Please note: Accuracy and availability of IPR transcripts may vary. 00;00;01;14 - 00;00;25;20 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I'm J.R. Jamison. Today on the Facing Project, my guest is bestselling author and poverty and child welfare advocate David Ambroz, whose bestselling and award winning memoir, A Place Called Home, follows his life as he grows up homeless in New York City, the subsequent years in foster care, and eventually becoming an attorney with a vision to change the laws that affect children in poverty. 00;00;25;23 - 00;00;56;17 J.R. Jamison David’s journey took him from the cold streets of New York City, often shifting between living with his siblings and mentally ill mother in shelters, train stations, low rent apartments and even a church closet to entering the foster care system, where he was placed into homes that were not always the best fit for him, and some even abusive to finding the right foster parents who taught him how to love and set him forth on a path to Vassar College and eventually, UCLA law. 00;00;56;19 - 00;01;09;07 J.R. Jamison Today, David Ambroz advocates for the change and supports he often needed as a child. Stay with us. 00;01;09;09 - 00;01;31;18 J.R. Jamison You're listening to The Facing Project, and I'm J.R. Jamison. My guest today is David Ambroz, a national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate and author of the bestselling and award winning memoir A Place Called Home. His story about growing up homeless in New York, subsequent years in foster care, and eventually becoming an attorney with a vision to change the laws that affect children in poverty. 00;01;31;20 - 00;01;49;23 J.R. Jamison Hillary Rodham Clinton praised A Place Called Home as a book that will redouble your efforts to fight the systems of poverty that have plagued America for too long. And I have to agree it's one of the best books I've read this year. David, I'm really excited for our conversation today. Thank you so much for joining me on The Facing Project. 00;01;49;23 - 00;01;53;08 David Ambroz Ambroz: I'm very excited to talk to you about the book today. So thank you for having me. 00;01;53;09 - 00;02;13;21 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Absolutely. At the beginning of your memoir, the reader finds you on the cold streets of New York City right before Christmas. You're hungry, you're homeless, and you're five years old. You, along with your siblings, are being led by your bio mom to find a safe place to sleep for the night. Take me back to this moment in your life. 00;02;13;21 - 00;02;22;02 J.R. Jamison What would you want people to know about you? And also the stories of the nearly 2.5 million children who are homeless today. 00;02;22;04 - 00;02;46;14 David Ambroz Ambroz: I started the memoir there because it's one of my earliest memories in my life. It was the night we were living at Grand Central, and the cops came through to clean it up. And the it being people like me and my family forced out onto the street. We had nowhere to go and no resources, and my mom was devolving in her mental health issues and the three of us, I was 4 or 5. 00;02;46;15 - 00;03;09;12 David Ambroz My brother was six, my sister was seven. Just started walking. And that was not atypical for my family. Like a lot of homeless families, we just wander and we have no destination except to be out of places where cops might be annoyed by us or owners of properties. So I started the memoir at that moment because when I think back to my life. 00;03;09;14 - 00;03;33;25 David Ambroz This is truly one of those moments when I first thought my family might die. It was profoundly cold, and we started slowly suffering from exposure, which I didn't understand at the time. And I really thought my mom might lead us into a place unintended, that we might not make it through the night. So I wanted I wanted folks to really start with what is the ferment? 00;03;33;27 - 00;03;49;06 David Ambroz What is the soil where I planted my roots and have grown from, which is a place of perpetual crisis and struggle on the streets of New York City? And I wanted you to feel what I felt and remember what I remember when I think back on my life. 00;03;49;08 - 00;04;10;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And you end up that night at a men's shelter. And I was kind of surprised by that when I, you know, when I read it at first. Here's your mom beating on the door of the men's shelter. Let us in. And they do. And you get a cot. And were you scared? I mean, you were you were five, right? 00;04;10;19 - 00;04;13;18 J.R. Jamison What was going through your mind in that moment? 00;04;13;20 - 00;04;36;18 David Ambroz Ambroz: I think folks may have a different concept of what it's what it's like on the street. And at the time, back in the day, back in the 80s, early 80s, there weren't shelters for women. They weren't shelters for women and children. So you're looking at a society that's really overrun with homeless veterans, with different PTSD and mental health issues and addictions. 00;04;36;20 - 00;05;03;06 David Ambroz That's kind of the bulk of what we're going through, the shelters and what they were expecting. And then concurrent to that, there was a early crisis known as Grid, which became HIV Aids. And so the streets were just overrun with two, two significantly male populations. And then here comes my mom with three children in tow. And we were banging on the door of that shelter because my mom, in a moment of clarity, understood that we were dying. 00;05;03;09 - 00;05;33;27 David Ambroz We got into the shelter and you look around and you just see what looks like coffins with a body on top of cots. And I really, as a young kid, I was, I was, I was exhausted of being afraid post fear. But what I really thought was these men must have had mothers that failed them as well. And my mom, in that very moment again that night, six out to me, she taught me one of my most important lessons, which was is this what you want? 00;05;33;28 - 00;06;02;01 David Ambroz She asked the three of us before we fell asleep that night, and I had never really thought about the future. Poverty, for me, is never about the future. It just could not be if I wanted to survive the now. But it was the first time my mom had really thought and talked to us about the future, and in the question was an implication that I had a choice which sort of led my mind to think, God, no, I don't want this. 00;06;02;02 - 00;06;18;11 David Ambroz I don't want to live like this. I don't want to die like this. Sitting here in filth and in my own urine. I didn't want that. So that night, my mom both ushered us into near death, but also ushered in my future, perhaps unintentionally. 00;06;18;15 - 00;06;49;24 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Well, and this was the theme throughout the early chapters of the book, where where you do move between being housed at some points to living in train stations to living in a closet of a church at one point. And there were many right tyranny of the moments that were happening throughout that. But when you were 11, you and your siblings decided to leave your mom for your own safety. 00;06;49;27 - 00;07;12;05 J.R. Jamison They go first and then finally you. You, right? I feel like I have walked through and out of a fire, and in the heart of the flame was the fundamental break from my mother. I understand that to survive her, I have to escape her. Talk more about this moment and how it set forth a change path for you and your siblings. 00;07;12;08 - 00;07;39;05 David Ambroz Ambroz: I was around 11 and my social worker decades later reached out to me on Facebook at the time, the social worker I had. And she said, did you know, David, that in my entire 30, I think, five year career, you were the only foster kid ever to be happy to be detained. And in that moment when I was removed from my mom's custody at my own initiation, I really thought I was saved. 00;07;39;07 - 00;08;03;20 David Ambroz We had lived homeless, severe violence and deprivation, starvation, and also some adventures, like growing up in New York City and not going to school for most of a decade was kind of kind of a Harry Potter adventure in some respects. And my mom, as you read in the book, is a also a loving person. So I don't want to give the impression that it was some sort of endless night. 00;08;03;27 - 00;08;29;22 David Ambroz But she really became quite violent. And the situation we were in homeless and then in shelters, it became unsustainable. And I really thought my mom might intentionally kill me. She certainly tried. And when I was around 11, I started realizing that she she was going to and it may not be what she set out to do, but she was not in control of herself. 00;08;29;24 - 00;08;50;13 David Ambroz So we started sending off my brother first because he was the most vulnerable, the smallest, I would say not emotionally, but physically, the weakest. And then it was going to be my sister and then me. And I was the youngest, but I was perhaps the most durable, I would say, and always my mom's caregiver. So we just we started that process. 