Banking on KC – Tom Lally of Hillcrest Transitional Housing
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Tom Lally, the President and CEO at Hillcrest Transitional Housing. Welcome, Tom
Tom Lally:
Kelly. Thank you for allowing me to be here and sharing the Hillcrest story.
Kelly Scanlon:
Hillcrest has been called the leader in solving the homelessness problem in Kansas City. Can you give us an overview of your core mission here in the Kansas City area?
Tom Lally:
Yes, it is a bold statement, but what we do, we do extraordinarily well and it's very, very effective. Homelessness is a huge issue in the Kansas City area and nationwide. And since 1976, Hillcrest has been having this high accountability program where individuals are required to work. They stay with us in a Hillcrest apartment for 90 days, and then we do that with rent-free, utility free, so that individual is working full time. They have that income to be able to pay down that debt, which is often that barrier to permanent housing. They're able to start to save money, which provides them for those emergency repairs for their autos or some health concerns, but they're also able to save up money for the deposit for their next place of residency.
But during their stay with Hillcrest... And this is what really is the beauty of the Hillcrest program. We require all of our residents, all of our clients, to subscribe to an all-needs-no-wants budget. And if you think about that on your personal life, that is very, very difficult to do. And we have budget counselors that walk that journey with our clients. There's extensive case management, there's life skills. So it's this comprehensive high accountability program that once an individual becomes involved with the Hillcrest program and graduates from the Hillcrest program, they are on a journey for self-sufficiency and to end that homelessness for them and their family.
Kelly Scanlon:
How long is this program?
Tom Lally:
It's a 90-day program, and because of increased housing costs and some other kind of societal factors, we are extending that program to 120 days. But that core program is always going to be that very, very short, high intensity, high accountability program.
Kelly Scanlon:
Give us an overview of how you measure success in transitioning these individuals. You talk about going from homelessness to self-sufficiency, and you serve so many diverse populations. So what is your yardstick, so to speak, for success?
Tom Lally:
Yeah, I don't think there is one specific measurable for success. It certainly is self-sufficiency, and that could be defined and determined in multiple ways, but just as you mentioned, we do provide services to a wide range of individuals and all of our clients are coming to us with different stories and different reasons for their housing insecurity or homelessness. And so that individual is going to have their own definition of self-sufficiency.
Kelly Scanlon:
Is there any kind of requirement for the type of job they have?
Tom Lally:
Full-time. When residents come into our program, they are working full-time. And because of the capacity of what Hillcrest provides them and that security of knowing where they're going to sleep at night and having food in the pantry for them and their children, that provides that client, that resident an opportunity to grow in their job or maybe find a better paying job. A lot of times it's a service industry, it's warehousing, but as they get into the program and they start to network with other of our residents, they start to find out what some other positions are out in the communities.
Kelly Scanlon:
More opportunities, yeah. Talk to us about the structure of the transitional programs that you offer. How do you implement them?
Tom Lally:
Currently, Hillcrest, the waiting list to get into 90-Day program is six to eight weeks. So that's an individual that's out there, that has made that life-affirming choice to say, "Yes, I want to change my life. I want to enter this program and do better for myself or for my family." And just because of the sheer need out there and just the limited capacity that Hillcrest and maybe other agencies have, they're still having to wait six to eight weeks. We ask them to call in every single day. We want to make sure that they are committed to the program because again, it's a lot of work. It's not a handout, it is a hand up. And so the applicant is calling in every single day. What we are getting better at Hillcrest is providing services and budget counseling within that waiting list period. So if we can get them better prepared to enter the program or better yet, budget counsel and case manage off the waiting list, then we've done a really good job.
A lot of times those individuals are living on the street, literally homeless. They might be couch-surfing as it were, or a wide variety of ways just to keep them and their families safe. But once enter the program, it is a drug and alcohol-free program. And so we will bring the individual in when we have an opening, the case manager will explain the program in great detail, and we do ask that the applicant take a night to think about that because there's a lot of commitment on their part, and we want to make sure that they're ready and we want to make sure that that person's ready for our program.
And sometimes folks deselect themselves at that point, but when that individual does enter, what they are doing is they're walking into an apartment that is theirs. This is not congregate housing, so it is not a bunch of cots with everyone sleeping in the same room. It's their own individual apartment. And we have housing campuses throughout the entire metropolitan area. They have their own beds, they have their own bathroom, their own kitchen, their own closets. It's that respite that they have for the next 90 to 100 days to really kind of reset the rest of their lives for budgeting, for finance, for school, for their children, for everything.
