Cleaner Homes & Beds for All #290

Joe Walsh:

I am a systems nerd. I love making systems, so that's something else I just love to do. So if you put me in a situation, I'm gonna look for the system that I can, I can create out of that. So that really came naturally to me. My desire to do that is not to say that it's been easy, but my desire to be able to set it up so that people would have a consistent experience from customer to customer to customer is something that I get really excited about doing and I can really geek out on that stuff.

Allie Smith:

So I was very fortunate early in my career to have the experience of exchanging my labor and work directly for only housing and food. And that was in another country. And what I learned through that experience was what that reward felt like to get to have my personal motivations be so aligned with the motivations of an organization that all I really needed in return was to basic living security.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Lovemaine radio show number 290, cleaner homes and Beds for all, airing for the first time on Sunday, April 9, 2017. Is it possible to take a good thing and make it even better? Today we speak with three entrepreneurs who are taking a unique approach to helping people have happier homes. Joe Walsh is The founder and CEO of GreenClean Maine, an innovative, environmentally friendly home cleaning company. Amy and Ali Smith offer an Earn a Bed program through their nonprofit Healthy Homeworks. We think you'll enjoy this show. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is my pleasure to speak with Joe Walsh, who is the founder and CEO of Green Clean Maine, an environmentally friendly home cleaning company serving Greater Portland since 2007. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Joe Walsh:

Thanks for having me, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I really like many things about your company, not the least of which is that you've been thinking about healthier homes and non toxic products for longer than many people have been. 10 years now.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah, we're going to be celebrating our 10th anniversary in October, but the start of the idea of the business was just over 10 years ago. We're at March now, end of March already. So it was just over 10 years ago that the idea first started germinating in there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You know, appropriate for like a green clean idea.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Things growing in the right way. Tell me a little bit about your background. Why is it that, what was it about your growing up life in Rhode island that caused you to think, huh, I think I'd like to go to Maine and open a green cleaning company.

Joe Walsh:

Well, you know, I think it's one of those stories that I sort of ended up with, you know, starting a cleaning company. I didn't move to Maine with that intention, but back in Rhode Island I had gotten interested in environmental issues through the road of sustainable development. I was involved down there in a community group that had gotten together to try and block or significantly change this suburban sprawl development that was going to be massive and would have completely changed the character of my hometown. I come from a very rural farming type place in Rhode island and real small town. And this development that was going to go in would have just brought a whole mess of suburban sprawl to the town that was totally out of character with like the rolling hills and the stone walls and it just totally out of place there. And the more I learned about it, the more I realized how environmentally irresponsible it was to build that way. And I became really interested in sustainable land use and sustainable land use development and really interested in places that had managed to remain walkable, places that weren't auto centered. You know, I had lived in Ireland for about 18 months after I graduated college and lived in a city there that's much like Portland, actually Galway, Ireland on the west coast. And there's. They're very similar, Portland and Galway in that they're both very walkable. They have Vibrant food scenes and vibrant music scenes and vibrant art scenes and just a really cool, energetic small city. And that is part of what drew me to Portland. But it was also this kind of idea, this interest in environmental sustainability. So I was looking for a way to get involved in a business that would be making money but also benefiting the environment at the same time. And I saw an opportunity in Portland that was like a three or four month contract job, was like a summer gig. And it was selling advertising for a startup publication called the Sunrise Guide. And you may know it now it

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

looks like, oh, we've had Heather on the show before.

Joe Walsh:

Oh good. Well, that's great. Yeah, Heather and I are good friends. And so I ended up coming here to help Heather get the Sunrise Guide started and sell advertising. And what I found when I was working and meeting all these great small business owners was just a super supportive small business community in the Portland area and everybody's helping each other out and supporting each other. And I found it really inspiring. And I think that, you know, it was. I fell in love with Portland and I think it was falling in love with Portland and also being exposed to all of these sustainable businesses by selling advertising for the Sunrise Guide that really kind of pushed me to want to go into business for myself because I've been thinking about it for a while, but the question was, how do I figure out how to make a profitable business and benefit the environment at the same time? And so we had a really tough time finding home cleaning companies to advertise in our gu because they all said they were too busy, all the green cleaning companies were too busy. So light bulb went off and I said I like to clean and there might be an opportunity there, you know. So I just started researching business plans and, you know, how that sort of thing worked. And it was a good fit for me because my father is a residential construction contractor. So I'd been used to being in people's homes and providing service in people's homes. So I was comfortable with that, with that kind of atmosphere. And the idea made sense to me. And so that's kind of how I got into it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What was your original educational background? What did you think you were going to be doing when you were in college?

