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I'm just making sure. Today is July 19th, 2022 and we are on New York Avenue in front of the Downtown Services Center. My name is Reginald Black and I'm here with, uh— Anthony. —Anthony. Do I have your permission to record this interview? Yes.

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All right. Could you share your full name and where and when you were born? Anthony Robinson. North N-E-W-A-L-K always spell that for people. New Jersey, it's North Jersey. And you were raised in New Jersey. Yes, born and raised.

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So when did you come to DC? When President Obama was elected, '08. Very historical. Yeah. Was that the only reason or was that? No, I have family here too and I was going through relationship thing with my baby mama. As they say. I got family here so they said, "come down here to DC and get a it's time for you to get away," blah, blah. So I came to DC.

00:01:09.700 - 00:01:46.600

So um, how would you describe your current living situation? Are you homeless, have you experienced homelessness? Homeless— For how long? —In and out, since I've been here, since '08! In and out, I've been staying at 801 Shelter. I stayed at, you know, New York Aveneue shelter. And at the end of the day I'd rather stay out on the street because the shelter's was chaotic. They run the place like you were in death row in prison and treat everybody the same instead of everybody as individuals, and I didn't like the whole structure of the shelter.

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We definitely going to get into some of that. Do you think homelessness continues to be a problem in DC and the larger region? Yeah, it is. Yeah? Yeah.

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How is—how has this affected your ability to live in this city or others over the course of your life and what ways has homelessness become more or less prevalent? Well, with me, like, I'm employable. I have, uh—I'm a sous chef by trade, once in DC Central Kitchen. So I have my Food Handling license and I can get a job. But guess, what? I don't have no place to stay. So I did the rapid rehousing thing and it sounded good. And then once I find out that you got to pay a certain percentage and then it's going to keep going up until you better pay the whole rent, then it wasn't a good deal. And then she wanted me to pay more than, like, like, more than half my paycheck for rent. I was like, "no way for a room? No way." So that's the hardest part to get a job, you got nowhere to stay, you know, some—they used to have what they called a work, work programs and stuff that you can work and save your money, but it's not like that no more. So do you think these issues with employment and those things, are they the biggest causes of homelessness in DC? That, and being—well, I have to say I'm off "papers" now they're called it. So being on supervised release is they call it. That's—it's a hurdle for like that. I'm not going to even bad mouth them but it's a hurdle. So you got to deal with them, your probation officer, or your parole officer. They want you to go through classes and this, it'll take up most of your day and you supposed to be job hunting and whatever and it's real difficult. So it can be stressful and the most of the time people say "F" it and "I'd rather go back in" and that's why, y'know what I mean, it's hard. So I feel glad I'm off all that junk, but it was—that was the the most pressure I got when I was on supervised release or probation.

00:04:03.900 - 00:04:44.400

So you were saying that you came, I guess, in '08. Yeah. Do you think the ability to access housing has changed over the years, and how so? It's—I think it's there. It's, but it's like a bottleneck with it. Like, you have the waiting list and all that. That's the old way. Those, that waiting list—half the people are probably dead, moved out, move out the district. I mean, it has to be a constant updated version instead of just this housing list. It sounds so—it's old. It's old school. Come on, we need something better than that.

00:04:44.900 - 00:06:33.700

Since you've been living in, D.C. have the changes in the neighborhoods themselves impacted being able to find housing? If so, can you describe it. Yeah. Everything is, is fancy-smancy around here. Condos, whatever. And you can tell like, the rent in the places cost money because you can tell how to, you know, they got rooftop stuff and now that you're not here, I don't know from the mirror here that each developer has to put a certain amount of Section 8, or low-rent tenants in they building for them to get that approval for them to develop. I'm not sure if every building doing it. But that's right here, you know? Yeah. Do these kinds of housing situations in our neighborhoods—how would they be more accessible to you or people in your situation? What kinds of— More, more—for me being homeless—storage, somewhere to put your stuff at. I went to an interview one time and I got my, my luggage away from the interview. And then I had like, three security guards around my luggage thought it was like, you know, some suspicious package and it was so embarrassing. I got the job, but I will come leave just that was so embarrassing. "Hey, that's my bag!" So just having—where you put yourself at when you go for a job interview? You know what I mean? DC have great places for you to take a shower or wash the clothes, but it's nowhere that you can put your stuff at. I don't want to be walking around, pushing a shopping cart. Yeah, that's the hard part for me.

