Join Kosta and his guest: Justin Veals, Director for the Men’s Program for Independence Again, Co-Founder of The Recovery Kitchen, Certified Peer Recovery Specialist, Long-Term Recovering Heroin Addict with over 5 years sober from all substance abuse.
Today’s episode will be touching on many subjects and issues that will be difficult to fully grasp for most of our audience. While many of us may know someone that has struggled with addiction or even homelessness, it’s hard for the everyday person to totally understand the revolving door that exists when you’re trying to restart your life.
Find out more about The Recovery Kitchen:
https://recovery-kitchen.square.site/
Find out more about Independence Again:
https://independenceagain.org/
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.
This episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is made possible by our partners at Loxx Salon and Spa.
Find out more about Loxx Salon and Spa:
https://loxxsalon.net/
Join Kosta and his guest: Justin Veals, Director for the Men’s Program for Independence Again, Co-Founder of The Recovery Kitchen, Certified Peer Recovery Specialist, Long-Term Recovering Heroin Addict with over 5 years sober from all substance abuse.
Today’s episode will be touching on many subjects and issues that will be difficult to fully grasp for most of our audience. While many of us may know someone that has struggled with addiction or even homelessness, it’s hard for the everyday person to totally understand the revolving door that exists when you’re trying to restart your life.
Find out more about The Recovery Kitchen:
https://recovery-kitchen.square.site/
Find out more about Independence Again:
https://independenceagain.org/
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.
This episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is made possible by our partners at Loxx Salon and Spa.
Find out more about Loxx Salon and Spa:
https://loxxsalon.net/
I get my hair cut every nine days. I know it might seem like alot, but for me it’s not just a haircut. Feeling collected and having the confidence to face whatever challenge might come my way is essential for my personal and professional success. Today’s episode is presented by my favorite salon, and the team that keeps me looking and feeling my best, Loxx Salon and Spa. With comprehensive hair, skin and nail services Loxx offers guests the highest quality in extensions, coloring, facials, microblading and so much more. Learn more at loxxsalon.net. Loxx your beauty destination.
Justin Veals:One of the meanings is I am because we are my humanity itself is like clarified and sanctified and defined by other people, not me. My community is how what reflects my humanity back. And that's something that we used to write letters when I was incarcerated back and forth. Not always put it in the letter. I am because we are
Morgan Franklin:Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Hey y'all, it's Kosta. Today I'm here with my guest, Justin Veals. Director for the Men's Program for independence. Again, co-founder of the recovery kitchen, certified peer recovery specialist, long term recovering heroin addict with over five years sobriety from all substance abuse. Today's episode, we'll be touching on many subjects and issues that will be difficult to fully grasp for most of our audience. While many of us may know someone that has experiences with addiction, or even homelessness, it's hard for the everyday person to totally understand the revolving door that exists when you're trying to restart your life. Justin, thank you for all you've done for our community and the selflessness you show every day. What brought you to the Upper Cumberland?
Justin Veals:Thank you for having me on. That's a that's a big question. How far back do I start? But you know, six years ago, I was living a very different life, a very difficult life. Some of it my own doing, you know, a lot of it my own doing but you know, I was I was addicted to heroin. And meth didn't have a permanent address bouncing around, running dope to make money. And on April 13, of 2018, I got arrested. Okay. wasn't the first time hopefully it'll be the last but it wasn't the first time. But we were setting it to McDonald's on Cedar Bluff and somebody called the cops on someone else. And I just happened to be sitting there. When they pulled up, I knew I couldn't get away. I knew there was no changing what was about to happen. And so my goal at that point became to make sure that I went to jail and Melissa didn't which she were married now we were just together then. And that worked out. But I was, uh, was arrested with a large amount of methamphetamine, you know, and other drug paraphernalia and things like that. In which Knox County. That's where my life began to change. The first seven days. All I did was sleep. Right. I had been eating I had been awake for probably 14 or 15 days. And I weighed like, 150 pounds when I came in cheese. Yeah. So I just slept, you know, they they put food into the piehole. And I'd eat and go back to sleep. Were you detoxing? Yes, yes. What was that, like? Dope sickness is one of the lowest forms of human existence that I've experienced. It is like the worst flu. You can imagine basically, plus or other symptoms that nobody talks about, you know, you have to live with dreams. And I'm coming off heroin. Yeah. Because heroin like, you know, the movie, Trainspotting, touched on this where I just remember I was in classification, which is, you know, that's where you end up, when you first get into jail or prison, you know, and they sort of try to sort you out by your security level. And I was sitting in there, it was really loud. There was like a den of noise. You could hear people playing cards and that kind of thing. And I just remember, like, the weight of like, 37 years of bad decisions just hit me in the back of the head, you know, and I'd never really had these thoughts before I'd wanted to quit. I'd wanted to change my life, but I just didn't have the mechanisms of change that I didn't know how to do that. I said Knox County for eight months trying to get a deal for treatment and probation. Right because that's what I wanted. Yeah. The DEA was not super interested in it. She was trying to give me 12 years 85%
Kosta Yepifantsev:Why I mean, why would they want to put you in jail instead of if you're especially if you're asking for help and asking for treatment? Why wouldn't they?
Justin Veals:Just like what cops you know process theaters you have decent and not so decent prosecutors, there are some zealots that get into that position and they see their job as religious packing the jails and prisons full of people who are making mistakes. Sure. And I had one of those days. Does that happen? Often? I'm sure that it happens enough. In places like Knox County where I'm from, there's a rotation of DBAs involved in criminal cases, you know what I mean? So you may get a good one, you may get a bad one out here. What is what are your options? You know, like, when you're in a rural county, there's only maybe one or two judges, there's only maybe one da, the, you know, there's only like two public defenders for what, like 13 counties or something. But yeah,
Kosta Yepifantsev:what happens when you hear people say, you know, it's a good thing, if you go to jail if you're addicted to something, because you obviously don't have access to it. And you know, your typical relationships that you have in the community no longer exists because you're incarcerated. Help us understand, is that argument valid, or you need to get treatment, you don't need to be incarcerated. Alright, so
Justin Veals:viewing incarceration, as some sort of answer to addiction issues, is looking at, it's like you're treating a symptom, you're not treating the cause, right? Because Because drug use itself is a symptom, substance use, and, and all the things that go with it are symptoms of something else going on. So you know, you can incarcerate somebody, and you can take them out of their environment, right? Which can can, over short periods of time, lead them to separation from some of their unhealthy decisions, but it's not going to fix anything. Right? If they're not getting treatment for the root causes of what's going on, then they're going to reoffend and they're going to relapse. And we're going to be in this revolving door, which is what exists in the criminal justice system.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Could you talk a little bit about the root causes that caused you to use for as long as you did?
