Her 18-Hour Day is Packed, but she loves every minute of helping Miami’s Homeless Population

As she heads off to greet Anthony Henderson, the director of project management and business intelligence, to talk about new efforts to better collect, analyze and store client data, the bell rings again. “There’s more money,” Hudson says.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/living/helping-others/article255488441.html#storylink=cpy

MIAMI (MiamiHerald) –

Those who know Symeria Hudson, the chief executive of the Chapman Partnership, say she seems to have energy enough for two.

She brings “unbounded energy and a great attitude to her job,” says Allan Pekor, a longtime Chapman board member.

Here’s a look at a day in Hudson’s very active life.

5 a.m. — She awakens at her Fort Lauderdale condo. “I’ve always been an early riser, and this literally starts my clock,” Hudson says. While she dons a black pantsuit and gets ready for the day, her husband, Gary, takes off on a 20- to 30-mile bike ride.

She gets her turn at the gym in the evening while he takes care of Garrett, their 3-year-old son, and she’s a stickler about being there almost every day. A former marathoner, she now favors lifting weights and a gym routine that features squats and lunges.

6:30 a.m. — It’s time to get Garrett up and ready for his Montessori school. She’s already packed his lunch and snacks and most days prepares her own sack lunch.

7:30 a.m. — The whole family is out the door with Gary taking on drop-off duties for school. Depending on traffic, her commute can take 45 minutes to 1½ hours; she’s looking forward to a shorter trip when Brightline resumes service in November.

During the drive, she usually takes part in two to three conference calls and checks in with her husband to see if the drop-off has gone smoothly. During today’s drive, she chats with her administrative assistant about her calendar, talks with Chapman’s chief financial officer and places a call to the vice president for residential services.

8:35 a.m. — Hudson hops on to another conference call as she pulls into the parking lot of the Chapman Partnership, a sprawling gray building that occupies a city block along North Miami Avenue. There’s no sign out front — an effort to preserve the anonymity of some residents who are victims of domestic abuse and temper any stigma about living in a homeless shelter for kids who catch their school buses out front each day.

“Good morning,” she calls out to everyone she encounters — staff, residents, potential clients seated in the ground-floor intake lobby. “It’s so important for them to come through the door and feel some warmth,” she says. No one comes directly off the streets to Chapman. They’re referred by the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust.

A few minutes later, Hudson arrives at her office and switches on CNN — without the sound. As she answers emails and takes calls, it’s a constant companion that helps her keep abreast of what’s going on in the world.

10 a.m. — Hudson chats with a reporter and Miami Herald photographer at a round white conference table centered with a pink orchid.

She says she kept coming into the office every day during the pandemic. “I don’t abandon my team,” Hudson says.

STRICT COVID-19 PROTOCOLS ARE WORKING

The Chapman Partnership developed a 200-page protocol to keep staff and residents safe during the pandemic and swung into action early, meeting in February 2020 as COVID-19 cases mounted in Europe.

“We created a war room in the cafeteria,” Hudson says. Masking is mandatory and donated N95 masks are available in the intake lobby for visitors.

The effort has paid off. Last year the positivity rate in Chapman’s facilities was under 2 percent, and this year, even with the surge in the delta variant, the COVID positivity rate stands at 2.8 percent, Hudson says.

10:30 a.m. — She begins a walk-around of the Chapman facility, which has 500 beds. Making the rounds is something she tries to do weekly or at least twice a month.

“It’s really about spending time with people,” Hudson says. “Sometimes people will tell me, ‘You make us feel like you’re one of us,’ and I say that’s because I am.” Every staff member at Chapman has her work and personal cellphone numbers, she says.

Even though Hudson treats everyone with dignity, she is still a strong and demanding leader, says Pekor. “She works very hard and when you see that at the top, it is very motivating.”

EMPATHETIC MOTHER

Empathy, Hudson says, is in her DNA. It’s what she saw growing up in her mother, who raised five kids working as an accounting assistant after her divorce. If someone was in need, she said, her mother would give them odd jobs and feed them. It wasn’t unusual, Hudson says, to find a neighborhood teen who had been pushed out of home sleeping on her family’s couch.

