TRANSCRIPT:
Brian (00:01.125)
Hello, welcome to the Foster Friendly podcast. I’m your host, Brian Mavis, and I have my nonpartisan co-host Courtney Williams with us today. And Courtney, I’m excited about our guest today. And it’s a unique guest because we’re going to be talking about something that we normally would not be talking about because it’s policy related, but this seemed like a no brainer to us. So Greg Landsman.
Courtney (00:08.942)
Yeah.
Courtney (00:26.7)
Yes.
Brian (00:30.939)
Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, I’m gonna give a formal bio of you, but would love for you to personalize it, bring a little color commentary to it. So Representative Greg Landsman is a father and husband who is proud to call Southwest Ohio home. Before joining the US House of Representatives in 2023,
Greg Landsman (00:33.096)
Thanks for having me.
Brian (00:56.507)
Greg served on the Cincinnati City Council for five years where he led investments in public safety and core services. Greg has spent his entire career advocating for children and families, especially the most marginalized. Greg and his wife, Sarah, live in Cincinnati with their two children, Maddie and Elijah.
Courtney (01:16.992)
Yay!
Greg Landsman (01:17.01)
Pretty good. Thank you.
Brian (01:17.849)
Yeah, so, but I know there is a lot of human interests behind all that formality. So, yeah, we would love to hear just more about you yourself.
Greg Landsman (01:29.894)
Yeah, sure. So Southwest Ohio, Cincinnati, and it’s a great place. If you haven’t visited, come visit us in Southwest Ohio. Cincinnati is a great city. We have all kinds of amazing stuff here in our little corner of the state. I got elected to Congress just a couple of years ago, so I’m relatively new. And before that, I did local politics, city hall, city council work.
And my focus has always been on children and families. And some of that comes from the fact that my parents were teachers. I was a teacher. It’s where my passion is. My worldview is around sort of building better communities by focusing on kids. If you can make a community really great for kids, every kid, it’s probably going to be great for everybody. And so it’s just a good way of doing community building change work. So that’s been my focus.
Brian (02:12.207)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Courtney (02:19.182)
Mm.
Greg Landsman (02:27.656)
Even before I was in elected politics, I did a lot of work in this area, led a ballot measure called the Sin Sai Preschool Promise, which passed in 2016, almost 10 years ago. It’s crazy. That provides two years of quality preschool for three and four year olds. And we’re the only city in the country that does that. But I’m a big believer in all the early childhood work and making sure that
Brian (02:38.565)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (02:49.206)
proud.
Greg Landsman (02:54.756)
Everyone has access, every expecting mother has access to really great prenatal care because of the brain development that’s happening early on, even before birth and then having paid family leave and at childcare and preschool and just giving every one of these kids everything they need in those early years so that they can start school ready to go. Kids that start school ready to go in almost every instance do way better. They graduate, it’s just a game changer and we just don’t, we don’t.
don’t really prioritize that in the way we should. So at City Hall, I was able to do more around childcare, eviction prevention programming and helping, you know, keep children and families together and in their their homes. And this latest bill is a bill that allows foster care kids to use a housing voucher that they’re eligible for.
Courtney (03:41.294)
the bill is a bill that allows a foster care kid to use a thousand thousand that they’re eligible for to live on methods if they want and have that offset the cost of…
Greg Landsman (03:53.03)
to live on campus if they want and have that offset the cost of campus housing and by virtue of offsetting the cost of campus housing, offset the cost of college. And it also just allows foster kids or those who have aged out to be in community as what typically happens now is if they make it and they get to go to college.
Brian (04:07.537)
Soon.
Courtney (04:07.552)
And it
Greg Landsman (04:19.706)
and they’re able to use a housing voucher, they gotta be off campus. You’re not allowed to use it on campus. And then they’re isolated and it’s it’s not a good thing. And typically kids don’t want that.
Brian (04:24.698)
Yeah.
