Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada

Urban Farmer & Philanthropist

• Paul Estrada • Season 1 • Episode 5

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What happens when one person dares to dream big in a forgotten space? Steven Yorba took an empty lot in Pomona, California, and turned it into a flourishing three-acre urban farm, bringing fresh food and hope to an underserved community. In this episode, we dive into Steven’s inspiring journey of resilience, food justice, and community empowerment, proving that a little dirt and a lot of passion can transform lives.

But that’s just the beginning! We also explore the delicate balance between ambition and contentment in raising kids, reflect on how punk rock rebellion shapes unconventional career paths, and take a deep dive into the realities of homelessness and the power of service learning. From urban farming to breaking societal norms, this conversation will challenge, inspire, and leave you rethinking the unexpected paths life can take. 

Speaker 1:

Like, do you sometimes see things that, like your friends maybe have like at school or something? You're just like oh, I wish I had that. When I went to my friend Joshua's house, he had so many toys, even though he's younger than me. Yeah, so how did that make you feel, though? Like everywhere I go, I see toys, toys, toys, toys, toys, right. So do you like? Does it mean because you wish you had those toys too?

Speaker 1:

Some toys look really cool, but some don't. I'm fine with what I have. You're fine with what you have. Yeah, I'm fine.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome son.

Speaker 1:

I think there's some people it happens to me sometimes too where I'm happy with what I have and then other times I'm like, oh, I wish I see other people that have stuff and I'm like, oh, I wish I had that or I wish I had that. And then I have to remind myself, like, no, I think what we have is enough, right, like that's enough. Yeah, you're right, you're right. Right, maybe I'll think about it when I get a little older. Okay, all right, see you bye, see ya bye.

Speaker 1:

Our guest today has, well, probably more titles than anyone I've interviewed so far. He's a philanthropist, a participatory activist, an urban farmer and an educator. During his time dedicating 25 years to education, he initiated a community service outreach program aimed at uplifting the less fortunate in Pomona, california, the very place he was born and raised. Serving the community opened his eyes to a much greater need to drive impact, which led him to transforming a vacant urban lot into a thriving three-acre farm that now serves as a vital resource for local residents. I'm thrilled to reconnect and dive into this inspiring journey with my longtime friend, steven Yorba. So let's ride. Let's ride on through the rain, come on and take me anywhere that you wanna be, so let's ride. I think you know what I mean when I said that, steve.

Speaker 2:

Jokester how you been. I miss you. I've been great.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's good to see you here on the farm.

Speaker 1:

I probably haven't seen you since before COVID, it's been a while.

Speaker 2:

That's sad. It's been a while.

Speaker 1:

That's my fault.

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna blame myself for that no, you know, we're both busy, yeah, yeah that's the, that's the cop out.

Speaker 1:

We could both say that, steve, come on. If we really wanted to see each other, we could have I make excuses. Yeah, I do attendance make excuses well you've been a busy, you've been a busy man. So we are currently. Where are we right now? Can you you describe to the folks where we are?

Speaker 1:

We are in Pomona, california, the Six Peas, which is six districts in Pomona, so we're in the second district of something that you wanted to do, and I think a lot of us have ideas about things that we want to do and want to accomplish and dreams that we have, and I'll be the first to admit I've rarely, if ever, pursue those dreams. I just kind of live my life, and so I really wanted to talk to you today, because you are one of the few that has had a dream and are, you know, are in the process of executing it, and so we're sitting here today on what a three acre farm in the middle of Pomona.

Speaker 2:

Yep Three acre urban farm in the middle of Pomona.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so just if you could take us back to when did this vision or idea come to you? And you know how have you turned it into a reality?

Speaker 2:

Probably the way, the vision for this place, I think, was kind of born when I went to seminary. I went to Claremont School of Theology and I felt like I needed to take a break at a time and go back to school and just have a time to sit and think about what the next chapter of my life would be about. And that led me to looking at movements around agriculture and the importance of local agriculture, and I found a lot of examples throughout the United States and the world. But I always found these projects centered around agriculture in more white, privileged spaces and I thought, well, how would that work in a community that's a majority Latinx and underfunded communities like the one I grew up here in Pomona? And that led me to looking at urban agriculture as perhaps an answer. I was really looking at issues of food justice. If there is an issue of justice around food and the way people have access to food or don't have access to food, how their needs are not being met, then what is the answer to that?

Speaker 1:

And can you help us describe or explain that a little bit more? So when you say what you just said, some things that come to mind are okay. There are people that are maybe on the lower economic scale. They're part of these government food programs, like food stamps, and they talk about how, when people don't have that money or they're limited on funds, they're relying on cheap fast food more regularly, which is leading to health issues and things like that. So is that what you're referring to?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we used to refer to it as food deserts, right, these spaces in communities where it's more difficult to access really good, fresh food, and these communities then become dependent on unhealthy sources of food.

Speaker 2:

So their options are very limited. Right, I don't really like to use food desert because I don't think that that really explains the system that's created this inequality. I use the term food apartheid because apartheid is a system of racism and segregation. Right, and I think that that explains the system that traps people into these communities where they don't have the resources to survive and thrive as families, but they very much do want to thrive, you know they want the best for their kids and their families.