Justin Veals:Yeah. You know, I also teach one day at the CIT training for Kupo. PD, you know what I talked about there? There's this thing called the ACES quiz, right? That was developed by psychologists. And it's a 10 question quiz. And aces stands for adverse childhood experiences. You go through these 10 questions, you score somebody out, and this is all stuff that happened prior to your 18th birthday. Anyone who scores for higher, has a greater chance of being incarcerated, having heart disease, having substance use, and continuing the cycles of trauma, right? I go through the quiz, when I do these trainings, and give my answers, because I score a nine out of 10. Wow. And the questions are like about, you know, abuse, sexual abuse, food insecurity, like, you know, all these things, you know, that would kill your your enjoyment of your childhood, you know, your security. So the only one that I don't have is like, you know, no one was ever arrested out of the house when I was growing up. But other than that, everything was there. You know, there was abuse of all kinds, there was substance use, you know, we were hungry, sometimes. My mom also experiences, issues with, you know, anxiety and mental illness things. And, you know, in that that would that affect your ability to be the type of mother at least, the younger version of myself thought she shouldn't be? Yeah, it's not an indicator of outcome, the ACES quiz, but it is an indicator of risk. And so like the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, so they released a report last year, and in it, they talked about the children's they serve in New York, that are experiencing homelessness, right. And they said that every child that they served, every child they served had at least four adverse childhood experiences. By the time they were 18 months old. It's crazy. And you know, and so that's in New York, you know, so I'm sure their numbers are worse than they are around here. But we're still talking about the same things. So when you see someone who's living on the streets, and you know, going through that whole experience, like, there's this complex narrative of pain that you don't understand, that you don't see, all you see is the guy that's maybe drunk or high and he doesn't smell so great. And he's acting, you know, kind of crazy at the gas station, or whatever it is, he's asking you for money, or he's this or that, you know, you see that outward appearance, and to someone who grew up in a productive family household with love, compassion, understanding, and, you know, sobriety and financial security and all that kind of stuff. They see that and they just don't understand. Because their perspective is from their experience, you know, well, that man's perspective and that woman's perspective is from their experience, and their experience was very different than yours. Not that those people aren't responsible for changing their lives because they are, no one can do it but them right they need help, but they do have to take ownership. Make some changes, but they don't know how. And that's why it takes like very dedicated people working in the field working with these men and women to actually change. And, you know, when I was sitting in jail, I didn't know what to do. All I knew was is that I didn't want to go back out and keep doing the same thing. Why, though,
Kosta Yepifantsev:like you when you do it for so long, and I'm trying to understand and hope our audience understands, when you do it for so long. When do you finally hit that wall? And you're like, I can't, even if you maybe your brain is saying you have to and maybe everybody around you is saying you have to but finally you say, I just can't do
Justin Veals:this. Yeah. For me, it was the absolute abject despair that I found myself living in. I just, I couldn't face it another day. And, you know, there slowly became a realization that life had been hard. There were things that happened to me that weren't fair. But I'm making it worse, by choosing to cope, you know, with my despair, with with substances in criminal activity and just trying to have fun. You don't know what I mean? I definitely identify as a heroin addict. No, I've done but every substance that existed at some point in my life, but I identify as a heroin addict, because that's really the one that filled this certain hole that I that I needed filled. You know, heroin was like, to me, like, a warm hug from God letting me know that everything was alright. And I can't explain the spiritual aspect of being heroin addicts, people who don't understand not having that in your life, you know, like, it represented love, security, compassion, everything. To me, it was the only coping skill that I developed in my life, because I didn't have access to counseling. I didn't have access to healthy adults. You know what I mean? It was just me and a bunch of other latchkey kids from the 90s, trying to figure out how to live.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about your time in Knoxville and also some of the things that are happening within our community. But before we do, what is it about East Tennessee, because I just got back from Tri Cities with leadership, Tennessee, and one of the main topics was the opioid epidemic and how it's just had an outsized effect in East Tennessee and Appalachia, for that matter, relative to the other parts of the state.
Justin Veals:You know, my experience growing up in Knoxville, what I believe part of the issue is, is that so Knoxville is where it's at. Because everything most or Knoxville, I see it was initially founded in like, 20 years after the revolution, because all the rivers flow through there. Yeah. And the mountain you can get through the mountains there, and it's in a valley. So the weather is better, you know, but, you know, it was rivers back then. And now it's highways. And every single highway running on the Eastern Seaboard runs through Knoxville, 75. And all Yeah, so if you're going anywhere, north or south, you're coming through Knoxville, any of you're coming from the Carolinas and stuff like that you're coming from Knoxville to
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, they have a terrible mental health issue. Yeah, there you don't have just a crisis. It's it's a epidemic. So
Justin Veals:and that is all over the state. The reason that it's worse there, I think it's just a population. How many people are transient coming through Knoxville? Think about game days, right? In Knoxville. So there's 200,000 people in the stadium? Yeah. So that's not counting like all the people who normally live there and all the people on the river and all that stuff. So like, there's just a lot of things going on and coming in and out. And they're on the drug corridor, right? So if it's coming from Texas or Georgia, it's coming up to Knoxville, if it's coming down from Detroit or Baltimore, it's going through Knoxville, so everything converges. I know, you know, living there and growing up there as someone with substance use. I could get anything I wanted. And it's available,
Kosta Yepifantsev:except for mental health services, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's available except for what you
Justin Veals:saw, like my drugs were my mental health services, you know, they closed all the state hospitals. And there's nowhere for people to go for long term mental health treatment. Yeah, it's something I deal with in my work now, too, because we get guys there's, you know, co occurring disorders, right? The majority of the guys in my program have more than one diagnosis. And some of them have severe mental illness coupled with substance use, you know, we're talking about profound thought disorders are profound mood disorders, delusion, you know, all this stuff. And they use drugs to cope just like anybody else with depression or anxiety too. And if they're severe enough, I don't know what to do with them. You know, I mean, like we tried to get them involved in outpatient care, but the safety net outpatient care in Tennessee is completely overrun. They do not have enough case managers or providers or anything. They may talk to their provider once a month for five minutes. They may see their case manager once a month for 15 minutes. They sign it for therapy. gets once a month for 15 minutes. And I've been through therapy myself and once a month, 15 minutes wasn't good enough for me. You know, and if you look at a rural area, you're talking about volunteer behavior, health care services, which not dogging the organization, but they're covering the entire upper Cumberland,
Kosta Yepifantsev:they are swamped, I actually met the director in a meeting that I had. And we were talking specifically about the mental health crisis and the services that we provide. And some of the individuals that we serve suffer from substance abuse and have mental health issues. And when you say taxed mobile crisis, for that matter, and like just the resources across the state, and like they don't exist, like mobile crisis barely hanging on right now, you know, then they need so many more people, they need so much more funding, so many more resources.
