Kia Dupclay works as an analyst “in the homelessness sector” and describes herself as someone who went from “survivor to thriver.” She is also an alumnus of the Speak Up! program, in which people who have gone through homelessness are paired with mentors to tell their stories — as a way of “combating false narratives,” she says. That program is now seeking mentors and advocates with “lived experience” (but are now housed) to join its next cycle starting in January.
Dupclay said she was motivated to take part in this program because, “as somebody who's a survivor of human trafficking, as someone who's a foster youth, who’s juvenile-justice impacted, the stories that were being told did not reflect me at all.” She was paired with a mentor she views as a member of her “chosen family,” and now she sits on the advisory council for the Speak Up! program.
Dupclay encouraged people not to be hesitant about applying to be mentors, saying that “you have so many amazing qualities about yourself, so pour it, share it.” While the program had its origins in giving people the tools to advocate on policy matters, she explained that not everyone taking part in the program will want to advocate to city or state officials. “Some of us just want to be artists, or some of us want to be chefs, or some of us want to be nurses. We need mentors from all of those different industries.”
Eric Mark, a voice-over artist and media strategist, was a mentor for two recent cycles, the first of which was during the pandemic. Taking part in the program at that time served as a “lifeline for people, both mentors and advocates, who were somewhat detached from their communities” during that time.
“Everybody has a story that's worth sharing,” Mark said. “But what it taught me was that not only are those stories worth sharing, but we can all learn from them.”
The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) runs the program, which lasts 12 weeks, starting in January. They are filling 15 spots for mentors and 15 spots for people with lived experience. The application for participants can be found here, and the application for mentors can be found here. The curriculum trains people in advocacy, knowledge about the homelessness system, and storytelling techniques. A factsheet on the program can be found here.
Jessica Vozella, a senior program manager for the organization, says the program teaches people “how to tell a story about their own experience that speaks to the truth of homelessness.” Their goal is to help people “go out and take leadership positions in the homeless response sector or other places that they want to be a leader in.”
The program was created more than a decade ago in 2013, “when permanent supportive housing was rather a new concept, especially in Los Angeles, and it was essentially a tool to prepare folks who lived in permanent supportive housing to speak about their experience of homelessness and their experience of permanent supportive housing, to raise awareness for what the program, what the housing model is,” Vozella said.
She said that the program “was really integral” in garnering support for Measure H, a sales tax measure (recently extended through Measure A) that funds homelessness services, and for Proposition HHH, which is an LA city bond measure to raise funds for building permanent supportive housing.
Dove Presnell, a mentor who was involved early on, in 2011, when CSH was first developing the program, described many of the mythologies around homelessness as playing out like a “bad sitcom,” with a formulaic storyline based on a dominant narrative in American culture that assumes things go well as the result of good choices, and vice versa. That narrative is far from the reality, and the emphasis on substance use disorders among people with lived experience ignores that over in “Beverly Hills, you've got probably more people with problems of addiction that are not experiencing homelessness,” Presnell said.
More recently, an alumni of the program, Wallace Richardson, gave testimony during an Assembly committee hearing on Senate Bill 37, the Older Adults and Adults with Disabilities Housing Stability Act, which called for rental subsidies for seniors.
In his testimony, Richardson, now 71, described what it was like to become homeless at 57 when his mother passed away. He had been a caregiver to his mother, “working, cleaning, taking her to doctor’s appointments.” After his mother died, he was living alone, and needing to pay rent that was $1,800, which he could not afford. He was worried about getting evicted, and was facing the prospect of moving into his truck, he said. He was eventually able to move into permanent supportive housing through working with the local public social services agency and service providers, which meant he could have “peace of mind.” He felt safe and “felt part of the community again,” after getting into housing.
“I am here today speaking because I want to urge you to support Senate Bill 37 for rental subsidies for older adults and people with disabilities and housing stability,” he told the state legislators.
Richardson sits on the Corporation for Supportive Housing’s California State Policy Advisory Committee. Speak Up! alumni also include Lydia Garcia, who sits on the Housing Commission in Santa Monica. She also developed her own story into a comedy set for the Storyectomy series at The Crow comedy club. And Dorothy Edwards, who passed away two years ago, is among the well-known people who took part in the Speak Up! Program, whose work as a housing advocate prompted U.S. Rep. Judy Chu to honor her with a “Congressional Woman of the Year” award.
Vozella explained that “at the heart” of the program is an effort to “prepare folks for positions where they can [have] decision-making power,” which also includes “preparing the [homelessness sector] to allow that.” People who speak about their “lived experience” have often been relegated to just that role, she said, but “we know our Speak Up! graduates have been able to break a lot of those boxes.”
“At the very beginning, folks were really just asking for a seat at any table,” Vozella said. “They were trying to get their voices heard. As things have shifted, it's not enough to just have a panel anymore.”
Dupclay told The LA Reporter that one of the things she wants to shift in the narrative is the idea that homelessness is only the result of a “housing crisis.” She said that she is seeing that there isn’t enough focus on how it’s also being driven by an “economic crisis.”
“When we're talking about homelessness, we're not talking about how rent prices are extremely high, and it's unaffordable,” Dupclay said. “And we're not talking about how there's case managers [working to provide homeless services] out there that are a paycheck away from becoming homeless themselves, but still trying to do the work and helping people.”
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