Kelly Scanlon:
One of the more significant challenges with homelessness is youth homelessness. That is a growing concern, a growing challenge. So what specific strategies does Hillcrest use to support that group of young people, particularly those who are in situations where perhaps they're aging out of foster care or they're coming out of the juvenile justice system?
Tom Lally:
There is not enough services out there for that population. It is a critical population. Hillcrest takes a very interesting approach for serving that population. We do have a youth program for individuals ages 16 to 24 years of age. And a lot of times, someone that's in the foster care system, when they turn 18, they are released from the foster care system and they are deemed an adult. And some folks thrive and some folks need agencies like Hillcrest. Whereas on the adult side of our 90-Day program with that work requirement, for the youth requirement, we're asking that instead of working full-time, the youth applicant, the youth resident has an academic goal. We want them to finish high school.
We want them to get a certificate, a trade certificate, finish college, get that that long-term path towards self-sufficiency. We also ask that they do work some so that they can start to understand what it means to budget and that responsibility of getting up and going to work. The youth program really has what's called BEEP goals, budgeting, education, employment, and personal. And so that's what they focus on. Also, the other difference between the youth program and the Hillcrest 90-Day adult program, it's going to take a little bit longer for that youth population to get on that path towards self-sufficiency. So instead of 90 days, that program, that youth program can last up to 24 months.
Kelly Scanlon:
And is there follow up once somebody graduates from the program? Do alumni still continue to get together?
Tom Lally:
That's a great question. And again, we've been around since 1976. So there are a lot of individuals out in the greater Kansas City community that have been impacted, and Hillcrest has been impacted by their relationship with us, and we are doing a much better job these days. We've always been engaged in their lives, but we're having a more concerted, consistent effort to really reach out and to bring those alumni together because in reality, they are the content experts of that journey. And so we're asking those alumni to come back and if they need budget counseling, if they need case management, they need any of those follow-up services, we are absolutely there for them. But we're also there for them to bring their wisdom, their mentorship, serve on committees, serve on our board of directors, be our staff members.
Kelly Scanlon:
Just their inspiration, I did this, you can do this too.
Tom Lally:
Absolutely correct.
Kelly Scanlon:
Just to show that there is a way up, as you say. You've mentioned several times that self-sufficiency is your ultimate goal. With that in mind, can you share some success stories?
Tom Lally:
We witness those success stories every single day. And there's those big success stories like the one individual who graduated from our program and bought a house. So from homelessness to homeownership, and that's rare, of course. The couple stories that I always like to think about is the single mom and her eight-year-old child. It was a couple of years ago. It was the dead of winter. It was bitterly cold out. Our case managers knew that they were living in their car, so we hurried and got the individuals into an apartment.
We have these wonderful folks that we call apartment sponsors that come in and fill the cupboards and get the beds and everything ready for the residents. So we scurried and got everybody in there. At the end of the night, the mom looks at her son and says, "Hey, there's a frozen pizza. How about I cook it, and we watch it in front of the TV?" And the eight-year-old son, and I kid you not says, "Mom, can we eat at the table like a real family?" It's those type of moments. It's the youth resident that walks into his apartment for the very first time and starts to cry. And we said, "This is your apartment, is everything okay?" And he goes, "You don't understand. I've never had my own bed."
Kelly Scanlon:
Oh, wow. Now he's got a whole apartment. Wow.
Tom Lally:
Absolutely. And just one last story and I can go on and on. The spring season for high school, it's prom season and for our youth program, we were able to help a young lady who's in our youth program. She was adamant that she wanted to buy her own dress, which she got at the thrift store, buy all those things, but we were able to help her buy her prom shoes. And so it was little things, but because of the stability of Hillcrest, this young lady was able to go to her high school prom.
Kelly Scanlon:
You've mentioned case management life skills, budgeting skills, all this 360 holistic approach to what you are doing, and it strikes me that collaboration must be very crucial with what you do. I know it's crucial in the nonprofit sector to begin with, but with what you're doing in the ways in which you are touching your residents' lives, it must be especially important. So what role do community partnerships play in your strategy and how do those relationships enhance your programs?
