's usually how they are is totally uneducated not true so that's another misnomer that i would want to dispel in terms of speaking from from being homeless  it's a gut wrenching heartbreaking experience but they get that's where you need to be strong of mind and heart and this is just another thing wife is going to you know throw my way we didn't exclude we really didn't expect to be homeless  we went in to pay rent and the landlord said well we're renovating your building so go ahead and keep your rent you've got twenty days to get out and that basically said it's into a panic mode because you know twenty days isn't a very long time to find a place to go and so we decided to take it to court and we lost because we were on a month to month lease so that she said that she didn't have any openings right away that it would take a little bit of time and but to just hang in there and we we were just kind of like hang in there where exactly because we have nowhere to go so we got a call and we went down to this office down in kenmore and had to take a drug test which is fine because neither one of us are into that so great but for some reason my fiance popped positive so we were excluded but then he he said yeah that's that's a false positive whatever so we're going to go to the hospital and he ended up going to the hospital anyway because he got sick so we went there and he said hey while you're at it can you give me a blood test that says i'm not on drugs you know test my blood for any anything and everything so they did and it was negative so we brought that back to the office said hey you've got a false positive on your hands and then we got into the shelter so when we move in they don't allow you to take anything yourself you can take your clothes and that's pretty much it but we were trying to get our business off the ground so we had to take all of our computer stuff we had to take everything that it would you know necessary for us to have that ability to keep going and they were kind of what's the word i'm looking for resistance to that they were really kind of oh well you're not supposed to bring that in here but we basically just told him to deal with it because we can stop we got momentum we have to keep going and state agencies i think  us and governing agencies like that control to have other benefits made available to people that being an entrepreneur is a is an excellent thing you should not be penalize ing a person because they want to start their own business penalize ing them saying that you know you know you're not going to get food benefits because you're you know who how do you start your own business i mean how dare you step up and try to become independent  creating your own income that's the approach that they have and i would say shame on them i would urge governors i would encourage lawmakers to rally behind these people because i'll tell you honestly were the backbone of this country we're the ones that are stepping out there and getting up to the plate and we're hitting home runs trying to create jobs we're stimulating the economy it's not the big guys it's the little guys like us so the penalize ing them and taking money away from them you should be giving them money no that doesn't i'm asking people to be sound in their judgment but when you have a person like us we have a solid business in marketing plan we have solid people behind us we need people from the agencies to help us and curds us not penalize us i just got to the point where i was like it isn't going to help me you're not if you're not well i just worked around them and so then we started having me commute and the kids still went to school in redmond so we had that to deal with on top of everything else we did not want them to be moving schools at all they they all love the schools that they were at and we didn't see the point of  disrupting them anymore than had already happened so we kept them in the same schools and i kept commuting and then we moved from kenmore because our time was up there with a move to redmond to a shelter there and that one was a really nice shelter it was very it's newer than the one that we were in before it was a newer shelter so that was nice  but it's just really still kind of confining and restrictive on what you can do you have a curfew you are supposed to be indoors by ten o'clock if you are not then you will get locked out they don't they don't mess around they lock the doors at ten and you can't get in and you cannot have people over into your unit if you do if you get caught then you can get kicked out they don't there's no room for you know playing around with the rolls or anything like that on that end of it so you kind of feel like you're back living with your parents you know let me go well you're thirty something and you've got kids of your own it's really kind of awkward but from there we got into transitional housing through st stephen's we were in kent and we were there for from april and till august or i'm sorry reverse that august until april if you i know that from talking to the social workers at the various places that we were if you are a single person it's almost impossible to get into a shelter and i don't think that's right if you are a battered woman you can get in at the drop of a hat if you're a drug addict you can get in if you have problems with alcohol or anything else they have places for you to go so if you are a single like if i hadn't had if i wasn't with bring david and his children and i had become homeless i wouldn't have anywhere to go except for my car and i don't think that that's right i think that's a bunch of bunk it should be should have more places because not everybody who is homeless chooses to be that and i know there are people out there and so what do you do at that point live with friends live with family i mean you just you don't have anywhere to go and if  brian david were a single man and he had no kids and he became homeless i don't know how hard it would be for him to get into a place like a shelter of any sort because he's not a drug addict he's not a drunk he doesn't beat his wife you know so there's what do you do if you're just this one lone person and you're homeless you know i think they need to have more places whether it's for a single man that his wife left him or whatever and he's got children i think that there should be a place for him to go and his kids i think that there should be a place for single women to go and for single moms and their kids or whatever the don't have all this extraneous problems they're the biggest problem i have is that they don't have a house and there isn't and i don't think that's i don't think that's right because homelessness doesn't affect just one type of group of people you know it could it's so widespread it can go in any direction and you've got to think about those other people too and and it doesn't seem like the you know powers that be or whatever think about that we made sure that the things that we put into storage you know was there stuff for one but they don't we didn't have a whole lot of material things for them anyway so it's not like they just you know their stuff just got left most of the stuff