00;08;50;14 - 00;08;59;10 David Ambroz My brother went off, he stole a bicycle, and we put him on a bicycle to leave western Massachusetts to go back to New York, because we thought that was doable for a. 00;08;59;11 - 00;09;01;00 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And how far is that again? 00;09;01;06 - 00;09;02;16 David Ambroz I mean, I don't know, but it's. 00;09;02;18 - 00;09;05;19 David Ambroz You know, imagine from like Western Mass in New York, like it's just. 00;09;05;20 - 00;09;08;07 J.R. Jamison Jamison: It's not just down the road. Yeah. 00;09;08;09 - 00;09;44;04 David Ambroz Ambroz: No, but like, as New York kids that just ended up in Western Mass, we had no idea. So off he went. But my mom's violence just. And I'll stop using that word. My mom beat the crap out of us, and it it really one time, one day it got to the point where I really thought I was going to die, and I stumbled into a neighboring courthouse after a particular beating, and it turned out to be a traffic court, which I don't know if I say in the book, but a very nice traffic judge initiated what became then the rest of my my teens, which was to put me in foster care. 00;09;44;08 - 00;10;05;19 David Ambroz I was thrilled. I really thought we were saved. And I quickly learned that hell had a basement called Foster Care and I had unintentionally, intentionally put me, my brother, and my sister in something much more dangerous than my mother, which was our foster care system. And I had no idea at the time that that's what was going to happen. 00;10;05;21 - 00;10;24;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And in the time before you thought help and ended up in the foster care system, your siblings had been placed in foster care, is that correct? Yeah. What happened in that time period between when your siblings left and you were you were waiting right to do this? 00;10;24;18 - 00;10;26;08 David Ambroz Ambroz: Theme of my life. Theme of my life. 00;10;26;10 - 00;10;51;08 David Ambroz The younger brother. So my brother and sister were placed together in foster care in kind of a traditional foster home. And I eventually, after staying at the office of the social worker and a hotel, was placed in delinquency. And at the time the reason was very simple. You know, I was placed in delinquency because I was quickly identified as what? 00;10;51;09 - 00;11;12;01 David Ambroz But then was called gender identification disorder. Basically, I was gay and they knew it. Yeah. So when you're when you're put in foster care, you're actually ranked on if you could think of it as a scale of 1 to 10, how complicated your case is, how challenging you're going to be as a child. And so automatically I was the highest rank because I was gay, so I might as well. 00;11;12;03 - 00;11;34;03 David Ambroz It's the equivalent of I had like a severe physical disability or was violent. And so they couldn't put me in normal foster homes. And I was placed in delinquency, and I lost touch with my siblings, who were placed in a traditional home and kind of went on for a while together. And my experience was just so profoundly violent and different than theirs right away. 00;11;34;06 - 00;11;50;14 David Ambroz But again, you know, I credit it with creating the person that's talking to you today. The experience that I then had in that facility set me on a path which ultimately led me to be a champion for queer kids. So I'm grateful for it. But it was a expensive learning. 00;11;50;15 - 00;12;11;04 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah, and I want to talk more about that. So you write in the book much like you just described, the social workers can tell that I'm gay, and it's a big problem. Gay is a dirty word. So the problem of where to place me is communicated, and only the looks they exchange, it's in their coded language. When they tell me they're looking for a place where all fit in. 00;12;11;07 - 00;12;41;26 J.R. Jamison And you did end up in a juvenile delinquents center, and even though you had no record and had committed no crime, you were placed there and you were taunted and physically assaulted not only by other kids who were there, but also by the staff. This was in the 1990s. What has changed, if anything, since that time to increase standards and protections for LGBTQ youth in foster care? 00;12;41;29 - 00;13;03;25 David Ambroz Ambroz: Of all the parts of the book, I find this for me, probably the most hard to speak about going into delinquency facility. I remember my social worker pulled over as we were driving on to the property, and it was after the first fence with barbed wire, razor wire, and she pulled over and she was very emotional and she was like, you don't belong here. 00;13;03;26 - 00;13;30;23 David Ambroz I will get you out. And I never saw her again. Wow. And I remember, I didn't understand. I was still in the belief that I was saved for my mom. I was the youngest kid in this facility by five years. And immediately, the staff and the other youth facility, who were all at least five years older than me, started attacking me both verbally and physically. 00;13;30;29 - 00;13;41;05 David Ambroz And, you know, there's a story recently, LA, where the sheriff's probation officers were caught on video setting kids up to have gladiator fights. 00;13;41;06 - 00;13;42;05 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Wow. 00;13;42;07 - 00;14;12;06 David Ambroz Ambroz: This is 2025. Why? I can tell you that happened then too. And without proper supervision, we know what happens. And so I quickly experienced sexual assault and violence, mental and physical torture. Just just immediately when I went in there and I told the story of one of those moments, I was 11. And I remember so specifically that first attack, and I knew that if I kept crying, these people would it would kill me. 00;14;12;08 - 00;14;32;21 David Ambroz And so I decided in that moment I would never cry again. And so I, I feel like that Book of Mormon song where you turn it off like a light switch. I very thoughtfully, specifically turned off my emotion, because what was being done to me on a day to day basis was so horrific. That if I felt that I would, I would just disappear. 00;14;32;23 - 00;14;59;06 David Ambroz And they did their damnedest to make me not gay. And I can tell you I'm still gay. Yeah, I have taken that entire experience, and one of the reasons President Obama recognized me as a champion of change is because I took that experience, and I worked for decades to disallow the what's called reparative therapy. I call it violence, that you can no longer do this to children in foster care in America. 00;14;59;07 - 00;15;33;03 David Ambroz You can not cure them and get it reimbursed by the federal government. It was part of a 15 year effort with myself and many other queer youth that experienced this. So what has changed? At least on the books, we are to be treated differently, at least on the books we have rights. And I believe there's better scrutiny. And kids today, although it's not perfect, hopefully, and I do believe are having a much better experience than I did going into a system that automatically was predisposed to, quote unquote, cure me. 00;15;33;06 - 00;15;58;07 J.R. Jamison Jamison: It makes me wonder about the current culture that we're living in, the current environment that we're living in, and so much fear and hatred being thrown around. And we know the stories are mirrors and their windows. And according to The Trevor Project, positive representation, exposure to queer communities helps reduce feelings of social isolation and invisibility for queer teens. 00;15;58;07 - 00;16;20;19 J.R. Jamison And it does help save lives. But we're seeing a rise again, right in the vilifying of the queer community. And this idea that any type of queer representation to youth should be banned. What do you say to these folks who feel like youth shouldn't have access to queer, positive role models? 00;16;20;22 - 00;16;39;13 David Ambroz Ambroz: So we're recording this in June, which is Pride Month. Happy Pride month. And I posted something which was really the response from my friends, my kind of friends community, you know, not everyone on our social feeds or our friends, but we're friendly. I posted a little graphic that. Showed it's a. Backed. Up fact. 00;16;39;13 - 00;17;05;21 David Ambroz That 30% of foster kids identify as LGBTQ. Foster care is a queer issue. It is a LGBTQ issue as much as any other issue. So I will answer your question, but. But what? I get a little Flemming SPI is we sometimes as a community left you can call the liberal community or left or queer community all of the above. 00;17;05;28 - 00;17;23;21 David Ambroz We tend to respond to the debate set by people who oppose our point of view, and I just get so tired of that tennis match. I want to set the terms of the debate, not respond to them. What's the solution? How about I'm making up a number here? How about 5000 queer people step up and foster? 00;17;23;22 - 00;17;24;27 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. 