Tenfold is a local nonprofit that assist people into fair and equitable housing. Tenfold works with individuals to achieve affordable housing through proactive coaching, lending, advocacy, and education.
Tenfold’s supportive housing department operates a street outreach program, where outreach workers conduct wellness checks for the unhoused community throughout Lancaster County. Outreach workers, Milan Koneff and Thomas Tuten, are on the front lines of community engagement. Koneff and Tuten connect with unhoused individuals, encourage them to seek safe shelter, provide personalized support, and regularly check on their well-being.
One United Lancaster recently spoke with Koneff and Tuten about homelessness in Lancaster County and their experiences as outreach workers. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
One United Lancaster: Can you share a bit about your background and what inspired you to get into homelessness outreach?
Milan Koneff: I’ve been doing this outreach role for a little over three years now. Background wise, I come from a hodgepodge of experiences that are social work related. I worked with youth. I’ve gotten to do marketing and different things that helped me acquire people skills. I’ve always wanted to work in this field, to help out those who are unhoused. I’ve had personal experiences with friends and family members who are dealing with it. Homelessness is a vital problem. In the past, I have applied to positions that revolve around homelessness outreach and I never really got a chance until this job.
Thomas Tuten: I don’t have a formal background in social work. I studied political science, and my motivation behind that was anti-poverty. When I lived in DC, I was a private driver. When I was there the wealth inequalities bothered me. I spent time volunteering at DC’s largest homeless shelter, Father McKenna Center. When my girlfriend and I moved to Lancaster, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. When I got this opportunity, it connected me to the experiences I had in DC. I was motivated to do something where I would be directly helping people.
One United Lancaster: What does a typical day look like for you in this line of work?
Milan Koneff: This question is difficult. There is not a typical day in this line of work. We have some typical experiences, but they happen at random intervals or inconsistently. Our job is made to be flexible because it’s an overwhelming amount of work that we’re constantly having to deal with. We wear a lot of different hats. Some typical things we do are trying to canvass areas. We’re trying to do that first boots on the ground outreach to interact with folks that are unhoused and in different environments. Which can be out in the woods by their encampments, by themselves, shelters, hotels, parking lots, and behind abandoned buildings. We get calls from the police, people we run into, and other clients who want us to help their friends, so we go searching for them and try to connect. Sometimes it’s just phone calls and following up on messages and referrals. We would like to have more time to be out in the communities and run around…. We’re meeting with community partners. We’re trying to go to spaces to educate and to talk to people about our clients. We must collaborate because our job doesn’t work without any community partnership.
Thomas Tuten: We joke that it’s hard to make plans because you can have this whole idea of how things are going to go, but you get a call from someone and its urgent. “Hey, I’m stuck in this place.” “Hey, I have this problem.” So, you must prioritize your time. For what you think is most important to your clients, whose problems now are more urgent, while also dealing with other responsibilities.
One United Lancaster: Are there any rewarding moments you would like to highlight?
Thomas Tuten: Anytime somebody goes into housing…. I remember showing a guy around a room he was about to move into. He had hardly anything to bring in there with him. And he’s looking around the room. I ask, “well, what do you think? I’m kind of nervous.” And he says, “well, it’s perfect, because it’s my room.” Stuff like that sticks with me.
Milan Koneff: Anytime someone gets into housing and sustains it. I’ve seen people go into housing and they struggle when they get there. As a society we forget about the first three to six months of them trying to save and acquire money, so if something happens, they can bounce back out there.
One United Lancaster: Based on your experiences what are common misconceptions that people have about homelessness?
Milan Koneff: Common misconceptions are over the place. As a society, when you are unhoused it’s like you cross into this ‘other category’ of you’re not a regular person anymore. It’s terrible. We look at you differently once we know you are unhoused. It’s not even about the way you look. Just that fact alone changes people’s perception of you. A lot of it comes from the exaggeration of unhoused individuals in movies and TV. They’re depicted as dirty, having bad hygiene, don’t want to work, having drugs and alcohol problems, etc. It’s more divisive than that. Every person is a puzzle when we meet them. Sometimes one of those things exists or it’s a combination. Sometimes none of those things exist…Additionally, “One bad apple can ruin the bunch.” We see one incident or one outburst of a certain individual, or someone sees a homeless individual getting arrested and that stereotype is placed on every homeless person. For every one incident of that happening, there’s like 50 more people that are just quiet, reserved, and just being complacent in society during their day-to-day lives. That is what we’re not paying attention to. We’re not contributing those statistics.
Thomas Tuten: Many people probably do not know that in general homeless people do not want to be seen, observed, or looked at in that way. So, what that means is that the people who are struggling the most, especially with things like mental health, are going to be the most visible because they are the ones who for whatever capability desire. They are the ones who are not going to make the effort to conceal, and therefore they’re going to be the ones who you notice. There are many people who are not being seen. Who find places out of the way to stay and hide because of that non dissension, there are these real feelings of shame. There’s an idea that everybody wants a handout. I have met people who will not accept my help because they do not want a “handout”….Additionally, I would like to speak about the causes of homelessness because that’s a huge topic and something that my mind was completely changed about within my first six months doing this job. The thing is, they did not have a human support system. There is an idea that it’s all about drugs, but not to be crass, there are lots of people who are in housing and don’t present that way who are on drugs. There’s an explanation that mental health is the cause of it. There are lots of people who have severe mental health problems and never experience homelessness. The difference with our clients, oftentimes, is they lost their last human relationship. For elderly people, their spouse passed away and they couldn’t afford rent without them, and they lost housing. For young people, especially very young people, mom and dad kicked me out. There are different reasons that happens…I think it’s hard to realize how sort of thin the barrier is right between being housed and not being housed when you don’t have that person to fall back on.