Joe Walsh:

Oh boy, that's a great question. When I first I majored in communication studies because I thought I was going to be on the TV or in the radio. That was my thing. I wanted to be somehow involved with communication, broadcast communication. I didn't know if it meant I was actually going to Be on the air or if I was going to be, you know, in the production studio or whatever. But I was fascinated with television and radio. But that was when I was 18 and you know, things change pretty quickly. When I got into college, I stuck with the communication studies and actually got a bachelor's degree in it. But my interest lean started to lean more towards leadership studies and organizational communication, you know, more the organizational and business kind of application of communication. And I have an academic minor in leadership studies too, so that was always interesting to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You also were part of the, you're a 2016 graduate of the Maine center for Entrepreneurial Development's Top Gun program and The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program at Babson College. So you've continued this interest in business and leadership in a more, I guess, academic way and practical?

Joe Walsh:

Yeah, I mean, I think so. I like to think of Green Clean Maine as my MBA program because I thought of going back to school to get some more formal training in business, but it just didn't seem to make sense because by the time I got Green Clean Maine to a point where it was kind of self sustaining, which is probably year seven or eight, I realized that, you know, I've really learned a lot and I can really focus my training and my education on more practical, you know, seminar type programs that are just gonna expand my. Expand my mind really is what I need to do. So that's kind of how I've continued my education. So Top Gun was great for that because it exposed me to people and concepts and ideas that I wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to and also helping me to think bigger. I think when you start out, I mean, I started the business, I was scrubbing toilets and, you know, on my hands and knees scrubbing floors and doing everything from cleaning the showers to doing all the business planning and accounting and all that. And I think when you start from there, it can sometimes be difficult to take things to the next level. You have to start to think bigger and, you know, think of yourself. I've had to learn to think of myself as the owner of a company, not, you know, a guy who cleans or, you know, even a guy who manages a couple of people. So that's what those programs have really helped me with is the kind of bigger picture stuff,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

having some experience with men in my life. There's not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily follow that you would like to clean. And I'm not saying it's. I know that I said this in such an awkward way, like maybe just not the men that I know love cleaning.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As much.

Joe Walsh:

Yep.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But you said you like to clean.

Joe Walsh:

I do. I do. And you. You wouldn't have known it by, say, looking at my college dorm room, you know, because I don't think that, for me, it was always something I actively paid attention to. But when I was a teenager, I would spend weekends, like, detailing my car, and when I used to work in my dad's construction business, I would take, you know, time to clean out the work vans and get everything neat and organized. And it's just something that I always enjoyed doing. I always found cleaning to be very cathartic, you know, just really makes you feel good when everything's clean and neat and organized, you know, and it actually also helps, I think, clear the mind, too. And there's actually research that supports this, of course, since I've been doing this for so long now, I hear a lot about cleaning. And there's a lot of research that actually supports the idea that for some people, actually, mental health therapists will actually, like, tell people to clean as part of their therapy, you know, so there is definitely something to that. To that. But, yeah, I just enjoy it. I just really get satisfaction out of seeing something. Start out looking one way and then you spend some time with it, and you can take a step back and look at your work. And there's a lot of satisfaction with that. Just seeing everything just so and everything really shining at its best. In a way, it's like a passion for restoring things. You know, I want to. I want things to look and feel the best they possibly can. So I think that's probably where that. Where that comes from. But I do like it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I need to back up and say that was a fairly egregious statement on my part that just because you are male doesn't mean that you would like to clean. Because actually, I do know men that like to clean. So I need to apologize to any man who's listening because that was a ridiculous thing to say. And I'm glad that you like to clean. Personally, I like to clean, too. And there is something that is very, I don't know, something about folding laundry, for example. You know, you pull it out, you put something dirty in, and by the time it comes out of the dryer, it's clean and you fold it up and then you get to use it again. And there's something very, I don't know, satisfying about that.

Joe Walsh:

It's very satisfying. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't blame you for saying that. You don't know a lot of men who want to clean, because I just think it's true. I don't think it's a sexist statement. I mean, I don't know a lot of men who want to clean. And I'm in the business, you know, so this is a business that's definitely the doers, the people who actually do the work. It's definitely dominated by women. You know, I do have a couple of men who work for me, but it's mostly women who work for me who have the interest in doing. In doing the kind of work.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You know, we were referred. And when I say we, I mean my household. And I should be clear. Actually, the man in my life, he actually keeps things nice and neat. So he may not love to clean, but he likes things to be tidy and he likes things to be neat, and he will clean. But we were referred to your business through a designer friend of ours, Brett Johnson.