00;17;24;29 - 00;17;45;14 David Ambroz Ambroz: How about we flood the zone with love. Not with animosity? Instead of denigrating foster parents or trying to pass laws that guide what they can or can't believe, which maybe I support. How about you raise your hand and say, I'm going to foster and I'm going to be an inclusive home? I'll accept my kid if he's straight, God. Help you, or I'll. 00;17;45;14 - 00;18;08;07 David Ambroz Love them if they're not. You know, we constantly are trying to be in this visceral debate. And I remember there was a case in Philadelphia last year that passed. Unfortunately, Philadelphia said, you can't discriminate as a foster parent if you have a queer kit. That's very simplification, but more or less. And the Supreme Court said, no, Philadelphia, we can't do that. 00;18;08;09 - 00;18;27;11 David Ambroz So there's no longer a prohibition on discrimination for queer kids. Crazy, right? But when I was called by the national media to get on TV and be bombastic and annoyed by that, I didn't. I'm like, how about instead of us having that conversation, we lost? Now what are we going to do to help children? 30% of kids in foster care are queer. 00;18;27;12 - 00;18;27;24 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah. 00;18;27;25 - 00;18;52;24 David Ambroz Ambroz: How about we flood the zone with a couple thousand people that care? And I want to hear people's excuses about why they can't. Surely in this country, we have a couple thousand people that can raise their hand. So is it better? Absolutely. Can it be? Be that. Can it be even better? Yes. And we have slowly put handhelds into the the rocks of the edifice of our government which say you have rights, basic rights. 00;18;52;24 - 00;19;09;24 David Ambroz That took a lot of work. But I think as a queer community or a loving community, forget about being rainbow. If you're just a loving person, raise your hand and step up and do the hard work. Never mind us trying to change people's minds who are just not going to change. 00;19;09;26 - 00;19;46;25 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And I want to note to that 30% statistic of LGBTQ youth. That is because they're often thrown out of their homes by their biological family, or they have to run away for their own safety. Right. So it's not it's not this weird. Like, why are so many foster kids LGBTQ? There is a reason to that statistic. Right. And so to your point, if more LGBTQ people or affirming straight people raise their hand and said, we want to create a good home for these kids, that would make a world of difference. 00;19;46;28 - 00;20;08;23 David Ambroz Ambroz: See, you said it succinctly because you do this for a living. I could not have said it better. That is exactly right. We we as a people are not safe. And we. You asked the question originally about what's going on in the national media. Kids here, the debate about our humanity every day. Should we have rights? Should we have access to medical care, or should our parents be able to torture us? 00;20;08;23 - 00;20;37;22 David Ambroz I'm sorry. Take care of us in their anti-LGBTQ sometimes. Did we hear it? And we know. And so kids run away from things that are unsafe, but they hear the national debate about our very humanity. And I am I'm so tired of LGBTQ being the political issue that people can step on to advance their political careers. That said, children can't wait for us to solve that. 00;20;37;24 - 00;20;56;07 David Ambroz We as a queer community to make foster care and kids and delinquency as well. It's very connected. Yeah, a central issue, just like gay marriage was. We need to understand that we have a whole generation of kids that are being slowly erased, and we can do differently and better by them. 00;20;56;10 - 00;21;22;18 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I want to talk to about congregate care that you mentioned in your book, and you were saying at that time there were very little supports and not enough thought given to race, religion, culture, emotional elements. And if somebody right identified as LGBTQ. Is this still true today in congregate care? Has it gotten better? What work is being done to shift this? 00;21;22;18 - 00;21;25;16 J.R. Jamison If not? 00;21;25;18 - 00;22;02;19 David Ambroz Ambroz: I'm sure that there is a tech billionaire listening to this. So I'm going to tell you my idea to solve it, and then I'll tell you the advanced advancements we've made. A everyone probably listening is familiar with Tinder, and I've always thought that we need some sort of like, better matching system other than desperation for replacement for a child, where kids and families can come together and be like, you know, probably not a match, that there'd be a little more consideration and, dare I say, empowerment of the youth to be part of that process, especially as they're older, to say, look, that is a that is a home that is fundamentally not going to align 00;22;02;19 - 00;22;21;09 David Ambroz with my values or who I am. Yeah. And it's not that. It's just that therefore no, but it's a data point where the system, the social worker, the cause can say, you know, this kid seems to have an idea about what works, what doesn't. Let's let's take that into account. But that can't happen when we're so desperate for placements. 00;22;21;09 - 00;22;55;11 David Ambroz But I would just say overall, if someone's listening, we need to adapt Tinder for foster placements. But to very specifically answer your question. Congregate care has made very strong leaps forward. We have done nothing but increased transparency, which has led to more news about some of the more terrible things that go on. And just so folks know, what is congregate care, congregate care is essentially, you can think of it in your head as as an orphanage or a home with many children like 10 to 50, if not more. 00;22;55;14 - 00;23;30;11 David Ambroz And quite often, their single sex environments where kids are segregated from society, they're schooled at the placement. They're almost, in my experience, quite often they have a lot of similarities to jail. That said, they're also sometimes the best placement for very, very for some youth. Under President Trump's first term, in partnership with some very prominent Democrats, including Los Angeles current mayor who was then in Congress, we passed a bill that essentially disincentivize congregate care at the state level. 00;23;30;11 - 00;23;53;12 David Ambroz It was a very important bill, and what it said was very simple kids are better off with their families. It's just true. So how do we help families avoid having their kids taken away? I think the number is a third of kids entering foster care are there because of neglect, which is a euphemism for poverty, which quite often in our country is a euphemism for racism. 00;23;53;13 - 00;24;14;14 David Ambroz Yeah. You can't afford your rent. We're going to take your kid away, and we're going to spend ten times that amount just to keep them in the system every year. So this law said no states. You can actually use your federal funding to preserve families. That meant a dramatic reduction in the need for placements like congregate care and a disincentivize congregate caring for long term. 00;24;14;17 - 00;24;37;18 David Ambroz And that has been such an important step forward that was advanced not just by social workers or politicians, but by foster kids who are like, these placements are not good. Yeah, so I'm super proud of that movement. I've been part of it for for way too long, but I don't want to give the impression that we shouldn't have any placements that are congregate care. 00;24;37;18 - 00;24;48;11 David Ambroz Sometimes that is the best placement, but we should be highly scrutinizing them and making sure that the kids there are safe and have proper oversight, unlike what I experienced. 00;24;48;13 - 00;25;17;02 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I do want to go back to your tender idea that you you have for kids who are not able to stay with their own families. This does give them a bit of a choice. You write in your book that children are owned by their parents, quite literally, and that's what it makes it so challenging, because kids who do need to get out of situations that are not safe or healthy for them, it can get hung up in the court system. 00;25;17;02 - 00;25;33;02 J.R. Jamison And this I think your idea, what excites me about it right, is it would give kids choice and also foster parents a choice to pick the right kind of fit for for their family. 00;25;33;04 - 00;26;01;15 David Ambroz Ambroz: Yeah. And it's it's so shocking to me how shocked people are. All I hear when people talk about foster parents is they denigrate them. Oh, they do it for the money, or they talk about how crappy social workers are. And this while the people making those comments have done nothing quite often. So I like the idea of us, you know, people in the peanut gallery either raising your hand or not talking. 