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I'm glad you, you, you brought that up because these next set of questions actually talk about, like, job situation. How they access—how they impact people's ability to access housing. So what kind of jobs do you think right now are available to you, and are they enough to pay for the housing that is here? Well, for the—no, I don't—minimum wage now's $15.96? It's supposed to go up, each time, each whatever 90 days, or something, it's pretty good. It can handle it. Not for, for rent. I put like that. You have to be a roommate. Yeah. So most of the time you, you need two jobs, a full-time and a part-time job. So that's something that y'know— What, what quality would you describe a job that will be enough to pay for affordable housing, what would—you know? Well me, like I said, full-time job and I'm entrepreneur too. So I like to have, do some street peddling with my street peddling license and peddle something on the street, you know, get a stand or a table and you know, T-shirts whatever, you know, this is a tourist town too. So anything I can peddle or whatever. Yeah, that would be additional income, you know, that's legal. [Laughs]

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So, do you think it's difficult to find, like, a legal peddle or— Nope, no, no, no. You think there are enough jobs or what? I haven't been in an interview in a while but I know when I was going through the interviews, yeah, you get a lot of "nos". You get a—y'know—you get the qualifications, I match them up. I match up everything and then I still get a "no". I'm like, "why do I get a no? I got—because I'm overqualified?" So I say, I'd take a dishwashing job and I'm not a dishwasher, you know, I'm a cook. But just to get a job, I'll take a dishwashing job so it's I'm losing our money doing that but then, you know, employment, sometimes it's good, you need it, you know? As a motivation.

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Yeah. So in instances that people can't find work, then I guess they turn to, like, government programs and homeless services. Yeah. So what ways do, do government's social services and changes to the services impact homeless people? Is it better? Is it worse? I think it's the same since I came here. I mean, it help you with your ID, which is a main thing, your credentials. And then after that, it's like, I mean I got some job training. I said, I went to Central Kitchen. They need more of it and I think, because I lived in other places too. Like day labor is always good. And, cause, I lived in Florida and they have day laborers and you can work a day and make $80 a day or $100 a day. That's good, at least you know, okay I got that today and they'll come by the shelter and pick up everybody. They come by the park. "Hey, we need like 15 guys to go dishwash at a Convention Center" or something and then that was always good. They don't do that here, I noticed. They rather have you sitting outside shaking a cup, and walk by and say, "oh I got no money," and they know they need workers. You know, even if just to clean up, take out the trash and stuff, that's money. Make you feel good and you can come back tomorrow do the same thing. So they need more of that kind of thing here. I think it will help.

00:10:18.200 - 00:10:33.450

I heard you say something about the wait list. Have you had any experience with what's called public housing? No no, not at all. Okay so I don't know if you get food stamps or benefits. Yup, I get food stamps. That's the only.

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Have the changes to food stamps—stuff like that—have they impacted homelessness at all? No, I don't think so. Hmm. They actually increased it, too, so that it helps, yeah.

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So you were saying that you was working at one time. So did the city employment services help? Like, were they good? They, they're good. But I'm going back there, but it's like they have criterias too. You got a drug test and blah, blah, blah. If you're on paper or they call the "supervised release" or probation, you got it, you know, plug them. But yeah, it's there, for the job training. I haven't been in a while, but that's what that's my next avenue to go to, see, you know. But when I did go most of the apprenticeship jobs, all I'm told me from carpenter because I took the classes for the OSHA class and I took the— You took OSHA 10? Huh. Yeah. There's another one, I can't think of it, I'm gonna think of it in a minute, but I can be a—I can train under and be an apprentice. You know, my age limit is very near but I can still go back, go to school and you work and go to school. But you need a car. They say they're not even going to put you on the application until you have a car first, because once you start your school they want you to go to the job site and they don't have no excuses. "Oh my baby mama didn't pick me up. My momma, my grandmother." You got to have your own car. You got to have your own car and that's how they—that's what they told me that. So "if you get you a car, yeah, come talk to us. If not, we don't even mess with you know, guys, who don't have no cars no more, because we have lost a lot of guys who start working, then they don't, they ain't got no car."

