Create Responsive Government: Octavia Abell
February 9th, 2023
”Public servants can be really transformational.”
Octavia Abell is the co-founder and CEO of Govern For America, which describes its mission as bridging the gap between governments and emerging leaders to build a pipeline of diverse and dynamic public sector talent. We discuss the power of public sector workers to be agents of change, whether that's public policy on climate or streamlining the process of getting a birth certificate.
Government can deliver public policy that improves our daily lives. For example, civil servants are hard at work right now in deploying the broadband and infrastructure funds from the infrastructure bill in 2021. There are many policy areas that young people are really fired up about, like climate. With 40% of the public sector workers nearing retirement, now is an opportunity for young graduates to work in government.
Follow Octavia on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/octavia_abell
Follow Mila on Twitter:
Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/
Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!
http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=standard
Want to support the show and get it early?
https://patreon.com/futurehindsight
Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: Octavia Abell
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham
-
Octavia Abell Transcript
Mila Atmos: [00:00:05] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas about civic life and democracy and turns them into action items for you and me. I'm Mila Atmos. Pen pushers and bureaucrats get a bad rap. There's this tendency to view civil servants, the people who work in government at local, state and federal levels as petty or plodding or as obstacles to business and individuals. But in real life, public servants, the administrators and workers in government buildings all over this country, town halls, state houses, even DMVs, are the front lines of our civic lives and can make a huge difference for our democracy. Our guest today is Octavia Abell. She's the co-founder and CEO of Govern for America. And here's how the organization describes its mission: "Govern for America bridges the gap between governments and emerging leaders to build a pipeline of diverse and dynamic public sector talent." Before launching the organization, Octavia served as director of strategy for the Rhode Island Office of Innovation and on Governor Gina Raimondo's policy team. Thank you for joining us. Welcome to Future Hindsight.
Octavia Abell: [00:01:20] Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Mila Atmos: [00:01:22] So I read a little bit from your mission statement, but help us
understand your organization a little bit better. Briefly, what does GFA do?
Octavia Abell: [00:01:31] So Govern for America is focused on building the next generation of public servants to create a more responsive government that better reflects and serves our communities. And the way that we do that is by connecting early career leaders into high impact roles in government, places where they can have a substantive impact on their community's lives. And we support them with the training and skills and tools to be effective in those roles, while also connecting them into a broader community of leaders doing this work over the long term.
Mila Atmos: [00:02:01] So who are we talking about here? I outlined who I had in mind when thinking about public servants. But who are the public servants and how can they do the job and fulfill the roles that you're talking about?
Octavia Abell: [00:02:12] So Govern for America works with recent graduates, so folks who have less than three years of work experience and we connect them into roles in your State Department of Education or the Department of Economic and Community Development, the Department of Environmental Management. And we're placing them into positions like data analyst roles and program manager roles and policy analyst roles where they can really have a substantive impact on the way you and I experience our day to day. They might be changing the code in the way that a form shows up when we go online to request a driver's license. Right? Or they might be determining who is invited to a community meeting to give feedback on a choice that the department is making, a new policy they're putting forward. They might be working to craft the budget recommendations on what our state governments are spending money on that directly impacts the services and the opportunities that we have to engage. Right. And they're making all of those micro choices every day and interacting with other folks on the team and within their communities that stack up to the all of the systems and all of the ways you and I experience government in our daily lives.
Mila Atmos: [00:03:25] Right, Right. That's excellent. Thanks for like really fleshing that out and giving us good examples, you know, because when we think about, for example, a governor putting together a budget, we don't think about the people who actually do the work. Putting the budget together, before the governor, you know, presents it to the Senate, the state Senate or state assembly or what have you. So what inspired you to start Govern for America?
Octavia Abell: [00:03:48] So I worked in state government in my home state of Rhode Island, and that experience was really powerful. I got to see the power that government has to solve big problems and solve them at scale. But I also had the experience of, you know, often being the only person in the room under the age of 30 when we were talking about the rising cost of college tuition. And I would look around and say, well, you know, can you raise your hand if you're paying student loans? That's one example. And that experience in many others really caused me to reflect on how at a moment when my generation as a millennial and Gen Z feel really frustrated with the outcomes that government is achieving; feel left behind. We're not seeing going into those systems and taking power within those systems as the place to make an impact. So I was really energized by the opportunity that you have in government to work on really big things that directly impact your community, but also the need to have the people
making those choices understand and be reflective of the people who are most impacted by those decisions. And that was really my personal impetus for launching Govern for America to really mobilize alongside my generation and future generations to see government as an avenue for change and to bring their backgrounds, their perspectives, and lived experiences into solving the problems that matter most to all of us.