they got left behind was mine i guess that's you know kind of the price you pay because we didn't have a room a storage unit and i didn't have enough money to upgrade to a bigger storage unit so it was like well leave the big huge desk that took up our you know half of our living room and all of our dining room or leave something else and we gave away our we had a really nice opaque table and chair set that i had refinished and we gave it to a family that lived in our apartment building before we got evicted they had you know five kids as well and they didn't have a nice dining room set so i said we'll take mine because i'd really hate for it to just sit here and rot and i know that you guys need it so just take it you know we gave a lot of stuff away but it was mostly furniture you know nothing that the kids would really miss or whatever being homeless in itself is just so stressful enough without any extra turmoil going on that we tried to really streamline it as much as we could so that they wouldn't be affected as mine are going to be that homelessness was eminent we had issues with his son because his son was born in canada he doesn't have a social security number it doesn't matter that he and his ex wife are american citizens was not considered penner yeah he wasn't considered an american citizen and that was going to be a hurdle that we would have to overcome and we fought it tooth and nail and we kept him with us but i mean even something as this is going to sound really bad but even something as stupid as that was really becoming a stumbling block because we have thought well we have tried it for the last five years now to get him a social security number and it's this big runaround between the two governments canada and ours and it's i mean for for benefits through the state he's like on a different sort of program because he's not an as they said they didn't care some mckinney vento act which is a godsend to this state and allowed us to keep our kids in the same school that allowed them to get programs that again because  even tell x my kids had no clue that they were even homeless and so i'm glad that it's there someplace i would like to see more support around it but you know sure brings up a great point you know i am a u s citizen i was born and raised in this nation and yet my son who incidentally was born in canada is being told that he's not a u s citizen but he's and i'm canadian here during during that transition where we knew the homelessness was  imminent one of the resources given to us was you know we'll call two one one you know they present two one one like of the end all be all and i think they are a phenomenal resource i really am grateful that they're there  when you when you already are a resourceful person a lot of the agencies they refer you to we had already checked out several times and we were told sorry we won't have funding for another month  of the staggering figures for our city in particular is that any given night of roughly eighty eight hundred homeless people that includes kids that is not acceptable we live in one of the wealthiest counties in this country there should not be any homeless period there should be more business people stepping up to the plate and they think that it's not their problem god i just i don't understand people that are compassionate but that's their issue  shelter and that to me was appalling i mean not only are we broken families i mean it's not bad enough to be homeless but now you're going to lose part of your family too i mean that's not acceptable that's not ok because at that point you are so vulnerable and freaking out anyway you don't want to have to break up the only support system you've probably got i told my wife i look to share and another i come across like i'm really tough and i'm strong and in many regards i am but i also know that as a father as a husband make no mistake about it i have hung my head many and i cried kind of i told my family that no matter what happened i would keep us together there there came a time where i was really wondering if we were going to have to do that i told her husband and it wasn't an option we would rather we would rather stay in our cars and you know be together and figure it out that way rather than split up and just be kind of lost to the fore when our plan was if we have to park at a truck stop so that we're safe and we have shelter in our own vehicles and that's what we'll do we knew that no matter what was happening it was only temporary we found ourselves at wal mart and target looking at camping gear surplus stores we were doing everything we could to just simply research every available option the reality is there is a total lack of funding i mean seriously we live in one of the wealthiest counties and we can't put together a budget to squash homelessness for eighty eight hundred people i will personally when the funds are available to me i would do everything i can to make sure that those eighty hundred people got a place to live even if it's temporary shelter it's not acceptable that there are people that are homeless and they then we can do everything but by god we can do something and we're prepared to do it we're also very well aware that according to so act that the true definition of homeless is that you don't have a place that is your own place where you're safe and secure that might mean that you're living with a relative or staying with a friend that might be a motel or a hotel it be one of the shelters if your name isn't on the lease and then the one paying the bills just technically homeless so when we talk about that we're saying that we want to see people that have their own place their own home because we're americans there's there's a sense of pride that goes with having your own place when you don't have a place that you can call home it's demoralizing it is hurtful when your own tennis they want you to go through the work first program so you're supposed to be looking for a job while you're getting the tennis grant which is fine but we're already we already have a job you know it's working our own business but they don't consider that they don't that doesn't count my fiance gets really upset with that whole program because it's like i put in eighty plus hours a week and they're there the thing is well that's great but you don't make any money so it doesn't count go down to their complex for thirty five or forty hours a week to look for work and then what what happens to our business that we're building and it's actually stuff is actually happening right now were people who have their own businesses and are trying to get him off the ground because sooner or later we are going to be employers we are going to be the people that hire out of those kind of places that will give people jobs if they want them whatever but you're not going to help us get there you know it's really backwards way of thinking and they need to understand that there are so many more people out there now that have their own businesses that are trying to get him off the ground and it isn't something that just happens overnight if that were the case we would wish we would have been you know making millions three