Tom Lally:
For any success that Hillcrest or any other nonprofit has, there has to be partners and collaborators. For homelessness in particular, there is no one specific solution. It has to be a true public-private nonprofit partnership. The government has to be involved. The private business has to absolutely be involved. Oftentimes, homelessness is an economic development issue, and the private sector should and needs to be at the table, and they often are. And we're very, very proud to call many businesses our partners, not only for funding, but for programming success. Our case managers rely heavily on other social service agencies and vice versa. Most of our referrals for our programs are coming from other social service agencies and or our alumni. So just to know all of those community resources within the nonprofit world is critical to anybody's success. And I think the more that we get out in the community, the more that we're engaging and networking, it just affords our alumni, our current residents, that much more ability for success.
Kelly Scanlon:
One of the success stories was the young woman who went to prom and you were able to help her with the shoes and she bought her dress at the thrift store. That's another aspect of your program. Talk to us about the thrift stores, and I believe you just happened another one open recently.
Tom Lally:
We did. We're very proud of that. So within the nonprofit world, certainly we rely on philanthropic support, but I think there is a commitment and a responsibility of a nonprofit organization to be able to fend for itself, if you were. And really, we take our own Hillcrest model and we subscribe that to ourselves. So we've implemented a social enterprise program, and those are those programs where we are investing in ourselves and programs that can earn money, that can be then reinvested into our programs for direct services to our clientele. And certainly one of those is our Thrift operations, and we're very, very proud of our Thrift operations because it does multiple things, provide our clientele, our residents with an opportunity to shop while they're in the program as well as they're graduating and transitioning into their own place of residency, we're able to help them with that.
It provides a great community outreach and awareness of what our mission really is, and we've been able to really tie those thrift stores to the Hillcrest mission when someone thrifts, our clientele thrive. And so we are very, very pleased that we have opened our Overland Park thrift store. It's located at the corner of college and Quivira. It's a large facility and it's going to accommodate a lot of volunteers, a lot of shoppers, and it really is going to have a huge impact on the future success of Hillcrest and Johnson County, but also throughout the entire metropolitan area.
Kelly Scanlon:
What are some of the most significant challenges that Hillcrest is facing today and because of those challenges, how are your strategies evolving?
Tom Lally:
The most recent census for the Kansas City metropolitan area indicates that about 10% of the metropolitan areas' population lives at or below the poverty level. And I think it's under-counted quite frankly, and I think there are a lot of individuals in Kansas City that are living on that brink of economic insecurity and being unhoused. So that is our biggest challenge right now, is just that sheer number of individuals that need our services and similar services throughout the metropolitan area. So in an effort to start to really have an impact on all those individuals, we do not have the capacity, nor do I think we could ever have the capacity to actually house all those individuals.
So what are some of those strategies that we can do to maybe do more prevention? And so towards that, we are doing more preventative services. We are opening our Johnson County Housing Resource Center where we will have budget counseling. We'll have case management for those individuals that need those services that may not want to come and live at Hillcrest. We have a wonderful program that we call Budget Boot Camp. So I've mentioned about this all-needs-no-wants budget program that's specific to our clientele. Let's take that on the road and let's take it to high schools and let's take it to other social service agencies and senior centers because everyone I think needs to know a little bit more about financial literacy and budget literacy.
Kelly Scanlon:
Well, and taking it to the high school is actually trying to get ahead of the problem, perhaps.
Tom Lally:
It's that preventative services. So we have an ambitious goal. Our five-year strategic plan is called Hillcrest Forward, and that ambitious goal is to serve 100 000 people in five years. Now, certainly we can't house 100 000 people, but we can do a lot in the prevention area. You mentioned our alumni and these wonderful content experts that are out there. I think we have an opportunity and a responsibility to really kind of bring that knowledge and that wisdom in and let's videotape them. Let's do podcasts with them to share their story, to share their techniques on those preventative services so that that person that's out in the community right now that is experiencing that insecurity, either housing or economic insecurity, they can listen to a voice and see a person just like them and be inspired and start that process from that insecurity to self-sufficiency.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you've talked about Hillcrest Forward being your long-term strategic plan, tell us a little bit more about that and how you plan to achieve some of the goals you just mentioned.
