Chad Carbone’s Recovery Journey: From 12 Years Homeless to Leading Boulder’s Bridge House Ready to Work

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Chad Carbone. Chad is the director of outdoor operations at Bridge House Ready to Work, a nonprofit in Boulder, Colorado that helps individuals experiencing homelessness find stable work, housing and support.

through its Ready to Work program. Chad struggled with addiction for years and eventually finding himself homeless for nearly 12 years. But this isn’t a story of defeat, it’s a story of resilience, hope, and purpose. After receiving help from multiple people along the way, Chad now dedicates himself to helping others overcome similar challenges. Under his leadership, Bridge House continues to expand its outdoor social enterprise initiatives.

offering paid employment and job training to people in need. Ready to Work has received recognition from local media, including the Daily Camera and Nine News, for its positive results in reducing homelessness and improving lives. Today, the program also reports a strong success rate of transitioning participants into stable housing. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency.

where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets and the company’s too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year.

Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the Director of Outdoor Operations at Bridge House, Chad Carbone. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Chad Carbone (02:10)
Well, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti (02:13)
All right, so Chad, let’s just jump right in. ⁓ Before your struggles with addiction and homelessness came about, what was life for you like?

Chad Carbone (02:24)
Well, know, I was adopted at 18 months old into a wonderful family. ⁓ Just mom and dad, my grandparents live next door. I grew up on a small little farm with chickens and ducks and we were always camping, doing something. We were involved. ⁓ My mom was the best person there ever was to get you ready for holidays. got, every holiday we had tons of stuff and just, mom made growing up.

very fun. She would play with us as kids, ⁓ know, my sister and I, and get our imaginations into things. ⁓ However, I later in life, I recognized ⁓ some indicators about addiction in my youth, like, you know, watching the old Warner Brothers cartoons, and when there would be a jug with the triple X on it, I would pretend to do the same thing they were doing. So I used to pretend to get drunk before I even knew what alcohol was. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (03:22)
Okay.

Chad Carbone (03:23)
But I think I’ve always struggled with addiction. ⁓ I was what we call a maintaining addict after high school and in my working years until I wasn’t a maintaining addict. And I just couldn’t get to work anymore and couldn’t do life the way I was doing it.

Anthony Codispoti (03:45)
And what specifically were your addiction struggles? Was it specifically alcohol? Were there other substances?

Chad Carbone (03:52)
You know what? It started with alcohol. ⁓ I grew up just outside of Boulder in the 80s. And drugs were ⁓ quite prevalent around here when I was young. Most of the time it was not so much cannabis, but alcohol, ⁓ acid, mushrooms. I had a friend who’s had access to large amounts of cocaine, stuff like that. I just dabbled with the harder stuff when I was younger.

⁓ really didn’t smoke pot until I was in my mid twenties. So, ⁓ that’s, that’s when everything really kind of started going downhill.

Anthony Codispoti (04:31)
when you started smoking pot specifically or?

Chad Carbone (04:34)
No, in my mid-20s, I’m sorry, no, but it didn’t help anything because it’s the ultimate demotivator and I’d rather stay home and have a beer and watch TV.

Anthony Codispoti (04:36)
Okay.

Got

it. So started out maybe with some like party casual drinking in high school and started to go downhill from there. Is that what I’m understanding?

Chad Carbone (04:54)
Definitely. Well, I think I tried to drink every last bit of alcohol when I was a youngster. Things were a lot different in rural America at that time. Drinking and driving really wasn’t a big deal. ⁓ And drinking wasn’t a big deal at all. mean, where I grew up, DUIs really weren’t even given out until mid-90s. So it was pretty loose around here.

Anthony Codispoti (05:20)
Got it. Okay. And so is that what ultimately somehow led you into homelessness? You said at some point you couldn’t maintain, you couldn’t get to work.

Chad Carbone (05:30)
There was multiple factors. One was ⁓ I was drinking and using drugs pretty heavily while I was working and able to do so. But I had a girlfriend. ⁓ We dated for about three years and I left for a weekend canoe trip with my family and came back and yeah, I was getting really close to maybe asking this girl to marry me and ⁓ came back, called her and she said, I don’t like you no more. Don’t call me.

And I went from spending all my time in another city ⁓ with her and I owned my own home at that time. I was doing pretty good driving a truck. ⁓ I didn’t know what the people in my house were doing that I rented to. So all of a sudden I had all this time and lo and behold, they were freebasing all day long. So ⁓ I went, you know, I kind of skipped a step on cocaine from starting from lines to foilies to freebasing. I went straight to freebasing and

Within seven months, I lost my home and I was in rehab.

Anthony Codispoti (06:33)
Okay. And how did that stent and rehab go?

Chad Carbone (06:34)
And then, you

know, it was a 30 day deal. It broke me of cocaine, but nothing else. I actually checked myself into a halfway house, which was a lot of people thought was weird, but I was like, I can’t go back to what I was doing. And I didn’t last long there before I got thrown out and still kind of maintained for a couple more years before.