years ago but we've been doing this for almost four years and now it's stuff is starting to happen now contracts are coming through now you know but up until that up until this point it's been a long hard road no money and when there was money it was me going out to work you know so that he could do what he needs to do in order to get stuff going because that part of it i know nothing about i don't want to know anything about it you know that's where he shined we complement each other that way i know what i'm good at i know what i'm not and vice versa and so we just work it out but  s no regard i mean none at all they're just like well we don't care this is you're getting tannic whatever so you're just going to have to suck it up and deal and work through our system well that's all fine and great if i want to be on tennis for the rest of my life but i don't and there are bigger things that we want to do with our coffee company than just sell coffee it isn't just about the coffee you know i mean sooner or later we want to have a place called scott free acres and we want to buy like a thousand acres somewhere whether it's in montana or idaho or some of the big idea behind the coffee so yeah we it's not we don't want be like the next starbucks or whatever there's a whole lot more you know kind of like behind the curtain like the wizard of oz the whole idea came when i was a very young pastor in reno nevada early twenty's having grown up in the space and francisco caught a thousand at risk youth in the bay area it was the boys and girls clubs that really rescued me  and gave me a vision for what my life could be like and so i entered the realm as a boxer lost one fight in two years and so fast forward years later and here i am  dealing with at risk youth gang members and one night a young officer police officer that was in the gang it took me aside at the police station and said you know brian i got to tell you i'm really frustrated  said night after night as robin patrol we see you out here with these kids you have the streets in their homes or in the alleys and you seem to keep investing all this time and energy or money into these kids and they don't give a damn what would  light if you took that same amount of energy your resources and your time you put it in the kids that really wanted to get out or really wanted to do something different with their life he said if you invested that kind of time and energy in those kids we could see a change city and so that really changed my focus from spending my time my energy my resources on the kids that really were involved in a gang atmosphere but not in this really wanting to be and so again fast forward many years in my life now that vision is still very strong to have drop in youth centers a place where kids that want out of a bad life really can and that we would have a facility for them to come to i don't want to be like a boot camp i want to be a home a place where they can come and rest and relax where they can pursue educational goals where they can you know recreate you know it's like a friend of my broke that we're down when you go and you take a vacation you should be recreated you should come back refreshed and strengthened rejuvenating the spirit and i want that for people young people today sometimes it just takes a person looking at them and believing in them and giving them a chance given the little flicker of hope a little flicker of hope to keep a person alive for a long time and we want to tell him that well i'm just offering you a flicker we've got a torch and we're going to hold it up and we're going to be a place where kids can come to that they can be loved the be accepted and that's what this place is all about and kona which is one of our long term visions is an acronym that stands for kids of north america and it would be very much a part of that infrastructure that we're putting into place this year what i think is amazing about this particular family ours is it was just before we were homeless that we began to build our coffee  company and it never impeded our ability to move forward i told my family that we were in for a very long hard road but i would not under any circumstance quit we continued to build the company even inside the homeless shelter rewinding just about being resourceful we made sure that we used cutting edge technology we had wireless routers we had telephone capability we had internet capabilities so i was able to continue to literally run the business from inside the home the shelter  we reached out we had every resource we had of our disposal and we stayed very focused on what we needed to do as a company to continue to grow i think that's important i would have a message today to people that are watching that are homeless that you don't quit you don't let people stop you don't let circumstances stop you you've got to rise up you've got to believe in yourself you've got to believe in what you have and make the very best with what you've got do not quit but those of you that are watching that previously may have had the perspective that people that are homeless deserve to be homeless my message is to you everything changes and if you aren't careful you yourself will find yourself homeless it is not difficult today in america to become homeless and i would also want to say that there is a stigma of shame this seems to be associated with being homeless get over it just because you don't have a home doesn't mean you're any less of a person you are who you are at the core of your be it doesn't stop you from being who you are there's nothing to be ashamed of i'm not ashamed of anything i've gone through i didn't ask for it i simply that irish tenacity that we're so famous for welled up inside of me and i said we're not going to quit i just want to tell people there's nothing to be ashamed of you know grab a hold of the resources that have been made available to you and make the very best of it because listen if i could build my company from inside of a homeless shelter to get us to where we are right now which we are literally on the verge of going on a national platform of my company there's no reason you can't believe in yourself believe in your dreams this is the time for you to not give up your dreams but to actually step forward into your dreams you can't let people stop you i can't say the strongly enough you don't let people stop you don't mess or come stance to stop you rise up it's not time to quit it's time to persevered my wife has heard me tell this family many times that most people break down just before the break through you are on the verge of a breakthrough if you don't quit that's one thing about this family we know that we had love we had faith and we have a tenacity of that can't be broken no matter what has hit this family sickness our health no transportation because we we lost our car we lost our home nothing his stopped us and i'm not going to tell you that you know we're invincible but by god's grace we keep going forward we don't quit we may come to a dead crawl but we don't quit and that's my message to people today if you don't quit and you have a good attitude you can overcome anything you can overcome anything