Producer:
This episode of Social Work Talks is sponsored by the Ohio State University's online Master of Social Work program.
Amanda Rodriguez:
Thank you for listening to another episode of the NASW New York Power of Social Work podcast hosted through NASW Social Work Talks. The National Association of Social Workers New York chapter represents the entire state and the boroughs with over 6,000 members statewide. Advocating for social workers and allies, the chapter works to include social workers in the political process to address flaws in the system that inevitably affect clients. This episode is titled Housing is Health, Lived Experience, Social Work, and the Fight for Housing Justice. Housing instability is a social determinant of health and a core social work practice across behavioral health, child welfare, aging, and community practice. Today, we are hosting Rosita Marinez, MSW, founding of Housing ER, HER, which is Housing Equity and Resilience, and Shams DaBaron, founder of Lion Fox Development and known nationally as The Homeless Hero. Rosita is known for her work as a social worker in housing and behavioral health and for developing successful programs that fill gaps and address the needs of underserved communities across New York.
Shams DaBaron is a recognized rights advocate known as the Homeless Hero. The episode pairs her organizational policy lens and a community advocate's firsthand account of homelessness and housing insecurity, modeling the cross-sector, lived experience informed collaboration that NASW New York champions across housing and behavioral health. So without further ado, Shams and Rosita, please introduce yourselves.
Rosita Marinez:
Thank you, Amanda. Thank you Gideon and NASW for having us. And just like Amanda said, my name's Rosita Marinez. I've been a social worker now for 20 years. I've dedicated the past 17 years of my career in housing and behavioral healthcare, predominantly in New York City. I've worked for big nonprofits from residential to scattered sites, to affordable housing, permanent housing, different populations, individuals, single adults, SMI, young adults, families, and the list could go on and on. But with that being said is really I dedicated my career in terms of really advocating for housing … for everyone as we all need a home. With that being said is that I decided to create Housing ER, which stands for Housing Equity and Resilience, built on solutions to support nonprofits and government organizations when it comes to housing compliancy, like low tax income credit, property management, strategic planning, and also trainings for our staff that are culturally sensitive and humble to the population that we service.
So my work is really driven by not only my passion, but my dedication to address and homelessness from an equitable and social justice lens.
Amanda Rodriguez:
Thank you. Feel free to go ahead, Shans.
Shams DaBaron:
Yeah, so I mean the basic thing is that lived experience and a product of the foster care system. Well, my father wouldn't like me to say that. I'm a product of my father, my mother, but I grew up in foster care since the age of two, started experiencing homelessness at the age of 10 and was permanently discharged from the system at 12 and on and off experienced homelessness throughout my life. But it's not all gloom and doom. I was always an academic star. I'm one of the pioneers of hip hop culture and I've done a lot of great things. But in this recent time, I've risen since the pandemic to become a person to address housing and homelessness. And so on the narrow lens, people would say, "Well, he's an advocate." They would say, "He's an activist." But if you really look at things that I far exceed those labels of advocate and activist and the work that I do, it has nothing to do with a desire to be an advocate or activist.
It's just really trying to address these issues in a proactive and positive way. So in recent times, what gets overlooked is the fact that not only did I take on the city of New York, the lawyers and people trying to move us from a community on the Upper West Side and beat them, but I also became one of the most impactful, powerful people leveraging my lived experience and other things to influence the 2021 elections across different political spectrums. But I also went on to work closely with the city administration under Eric Adams to as outside, just as a regular person donating my time to address housing and homelessness. I didn't do it myself. I went out into the streets and shelters and brought former homeless and currently at the time homeless people into city hall, nearly 50 of them, giving them a platform and a seat at the table during that administration.