Brian (04:30.693)
Yeah, I’m looking forward to unpacking that more for our listening audience so they really understand why this is important, why we would want to support it as well. But I’m really curious about something you said earlier, just about kind of your orientation, your North Star of saying, okay, if I focus on children and even maybe a subset of vulnerable children, and if I can make that my focus, then it…
it will have a positive impact, not just for them, but everybody surrounding them, has that ripple effect. And you mentioned having a teacher background, I would just, one, curious for you to unpack that more and why you believe that. And then two, who else among your colleagues thinks that way?
Greg Landsman (05:23.698)
You know, there are a lot of folks in Congress that have either a background in education or they were pediatricians. Yeah, that was true for a long time. It’s still mostly true, but it’s changing. I think that’s a good thing. I think you want to have a diversity of experiences. And so I think that’s great.
Brian (05:36.013)
Interesting, because I always think they’re all lawyers.
Courtney (05:36.302)
Yeah, me too.
Brian (05:44.581)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Landsman (05:50.504)
But yeah, there are, know, Kim Schreier, you know, works with me on a lot of these issues. She was a pediatrician. Johanna Hayes was a former teacher. mean, you have, you know, John Mannion is a former teacher. So you’re starting to see more and more folks who have these backgrounds. And yes, I suspect have a very similar worldview, which is, you know, look, know, kids need the adults, right? They’re the people in society that
Brian (05:56.613)
Hmm.
Greg Landsman (06:19.496)
that really do rely on us, particularly young kids. They need us to provide for them and be there for them as parents or as you name it. And so if you start to build a community that works well for every child,
Brian (06:21.734)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Landsman (06:49.53)
You’ve built probably a pretty good healthcare system. You’ve tackled housing. You have good schools. You have all kinds of good, you know, meaningful supports for children outside of school. And so that’s a good place to live. know, crime’s probably down and the economy’s probably doing pretty well. And so if you Google, for example, top 10 places for children, they are
arguably the top nicest places in the country. Certainly there are places that, you know, most people would be like, I wouldn’t mind living there.
Courtney (07:22.798)
you
Brian (07:23.662)
Mmm.
Brian (07:28.752)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (07:29.782)
Yeah.
Brian (07:31.665)
So then let’s talk about this specific subset then. I know it’s beyond children. It kind of goes more into youth and teens and age out. what was your experience prior to becoming a congressman with kids in foster care?
Greg Landsman (07:52.038)
Yeah. So I ran a group called the Strive Partnership, which does education, child advocacy work, really focusing on data and, and, you know, trying to get everyone who’s helping kids in a community, in my case in Cincinnati, to look at the data, look to see what’s working, what’s not working, not to be punitive, but to say, Hey, let’s, start, you know, spreading best practices and investing our resources in the things that work. And we got involved in.
higher education and figuring out, trying to figure out how to improve college enrollment, retention and completion rates. If a kid gets through their first year, statistically speaking, odds of them graduating go up, very high. That first year’s tough.
Brian (08:33.904)
Hmm.
Brian (08:40.549)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Landsman (08:42.312)
And so we started to, you know, learn about programs that were working and we found a program at the university of Cincinnati called the, gen one house for first generation students. A lot of these kids, low income kids, some, uh, who, um, who were, you know, in the foster care program or in the system. And so, uh, they had this incredible retention and completion rate of 85, 90 % of their kids.
Brian (08:54.745)
Okay, yep.
Greg Landsman (09:11.858)
were graduating, which was just as good, if not better than the rest of the university. And these are kids that first generation kids, but they’re all together and they’re getting additional supports, helping, you know, help with selecting the right courses so that, you know, you can manage the semester and you don’t get overwhelmed having additional tutoring and, and, and that food’s better. It’s just, you know, there’s community and
Courtney (09:13.746)
Brian (09:18.235)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Courtney (09:20.043)
Yeah.
Greg Landsman (09:41.69)
that, you know, we said, well, let’s go ahead and expand it. How can we be helpful? And they said, well, you know, honestly, it’s a lot of private money and why all these kids are eligible for a housing voucher. Why can’t you use it? And they said, well, Congress said they couldn’t about 15 years ago. And that, at that point it was, you know, about five years ago. And apparently what happened was some football players in Iowa had sort of abused the program and,
Brian (09:49.071)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (10:02.084)
Okay.