Speaker 2:

But they very much do want to thrive. They want the best for their kids and their families, but they're trapped in these communities where choices are limited, where their decision making is taken from them, and especially around food. And so, yeah, we do have the old trope of there being a liquor store on every corner, fast food on every corner. Right, and that's very much true right when there are limited resources when it comes to families being able to feed themselves in terms of really good, fresh food. Right, like here in in south pomona, you're not going to find one trader, joe's, you're not going to find you know a whole foods or a sprouts. And there's a reason for that right, right, economically, those, those um entities are not going to open up.

Speaker 1:

You know markets down here right um, they want the deep pockets, and those deep pockets aren't here and those deep pockets are not here so if you go.

Speaker 2:

If you go a few miles into Claremont, then suddenly we see all these health food options, right, that community gets to have access to. Why don't we have the same access here in South Pomona? And so there's something very wrong in that right, right.

Speaker 1:

So I think a lot of people, myself included we see these injustices and we see these things happening and we just choose not to act, or we give ourselves the excuse that we're too busy with our lives, that we don't act. Like I said at the beginning, you did act right, so maybe just talk us through. How do you get to a point or are you for those that they have these strong opinions but don't do anything about it Like how do they go from the ideas in their heads to actually executing something in the real world?

Speaker 2:

I've always, I think, been like a visionary. I have these visions, right, of what I want to do, right, and to me it's always been really important to make them a reality. We can talk all we want, right. It's like when I was in graduate school, right, and we're theoretically looking at all this stuff, right, and I was looking at food co-ops and communal living around agriculture and, like I said, I always found these happening in white, privileged spaces where they have the money to live, like that. But I wanted to know how that would work in a community, underserved community, like South Pomona.

Speaker 2:

And in graduate school I spent a lot of time looking at that theoretically. But to me, you know, as an educator too, in academia, we spend so much of our time, you know, in the theoretical realm. And what's important to me is to take those theoretical ideas and harness them and bring them back down to the earth and actually build them, because that, for me, is the only way in which you can really test out your ideas to see if they will really work or not. Right, and we can talk all we want, sure, right, and we can make it work in our mind's eye, but until I actually see it, you know, I kind of put it used to say, put handlebars on it and a seat on it and ride it around and see if it actually works.

Speaker 2:

I have to get to that place, otherwise it doesn't make sense of why I would have all these visionary ideas and never test them out in reality, and that's just the way I'm hardwired, and so there's something in me that allows me to be able to take a vision and to make it a reality on the ground, and that's basically what the farm is.

Speaker 1:

I think, steve, so you're educating me right now and maybe coaching me, but so, like I said, I've got these ideas and visions in my head as well, but I don't actually, and from my perspective, a lot of it is because I think of it like this is a great idea, but I got to overcome this and that and this, and again I don't have time. And there's this, I would have to go through this hurdle, and yeah, but there's something similar to this that's maybe that's too closely aligned, right? So you start coming up with all the reasons why it can't work. So how do you get past that part?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, overthinking, you know, and not that it doesn't take thought and research and planning, but at some point you have to be able to execute.

Speaker 2:

And that's, I guess, a knack that I have. Right, and I'll tell you right, it's not about me not worrying about things or not seeing the obstacles, but I have to push those out of the way, because if you were to look inside my head or inside my body, I'm constantly worried about this or that. I can talk myself out of things or justify why it won't work. It's not like I don't have that going on inside me. I just have this way of pushing it back to the back burner and being able to take all that inner dialogue and say, okay, I hear you, but I'm gonna put you on the back burner for now and I'm going to move forward and make something happen. And as soon as I am able to overcome those voices in my head and put one thing into action that gives me the confidence to put the next foot forward and do the next indicated step. And you just keep putting that foot forward, the next indicated step, and before you know it, You've got a three-acre farm in downtown Pomona.

Speaker 2:

You've got a three-acre farm in downtown Pomona.

Speaker 1:

There you go. That's amazing.

Speaker 2:

It's also a lot of hard work too, yeah for sure. For whatever reason, growing up with my father in construction, the one thing I did gain from him was a work ethic of knowing how to work hard. There's the ability to be able to face obstacles, the ability to face problems, to face the things that people say about you, oh, you can't do that, you'll never do that, and just kind of put your head down and grind it out and keep going forward, despite what everybody else is saying. Right, I think I learned that from my father. I saw my father get up every day at four o'clock in the morning and go to the job site and work his ass off, yeah, and come home at night, right, and have dinner. He took me to work with him at a very early age and it was hard work.

Speaker 1:

What age are we talking?

Speaker 2:

My dad took me to the job site when I was six years old Wow, and I basically just played in the dirt with blocks of wood, you know, and a hammer. But by the time I was in 10 years old, he gave me my first job, paid me $3 an hour, wow, sweeping out homes that had just been framed. Yeah. And by the time I was in high school, I had to work for my father every summer, because it's the only way I could have money to buy a car. Yeah, because he made me buy my own cars, and so I worked with him every summer and I was always a laborer for him, which meant I was always working next to immigrant labor, right, yeah, I learned so much from these guys. That was their whole life, yeah, and they worked their asses off.