And so the highlights is basically the things to really pay attention to because narrative is extremely important. And if we allow ourselves to only be the victims in these stories, you don't see us as heroes. And so that's why I'm the homeless hero. I'm the housing hero because we have agency and we are capable and we need the social service sector and social workers sector. We need everybody to see us as being capable. So when you look, you see Shams was extremely impactful in getting the City of Yes for housing opportunity initiatives passed. Very important because housing is a solution to homelessness. SHAMS served as the 2025 Charter Revision Commission to help get ballot proposals to push housing initiatives further. So now we have a new administration that clearly is focused on housing in a lot of ways and affordable housing in particular, but none of this is possible without having someone like me at the table initiating things.
So it's far more than advocacy. And then I'll finally say this, here I am now bringing over a thousand units as a co-developer, one of the biggest residential projects to come to Harlem in more than 40 years, bringing over a thousand units as a co-developer to this project in Harlem 145 through my company Lime Fox Development, among other projects that I'm working on.
Amanda Rodriguez:
I love that. Your lived experience led you to the social justice space and now you're just taking it and running with it and now you're the one developing buildings and so you're taking some more autonomy from that situation. So I love that journey. And just to introduce your host, this is Amanda Rodriguez here, policy lead of the National Association of Social Workers New York chapter, and I'll pass it to my colleague Gideon to get started into our questions for today.
Gideon Mosse:
Yes. Hello. My name is Gideon Mosse. I'm the policy coordinator here at the National Association of Social Workers. So with that, let's begin. This is directed at you, Rosita, firstly, but you've spent your whole career as a social worker developing programs in housing and mental health and also of course HIV/AIDS. But what first really pulled you toward housing? Was there a moment that clicked and when did you realize that it would become such a large factor in your life and your work? Was there an experience you had or was there something you saw, I guess?
Rosita Marinez:
Yeah, that's a great question, Gideon. When I started as an intern, actually MSW first year intern at Hunter School of Silver and back then it was Hunter School of Social Work. I was working at a hospital and I was an intern for the IDC Clinic, their infectious disease clinic for individuals with HIV and AIDS. And I was encountering a lot of individuals coming in unstably housed or homeless in the street or in the shelter. And so they were navigating that piece in addition to having HIV and AIDS and mental health and substance use and other aspects as well, the whole biosocial that we call it in social work. They were encountering different things. And so about 60% of the clients in that IDC clinic, which was one of the biggest ones in New York City back then, about 4,000 patients would come through the doors is about 60% of them were unstably housed or coming in through the HASA or the shelter system or couch surfing and things like that.
And they were really having complex... It was complex to navigate, "Hey, I have HIV or I have AIDS in addition to where do I sleep?" The couch surfing or coming through HASA, which is a particular program for individuals through HRA who have HIV or AIDS with case management and they provide also housing to really be able to just take care of their health or their mental health. So for me, being a young social worker, an insurance, that not only was supporting the individual in terms of navigating their healthcare and mental health and anything else they needed, but also the stress of being unstably housed or homeless and really trying to navigate the whole system. So for me, it was an eye-opener that many people more than what we thought back then, and I'm saying about 20 plus years ago, were experiencing some level of homelessness or better yet unstably housed, but the numbers really weren't being reflected at that time.
So with that being said, fast-forward, this is something that from being an intern, I've always encountered throughout my career, not only the mental health, the substance use disorder or any healthcare aspect, also the housing component. And just like the Maslow hierarchy of needs. If you don't have your basic needs, which is a home, food, clothing, the shelter, going back to the home and healthcare, you won't be able to really be fulfilled and succeed as a person. So with that being said is that I really, in every single aspect of my career, I have been working in housing indirectly, but now specifically directly with individuals at different parts of their stage of recovery. So for me, it really is that housing is health because without housing, your health, you cannot get better as the clients that I used to service in that particular hospital because they were worried of like, "Well, I have to see where I'm going to be staying tonight.
