Bureaucracies treat them like numbers. But they're human beings. They have families,
they have parents, they have kids, they have siblings, and so yeah,
we take a much more holistic approach. Everyone has their own set of
circumstances, Everyone has their own set of problems and issues. We can't fix
everything, but we can give you the tools to fix it. Welcome to
another deep dive edition of The Chicks on the Right Podcast. We are so
excited because today we are going to spotlight one of our new American business Spotlight
partners, Dana Spain is the founder of VBC Giving Foundation, and we are
super stoked about this opportunity to partner with this particular organization because of the good
work that it does and we're gonna Dana. We're so happy to have you
with us, and we'd love an overview of VBC Giving Foundation now. I'm
so happy to be here. Thanks for taking the time this morning. VBC
Giving Foundation is really about providing affordable housing, but not affordable the way that
you think about it, not secondary housing, not rehabs, but brand new
construction to our most vulnerable populations. And number one is our veterans who really
don't have the housing options that they should. We also are focusing on kids
aging out of foster care and then eventually seniors and abuse survivors, but for
now our focus is veterans. We've just opened our first veterans village, and
the village concept is to bring people together with like experiences. So when they're
having a bad day and maybe are inclined to make some bad decisions, they
have a neighbor that they can knock on the door, have a cup of
coffee, and just say hey, I'm having a difficult day. So it's
really about bringing together people who have made some bad choices, have had some
raw deals, putting them in respectable housing. Because without housing, of your
life falls apart if you don't have a safe place to call home and lay
your head at night. So a houst of it is not going to give
our audience a little bit of background how you got into this, because I
mean, people don't just just do this willy nilly, You don't just fall
into this. Yeah, this was not willy nilly at all. I have
dedicated I did not have the honor and privilege of wearing the uniform, So
my service has always been to those who served I've been in active military and
family affairs for decades at this point, and so I opened. I took
over a defunct shelter for veterans and made it into a female perimeter, and
we would have twelve ladies at a time, sort of like a sorority,
and put them through all kinds of enrichment programs, mind, body, spirit,
and they did so much hard work to put their lives back together,
to get their families back together. And then at the end, housing agencies
were putting them an absolute waller, scattered sites, drug infested apartment buildings.
It was just a disgrace. And so I managed their leases and I had
a lease come across my desk one day and the apartment didn't even include a
refrigerator. How's that a home? And it was in a bad neighborhood,
and I was just my head was exploding. So my father, an army
vet who was alive at the time, I joined him for cocktails, as
is our way in our family, and that I just don't know what to
do, and he said, well, you build buildings for a living,
because that's my big girl job. Why don't we build a building and show
the government how it's done, and so I said, well, okay,
we could do that. Why don't we build a building. So we bought
a plot of land in an area that was that is right for this sort
of thing. It has access to public transportation so they can get to the
via medical center. It has a retail corridor, it has urgent care,
it has food, It has everything that people need right within walking distance.
We bought a plot of land and we built a building. So our family
foundation put in the seed money, and I this is the third charity that
I founded, after Haven Women and Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, so I know
how to shake people down for money and started asking my friends and associal it's
this is a really good idea, but we need money to get it off
the ground. And our first project out of the gate was this, and
you do that in a really remarkable way. So and talk a little bit
about the modularity of the homes and how and how the building wasn't actually built
like in its spot right, It's like built far away and then packaged and
then sent and reconstructed like legos. That's exactly that. Actually, when I'm
describing what modular is, I say that they're legos, except in the lego,
which is about forty five thousand pounds and sixty four feet long and fifteen
feet walk. The lego has everything in it that an apartment would need.
So that's your kitchen, you're flooring, all of your appliances, your bathrooms,
everything is in the module when it leaves the factory. Now the upside
of module, there's a ton of upside to modular. But it's built in
a factory like a car, so you order everything that you want in it
in advance, and then it's made in the factory. It's made in a
climate controlled environment, so there's no water infiltration, no mold, no expansion
and contraction of the wood. And then it comes on the back of a
rig to the job site and we piece it together like a big fat puzzle
using cranes and they're all placed one on top of each other in a very
intricate sort of tetris pattern, and then they're sealed on site. The facade
and the permanent roof and utility tie ins happen and say, okay, so
the typical person who lives there, tell us who actually reside in these places?