Speaker 2:

Man, there's just something about when it gets really, really hard to put your head down and grind the day out and get through it, no matter how hard it is, and then you go home and you blow off steam and you get up the next morning and you go do it again. Yeah. My word for that, I think, is grit. Oh, yeah, for sure, and I don't know how much grit the younger generations have.

Speaker 1:

I want to call myself out here Steve. So I've been, and my wife and I have been, fortunate enough to build a really nice life for ourselves and for our children, and I struggle with that. Today we have, you know, we have a gardener that cuts my grass every Friday, we have a cleaning lady that comes in and cleans our bathrooms every two weeks, and those are things that, you know, we wanted for ourselves. That being said, I am questioning, or trying to figure out, how do I teach my son exactly what you just said? It was like I work in an office sitting at the computer all day right. It's a different kind of mentality, and so what.

Speaker 1:

I can share with you is and this is my own little win but you know, I'm putting away the Christmas decorations. Last week and I'm doing it by myself and I pulled down the lights and I like to to unstring the the the bulbs from the strings and put everything away nicely. And I said you know what? My son's in there, it's a Saturday morning watching cartoons. I said you know, I'm going to get him out here and I'm going to have him take these things off and I'm going to have him put this stuff away. And he did it. And he did it. I thought I was going to, you know he was going to maybe push back a little bit or what you're talking about is like a whole two or three levels ahead. But I think, you know, for people listening to this, that might be more like white collar professionals, like I do think we struggle with cause. We do want our kids to be grounded, we want them to get that work ethic and it's honestly it's really hard to figure that out.

Speaker 2:

It is, yeah, you know, raising my son. I obviously, by the time I had my son, I made a career in education. Right, I decided I wasn't going to stay in construction like my father, even though he wanted me to. I chose to go and get a college degree and become an educator. I still had the tools that my father gave me right how to work with power tools and how to build things and how to work hard and how to dig a ditch and be able to grind it out right. Obviously, I didn't raise my son like that, right, I wasn't in the same context as I was raised.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

But challenged my son, like you said, with your son right to come out on a Saturday morning. Some of the things I had to do growing up with my father was I had to cut the grass, I had to pick up the dog shit. Those were my jobs, right. I had to work with my father in the garage changing the oil, right, and those are things I had to do. I had no choice.

Speaker 2:

My father came from a different school, right, he was pretty harsh and he wanted what he wanted, right, and it wasn't like a suggestion, Like I had no choice but to do these things right. I was different than that as a father, right. I think I was more sympathetic, right? Yeah, I gave my son more leeway. I didn't want to be a hard ass like my father, but I did want to instill a certain work ethic in my son, and it was difficult. I wasn't quite sure how to do that, right, but I would like you did. I would have him go out on Saturdays and Sundays and help me with things. And whenever I built anything or landscaped you know, I landscaped my entire house that I had, I re-landscaped it and I had him out there helping me. And you know there was some reluctance, right Because he grew up with computers and computer games and he spent a lot of time in his room.

Speaker 2:

But he also liked to read and he liked to draw, so I allowed him to do that. But I would also challenge him to come outside and spend time outside.

Speaker 2:

I also told him I gave him an ultimatum that every point in his growing up he had to play sports. He had to play one sport. He had to be outside, he had to be challenged in himself physically, he had to be on the team and learn about what it means to be a teammate and responsible to a team. He had to go to every practice right Because his team was counting on him Absolutely. So things like that right I really instilled in him and I think he got a lot of that right. And then when we were building this Lopez Urban Farm, I've had him out here doing all kinds of construction projects with me. I'll call him up and say, hey, I'm about ready to build this or that or the other. Uh, come on out and spend the day with me and help. Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

Well, I want to, uh, I want to go back. I know we're bouncing around a little bit, but you did touch on something that, um, we do need to talk a little bit more about, and that was prior to you, um, starting, uh, this farm. You were an educator for 25 years, and so I do want to talk about your experience there and how that may have contributed to, as part of the journey, to you getting here today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I did in education. You know, there was this crossroads where my father really wanted me to build a career in construction. I didn't have the best relationship with him and so probably when I was younger, it was an act of rebellion that I was going to go a different way.

Speaker 1:

Well, one thing we didn't touch on is you're punk rock at heart. Well, no, you are punk rock to this day. So it's not surprising to hear you say that, Steve.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's the other thing. Is that punk rock mentality Coming of age in the late 70s, early 80s? I did fall into the punk rock scene and to me that's a way of life, it's a mentality that you have right and it always made sense to me.

Speaker 1:

And so I have For those that don't know, because I also grew up a little. I haven't talked about that yet, but I also grew up punk rock. I was in a punk rock band, I had the Mohawk, I had the whole thing. But I think a lot of our listeners are probably listening to this right now saying what the heck does that mean? Yeah, what is growing up punk rock mean? What does that mentality mean to you?

Speaker 2:

It means a lot of things For me. It's just like you know. Part of it's just not giving a shit what people think. Yeah, Right, yeah. People are kind of deterred from doing things because they care too much about what people think or what the status quo thinks is the right thing to do, and it just gave me the ability to just not care what people think. I'm going to go tell me I can't do it, and that gives me even more reason to do it.