Justin Veals:And there's overlapping too. So when you have G toxin, CSU and treatment, right, and all these things, and they're all offering them, sometimes they do this thing where they have to bounce people around between services to keep them there longer, because, okay, you have a mental health
Kosta Yepifantsev:crisis. And real quick, CSU is crisis stabilization. Yes, yes, sorry. You're living
Justin Veals:in a tent and you have a mental health crisis. You're thinking about suicide. You go to CSU, you've got a maximum of seven days, most of the time is three to five. They're gonna give you some medications set you up with an outpatient treatment and right out the door and you're sleeping in a tent again. Yep. That's not a solution. Right. You know, when I was in Knoxville, when I was homeless on the streets in Knoxville now, and we're talking about a problem that is a magnitude larger than what we're dealing with here. And you had people with Down syndrome on the streets, you had veterans on the streets, you had people who just did not have any grip on reality whatsoever, trying to eke out survival on the streets of Knoxville. And you look around, and even me being involved in all that, like, you know, that I was looking around, you see those people you're like, how are we letting this happen?
Kosta Yepifantsev:Yeah, well, I'll tell you, I've met with the CEO of Helen Ross McNabb, which is a huge mental health facility in Knoxville, and one of the premier facilities in the state. And he put it real simple. He said, I would love to serve those people, but I can't because Medicaid won't pay us enough to be able to facilitate the proper care that's necessary for them to get better. Most individuals that are homeless meet the qualifications for Medicaid TennCare, essentially, yeah, and we're gonna talk a little bit about, you know, legislation and policymaking and things like that. But I feel like it's a it's a problem that, you know, essentially, they don't want to think about they don't want to talk about
Justin Veals:it's difficult, especially when the people at the top of the pyramid seem to be dismantling all our social programs. Right. And so they're, you know, refusing money from the federal government for things as simple as education. Sure. So they're definitely not going to be and they refused money from the federal government to expand Medicaid. Yeah, you know, to refuse our money. Because that's our money. Yeah, I pay taxes, right? To refuse our money to help us is just a dereliction of duty.
Kosta Yepifantsev:They have a block grant for our medical services. So they didn't they're not just refusing money. They're they're taking steps significantly backwards to try to retain as much control over how we serve a vulnerable population. You were unsheltered for the better part of six years in Knoxville, as someone that truly understands the struggles facing our homeless community. What is your opinion on cook Phil's anti panhandling, signage, and overall attitude? More importantly, does this actually help anyone
Justin Veals:does not help anyone except maybe business owners who don't like seeing people who are homeless. At the core of most mental illness, substance use and even just being unsheltered and living on the streets. At the core of that is loneliness. Toxic loneliness, right? That you don't belong, you're not good enough. No one cares about me. Like you've been completely forgotten by society. When I was living on the streets in Knoxville. And in Georgia, I was in Georgia for a while to, I felt like I lived in a separate society. Right? I wasn't a citizen of whatever was going on around me, you know, and, you know, I'd have delusion where, you know, I'd be sitting there and I'd be on the strip at UT. And I'd be looking at all the people driving by and I'm like, you suckers. You know, I mean, like, I've got this figured out, which is crazy, you know, I mean, but, but you know what I mean? But like, you know, because I you breed such contempt for people who have it together. Because of the way you get treated. You know, like, I have nowhere to go it's 100 degrees outside and all I want to do is I want to go sit in cookout, get some air conditioning for a minute like I'm not bothering anybody I know it's different from person to person, but like, I just want to sit here for a minute, you know, they don't just ask you to leave. They ask you to leave and they make you feel like you don't belong, right? And I understand this private property and understand the rights and and do but like, you know, there's a human component to all of this and we can't live our lives is narcissistic rule followers are you know, this is what I can do well, just because you can do doesn't mean that you should do you know, yeah, the same people that would disrespect someone who's homeless, right and make them feel like they're not good enough would react strongly if someone did that to them or their children, for any reason, you know, and what's important to remember here is that these are people, they're not an issue, they're not a problem. This is, you know, homelessness is not a failure of morality. Homelessness is a failure of community. So if you're putting up signs, you know, to stop paying, handling and all that kind of thing you're doing so like that you are separating them from our community. So then comes the propaganda that these people aren't from our neighborhood. They aren't from here. They Yes, they are. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, some of them are transient, we do have people coming in and out, but like, you were in a metro area, my view and you know, I am who I am or whatever, right. But my view on this is that once your city becomes a certain size, dealing with unsheltered men and women should become a service of municipal government, right? You need to figure out how to deal with it, because it's going to happen,
Kosta Yepifantsev:but what about the argument made that, you know, give to nonprofits and not to the people pain handling or the nonprofits able to pull the necessary weight to meet the homeless population?
Justin Veals:No, I mean, we don't have enough services. We don't have enough money. That's what I'm
Kosta Yepifantsev:saying. So why why not have that discussion? Right. Yeah.
Justin Veals:Also, like these people aren't donating to nonprofits because they're not giving $5 to the guy standing outside of Publix. Exactly. You know, that money's not coming in.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Are there any organizations in our community aside from maybe the rescue mission? That's the only thing in my that comes to mind for me that are helping people that are experiencing homelessness?
Justin Veals:Yeah, there's a lot going on. Okay, in different ways, you know, because like even being the overtax institution that volunteer is they are helping, you know what I mean, Hart is helping, you know, they're the COC, which is a federal program started when Obama was president to help organize money around homelessness, right? So, you know, you part of this collective organization that way we know who's what, who's doing what, who needs money, they have collective grants. And so the money is sort of organized in these regional ways so that it's more focused. All we're doing is meeting immediate needs, right? With the recovery kitchen.
Kosta Yepifantsev:What is the recovery kitchen.
Justin Veals:So the recovery kitchen is a nonprofit started by me, my wife, Melissa, when the tornadoes hit, okay, there was a lot of organized charity going on. And even though we weren't really affected, there was still food coming into the group home that I run. And so we ended up with like, I don't know, three or 400 Hot dogs, and I had never been in any of these hot dogs. Right. And so, me and Melissa, one day and a few of the guys, we cooked hundreds of hot dogs, wrapped in aluminum foil and put them in bags. And we just went out and started trying to find people who needed something to eat. And that's how we got started. And for the first six months, we paid for everything out of our own pocket. We did it once a month, once a month, we get a meal together, and we go hand it out. And we'd go into the camps we'd go where, where they were paying handling, where they were hanging out, and we started building relationships with these people. And then it became every two weeks. And then it's every week, which is what we do now. And right now. We are feeding 80 people a week. Now, all of those people aren't living in tents. The majority of them are here in Cookeville. Yes, yes. Yes.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So the whole thing about, you know, the tent cities don't exist anymore. That's not true.