00;26;01;21 - 00;26;26;25 David Ambroz Yeah, you need to step up and either you don't have to foster, but you have to do something. Learn more, volunteer, donate, vote on this issue. But as far as giving kids more agency, it's not just that it might be a better fit and therefore more sustainable for the young person's health and mental health, but also it gives them a sense of empowerment that they're going to need to become successful young adults at 18 or 21. 00;26;26;26 - 00;26;52;27 David Ambroz In our country, we emancipate children. That's the word emancipate. How interesting that we chose that word. And it truly for me, felt like emancipation. We emancipate them and I would just push your listeners who I'm sure are hopefully, you know, adults that have experience being 18 at some point. Were you ready to be independent at 18? Are you ready now? 00;26;52;28 - 00;26;56;04 David Ambroz I'm in my mid-forties. I still wish I had parents that could help me out. 00;26;56;04 - 00;26;58;17 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Same. 00;26;58;18 - 00;27;21;00 David Ambroz Ambroz: Why are we expecting kids who've been through incredible trauma at 18 to be independent? And this is one more building block to give them power and authority over their own future that will build the kind of tapestry of their personality and and experience to help them become successful adults. I think it'll be a healthier environment now. Again, it's a data point. 00;27;21;02 - 00;27;37;14 David Ambroz It's quite often we just need a placement and that is just the reality. I once asked my sister, Jessica, she's a social worker. I said, Jessica, what do you do for a living? She said, she said, do you think she says, David, paperwork. I do paperwork, David. And then the second thing she said was, I, I'm, I feel like Airbnb. 00;27;37;14 - 00;27;57;03 David Ambroz I'm just calling for a bed. I just need to find a bed. And what if my sister could do social work instead of just desperately trying to find a placement? I think there are technologies and things that not only help the young person, but help all the people in the system. That all we do is denigrate, do the job that they're trained to do. 00;27;57;03 - 00;28;17;26 David Ambroz So I do think technology is something. And if I if you give me the grace one more little. I'm trying to get an op ed placed right now. And the op ed is about DNA. I threw my 23 and me and ancestry submitted my DNA, and I found my biological father. 00;28;17;27 - 00;28;20;26 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Oh, wow. I wondered about that while I was reading. 00;28;21;01 - 00;28;40;05 David Ambroz Ambroz: Yeah. And I'm going to, like, be circumspect because I'm going to write something about it. But what if it took three days once I submitted the things? What if foster kids in the system were given that power? If you, as a listener, are you as a host here? What if you knew you had a first cousin or a child you didn't know about? 00;28;40;06 - 00;29;02;00 David Ambroz Would you let your kid languish in a system or would you get involved? Yeah. Imagine if, like 3% of the foster kids in the system found a family member. Again, technology, which is like, we're going to keep technology away from child welfare. Why? Let's put it front and center and integrate it as a solution. So yes, to Tinder for matching foster parents with foster children. 00;29;02;01 - 00;29;13;07 David Ambroz Yes to DNA, yes to giving my sister 21st century technology to find beds instead of dialing. Yeah, she might as well be with a mimeograph. Like, let's go America. We can solve this. 00;29;13;08 - 00;29;45;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Yeah, I love these ideas so much. I think there's so much potential there. I do want to rewind us for a moment back to the 90s, because you did find hope. You were you were eventually placed. You had gone to right after you were in the center and bounced around a bit. You did actually end up with your siblings at a placement that was not really a good fit for any of you, to be quite honest. 00;29;45;20 - 00;30;10;26 J.R. Jamison But while you were there, you met Holly, who was the counselor of a camp where you were a junior counselor one summer, and she took you on a field trip to Provincetown, which, for those listeners who don't know, Provincetown is kind of a gay hotspot on the East Coast. And there that's where you saw your first real positive examples of gay people living their lives. 00;30;10;28 - 00;30;33;13 J.R. Jamison And Holly gave this affirmation in a, in a subtle way, that it was okay to be gay, and Holly ended up becoming your foster mom. So in some ways, you kind of had choice, right? You asked her to become your Falster mom. What does this mean to you and how did it help give you hope that she gave this affirmation and also eventually became your foster mom? 00;30;33;15 - 00;30;59;17 David Ambroz Ambroz: You know, I, I think a lot about who we are as a country, as a people. And Holly and Steve are the embodiment of something to me, which is what it means to be American. Truly, Holly and Steve were, to put it generously, working poor, you know, she worked at the Y. He was a. 00;30;59;19 - 00;31;26;04 David Ambroz Contractor, a painter, and they didn't look around and wonder who was going to help this severely abused boy with no resources. They got a lawyer, and they tried to get me out of the abusive foster homes and delinquency facilities that I was in. They got a lawyer for two years after Holly met me fighting. I had no idea. 00;31;26;06 - 00;31;47;06 David Ambroz And these are not people with resources. And so I always think about them when people talk about what it means to be an American. These are not some sort of like, crazy liberal people. They just raised their hand and said, will help. And that is, to me, the embodiment of American spirit. I always think about ten years before I was born, we went to the moon. 00;31;47;08 - 00;32;07;19 David Ambroz We did that. We didn't outsource it. We didn't have computers. It took a decade. We can do hard things, but we choose not to do hard things. And I want us to make a different choice. And I look at Holly and Steve as people who embody our ability to do that. They went from having one child to having a new baby, and then two years later had a third child. 00;32;07;20 - 00;32;31;22 David Ambroz Yeah. And they just made it work. Do you know, not since 1999. Has the phrase child poverty been uttered at a presidential debate. Well, we talk about coal miners, and perhaps we should, but there are more baristas in L.A. County than coal miners in America. And we have decided to to flow around the 10 million children that live in abject poverty in our country. 00;32;31;24 - 00;32;57;16 David Ambroz Those kids are not red. They're not blue. They don't vote. They don't have a political party. They're in every single state. And what are we doing? We're taking away their health care right now. We're debating their humanity right now. Holly and Steve raised their hand and said, we'll help this child. And so when I think of Holly, I am so fortunate that I met her and Steve, my quiet from New Hampshire. 00;32;57;19 - 00;32;58;19 David Ambroz Yankee dad. 00;32;58;20 - 00;33;00;16 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Who taught you to drive. 00;33;00;18 - 00;33;17;20 David Ambroz Ambroz: Who taught me, you know, tell the story of the book. But he was teaching me to drive on his. If listeners remember Datsun before Nissan, Nissan was Datsun. He had this truck with no power steering. It had rusted floors. I could see that. I could see the road. And he was he's like, you're you're going to learn to drive on this truck. 00;33;17;20 - 00;33;38;09 David Ambroz And I was like, God, but thank you. So I ran over the mailbox when he was teaching me, and I thought I was going to beat the shit out of me. Sorry. I thought it was, like, really beat me up, because that was my experience with men and adult men. And instead he came over. He always had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and he's like, are you okay? 00;33;38;11 - 00;33;59;20 David Ambroz And I was in that moment in that very simple question was really one of the first times in adult Male Express Love and the way that he did because he knew what I was thinking. And so Steve and I are super close. You're watching me in my office, which Steve painted. He painted the entire inside of my house to welcome me to my home. 00;33;59;22 - 00;34;29;17 David Ambroz So I'm surrounded by his love every day. Holly and Steve were everything in Holly. You said it so nicely. Holly tried to push me out of the closet in a very loving way, and I think we're all a little bit more thoughtful in that these days. And what I don't think I understood, and I don't think she did, was the deep trauma I had experienced through repair of therapy and rape and violence, and the lesson society taught me by seeing gay men dying on the streets of a disease we didn't know the name of. 00;34;29;20 - 00;34;51;18 David Ambroz All of these lessons were so traumatic and violent, and I literally have scars that I, I wasn't ready, I didn't understand it. And even though it was a positive image, it was the house that was trying to be built on quicksand because I was so traumatized by what had happened up to that point, that it would be decades before I was okay and ready to come out. 00;34;51;20 - 00;35;13;29 J.R. Jamison Jamison: This is a memoir about childhood poverty and homelessness in the foster care system, but it's also a memoir about perseverance. But it's also a memoir about mental health. Many of the things that you were just talking about having to overcome, but also the mental health of your bio mom. And we know this from the very start of the book. 00;35;14;03 - 00;35;37;21 J.R. Jamison It's a theme that you wove throughout and central to the story, and we see her conditions worsen as the book goes on. In a later chapter, you write, I wanted and still pray more than anything, to be able to reach into her mind and quiet the voices to me and love the woman that they destroyed. Mental illness is a thief, robbing the victims and their families relentlessly and without remorse. 