I’m coming into 2024 with a lot on my mind. We recently had to say goodbye to our good friend Joshua Coffy. My father in law passed away this year. Burning Man was a mess…
Professionally, someone recently told me that what my org is doing is “meteoric.” Since being nothing but an idea at this time in 2020, as of Tuesday we have nine full time staff, and handful of part-time staff, a budget over $1 million, and are about to move into our first real office space. Our initial program housed 45% of it’s participants in it’s first 14 months. And, there is so much more coming in 2024. The possibilities and opportunities on the horizon in 2024 are truly mind-boggling to me. I find myself looking into the future, seeing a bunch of question marks, and taking actions today to get answers to those questions. It is a challenge that I find myself relishing – even though it is often stressful.
The next thing for me is really cementing the way that we provide services throughout the organization. One thing, of many, that is going to distinguish us over time is delivering very effective services. To do that, we are going to have to codify what that means internally. I’m excited for that. A cool thing about our organization being about growth, healing and ending homelessness is that the growth and healing happens on our team as well. Yet, if we are about that internally as well as externally, how do we manage the logistics of that? This is a question I’m eager to answer.
Local politics will also determine the trajectory of what my org is doing. There are sales tax measures on both the city and county ballots that may directly fund our programs, if passed. There are also three elections at the county supervisor level that will change what decisions get made in our entire region.
My daughter (facebook link) continues to amaze me in her short time working in acting and modeling.
And yet, all bets are off if Trump wins in November. The relative stability that has marked our country since the Great Depression will be in danger, if not outright gone immediately. Professionally, I sometimes worry that I’m re-arranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. No one’s life will improve in the long term if Donald Trump serves another term, and that reality is going to present all of us with challenging decisions to make.
If you read me regularly, you know that Democracy is a prime value to me. I understand and sympathize with folks who feel like our system is broken. I agree that it is broken. But we cannot throw it out to replace it with a dictator. Those of us who criticized him in 2015 turned out to be right – please listen to us now as we continue to criticize him. He will dismantle the very thing that does actually make America great. I’m sure this list is just a start.
Evan Morrison's Blog 