It takes about 1½ hours for her to make her rounds. Beyond greeting everyone personally, she gets updates and hears concerns.

Hudson’s first stop is the office of Xiomara Alonso, Chapman’s vice president of human resources. They talk briefly about their upcoming meeting on putting Chapman’s values and guiding principles into action.

“Look at our fearless team,” Hudson says as she approaches the development office where four women are seated around a conference table discussing how to expand Chapman’s donor base.

“Go ahead, you can ring the bell,” Arlene Peterson, senior director of development, tells her. Hudson rings a bell that’s sounded when a donation or “incredible opportunity” comes in. This time it’s a $25,000 donation from Florida East Coast Industries that will support Chapman’s workforce trades program.

As she heads off to greet Anthony Henderson, the director of project management and business intelligence, to talk about new efforts to better collect, analyze and store client data, the bell rings again. “There’s more money,” Hudson says.

Renderings for the build-out of Chapman’s new Social Enterprise Academy, an effort to get residents the training they need to score better jobs and avoid homelessness, are spread across his desk.

“It’s hard to get a home if you don’t have a livable wage,” says Hudson.

The lack of affordable housing in the Miami area has become a real issue. To remedy it will require land, financing and expertise, Pekor said in a later interview. “We at Chapman are a component, but creating more affordable housing will take an effort by the community at large.”

Later, Henderson will meet Hudson across the street at a Chapman warehouse that is being converted into the new home of the Social Enterprise Academy.

But first he gives her an update on the Chap-App, a communications tool that was initially designed for Social Enterprise Academy attendees to stay in touch during the pandemic, but has been expanded into a platform for virtual case management.

“It’s a very efficient tool. It helps us see more clients,” says Hudson. “We literally wrote this program sitting in my office. Corporations would pay for this, and we did it for free right here.”

“Hello, hello,” Hudson calls out to Howard Rubin, the chief financial officer, before heading to the resident area downstairs where she’s joined by Ben Johnson, a former Marine who spent many years homeless on the streets of Miami.

He’s been with the Chapman Partnership for 19 years and does a little bit of everything, from serving as a guide to warmly greeting visitors and recently mulching and beautifying an interior courtyard.

“We call him the mayor of Chapman. He usually walks with me when I make my rounds,” says Hudson.

ALVAH CHAPMAN’S VISION

Alvah Chapman’s shadow still looms large over the organization that bears his name. Chapman, the former Knight Ridder chairman and CEO and Miami Herald publisher who rallied the community to take on the issue of homelessness, died on Christmas Day in 2008. He founded the Chapman Partnership in 1992, opening the Homeless Assistance Center campus in 1995.

“I really wish I would have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Chapman and Mrs. Chapman,” Hudson says. “He pulled people in because they trusted him.”

As Hudson and Johnson pause in front of a bust of Chapman in a small courtyard, Johnson says that when he was homeless, he lived under the underpass on the route that Chapman often took home in the evening. “I was the person in the hood down there. I didn’t know then that God was passing overhead and that he was seeing what was going on,” says Johnson. “

It was Mr. Chapman’s vision to put the Chapman Partnership in Overtown right around the corner from the drug holes,” says Johnson. “Now [Hudson] is going to do one hell of a job when I’m here and when I’m gone.”

“That’s why I walk with him — for the moments of inspiration and for the stories,” says Hudson.

10:55 a.m. — Hudson enters the cafeteria to see the cooks.

“I know if I don’t go back there, I’ll be on their hit list,” she laughs. Angel Cline, the chief of the back-of-the-house operation, comes from a culinary background and isn’t content to just put food on a plate, Hudson says. On the lunch menu that day: salad, chips, fruit, turkey subs and pumpkin soup.

The recently remodeled cafeteria has been closed during the pandemic. As part of the pandemic protocol, residents just pick up grab-and-go meals and eat at picnic tables in a large covered patio. The Chapman cooks feed about 400 people a day because some of the food they prepare is sent to other facilities aiding the homeless.

‘SAFE HAVEN’ FOR RESIDENTS, CHILDREN

11:10 a.m. — Hudson heads to the Family Resource Center, where tutoring, computers for homework, and a library are available. It is here that Chapman’s young residents assembled last school year for virtual classes. Classes in parenting skills, typing and technology are also taught here.