Mila Atmos: [00:05:13] Mm hmm. Well, I'm really struck by that example about who is paying student loans. So what happened? Were you the only person paying student loans?
Octavia Abell: [00:05:22] That meeting happened to be a bunch of older white guys and me. So I think they were far past the experience of being anywhere near a college classroom.
Mila Atmos: [00:05:31] But I'm curious to know if that actually made them think about what it means to have policy or to write policy, propose policy, if you're not actually directly affected.
Octavia Abell: [00:05:44] I think that's why the work that Governan for America Fellows do and public servants who are proximate to the communities that they're serving are so critical. I think about one of our fellows in the Department of Corrections in Colorado who had a family member incarcerated. And when the pandemic hit, all of the prisons canceled visitation. And we know if we look at the data, that if you are connected to loved ones while you're incarcerated, if you maintain those close ties, not only are you much less likely to end up returning to prison, but you have much more stable housing and employment. But even though we have data that tells us that maintaining close family ties is really important without our fellow ambers work to say, I know what it's like to bear the burden of the cost of prison phone calls to connect with a loved one. I know how much these people are suffering by not being able to call their daughter or their mother or their friend, and she actually worked to create a pilot to provide free video conferencing in the women's prison facility to make sure that folks could stay connected when they weren't able to visit in person. And I think it's by bringing folks who have both the desire to ask the questions of who's not at the table and also can bring their own backgrounds and lived experience into understanding what it feels like to not have
access to a family member because they're incarcerated or to not be able to get access to services because the forms aren't in your language or the process takes so much time. You can't take time off work to engage. It's really critically important that we're able to bring that lens into policy making and view that lived expertise as really a critical tool for creating better public systems.
Mila Atmos: [00:07:36] Mm hmm. Well, so as I said in the introduction, public sector workers are sometimes overlooked and their work is rarely celebrated. And you're giving us some really great examples. But what are some other shout outs about public sector workers that are overlooked? Like, what do they do that most of us don't fully appreciate?
Octavia Abell: [00:07:54] So one incredibly important area of work that public servants are undertaking right now is the deployment of the broadband and infrastructure funds that were passed in the infrastructure bill in 2021. There are hundreds of million dollars going directly to states, but there are also billions, about $42 billion available for broadband in the state. Even though the federal government was what we heard about in the news. States are really responsible for telling us who has access currently to affordable and high speed Internet and where there's an opportunity to reinvest in those communities. And we know, particularly after the pandemic, how important it is to have a connection to reliable Internet at home, not just for engaging with government systems that is so often our front door to public services, but also to apply for jobs, for education. There are so many ways where the Internet is just a basic service that we need. And so we have fellows working in broadband offices across the country to make sure that the data and the maps that we're using are actually counting all of the people in communities who currently don't have access. They're making sure that funding is going to the right places so that we can invest in the digital literacy and equitable processes and systems for making sure folks have access to not just broadband but devices and training to be able to engage in this 21st century economy. And I think any time there's a big sort of national conversation about legislation or a big policy initiative, we often miss out on who is doing the day-to-day work of actually making sure the rubber meets the road. And we experience our lives getting better because of the community listening tours that folks are hosting or the GIS mapping that they're doing to understand what the data landscape looks like. And those are the types of things that
public servants do every day with very little celebration, with very little attention. And it underpins every aspect of our public systems.
Mila Atmos: [00:10:10] Right. Right. So from another angle, what is a persistent myth about public sector workers that you would like to bust?