Joe Walsh:

Oh, I love Brett. Big fan of his work.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, he's great. And we actually. I think we waited about a year because we had people who were working with us already and they were good before we finally got in touch with your business. And it was truly amazing. It was to be able to. I think I saw the car that was a green clean main car. This is a tribute to your, I guess, communication skills that you have these cars out there. I made the phone call. I immediately talked to somebody. I immediately got a quote based on the information that I was given. I mean, it was impressive just from the very beginning that we were talking to a person. We didn't have to wait. And there was. You had a system in place. There was already a system for just knowing how much it was going to cost.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah. So I'm. First of all, thank you for sharing that. And I'm super glad to hear that you had such a great experience. So that's exactly the kind of experience I want people to have. So I'm really glad to hear that. I am a systems nerd. I love making systems. So that's something else I just love to do. So if you put me in a situation, I'm going to look for the system that I can make and I can create out of that. So that really came naturally to me, my desire to do that. And it's not to say that it's been easy, but my desire to be able to set it up so that people would have a consistent experience from customer to customer to customer is something that I get really excited about doing, and I can really geek out on that stuff. So I'm glad to hear you had that experience. From the beginning, I. I set out knowing that I wanted to build a professional organization. So I wanted to make it bigger than just me and a couple of other people cleaning houses. And I. So all along was looking for ways to systematize things, but not without. I didn't want it. I didn't want it to feel like a big corporation or didn't want it to feel like a franchise or anything, because it's not. We have that independent spirit and we have been built from the ground up. And I also wanted the people who worked in my company to feel like they can be themselves and really relate to people and get to know people. And that's really important to me. But at the same time, there's got to be solid systems behind that, you know, to back it up. So I'm glad to hear that you had that experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it was great because it was also very clear immediately, this is going to cost this much money and this is when we will show up and this is what's going to happen next. And that makes a big difference because I've been fortunate to have people who have helped clean my house for a long time. Because as a person who works outside the home, married to other person who works outside the home with children, that was just something that we chose to prioritize for a long time. And so I have a lot of experience with people who are willing to help out with that. And it's varied. Sometimes we have had people who are really good and they communicated really well. And sometimes we would go weeks without people showing up and we always pre cleaned and then we would pre clean and we'd wait and there wouldn't be anybody showing up.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it. So we just, you know, admission. We actually still use your company. We went through the process. And what was also great was that you came, your company comes in and does a mandatory, like, thorough. I don't even remember what it's called,

Joe Walsh:

but our initial deep cleaning service.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Initial deep cleaning service. It's like you want to get people on track and you're gonna start with the grittiest, grimiest, get everything all done so that when the cleaning continues, you're going back and it's more routine.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah. It's also because I want to be able to guarantee our work. So I am not going to feel like I can guarantee that your house is going to stay looking spic and span if we don't have the chance to hit the reset button first. I feel like once we've put our hands on every surface in your home, we're now responsible for the cleaning because we've had the opportunity to get everything to a baseline. So now I can tell you as a customer, I 100% guarantee that we're going to keep this place spic and span for you and you're going to love it. So. But that's why we have to do the deep cleaning first, or we just can't. We can't guarantee anything. We have to get into every nook and cranny.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. And it was great because we ended up because the quote was over the phone, people came into our house and they said, well, you know, your tub is a little bigger than we expected. It's going to take us a little longer. So, you know, is it okay if we go ahead? And so we were just aware at every step there weren't any surprises. This is how much it's going to be. This is what you should. And they were very thorough. They were there for hours doing this. It's not like we have a huge house, but, I mean, they were there for a really long time.

Joe Walsh:

Even the size of the house doesn't necessarily dictate how long it would take, and neither does, you know, if it takes a really long time. Does it mean, oh, your house was super dirty or anything. But it's got to do with how many rooms you have and how much stuff you have and the way the rooms are laid out. I mean, there's a lot that goes into why it would take longer than other things. But. But yeah, we really try and communicate with people along the way. And I believe that if you create good, reliable systems that work, people will thrive within those systems. So I don't think that if you create really good systems, it means that every movement is scripted and people sort of seem stiff and impersonal. I think it's quite the opposite. I think if you have a really, really solid system in place that your employees know, work, that the system works, then they can feel free to act within that system and be themselves and, you know, make sure that the focus on the client rather than focus on, like, how are we going to get this work done? So. Sounds like it worked in your case. I'm glad to hear that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, it definitely did. We, you know, every week, because we have our cows cleaned every two weeks. And I'm telling you, I have, literally, because I have three children and have been a doctor for 20 years, and I'm very fortunate that I've had this sort of help. I have so much experience that it's very rare that we had had people before that would come in, clean the house and then leave us a nice note and say, you know, have a

Joe Walsh:

good day or no, the notes, the notes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it was really. It's really great, you know, and after enough notes, we actually did go on yelp and leave a positive review, which was something that was asked. And we, you know, you guys follow up via email. And I think one of the reasons I like this so much is that I'm also a systems nerd. I mean, I feel like there are things that you can just put in place they shouldn't be. It's a nice structure to work within, so you're not like wasting time. If you put something good in place from the beginning, then you don't have to waste time messing around with the same, Doing the same thing over and over again in an inefficient way.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah, yeah. I like to set it and forget it. I mean, and nothing in business is truly set it and forget it. You're constantly revisiting and revising. And that's something I've learned along the way. You know, I think when I first started out, I thought, I'm gonna build these systems and then I'll be able to walk away and everything will just be hunky dory. But it doesn't really work that way. You always have to revisit and revise and check and test. Is this working? What do we need to change? But I completely agree with you. You set up that system and then you don't have to waste mental energy thinking about how to reinvent the wheel every time you have to go do this thing, whatever it is that you have to do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you started out yourself and somewhat smallish, but I've now seen your cars in lots of places. I know you have different teams all over the place. What is your reach?

