Last week, we kicked off our monthly Village Voices seminar, a special once-a-month session that guest-stars Salt Lake City’s strongest advocates for helping the homeless and provides updates to the cause. Each seminar consists of three parts:
- A personal account of someone who has lived the difficulties of homelessness — and has found peace, community, and redemption.
- A quick update about The Other Side Village.
- A special speaker who dives into a specific topic about helping the homeless.
We started off this debut seminar with the personal account of Moe Egan, a man who knows firsthand what it’s like to be on the streets — and who is now the Director of Neighborhood Recruitment at The Other Side Village.
Moe explained the difficulties of early childhood drug exposure, a lack of accountability in his family, and eventual addiction. He did get help, he says. but none of the programs lasted, and eventually, he grew so tired of the rollercoaster of “trying and failing” that he remained homeless for ten years in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.
After telling his story, Moe proposed an extremely important question: How do we offer both a supporting and demanding community for those stuck in the cycle of homelessness?
Following a quick update about the progress for acquiring funding for the Village, we moved on to our special guest, Joseph Grenny, Chairman of the Board of The Other Side Academy and The Other Side Village. Joseph has a deep background in applied social science and has authored several books about communication and accountability.
Joseph shares his experiences working with new students that enter The Other Side Academy, and how they grow accustomed to the values and codes of the streets. He refers back to Moe’s question about helping these individuals realign their values to ones that will strengthen the community they’ve entered. It sounds easier said than done — but Joseph shares some expertise as to how to establish what he and his colleagues call “a therapeutic community.”
A therapeutic community, Joseph explains, is a “peer-run, self-reliant community that transforms lives.” It does this with three key behaviors that are expected of community members:
- Pull people up. Verbal correction. If you see something, you say something. The lag time between seeing something and saying something should be as close to zero as possible.
- Pass information. Letting peer leaders and others know what is happening so they can support someone who is struggling and protect the safety of the community.
- Play the game. It is community accountability. Twice a week at The Other Side Academy, we gather in a group of 25 and provide feedback to one another.
“The purpose of a therapeutic community is to help people live happier lives by living to their potential,” said Joseph. He goes on to share how these three behaviors have changed the students and residents of The Other Side Academy and Village in huge ways — and for the better.
This has only been a quick glimpse at this month’s Village Voices seminar. To learn about the happy ending to Moe’s account, and to discover how the therapeutic community model has strengthened, protected, and transformed lives, watch the full seminar for free here.
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