I could reschedule my appointments." Or when they needed to take their medication, sometimes they didn't have a safe space and they were just carrying it around and losing it. So with that being said is that, yeah, it's a primary focus in terms of our wellbeing and everything after that, it comes together and it actually works out. So someone cannot go and see you as a therapist if they don't have a home or they're unstably housed or they're couch surfing. And so my priority would be that person would be, let me find where I'm going to sleep and then go see my therapist. So my starts from being an intern up until now in my last position as an executive in terms of really addressing homelessness at a macro level, from micro to mezzo to macro at all three stages, because it's really important for us social workers to also address it at a macro level because it is a social issue that not only impacts us here in New York and New Jersey, but across the nation.
Gideon Mosse:
Absolutely. And I mean, it's the most sound conclusion is social workers are obviously such a crux to society in general, but that being said, there's only so much a social worker can do, right? There's only so much a social worker can do, and when you're unhoused, it will obviously complicate the issues that you have.
Amanda Rodriguez:
Yeah. Rosita, thank you for sharing that. And of course, if one of your needs are not met, it can trickle into multiple of your needs that you need to pay attention to. And if you're not able to find a place to stay at night, then of course you're not taking care of your mental health, and that could also lead to complications with your own physical health. And when you're dealing with so many components at once, of course, you need to focus on the most pressing of your needs, which is where am I going to sleep? Where am I going to be safe tonight? And what am I going to eat?
Producer:
This episode of Social Work Talks is sponsored by the Ohio State University's online Master of Social Work program. Take your social work journey to the next level with a Master of Social Work from Ohio State's College of Social Work, the oldest continuously accredited public social work program in the country. The Master of Social Work program offers full-time, part-time, and advanced accelerated pathway options to earn your degree, grow your career, and expand your impact. For more information, visit online.osu.edu/msw.
Amanda Rodriguez:
Shams, this question is directed at you. When you were two years old, you entered the foster care system. How did that shape your development and your current worldview?
Shams DaBaron:
I mean, growing up in foster care in the time that I did, originally we were going from home to home and stuff, so we were always in a stranger's house. So as time passed, I was young at the time, but as you're growing, you don't have the family connection that other, say, neighbors and stuff like that and friends may have. They have real family connections. You always know that this is the case manager, this is the foster parent and stuff. And some homes were really horrible in the early days, but we did eventually end up in a home that was really good. And I call them my mother and father, they instilled in me a lot of my foundational things. I mean, it may sound crazy, but I was glad that they let me go out in the parks and perform, even though I was seven, eight years old, and I probably should not have been out there, but they supported my desire to participate in the development of hip hop and stuff like that.
I valued education through them and stuff. So that was one home that was really good and gave me a foundational thing. Although you still, at some point, you understand what housing instability is. At some point, the agency wanted to turn the home into a group home, and that disrupted the idea of a family, us being a family. And eventually that's what led to me to start to leave the house, spend time on the streets and stuff until I ended up in a group home. Very horrific experiences. Then you just find ways to survive. But I was definitely in the streets and eventually they were like, "Wherever you've been, go back to it because you're now discharged." And I'm like, "Discharge where?" I'd sleep on the trains or whatever, and I couldn't go back. And you grow up, you learn how to survive. And I always say my story would make a brass monkey cry, but one of the things that I do in trying to really change these narratives is not focus too much on the negative.
It's a story, it's a foundation. But if you neglect things like, "Well, he was still an academic star, he still won scholarships all over the place, he still was actively engaged in development of a multi-billion dollar industry and did things as a businessman, as a kid and stuff," then we don't see the totality of that lived experience. We only look at that one thing. So today, the stuff that I do, I'm able to do because I got a whole other history people don't know about. They're focused on you were homeless. And I'm like, "Yeah, I was homeless, but I also had record companies at 15 years old. I also had recording studios." Some of the artists that you all love are people that I taught how to put their own records out, and they're now big artists, made a lot of money and impact people.