00;35;37;23 - 00;35;48;21 J.R. Jamison Talk more about this connection between homelessness, mental health, and the foster care system. What's something about this connection that needs to be better understood? 00;35;48;23 - 00;36;10;18 David Ambroz Ambroz: I you know, you're really picking the emotional gems in that book and making me tear up here. Sorry, I hadn't heard it. I heard that in a minute. That's the image I have of my mom. I, you know, sometimes I see, you know, like it's a cloudy day and sometimes the sun peeks through and you're just, you know, you bask in it. 00;36;10;18 - 00;36;32;19 David Ambroz For a moment, I felt that from my mom. You know, she would from my earliest memory, she would in addition, everything, you know, violent. She also would say to me, thinking like, you're going to be a Supreme Court justice. Or she's like, hug me. What am I, chopped liver? You know, right now I'm doing something. I'm calling the I love You challenge for my infant son. 00;36;32;19 - 00;36;57;24 David Ambroz I want to say I love you a million times before his 18. And I think about my mom who said, I love you all the time. So I would have these glimpses of who she probably would be. But what happened instead is my mom, from her earliest age when she starts first started exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia and other issues, was pushed aside and denigrated and dismissed. 00;36;57;24 - 00;37;30;20 David Ambroz And it was just one struggle after the other. And it's we don't have a system designed to support people suffering from mental health of any sort. And even if you go on into homelessness, not mentally ill very quickly, you are going to have issues because the streets are. It's not about when you're going to get hurt. It's not about if, it's about when and it's about how you're going to quickly recover and that kind of constant state of alertness and fear exacerbates any underlying issues. 00;37;30;20 - 00;38;01;20 David Ambroz Now, my mom went on to the streets with already existing mental health issues, but it only got worse and worse and worse through the stress of the way we were living. So I think in our society, if we ignore children on mass that are living in poverty, I think the next biggest issue is mental health. And what's so unfortunate is if we don't support families that are trying to help their family members with mental health issues, we decided in the 80s to shut down mental health institutions, and perhaps we should have. 00;38;01;23 - 00;38;23;22 David Ambroz But the backside of that promise was never fulfilled, which was to have community based, very available mental health services. Instead, we did millions of Americans to the streets where they have just evolved, and we're starting to turn that ship. I would say around, we're talking to talk about mental health, but it's still a scarlet a it's still a shameful thing. 00;38;23;22 - 00;38;48;03 David Ambroz We still, you know, how many of us actually admit that we're all on psychotropic meds to deal with depression is a common conversation point. We'll talk about sports until a blue in the face, but we won't talk about the things that really affect our lives. So it's gotten better. But with my mom, she will never be cured. She will perpetually be in a fearful place where the delusion she suffers from are her reality. 00;38;48;06 - 00;39;16;22 David Ambroz I think if if if readers or listeners read the book, I open the book with a dedication to my mom who taught me to forgive and to conquer one impossible thing at a time. And the forgiveness came because if I did not forgive her a minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, I would have lost my mind and I had to start thinking of her, her violence as a symptom. 00;39;16;22 - 00;39;37;22 David Ambroz Much like if a woman got breast cancer and she she lost her hair through chemo or got sick, we wouldn't be mad at her. But because my mom's symptom is not baldness but violence, we condemn her and we shame her. So I had to start thinking about my mom. Truly these things as symptoms she could not control. But that really affected my mental health. 00;39;37;24 - 00;40;03;28 David Ambroz And then layering on top of that, just the profound inventiveness of people for being cruel. And sometimes that cruelty was just the public indifference of my condition. It it led to decades of trying to dig out of that pit. But I did, and now I'm trying to change the way that we deal with mental health, especially for kids in poverty, but also for families trying to help a family member. 00;40;04;01 - 00;40;16;17 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And you still talk to your mom, which was one of my big questions I had before we started recording today. And you shared that you had just spoken to her before we got yes, I did. 00;40;16;19 - 00;40;39;18 David Ambroz Ambroz: Yeah, my mom is my mom is doing great. You know, she my mom is quite the character. And she credits the fact that she has a very grumpy lawyer for a son, which is me, for getting her the services of benefit. She's she's entitled to, and she's stable and she's getting medicated, and she wouldn't she wouldn't be what we call normal. 00;40;39;20 - 00;41;05;22 David Ambroz But she is stable. She's not cycling in that emergency room. She's not calling in bomb threats. She's not, you know, causing all sorts of issues in ruckus. She's an assisted living, watching daytime TV and HGTV and reading books and eating soft foods. And she's a hoot. And it's what happens when you have, you know, a system that provides basic services to a person. 00;41;05;22 - 00;41;26;06 David Ambroz We can we can make a choice. I think as a people, both economically and morally, we can choose to make the smart financial decision to just pay basic services for her instead of having her spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in emergency rooms. And then morally, it's always people just clutch their cross and talk about their Christianity or talk about their faith. 00;41;26;09 - 00;41;48;20 David Ambroz But we have millions of Americans that need us to care, and then we elect folks that just dismantle a very insufficient, already safety net for children and vulnerable people like my mom. And I don't understand that juxtaposition. We we can have. We can have a different moral choice. We can take care of vulnerable people regardless of your faith or lack thereof. 00;41;48;21 - 00;42;14;00 David Ambroz It is the moral stain of our time that we have 10 million children living in poverty. One out of four American kids are starving, starving. What are their parents eating? So we are making this decision. Other than the laws of physics I've always thought of, everything is a choice. Everything is a choice. Child poverty is a choice. It's one we're making together as a people, as a country. 00;42;14;00 - 00;42;36;16 David Ambroz And I truly believe we're better than this. We are. You see it every time there's a disaster. We just need to manifest that all the time. Sometimes child poverty and issues like mental health become white noise, unremarked and unremarkable. But we really have to stop and look at it and go, no, we're better than this. And I think all of us are, regardless of your political persuasion, we're better than this. 00;42;36;16 - 00;42;40;19 David Ambroz And I want us to act and have our laws and our electeds reflect that. 00;42;40;22 - 00;43;12;11 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And I want to talk about advocacy. When you were in high school, you get the awesome opportunity to go to D.C. and advocate for the Chafee bill that was written to provide supports to help foster care youth successfully transition to independent living. And it was passed in 1999 and signed by president Bill Clinton. What did this teach you about that listeners might find helpful to their own causes, or the calls we were just talking about around childhood poverty? 