Octavia Abell: [00:10:19] That's such a great question. I think a persistent myth is that they don't care about the work and they're just deeply committed to the status quo. Every day I see our fellows really moving the needle and pushing the envelope, asking tough questions, and I see the people on their teams really trying to do the work in a new way to think about how has our government contributed to systemic inequities and what can we do to change that. I think about, you know, asking the tough questions and really being willing to try things in a new way. And I think about one of our fellows in the Louisiana Department of Health who realized that it was taking 90 days for hospitals to fix errors with birth certificates when children were born in the hospitals. And, you know, of course, a hospital spending time fixing errors means they have less time to devote to caring for patients. And so Evan undertook a project to understand, well, what was actually happening. Where was all this time coming from that was spent fixing these errors. And he realized that the IT systems in the Department of Health weren't set up to deal with hyphens in hyphenated names. They weren't set up to deal with accent marks in names. And so in Louisiana, this was disproportionately impacting members of the Latinx community. And by understanding what that end-to-end process looked like and being able to ask questions around, do we really need this step? Do we really need this step? He was able to reduce the process time and the time to address errors by 81%, and that's 81% more time that the hospital has back to care for patients. That's 81% more time that the families who want to be dealing and spending time bonding with their new child can do that, rather than be, you know, frustrated with an experience with form. And I think, you know, those are the types of stories we need to be telling and we need to really understand how public policy connects to our lives and what we can do to actually celebrate the people and encourage more people to go and do that really, really important work. I always come back to this idea that people are policy and if we want to change outcomes in our government, that actually starts with human beings who are making the day-to-day decisions and empowering people around them to think about solving problems in new ways.
Mila Atmos: [00:12:47] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Well, that's a great example of how a public sector worker has really made a difference in an everyday life situation, both for the people who have new babies and for the hospital. But you just talked about policy and people being policy. How are public sector workers agents for change?
Octavia Abell: [00:13:09] I think they're agents for change in many ways. One of the most critical is by showing up as themselves, authentically bringing their full identities and lived experiences to the work, to challenge the status quo, to challenge when government agencies are making decisions that disproportionately impact certain communities. We know that government has a legacy where it's harmed people and it's harmed members of our communities. It's harmed people who are already the most marginalized. And so there's work that particularly when folks are coming in who share the identities of those communities to really elevate that voice. I think there's also another way that public servants are incredible change agents is by thinking about what it looks like to to do government differently, to bring more of a human centered lens and orient all of their work around the people who they're serving rather than the process as it exists. I think that can be hugely, hugely transformational, and I think they can be change agents by telling their stories and telling stories of the type of work that you can do in government. When I was graduating from college, if you were someone who saw yourself as wanting to do social impact work and you looked around, you didn't hear a lot of people encouraging you to go into government. In fact, they said, you know, why don't you go into consulting and then, you know, learn the processes and then pivot and transition into government. And I think public servants can be really transformational by talking about the work that they're doing and motivating other folks to come be part of this coalition, of people who believe that government can be a positive avenue for change in our lives, and who also believe that we can build a collective government that we all want to be a part of. I mean, what would it look like if going to the DMV was the highlight of your day? What would it look like if you were really excited to engage with your state or your local Department of Education or school board because you felt empowered to have an impact on your child's education? And public servants are the forefront, the front line of doing that. They're the first people we interact with when we're engaging with this big behemoth that is government.
Mila Atmos: [00:15:42] We're taking a quick break to share about a fellow democracy group podcast, The Bully Pulpit. The Center for the Political Future at the University of
Southern California brings together top Republicans and Democrats to transcend partisan divisions and explore practical solutions to our most pressing national and global challenges. On the Bully Pulpit, every exchange is guided by standards central to the Center for the Political Future's mission. Respect each other and respect the truth. Opponents are adversaries, not enemies. And if you lose, don't burn down the stadium. Subscribe to the Bully Pulpit podcast today.
And now let's return to my conversation with Octavia Abell.
I'm a little bit curious that you did not decide to stay within government. So what made you pivot and do this from the outside as opposed to the inside? Like why didn't you stay at the Rhode Island government and, you know, stand up a recruiting system within?
Octavia Abell: [00:16:44] The reason that I left government to solve this problem is because the problem is bigger than one state. When I was in Rhode Island and I looked around, we had at that time we had about 40% of the workforce eligible to retire. And we weren't seeing young people stepping up, believing that they could fill those roles, wanting to fill those roles. And so when today in 2023, if we look at the data over the past year, 50% of surveyed state and local government workers have considered leaving their jobs. There's a huge talent crisis that our states are facing. And I felt the urgency of the moment, not just in making sure that people are in place to really support our communities when we're facing really big shocks like the COVID pandemic or stresses like climate change or opportunities like the level of investment that we have now with the infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, where we can really do transformational work. I felt like the impact I could have by bringing this conversation into a national space and really mobilizing alongside a network of folks across the country was where I could be best positioned to serve at this moment in time. That being said, as a millennial, I don't think about work in a linear trajectory. I have not stayed in and won't stay in one job for 30 years. And so I think I feel connected to this home base of public servants. And I do see myself going back in to serve in another government role at some point when the time is right. And I think we need to be able to have that close knit community of folks who over the arc of their careers, want to contribute to our public systems and making them more inclusive and more equitable in a meaningful way, even if that means we don't stay in the same job for 30 years.