Speaker 1:

So there's like a level of defiance. There's a defiance against authority. There's a defiance against authority there's. There's like that.

Speaker 2:

There's, yeah, a defiance against authority, like I hate to be told what to do.

Speaker 1:

I hate I hate authority.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, if you tell me I can't do it, I'm going to do it 10 times more. Right? The have-nots. It gave me a sense of wanting to champion the have-nots, you know, and so also, I think that that was a sense of what I gained from growing up as punk rock, right?

Speaker 1:

But you're still that. You have that mentality today and I think take off your hat again. I think you're. What color is that? I'm colorblind, but let's go with neon green.

Speaker 2:

Is that it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah All right, you know, I still have that a little bit in me. Steve, Like the song. The intro song for this is by MXPX, who is a punk rock band that I loved listening to growing up.

Speaker 1:

They're still around today and so I have that mentality to a degree. But again, I think there's a theme emerging here and it's that I was like the um, the punk light version of you. Right, you're like the hardcore punk rock. I'm like punk light. I think um, but I do think yeah, for people that aren't that familiar with it, it was like um. For me it was. I don't like the songs on the radio. I like uh, going against the grain. To me it was kind of cool to be different and to listen to things that were different. Um, the way people were dressed, like you said, like not caring, wearing um, clothing from thrift shops and, um, you know, having these crazy mohawks and piercings, and yeah, just basically saying like I'm gonna be who I want to be and I don't really care what, what you think, and yeah it's kind of like I.

Speaker 2:

I looked around me and I saw so many people just giving in to the norm.

Speaker 1:

The norm, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And as if that's the way you have to live or that's the only way you can live. I mean, you know we're born into a world of possibilities, right? And who says you have to be like this or act like this, or attain these things, or go after this, dream things or go after this dream? You know, I saw that as an educator. You know the educational system pushing kids down this road of of well, this is uniformity, uniformity, this is the way you have to go.

Speaker 2:

You've you, especially in a college, prep, high school, right, we've. We figured that all of our kids were going to go to the ivy league and they were going to become doctors and lawyers, so they could make money, so they could have all the things that rich people have, and that's the kind of life and we were just kind of pushing kids down this, funneling down them down this tunnel. Yeah, and for me, that that's never made sense to me, if I'm born into this world of possibilities, I can be anything I want to be. I can do anything I want to do. The sky's the limit. So why not go after and pursue the things that really mean something to me, that satisfy a passion in me? Right, and live my life that way, and maybe I might not get all the shiny trinkets along the way, but I'll be able to live with a sense of worth and a sense of purpose, and you can't put a price tag on that.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Well, I think, yeah, and let's talk about that. So what we didn't say about your educator background is that you taught at a private Catholic school in a fairly affluent area, so you are educating kids that tend to be middle-class, upper middle-class, even higher. I mean, we're talking one percenters, 0.1 percenters, and so one of the things, though, that I do think is great about that school and what we were trying to accomplish was there was a service requirement, like you had to volunteer in the community, you had to put in a service hours to grad. That was part of requirement, yes, and you were the leader of the, the service, the Christian services department. So I think, for those parents and things that are looking for, okay, yes, I want the education, I want the athletic component, but there's a very important part that I think gets missed a lot, and that is service to humanity, service to others.

Speaker 1:

So, can you talk about it in the context of your educating experience and those kids that you were working with and how they were able to weave in that service component into their lives?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, I thought it was the most important thing that we offered at the school a chance for the kids to learn in a different way. Right, you know, as an educator, you know we talk about punk rock right in a different way. Right, you know, as an educator, we talk about punk rock right. Like a punk rock educator, I wasn't satisfied with just teaching day in and day out in the four walls of a classroom right, or teaching to the curriculum right.

Speaker 2:

There are things that I really wanted my students to know, right, radical examples of peacemakers and justice makers, and so I spent a lot of time introducing my students to political, social figures that I felt were important, that they needed to know Right, and how they address the injustices in the world Right, and how they did their part to make the world a better place. There were always people who are out in society making a difference, right, and it's hard for me to talk about theoretically, about these people and what they did. Even in Catholic social justice, right, there's a lot of. You know great names like Dorothy Day, you know Oscar Romero.

Speaker 2:

I could talk about those people all day long, what they stood for and how they lived and act and even died for what they believed was right, but we're still talking theoretically, right, and then these privileged kids in the classroom could come up with all kinds of excuses, all kinds of justifications, right, of supporting their 1% lifestyle, right. So for me it was important how can I really open their eyes to the way the world really is and make them give a shit about something and maybe help put this theory into practice was getting them out of the classroom and into the community, and so I was constantly trying to get kids out of the classroom. I used to call it the rubbing their nose in it. Right If I could get them out into the streets and not just talk about poverty but actually go out into the streets and do something about it right.