Okay, so this is a mixed perimeter, meaning that there's females,
males, and families. This our apartments. There's forty seven units and it
ranges from studios all the way up to three bedrooms for family units, and
it could be people as young as in their late twenties who have just separated
from the military. But we have three brothers actually, all who served in
different branches, who are from the Vietnam War era. So it really,
I think the kind of cool thing. Not to say that it's cool that
veterans can't find housing, but the fact that they're coming home to us with
their families and that the older vets can provide the mentorship to the younger people
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about like your wildest dream expectation for this entire foundation, for the for the
entire project, how many sites do you hope to have? How how big
and how far reaching do you hope that this gets? Well, you don't
know me very well, but I have a very Type A. Plus I
could have never guessed that with your reading, reading your bio and looking at
stuff like like learning about you just in the digital perspective, we could never
tell that you're Type A at all. Now. No, as much as
I'm trying to retire and kayak my way into the sunset with my husband,
that's not happening anytime soon. So we're never going to be able to build
our way. Just as the foundation out of the crisis that we're in in
terms of housing. Put it in perspective, right now, there are millions,
millions of units needed to house just the vulnerable populations, not even Joe
and Joe Q public right. If we look at veterans, it's tens of
thousands. So we look at seniors, it's hundreds of thousands. So our
goal is really to reach like minded organizations and people who have the zeal,
the land, the passion, whatever it is to join us. The one
thing that I will say about the VBC Giving Foundation, and the reason that
I made it this way, is that we're an open source. We don't
have to build every building because we can't build every building it's physically impossible.
But if you, as a church group or a veteran service organization, come
to me and say I have money, or I have land, or I
have the volition whatever, I don't know how to build a building, you
know how to build a building. We will give you our template. We
will hold your hand through the process because we want as many people to be
involved to help us dig us out of this situation as possible. So does
that mean ten villages? Originally we just us Internally, we have one village
per year that we're going to build, and we already have interest from several
other cities across the country. But we need hundreds of them is it self
sustaining? Like is there like a landlord there? Or is there is it?
Are the people pretty self sustaining? Like when I? When I?
Because you know, usually when you have like an apartment complex kind of a
situation, there's some sort of managerial staff. How does that work? Yeah,
so we don't self perform management. That's the only thing we don't do.
We use an affordable somebody who's whose niche in management is affordable housing complexes.
They know all the rules and regulations in terms of self sustaining. Yes,
it is because people are paying rent. Now are they paying it themselves
or are they paying it through hut vouchers and city, state, federal subsidies
that determine that's determined by their income level and in the vets case and also
the seniors case, their percentage of disability. So if you're on one hundred
percent disability from the vain of your rent is going to be covered by hut
vash, which is the voucher associated with veterans. And so maybe the individuals
paying sixty three dollars a month, but we are getting maximum market rate rent
that our local housing authority allows, so that sustains the building, and we
didn't do this complex, although there's no reason that people can't do it.
We just wanted to get it up and open, So we did not take
any city, state, or federal funding nor tax credits. We did it
all with individual and corporate donations, foundation donations, and then the rest of
it was traditionally financed through it. So what is it that you want our
audience to know about what draws you specifically to want to help veteran and particularly
women veterans, because that's a group that's often overlooked and it's a group that
you've paid particular interest to. Can you shed light about what drew you to
that specifically and maybe give like a good story because I'm sure you've seen well,
I am not above it. So when I took over let me step
back for a second. When I took over a haven, which at the
time was Philadelphia Veterans Comfort House. It was originally built in nineteen seventy two
to house veterans while they were receiving treatment at the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia,
and then the VA built its own wing to house those people and it
became a shelter instead for homeless veterans fast forward. I was recruited to get
involved because they were running out of money and the house was falling apart,
and so I did some fundraising and some pro bono advising on how they could
get back on their feet. It didn't work. The board of directors was
a disaster. There were some financial shenanigans with the manager. It just was
a mess. And so they made the decision, unfortunately, to kick everybody
out who was living there and shut it down because there were code violate It
was I mean, it was disgusting and it was a code violations, all
kinds of things. After a couple months, the president of the board,
who was the last person left, came to me and literally handed me the
keys and said, we don't know how to do it, and here you
go. So again I went to my dad, who was my guru,
and said, I'm just stepping off the board of pause at this point,
you know, Joe, I don't really need this. And he said,
how much is it going to take to fix up the house and get it
back on its feet? And I said about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
It's like you could do that in your sleep. Take it on.
Why not. You need to challenge what sure? Why not? So I
did. We renovated the entire building from soup to nuts, from the roof
down to I mean the basement was filled with black mold. It was disgusting.
So we started reaching out to VSOS veteran service organizations really to understand the
need in Philadelphia, and we work with an amazing organization called Veterans Multi Service
Center and they said, if at all possible, could you make it a
female safe sober perimeter because there's lots of options for our men and there's no
options for our women. And I said, absolutely, Why is there?