More of them were more successful than me, but there's so many different things that I've done that as part of the story. And I say that to say that this is also the case with so many other people that have experience of homelessness. So when we talk about how does that experience influence you and say... One thing I knew from being a homeless child, I was an avid reader, and I speak about this. So I read books like Plato's... Well, I read his books, but I also gravitated to the allegory of the cave. And I read Joseph Campbell's Hill with Thousand Faces where we get what's known as the hero's journey. And so I put myself in that and I say, "Those of us who experienced these hardships, we're on a journey and the journey is not meant to be easy, but the journey is meant to transform you." So you might start off in your ordinary world sleeping on a park bench, but once you go along this journey and you start to meet friends and foals and start to slay dragons, at some point it transforms you.
And when you think that you've gotten the prize, yes, I got the keys, I'm in my house, that's when you realize that there's another part to this whole journey, which is to go back into the old world and help get other people out. Same thing with Plato's Allegory of the Cave and stuff like that. So by really embracing how others and how even in mystical stories and fiction stories, how others were able to overcome hardship, I was able to use that as inspiration because one thing I did resolve was that, no disrespect to anyone, but I'm not going to let drugs get me. I'm not going to let jail get me none of those things. I'm going to find a way out. If Frederick Douglass could be a slave and become one of this country's greatest orators of all time, why can't I do something?
Why can't I overcome sleeping on the park bench? I drew inspiration from all those examples and even when in most recent times sitting in group sessions with other homeless people and people struggling with substance use and mental illness, and I'm thinking that, "Oh, I don't have these issues." But hearing their stories and seeing their courage from showing up every day to improve their lives, that really gave me the inspiration to say, "Oh, if they could do this, I know I could do it." And what I'm doing in today's realm, even with real estate, is to basically set an example and show other peoples what's possible that they too can do it. I say it all the time and people say, "You shouldn't say that," but I say there's nothing really special about me. I'm a reflection of everybody else, and if I could do it, everybody else can do it.
Amanda Rodriguez:
That was beautifully well said, Shams. I just want to note that more than 15,000 youth exit foster care and are left to decide for themselves how they're going to get funded housing each year, and you're in a success story of what can happen when you truly empower yourself for your own destiny. And of course, there are supports within the system that you can tap into. Nobody has to feel that they're alone. Social workers and other professionals are here to assist the housing crisis in New York City, but also nationally. And Shams, it's important to recognize your autonomy and your power as you're navigating the system and to tap into other individuals to help support you along the way. But you're capable, you're worthy, and we're happy to hear that you made it through your story and became your own hero.
Shams DaBaron:
I would hope because you're a national organization that we make a distinction with certain things that New York City has that other places don't have. So because we have a right to shelter law, which in essence is good, we also have a challenge with it because we have an overwhelming homeless population that most people don't see. Whereas if you go to other places throughout the country, you see the homelessness. So when you look at the current shelter systems, a lot of improvements been made, especially since when I was young going through these challenges and stuff as a single parent raising my son in the family shelter system, things have changed significantly, but we're still not there. We have over a hundred thousand young people that are defined as homeless. We have 30,000 of them in the city shelters. We have a shelter system that's super overwhelmed, meaning that there's really no space in the original shelter system, so they have to rely on hotels and other places and other things to house people needing homes.
Over 80,000 that's stagnant for about a year now. We might overlook the need of social services even within the shelter system in a way that really impacts those people before they enter into housing and stuff. It's a place that it's not represented the way that it should be represented across the shelter system and definitely in the streets and stuff like that. But I do want to make sure that we know that there's a distinction that might seem good in some ways, but might have its challenges in other ways.
Gideon Mosse:
Absolutely, Shams. Absolutely. With that being said though, I'm going to get it back to Rosita. So you've obviously seen this, but when someone moves from a shelter rather or the street into a supportive housing unit, what changes would you say that you are noticing the most when it comes to their health and their stability? And then on top of that, just for our social work audience, what would you say social workers and staff should be doing to make that transition really stick more than normal when you see these experiences happen?