Joe Walsh:

Well, we serve currently Saco to Freeport and west to Windom. We're talking about expanding that a little bit farther out. And I've got just shy of 30 people cleaning. And so every day there's going to be somewhere between 22 and 27 people out cleaning homes and small offices for Green Clean Main. And I've got 14 vehicles out on the road, I believe. So those are the little white cars you see with the logo all around the Portland area. But, yeah, that's our reach now. I mean, I can see us getting out to Sebago Lake to The west. So that's a little bit farther than we go now. But I can see us getting out there soon and I can see us getting as far south as Kennebunker Wells because we're getting more and more demand from that area. People really wanting us to come down there. So I think we're getting ready to make that leap.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, I think it took us a little while to get on the schedule. I mean, clearly you're very popular. It seems like whatever it is that you're doing must appeal to people.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah, I mean, for us, the toughest thing, and I think you'll hear this from a lot of business owners, is finding good people to do the work. And we also have a training process that is rigorous. So it takes a while for us to ramp up for staffing to add capacity. So our basic training is three weeks of direct supervised training. We, we have new people come in and work with a team leader and train hands on. And it's all supervised and there's a lot of follow up and a lot of supervision and checking of work and things like that. And then after the initial three weeks, there's another two months of sort of, you're done with basic training but you're still being supervised and things. So it takes a while for us to really get someone to the point where we know that they're able to do what we need them to do. So that's sometimes why the wait when people call and they might, you might have to wait a couple of weeks before we can get you on the schedule because it's just, it's a capacity thing for us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how has it been for you to retain, hire and retain people who want to do this work and want to do it?

Joe Walsh:

Well, that's a great question. I think we, as I know that we do a good job at this as compared to other people in our industry, but it's still a very high turnover industry. Our average length of employment for people once they get past training is two years. If you take everyone who's working for me right now, I have some people who have been with me for almost six years. I have some people who have been with me for just a few months. If you average it all out, it's two years, which in this business is good. That's a really, a really healthy, really healthy number. But it's still a high turnover industry. But we're getting, each year that number gets higher. So our goal is to make that average more like four years. That's where we really want to be. So we're working on that. But we are finding success because in finding good people for a few reasons. One is you can actually make pretty good money working for us as a housekeeper. So you're gonna make better money than you. You're gonna make better money by the end of your first year than you would working in most of the hotels in the area, for example. So if you're looking at housekeeping work, and we also provide so much training that we find our employees really appreciate the structure and the training. I mean, the training program is very structured. Again, you're talking about some systems. We really work hard to make sure everybody gets the same information and that people learn as they go. And we have some great trainers who really can adapt to people's different learning styles. And we just get a lot of feedback that our employees appreciate that. And so it's, you know, it's. We attract people because we're not corporate, because we're a smaller company. We have a little bit of a personality, I think, and we're really sort of engaged in the local business community and in the greater Portland area. And we retain people because they can quickly move up in the company, which is not like a lot of entry level jobs. I mean, working for us, you start at 11 bucks an hour. And a lot of entry level jobs like that, you know, you might start at 11 and in 18 months you might be making 11, 25. But for us, in 18 months, you're probably making 14 or 15, $15 an hour and you probably have a company car. And for someone who's 25, 26, 30 years old, to be making, you know, $15 an hour plus and have a company car and have paid vacation, you know, these things, I mean, it's a good job. So that's how we end up able to keep people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And have you been able to make your goal of having a sustainable business model?

Joe Walsh:

Yeah, I mean, you know, the business in a lot of ways runs itself. It's what allows me to do things like be interviewed for a podcast on a radio show. But it does. But I. One of my big goals for the business is to be one of the few cleaning businesses in the country. There are few residential cleaning businesses in the country, I should be specific about that, that offer health insurance. Right now, we're not big enough able to really support that financially, but it is a major goal of mine. So, you know, in my mind, our next big milestone is to be able to offer, you know, full scale health benefits for our employees. We used to for a short period of time there was really generous subsidies for small businesses to offer health coverage and those went away when the Affordable Care act came into place. But that's fine because my employees get all really good coverage under the Affordable Care act and so they're able to get the health coverage that they need from some way shape or form with the aca. But you know, given the current political climate, who knows what's going to happen with the aca. And I want my company to be able to provide health benefits if they lose their ACA coverage because quite a few of my employees depend on the subsidies from the ACA to get health insurance for themselves and their families. And so if they lose that, I want to be able to swoop in and do it. So my goal is that in next year, by next year or the year after, we're able to offer health insurance. So that to me is when I'll feel like, okay, now we're really a sustainable long term business that'll, you know, be able to keep going for decades. You know, once I feel like we've reached that mass where we can actually do that, that's like the last to me, the last big milestone for us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have no doubt that you will be able to reach that goal. You seem like you've accomplished really great things in the last 10 years and I hope that your team continues to do a great job on my house. I have no doubt that they will there either because they really, I guess call out Team Ashley. That's the people I've been working with and they've done a really nice job. I've been speaking with Joe also Walsh who is the founder and CEO of Green Clean Maine, an environmentally friendly home cleaning company serving Greater Portland since 2007. And I'll also say you guys have a fun Instagram feed. So thank you for that too.