Speaker 2:

So one of the first things we did was we started this program called the Hot Meals Program.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 2:

And every Wednesday we commandeered the kitchen at school and we cooked chicken, rice and beans and we would package those hot meals up and we would load them in the back of my pickup truck and I would take this group of kids and we would go out. We would come here to Pomona of kids and we would go out down. We would come here to Pomona, right, and we would make the rounds in Pomona and we found all the spots where our unhoused community was existing. Right, and we would spend the afternoon passing out those hot meals. Right, it was a liberating experience for me and for the students, right, because you know, these privileged students can talk about the unhoused community in the classroom and they would say they're lazy, they don't want to work. Right, why should we help them out?

Speaker 2:

But when they were standing in front of this community giving them a hot meal and they interacted with these people and they learned their name and then they stayed long enough to hear their stories. There's not much they can do about that, but have that affect them. Right, we come back to the classroom. Now. They've had a real world experience. Now we've tested ourself out in society. Right, we've looked at a problem, we've looked at a need. We've created a solution by cooking meals every wednesday and taking them out, and we interact with these people not from a distance, but firsthand personally. We hear their stories and now we're developing a relationship with them. We know them by name. You come back to the classroom a totally different person yeah, well, I want to.

Speaker 1:

So what I think when I was going through my head as you were saying, that is okay. So there's a couple of different interactions that people would have with relation to this. One is you know, if you're living here in California, maybe other States, you get off the highway, there's usually, you know, maybe a panhandler there. You know, you lower your window, you give them a dollar, you give them $5. Well, you know, it's a red light. There's no interaction, it's just you know here's five bucks. Right. There's where you might go and work on a Thanksgiving, go to a food kitchen which, again, these are great things, you should absolutely do them. But you go to the food kitchen and you know you're serving plates of food, but it's like a production line. You know you're going through, you're plopping the potatoes, move down the line, get the next person, and what you're talking about is another layer, which is like actually getting to know these people, know these stories, and that I think that's probably where the real, like learning and educating part comes in. Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's not to say that those kinds of experiences are bad or limited, you know, but there is this kind of service mentality that we have that we try to make it safe for ourself, right, it's easy to stand behind a soup line and scoop out soup into a person's bowl as they walk by. You don't have to encounter them as a human being, right, necessarily. Right, I always wanted to break through that experience. There was a certain wall that we set up between ourselves and others that keeps us safe, right, how bad do we really want to know them, you know? And the other thing was teaching at a Christian high school. It's like, you know, the gospel message is not about safety, right, it's about moving into the lives of other people, right, breaking down those barriers. I mean, jesus would go into people's houses and sit with them, right, he touched them, he spent time with them, he had intimate conversations with them. That's the gospel message. And not to say that working in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving is bad. It's needed. But I always I wanted to press my students even farther. Right, how do we break down that wall? How do we sit down together in a park with a bunch of homeless men, right, who we would never interact with and sit and listen to them, right, not talk about them, but listen to them. What is their experience?

Speaker 2:

And I'll tell you this one experience. We were in Ganesha Park and this day my students and I were handing out blankets, because it was winter, and they encountered this unhoused man, who was clearly disabled, pushing a shopping cart. And they asked him if he wanted to have a blanket and he said yes, and they gave him a blanket. And the guy saw some of the students wearing their Damien sweatshirts and he said well, you guys are from Damien? And they said, yeah, we're from Damien. He says you know, I'm a graduate of Damien High School. Wow, and they were like really, they didn't believe this guy, right?

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And so they sat with this guy and this guy told them a story of they told him. He told them his story of how he ended up on the streets and it was a story of disability. It was a story about getting injured, becoming disabled, losing a job, losing a home right, losing all his benefits, and one step led to another and he ends up on the street. This guy was a Damien graduate class of 1972. And I won't say his name, but we went back to school that afternoon and we looked in the yearbook room through and we found 1972 yearbook. And there he was, right there and those kids were floored. Those kids were floored. They never could imagine that someone who graduated from their school could end up on the streets. And they gave them a blanket and they got to know this guy's story.

Speaker 2:

After you have that kind of experience, those kids can't make excuses anymore, right? They can't make these offhand jokes about homeless people pushing a shopping cart. Right, how they're all lazy. Oh, they just don't want to work. What they heard was a human story and I think that in the work of justice, justice is all about the human story. It's the striving and the struggling to ensure the wellbeing of all people right, and there's a striving and a struggling in that, but what we get to is that human story. You know, working in a soup kitchen slopping potatoes on Thanksgiving. You can't really get to that story, but you feel good about it and you go home and you can sleep at night. Oh, I did something good. But you never get to that story. And it always was interesting to me how much do we really want to get to that story? Or we don't, because that story can make us uncomfortable, because now it almost makes me responsible, right now that I've heard your story, what's, what's my reaction to that? Right?

Speaker 1:

well, I think I'm gonna.