Rosita Marinez:
I do want to piggyback to what you had mentioned, Amanda and Shams, about foster care and how kids, teenagers actually grow out of foster care at 18. I worked with foster care very briefly earlier on in my career, and once the kids hit 18, you do the plan, it's either you go out there and fend for yourself, unfortunately, or do you want to go to school and do something and then abide about all these rules that they make you do, right? A lot of teenagers, they were not in agreement at that point in time with a lot of the stipulations that the system had. It wasn't like it was a collaborative approach or person-centered with the teenager saying, "This is a plan that we're working on together and what type of support is needed?" So once a lot of teens hit 18, unfortunately, and that was very heartbreaking for me to see that these teens would just go out from Westchester to the city or different parts of the country and be on their own.
Once they left, there was not much of a connection there to know what would happen to them and how they made it out in terms of just navigating the world without a lot of skills. With that being said, then we had certain teens that wanted to continue being part of the system and had to submit to certain regulations in order to at least meet 21 or 22 and finish college and things like that, and that percentage was very small. So to what you're saying, Shams, I do understand where you're coming from in your story because I've been on the other side where I've tried to help the teens. It was out of my control because this is how the system was set up, and many of them encounter hardships and really not a great plan or after plan in terms of what happens once you hit a certain age.
With that being said, look, when people exit out from the shelter system, whether it's an individual or a family or a couple, and I'm going to talk about predominantly in New York City because each state has their own systems that they follow and criteria in terms of housing. In New York City, we have the HRA 2010 application, which is technically a biopsychosocial that gives you the history of the person in terms of their family, health, housing, any mental health, substance use, everything. It's created through a system that they call the CAPS, and so that's a coordinated system through HRA, and depending on the criteria that the person would qualify, whether it's mental illness, HIV, young adult, whatever the criteria is, then they would actually qualify for a particular level of housing. And so each situation is different because that application that is put in the system and is generated really creates what level housing do you need?
So if someone has a severe mental illness and there's a provider that receives fund from New York State Office of Mental Health and DOHMH, then they would qualify for one of their units or apartments. Number two is that there's different levels of housing. Like I mentioned, some individuals need more level of support like residential, and so residential is 24 hours. Maybe someone might need more support of taking their medication, following up appointments. They have staff on site, learning how to cook, clean, financial management. So that's more of an OMH Office of Mental Health where they have these residential little houses throughout the state. Then we have more of the independent supportive housing where you have a building with support services, individuals have their own space, could be one bedroom or studio, or if it's a family, two to three bedroom, and they have support services of case management on site, and there they pay 30% of the rent.
If they have an HPD subsidy, they pay 70 depending on the contract. So there's a lot of logistics and what I'm saying with this and complexities of how these housing programs work. You would think, okay, you go in the shelter, you go through the intake or you do the 2020, you wait, you move around, then you try to interview to different funders or providers and see what apartment you like because you have a choice to say, "No, I don't want this apartment." And when you successfully say yes, both parties, it's the whole compliancy piece. So the disconnect there... And affordable housing, that's another level of housing that's really more for individuals when it comes to income. You go to Housing Connect and you're seeing now the income at 120, 160 in New York City. Actually, I was speaking to someone this week about it and they're like, "Rosita, but this isn't affordable.
It's 120,000 when the bulk of the individuals in New York City are making 40, 50, 60,000. That means that everybody making less than 120 is being ruled out of the equation to apply for these apartments, which they're set aside.
Amanda Rodriguez:
At some point, over 100,000 is middle class in New York City, which you wouldn't think that in other parts of the state.
Rosita Marinez:
I know. 120 for an apartment out in actually East New York. So again, how is that affordable when you have individuals making 50, 60,000? And so that rules out really everyone below that income break. What I find is that when someone comes into permanent or supportive housing, and that could be Scatter-site also, which is a whole other model in terms of housing where providers lease apartments into the community with landlords, whether it's one bedroom, two bedroom, or three bedrooms, and they conduct home visit because that was a big model. I don't know if you recall, you know the Shams years ago of like, well, we want to keep people in the community, not in one building, so it's not institutionalized, and that actually has been successful. However, with the increase of rent just going up and up, it's not sustainable for the providers, the budget Just don't go up and it's not sustainable also for the landlords to keep up with maintenance and everything.