Justin Veals:There aren't big tent cities here. Okay. There are small camps. Okay. But you know, it's not safe for them to congregate in large groups, right? Because, you know, there's a lot going on, there is no safety. When you live in a tent, more people that are around them are likely something bad might happen, you know, not that, you know, they're any more dangerous than general population, but you don't have the protection of pants or a door. Right? You know, fences make good neighbors. And I do believe that because, you know, I mean, anyone who was maybe living next to somebody right now, that could hurt us and thinks about hurting us, but don't because they can't get in the house. Right. You know, like, that's just reality, you know, and you don't they don't have those protections, you know, and it's very important that they trust us so you know, the locations and all that where we serve are never given out to anybody, like even our partners, and Lucas tried a lot ought to get that information out of me and I'm
Kosta Yepifantsev:not sure why. Here's something interesting. Alright, so we're talking about the signs, the Panhandle signs. So the intent for those signs is to say, don't give money directly to people that are experiencing homelessness instead give it to nonprofits. It from your perspective, obviously, you're in this in this line of work. That's not occurring. I interned with Brian Williams, we talked about his homelessness bill for a very long time. Which one the one that it that criminalizes homeless? So the camping bill, right? Yes. So I was there in 2022, while I was in school, getting my degree, and I interned with him. So I have an opinion. And I want to hear your perspective on it. When Ryan passed the bill, State Legislature passed a bill to criminalize camping on public grounds for counties. I think it was all for county, city and state property.
Justin Veals:Yeah, it was already legal statewide. Yes, state property. municipal property.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Here's an argument. When this bill passed, essentially, in my or in my opinion, it caught a faiz people who are homeless, because they are put into the system. And they have to be managed in terms of their substance abuse issues, their housing issues, their financial issues, their healthcare issues, it puts them into a pipeline so that they're not sort of unto themselves, right. Maybe that's the intent. But is that actually happening? And am I just looking at it completely in the wrong way?
Justin Veals:I don't believe that's the intent. And I've met with Robin Williams, but that may be things that are said out loud, I don't know that those are the things said in private. And it could be right if the system worked differently than it does.
Kosta Yepifantsev:How do we need to change it in terms of it working differently?
Justin Veals:Right now, the carceral system is just about punishment. We're not taking people in and rehabilitating right now there are a lot of programs that are strapped on the state and county governments at the jail and and a prison level that claimed to do these things. But they're really just going through the motions and checking boxes because they get federal money to put people in those programs. Okay, as far as real and lasting change, that's not happening. And our biggest mental health provider in the United States is county jails. That's insane. Yeah, especially when you have some county jails, which aren't even functioning at that, like, you know, not giving out medications and things like that, you know, and putting someone in isolation, and unmedicated, when they have profound thought or delusion disorder is detrimental to their health for a long period of time, what we need is, first of all, we need to incarcerate fewer people, there's a very large number of Americans that have felony charges. Now, you can get a felony charge for having as little as half a gram of methamphetamine in your pocket. That is a small amount, yeah, point five grams, you could lose eight to 12 years of your life for that little amount, if they feel like, you know, they can prove it, because the statutes are written, you know, you have felony possession, which is supposed to be for, like personal use, and things like that. It's still a felony. And then you have like, you know, what I was charged with, which the statute covers possession with intent, which is what my charges were manufacturing and distribution, sale and delivery, you know, all these different things. And it's eight to 12 years, you know, and if you're in a drug free zone, they call it, they can either up the class of your felony. And it's already a Class B, right? He's so they put you in the range of their with murderers and rapists, right, or they can max out your time, right. So you have range one, which is 30%, before you get parole, which the governor has messed with that too. What we've got to do is actually offer help, right? These people need counseling, they need treatment. If you want to reduce recidivism, you have to treat the root causes of crime, because crime is a symptom, right? And the root causes of this stuff, range is ranges. You know, some people have mental health issues. Some people have substance use, some people are just in the worst period of their life. If you look at the homeless population, and all you see are, you know, criminals and addicts and things like that, well, it's the chicken in the egg. What came first, because once you're in a desperate situation, you're going to start making changes in your life to survive in that desperate situation, because humans are extremely durable. And we can get used to almost any living situation and find out how to survive.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So it's all about money. Yeah. So essentially, if we had these programs to support these individuals, but I think it's it goes a little bit farther than that. There's truth. things that we need to talk about, we need some type of value based outcomes, meaning like, if somebody receives the services, we need to actually be able to measure that they're working that the provider is reaching some type of positive outcome, because you're absolutely right. And, you know, being in healthcare and very familiar with this, there's a lot of box checking that happens, you know, you got to check this box, check this box, check this box. So you can have a higher billing code, you know, stuff like that. And, obviously, there's services that you can't even bill for unless you go through the motions. But that doesn't help people. Safe to say that we are low on resources, not just money, but just in general facilities. So I'm reading this morning, actually, in preparation for the show about cedar recovery, the place in Overton county that's opening up their substance abuse and addiction treatment center, they have to get a certificate of need. So I want to talk about certificate of needs. We've got a drug epidemic, we've got a mental health crisis, we've got no capacity across the state, you know, and why in the world, do we still have certificate of needs?
Justin Veals:I have no idea. Right? And and it's especially the upper Cumberland is a wasteland. Right when it comes to mental health and substance use treatment? Yeah. So if you're here in Cookeville, it seems like everything's okay. We've got a detox center, we've got a crisis unit, we've got a treatment center, we've got you know, Independence again, which I run is a transitional program. You've got, you know, priority house, there's a few Oxford houses that have popped up, you know, so there's various resources here. But we're serving the entire state. Because once you leave Knoxville and head this way, like that's it till you get here. And between us in Nashville, there's nothing you know, and then you look at the counties in the upper Cumberland, you've got counties like clay and pick it which are like, you know, there's nothing out there. Yeah, thing whatsoever, you know, and Ventress I think is starting to come out of it and be a little bit better. But you know, how much of Putnam County is just supporting the area around us? It's a lot Yeah. And you know, the the house I run, we're ttoc certified, which means guys can parole out to us if they don't have a home plan that the state will approve, and then they come and complete our program and then they can move on, you know, and live live somewhere else. So we're serving the entire state. And I get calls from every prison because there's not enough resources anywhere. And they have started mandatory release. So if you are nonviolent offender, and you have less than a year on your sentence, then you are getting out on parole. You have to serve that last year on parole just like the Fed system does. I have 36 beds right now about to have a more but like it's just it's it's hard it's so hard to meet the needs you know, I may get there are days where the the residential treatment center at volunteer may call me four or five times.