Joe Walsh:

Yeah, check us out. Reenclean Main. I have to make a plug for that. We have such a talented photographer working with on that and she's also a client of ours and we've been so lucky to be able to have her help us out. So definitely check it out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thanks Joe.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

to have in the studio with me to Amy and Ali Smith. Amy Smith is the founder and executive director of Healthy Homeworks and her daughter Ali Smith is the organization's director of development. Healthy Homeworks works with landlords and tenants in downtown Lewiston to improve the quality of living conditions. Volunteers can also learn to build beds at the organization's factory and receive beds of their own after completing the program. Thanks so much for coming in.

Amy Smith:

We are so happy to be here.

Allie Smith:

Thank you for having us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think you are officially our first bed related guests. That's kind of cool. But I knew you both first from Yarmouth, where you no longer, either of you live, right. Somehow there was a, you took kind of an interesting left turn when you left Yarmouth. Amy, tell me about that.

Amy Smith:

Left turn. Yeah, or right, depending on direction. Sure, of course. Yes. So we, so this whole sort of turn started in 2014 and our kids had all grown and sort of flown the coop and our middle daughter was working in Portland and struggling to find housing. She was looking at lots of different departments. They were all either very expensive or really not that nice. And she really had trouble finding a middle ground for housing. And she sort of exposed us to the housing crunch that was going on in town because, you know, we're up in Yarmouth. What do we know about this? And so we had sort of this confluence of learning a little bit about the housing market being ready to sell our home and downsize and started thinking, well, you know, maybe we'd be okay landlords, so maybe we should buy a multi family and try that out, live there, try sitting, living and see how that all would work for us. And so that's what we did. We found a pretty rough triple decker right downtown and I went half time at my consulting job and managed the rehab of the property over the course of 2015. So that's kind of, that was my trial by fire. And boy did I learn a lot. But I think the most important thing I learned was, number one, how much I loved that project, loved doing the work, and also how amazing it is to actually revive one of these sort of grand old buildings and create really nice living space.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Talk to me about the housing crunch and how it impacted. You talked about your middle child. So she was, I'm guessing, in her 20s somewhere. And talk to me a little bit about what you found out.

Amy Smith:

Well, what we found out is that the rental rates were just rising precipitously. I think Portland had the largest, fastest rise in rents a couple years ago in the country, something like 17%. And at the same time, a lot of people were getting. So the rents were going up, people were getting squeezed out of the affordable spaces. And a lot of people, because the prices were going up, there weren't a lot of people who could afford to sort of renovate the places that needed renovation. So there was just a lot of movement in the area. And we thought, well, you know, maybe we could be helpful. The piece that we didn't understand at the time was the impact on the lower income population and what was happening with affordable housing and housing projects in town. And that's another thing that we started to learn about once we sort of started renovating the property. So I don't know how tuned in you are to affordable housing and how all that works, but I had absolutely no clue what the need was, had no idea how it actually worked. So when somebody came to me and said, so are you going to be accepting Section 8 vouchers? I was like, what the heck is that? I don't know what you're talking about. Over time, I started to learn a little bit more about it and understand what a complicated system it is and again, how acute the need is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Ali, what's your intersection with this? I know you're now the director of development, but from what I understand, you graduated from college in 2011, you worked abroad, you were in D.C. and you were living, you know, a very different life. So why did you decide to come back here?

Allie Smith:

Well, I was very fortunate early in my career to have the experience of exchanging my labor and work directly for only housing and food. And that was in another country. And what I learned through that experience was what that reward felt like to get to have my personal motivations be so aligned with the motivations of an organization that all I really needed in return was to basic living security. And when I returned to the United States and started working in corporate and creative spaces in dc, which are always spaces that I have, you know, really enjoyed. And that was really the image of my life that I had projected to myself. That was based a lot in creative success and material success. Over time, I came to realize how deeply missing that other element of true Alignment between my motivations and top priorities and the top priorities of an organization were. And I came to realize that working somewhere that had a bottom line that was based, at the end of the day, really in profit just didn't sit right with me. And it was hard to recognize that gap. I think it's always hard to recognize gaps between the things that we think are going to fulfill us and the things that actually do. So when my mother started doing this work and we started talking about it and brainstorming on the phone, I came to realize that this was such a unique opportunity to not only support my family and the people that I love, but to do so in a way that positively impacts the lives of other people. And, you know, to move back to Maine, a place that I love and a place where my family is. I mean, I think people wait their whole lives for an opportunity like that. And to me, it was so clearly the right choice that, you know, it kind of decision made itself.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems like it would have been easy, Amy, for you and your husband to just find a house, make it nice, live there, keep doing the consulting work. Not everybody gets drawn to deal with these bigger issues that you were faced with and really wanted to find more about.