So that has decreased in terms of the scatter site model increasing. But with that being said is that it's the quality of care and also connection to supportive services. So if you're coming out of the shelter into permanent supportive housing, you want the integration and collaboration between the shelter providers and the provider of the permanent supportive housing of care coordination and collaboration, which many times that does not happen and leaves the client and the family vulnerable in terms of the most crucial, I say crucial aspects of 90 days where readjustment can be very hard. And I think we spoke about this in our panel earlier this week is that the first 90 days is really crucial in order to engage with the individuals, be able to assess what is needed in terms of services as well, because it could be very hard for someone who's been living in the shelter.
Probably it's their first home, maybe their second. And with that comes a lot of anxiety and fear. So as social workers, I really consider that it gives us a great opportunity to connect with our clients or residents or participants as early on to be able to get to know them. Not only the paperwork here, you got to sign 10 pages and people don't even know what they're signing. No, get to know the person. The paperwork is the paperwork and it's someone interpretation of someone's story. Get to know the person, the human being and what led them, what happened for them to get here and how you can actually be a support system and partner with them in order for them to continue being independent and thrive and not go back into the shelter system. That's really my biggest pet peeve. I do understand about documentation, compliancy and everything, but the most important thing is getting to know that person and also respecting their space.
Amanda Rodriguez:
What changes or practices would you like to see in the housing space when it comes to policy changes and decisions? And what can be done at the New York City and the state level to ensure that we are focusing on this housing crisis and delivering the best solutions?
Shams DaBaron:
I've always pushed for the city and the state to look at homelessness as a crisis and look at housing as a crisis. I think that in conversations we shouldn't talk about homelessness without talking about housing and we shouldn't talk about housing without talking about homelessness. Those things should be addressed simultaneously because of the overwhelming numbers of people that are either one step from being homeless or actually homeless. And homelessness is defined by a number of things, not just a person that's living in a shelter, not just a person that's sleeping in the streets. Couch surfing among other things are also defined as being homeless. So there's a huge crisis here in the country actually. So on the policy level is being able to say that because of crisis, we have to put all of our efforts, all hands on deck, funding. We have to do those things that help to address these issues.
A lot of times what gets in the way of this is the self-interest of a lot of different organizations that are all fighting for funding, fighting for legitimacy in these spaces and fighting to justify the existence. And so sometimes the fighting is not about actually ending the issue, it's about maintaining it. And I'm not saying it's a deliberate thing, but I think that it's like there's a lot of things that are done that are just not really adequately addressing the issue. So what I try to do is try to get right to, well, what's the problem? What is the root cause of homelessness? And then when the answer becomes, well, we need more housing, and that's one of the reasons why I jumped to housing. I said, I'm the homeless hero. I want to be the housing hero. And I said that early on because I understood that.
And I put a lot of effort into increasing our ability to address housing, like changing the zoning laws in the city here with City of Yes, addressing things like member deference on the Charter Revision Commission. These things as well as zoning and fast tracking housing, but just something like that would prevent the building of housing. And many times a member deference quickly is a city council member who may say that I don't support this project and the rest of the council will go along with that because they don't want to go against their colleague and stuff. But sometimes it's the good thing to do. And there are other times when it's like you consistently deny housing in these communities, affordable housing, et cetera. Now communities that want to build these housing are forced to take on the burden of building all of the housing. And people don't understand how that actually ends up leading to gentrification and displacement, et cetera, because the housing stock is low, but also everyone's competing for that housing that's being built.