Mila Atmos: [00:18:44] Right. Right. Well, you mentioned something about people wanting to leave the workforce. And I think I also read that 30% of public sector workers are about to retire, which tells me that it's an aging workforce. So what is your focus when you recruit people to your programs? What are the gaps that you see as needing to be filled?
Octavia Abell: [00:19:05] It's a great question. And you're right that if we look at the federal level and at the state level, about 6% of the workforce is under 30. The median age of state and local government employees far exceeds the median age of Americans. We really do need to be thinking about how we recruit and how we invest in the next generation When we are looking for folks to come into this work, we're looking for what skills they would bring. So do they have skill sets that are often not or less represented in government? We need people with technical skills. We need people who can analyze data and use that data to tell a story, to mobilize others to act. We need people who have really strong project management skills and who can navigate through complex environments and take a project from start to completion. We need people who are bringing their beliefs and their mindsets that we can transform our systems and have this passion for the work and for doing things differently. I think that innovation and sort of entrepreneurial mindset is really valuable and really needed in government, not just to bring a new lens of thinking in, but also to create a sense within folks who are already working there that it's okay to try things new and have kind of a coalition of partners within these systems who are working to transform them from the inside out. Fundamentally, we also look for people who want to be doing this work in a way that's centering on equity and that centering on human beings. They're doing this because they care. They're doing this because they want people's lives to be better. And that human connection is really, really critical. And it's one of the big things that we look for when we're recruiting candidates into the fellowship.
Mila Atmos: [00:21:02] So a while back, we spoke to Amanda Renteria, who runs Code for America, and their focus is on trying to improve systems to provide better governance. Right. And I think it's really interesting that what you are doing is to try to level up the people who build those systems, meaning the workers who are the human face of those systems. So how does GFA support public servants? What do you do to train them?
Octavia Abell: [00:21:25] So we have a series of nine leadership competencies, and those really make up the foundation of our two year experience in the fellowship, which is really oriented around how do we support you to do your job really effectively and to become someone who is trusted on your team that other people will listen to and we support them to think about what is it actually look like to center communities. In your work as a policymaker, what does it look like to do this work in a way where you can tell a compelling story and mobilize others to join your movement? And so our training focuses on community building and gathering folks so they have those close relationships. It focuses on building their skills from how to write an effective memo, to set really strong goals and to use data in their work. And then it focuses on what does it look like to keep you feeling engaged and sustained and affirmed in the work? So we do a lot of coaching, mentorship with our fellows because the work can be really hard and there's a reason that people are burning out in public service. It's because we're not investing enough in keeping them affirmed and whole in really challenging environments. And so governance for America is not just thinking about how do we identify people with the aptitude for this work, how do we support them to be effective? But it's also how do we create a community and a network that holds them and where people feel like they can keep coming back to this work and can keep making an impact and it's sustainable for them in their lives and in their careers. And I think if you take care of your people, your people are the ones who will be able to take care of the systems and the processes and have the, you know, the mental brain space and the heart space to be able to think about who else can I partner with, who can I bring in, how can I do something beyond what's just in my written on my typical job duties, but how can I think a little bit bigger or differently?
Mila Atmos: [00:23:42] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Well, so now that you are... Are in your fifth cohort, is that what it is?
Octavia Abell: [00:23:48] We are bringing on our fifth cohort this year. Yes.
Mila Atmos: [00:23:50] So now that you are in your fifth cohort of fellows, what are some of the biggest things you've learned since starting the program in terms of taking care of the people who enter the workforce and public sector and also making sure that they stay?