Speaker 1:

This is the running theme here, which is a theme of excuses, I think when it specifically when it comes to this topic and people think of the unhoused, um, homeless is, hey, these are a bunch of drug addicts that they could get out of this situation if they so choose, but they've chosen this for themselves. And I think you know the media perpetuates that to a degree and I think that's kind of unfortunately been what's. A lot of people maybe think about that in their head and there's probably a degree of truth to that. But I guess for those that don't really understand, is those the drug addicts and those types? Is that the majority? Are they a minority? Is it a 50-50 split, like when you talk about the type of person that you just mentioned, that story you just told? Is there more of those types of people than we think? And we need to get over this fact that, yes, there are the drug addicts that you know have chosen this path for themselves, but we can't allow that to stop us from helping the guy that you mentioned, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, you know one thing we find out when we do take to the streets, right, and we do allow ourselves into these intimate relationships with folks, where we actually meet them, where they're at right, and we give them a simple hot meal and we get to know their name and then we take time to listen to them. Yeah, we're going to hear stories about addiction. We're going to hear stories about mental illness. What we find is a large number of folks who came back, who did our dirty work for us and came back and fell through the cracks. Right, they came back with totally psychologically messed up, right, and then that leads to addiction and mental health issues. And then we look at the fact that since the 60s, we've cut all the benefits and safety net for these folks. Right, it's easier for these folks to fall through the cracks, right.

Speaker 2:

Since the 60s and through the Reagan era, we shut down all that mental health facilities. I mean, I'll tell you, if you're struggling with addiction, it's a really hard path to find help for that now, right. And so basically, what we did is we closed down all these opportunities for people with mental health issues to find help, and it's no wonder that, because of their situation. They can't function right the way the rest of us can in society and they're more susceptible right to fall through the cracks. And you fall through the cracks and where you end up is you end up on the street. And if we pay attention and we listen, those are the stories. Yeah, but we have to look at that may be a reality on our street right. There's a high percentage of mental health issues. There's a high percentage of addiction. There's a high percentage of mental health issues. There's a high percentage of addiction. There's a high percentage of PTSD, high percentage of veterans right who are struggling.

Speaker 2:

You know the issue is complex. It's not black and—you can't look at the world black and white. There's a lot of gray areas.

Speaker 1:

Well, actually, as you're talking about it, it just feels overwhelming and obviously we're not going to solve this on this podcast, and it's a much bigger issue than that. And I think maybe that's part of it too is like I'm speaking for myself, but it's like the way you're describing this. It's such a massive, complex issue. It's like how could I even make a tiny dent in this right Exactly?

Speaker 2:

And you can't dismiss addiction by saying, well, they just need to put down the bottle right, or put down the needle. If they wanted to, they really could. We can say that easily if we've never struggled with addiction.

Speaker 2:

But if you've struggled with addiction, that's not possible right If you're dealing with mental health issues like depression or PTSD or bipolar, or schizophrenia. You just don't beat that by sure willpower. You need a whole series of help. You need a doctor, you need a psychiatry, you need hospitals, you need medication. And if you don't have access to that and you're living in your full psychosis, how are you supposed to walk down to McDonald's, fill out an application and get a job at McDonald's, right, when you're struggling with addiction, when you're struggling with mental health? You know, I found that the students in the classroom could just dismiss these things because they knew nothing about them, right? So it's easy for them, you know, to create this narrative in their head that it's just simple Anybody can go down to McDonald's and get a job. But that's not the case. If you've ever gone to McDonald's to get a job, you know what it takes. You've got to have a license, you've got to have an address, you've got to look relatively well together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you've got to be able to have taken a shower, you've got to have clean clothes, you've got to have transportation. These things are easily glossed over when we're in the context of a classroom.

Speaker 1:

Because they seem like a given for us, because those are just a given.

Speaker 2:

And they are a given for us, because we wake up every day and we have access to all those. But when you're out on the streets sitting with people and listening to their experience, you begin to put two and two together to their experience. You begin to put two and two together and then, if you have any of those same issues crop up in your own life, then you'll begin to learn more and more. Wow, it's not as easy as I thought. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You're trying to do something about it. You've started this wonderful farm here Lopez Family Farm. Before we started, you mentioned something that I want to talk about, because I find this happening in my own life too, but, like this seems to be a project for you that's an intersection on your entire life's work, from you talked about constructing things that you know you worked on, to the community service aspect, to all these different skills that you've acquired over the last several decades have kind of been now leveraged and you've kind of put these puzzle pieces together to create this environment. So I find that extremely inspiring, because maybe a decade or two behind you, but I'm thinking the same thing I've acquired all these different skills and I'm trying to put the puzzle pieces. I haven't put them together yet, but I think about those things and you've done it and so I want you to just share with how you were able to come to that realization and leverage all these skills that you've built over your lifetime.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's interesting. When I was younger, I always felt like there were so many things I wanted to do, there were so many things I wanted to try, and so I would go off on this tangent and I would do this. I'd go off on another tangent and do this, and even in my career path, it was never straight as an arrow, right, I went to school and I decided to study things that I wanted to study. I didn't really know how they would work out in terms of a career, I just was passionate about studying them. My hobbies were always based on what I wanted to do, what I felt like inspired me.

Speaker 2:

And when I was younger, you know, I had the sense of where am I going in my life? What am I doing? You know, I really want to do something. That's important. I really want to make a difference, right, but I feel like I'm just constantly starting and stopping going down this road and I get bored. And so I turn around and I go down another road and I do that for a while and I get bored. And when I was younger, it seemed like the narrative.