Brian (10:09.893)
Hmm.
Greg Landsman (10:10.856)
Congress and its infinite wisdom decided just to say, maybe in bath water, no one can do it anymore. It hurt the kids that are already struggling. I’ve been on this mission for many, many years. I would like to pass a bill that allows anyone who’s eligible for a housing voucher.
Brian (10:14.853)
Baby and bath water.
Courtney (10:15.347)
Cut it out, yeah.
Greg Landsman (10:38.61)
to use it on campus. This is a particularly complicated, difficult Congress. And so we want to get something done now. And there is bipartisan support for helping foster. This is something where like, you know, there are a lot of Republicans and Democrats that want to help these kids who’ve been in the foster care system.
Brian (10:52.389)
Mm-hmm.
So you have cosigners on both sides.
Greg Landsman (11:07.368)
And so this bill focuses entirely on them. And this is what I think we can get done this year. And so then, you know, these kids who, you know, ultimately work their tails off, they get to college. This would make a big difference, not only in making the cost manageable, but allowing these kids to be on campus with other folks and maybe in a program like the Gen 1 house, but just on campus in a dorm as opposed to living a mile away.
some section eight building.
Brian (11:40.027)
So why is that important?
Courtney (11:40.204)
Yeah.
Greg Landsman (11:42.268)
They, it’s community. mean, it’s belonging at the heart of everything. don’t know. That’s a big, I think that’s the most important thing you can do for anybody, particularly kids is give them not just a sense of belonging, like certainty of belonging. And, and, and then, you know, we just do better when we, when we’re in a place where we know we, we belong and we’ve got support and there’s joy and all that good stuff. And, and so, and the data bears it out.
Courtney (11:45.294)
Mm.
Brian (11:46.161)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (11:58.533)
Yes.
Greg Landsman (12:12.208)
you know, kids are, you know, when they find that community, which, you know, if you’re on campus, you’re much more likely to find it than if you’re, you know, like I said, living, you know, 10, 15 blocks away in some section A department by yourself.
Brian (12:27.174)
Yeah.
Courtney (12:27.334)
their retention rates, I’m sure, got to be much better for those kiddos and the situation that they’re in, right? A lot of these kids do come from hard places and sometimes go back into that or move back into bad situations as well if they don’t have something like this. again, like Brian said at the very beginning, this is why this is something we can get behind. As a non-partisan organization, we can get behind this because it just fits our mission to really help these kids.
Greg Landsman (12:51.718)
Yeah. Yeah. And in politics, sometimes people try to like, and I want to, I want to solve the whole thing. but sometimes that’s not where everyone’s ready to, to, to go, you know, that, you know, so I think sometimes you got to find the places where people are like, yes, let’s do that and just get that done. and this is, this is about as nonpartisan.
Brian (13:03.045)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brian (13:09.329)
Yeah.
Greg Landsman (13:15.398)
or bipartisan as it gets. So hopefully we get this passed and we get it in play as soon as possible.
Brian (13:17.403)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (13:22.798)
So where does it stand right now? What’s kind of the current status?
Brian (13:22.971)
Great.
Greg Landsman (13:26.716)
So we’ve introduced it as it builds and that allows people to start signing on and say, hey, I want to be part of getting this thing passed. It goes to a particular committee. I begin to work the committee as with my co-sponsors. Let’s say there are 30, 40 members of Congress on that committee. You want everyone on that committee to sign up so that they…
they say to the chair of the committee, let’s go ahead and take this up. Let’s pass it out of committee. And then you start working leadership and others to push to get it on the floor. And then you want to do a sort of companion effort in the Senate. So we’ll also get something started in the Senate so that you can get them passed as simultaneously as you can.
And, then it gets sent to the president and signed into law. And, know, it should take, I think something like this, you know, a couple of weeks or a couple of months. takes, you know, quite frankly, the better part of a year. And for something as simple as this, it could go faster. Uh, but it, you know, it’ll be, it’ll really sort of start to move hopefully this fall.