00:12:31.600 - 00:13:41.170

Definitely. We definitely going to return to that. You said earlier that you would rather stay on the streets. Yeah. How do you describe the state of homeless shelters in DC, and why have they impacted you the way that they have? Well, I said they treat everybody the same. So you got, you know, mental health is there. You have people who just transplants—came from other states and other cities and they just want to get a start—and it's no separation. They usually have all these guys here they piling up together and this before COVID-19 and it was like, it was crazy. People steal your stuff, you know, cutting line. It was like a—if you ain't know nobody, you ain't know nobody. But most guys that knew each other, they've been here for years so you miss out on a lot of stuff, and then as well that people, they don't care about nobody because they think everybody just want to come there, just lay down, go to sleep. Eat, sleep, and that's it. So there's no motivation, it's like, real depressing. Put it like that.

00:13:44.500 - 00:15:31.500

I'm sorry that it's that way. So what do you think of the housing programs that you may know, of that are supposed to end homelessness? Are they, out there any better? Are they worse? Are they helping? What do you think about some of the housing programs? They're helping but it's not enough workers for the people, you know. So like, for example, me, I was trying to keep up with my case manager, but she got like, how many clients, and I get lost in the sauce because I had no phone yet, but when I get my phone—but that's the thing because you don't have enough people going around for the clients or they should have at least like a-a meeting once a month for people who, under a certain, whatever, you come here, if we lost you, if you meet every month at a building or something, then we could get it all back together or something like that. You gotta be something simple, you know, it's shouldn't be that hard you, you know. So something I've been wondering is like, how does policing effect homelessness? Are policies that may be inside of the police department and those changes, do they affect homelessness in any way? I mean here in DC it's not bad because they don't mess with you because I say I'm a planning on ask people for money. And they don't bother you. Long as you not to say aggressive. I have some incidents when I got—for a mistaken identity, I didn't like that. But I see that's protocol. And you fits somebody's description, but other than that, I don't think it's too much they can do about it. It's just, you know.

00:15:32.400 - 00:16:40.700

So you think like, police brutality the war on drugs, poverty being criminalized, or being an immigrant have impacts on homelessness? I mean I can go way back to American History 101. It always been designed that way. We was here for property and to the Jim Crow laws and everything else we still behind times because of that, you know, from, you know, from all the different long practices, they did with us to housing. It's always been like that—education, affirmative action, they had to do that for a reason and it's no reason to stop it. If it didn't, you know, if the problem haven't been solved why stop something. They say, "oh, we are in the future now, we don't need that no more," why not? So, I don't think so, you need that and more to get better. Do you think people's lives are shaped by having a criminal record? Yeah, it depends on you, your mental state and your motivation. You have to motivate yourself always, never go in your past, because your past is your past.

00:16:42.700 - 00:18:24.800

So, so do you think prisons also have an impact on homelessness? Like, being in prison, or— Yeah, it's a state of mind. So, if you got a so-called date you know you about leave up outta here or do you prepare yourself for out here? And the shop part is you get out and you're like, "oh my God," it's a lot worse than you thought it was. You know what I mean? Because, just like, you really by yourself. You know, you really have to go out here and it's, to know it's better than not to know. You got to go around, ask people and that's why I, experience is the best teacher, I found out through homelessness, because I learned where to go to eat, where to get a shower, or to wash my clothes. At first, you don't know nothing. You just like, "oh, man, I'm dirty and stinky, or whatever. I want to change my clothes," you don't know. Then once you get your little schedule, you know, "Oh, I can get here." It's okay, then that little yeah, it's a little bit better. You just gotta know where to put your stuff [laughs]. Yeah. That's-that's-that's interesting that, you know, the state of mind of people. And then that gets at like, how healthy are people, far as, you know, being homeless. You think homelessness impacts health? Like your own health? Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah always. And being homeless, sometimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time and as they say around here, "oh you in a way," because you're outside year-round people certain times a day. Can be the morning but you outside in the street more, most people inside in the house, behind the door, but you out here so you catch a lot of extra stuff, you know violence. Whatever. Yep.