Amy Smith:

Well, I guess you're right, but it was not altruistic to start. I have to be very honest about that. We discovered, you know, again, I discovered this passion for doing this work, and I wanted to sort of figure out how to make that my job, you know, rehabbing these old properties and bringing them back. And initially, I wasn't really thinking about affordable housing. But when I started to look into, well, what would that take? I realized that I had, you know, obviously very limited experience, which was I rehabbed one triple decker, right? And very limited money because I had just rehabbed one triple decker. So I tried to figure out where I could afford to do the work, where there was a lower cost of entry than Portland, and also where could I find the best leverage, right? Where could I make the least amount of resources go the furthest? Started looking into affordable housing and realized, boy, if you bought a big old building and rehabbed it, you could house families, and if and per unit, you could give more people better living conditions. And so it was this progression. And then I thought, well, and can you make money at that? Because now this was going to be my new job. So it was quite a journey trying to sort of wrap my head around that. But at the end of the day, it was like, yeah, I like this combination. I can do what I love. I can have sort of a nice social bottom line and hopefully just have make a modest return on that. And then the next question is, so, where are you going to do this? Right? And there were kind of two other places that had triple deckers that were close enough, and that was Biddeford and Lewiston. And I was talking to friends about this, and again, this weird confluence of, gee, I'm thinking about doing this work in Lewiston. And my friend said, well, gee, have you read Katharine Bestman's novel about all the Somali immigrants in Lewiston and how they've, you know, changed the fabric up there and, you know, all the wonderful things that are happening in Lewiston, the challenges? I said, no, I didn't know about that. So I read this book, which is a great book. It's by Kathryn Bessman, who's an anthropology professor at Colby. I can go more into more detail on that if you're interested. But it convinced me to look really hard at Lewiston, to meet the people, to understand the market and the challenges. And that community is remarkable. The people of Lewiston, you know, and I mean the entire community, you know, immigrants, you know, everybody wants to call them New Mainers. I don't know what to call the other people who've been there forever. Old Mainers, like, are fabulous. The city council, the, you know, the city officials, the housing authority, all these people are so dedicated to trying to elevate the quality of living, and it does need elevating in Lewiston's downtown core that I was convinced that this was a community that I really wanted to become part of and really help sort of, you know, with that ongoing effort.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Ali, growing up in Yarmouth, how much did you know of Lewiston?

Allie Smith:

I knew nothing. I had never set foot in Lewiston prior to June of this year. I did read the same book by Kathryn Bestman, which she purchased and sent to me as part of her efforts to convince me to come here. And it worked spectacularly as most things that you put your mind to do. But really, I had very little context outside of, you know, school competitions and hearing the name referenced. But I will freely admit that living in Yarmouth growing up, I didn't see much else of Maine, you know, let alone the world. I mean, our family and my mother in particular, did make a very strong effort to expose us to other cultures and other spaces. But at the end of the day, you know, when you live in a town like Yarmouth, you don't, or at least I didn't, tend to venture too far outside of my immediate concerns as a middle schooler and a high schooler, which tend to be pretty self directed concerns or at least they were for me. So really it's been my first exposure and I have to just agree and amplify everything that my mother has said. I mean, I have never been part of a community like the community in Lewiston and I feel so grateful to have found a sort of home there and so thankful to the community for being so welcoming to us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Where did you live when you were abroad?

Allie Smith:

I lived in Thailand for two years.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And did you find any differences, similarities between those communities and the communities that you're the community you're working with now?

Allie Smith:

I think that it's always a productive challenge to work across cultures because it really challenges your assumptions. One of the assumptions that you comes top of mind to me is our understanding of time. And here, you know, we are always on a schedule and we always have the next block in our calendar. And if you're late, you know, that's almost a strike against your own sort of personal value in it. It also implicates something to the other person who you're late to that, you know, you don't care enough about them to be there on time. You don't value their time. In Thailand at least that relationship is incredibly different. And I had the opportunity to not only work with, but also manage individuals who came from a very different cultural background than I did and had a very different understanding. And I think, you know, being put in a position where you need to expand your own sense of what empathy means and really question the assumptions you use to navigate your life is so productive, not just in terms of having more positive empathy, effective relationships with those people, but in terms of coming back into your own culture and really examining what are the assumptions that I allow to go unchecked in my life. And I will say that experience, I feel has greatly aided me in being able to gain just a peek into what it's like to assimilate to a new culture and all of the moving goalposts and all of the community confusion that is inherent in that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Amy, where did the bed come in? As sort of this.