00;43;12;13 - 00;43;45;25 David Ambroz Ambroz: It taught me a lot. It taught me lessons that took decades to blossom. I write in the book about an interaction I had with congresspersons spouse. I was advocating for the bill, and I interact with this individual who was very wealthy, and I was I was a teenager. I had been plucked out of a delinquency facility and sent to D.C. with almost no training, and I was told I was there because I, quote, sounded white and I would be sent to talk to. 00;43;45;26 - 00;44;14;12 David Ambroz I didn't understand the term at the time, but Dixiecrats and Republicans, conservative folks and I did. I spoke to all of the big Republicans and Dixiecrats at the time, but this one interaction taught me something. I was so angry, and I kind of I responded in anger, in righteousness. And this elected person who I was basically yelling at, their spouse said to me, you can be right and you can win. 00;44;14;14 - 00;44;23;15 David Ambroz And it is a lesson that is echoed with me. Change is hard. It probably should be hard. 00;44;23;18 - 00;44;54;07 David Ambroz Educating people that foster kids at 18 needed more support, and not just to be thrown off a cliff. It was really hard. It seems to make sense to me, just intellectually, but that doesn't matter. People have different ideas and you have to do the hard work of organizing persuasion, organizing persuasion. And it is it is hard, especially when your life is the thing being debated or discussed. 00;44;54;10 - 00;45;10;04 David Ambroz I it always boggles my mind. I'd sit there and talk to people who are parents and I would say basic things like, you know, at 18 in America, you are thrown out of foster care regardless if you have any money. 00;45;10;06 - 00;45;31;13 David Ambroz Are your kids ready to be independent at 18? And they'd be like, of course not. I'm like, well, these are your children. We as a society have removed them from their home. Shouldn't we just give them a little bit more time to get their stuff together? Maybe. Maybe 20, you know, maybe 21? I wanted 40, but no one would listen to me. 00;45;31;15 - 00;45;51;18 David Ambroz So it was really emotionally hard to listen to. People ignore reality. But look where we are today. That said, the work of organizing is hard. I would encourage people to go local in my book. As you mentioned at the front end, Secretary Clinton's comment about my book being a I call it a memoir with a mission. There are concrete ideas you can do locally. 00;45;51;18 - 00;46;14;08 David Ambroz And I'll give you just one quick example about organizing and politics, what it taught me. We still in this country emancipate most foster kids to homelessness at 18 or 21, still in our country, 50% of the homeless in America five zero were in foster care. Five zero it is the highest correlation. I have been working on a project I don't know for how long. 00;46;14;08 - 00;46;38;10 David Ambroz Let's call it 15 years to build a foster dorm at a community college. What if we Amantha, we eight of these in the country and we've turned off that pipeline? We can build a building in America, pick the states. Indianapolis. Let's build a dorm at your community college. What if every foster kid was given the chance for three years of community college to get a vocational skills certificate or transfer, or an AA? 00;46;38;13 - 00;47;02;02 David Ambroz All of a sudden we have people who can contribute to the economy. Morally, we're better off as a country who doesn't believe in work. We can do this. And so I want us to organize, but not always fetishize Washington, D.C. to solve our problems. The power we have locally is so profound and we just ignore it. We don't know the names of our assembly person, but we can name the Supreme Court justice. 00;47;02;03 - 00;47;18;06 David Ambroz That's not right. Start fetishizing your local politics, start getting involved locally and get some of these ideas done. D.C. taught me a lot. It taught me that organizing is hard, but that it should be. But the payoff is enormous. 00;47;18;09 - 00;47;51;15 J.R. Jamison Jamison: You did end up making it to Vassar College after many twists and turns and going off of what we've just talked about with emancipation at 18 and College Access and all of that, what's changed since your time when you were trying to figure out how to buy books, or where you were going to go over Christmas break, what supports have changed since that time for college students or where there are areas to improve? 00;47;51;17 - 00;48;13;18 David Ambroz Ambroz: I remember I got to Vassar and this was after I applied. I don't remember the exact number, I think was 14 or 18 schools, most of whom sent me back my package because I didn't have proper SAT scores. I didn't have a transcript. I had missed significant chunks of high school, and I would write letters for each of those sections saying, this is why. 00;48;13;19 - 00;48;36;16 David Ambroz And most schools just sent me the file back. Vassar let me in. A couple other schools did, too. But Vassar was my my school, and I remember when I got there, I went to the book line and the very nice lady I handed to my student ID in the book, the book line, the store employee said to me, no, honey, where's your parents credit card? 00;48;36;18 - 00;49;04;08 David Ambroz And I just looked at her. And that is a question I'm still asking myself. By the way, where is my parents credit card? Because I couldn't afford $300. I had. I had no clothes, I had no money, and it was just shocking. But it wasn't just the financial obstacles like that. There were obvious. There's such a culture of casual consumption in our country, and I remember I had never experienced that. 00;49;04;10 - 00;49;21;13 David Ambroz Each meal was a mountain I had to climb to secure. And so I remember the first time my friends were like, oh, well, let's go get sushi. It was like week three at Vassar. I'm like, I had no idea what sushi was, but I'm like, okay. So we went to get sushi and they brought out raw fish. And I'm looking at these people. 00;49;21;14 - 00;49;41;29 David Ambroz I'm like, rich people are crazy. Yeah, I the constant culture of casual consumption was so alienating to me. Dude, a bathroom caddy is like that little thing you take to the room and you have to share a bathroom. Mine was a mine was a bodega plastic bag. And I'm like, what the hell is a caddy? It's not just language. 00;49;41;29 - 00;50;08;07 David Ambroz It's a feeling of deep alienation and the inability to participate in the culture because you don't understand. You must be a Klingon, a landing in San Francisco, what is going on? So on top of all that, then there are these these roadblocks. Like, as you mentioned, I got a notification that the dorm was closing for holiday break, and I'm working two jobs off campus just to make it work. 00;50;08;13 - 00;50;36;14 David Ambroz I was a handyman and I worked at friendlies, and I had a campus job. And you're closing the dorm? Where am I supposed to go? And I moved into my car and then ultimately into a hotel because it got too cold, but I it was beyond challenging. Vassar changed while I was there, somewhat at my persuasion. It's gotten much better. 00;50;36;16 - 00;50;58;00 David Ambroz You know, when I went to school, you had to prove when you filled out financial aid, you had to prove that you didn't have parents. That sounds easy, but think for a second. How do you prove a negative? It's it's logically impossible. So all of these obstacles that we had have been removed through the organization of Foster Youth advocating. 00;50;58;00 - 00;51;17;05 David Ambroz And I've been part of that. Flash forward just for a quick second. I worked at LA City College for a while. I was the foundation director, and I started two things. I founded something called Guardian Scholars, which was to remove all the barriers on campus for the kids that went to LA City College. It's now been expanded all over California as a program. 00;51;17;05 - 00;51;39;05 David Ambroz I think like 60 schools now have it. But one aspect of it is what I call the what if loan. You walk into my office with a problem, you walk out with cash, not a check. We we manage to trust. We also have a book voucher. So you go to the bookstore, you don't put down your credit card. 00;51;39;05 - 00;52;03;02 David Ambroz You put down a letter from the foundation says I, the foundation will pay for this foster kids books. Just send us the receipt. And the bookstore knows that all of these experiences have shaped my advocacy, and are thousands of foster kids and alum like me that have gone on with allies to change the system. It is so much better right now and we can still make it better, right? 00;52;03;05 - 00;52;21;01 David Ambroz Let's go to the housing for foster kids. Let's let's remove some of these financial barriers. Let's where do foster kids get exposed to careers? I think about all the time I want to start national, take a foster kid to work day. Not your foster kid, a foster kid. Go find a nonprofit. Take them to your radio station to record with you. 00;52;21;03 - 00;52;28;11 David Ambroz Let's expose foster kids to amazing careers. So I think it's so much better. But I'm always like, what can we do more? Let's keep going. 