Chapman’s students are required to do their homework but after 6 p.m., the center offers arts and crafts, movie nights and game tournaments. A point system has been established that rewards students who are ready for school on time, attend sessions with their tutors and do their homework. They may buy small items online with their points or bank them.

“This is part of our financial literacy program,” says Hudson. “Unfortunately, we see that homelessness is generational,” so the more children develop good money habits, the better their chances of getting jobs and staying off the streets.

Gigantic figures of current and former Heat players adorn the walls.

“I love the feel of this,” Hudson says. “This really is the heart of our center. We really want people to feel this is a safe haven.”

11:20 a.m. — Hudson passes a playground where kids enrolled in the Head Start program play tag. The on-site Head Start program is run by Miami-Dade County Public Schools and is open to both neighborhood kids and the children living at Chapman.

Her next stop is a large open room set up as the Mobile Closet where donated clothes, shoes, book bags and purses — both new and gently used — are arranged on racks and tables. Residents may pick out a fixed number of items per week.

“It’s organized so they can actually have an experience like going to a store,” says Hudson. “Let me know if you need baby clothes,” she tells the Mobile Closet manager. As her son outgrows clothing, she brings his togs in.

11:35 a.m. — It’s time to visit the case managers and their supervisor. “I’m hearing incredible things,” Hudson tells a new worker.

Residents usually meet with their case managers four or five times a week. During the day, the dorms are closed because residents are at jobs or school, working on trying to get a job or taking other steps toward self-sufficiency and more permanent homes.

The average stay at Chapman is 90 to 100 days; in the past year, the partnership has helped 1,200 people find jobs, Hudson says. About half of Chapman’s residents are employable, she says.

11:45 a.m. — She heads to a working lunch — a takeout chicken Caesar salad — in the conference room.

Alonso, the head of human resources, stops by to brief her on the final draft of Chapman’s new guiding principles. They emphasize kindness, collaboration, taking time to pause. “Where do we go from here in making this more broadly spread throughout the organization?” Hudson asks her.

12:30 p.m. — Henderson briefs her on the Social Enterprise Academy project. The 4,000-square-foot warehouse, which was stuffed with donations, is now about 70 percent cleared out, he says, and a contractor is expected to be selected soon.

A second-story, 2,500-square-foot mezzanine will be added, and classrooms will surround a central atrium where workstations will be set up.

NEW JOB-TRAINING PROGRAM IN HIGH DEMAND

The Social Enterprise Academy is Hudson’s baby. Classes in carpentry and electrical work began in January 2020 just as the pandemic was taking hold and the program, taught in partnership with Florida International University, quickly switched to virtual learning.

It’s already graduated its first class of 29 students. Hudson hopes to build on the construction trades program by adding training to help residents become nursing assistants and work in cybersecurity.

“If we’re building, we need to think about building for the future,” Hudson says. “The program was in such high demand that we couldn’t accept all the applicants who were interested.” Now the training is only available to Chapman residents, but eventually Hudson would like to expand it to community members.

It costs $7,300 to put a student through the 15-month certificate program, and Hudson is hoping that corporations and individuals will sponsor trainees. “Now they have the certifications they need when they work on a job site,” says Hudson.

The payoff for carpentry grads, she says, is a job that usually starts at $18 an hour — well above Florida’s recently raised hourly minimum wage of $10.

But Hudson has even bigger plans. “We hope to go all the way out to entrepreneurial training. That’s the next horizon,” she says.

1:30 p.m. — Hudson heads over to the COVID-19 testing site that has been set up in a Chapman parking lot. Staff members who aren’t vaccinated are required to test weekly and those who are vaccinated must undergo a test monthly. The testing site also serves the surrounding community.

The on-site testing began at the Miami facility on Sept. 13 and in Homestead on Sept. 23, and Hudson wants to meet the staff from Curative, which operates the site. “Is there anything you need or that we can help you with?” she asks. While she’s at the testing site, Hudson does her own test for October. The tests are sent to a lab every night and results come back in two days.

2 p.m. — It’s time to see the progress on the Social Enterprise Academy firsthand and chat with the architect.