So you see the communities change and stuff like that and the rental rates change. And some of us, if we're low income or poor, we can't afford this new housing. And as Rosita was talking about, not only can we not afford it, but even when you're building this called affordable, et cetera, once we get on Housing Connect, we like, I'm already out the game. And so the default for low income or poor people, even working people, mostly working people is the only way I could do this is entering a shelter, securing a voucher, and then having the subsidy that allows me to pay for this. And we're all surviving in these ways, but we're not really addressing the issue. And it's negatively impacting all types of people, everyone. It impacts the workforce, it impacts just crime, public safety, because when you're desperate, you're going to do what you got to do.
Whether it's like, I can't afford to buy the toothpaste, so I got to take the toothpaste. It's just different things. And so if we have that focus to say that we can create a thriving United States, a thriving state, a thriving city, a thriving community by making sure that people are in homes, then that's good. And I'm not the guy, now in with this, I'm not the guy that pushes for giving people handouts. I'm the person that says, teach us the thing so we can fend for ourselves. I'm the person that's going to say, I don't mind a hand up, but I don't want a handout. We all fall into distress for different reasons and at some point in time we may need some help and that's okay. So that's okay. But we don't want to make it a permanent thing for us. We want to thrive.
We want to work jobs. We want to receive a higher education. And we also want to ensure that we have opportunities and access to actualize ourselves in the world, whether that's as business owners, nonprofit owners, for-profit owners, whatever it is, we want to actualize ourselves and be able to grow.
Amanda Rodriguez:
Thank you, Shams. And it can be incredibly hard to help people while you're in a crisis. And if you're focusing on preventative measures versus trying to grab everything in the house that are your priorities because the building's on fire versus putting a fire alarm and putting preventative measures to ensure that fire doesn't start in the first place, instead the city, the state, the nation, they're having to frantically try to solve this housing crisis as individuals, they need the help. And housing was recognized as a human right in the 1966 International Covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights. And to be able to provide that right, the housing crisis, that fire, it needs to be put out before we can begin preventing people getting to the street in the first place. And so Rosita, what policy change or government action do you feel needs to happen at the state or federal level?
Rosita Marinez:
Well, I mean, I definitely agree with what Sham's just mentioned. I mean, there's so many levels. You have the federal, the state and the city level, and depending where you live, even your county and town. And so everyone is part of the process in terms of the housing crisis and how to address it. And I know in New York City years ago, a particular mayor said, we're going to end housing by 20 something. I mean, that was like 10 years ago and it hasn't gotten any better. One is that we definitely need more funding. And I know that in the time that we're living, it's completely different and more challenging, but we definitely need more funding in terms of really making housing affordable. And again, affordable meaning income that reflects the people in our communities who are working regular jobs. And just like Sham said, many people are leaving their jobs to go into the shelter system because they can't pay that $3,000 rent or $2,000 rent when they're making 40, 50, 60,000 on top of everything else.
So we definitely need more funding. We need more social workers and policy. We need more social workers to represent our communities, to really advocate for housing, for mental health, for healthcare, because we see things from a different perspective. We see the person as a whole. It's not compartmentalized or one thing is not related to the other. So we definitely need more social workers who are invested in addressing housing, healthcare, education and the workforce. And really also we need more action planning with real solutions in terms of things that are being proposed at the table, whether it's national, a state or city that comes to legislation to really be not only approved, but to have an action plan, a follow-up and how that's going to be met. So there's a lot of moving parts in terms of it. Again, everything that drives this has to do with actually money with taxpayers' money because we all pay into this, but really is having more social workers at a policy level that we could be at the table, be part of the process and be able to execute these action plans to come to fruition.
Not going around, I feel, and this is my personal opinion, that we're going on like a hamster wheel where we're talking about the same thing over and over. The problem doesn't get resolved and it just exasperates and now we have a national crisis.
Gideon Mosse:
Perfect. I think with that, thank you both so much.
Amanda Rodriguez:
Thank you so much for being here, Rosita. Thank you so much for being here today. Shams, thank you for presenting to social workers across the nation and in New York. Talk to you soon at our next episode.
Rosita Marinez:
Thank you.