00:18:25.400 - 00:19:47.500

So like far as like healthcare—do you find healthcare, like, is, you know, adequate? What's the state of health care for people that are homeless? I think it's good. You just got to—most people I see, if you want to take care of your health you can do it. They have here. Yeah, that's why I went to do my physical rehabilitation, you have to be proactive in that. So they got it. You got Medicaid, got Medicare blah, blah, blah, get your medicine. Yeah, you go to the pharmacy, you can pick it up, yeah, it's good, it's good. That part is good. They make sure you keep your refills. You just got to have all your I.D., you get your insurance thing, yeah, yeah, I think, it's not, it's not bad. It's not bad on that part. What do you think of the mental health programs and some of the substance use programs here in DC? Are they better have they gotten worse over time? I don't know if you have experience with any of those. I have experience with them, uh, they do what they do. Only, I didn't like about when I was there because once you finish your little 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, you back out on the street if they're not connected with the transitional place after that because it's, "okay. See you later, you finished. Good luck!" And that's it, you walk back out there, you know what I mean? So it's like, thank you, but you back out in the jungle so that's not good.

00:19:49.700 - 00:21:38.550

Do you think getting an education or having a good education has any impact on homelessness? Yeah, of course. Because if you can read or write and fill the application out, no problem. If you can't, that's a stumbling block and you're going to use that against yourself instead of trying to, you know, tell them, "hey I can't read. Hey man I need to go, maybe I need to get my GED. They keep asking about this GED, I don't have one." Yeah, yeah you better get that. I mean, because that's your hurdle, you got to do it. And I tell people all the time, I taught myself more than my so-called teachers, whatever, taught me and you can teach yourself. If you have to just slow, read it, get a dictionary and break the words down. I don't know. Just—you can do it. You know, it takes time but you do it. I did it with math. It just got the GED testing book just to play around with it and you learn it. Boom, boom. I got my, this how I learned the ruler. You know, sixteen sixteenths in an inch. It's one sixteenth, two sixteenth, 3 sixteenth, to sixteen sixteenths. I mean come on, I learned that but I never knew that! All them years! It's sixteen sixteenths in an inch, it's like "woah, now I got it," you can't mess me up on measuring anymore. That's why I was like, "oh yeah," and it makes you feel good, because I said, "you can't mess me up measuring no more." Yeah, I just got to count every line. So-so-so those, like education hasn't got worse, hasn't got better— It's like, it's neutral because education is up to the individual. I always say that. If you don't study, if you don't like whatever subjects, that's you, but some people are into it and that's what they get—gravitate towards it more, some people are not, and then that's when you should say, "hey, I can be a better, something else, a truck driver or something else," maybe this is not, you know what I mean, CDL is a good thing to have, you know.

00:21:39.400 - 00:23:16.100

I'm glad you brought up the CDL thing because you were saying that you had the culinary training. And so, do you think the skills training programs that are available, what are your thoughts on those? They need more, epecially here. Cause most of the CDL classes, the heavy equipment operators—all that stuff is in the midwest, man. The longshoreman stuff, I mean, that's good money. That's career stuff that you don't really have to have a college degree for. And they called blue collar workers, but that's a job. You got pension, you got retirement, those jobs are not even—training is not here. You gotta go out in Indiana, or waka-waka-haka-haka Wisconsin, you know, to get that. I like to be a front end loader, one of them guy's driving a big dump truck. You gotta go out. You gotta go out to even get that stuff. You know, you don't have it here. It's pathetic—come on. I would guess that you've been involved in some kinds of training programs since you've been her in '08. How have those changed over time? Well, I think the criteria is, I think if they made it—not hard, but that, that, if you—put it like this, if you not proactive in it, they're not going to come to you. They don't come to you, you gotta come to them. They should be promoting that stuff. No more like, "hey man, we got this, hey you wanna,"— you know what I mean, gotta promote it. You know.