Amy Smith:

It's sort of this orthogonal. Wait a minute, what's with the beds?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes, exactly.

Amy Smith:

In fact, that was our first marketing flyer reader. It was like, what's up with the beds? Well, in the course of looking at properties in Lewiston, we went through dozens and dozens of of the downtown housing stock because again, I knew how to do one kind of building. So those were the buildings I was looking at and it was so striking to us how many people didn't have a bed. Almost two a person. People were sleeping on the floor, on mats, on deflated air mattresses. Large families, you know, 10, 12 member families with two beds. And it was just sort of this weird thing that we kept noticing. And as we tried to figure out how could we really have sort of a maximum impact with again our limited resources, it became pretty clear that sort of the tensions that existed in the low income housing had a lot to do with people not sort of understanding their roles in the equation. So landlords and tenants maybe not having the same level of understanding of what it meant to live in and care for a building. There were issues that came up with that. And the bed issue is a great example because people were sleeping on the floors, they were dragging mattresses in off the street when they could find them. This was causing bedbug infestations, right? And then it's the landlord's responsibility to get rid of the infestation, but the tenant needs to play a role in that. And so the combination of sort of the living conditions, the tensions that existed, that to my mind really was just sort of a lack of information and shared resources. We thought, you know what, this, we need to come up with a non profit that can help with this relationship between the landlords and tenants. And that's a big lofty goal. So again, so then again, what about the beds? So when we thought, okay, we're going to try to create this network of positive engagement with this community in particular and what could we do that would have immediate impact on the quality of people's daily lives who are living in this housing. And the first thought was, okay, well let's create this network, let's get some buying power going for the landlords and tenants so that they can purchase beds. Like, let's just start there. And I started looking into that. And beds are expensive. And at one point I sort of looked at my math and my figures and I said, you know what, we should just build beds. We can do it cheaper. We can set up shop right there in Lewiston. Maybe, maybe we could even create, you know, sort of a job training, job opportunity there. And we decided to just go for it. So that's where the beds come in. And what we've been astonished by is the level of interest. So the minute we sort of decided to do this, we put out a little flyer. We set up shop at Build Main, which was a trade show in Lewiston. And there was so much interest. And our waiting list started to grow because what we said was, for 16 hours of labor, you can come work in the shop, build a bed for yourself, plus one or two extras, and then you can go home with your bed frame, plus a mattress with a bed bug encased. So that was our sort of operating assumption. 16 hours for a twin, 20 for a full. Call us and we'll put you on the list. And that's kind of what happened. So we set up shop right in downtown. The Pepperell mill is walking distance to all this housing stock because the housing stock exists because of the mill. So all these houses that we talk about and that we work in, a lot of them were built by the businesses that were in the mills to house their workers, many of whom, anecdotally were also large immigrant families. So it's been this whole progression for us, but now we've got this sort of toehold to positive engagement space. And we've been so fortunate to work with just an amazing array of folks to sort of make it a success and help promote the fact that that opportunity exists. And I'd love to have Ali talk a little bit about sort of the experience that people have when they. When they volunteer.

Allie Smith:

