| Q&A CHANGEMAKER We visited recently with JOHN KLEVINS, a social worker employed by the Transitions-Mental Health Association, who spends his days working directly with San Luis Obispo’s homeless population as part of an innovative partnership with <strong>SLO</strong>PD’s Community Action Team. To date, he has helped more than one hundred local homeless seek treatment, reeducate, and reunite with their families. He spoke to us while walking through a local creek. Here is some of what he had to say… Where are you from, John? All right. So, let’s see, I was raised in Southern California, Costa Mesa. And I went to USC undergraduate for business. I was in real estate finance at the beginning of my career. There was certainly money to be made, and I had some good positions, leadership roles, and this and that. But, fast forward a number of years, and I was telling myself, “Okay, you’ve got to do something that kind of feeds your soul a little more than just the sheer fact of making money.” Not that making money is bad. I just felt that maybe there was more in life. Was there something precipitating these thoughts? At the time, my wife’s mom was going through Alzheimer’s. She had just been diagnosed, and it was pretty rough on the family. That kind of inspired me to help elderly folks. I started volunteering. Then, I went and got a master’s in gerontology, which is the study of old folks. I was in that line of work, senior care, for about a decade and really enjoyed it. We were living up in Seattle and we started our own nonprofit. It was called LEAF, Legacy of Elder Advancement Foundation. We did a lot of work for the elders of Seattle; we had a lot of different programs to help them. But we got to a point where Seattle wasn’t working for us—just too cold and gray. Honestly, we were missing the sun. San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay were places that I’d always visited with my family, so I had good memories of this area. We decided to make the move. What did you do when you came into town? I became interested in social work, because I wanted to have direct contact with people. So, at the ripe old age of 55, I went back to school. My wife said, “Hey, do you want to retire?” And I said, “I’m just not the retiring type.” I can’t sit still long enough to do that. So, I went back and got my master’s in social work. I went through that program and did a couple of internships. One at Atascadero State Hospital, and the other at the psychiatric health facility here in town, PHF; it’s where people are taken if they’re put on a 5150 hold. Then, somewhere along the line, I saw this job pop up working with the police department. The idea of working in and around the police department appealed to me right away. I’ve got a lot of respect for law enforcement and thought, well, that might be a good fit. How’s your caseload? So, I would say your typical social worker has between twenty-five and thirty clients. I have 855 right now. There are people who are advocates for the homeless who say negative things about what we’re doing out here at these cleanups, but we come through weeks in advance, like we’re doing today, to offer help. But, the advocates have been pretty vocal about it. But, it’s like, well, I’m here every day working with the homeless. Where are you? I haven’t seen you out here lately, except when the cameras show up. And, so, to me, what we do, our goal is to provide services and solutions. That’s why I describe myself as a solutions-based social worker; and that’s a perspective that’s taught in school. The question is: What can we do to make change? By the time people come in contact with me, it means they’re in crisis. It means things aren’t working out very well. There’s a problem and so we have to get to the core of that problem. What have you learned in your two years doing this job? Human beings don’t like change. So, in the case of these cleanups, for example, like the one we did over at Bob Jones trail recently, we took fifty tons of trash out of the creek. Fifty tons. Now, I’m also an environmentalist, an outdoorsman, and I don’t like to see our open spaces just completely thrashed. So, I think there has to be some boundaries set. If you talk to people who are more conservative, their opinion is that the homeless are all drug addicts and thieves and we should just get rid of them. Then, on the other side, people on the liberal end of the spectrum will say that homeless people have halos over their heads and should be a protected class. I don’t think either one of those points of view are correct. Remember, these are people who are making a lot of choices to end up where they are; many of those choices they are making are not working out very well. That’s my job, to help them see that. To show them there’s a different way. A better way. So, yes, we absolutely need to continue to set boundaries and enforce them, but at the same time, we also need to help people create change in their lives. Ultimately, my biggest thing, and what I try to do, is provide hope. I try to show people that they can have a different life, a different trajectory. I’m here to help people overcome their challenges—mental illness, substance abuse, whatever it is—so they can see that homelessness should not be considered a destination, but a place you pass through on the way toward something better. <strong>SLO</strong> <strong>LIFE</strong> 28 | <strong>SLO</strong> <strong>LIFE</strong> MAGAZINE | DEC/JAN <strong>20</strong><strong>21</strong>
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