The Scott And Siew Project

In this episode, Siew and I discuss our feelings about experiencing the layoffs. How that is related to our feelings about this project and perhaps would could be done to improve the way we all our affected by a difficult economy.

It's been a whole year of no episodes. We plan on changing that. In this episode we discuss what we've been working on. We spent some time rendering homeless data published from HUD on a map. We have a blogpost that goes into the technical details.  We have out code available on our github. CoC Topo Data - Topo data that can be used to render the CoC Map. US Data Organized by County  - For each county, the CoC it belongs to, the homeless population of the CoC and the county population. The CoC Data - Contains total population of the CoC, the homeless data in a CoC, and the list of counties within the CoC. Contact Us: [email protected] Twitter: @thescottandsie1

Siew and I discuss the need for human connection that perhaps one solution for homelessness is to find ways to integrate across class boundaries. Then I discuss some lessons I learned from reading a book about Meth's role in our current homelessness problem. That book is The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.

In this podcast Siew and I wonder whether there's anything within blockchain and web 3.0 generally that might be helpful in the physical world where homeless people can't find shelter. We both listened to Tim Ferris's podcast with Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant as a seed to this discussion.

We kicked of a debate triggered both by a book Siew read, The Prosperity Paradox and a podcast interview with Jaron Lanier I recently listened to. Siew counters with Ben Thompson's Aggregation Theory ideas about how to leverage current enabling technology.  It's an interesting debate, one I know we'll return to.

In this episode we rift off some insights gleaned from Brene Brown and her book, The Gift of Imperfection about the importance of setting boundaries in order to find compassion. Something we need to work out as we hope to make a difference within homelessness.

Our mutual friend and work colleague, Josh, joins us today to ask about how to deal with serious mental health issues which is a major component of the homeless problem. We cover a ranging number of topics as we deal with mental illness including Utah's housing first initiative, The Book on Ending Homelessness, San Diego's homeless podcast, in particular the episode that talks about how homelessness can be predicted with data, UCLA's research policy lab, and much more... Great to have our friend Josh on the show.

In this episode, Siew and I explain why we haven't issued a podcast episode in a very long time and why we haven't accomplished much on our project in a while. We talk about some of the stresses we're both experiencing, how that's affected us and some strategies we've learned a long the way. We get around to homelessness a little bit at the very end. We haven't given up. We're still here.

Siew has been doing volunteer work for the homeless for a very long time through his church's homeless ministry but that was interrupted because of Covid. He has recently restarted and that has also restarted his efforts to be a friend to a man whose been attending this ministry for a while. In this episode, Siew describes the challenges and difficulties in extending himself in a way that could be effective. The city of Chandler recently spotlighted the volunteer work done by the Compass Christian Church. In the podcast, I referenced a really interesting and poignant article about a cleanup effort happening in Portland that has caused some serious disruptions for many people there. I'm also making a bit of progress on a book describing youth homeless.

Recognizing it's been a while since Siew and I have met, we covered a number of different topics. We begin by talking a bit about the 2020 AHAR report. I reference a recent Ezra Klein podcast that describes Utah's recent drive to deal with homelessness by housing them. Ultimately, we're struggling with what Noah Smith calls a scarcity mindset, offering three examples of scarcity: housing, elite universities, and access to our country through immigration. We segue from there to talk about why advice is often bad and how we should think more in terms of coaching and how that relates to homelessness. I mention a podcast, but really she just has a lot of Agness Callard has a lot of great articles everyone should read. We conclude by comparing a book we're reading called Almost Home about youth homelessness specifically highlighting the stories from kids who have been served by the Covenant House with the movie about older folks forced into living into their vehicles by economic hardship, Nomadland. This great youtube video highlights have one woman makes living in her car work for her. It's a great real-life example.