00;52;28;14 - 00;52;44;23 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I'm curious to know about the Chafee program. Is there a concern with it being at risk under the new administration and federal cuts being made to so many longstanding programs where there perhaps glimmers of hope? 00;52;44;25 - 00;53;10;00 David Ambroz Ambroz: There are glimmers of hope. You know, in President Trump's first term, he passed the bill that I mentioned earlier, super important bill that was bipartisan, that helped prevent kids from entering the system by supporting families, biological families, and that that has made a significant impact on all sorts of fronts this time around. We have been very fortunate. You know, the first lady, this is one of First Lady Trump's issues. 00;53;10;00 - 00;53;41;18 David Ambroz She is, you know, declared that foster youth and foster care is something she's quite passionate about. I think we've been blessed as an issue that it's been, for the most part, bipartisan, and that has something I hope to continue. These kids don't have a local party. They are agnostic and they are the state's children. And I think what's so fortunate at the moment, and I hope this continues, is that the programs and supports for this, this particular issue continue to be bipartisan. 00;53;41;18 - 00;54;04;19 David Ambroz So with I think with her leadership on that front, we have successfully navigated, at least for now, some of the things that are more fraught. We'll see where things shake out. You know, the big beautiful Bill is still being shaped, and it's super important for advocates and people to stay involved and engaged. But at the moment, I am hopeful that we will come through as a community unscathed. 00;54;04;21 - 00;54;23;10 David Ambroz It doesn't mean that different parts of us, right, because if there's a family in poverty that loses resources, their kid may end up in foster care. If this drug treatment program that gets cut, I understand the ecosystem of it. But very narrowly, to answer your question, we're fortunate this issue at the moment is bipartisan. 00;54;23;13 - 00;54;41;27 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Now, as a poverty and child welfare Avoca, you ask folks to close their eyes and imagine a child they care about and what they would want for the child if they were placed in foster care. Unless our listeners are driving because we don't want them to close their eyes while they're driving down the road, we don't want any accidents. 00;54;41;28 - 00;54;49;18 J.R. Jamison I want them to take a moment and think about this child. 00;54;49;21 - 00;55;02;17 J.R. Jamison You then say, whatever is imagined is what we should be giving children in foster care right now. So how can folks get involved to advocate for what they've imagined? 00;55;02;20 - 00;55;33;10 David Ambroz Ambroz: First, realize that these are your children. Most foster children, the vast majority will go home to their families while they're ours. We have a responsibility as if they were your very biological or otherwise adopted child, and that should motivate you at a different level than just some sort of banal, distant thought. How you can get involved is so unique to you, your resources. 00;55;33;10 - 00;55;58;24 David Ambroz And I don't mean just money, time, attentions, unique skills. First and foremost, ground yourself in the realization that these are your kid and then see what you plant in that and where it grows. For example, let's say you don't have the money to give a scholarship or whatever. What can you do? Show up at a meeting. Most meetings, since Covid are both in-person and online, show up at a school board meeting. 00;55;58;25 - 00;56;22;17 David Ambroz Ask the question, how do we support foster kids? Ask the question, then follow up the next meeting. If you're not satisfied. Donate clothes to that. Schools have a closet for foster kids that are coming in with no resources. Volunteer. There are tons of nonprofits in your community probably helping these kids and families. Google it or look up on ChatGPT. 00;56;22;19 - 00;56;45;07 David Ambroz What is you can do is unique to you. But first you have to be curious. I think all of us have figured out very complicated things like our smartphones, but we're perplexed how to use Google when it comes to asking the question, what's going on in my community around foster care? We have a culture of learned helplessness that we need to unlearn and realize that we are completely empowered. 00;56;45;08 - 00;57;22;21 David Ambroz This is a local issue. So what can you do? It's endless. But first you must realize these are your kids and then be curious and then take action on that curiosity. There's a program, for example, called Casa Court Appointed Special Advocate. It's kind of a big brother, big sister for foster kids. There are steps you can take from just being curious, showing the meetings, donating a dollar, maybe doing a backpack drives or kids are not moving with trash bags from foster home to foster home, asking politicians questions, maybe becoming a court appointed special advocate, which is all over the country to respite foster care. 00;57;22;21 - 00;57;54;01 David Ambroz You can actually take a foster kid for a weekend to give a foster parent a break to becoming a foster adoptive parent. The possibilities are endless. But what it what you can do is unique to you. Holly and Steve might save your foster parents. They went the distance. It's not going to be doable for everybody. And the other chief thing I would say is too often as a culture, we denigrate or question the motives of foster parents. 00;57;54;05 - 00;58;17;14 David Ambroz Now, I had some real doozies as foster parents that really hurt me and I don't denigrate them. How dare you? If you've done nothing, then you need to stop. And when you hear people make jokes or question their motives, you need to stop and say, what have I done? And if the answer is not enough or nothing, then shame on you. 00;58;17;16 - 00;58;39;02 David Ambroz You can do something. So I want us to be curious to look up locally what I can do and get engaged and culturally. The third piece. Stop throwing stones. The answer to our problem as a society is not to denigrate the actors in the system. We are the system. You listen are the system you've created the rules that these people are playing in. 00;58;39;02 - 00;59;05;02 David Ambroz So if you don't like what's going on, it's your fault. Look in the mirror. If you don't like what you see, let's change it. Now we all know losing the last 10 pounds is really hard, right? Well, this is the last 10 pounds and it's going to be hard. But it's doable. But it's doable with discipline. So I would say those, those kind of are things that I would encourage people when they close their eyes and open them again and decide what first step to take, take the step again. 00;59;05;04 - 00;59;12;13 David Ambroz Other than the laws of physics, everything is a choice. This is a choice we're making, y'all. And I want us to make a different choice. 00;59;12;15 - 00;59;17;19 J.R. Jamison Jamison: And you're now a foster dad. What's it like to be in that role? 00;59;17;21 - 00;59;34;10 David Ambroz Ambroz: I am a foster dad and a I have a biological child, so I just welcomed my foster grandchild, my my foster child's baby. And that has been both made me feel like an ancient walking amongst the earth. 00;59;34;11 - 00;59;37;03 J.R. Jamison Jamison: I won't call you a grandpa. 00;59;37;05 - 01;00;02;03 David Ambroz Ambroz: I'm going by Opa, okay? It's how I identify I to see this young man who came to me when he was so young. And he's, you know, he's married, he's got a beautiful career. He has a PhD from Cornell. And, you know, his wife is amazing. And he's got a small business. Like to see him fully blossom is one of the biggest rewards of my entire existence. 01;00;02;03 - 01;00;25;04 David Ambroz And he's got brothers that I also support, but not necessarily as a full time foster parent. One of them recently needed to move home to my home and so I can hear him upstairs. I now have a young 20s foster brother of my foster son, a brother of my foster son living with me, and he's an absolute delight. 01;00;25;05 - 01;00;50;22 David Ambroz And to see these young men come along on their journey as they kind of navigate the issues that I experience is pretty profound. And it it is so meaningful. I will tell you, I never intended to do any of this. I thought I would avoid parenthood and retired 50 with all my money. Instead, I feel like Mother Goose and it's the best thing I ever did. 01;00;50;24 - 01;01;17;04 David Ambroz I think seeing the journey these young men have gone on and realizing that not just policy wise, but with individuals, I've been able to pay it forward. The the nothing was given to me but the life I was able to carve out of very resistant stone and then pay it forward is so rewarding. Like just seeing them. I if my foster son doesn't text me almost on a daily basis, or call me or send me pictures, I get emotional and he knows it. 01;01;17;06 - 01;01;32;08 David Ambroz It's beautiful. It renews me. I feel like sometimes like I'm a solar panel and these children are my son and they renew me. And I had no idea I needed it or wanted it. But it's been profoundly healing and beautiful, and I think they would agree. 