Tom Lally:
So they are ambitious goals. I think one of the main things that Hillcrest is very well known for, and we do extraordinarily well is our housing. And we, in the Hillcrest Forward, in the next five years, we want to double the capacity of our housing units. So right now we're at 90 units, and that's a lot, and that's spread throughout the metropolitan area. We want to get up to 180. We should have more, quite frankly. But that becomes an economic issue. That becomes a philanthropic issue, and we've been very, very blessed to have a lot of great philanthropic support and hope to continue that.
Part of it will also be our social enterprise and finding those other areas in addition to thrift stores that can have an economic impact back to our programming. We want to absolutely increase the number of services for our current clientele, but also increase the capacity of services for those that are on the waiting list, for those that are out there that may not even know they're on that brink, that lip of insecurity, and they kind of fall into that spiral of homelessness and economic insecurity that they just can't bail themselves out. So let's get to them and provide them with those critical wraparound services.
Kelly Scanlon:
And it may be a little early to talk about this, but I'm sure that you're going to be gearing up for it soon if you haven't already, and that is you have your annual fundraiser coming up in August. Tell us about what that's like.
Tom Lally:
We are very excited about our annual gala. This will be the second year at the Overland Park Convention Center. We had about 800, 900 of our closest friends there last year, record crowd, record sales. So there was a lot of great momentum and excitement about the mission of what Hillcrest does. So our gala will be August 25th at the Overland Park Convention Center tickets are online right now, and we are always looking for wonderful donations for our silent auctions. It's a wonderful inspiring program. We bring our clientele, we bring those stories straight to the stage and they're able to touch your heart right then and there. It's a wonderful event and I encourage everyone to be able to participate.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. And if you can't attend, as you say, there's gifts and there's other ways that you can contribute. For our listeners who are moved by the work that Hillcrest is doing, all the wonderful outcomes that you described, what are the best ways for them to involved or to support your mission?
Tom Lally:
Certainly we need the philanthropic support. What we do is resource intensive. It certainly takes money when we were providing our units rent-free, utility free, we're still having to pay the utilities. We're still having to pay for all the items that are in the apartments, so the philanthropic support, that the financial support is extraordinarily helpful. We cannot do what we do without the support of the volunteers. Hillcrest is that unique agency within the metro area where we actually invite the public to be a part of our client's success. We bring in the public for budget counseling, and those are the gold standard of all of our volunteers because that individual is walking that path with our resident for those 90 days and really helping them understand that all-needs-no-wants budget. Another avenue for volunteerism for our direct client services, our life skills, every week at all of our campuses, adult and youth, we bring in the public to talk about a wide variety of things for all of our clients.
Our clients want to know about insurance, health insurance, car insurance, car repairs, dental hygiene. They want to know how to use a crock pot to stretch a meal for their family. Anything that the public can provide information about, we would love to encourage those individuals to come and provide life skill classes. At our social enterprise ventures, our thrift stores, we need volunteers every single day. We love large groups and we also love those committed everyday volunteers or those volunteers that will come out for shifts. We always want the shoppers and we want the donations. The Hillcrest will take your stuff.
Kelly Scanlon:
And on the business side of things, how can businesses be involved?
Tom Lally:
Hillcrest is a business in and of itself. We're a multi-million dollar business, and so we need the business expertise. We need vendors to help us and give us the best costs for all those services. We need the business advice on how to best manage our finances and what we're doing to be able to propel and move Hillcrest forward. We need those smart business people to come on our committees and our boards to help us steer Hillcrest.
Kelly Scanlon:
Tom, thank you so much for being with us on this episode of Banking on KC and for all that you and your team are doing out in the community, we really appreciate all the good that you're doing.
Tom Lally:
Kelly, thank you very much for this opportunity.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Tom Lally for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. Tom discussed the transformative work of Hillcrest Transitional Housing, which uses a holistic approach to bettering lives. Through comprehensive support systems, Hillcrest helps individuals and families overcome homelessness and achieve self-sufficiency. By addressing the core issues of homelessness and providing life skills training, Tom and his team help each person become who they were meant to be. Like Hillcrest Transitional Housing, Country Club Bank is dedicated to creating opportunities for members of our community. By bringing attention to impactful initiatives like those at Hillcrest, we aim to better our community and encourage progress. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City. Country Club Bank, member FDIC.