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Justin Veals:No, no. So like, I ended up in Cookeville. Because, you know, we were just dating them. But my wife Melissa came up here to go to independence again, they had a women's program nice. And so she graduated that while I was incarcerated and going to treatment and all that kind of stuff. And so then I was like, Well, when I get out. I'm just going to come up there. So I came up here When we lived in a motel, we lived at two Wynonna nice for 10 months. Wow. Because no one would rent an apartment to us, which is homelessness is a multifaceted issue. When it all boils down to it, what are we talking about? We're talking about housing. Right. And the numbers for housing in Tennessee are
Kosta Yepifantsev:awful. Yeah, we are going to talk about it as an end. But you
Justin Veals:know, so we ended up here and did that. And then, you know, I got my first job, and 15 years, which is a college manufacturing. Over there, I've Shadrach, right. And I worked there for about a year and a half. And then the executive director for independence, again, called me because she'd heard my name around town, I was seeking places to start new 12 step meetings. And so I was getting out there and talking to people.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So when we talked about certificate of need, I think I should clarify what that actually means. So that people understand, when you try to open up a practice, specifically, most of the time, it applies to some type of medical practice, specialty service, the state of Tennessee, and other states across the United States, do not want to over saturate the market, because they want the providers to be able to thrive. So if too many addiction centers open up, the pie gets split too many ways. And there's not enough money to operate. And you know, the whole system kind of is affected by it. So they developed a certificate of need that says you have to prove to us before we give you a license that there is a need for it in your community. I've experienced this with nursing homes, especially but it's always fascinated me with addictions and substance abuse and treatment centers. In your opinion, does it almost feel intentional, like, let's close off as many of the roads so that we don't have to even consider funding, the social set, the social safety net, and all these services, let's make it as difficult as possible for people to be able to access the necessary resources, so that they want
Justin Veals:this is one of those conversations where like, when I'm out in public run Coupal I try to watch what I'm saying. Sure. Because
Kosta Yepifantsev:I think later on a podcast, yeah, no one's gonna hear this.
Justin Veals:So the thing is, is that it's not a bug, it's a feature, I do believe that. I do believe that there are people in the halls of power, that are not interested in keeping the door open for people to have upward mobility, the market system we've adopted in the United States, and that we hold true to, you know, almost religiously consolidates money and power and wants to people get it, they don't want to give it up. And it's easier to keep us under the boot in different ways. You know, like, Tennessee's destroyed unions, and, you know, Tennessee Democrats have done nothing to stop it. They've convinced blue collar workers that unions are bad, which is crazy and crazy, you know, I mean, it's absolutely crazy, you know, collective bargaining and free association. You know, I mean, like, I'm not a legalist. I don't believe in rights, right? Like, I'm a human being, I'm not hurting nobody, what doesn't matter what I'm doing, you know what I mean? But we do live in a legal society. And I have the right to free association, and I should be able to collectively bargain my employer who holds so much sway over the quality of my life.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Can I take it a step further? Yeah, I just had this discussion. So the hot to trot right now. Imagine if a provider like myself, got with other providers that actually look at it from an altruistic narrative. At the end of the day, just want to pay my people a living wage, I want to be able to give them a better life than when they started working with me. We can't collectively bargain as companies, we can't come together and leverage our resources and tell the state like no unless you pay us what's necessary for us to be able to pay our staff what's necessary for us to be able to provide quality outcomes, not just checkboxes, but actually good services. We're not going to do it. We're going on strike. That's illegal, because apparently there's this antitrust Sherman Act thing that essentially closes off another door for us to be able to say, Absolutely not, you can't do a block grant and not expand Medicaid. Like, What are y'all doing? You got huge problems over here. And we're on the ground trying to fix it. And y'all are making it harder for us to try to fix it. So please continue. Sorry. I had to interject. Yes. You're talking about collective bargaining? Yes. Like I resonate with it. Absolutely. Yeah.
Justin Veals:I mean, what's what's the issue is having people address their needs, right? Especially considering what's happened over the last three years and as countries no matter which side of this fictional aisle that they create, where they set Brightest into these camps. You know what I mean? Like, but that's a whole other thing. But what no matter what shot out, it's not been a good three years. Yeah. What I saw in 2020. And this is one of those things it's like, you know, I've always been sort of radical and always wanted to be active and do things. But I was sitting there during, you know, Black Lives Matter and all this stuff going on, and I'm watching on TV, and we're locked down here in Tennessee, and I'm running a group home. So I'm just like, locked in with like, 20. Guys, and you know, we're just having to find stuff to do. Yeah. And I'm watching the TV. And I've seen I've seen protests. But I saw three billionaires shoot themselves into space with my tax money in one year. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, what are we doing? Yeah, I'm seeing starving people and hopeless people every day. And we have these guys that aren't paying taxes, getting our money to on space vanity projects, in you expect me to think that you have my best interests in mind. And that sort of thing happens on both sides of the political aisle. It's not just one party doing right. So Democrats
Kosta Yepifantsev:are also to blame. Yeah, absolutely. Because
Justin Veals:either they are actually part of the problem like mass incarceration, which they are, yeah. Or their silence is complicity. Right. It's one of the other. You know, I remember the working class, me and my wife together, maybe bring in 45 a year, right? We do. All right. You know what I mean? But like
Kosta Yepifantsev:household? Yeah, yeah. That's hard to make. Yeah. Like the, it's hard to make an M 45k. Yeah.
Justin Veals:And if part of my work didn't supply our housing, we would be in a different boat. If we had children, we'd be in a different boat. We've got three big dogs, which it's, it's it can get expensive, but they're not children, you know what I mean? So, but I've just seen more and more that, like, the powers that be do not care how we feel about it. Right? So power has become so consolidated and money so consolidated that like, we don't have any voice anymore. And if you're a felon, like I am, I don't have a voice. I can talk. Sure. But I can't vote, right? The only thing that I can hope to influence in the political process, either through activism, or money, I can't donate money, but then I'm donating money to people who don't have my best interest or to you know, like, it's really hard for me to find someone who represents me. You have blue collar workers in the south, that are like, a millimeter away from class consciousness, right? Like just really seeing things how they are, and they start off and they're like, I'm paying too much taxes. I don't make enough money. Rain is too high. It's the people on Well, first of all, you don't I mean, like they always like veer off at the end, and they don't ever get there. You know what I mean?
Kosta Yepifantsev:They've been told the narrative. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, voting against people's interests. It's a phenomenon that I've never experienced before in my entire life. It's pick a county, for example. They are the most insured population in the state 95% of Pickett county residents have insurance. Guess what, it's also one of the poorest in the state, right. And most of those 95% have TennCare. So that's why it's the most insurance. What's fascinating about that is they need so many more resources, not just economic resources, but like we're talking about with regards to treatment centers and facilities. And I mean, dare I say, like a hospital, that's not an hour away, you know what I'm saying? But we're not even willing to consider that. And the people in Pickett county are voting in the complete opposite of how they should vote. And I think it warrants to say that Democrats don't have all the solutions either. No, no, no, they're just willing to devote more money to solving. It says, so
Justin Veals:there's this joke, right? You know, Republicans are like your uncle, who promises to take you to Disneyland, and then tells you there's no money for Disneyland and then goes by himself. Yeah. All right. Democrats are like your aunt who promises to take you to Disneyland, but there's always something else going on. You go to the politicians, and you're like, you know, we need help. We need social services, and Republicans are just like, No, and then Democrats are no black lives matter. You know, I'm saying like, it's the same answer, but they throw compassion on top of it. So as the right uses issues like abortion and religion to control their base, Democrats use social issues to control their base. Yeah, without doing anything about those social issues. They didn't codify abortion, gay rights or any of that stuff, but they but they use them to get you to the polls. You know, it's the same. It's the same trick on both sides of the road.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Is that kind of the white liberal thing that you were talking about earlier? Like what is that is that play a component in tall?