Yeah. So the core premise of this program, if you look at outcomes, right, the most tangible outcome is that a person who did not have a bed to sleep in, did not have a healthy place to sleep, now has a bed to sleep in. And I think that, you know, anecdotally, if we all take a minute to imagine what it might feel like to wake up every day on the floor or on a couch, as opposed to in our bed, that we can kind of emotionally feel what the gap is between those two experiences. And I want to highlight here too, that if you are sleeping on the floor, if you are sleeping on a couch that is fundamentally intended to be a temporary state of being, nobody really plans to be under those conditions indefinitely. And so as time wears on and you wake up each day and you're immediately reminded of this gap between your expectation for yourself and the reality that you're living, that is a hard emotional and mental place to start your day, to be reminded of something that you've yet to accomplish. So I think the gap between being on the floor and being in a bed, that's fairly self evident. The bigger gap and what we're trying to give people the experience of is between sleeping on the floor and waking up in a bed. That is a testament to your ability to learn something new, to gain A new skill to succeed in a new environment, to build new relationships. And, you know, in addition to this work with healthy homeworks, I also work part time at a youth shelter in Lewiston where I provide educational support to youth who are homeless or at risk of homelessness or otherwise alienated from their families. And what I see time and again in these relationships and in having these conversations with youth is that the biggest gap is not between their abilities and the opportunities they're seeking. It is between their sense of self and their self esteem and the ability and the motivation and the confidence to pursue those opportunities. And so in that context, as well as in this context, what we are really aiming to do is to provide people with an opportunity to succeed in a new environment, to gain that confidence and to really feel like, wow, I do have the capacity to improve my own life if I'm given the chance. And so our program is oriented entirely towards that. You know, folks don't need any level of woodworking experience to do the program. We've had people with ranges of experiences, qualifications, disabilities, I mean, you name it, we are open to everyone. And from the minute someone walks in the door, it is an environment that is based in positive reinforcement and the value of growth first and foremost. So the first activity that people complete is they build what's called a laminate, which is the primary piece in the headboard. And that serves as a diagnostic for us. We can really understand based on that process, you know, what someone manual dexterity is like, what their understanding of spatial relations is like, you know, how active their listening skills are. We can kind of extrapolate all these things about their learning style and really meet them where they're at, and then intentionally structure their time with us so that they feel a very real sense of progression. I mean, the folks that we interact with, they get this message from society repeatedly. Whether it's because they're recovering from substance addiction, whether it's because they've just been unemployed for a long time, whether they're, you know, new to the country and, you know, struggling and working hard to overcome cultural difference, to adapt to new working environments, you know, whatever the case may be, they get this message that their labor isn't valued and that they're not really expected to learn new things and to grow and to contribute in a fundamental way to their own well being. So we really want to counter that narrative and give them the opportunity to really feel like they've succeeded and then to go back to that gap that we're talking about before the difference between being on the floor and being in a bed to wake up not only, you know, rested and with the physical and mental kind of obvious benefits that come from sleeping well, but to wake up and be immediately confronted not with the things that you haven't accomplished yet, but with this such a tangible reminder of the creative power of your own hands and your own ability to not only improve your own life, but also to improve the lives of others. Because we're very clear with people who are working with us, yes, we're building this bed for you, and we're also building this bed for your neighbor who's across the table from you, who you're getting to know. And the third bed is going to an organization that provides housing first services for people who are immediately homeless. And that's the other person who's going to benefit from this, to give them that sense of community engagement and to show them their ability to positively impact the lives of others as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Amy, what types of numbers are we talking about? How many beds have you built to date?

Amy Smith:

So to date, last year, we gave away 17 beds and we sold 51 beds. And that's between June and December of last year. So our goal for this year is 90. Give away 90 beds and build and sell 180 beds. Because the way this works, right, is it's the money that comes in from the sale of the wholesale or retail beds that can fund the program so that we can afford to give away the beds. It costs us about $250 to give a bed to an Earn a Bed volunteer between the frame, the mattress, and the bed bug encasement. So the math has kind of surprised us because we sort of course knew that we would need money in order to give the package, but we sort of didn't think about the other end, which was, well, and we need orders for beds, so there's something for the volunteers to work on. And so, you know, towards the end of the year, we sort of said, oh, okay, so now what we really need to focus on is selling beds so that we have the work and the money needed to continue the program. So last year was our, you know, was like a pilot for us. And we really just wanted to prove the concept that, you know, we could have anybody come in, they could succeed at building a bed. We would deliver and set up the bed, and everybody would be happy, and it would be a very positive experience, you know, and that's what we've proven so far. And we also have developed our wholesale market a little bit. We got an order at the end of last year from Avesta Housing here in Portland. They're building a new housing first facility for veterans, 30 bed facility out on Bishop Street. And so they purchase their beds from us, which is very exciting. And Preble street is another big customer. The way we work with nonprofits like that is we sell them the beds at wholesale so that they can maximize their dollars and get the maximum number of beds to folks. And then currently FX Marcotte in Lewiston is carrying our beds and Hub is going to start carrying them in the next month or so. So, you know, our goal is to get to the point where we can take 10 volunteers a month, 10 builders, 10 earn a bed a month. So give away 120 beds a year and then be producing and selling, you know, 3 60, 380 beds. And once we sort of get to that point, then we really feel like we can start creating paid jobs again for this very same population. Because now we've got a list. I think we've had 24 people through the program so far. Delightful. You know, come on back. They want to come back and volunteer without the promise of a bed just to help. And you know, it's a, it's fun, it's a really fun environment. So that's what we, we would love that because that's, that's a lot of beds. 120 people, 120 households, you know, to beginning beds. And we would also like to get to the point where we can take repeat builders because right now we have to limit it to one. One bed per household. But then once a builder completes our program, they also can buy beds wholesale from us. So we're just trying to get as many families and people into safe sleeping arrangements. So the numbers, I don't know if those numbers seem big or small to you, but, but we feel really good about sort of the impact that it's had so far.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I encourage people who are listening. If you're a listener and you're interested in this program, we'll put a link to Healthy Homeworks on our show notes page. This is a great program. I appreciate your both coming in and you're both spending the time to do this. We've been speaking with Amy Smith and also with Ali Smith. Amy is the founder and executive director of Healthy Homeworks and her daughter Ali Smith is the organization's director of development. I really wish you all the best. I'm sure you will reach your goals because I can tell that you're both extremely passionate and motivated in this project. Thank you, thank you. You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 290, cleaner homes and Beds for All. Our guests have included Jo Walsh and Amy and Ali Smith.

Allie Smith:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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