Brian (14:44.497)
Yeah. So I’d like to have our listeners understand this a little bit better and look under the hood in a sense that you’re not going be creating like a new department. You’re actually using something that already exists with the Section 8 housing choice voucher. So I don’t want to assume that our listeners even know what that is, Section 8 housing. So if you could explain that a little bit and how you’re using that and just broadening it a bit.
then maybe our listeners will say, okay, I see how he’s trying to accomplish this.
Greg Landsman (15:21.244)
Yeah, so the federal government does housing work mostly through the Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD. And the money, the investments in housing, public housing come in mostly two forms. Money to build public housing and then vouchers. Communities get a certain amount of money.
Brian (15:29.041)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Landsman (15:46.728)
and people who are eligible, low income, need the assistance, can apply and get a voucher that allows them to take that voucher to any eligible Section 8. It’s a Section 8 program. So that’s just the name of the program. It’s not well branded, but it’s…
Brian (15:48.177)
Okay.
Brian (16:07.441)
Mm-hmm.
Brian (16:13.169)
Yeah, they could use a marketing person.
Courtney (16:14.158)
Yeah.
Greg Landsman (16:16.976)
Yeah. And they can use it, in housing that’s been approved by HUD through the section eight program. So you get a section eight voucher and then you try to go find an apartment. You know, the challenge is with that program is, it hasn’t kept up with the high cost of, of housing. And so there are fewer and fewer landlords, property owners that are willing to be part of the program.
Brian (16:42.511)
Willing.
Greg Landsman (16:45.272)
And, but in any event, most, not all of these kids are eligible. You know, they’ve aged out and they’re on their own. And so they’re eligible. They don’t have any real income or assets. And so they would be eligible and they could then apply for the voucher, which pays for, you know, rent.
off campus and then you know and then that would go towards paying the university to offset the cost of on-campus housing.
Brian (17:23.601)
So you’re, I just try to explain it to a fifth grader is you’re taking a program that already that people with low income can apply towards renting a house or an apartment, but that program does not apply to on campus housing or dormitories. And you’re saying, let’s just expand it a little bit to those.
Greg Landsman (17:49.062)
Yeah, it did. Yeah. That’s all just, you know, let people use it to, yeah, to live on campus. During college.
Brian (17:53.435)
Yeah.
Brian (18:00.229)
which is so important because we’ve already, going back to that word belonging, you’ve got kids who’ve grown up who bounced around from house to house, who may not be connected to a family and they don’t feel like they fit in, they don’t belong. And now they’ve beat the odds because far fewer than 10%, I think closer to 5 % actually end up graduating from a four year school. But they’re beating the odds, they have some ambition and aspiration to go to a college
And here they are again, have one, a financial obstacle to housing and two, the housing that they might be able to get is off campus. And they’re again, feeling like, okay, so I’m getting the message again. I don’t really belong here. I don’t belong on this campus. And so it has both what you’re proposing, a positive financial impact and a positive emotional relational impact.
Greg Landsman (19:00.144)
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. that’s yeah, I’m only going to repeat what you said, but I think it’s really important. One, it just, makes it less, it makes it more affordable. But I think almost more importantly, it makes it so much better and likely that these kids are going to succeed. And a lot of times kids, you know, get there and they get some public help to go to college. And that first year is just too much because there’s just not
Brian (19:15.451)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Landsman (19:28.754)
much of a support system there, there’s no community. and, and, and they, you know, they get pulled into all kinds of stuff and that’s it. And it’s hard to come back. So this, this sort of gets them into that community in a way that has proven to make all the difference in the world in terms of kids, you know,
Brian (19:50.479)
Mm-hmm
Greg Landsman (19:52.368)
doing well, feeling good and going to that, you know, and getting through that first year. if you, again, like I said at the beginning, if you get through that first year, your odds of you graduating very high.
Brian (20:00.273)
Skyrocket, uh-huh.