Justin Veals:Yeah, so it's like so so from, you know, one of the letters that Mark King wrote when he was in jail, right, and he talks about like how the white liberal is a bear or to progress, because it's about having awareness, but not not having any follow through and thinking that you can have conversations with fascists and people like that, right? Like, and that's the Democrats main problem, I think is that they want to have, they want to talk to people who aren't interested in hearing them talk.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I'm very familiar with this. So it's words and not action. So essentially, they're like, let me spend, you know, six months on discussing how we should talk about it. And then when they start doing it, they get so bogged down by talking to people that don't really care what they have to say that they never get to the action part.
Justin Veals:And then they get bullied, right? To the point where it's just completely dismantled, right, like,
Kosta Yepifantsev:go back, they go back and say, We have to talk about this, again, it didn't work, like what
Justin Veals:we saw with the Affordable Care Act was just like a perfect example of that, right? They're like we're doing this we're putting out his health care plan people need access to, and then it's just everything just went out the window, one by one by one, you know, and convinced me from a standpoint, that's not the corporate standpoint, why single payer health care isn't a good idea.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, I can spend about an hour talking about it. But we don't have enough time. I do want to ask, though, if you could speak directly to the legislature, or to policymakers, what would you say?
Justin Veals:I've been thinking about this. And because there are basically two roads, I could go down. And I think the most effective one right now would be to talk about housing, because I was talking to a friend of mine who also works in social services the other day, and she was like, some days, I feel like a piece of trash, telling these people to process their emotions when they're living in a tent. There was a big conversation that Ryan Williams was a part of about how housing first programs don't work. And I was I met with him during the day on the Hill for the Tennessee Solidarity Network. How do we know they don't work? We haven't funded them. One of the things that we could do is we could get rid of single family zoning. Okay, that's right, so that we can build more condensed housing in certain areas and meet the need, especially of low income households, you know,
Kosta Yepifantsev:so like I said earlier, I'm in that leadership, Tennessee class, one of the one of our classmates, his name's Troy white, he runs nbha, in Nashville, fascinating guy went down there and met with him and spent kind of half a day with him. In East Nashville, you know, those really nice apartments that you drive past and you're thinking like everybody in there is, you know, paying $3,000 a month, at least that's what I thought. So in those apartments, the majority of them are low income, and work based income units, they tear down the old project homes, and they put them in these new apartments. behavioral modification is his goal, so that they can break the cycle of poverty. Now, here's the crazy part. Troy, he lived in Atlanta, and he lived in Charlotte. Now he lives in Nashville. And he has been working on this project for just a few years, his predecessor was working on it for a decade. It's happening in Nashville. This problem is, in my opinion, even worse, in smaller rural communities. But we aren't looking at the problem in the same lens that Nashville is looking at it as, and we are going to find ourselves in a very precarious and we may already be in that precarious position, because we aren't looking at it through the correct lens. So how do you convince or is it like the whole not talking to fascist thing? Yeah. How do you convince people to start looking at this problem differently?
Justin Veals:That's difficult. Because like everything that I've said to you today, I've said like, like, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of times at different things that I've been, like I said, so once every quarter, I'm in front of a whole room of police officers. They're supposed to be there to learn how to deal with people in crisis better. And I look him dead in the eyes, and I just tell them, like, look, the sooner we get them talking to somebody besides you, the better. You're not a social worker. You're not there to do that. You know what I mean? You're a hammer. So they're all nails, you know? And it's just like SROs right? So the more we involve cops, more people get arrested. So we've got to look at it a different way. Is it all just money? Money's a component of everything in the United States. Right? So I mean, like people view failure as a failure of the person right? It's not a failure of the system. The system's perfect the system works for everybody right? It's that person has a moral failing that person has an issue they're not good enough. They don't have a good work ethic right? They all they want to do is get high and be lazy and rich off welfare and all you know, they everything that people have associated With the homeless, and then low income is about them being lazy, and sometimes even unintelligent. And that's just not true.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Was this a problem in the 1960s? And 1970s? Is homelessness and specifically the, to the extent that we're that we're seeing it now, is that a new phenomenon? Or has that been going on our entire existence?
Justin Veals:I don't think is brand new I, I was without any scientific basis for whatsoever believe it has more to do with observation than anything, right. I like true crime, right when they talk about like Jack the Ripper, which is, you know, the late 1800s, talking about people paying a penny to stand up and lean on a rope to have a place to sleep, you know, that long ago. And then you have like, in the 30s, and 40s, you've got this another to kind of call Pedro. He was a hobo. Right, like, so he's like riding the rails around. Does your homeless people, you know, I mean, and there's always been the low town. And there's always been people with nowhere to go. The problem is, it is getting worse specifically now than it was before. It's not because people aren't good human beings anymore, right? It's because the system is failing more people now than it used to.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And I 100% agree with you. And I think it started, in my opinion, I think it started in the early 2000s. We started to marginalize people. And then 2008 happened in it just set a bomb off. Yeah. And so we've we've never come back from that. And the whole the whole experience around housing that we're about to talk about when we stopped building houses, and we stopped diluting the cost of houses and every builder that you talk to they're not building a $200,000 house, they want to build a 567 $100,000 house in Cookeville. Yeah, right. So how do you expect people to make it when you know, the median rent for a one bedroom apartment in Cookeville is $850, which is up 18% from 2022, while the median individual income remains stagnant at $25,040. That means after taxes over half of our individual's income will go to housing. How does this huge gap between affordable housing and wages play into preparations that recovery kitchen and other local nonprofits?
Justin Veals:So specifically with the nonprofits I'm involved in, it means that we are serving more people than what the community probably at large ceases emergent situations, right. So, you know, obviously, the men and women that are sleeping on sidewalks and in tents and things like that are, you know, they're at their most desperate moment. We're also serving families that are living in motels, because they cannot get out of that situation. So imagine you're a single mom fleeing domestic violence. You've got two kids, there's no room at the only dB shelter. We have domestic violence shelter. Yeah, we only have one. That's Genesis house. Yeah, yeah, we only we've so there's no room there, right. But you've talked to the guy who runs this motel, and he'll give you and your kids a place to stay. But you got to work for him seven days a week, you get your place to live, and you may get 30 or $40 a week. How are you supposed to get out of that situation? Where
Kosta Yepifantsev:easy, right?