00:23:18.000 - 00:26:32.100

So these next questions, talk about like, traumatic experiences, physical violence, or, you know, off the wall shit. But the one I did want to ask is, do you think violence on the streets effect homelessness? Yeah, of course. Always. Like I said, because we out on the street, most of the time when everybody else is in their house with their dog, close the door, ate their dinner. I'm still out here on the bench in the winter or maybe summertime fighting the mosquitoes. Yeah, we out here when stuff is happening, people out here shooting and fighting, throwing bottles and they gives—sometimes they come up to a homeless person, "hey kick that person," I didn't see them. "Hey hey man, grab his stuff and pull it." You know, why you going to pick up me. Go choke on somebody else. And we be targets most of the time, homeless people are targets because we just there when they coming out the club drunk or whatever. They pick on a homeless person, "man get out of my face, I ain't got no money," whatever. Yeah that's, that's, you, you be a target most of the time. Do you think family has an impact on homelessness? Like, can family make things better or worse? Yeah! Of course. Now I had sisters and brothers, if my so-called unmarried sisters and brothers, we all get a house together, guess what? I'm off the street! How about that? You got a bedroom. I got a bedroom. I don't want the whole house. We got the backyard. Guess what? We saving money and guess what? Whoever want to own the house, but guess what? We going to leave. And that's how the immigrants do it and they stay on the floor first. Then they get the bump ,then they get a little credit together, then she know, get them a good job and be sharing this house because then you can branch out. Yeah, family will help out so much if you can just do that with each other. I mean, You got kids? Whatever man, put them in here. Everybody be doing good. We put our money together, we put our money together. We got our food together, man it's wonderful. Save so much money, but everybody wants their privacy. "I don't like being around my sister, my brother, he farts all the time," whatever, come on man. And, it's simple, if we here for a goal, our goal is to save some money, get your credit together, you get your little degree, you finish your high school classes, and when your mama at work, guess what? Uncle talking to you helping with your homework. Guess what? I'm babysitting, washing dishes, you come home from work, you like this? Aw man. See, how helpful that is? I'm like your roommate/brother/whatever, man. That's helpful. Cause you gotta pay a babysitter. Look at that, look how much money you saved. You gotta pay for this, you got to pay for my wash your car and wash your car and everything. So it'll save so much. It'll be so much better with people that then they can, they can do it better by themselves. That's how this world is designed. Everybody's individual, because I don't need no help. That's wrong.

00:26:35.700 - 00:28:34.000

I like that though. So, do you know of any groups or strategies that people are into to end homelessness? Do you know of any groups, any strategies, people— Nah not that I know of personally. But, I mean, we got different organizations here. I do not want to promote none. I'm just neutral and here I am. I like to call the places that help you with your food and clothing. You can go there and talk to someone about getting a case manager, taking the VA hospital that, you know, goes to that next level, where I can go for job training or whatever. But most people if they need help to get your medicine, like you don't take the medicine that's them and I tell them, "you better check your medicine, you need it." But yes, it's tough. But I think they—there they just, they don't know, and they can't really force you to do anything. So that's why I had to do it. You want it you want it, if you don't you don't, so. So you were saying that in that, you know, context that you were neutral. What, what, what makes you be neutral? Because, I'm not on medicine, technically, but I have, I'm suffering from stuff. I had some traumatic experience in my life, been jumped, and robbed, and shot. You know what I mean, been incarcerated. Some people take that, and whatever, and they hold onto it they don't let it go. I process and let it go. I don't hold on to the past no more or my old judge my old—I can't remember the names no more, the prosecutor. I ain't gonna keep talking about the same prosecutor ten years later, you know, hey come on, man, let that thing go. "Oh man but that prosecutor messing my life up," it's over, there you go, put some closure on it, keep on going. So a lot of people, I find out—and I don't want to just talk about myself. If you hold on to the past, you're not going to keep on going. Gotta let it go.