Octavia Abell: [00:24:05] I think one of the biggest things we've learned is that there is no replacement for that human connection and that you really need to invest deeply in people who are doing hard work. When I started thinking about the curriculum back in 2018, 2019, before we had launched Fellows, I thought the most important thing we would invest in would be around the hard skills, right? You know, what does it look like to build up your policy expertise? What does it look like to know how to query skill and, you know, build visualizations in Tableau, write a memo. Those are all important things. But the biggest value I've seen that allows all of that other work to be possible is through the community. And I think that's been one of my biggest lessons in launching GFA and in leading this team and investing in our community has been really... If you center an organization on people, magical things can happen.
Mila Atmos: [00:25:17] Oh, that's really beautiful. Well, I'm thinking here about what you said about keeping people and what you learn about building, you know, the human skills and burning out. Some public servants have also faced targeted harassment recently, threats and worse, in recent years. I'm thinking about election workers, public health officials, even librarians. So do you worry about that chilling effect? Is it something you come across when you are trying to recruit people?
Octavia Abell: [00:25:44] That's a great question. I mean, you know, that actually hits home to me because my mom is a librarian and I think about this a lot. Our number one priority when we're placing fellows is to make sure that they are in safe and supportive environments. And if a place becomes an environment that is not safe and supportive, we will take the steps that we need to make changes. But I do think that we really need to be supporting one another as a collective and really investing in the scale that this problem exists. It's going to take all of us, not just recent graduates, but, you know, older millennials like me. It's going to take people who are more senior in their careers and want to dedicate a tour of service into government. It's going to take people really stepping up and moving into investing in our public systems with their time and their vision and their expertise in order for us to feel like we have the movement and the people power in order to do this work when it's really hard. It can be hard, it can be challenging, and it can be scary. But I think that if we aren't showing up in these spaces, who is? And that's a question that I bring to myself and think about a lot. And I think there's urgency to this work. If you look at the most recent reports from Pew survey on
whether people trust government, only 24% of Americans trust government to do what's right. That's a big problem. And in the conversations that we're having about trust in our democracy, trust in our elections, if there aren't people who are making ethical choices and leading with integrity in those places, I worry that will continue to diminish that trust. And so I think now is really the time to make sure that we can resource all of these institutions and that people are coming in and showing up in ways where they're able to highlight the bright spots. It's not an easy question, but I think it's really important that we all think about where we are best positioned to add value at this moment in time.
Mila Atmos: [00:28:06] Hmm. So, well, when you are recruiting people, what have you found to be the most compelling thing to say for them to consider a career in public service?
Octavia Abell: [00:28:17] You know, we've done some message testing with an incredible team called the People Lab out of the Harvard Kennedy School to understand actually what language really works. If you want to recruit a diverse applicant pool and support them to persist through the process. One of the most compelling messages for folks is around joining the movement and also changing the system. So I think young people today are really getting excited about this idea that things can be different and they can play a role in that. There's a myth that nothing ever changes in a bureaucracy, right? It's always the same, always the same. And I think Gen-Z in particular is really unwilling to accept that in a way that I find really powerful. I think another thing that we always hear about jobs don't pay as well in government, and there's certainly some truth to that. You're not going to be compensated at the level that you might make at Meta or Google, but there can often be really compelling benefits packages. And compared to a lot of other social impact work, state salaries can actually be quite competitive in that space. And so really showing the opportunities that you have and the types of investments that can be made in you at the state and local level, I think is another thing we talk about. We also just talk about the opportunity to really connect in to issue areas that you care about and directly impact them. So climate change, education, criminal justice reform, there are so many of these policy areas that young people are really fired up about. And you can go into a system where you actually hold power in influencing the outcomes of those areas directly. You're not just advocating for someone else to do it. You are doing that. That's pretty cool! I think it's a really cool thing to be able to do at 22 or 23 years old.
Mila Atmos: [00:30:13] Right. So this is the perfect segue into this next question. Are there any policy areas in particular that you think are ripe for public sector boosting?