Justin Veals:That's really happening? Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Once you start to remove people, from society in quotes, right, they start to become marginalized by everybody. So the felony system of criminal justice is all about removing people, I'm, I'm no longer a citizen of the United States, right, I still have to pay taxes. But I don't have any of the other rights. They've even made it harder for me to get them back. Right. So now instead of just filling out some paperwork, but my probation officer or whatever, turning it in and getting my rights back, I have to go in front of a judge and get my citizenship reinstated. So it cannot be any more clear that I'm not a part of your country, right? I'm just here and they still tax me and I still pay taxes. And I'm working class, so I'm paying more taxes than than anybody. And you know, because we look at the the actual tax rate of what we're talking about here. We're talking about, like 40% About right like, like I'm paying a large when it comes between income and sales and registration and all this stuff, you know, 40% of my income is going to taxes. Then you look at someone like Amazon who who operates in Tennessee, and they basically pay no income tax. Yeah. Not only that, they get tax money for what they do, and they get tax money to shoot Jeff Bezos into space. Yeah. How am I supposed to like be okay with
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, it's crazy because when I prior to owning this business with Jessica, like, you just pay taxes every time you get your paycheck, and it was like gee, so To act, and you can never really do anything unless the government gives you like an olive branch, and they say like, Oh, you want to be a student and take out student loan debt? Yeah, well, we'll let you go ahead and write that off on your taxes. Or, you know, this year, we're doing the child tax credit, you know, so like, they give you these little olive branches. Once we bought this business, and we started looking at our tax bill, everyone came out of the woodwork. Oh, you can you know, there's this loophole here. There's this loophole here. There's this loophole here. Yeah. And I'm like, But regular people don't have any of these loopholes. Right. It's crazy. make any sense? I
Justin Veals:don't have access to that. Right. So I just have to pay them. And then you know, the money doesn't come back. Right. You know, especially in Tennessee, where we're setting on a giant surplus, one of the only states that has money in the bank right now. Right? You know, when you're talking about rent, you know, prior to 2020, on average, every year rent went up about 30 bucks, right? In 2021. It went up an average of$179. In Tennessee, there are counties in Tennessee, where you have, you would have to have two and a half jobs at minimum wage to pay for a one bedroom apartment. You know, that's not tenable,
Kosta Yepifantsev:what's going to happen. I mean, if nothing changes, which it doesn't look like anything's going to change anytime the
Justin Veals:housing market tends to never go back to where it was, even if it gets better. Every time there's a crash or an expansion, like a will go back some. But you know, we're not looking back and going back to pre pandemic levels, for sure. And I think the reason for that is the corporate ownership of private property, rented apartment uncouple, from private owner, go try to do that, right and right, they don't exist, right? Housing, you know, to me, should be a right, not a benefit of your compliance with the system. Everyone needs a place to live.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So if we don't do anything about this problem, what happens to the people, what happens to all the people that are not able to afford to live in a shelter that don't have shelter,
Justin Veals:what we're seeing will just get worse, right? So we're gonna see more and more people living on the streets, we're going to see more and more people succumbing to overdose and substance use, we're going to see more and more children being taken from their families, which is also an epidemic in Tennessee, someone dies of an overdose, every eight minutes is crazy. I just lost a friend three weeks ago, good friend, you know, and we're still trying to get over that. But you know, that's what's happening. For the first time in history, our life expectancy is going down. Everyone who gets up and talks about it, you know, they want to blame somebody else. But the calls coming from inside of the house. I mean, like, whatever problem is happening, here is a problem here that we need to fix. And we don't fix it by marginalizing another group of people. The thing is, is that I don't think policymakers don't understand for the most part, because living in Tennessee, and not having someone in your family that is experienced mental illness or substance use seems very unlikely, correct? You know, in places like Knox County, it's something like three out of every five people have some sort of issue. And there are counties where it's probably, you know, the same out here. Right, but at least there are some resources in Knoxville, you know, here it's, it's, it's a no man's land.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So I want to ask you about when it comes to affordable housing, you know, you've got red bud village being built, right. And you know, how we're talking about how this problem is evolving? You're on the front lines of it? Do we just need to build more affordable housing like Redbud village? Or is this problem so out of hand at this point that we need, like federal resources to be able to make it a viable solution?
Justin Veals:Well, make no mistake, it's only federal resources that are really being used for these programs, right? The money that's coming through THDA, the majority of that money is coming from HUD. Okay, it's not. So these are these is federal money to begin with? I see. Yeah. So like, what the federal government likes to do is they get a bunch of money together to throw at a problem, because that's all they really do. And then it's filtered through other organizations. So in Tennessee, it's THDA, and HUD and the USDA and things like that, that, you know, sort of filter this money around, and then it ends up in the hands of like the United Way and other nonprofits and COC organizations and then, you know, gets dispersed that way. It is about money. But, you know, we're talking about like a multitude of solutions for a multifaceted program. Housing first is I think the only thing that makes sense to me, right?
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, we can agree housing has to come about Yeah,
Justin Veals:but like there are different types of housing that different people may need. You know, you have like the ethics are called the iris cottages and in Cumberland County, which they're like four bedroom houses, that have staff interaction for people, you know, to help with case management, things like that. Independence again, which I run their men's program, our model. Now we're transitional. So that's what we're called. But our model is closer to permanent supportive housing than it is transitional, which is where like, they have access to case management, we, you know, and all these other kinds of things, there's no maximum amount of time they lived there, you know what I mean? Like, we're there to help them on a day to day basis, you know, they have a problem, they come and talk to us, that I think is the gold standard right now. And veterans programs are doing the same thing. They build housing, they have social workers that are on site, that they're helping manage it, and they don't go and like, Hey, you gotta come meet with me, you gotta come meet me. They're just like they're there, and you drop by the office and you got a problem, let's we'll help you fix it. Because the best types of treatment for anything, are the ones that patients want. The more we try to force someone down a hole, the less progress you make, the more we give them access, and support and compassion and love, the more change we actually see,
Kosta Yepifantsev:but are we building enough affordable housing? No. Okay. So if we don't build enough affordable housing, and you keep seeing people that are addicted, and that are suffering, and that are caught in the cycle, just so we can kind of foreshadow a little bit, how do you see this problem unfolding? Like, when does it hit a climax to where people say, Oh, we've got to fund these programs? Because we've got to fix this problem. When does that happen?
Justin Veals:I think that if we continue without changes, that more and more people are going to be removed from the labor force. So right now, extremely low income families, 35% of them are in the workforce, the rest are like disabled, or things like that. 20% of those are unemployed, these are extremely low income houses, right? So that's a large, that's 20% of 35% of low income. So we're very small portion, right? If we continue, those numbers will grow.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Right? That's an economic problem. Yes, absolutely.
Justin Veals:Everything that you deal with with human beings is going to affect everything that they're there in part of, right. So if you treat people like crap at every level, you know, it's going to affect money, it's going to affect housing, it's going to affect markets is gonna affect everything, you know. So if we don't start to consider the human being is more than a tool of the economy. It's just gonna get worse and worse, and and people have to be connected together in order to survive.
Kosta Yepifantsev:You're absolutely right. Before we wrap up, I want to talk about recovery kitchen and independence again, what do you do on a weekly basis? How can we get involved? And what resources do you need?