What's happening? Why are there no options? Well, it's a fairly new
phenomenon in the last twenty years or so that women are in combat, gay
feminism, let's put women in combat with the men in really remote areas.
I don't know what a goal wrong there. So women are coming out of
the military one and four currently a report that they are victims of military sexual
trauma MST, which is a part is is one of the many, many
levels of PTSD, and they can't go into a mixed perimeter. They're just
frightened, they're just they have PTSD from this trauma. So we said,
okay, well we're going to make a safe, sober environment for women.
And it was run really kind of as the military merits and demerit system,
very structured, very scheduled, and a mind, body spirit approach where we
did everything from teaching them how to balance a checkbook and protect your identity to
self defense courses and yoga and fellowship and book club and everything that we could
think of, how to cook and eat on a budget. And it was
really very successful. So it was a replicable model, and we became the
only female perimeter in our area and graduating some terrific ladies who realized that they
had made some bad choices and put themselves in bad positions, and some were
their own faults, some not so much. We helped them get over it.
And as I said, then they were graduating and we were like,
okay, here we go. We're going to give you all the tools that
you need and the resources and the programs, and we're gonna help you furnish
your new apartment. In some cases we bought baby furniture, like everything that
we could possibly do. But if they're putting scattered sits and in squalor.
Then the cycle repeats itself and it's just they, you know, start making
poor decisions, self harm, addiction, all of it. And so we
really started to focus on the ladies. One in ten currently one in ten
homeless veteran patrons is female. You don't see that woman, you know,
when you think of a homeless veteran, I think that people see the guy
on the side of the road with a cart with cardboard, right. I
think, out of real practicality, all of our bureaucracies treat them like numbers.
But they're human beings. They have families, they have to get babies,
like kids like yeah, yeah. We take a much more holistic approach.
Everyone has their own set of circumstances. Everyone has their own set of
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though women have been in combat now for decades, the VA is still very
male focused. And we all know, ladies, we've got our own set
of problems when you are a woman, right, whether that's mental, physical,
you know, changing life, whatever that may be. The VAS just
not really set up for that. So we really need a baseline. We're
not going to change the VA, I say, and especially when I'm talking
to veterans and military organizations, think of the VA as an aircraft carrier,
right, how long does it take to turn around an aircraft carrier and correct
course days? Right, I'm a cigarette boat. I can turn on a
dime, and so can my volunteers and my board of directors. We can
course correct in an instant. And that's what makes having non government agencies involved
in this issue so important. Back to your audience, it's really we're a
grassroots startup. As much as we just build a six million dollar building,
we have to refy it, we still have bills to pay, we still
have to maintain it and repair it, and we still have to build our
next one. Our goal is, especially for people coming out of transitional housing
and addiction recovery programs, is to not put people in a blank box.
Right in a lot of cases, our Haven ladies, for example, they
were leaving with the clothes on their back and a toothbrush. We want them
to have all of the feminine products that they need, hygiene products that they
need, a fuzzy bathrobe, fuzzy slippers, a coffee machine. I have
an apartment and not have coffee, That's that's right. So our goal really
and what we raise money for. And we have some church groups that we
work with and some women's organizations that we work with that they provide welcome baskets
for our tenants that have a little bit of everything in it to make we
feel like real human beings. Again, you know a lot of a lot
of our veterans have been in and out of the system for years. They've
never quite figured it out because no one they're getting a hand out, but
not a hand up as cliches that might be. And so our goal is
really the sort of wrap around programming and love and understanding and a coffee,
yes, and a fuzzy grow because you need to feel human and you need
to feel appreciated and not second class citizen. Well, the reason like in
Haven House, when we redid the house and I went out to vendors of
mine and then went out on LinkedIn actually and just said, hey, we
need things to put the kitchen together. We had a state of the art
kitchen in that sorority, brand new stainless steel appliances, solid surface countertop,
tile floors. We had a full Carrera marble how because somebody donated it and
said, you know, our ladies deserve to live in luxury. And it's
the reverse broken window theory. If you put somebody in a respectable situation,
they're going to respect themselves and their sisters and take care of the perimeter.
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people do? Yeah, so tell our audience what they can do to find
out more information, what they can do to help the cause, How can
we bring more awareness and what's like a good success story that will motivate people
to understand why this is important. Okay, So the easiest thing to do
to find out more about us is VBC, Victor Bravo, Charlie Giving Foundation
dot org. You'll read about us, our mission, our plan, the
new village, which, by the way, is named after my dad.