Octavia Abell: [00:30:22] I think climate and the environment is a huge one. There's a lot of opportunity with the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed by Congress. Often when the federal government passes big spending bills, the places where the rubber meets the road on the policy implementation is at the state level. And so states will be getting tons of money to make investments and young people can be at the forefront of that implementation. And I think that's really exciting. You brought up elections. I think elections is a huge opportunity in investing in our election systems, making sure that we have safe and secure, free and fair elections. I would say broadband and digital equity. We're making a once in a generational investment in that critical infrastructure and to make sure that we have the data and we understand where we can target those investments. So no communities are left behind to make sure that we are thinking creatively about how to build that critical infrastructure. I think that's a really cool opportunity. And criminal justice reform is another area that I see a huge amount of interest from our applicants. Many of the places where criminal justice policies play out is actually at the state level. And so you have a huge opportunity working in Department of Corrections to really influence what that policy looks like and how it impacts people. So those are just a few, but I think that's actually the most exciting thing about government. To me, no matter what wakes you up in the morning, you can find an opportunity to work on it in government and using policy as process improvement as a critical lever for change.
Mila Atmos: [00:32:04] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So this is a show about civic engagement, about how all of us can do something or should do something, and about ideas about the things that we could be doing. So what are two things an everyday person can do to support public sector workers? To support this idea that we need to have more people join the public sector?
Octavia Abell: [00:32:27] Well, the the first one I'll say is apply to go work in government. There's a huge need for you to bring your skills and your talents, whether those are communications, research, program management, data. There's a huge opportunity for you to literally invest your time. And I think that's one of the best things
we can all do. But on top of that, I would say really seek to learn and hear these stories of people, you know, who work in government and people you don't know to try to tell, tell the positive stories. We hear a lot about the negative stories in government. That's often what gets covered. But let's talk about the wins in a way that get more people excited about what government can be and what we can do through our public systems. You really support everyone in our communities and to create more opportunity. And related to that communications piece, I would say go and learn and give feedback. If you hear that there's a meeting where they're asking for the public to come comment on a proposed policy change and the time doesn't work for you because they've scheduled it at a point when you need to pick your kid up from school. Tell them that. Make sure that they have the opportunity to understand where they need to do better. And I think actually engaging not just in the electoral space, not just in the advocacy space--both of those are important--but engage with the actual day to day functioning of government.
Mila Atmos: [00:34:00] Mm hmm. Good advice. Good advice. Instead of just skipping the meeting saying, well, that's inconvenient, actually communicate to the public official about why it's inconvenient and how they can do better. So here's my last question. Looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
Octavia Abell: [00:34:15] I'm really hopeful about the next generation and seeing Gen Z really step up and step into their power as leaders. I just came back from St Louis where we were gathering our fellows for one of our quarterly convenings, and the stories I heard, the way they support one another really gives me hope for how the next generation of public servants is poised and is already leading. And related to that, I get really excited any time I read applications for future GFA Fellows. The way people talk about how their personal story has led them to this work and this belief that where they can best engage and support their communities is through public service makes me really optimistic about the world we can build together if we invest in people in leading that world into fruition.
Mila Atmos: [00:35:14] Awesome. Well, let me ask you one more question then. If you want to be a GFA fellow, what do you do? What's the first step?
Octavia Abell: [00:35:21] You can go to www.Govern4America.org and you can check out our application, log up to receive our newsletter, and we'll keep you apprised of future opportunities coming to a state near you.
Mila Atmos: [00:35:37] Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us on Future Hindsight. It was really a pleasure to have you on.
Octavia Abell: [00:35:43] Thanks for having me, Mila.
Mila Atmos: [00:35:44] Octavia Abell is the co-founder and CEO of Govern for America. Next week on Future Hindsight, America's major coastal cities are in the midst of acute housing crises. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless and there are few signs of improvement despite all the hand-wringing and political campaigning. On next week's show, we are going to talk to Gregg Colburn about how to actually crack this crisis.
Gregg Colburn: [00:36:14] We know that poverty causes homelessness. I would never suggest otherwise. But when you look at the most impoverished cities in the country, Detroit being the most impoverished city in the country, they have far lower rates of homelessness than very affluent places like Seattle and San Francisco and New York and Boston. And so that is a tough one for people to wrap their head around.
Mila Atmos: [00:36:32] Homelessness and what we need to do to fix it with Gregg Colburn. He's the co-author of Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain US Patterns. That's next time on Future Hindsight.
Have you checked us out on Instagram yet? We've got a bunch more tips to help you build your Civic action toolkit. Follow us on Instagram @futurehindsightpod to get special updates, episode clips, and everything in between.
This episode was produced by Zack Travis and Sara Burningham. Until next time, stay engaged.
The Democracy Group: [00:37:14] This podcast is part of the democracy group.