There are still packages of donated disposable diapers, paper products, a Star Wars pinball machine, boxes of clothing and even a giant teddy bear that need to be located to other Chapman facilities, but with the building almost cleared, it’s time to concentrate on what it will become.

Ground-breaking on the project is expected in November. “Send invitations to [Mayor Daniella] Levine Cava and [Miami-Dade County Schools Superintendent Alberto] Carvalho,” she instructs a staffer. “We will need landscaping here too.”

“At its core, Chapman is always going to be shelter, but we’re building out services too. We just have to make sure we’re providing the right services,” says Ed Joyce, the new chairman of the Chapman board.

“We’re so proud of the work that Symeria has done on this,” says Joyce, who has stopped by to see the progress on the Social Enterprise Academy.

In selecting Hudson to lead the partnership, “we did go outside the typical nonprofit mold, but we thought we needed someone with her skill set. We knew it was time to do something different. The financial side of it is so important these days.”

Joyce has been involved with the Chapman Partnership since its inception.

At the beginning of his career, Joyce says, Alvah Chapman always encouraged him to be involved in the community — an effort Chapman said would help his career and help him personally.

After explaining his idea to help the homeless, Chapman gave Joyce, who spent 37 years at Northern Trust, an assignment: Go out and introduce the idea to wealthy people in the community. “Alvah really challenged business leaders to be community leaders,” he says.

HER LEADERSHIP SHINED THROUGHOUT PANDEMIC

After Chapman’s health began to fail in his later years, there was a void in community leadership, says Joyce. “We’re so happy to have Symeria and her team. We had to change quickly [during the pandemic] and the leadership she has brought has really shined in a very difficult environment.”

3 p.m. — Hudson catches up on office work.

3:45-4 p.m. — She stops by the Family Resource Center to chat with 18-year-old Sharena Harris, who took part in Chapman’s paid four-week internship program for young adults. As part of her project, Harris learned to produce and did interviews for a podcast that featured Pierre Hosang, the coaching director of the Miami Krew soccer club, and track star Michelle Atherley.

“What was the lesson that grabbed you?” Hudson asks her. “Pierre made it through, and I’m making it through, too,” says Harris. “Everyone encounters good things and bad things, but that is life. It’s a journey.”

Harris’ mother used to be a Chapman resident, but she has moved out. Harris, who is still in high school and works nights at Wendy’s, stayed. But she tells Hudson she has found housing and will be moving out soon. “Let’s find a time to talk again before you leave,” Hudson tells her.

4:20 p.m. — Hoping to beat at least some of the rush-hour traffic, Hudson steers her SUV toward her Fort Lauderdale home, but traffic on I-95 is snarled.

6 p.m. — Hudson usually heads directly to the gym from work, but today she goes home because a reporter and photographer are visiting. The new condo has contemporary furnishings in soothing tones of gray, black and white, designed by Gary. (Design is his hobby, he says.) The couple is into tech, and Hudson admits to having eight televisions in their home.

7 p.m. — Garrett’s babysitter leaves and he comes upstairs to visit with his parents and eat chicken nuggets for dinner. Her husband usually cooks, and she helps assemble the meal.

“My husband is so supportive,” Hudson says.

Hudson does bath time with Garrett and then from 8 to 8:30, she might do flashcards with him and read to him. “We may do three or four storybooks a night,” Hudson says.

But tonight, Garrett is getting a special treat because he has been so well-behaved while his parents have hosted the visitors. His father takes him to the parking garage, where he drives a miniature Jeep a friend from London sent. His father controls the vehicle with a remote control.

9 p.m. — It’s time to get Garrett ready for bed, but Hudson’s day isn’t over. “I like to do the prep work for my next day at work and answer any emails I wasn’t able to get to during the day,” she says.

11 p.m. — It’s lights out for Hudson. It’s been a long day, but she says she often put in longer days in the corporate world. “Now I’m putting more priority on my family,” she says. But she quickly adds, “I love working because I’m passionate about what I do.”

Source: Miami Herald

BY MIMI WHITEFIELD SPECIAL TO THE MIAMI HERALD NOVEMBER 07, 2021 6:00 AM