Speaker 2:

There was no narrative to my life, it was just a jangled all these jangled parts right with my father and then in my 20s I decided to leave that and turn my back on it. But it was still there, what I had learned. I still had that in me. I still had those skills right, but I didn't really. I was too young to be able to see, well, how does that make sense, right? You know, it wasn't until much later, in my 50s. It was kind of almost like an epiphany. I didn't plan it.

Speaker 2:

I started to look at my life and I go, wow, all of these things that I've done in my life are. Now I see how important they were right. For example, you know, when I left education to run the nonprofit full-time and build Lopez Urban Farm, the skill and the knowledge that I needed to build this three-acre farm incorporates everything that I've learned along the way my entire life. And it's just like one day I had this epiphany and I look back on my life and it was no longer disconnected. Jangled, you said jangled, jangled parts of pieces of a puzzle. Yeah, all the pieces of the puzzle started to fit and they came into alignment. And what I started to look back on now was this long interconnected narrative from my childhood that led me to this motion this moment, and everything along the way that I had picked up or done, you know, as a hobby or profession, was useful.

Speaker 1:

Now it's preparing you for this moment.

Speaker 2:

It was almost like life was preparing me for this moment, to be in this place, to build this farm. You know I've done all the construction here on the farm. It's been really, really hard work. I have to show up every day and grind it out because it's hard work. So I have to build things with my hands. I farm with my hands, right. I learned that along the way. Project development, maintaining and developing partnerships, establishing a non-profit, running a budget all of these things I have acquired along the way, right.

Speaker 2:

Education is a big part of what we do here on the farm right, running educational programs for kids and families. My career in education gave me the ability to be able to write curriculum, to understand how to develop an educational program here on the farm. My life became this interconnected narrative and I don't think I could have ever seen that until I had gone much further in my life. It wasn't until like in my 50s that I really wow. Now everything makes sense. All that time I spent with my father in construction makes sense and people will show up and they'll be amazed and they'll see something that I've built and they said, wow, how'd you learn how to do that? I said I was prepared for this moment, man, I was prepared for this moment. I know how to do it.

Speaker 1:

I think it's just like it's a really inspiring story. I think a lot of us I like what you said about things aren't linear, because that's how I used to view things, especially when I started professionally. It was win after win after win I saw this very linear path. There was a moment in time where I left the organization that I was working at to go take a risk and try something different, and it threw me off course for about three years, like it just didn't work out the way that I had hoped it would, and I found myself having to recover for a while and that was like a huge slap in the face of just like shoot, like that first 15 years was like smooth sailing. I've just hit some rough, rough patches along the way, and so I'm still kind of trying to figure that part out.

Speaker 1:

But there is one part that I want to go back to and that's when you you talked about this epiphany moment, and I think a lot of people get inspiration and inspired to do things, but again, there's a lot of voices and busy things that are going on in our head, so we either willingly choose to ignore that voice that's telling us or drawing us to go do this one thing which, again, I think a lot of people maybe find themselves in that boat. So if you could just go back to that moment, was it like literally this one moment in time? Was there something building up to that? Was it a loud voice in your head, was it a murmur that grew Like? Just for those that are like, okay, that sounds like a movie. Yeah, this guy, farmer Steve, wakes up one day, has this epiphany and now all of a sudden changes his entire life course. Like, just like what was reality for that, for that moment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's hard to say. You know, it's like like it may be a quiet moment sitting on the farm when the sun's going down in the afternoon and you're sitting there. I mean, I do a lot of reflecting, I do a lot of self-reflection, so I've always been kind of a contemplative soul, so I'm always thinking about that. I studied philosophy and religion and I spent a lot of time thinking in my head. I spent a lot of time observing. I spent a lot of time thinking in my head. I spend a lot of time observing. I spend a lot of time writing and looking back, and so I'm just kind of built that way. I'm always thinking about things and observing. I'm a big observer of life, I'm super curious about life and I geek out on things like that, and it's just a moment, a moment of self-reflection.

Speaker 2:

I think self-reflection is really really important. By the way, as an educator, the most important part of education is when you challenge your students to a moment of reflection. Every time we went out to do something in the community, we always came back to the classroom and I had them reflect on it, either in a class discussion or write about it. I think the reflective part of education is super important. It's a skill set because that can lead us to a place of epiphany or understanding. Putting two and two together, where everything comes together. Ah, that aha moment, right, yeah. And so I think educators should really take the tool of reflection and instill that in their students. Right, because I think that for me, is where that epiphany moment came Sitting and reflecting and going, and then all of a sudden just wow, everything that I'm doing today I've done before in my life when I was younger.

