A Prescription for Human Connection
[Applause]
[Music]
they live in every major city in
shelters and cheap motels
in their cars and behind dumpsters
they’re oftentimes overlooked and feel
hopeless
living in loneliness amongst us me my
dad are on a mission to change this
tonight i’m here to talk about
homelessness and what i’ve learned
interviewing hundreds of individuals
who are at their lowest this is my
friend jeannie
she’s from vernal utah i moved up to
salt lake seeking out help
help she didn’t find she was born
without legs and did what she could to
get by
jenny’s story means a lot to me because
she was one of my first mentors
i wish i could have done more to help
her genie is one of 500
000 individuals in the united states
alone on any given night
that doesn’t have a place that they
belong and are considered homeless
half a million homeless that is a lot
when would i
ever imagine a country like ours how do
we change this
how do we inspire hope and lift others
how do we help someone who
is homeless for the past seven years me
and my dad have been a
researcher conducting research missions
to try to find these answers
we met the most interesting individuals
through our work in places like
starbucks
and parks anytime i talk to them i
wonder who they are
and how i can impact their life in a
meaningful way
what i’ve seen personally what others
have revealed me
through our time together is positive
human connection
and lots of it this isn’t anything new
but how do we deploy it
listen connect serve listen with empathy
connect with dignity and serve with
authenticity
these are steps i followed interviewing
hundreds of individuals
like jeannie it was taught hard talking
to someone who
didn’t have teeth or is visibly loaded
with heroin but they need more than just
money
they need friends they need positive
human interaction
to be healthy and to thrive with other
humans
i got my start when i was just four
years old i know that’s hard to believe
but
it’s when i got my first spider-man
outfit my dad says i refuse to take it
off
you couldn’t tell right
for fun we deploy on secret missions
using public transit
fighting imaginary bad guys and looking
for people we could serve
i was one of those kids you seen costco
or walmart just in
superhero mode
individuals experiencing homelessness
were not hard to find they were
everywhere
my dad would encourage me to say hi
smile big and look for opportunities to
be kind
when my my research got serious when i
stumbled upon a shelter in salt lake
city
i saw hundreds of individuals sitting on
the hot sidewalk
i hold my dad’s hand tight and i got
brave and walked through the wave of
despair
i stopped my dad and i asked who are
those people he said
they’re individuals experiencing
homelessness i asked my dad
how do we help him and he said ask them
this began our mission to listen
to ask the for the challenge when you’re
six given such a problem is
how do you help someone who’s homeless
how do you talk to them
we devised a plan and ended up
partnering we ended up partnering up
with the local jam juice and on hot
summer day
we drove up to pioneer park a beautiful
park in salt lake city
and started passing them out the first
and first person i approached
had just got released from the hospital
she still had her hospital wristband
on i handed her her jump juice and she
smiled at me when i offered her
something cold
she said thank you we ended up going
around the park and passing out all
these jamba juices
the experience was great it made me feel
good but we really didn’t
get to our objective we really didn’t
get to talk to people
so we ended up testing out street
contacting that wasn’t too good either
because
sometimes they were on their job site
and other times they just don’t want to
talk to us
so we thought how did we sit down with
the person that wasn’t doing too good
and have them share their story and
become their friend
we wanted to sit down with someone
through extended period time and connect
we started doing one-on-one sit-down
meals with people we just found on the
sidewalk
lift them up and sat them down we knew
they weren’t doing too good but when we
sat down with them over a hot pizza
they’re more likely to share about
themselves we met the most interesting
individuals
who were addicted to heroin and they
shared how they got homeless
and how they got that addiction in a
pg-13 manner
it was pretty hard
i ended up becoming friends with people
that were just hard to get to know
because they were a lone wolf like my
friend leonard
we ended up becoming their friends and
through these meals we put notepad aside
and saw them as friends we noticed that
they opened up more
we wanted others to join us because
their stories are frankly amazing so we
created a project empathy
a one-on-one person-to-person human
interaction
where you can sit down with someone to
with someone that you wouldn’t normally
talk to
i see project empathy as a prescription
for human connection
we can change this we can help people
like genie
but we need to have empathy dignity and
authenticity
this is my journey to make my difference
now it’s time for you to start yours
thank you
[Applause]
you