Courtney (20:01.833)
Yeah, I’m curious. So we’ve adopted through foster care a daughter that was 15 at the time. And I know at least here in Colorado, if they are adopted after age 13 or emancipate or age out after age, you know, from foster care, they are eligible for in-state tuition paid for. Does this, where’s the line there? Is it if they age out?
If they’re adopted after a certain age, is there anything like that for these older youth that might find permanency in their later years or is this specifically for those that age out?
Greg Landsman (20:35.4)
No, it’s for anyone that was in the program.
Courtney (20:43.47)
Okay. And I will say for us, know, we primarily in the last few years, we’ve fostered teens. And one of the biggest things we do is sit down and chat with them about their goals, their ambitions. And over and over again, we hear these teenagers saying, this is a dream of mine, but I’ll never get there. This is a hope of mine, but it’s impossible for me. And I was like, no, it’s not possible. And to be able to sit down and be like, hey, these are some things for you that are there. I mean, it really does give them a boost of confidence. It gives them a…
like, these people hear me and see me and know that this has been hard. So I see it just as a win-win for these kiddos that, I mean, I can’t imagine the stuff that they’ve gone through and, you know, especially in those older teen years and then trying to go out be an adult, you know, feeling like they’re on their own. I love it.
Greg Landsman (21:26.408)
Yeah. So, you know, it, you know, the key now is, just like sort of the, the roll up your sleeves, grind it out, hard work of, of getting in front of members of Congress and saying, Hey, is a really good bill, please. I’d love your help. and just getting people to like work on it. And you start to get, you know, 50, 60, 70 people working on it. And you know, that, that, that’s when you know, you’re going to probably get it done.
Brian (21:29.103)
So.
Brian (21:56.241)
Okay, and then what are something that our listeners might be able to throw like, I want to see this happen. What could they do?
Greg Landsman (22:03.432)
Find the bill, you know, and it’s the, you know, College Housing Affordability Act and send it to, you know, their members of Congress in the House and the Senate and just say, hey, this would be great if you could help work on this. We’d love, you know, this would be, you know, and it’s not just to sign on. Getting people to sign on is good. Getting people to work on it is even better.
And, know, so I always say like, Hey, would you mind helping to lead on this? And I think people like that. They like that better, which is like, I think you’re so special. Yeah. I’ve been a jerk. I, you know, or yeah, I actually, yeah, I think it’s like, I really do believe in you. And I think you working on this would make a big difference.
Brian (22:34.107)
So.
Courtney (22:42.904)
You
Brian (22:43.418)
huh. Yeah.
Brian (22:50.907)
So what does that look like then? What do you mean when you say that? Uh-huh.
Greg Landsman (22:54.778)
That means that they talk to other members and they’re, you know, for those who are on the right committee, they go to their chair and they say, Hey, let’s, let’s go ahead and make this up.
Brian (23:02.513)
So that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re co-sponsoring it.
Greg Landsman (23:05.498)
It’s both is that they’re co-sponsoring it and they’re helping to get people, others on board.
Brian (23:12.081)
Okay, all right. And then again, to our listeners, if you’re interested, and if you haven’t done this before, you just go to the house.gov or senate.gov and you can go, in case you don’t know who your representatives are, you can easily find them there. And even if you do know them, you probably still don’t know how to contact them. And from there, you can get their contact information. And you’ll want to, again, name the bill and then just say, you know, something.
Courtney (23:24.983)
you
Brian (23:41.105)
you know, make it personal, just like, hey, I’ve been a foster parent or whatever. I’ve been in foster care and this would have made a huge difference and say, and just express your hope that this would pass and what a difference it would make to you. I’m curious then, let’s assume good things that this is gonna pass. And then you think if it…
goes at a timeline that you feel like is realistic, when could this start hitting normal people of like,
Greg Landsman (24:21.576)
Yeah, I it’s interesting. It’s a good question. I mean, I would, it’s possible that it could happen pretty quickly, you know, for this, I guess, you know, for the second semester of this upcoming school year, if not the next school year. I mean, that’s the goal is to get it done as quickly as possible, at which point, once it’s passed, you know, the Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD,
Brian (24:36.89)
Okay.
