>> There's a natural contradiction in-- in what an organization like Broadstreet is up to
in that we are faced with guests who have needs and problems
that well exceed not just our capacity to deal with them
but the capacity of any organization like ours.
And-- and so we are climbing this uphill battle; we are fighting with giants and--
and yet the fight is still worth having and I-- and I think that's fantastic.
At the same time what Broadstreet provides is complex and unique.
We offer a safe space for people who are not usually safe.
If you're sleeping outdoors you're incredibly vulnerable and you're probably traumatized
by it, and you come in here and there are no security guards, there's nobody pushing you
around or telling you what to do; there's no hoop you have to jump through.
You don't have to sit through some program in order to access a service;
it's just there for you when you're ready to receive it.
And-- and so the fact that you can sit in Broadstreet for three hours a day and partake
in services or just be indoors and you're not going to get in trouble for being weird
or stressed or loud or anything like that, you're just going to be yourself, that's rare
and valuable in the lives of these people.
So our guests spend most of their day being ignored and when they walk
into Broadstreet somebody shakes their hand and usually greets them by name if they know it,
and that-- that's like a trigger for a kind of comfort
that they're not getting most anywhere else and I love being a part of providing that space.