00:28:34.600 - 00:30:04.600

Do you know of any, like, movements that are trying to do stuff around ending homelessness? Like, you know, something like the Poor People's Campaign. Yeah. Poor People's Campaign and Pathways to Housing, Miriam's Kitchen and some good places here, Georgetown Ministry, you know, MBI. Whatever. All of them are good. You just you just got to be proactive in your cause. And I think most people need somebody to help them out. They can't just do it by themselves. Can't motivate themselves. You know, every morning, "come on Mr. Johnson, get on up," and you're gonna need somebody to say, "come on, man." Most times people be by themselves. They don't have a friend out here in the streets and stuff, so, yeah, they need that. So you think they're doing a good job, but could they be doing something differently? Are there other strategies that we might, that people can, like, learn from? Yeah. Like I said, they should have a place you meet every month, you know? And then they have whatever case managers, company, or something. These at least once a month, every thirty days. Since things can happen every day, you know, just to keep up with it. And that—the list, I don't know how that works, but it's, it's based on availability. If you around, you got it. You know, I can't wait for you to come out of prison, five years from now and you still on the list. You know what I mean, whatever, and then you moved in with your girlfriend now and y'all good, and then you get kicked out of her apartment. Now you back out here, you know what I mean, so.

00:30:06.000 - 00:30:57.410

You said something that definitely made me want to ask this question. Why is there so little being done to end homelessness? It's, it's a moneymaker first of all, keep talking economics. It's the programs, the think—the think tanks. The, the, the—I mean, it's a lot of people get money off of it, so if you don't advertise it and nothing like that, I mean, people get money off it. I mean, it is what it is. I mean, because if it's no more homeless people, guess what? It's a lot of people ain't gonna have no jobs. How about that? What are they going to be doing next? Walking dogs or something. Cause I remember you said that, you kind of say something to some of the activists that you know. Yeah.

00:30:57.410 - 00:32:11.500

That they needed to be somewhere. Yeah, they need like, helpers. I mean, you ain't got to be—I ain't got to have a bachelor's degree to be a social worker helper or case manager helper. I mean as a person that's out on the street and I can see people. I'm at all the places, I see them before the case manager, saying "hey man you know your case manager looking for you." I'd be that kind of person that do that, that's been need somebody like that, you know, I mean, "hey man people looking for you," boom boom boom, you know, you need somebody out there like that. Something like the seats you were talking about. Now what seats, what seats you were talking about? Was that city council was that just, like— Yeah, city council will help, you know, someone there that can—you not—you don't have the that position as a councilmember but you are a councilmember assistant for homeless advocacy, you know, something, and each council member have one for they ward or they section. Everyone have one, maybe two, you know? I mean to go out there and let the councilmember know what's going on. Don't do no policy or nothing, we just let you know what's going on. They all handle the policy and all the legal beagle stuff, legal eagle, whatever.

00:32:12.400 - 00:33:44.400

So you were saying that you knew about like Miriam's and Pathways and others. What are the most important issues that they should focus on to end homelessness as a movement? Like, what specific problem should they focus on? Well, I think—well you gotta feel good, so, I think the shower, the clothing, the ID, help with your resume, and the training will get you pumped up. You need that. You know and some activities, too, on weekends like let's go out on a little field trip or something. Let's play a little baseball game, softball game, to get everybody motivated for Monday coming up, we got some stuff coming up. Field trips to places. Have a field trip to Amazon warehouse and have a field trip to Washington Post, where they print the paper at and maybe you want to be a printer, "oh i don't like this job is too dusty, whatever, I don't wanna work here." Y'know what I mean, like, you have tours to the places and then that company will hook up with that agency, that whoever graduates from that program will work for them. How about that? Know what I mean? Interesting. So if you could get 50 people to join you, that's what you would have them do, you would have them like, what training people? Yeah.