01;01;32;11 - 01;01;56;17 J.R. Jamison Jamison: Near the end of the book, you're an adult and you find yourself back in Penn Station, where you spent many nights as a child and a boy around ten years old ask you for a dollar. And in some ways, this was like a full circle moment. Looking back to where you were at ten all the way to where you are now, what would you say to younger you about the future? 01;01;56;20 - 01;01;59;22 David Ambroz Ambroz: Oh my goodness. 01;01;59;24 - 01;02;04;29 David Ambroz Their gut punch you. 01;02;05;01 - 01;02;30;21 David Ambroz I look around our society and I see most people are sleepwalking. We have a nation of crooked necks looking down, endlessly scrolling, unaware of what's going on around them, comparing our lives to those online, finding our lives deficient, and feeling bad about ourselves. We flow around issues like 10 million children living in poverty as we we look up fun recipes. 01;02;30;23 - 01;03;01;22 David Ambroz I was blessed from birth to be pulled from the matrix, to be slapped awake and forced to look up and see the world as it is and survive it. I am so grateful for that experience. I would not change a thing, but I would apologize to that young person because what I went through between ten and adulthood was it experience that no one should ever experience. 01;03;01;22 - 01;03;21;08 David Ambroz People ask me all the time, what made you different? How did you survive? How did you? And I think the idea is if we can identify it and shape it and understand it, we can apply it. The true answer to that is a brutal, brutal existence for most of that time, and we should not want that for any child. 01;03;21;10 - 01;03;42;06 David Ambroz I would write a letter of apology, but also foreshadowing and letting that young person know that you're going to have the most beautiful life that you are going to find, meaning every day of your adulthood that you are going to love. When you wake up in the morning every single day. And that, I think, is unique, but you are going to pay a price for that and I am so sorry for that. 01;03;42;06 - 01;03;47;19 David Ambroz But it will be the end. It'll be worth it. 01;03;47;22 - 01;03;58;28 J.R. Jamison Jamison: What's something new that you're working on now? Anything you're excited about that you can share with our listeners? What's the next part of your journey? 01;03;59;01 - 01;04;15;28 David Ambroz Ambroz: I am trying to take some of the ideas in the book and make them reality. So I mentioned earlier, you know, I'm well on the way in partnership with many here in Los Angeles, to build a foster dorm at a community college. We were able to organize, make it part of a bond, and it is well on its way. 01;04;15;29 - 01;04;38;16 David Ambroz So I want to and I want to help us understand that there are real solutions and then work in this time to make those solutions reality. The other piece I've increasingly become interested in is just the state of mental health. I. I am no mental health expert, but what I have seen is the outcome, and I am an expert in the outcomes of what we don't deal with issues. 01;04;38;16 - 01;04;58;09 David Ambroz And I personally experienced those as both a caregiver for my mom for more than 20 years, as well as my own needs. So I want to get engaged and involved on this issue. And really with the same thing as my my memoir is to help shine a light not on the tragedy, but on on the beauty and the complicated nature of these things. 01;04;58;09 - 01;05;17;26 David Ambroz And I want to lift up that issue more without stepping away from the current work I'm doing. So, to put it more plainly, I hope to share more stories around mental health and tell tell more stories around that so that we can again have a conversation. Not not I don't need anyone's pity. No one with struggling needs anyone's pity. 01;05;17;28 - 01;05;32;13 David Ambroz We need action. How do we move people from empathy to action? And I hope by showing ideas that actually it can change things and sharing more lights on stories around this other topic, we can begin to really move towards a beloved country that we are. 01;05;32;15 - 01;05;48;22 J.R. Jamison Jamison: If someone's listening to this and they say, yes, I want to take action. What do they do? What's the best way for them to get involved? Either if they want to explore being a foster parent or get involved in some of the initiatives you just spoke about. 01;05;48;24 - 01;06;09;15 David Ambroz Ambroz: It's great, and I hope people do. And I have heard throughout the last since my books been published about people doing that don't give up. So first of all, that emotion is going to be, you know, like you feel so good after you work out, but you have to go back the next day. So realize that it's going to be something you're going to have to like. 01;06;09;16 - 01;06;30;24 David Ambroz Guard. Unlike a New Year's resolution every day, you're gonna have to revisit it. So what can you do? Again, it's unique to you. So first go local. What's going on in your community. So you're going to have the information gather. You have to understand what's going on in every nook and cranny in this country. There are amazing nonprofits, religious institutions, governmental agencies doing really important work. 01;06;30;29 - 01;06;55;14 David Ambroz Find the one in your community that's interesting to you and see what you can do to support them. Completely doable. Use the internet. Find it. If you're still not sure, reach out. We have. I have my website, David Ambroz. Com which links to my nonprofit called Foster More. Foster more is kind of like a as you will Tinder, which is part of what it's trying to do is match people to what they can do for impact. 01;06;55;21 - 01;07;17;12 David Ambroz But I would encourage people to go local. Find out what you can do in your community aligns with your passion, interest and capabilities. Organizations like Casa, Casa, Court Appointed Special Advocate are on almost every nook and cranny, and it's an example where you can be a mentor. Again, find out what your school does. Your school district does. Support kids. 01;07;17;15 - 01;07;43;01 David Ambroz Stop people when they're around you. Denigrating social workers to stop them say, that's not funny, and they're struggling. And we have underfunded the system and we can do better. So both in our actions, in our volunteerism. And finally, I would say for us collectively, foster care is really a symptom of poverty. It's not it's not in and of itself like a thing. 01;07;43;01 - 01;08;03;29 David Ambroz It is a thing resulting from poverty. I think I mentioned about two thirds of the kids entering the system are there because of neglect. So get curious about that in your community. What are ways we can support families to their kids? Do not end up in foster care. And in that I think again it goes to your unique skills. 01;08;04;01 - 01;08;18;08 David Ambroz If you've close your eyes and you've imagined it, what you would do if your own child was placed in the system, you've taken the hardest first step. Now just stay durable, keep doing that. Keep revisiting that emotion and get curious about your local and just keep plodding. 01;08;18;08 - 01;08;32;05 J.R. Jamison Jamison: David Ambroz, the national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate and author of the bestselling and award winning memoir A Place Called Home. Thank you for joining me today on The Facing Project. 01;08;32;07 - 01;08;33;27 David Ambroz Ambroz: Thank you so much. 01;08;33;29 - 01;08;45;01 J.R. Jamison Jamison: A Place Called Home is out now. Everywhere books are borrowed and sold. More about David Ambroz and his work be found at David Ambroz. 01;08;45;03 - 01;09;02;04 J.R. Jamison Thank you again to David Ambroz for joining me on today's show and to his publisher, Legacy Lit, a division of Grand Central Publishing, for providing a complimentary copy of A Place Called Home. To listen to past episodes of this program, visit Indiana Public. 01;09;02;06 - 01;09;33;09 J.R. Jamison Project, or find us on your favorite podcast app, or on YouTube or on the NPR network. Or just ask your smart speaker to play The Facing Project on NPR to continue the conversation about this episode. Find us on Facebook and Instagram at Facing Project. The Facing project is recorded at Indiana Public Radio at Ball State University, and Beautiful and Wonderful and Evergreen, Muncie, Indiana, and is produced by the amazing producer and audio engineer extraordinaire, Sean Ashcraft. 01;09;33;10 - 01;09;45;08 J.R. Jamison The show is distributed nationally through PRX. I'm your host, J.R. Jamison, and until next time, I wish you the courage to share your own story and the empathy to listen to others.