Greg Landsman (24:48.336)
would say to universities and universities would know, all their financial aid offices would say, I’m going to go ahead and help this kid fill out this paperwork because they’re eligible for housing money.
Brian (25:04.24)
So at the beginning of 2026 is possible it could be ready, and if not then definitely by the beginning of the next school year.
Greg Landsman (25:14.888)
Yes. One really important caveat. Congress is, uh, uh, is, is, is kind of broken. So what should be, yeah, sorry. It’s, uh, it was not a well-oiled machine and it, this should pass. This is so simple. Very, very non-partisan.
Courtney (25:15.182)
one really important caveat. Congress could be a kind of choice. What? Shocker.
Brian (25:22.641)
What?
Okay, news flash everyone.
Brian (25:35.277)
Mm-hmm
Greg Landsman (25:42.332)
and, but there’s a slowness to this, this place that is, bonkers. and, so I just, you know, look, and, sometimes, you know, you can pass something in the house, sadly, and it just, you know, we’re at a committee and it never makes it to the floor. and, or it makes it to the floor and the house passes it, but the Senate doesn’t. Or the Senate doesn’t, the house does. It’s just, you know, but.
Brian (25:49.403)
You
Brian (26:01.093)
This is, yeah.
Courtney (26:01.838)
Hmm.
Greg Landsman (26:11.536)
This is why if a bill has somebody who’s working hard, we’ll deal with this bill, it has a much better chance.
Brian (26:17.059)
Yeah.
Yeah, okay. So you keep cruising the wheels and we, again, we’re optimistic again, because we feel like, you of course, many, many, many bills that are being promoted do have another point of view that is like, okay, but what about a lot of that? And this one to us, at least we were like, this seems like a no brainer and it would be a safe thing to
Say yes to so let’s again. Let’s still stay positive and and in spite of this the slowness of Congress being bonkers. I love that word If If and when this passes when this passes we take the F away how would a Aged out foster youth
Courtney (26:59.374)
Thank
Brian (27:13.617)
or a foster youth who’s still being connected to a caseworker or a family who’s, you know, a really good family. How do they even know how to start to they do they go up to a HUD website? Like, what do do?
Greg Landsman (27:27.494)
Yeah, I it’s
Yeah, so it’s a good question. I don’t know how HUD will implement it, but typically what happens is the financial aid folks at the universities will know and they’ll say, hey, I think you might be eligible for this. Now, it’s also true that there would be a ton of work through various foster care.
Brian (27:47.439)
Okay.
Greg Landsman (27:57.48)
agencies, organizations, advocacy groups that would spread the word and say, okay, here’s where you go.
Brian (28:01.871)
Yeah.
Courtney (28:04.576)
Yep.
Brian (28:04.761)
And then is it possible that a university could say, we’re just not going to participate? Or is that?
Greg Landsman (28:12.552)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. I’ve gotten this question a couple of times, we may tighten up the language from something permissive, you know, to something required. Because what I don’t, I don’t think anyone would, I don’t think anyone would, they, know, most of these, if they if they’ve enrolled the kid, they want that kid to succeed, it’s in their best interest for that kid to succeed. And they know
Brian (28:26.123)
Yeah, okay.
Greg Landsman (28:40.572)
that that child being on campus is a much better deal for them. I mean, it’s just for the child.
Courtney (28:45.612)
Yeah.
Brian (28:47.993)
Absolutely. Yeah, it seems like a, I said a multiple win, win, win, win. So I was going to, I cleared my top shelf here and then I decided not to go do this, but I have, grew up, as a child, lived in Thailand and I have a big wooden elephant and I was gonna put it up here, but was afraid it was gonna bust my shelf down.
Courtney (28:48.514)
Definitely, yep.
Courtney (28:52.942)
Yeah.