Speaker 2:

I thought it was just a thing that I did or experienced just for that moment. Right. But everything came back and was useful, yeah, at this moment. So it's like I'm a big, firm believer in just constantly moving forward, right. And it caused me to embrace even the side trips that I take, right, yeah, the detours that I take, that those count for something For sure, right.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, maybe I gave up and I tried this thing for three years and it didn't work out. That's okay, yeah, at least you tried it Right. And then you come back and you reposition yourself, but you're willing to move forward, right, yeah. And you never know how that side trip might become useful in the larger grand scheme of things on down the road. Never discount anything. I always talk to my students about everything you do. You can put on your resume Everything you do. Put it on your resume because at some point maybe not at that moment because you're too close to it you're in the midst of it. You're in the midst of failure or disappointment or whatever. You got to move past that and keep going. At least you tried it, and you never know how that's going to come back and be useful, and great founders talk about failure as the biggest you know. Teacher.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't find the exact quote, but I do want to mention something from your website, or a concept really, and you mentioned something along the lines of an urban farm as the new church. So I just for those that don't know what an urban farm is, if you could just take a moment to explain your mission here and what you're trying to accomplish, and for those that aren't from Southern California or like maybe looking to understand what this concept is, what is this all about?

Speaker 2:

An urban farm is like so many things to me. I'm constantly learning about what it actually is to me, because it's not just a farm, it's a magical experience. It's basically coming in an urban community and carving out a space for people to thrive. Know, our threefold mission now is you know, we build urban farms, right, and our threefold mission is to grow food, to educate and to provide green space for our community.

Speaker 1:

And I think all three of those are so important in urban communities like ours, right, especially communities that struggle finding access to these things right, I'm just trying to tie all these things together, and so one of the things I was thinking about is, yeah, you take for granted today that I can go to a grocery store and get whatever produce I want and go home and cook it, and you know, without ever giving a second thought to where it came from, how it was harvested, how it was planted, like none of that. But then you think back to you know my ancestors anybody's answers for that matter going back even just as recently as a couple hundred years ago. In fact, my father-in-law is from Cuba, was there until he was 15, lived on a farm, and so it hasn't been that long where families and people were sustaining themselves by raising animals, raising or you know, and farming. And yeah, I don't know because I have not been involved, but I've got to imagine there's something there with.

Speaker 1:

Again, I'm just thinking about myself of sitting at a computer all day being in an office space, not being in nature, not using my hands, getting dirt under my fingernails, so to speak. But that's how humans have lived.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I could go on and on about why we grow food and why that's so important, but when you think about food and the cultivation of food, it's so much a part of who we are as human beings. We can all go back. We're not that far removed from our agrarian roots, and so what I experience when people come to the farm, it triggers something, it opens a memory in them. I constantly hear stories from people who come and they do. They talk about their grandfather going to the rancho in Mexico. Right, their grandfather raised sheep or grew corn. It unlocks a memory, right when it gets to the root, right, of an experience that they had that was very positive for them.

Speaker 2:

I've seen people stand in the middle of the vegetable fields and cry, remembering how they grew up and in the Brazilian educational system, every school had a garden and they had to spend time in the garden learning how to grow their own food and how that coming to this farm unlocked that memory and it was such a positive memory for them that immediately took them back to that.

Speaker 2:

So you can't have that, you know, in some type of sterile classroom or building or community center as human beings, right, I mean I talk about it biblically, going back right, beings, right. I mean I talk about it biblically, going back right to the Genesis narrative, right, adam? Adam comes from the Hebrew word Adama, which was man from the clay. To remember that we are made up of the same organic material as nature that we're so connected to and a part of nature. We're made up of the same materials, right? So when I find myself in a space that helps me to connect to that, it's like I reintroduce myself to myself again and what it means to be human. And when you take a step further and you go out and you dig the earth and you get dirt under your nails, right?

Speaker 2:

I mean there are all kinds of psychological you get dirt under your nails, right I mean there are all kinds of psychological, physiological studies of how that benefits you as a human being. Well, in the United States we've lost that experience. We've lost at least two generations of farmers, we've moved out of farming and because we're going down this path that we were told will make us successful, right, and we've left the agrarian lifestyle. We've left the rural lifestyle. We've forgotten where our food comes from. We've forgotten how to grow it. If we had to, we wouldn't even know what to do. People come all the time and say I don't know how to do this, I have a brown thumb. My thing is no, it exists in you. You just have to be in the right space to be able to unlock that. And when they do, it's like this magical moment, this moment of epiphany, where they remember who they are again, right steve it's.

Speaker 1:

I mean I can't say enough about how inspiring your journey, your story, has been. I really just hope people make this more part of their, are a little bit more deliberate in how they, you know, can be of service to the community. It doesn't have to be in money, it could be in just volunteering, but just a reminder to look out for our fellow humans, human men, and to be more active. So I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we run. The way we run the farm is it's 100% volunteer, and so we operate on the fact that people are going to be inspired to come here and want to get involved and want to help us plant and grow and run programs or just spend time. That's how we make it work, and so if a family wants a place to spend the afternoon petting goats or harvesting their own food, if they want to participate in the farming, pick up a shovel. We make that available to our community.

Speaker 1:

All right, well, we'll put your information down in the link section. But thanks, steve, this has been amazing and it's great to reconnect.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Paul. I appreciate it, man.

Speaker 1:

Talk soon. All right, man, love you. Good luck on the journey.

Speaker 2:

Love soon. All right, man, love you. Good luck on the journey. Love you too. Yeah, thank you. Through the rain, come on and take me anywhere that you want to be. Let's ride and let's ride. Let's follow the skyline, and when we make it to the other side, we'll find all the bluest guys.