Justin Veals:The majority of my work is with independence. Again, I do do things like this, where I go out and talk about work and things like that for recovery kitchen, my wife is doing the heavy lifting on recovery kitchen now because I just ran out of time, but with independence again. So I spend almost every day of my life at one of our locations, helping men get their lives together. We have men coming in from prison, jail, the streets, treatment, mental health facilities all over. The one thing that they have in common is substance use disorder. But there's a lot of other things that we're dealing with, right. So we have, you know, institutionalization mental illness, domestic violence, codependency, you know, we're dealing with a lot of stuff. I teach a cognitive course, that was developed in Tennessee state prisons called Moral Reconation, therapy 16 to 20 weight course, they take that when they first get there, they get involved in 12 Step support groups, so that way, they're connected with other men trying to do the same thing. We offer budget planning and things like that, so they can know how to handle their money, because most of them don't, you know, and a plethora of other unknown services, some of them don't have ID, so we pay for that, and let them pay us back credit scores, you know, we try to help them get like credit building cars and things like that and get their credit report in check, because you have to have a 650 credit score now to rent an apartment and even though they don't report rent to your credit, which doesn't make any sense. So, you know, like, can we have both, you know, what I mean? And so we're really like, it's, it's a holistic approach that we try to take, alright, so anything that you got going on, I want you to talk to me and as a peer recovery specialist, that's what we're, we're certified to do. That's what we're taught to do, you know, every day, I mean, they're doing that kind of stuff with recovery kitchen. You know, me personally, what I'm doing is trying to spread the word talking to our community partners, talking about what we do, even to you know, law enforcement, I want them to know that we exist because if they see somebody in need, I want them to call
Kosta Yepifantsev:us. What is the recovery kitchen?
Justin Veals:We're just trying to meet immediate needs, right? So okay, we provide a hot meal once a week to right now at we're about to go to 100 We just bought a new SUV. Nice so we can regulate more. More polluted air. Yeah. nicest car ever owned. Nice. So we've got more room to feed more people, because we can easily feed over 100 every week because we're dealing with the unsheltered and families. And anybody who needs food. If somebody calls me says they're hungry, I'm gonna figure out how to give him some food. Right? We also distribute other goods, you know, tents and canned goods and groceries and things like that.
Kosta Yepifantsev:How are you guys funded? Community funded, right. So yeah, get out. Now that state or federal fund now, you're doing all of this with so donations
Justin Veals:with recovery kitchen? Yes. Now with independence game, the only thing that we get from the state is to the AARP program, which is addiction recovery program. And my understanding of our budget is we get roughly about 34,000 a year, which only pays for our drug testing. So the independence again, operates mainly on the rent that we charge the guys, right, because they come in and get a job and pay rent, right. And I tell them, You're not really paying rent, what you're paying for is that this place still exists for the next guy that needs it. Exactly. But recovery kitchen is completely community funded now. So we take in donations, we have community partners, with churches and other organizations, and they help provide meals and food and things like that. The two things that recovery kitchen has done that I'm most proud of our organization. And my wife, Melissa, who is out there every week is that we have garnered relationships with people who normally wouldn't work together. So at our last festival of compassion over Christmas, that call us at church of Christ, we had four different churches, for different denominations, all working together to give these people food and clothes and other things, right. So it's not important, none of that stuff is important. We're here to help these people. Right. And that's it. And the second one is our relationships with the unsheltered men and women in our area, they trust us enough to they tell us where they're gonna be. And they get in contact with us when they need stuff, and we have them into our home, you know, we have people come by just knock on the door and be like, Hey, I'm hungry.
Kosta Yepifantsev:You're able to do all of this with$55,000.36 beds. Imagine if you could have the necessary resources, you could serve hundreds of people. I guess that's the crux of it all, you know,
Justin Veals:but not everything scales, you know, so it's not like a hospital where like, Okay, I've got 10 beds. And well, if I had more money, I can have 100 beds, you know, I have more money, I could have more beds, right. But like, it's more like education, where you can't just build more classrooms, right? And or have more students, you know, so there's a human component to all this, which is something I try to explain to people because people want to create, like apps and all this stuff for like moving people around and knowing what's out there and stuff. Well, there's a human component to this, that doesn't really process with technology very well. You know, accountants don't understand the differences that we need, you know, yes, if I had more money, I would have more staff and I could help more people. But I think the personal component of being able to work with them one on one is more important in their recovery, right? Because they, they can learn to see me and trust me, because like, I'm one of them. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons we work with ttoc. You know what I mean? So I can help those guys coming out of prison. I hate working with ttoc. But if I don't do it, I can't help the guys coming out of prison. So like, I got to put up with whatever reports and all this other stuff if they want, you know, and it's a bureaucracy, you know, science, it's a lot of pointless paper. But we go through it so that I can help those people.
Kosta Yepifantsev:We ended where we started checking boxes. So we always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better when you're together.
Justin Veals:So this is, it may sound cheesy, but my wife is my partner in everything. We met at a trap house in Fountain city, nearly six years ago. I was there to sell some drugs. And she was there to buy some right. And we ended up going on this adventure together. And it led us all the way down to Albany, Georgia, where we were living on the streets and taking baths in the Flint River and stealing our food and all that kind of stuff. And then back to Knoxville and getting arrested in both of us getting clean and then coming back out and just everything in our life has completely changed. She was standing there brushing your teeth the other day, and I was just thinking about all of this because you don't think about it all the time. You know, thinking about the journey that brought us here, you know, and then, you know, the other day we went and bought this GMC Yukon Denali, right. I'm like, This is crazy. You know what I mean? Like we didn't have, we were literally using the bathroom in a bucket for a year. You know what I mean? Like, and now here we are, and, you know, that's why we you know, I'm just so glad to have her everywhere I go. We came here, you know, on a journey together. She graduated a program that I'm now working for. We started recovery kitchen together. And there's this saying that I learned from Um, a book about Fred Rogers. It's South African. And it's a boon to right which was like a Linux operating system right. But what it means well one of the meanings is is I am because we are. And so like my humanity itself is like clarified and sanctified and defined by other people, not me. I am because we say I am right, you know, so my community is how what reflects my humanity back in me. And I am because we are, it's just this beautiful idea. And that's something that we used to write letters when I was incarcerated back and forth, and I'd always put it at the end of the letter, you know, and to come to all of this and to be where I am right now, like without her I wouldn't be here. And I'm just eternally grateful for the relationship and the journey that we've been on together.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Thank you to our partners at Loxx Salon and Spa for presenting this episode. Loxx is an Aveda Concept Salon providing the highest quality in hair, skin and nail services, from extensions, coloring, facials, and microblading, Loxx is your beauty destination. To find out more visit their website at loxxsalon.net
Morgan Franklin:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com. We're better together. We'd like to remind our listeners that the views and opinions expressed during this episode are those of the individual speakers and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of this show its producers or any related entities or advertisers. While our discussions may touch on various topics of interest, please note that the content is intended to inspire thought provoking dialogue and should not be used for a substitute for professional advice.Specifically, nothing heard on this podcast should be construed as financial, legal, medical or any other kind of professional advice. We encourage our listeners to consult with a professional in these areas for guidance tailored to their specific circumstances.