Yeah, it's the Bernard Spain Campus because he was the impetus for all of
this, And a picture of him hangs from the lobby and my mom dug
up a picture of him in uniform from his army days and that's also hanging
in the community room at the center. So what can your people do?
They can get involved. They can get involved in their own communities, if
they're involved in bsos or churches or women's organizations. They want more information on
how they can build a village or how they can help with programming. We
are open to that. My contact information is on the website. All of
our board of directors are on the website. So that's your that's the first
thing. And consider donating, whether it's five dollars a month, twenty five
dollars a month, a big fat check from your bank or insurance company or
your company that matches donations, whatever, that is. Ninety plus cents of
every single dollar goes directly to our villages and programs. We have one employee
and the rest of us are volunteers, so our overhead is mil You can
know that when you're giving us money, it is going directly. The other
thing is speaking of the funds. For example, well, if you're a
coffee fan and you say, you know what, I want every single one
of those apartments to have a coffee maker. Well we're going to set up
an Amazon wish list. You can buy a coffee maker and know that your
money is not being used for anything else because you're buying a coffee maker,
and some ladies gonna have a coffee maker and think about you. That is
fantastic. All right, give us a story. Yeah, okay, I
was going to give you the story from our one of our ladies of Haven,
UM, but she's not living with us. She thankfully was reunited with
her children and um and moved back in with her family. That is a
great story, and it is a great story. Yeah, one of our
Haven ladies. She was I'm gonna say late twenties, early thirties. She
had not separated from the military for very many years, about four but had
some trauma in the military and made some very poor decisions and ended up at
Haven with us. And one day I went to check on the house and
get the mail and just check on the ladies and see what they needed.
And she was out. I'd waiting for a ride. I think it was
Easter Sunday or right before Easter, and I introduced myself and just asked how
she was, and she said her name is Tracy. And she was really
very excited and a little jittery. And I was a little concerned knowing her
background, and started a talk to her, and she said, no,
I'm jittery because I'm seeing my children for the first time in three years.
I was given the okay because I'm in a safe place and I'm making my
recovery. And I and I'm getting myself a job and I'm allowed to see
my kids. We had a hug and a cry and thought, well,
this is all worth it. Our village success story, and I'm sure there's
going to be plenty. Is a gentleman named Wally, and Wally actually worked
on the building with his own two hands. Wally is an Army veteran,
and he has been in and out of jail and in and out of recovery
and worked for construction company and then was doing some not so good things and
really found himself that it was you know, he had issues. When he
heard that we were building this building. He came back to be a part
of the building with the understanding that he would live with us and sort of
keep an eye on the place. And he is clean and sober and employed
and is living at the village with his brothers. Oh shoot, I know
I'm losing her two yeah, just lost you. In the best part of
that story, I know she was telling the stress that I was just me.
I was like, cannot just be me? No, oh no,
we can hear just people must be everything was story. Oh okay, back,
okay, better, I don't see you, but that's okay. Because
we'll still get you your video back. Yep, she'll be able to work
with that. So go ahead, let's see if we can hear you.
Than I think we lost it right when he said he agreed to come back
to be part of the building, and then you cut out. So he
agreed to come back and be part of literally putting the building together with his
own two hands. And I'm happy to report that he is clean and sober,
fully employed, and just moved in with his brothers in uniform into the
village. This is going to be the first time he is living independently.
See that. I mean, those are the kinds of stories I think that
really impact people and drive them to want to help and to want to do
something. So that that's fantastic. And so again, folks, if you
are listening, you need to check out VBC Giving Foundation dot org where you
can learn all about Dana Spain and her amazing organization and find out ways that
you can help and contribute. Um, Dana, thank you so much for
for giving us all the background and all the information on this amazing foundation.
We so appreciate it and hope that our listeners are inspired to help. Yeah,
we appreciate you, Dana, appreciate all that I know. Thank you
so much. Appreciate you and and I will say watching we know that you
do because you know all of the jokes you do. It's crazy. Yes,
I am now watch on Locals because I was kicked off by Fleeboard nine,
so I watched on the watch on locals, um, and I think
it was telling your producer like I have Cozy Earth and Jenny so User and
I can't make bombrugs, but they don't make an espresso capsules yet I have
every single thing for my pillow, our sheets, our towels are fuzzy slippers
like the whole nine and uh, and I appreciate you ladies who bring joy
and light to a really thank you so much. Appreciate that. We appreciate
all that all that you're doing. So this is just fantastic. And we
hope that we can rally the troops and and um and help the cause.
We really do. Thank you. I'm sure you have a great rest of
your day. Thank you, you too,