Alan Graham

Why did you choose that particular time period?

I don't.

That's kind of a definition that comes out of the federal government.

And we have a homeless management information system that's managed here in town that allows us to go in.

I can go in and, you know, hypothetically look up Joe Rogan.

I could see how many touch points you've had into the homeless service deal and over what

period of time.

But a year has got to be a minimum, knowing that the average number of years in our community today is under 10 years, a little over nine years.

Of homelessness.

Well, fundamentally, that was my gospel call.

I wanted the roughest, toughest, hardest, most despised, outcast, lost and forgotten population.

I wanted the ones that nobody believed had value.

So that fundamentally was a spiritual decision of mine as the founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

And then, you know, it's easier to go after the women and children and the little families that are living in the van in the Walmart parking lot or the veterans or the this, that or the other.

But I wanted the lowest on our radar, our totem poles to go after.

In the early days of Mobile O's and Fish's, we had these catering trucks, still do.

There's a dozen of them in Austin that go out every night, serve about 1,200 meals every night.

And so we're deeply connected into that environment.

In 2003, I started something called a street retreat.

In May of 03, I took 15 people from my church out for a 72-hour sleepover, basically, a retreat.