00:33:45.000 - 00:35:51.610

Then hiring them? Yeah, that behind it. Like, and, you know, you start off like that from the ground up, entry-level anyway. "This is what we do here, boom, boom, boom." And most people are motivated when you first start off, especially at a good company. You got "ah man, I got this new job! Ah man, boom, boom, boom" So you pumped up, you know. Alright, so if you could design your own housing solution, like uh, you know, this is it, this will get me housed, and you can be creative as you want, right? How would that happen? How would you get housed? Perfect housing situation. If you could solve your own housing issue right now, and you can be as creative and— Well, okay, well it'll be simple but if I go to training, I'll have it that part of my paycheck will go towards my rent and it'll be in escrow. Not paying for rent yet. But it's like a group home setting, but a group home, where everybody got their own room, you got your own little separate stuff. Not everybody is sitting down like you know, institutionalize stuff, you know, that guy housed, get your backyard, you can do your stuff, you come in and out, you go, and then you save your money, and then from that stage it's like, you can say you can handle your responsibilities. And then you have little stuff. Mayne have people pay they little bills first, then you can see they can handle that. Then financial classes too, if you're not good at numbers. And that's to see if you can get your budget together. Then you say, "you ready for the big league, get your own place now." You can't just put somebody in a place that never had, uh, budgeting or never had laundry day, or whatever. They ain't going to pick their mess up, they take that money and spend their money on, man. "Got no money to wash my clothes." or whatever. You gotta know how to budget and all that stuff throughout the—you know, that'll help, I think.

00:35:52.400 - 00:37:04.510

Like if you—same thing for the job, like, what would be your ideal employment situation? Well, I have a paying job, just doing my job. Enjoy my—what I like to do. I don't ever work—I never worked when I didn't like, most of the jobs that I had I liked doing. It was my room sales clerk, or say the kitchen, Hells Kitchen. I like it, I like that craziness, but as long as I can help the company out that's among the things they want. You help the company out. I have, uh, good benefits that goes with it. Profit sharing, I like to have some stocks in this company. Good vacation, you know, and I can move up the ranks. I want to own this place. I get my own place, I'll get my own company. Y'know what I mean I just, if I can just move up the ranks a little bit, you know, that I helped, and I can—that's it. So you're saying, like, for the time being while you're working there you may be doing something like entry level. You have your supervisor or manager but still I get stock options. Yeah, yeah.

00:37:10.600 - 00:39:12.100

A chance to invest. That's interesting. If there were people to help make that a reality, what do you suggest they begin to do today? That's, it starts from City, City Hall, Congress members. You know, it goes all the way up to state level and then all the way to here, like we do here, the Congress members and the Senators, they have to—it's really the people, if the people don't advocate for it, the lawmakers only know so much and they ain't gonna do but so much cause they put red taping this stuff. Yeas and nays all the time, and they got their own special interests behind them. So it's—I don't get into politics, I can't stand it. It's a bunch of "you know what's" in there. So, politicians is a bunch of, you know whats. So I don't mess with them too much really, politicans don't, don't get me going like that. They don't, they don't. Yeah. So you got to have a government, right? So what would want to make you participate in government at all—politics should be more able to change— —Friendly. I gotta know the person. If I don't know no person, you don't know nobody. A commericial, a school. But if you see this person that you know, he came out of this company or he came out of your neighborhood, guess that would help better than someone, you know, totally don't know at all. Even, you should do a meet-and-greet with some of these people, we still don't know them. They could, you know, do stuff annually with a person or every, you know I mean, every whatever I do different events and then you can get to meet-and-greet a person, you know, like that then you can say "oh yeah, I know this person, they got a bad attitude," whatever, that's how you know somebody. "He don't like his kids. He be talking all this family stuff, he can't stand these kids or his kids don't like him," you know, you don't know. I don't know people.

00:39:16.500 - 00:39:34.660

Is there a question that you think I should have asked you? No, you killed everything. I think, yeah you did good. Alright that's a wrap.