Marvin Olasky

Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture

Archives

Going Deeper

Marvin Olasky
January 5, 2024
The homes were all of different colors—and trauma colored each of my new neighbors’ stories, as I would find out. 

Motivations to Change

Marvin Olasky
December 15, 2023
Recognizing the trauma means not insisting on too much too soon, but providing incentives to go beyond thinking about how to get the next meal and the next night’s sleep.

The Middle of the Country

Marvin Olasky
October 27, 2023
Judges give men and women who admit their guilt a choice: years of jail time or enrollment in Faith’s 13-month New Beginnings program.

Diving Into Numbers

Marvin Olasky
October 20, 2023
the blessings we don’t have enough of: family, community, hospitality. And sometimes we need more housing. 

Sunday Morning Medications

Marvin Olasky
October 6, 2023
Soon after he entered OCRM, but left after 90 days and starting doing meth again, disappointing his son. But he returned in 2017, and this time he made his second chance work.

Searching for solutions

Marvin Olasky
September 29, 2023
In July, walking around the fifty blocks of the Tenderloin, San Francisco’s fentanyl epicenter, I often saw notes like this one posted on lampposts: “Mimi—5’, 100 lbs.—we miss you terribly. Please call any family member. Please call 202 .” The Mimis are often hidden in tents, but even for a first-time visitor like me, the dealers and their deals were highly visible. Dealers, often teenagers in clean Nikes, walked alongside potential buyers. They did not just stand at particular corners, as a great streaming television series based in Baltimore, The Wire, showed: These dealers floated up and down a block. Police say they are independent contractors, trying to establish their own clientele, and earning $300 or more on an average day by selling mostly fentanyl but also meth, …

One Size Does Not Fit All

Marvin Olasky
September 22, 2023
Let’s take a one-week break from my reporting on California homelessness to celebrate this Big News! FR-6700-N-25! Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)! Maybe that sentence was MEGO to you (mine eyes glaze over) but it’s GOGOGO for government and nonprofit executives looking for federal dollars. The Department of Housing and Urban Affairs is passing out billions “in competitive funding to homeless services organizations across the country for supportive services and housing programs for people experiencing homelessness.” HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge announced, “As our nation faces a worsening housing crisis, it is imperative that we continue to invest in communities’ efforts.” Specifically, HUD is looking for projects that “end homelessness for all persons …

It’s Friday, and Meth’s No Fun Any More

Marvin Olasky
September 15, 2023
Let’s go back to the campus of the Orange County Rescue Mission (OCRM), where each formerly homeless student wears a lanyard that holds up an electronic ID card. The card is a key for his or her bedroom but also tracks whether and when the students show up at their class or work assignments. Freshmen — students in the first 3-5 months of what is typically an 18-month program — go through assessments of physical and mental health, educational and legal status, computer skills and financial understanding. They participate in therapy groups, work through three books in a Design for Discipleship series, and wear yellow lanyards. Sophomores wear green lanyards, get all the documents and character references they need to pursue a job, get help from Trinity Law School interns in …

Heading Toward Recovery

Marvin Olasky
September 8, 2023
As my last column showed, the San Francisco government dismisses addicts from hospitals and returns them to the Tenderloin’s drug-laden open arms. Many San Francisco taxpayers have grown cynical about the streets-hospital-streets routine, with ineffective policing and insufficient 30-day drug/alcohol rehab programs thrown in. The San Francisco circle game permanently helps almost no one but costs thousands of dollars per day of hospitalization, tens of thousands for a typical insurance-paid rehab program, and millions in grants to politically-connected nonprofits that merely enable drug use. You can research this yourself by looking at website ads for drug and alcohol addiction programs. One typical ad emphasizes private rooms with queen- or king-sized beds, amenities like indoor …