Greg Landsman (28:53.328)
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian (29:12.791)
And I didn’t want to do that like to make some reason I didn’t do it was like, I probably ought to have a big donkey up here as well. so, the point was years ago, I was trying to get people on different sides of not just the aisle, but in different sectors to work together on something. And I had a caseworker say to me, she, said, Brian, have you ever heard
Courtney (29:19.091)
I’m proud to have a good song for you as well.
Greg Landsman (29:26.482)
That’s a good one.
Brian (29:41.669)
the African proverb that says when the elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers. And I want to encourage you, encourage our listeners and everyone and say, by the way, if you don’t understand the proverb, means when the big people, when the big dogs, when the big sectors, when they’re not cooperating with each other and they’re not working together, when they’re fighting,
Greg Landsman (29:48.199)
Yeah.
Brian (30:11.351)
it’s the more vulnerable and very often the kids who end up becoming the victims. And so I want to thank you for working hard on getting these elephants and donkeys to not fight and actually to work together for the sake of these kids.
Greg Landsman (30:32.549)
I know it sounds crazy if you’re watching politics, but I’m 100 % convinced this is the direction we have to go, which is to get everyone to stop fighting with each other. And this is outside of politics. This is in schools, everywhere. mean, you know, if the adults are arguing with each other, kids suffer always, period. you know, adults disagree and they should work through those disagreements. But they, you know, you got to just remember
Courtney (30:32.557)
Yeah.
Brian (30:44.856)
Everywhere, yeah.
Greg Landsman (30:59.704)
If we’re fighting with each other or we’re not working well together, we may be fine, but the people who rely on us, in this case, kids, they’re the ones that are gonna struggle. And it’s so unfair. anyway, point is, in every aspect of our lives, adults working together is always the path forward.
Brian (31:07.342)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (31:26.498)
them.
Brian (31:27.417)
Yeah, that’s part of being an adult. Growing up, mature adult.
Greg Landsman (31:29.586)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney (31:31.358)
Hopefully, Mature adult. Well, Greg, as we close this out, we just want to thank you for your time, for your effort on this bill that we, like I said, we stand behind and we’re going to get others to stand behind as well. In our work, people often will ask us like, hey, you know a lot about foster care. If you could change something about foster care, one thing about the system, what would you change? I want to flip that and ask you that question as we close this out. If you could change one thing about the foster care system.
What would it be?
Greg Landsman (32:05.757)
my.
Greg Landsman (32:11.666)
Wow, that’s a good question. I think that when young people have that advocate that just stays with them, that’s a piece that I think is in play in some places, but not everywhere. The court appointed person, but I just think having
Brian (32:12.527)
It’s a tough one, yeah.
Brian (32:26.523)
Hmm.
Greg Landsman (32:41.978)
that one sort of permanent adult that’s just there with you through the process. You don’t live with them, but they’re just there. They’re your guide and advocate. think that’s the one thing. It’s just making, having a system where everyone has that.
Brian (32:45.061)
Yeah.
Brian (32:58.297)
I love that. Yeah, everybody needs that and especially when you don’t feel like you have anybody.
Courtney (32:59.074)
and yeah, yeah, it really is beautiful.
Courtney (33:05.454)
And even…
Greg Landsman (33:05.658)
I saw, I can’t remember. I was just watching a show. doesn’t matter what the show was, but they, it was a great line. the, one of the adults was saying to their kid, you really only need one good friend. Yeah. You may have a lot, but you just, you gotta have one good friend. And I think that’s true. And, and for, you know, foster
Brian (33:24.386)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Greg Landsman (33:34.309)
care kids like having that one person who’s just there always is really important.
Courtney (33:38.83)
Consistent, yeah. One consistent adult. Yeah, yeah.
Brian (33:39.963)
Yeah.
Brian (33:44.869)
Congressman Landsman, thank you so much for taking time to speak with us and our audience and for the work you’re doing and we’ve got your back.
Greg Landsman (33:56.05)
Thank you, Brian. Thank you Courtney. Appreciate what you guys do. All right, bye.
Courtney (33:56.622)
Yes, thank you.
Brian (33:59.215)
Yeah. Bye.