Well, I was ⁓ in my grandma’s basement, living there. Grandma let me live there next door to my mom’s house. And one day my mom and dad came in, literally kicked the door down, threw a bag at me and said, pack some shit, you’re leaving. And they dumped me off in Denver and said, don’t come back. So. ⁓

That was a tough time. That was my first experience with homelessness. ⁓ You know, the stigmas and what you hear in the media, it gives you a certain idea that it’s really scary and dangerous, which it is, but not as bad as what the media makes you think it is. Does that make sense?

Anthony Codispoti (07:34)
a little bit. What specifically took

place that led to your parents dropping you off in Denver?

Chad Carbone (07:40)
⁓

You know, ⁓ my mom and grandma, my mom finally, we call them enablers. My grandma was an enabler, my mom was an enabler, and my mom couldn’t take it anymore. And she went to an Al-Anon meeting and ⁓ learned just how much enabling her and her mom were doing for me. And that’s when they made the decision to do this. It’s probably one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

Anthony Codispoti (08:07)
Wow. How so? Here it is, the people that you love that helped to raise you, they’re kicking you out, they’re putting you on the streets, dropping you off in Denver, and you look back on that and say it’s one of the best things that ever happened.

Chad Carbone (08:20)
Well, I had to experience things in my life before I could have one. And that’s where it started. ⁓ I couldn’t have ended up where I am today any other way. I don’t…

Anthony Codispoti (08:35)
Let’s

explore that a little bit. you made the point of saying that ⁓ it is scary ⁓ being on the streets, but it’s not the way that it’s portrayed in the media. Set the record straight. What is it like, first-person experience?

Chad Carbone (08:48)
Well,

Well,

the first few nights you don’t really get much sleep. You really don’t know where to go. And then you just really start paying attention what other people are doing and kind of figuring that stuff out. But in your mind, you’re like, am I going to be attacked in middle of the night? Am I going to be robbed? What’s going to happen to me? And you get over those fears pretty quickly because you have to. You don’t really have much of a choice. And I didn’t know much about shelters or…

food banks or anything like that at the time. So I had to learn all of that. ⁓ And, you know, once you learn a lot of that stuff, it makes it a little easier. was ⁓ never one to really stay in shelters. Of course, I didn’t like the rules. ⁓ But the shelter that was available to me in Boulder County, ⁓ it wasn’t where you could just show up and go in. You had to pick a number out of a, like a

a bowl, a poker chip with a number on it. And if your number didn’t get called, you didn’t get in. So you just, it’s cold, it’s dark, and it’s four or five miles away from where you need to be. And you just wasted two hours of your time. And then you’d have to figure out a way to get back to where you were back to where everything is and just go to sleep somewhere.

So, you know, I kind of stopped doing that and we had what we called squats out there. So I had like five or six different ones around town, ⁓ where you could go and feel safe. It was kind of like your home. ⁓ you know, ⁓ bushes, places that, ⁓ line of sight, mostly for me in Boulder, the cops at the time were giving out camping tickets no matter what. So, ⁓ I would pick a place where the only way you could see me is if you’re standing in one particular place.

Anthony Codispoti (10:25)
What were those places?

Chad Carbone (10:43)
So, you know, if you’re like, for instance, next to the creek here in Boulder on downtown where Broadway goes over the river, if you’re standing on the bridge on top looking down to where I was, you could see me, but you couldn’t see me from anywhere else.

Anthony Codispoti (10:58)
So you turned into a scout looking for these locations or were these locations ones that you shared with other people on the street that were kind of known in your circles?

Chad Carbone (11:06)
No, you only do that once before you learn, you you just gave up your place to go because all of a sudden all these other people are there. ⁓ I was pretty picky. I really didn’t take too many people and trust is hard to have out on the streets. You have acquaintances, but you don’t make friends.

Anthony Codispoti (11:23)
So how was it you started to learn sort of the ins and outs? Like, did somebody give you some education along the way? Somebody point you in different directions towards the shelters, the food banks, etc.

Chad Carbone (11:36)
⁓ No, I just I used to call it ⁓ in a lot of us I probably picked it up from another person but we’d say follow the turtles and That’s you know, you have a 60 pound bag on your back. You kind of look like a turtle walking down the street so ⁓ in Boulder, which is much smaller than you know, most cities where homelessness is ⁓ Everything’s within walking distance and once you learn the patterns and when things open and close ⁓ you just

knew where to be. ⁓ I tried to tell people being homeless was a full-time job. I probably worked harder being homeless than actually having a job and living in a house.

Anthony Codispoti (12:16)
What do mean by that?

Chad Carbone (12:18)
Well, you got to start your day. I used to start my day way early, but that was that’s another story. But you have to be up before 435 so you don’t get a ticket from the cops. Then you got to try to find a place to go until other things open up around eight or nine. ⁓

And I’m sorry, could you repeat the question? Sometimes I blank out.

Anthony Codispoti (12:39)
That’s okay.

Yeah, you were saying that ⁓ you worked harder being homeless than at any other time.

Chad Carbone (12:43)
Yes.

Definitely. myself, I was actually physically able to do a lot of this. I don’t know how ⁓ disabled folks do this, but I’d probably walk up to 20, 25 miles a day ⁓ just to get from one place to the next. You know, you’re always wondering where the next, not wondering, but you know, you’re always planning out your next move. Okay, I got to be at the first Presbyterian church at five o’clock. It’s four o’clock. I got to start moving that way. So you just really have to time everything to where you can get, where you need to go to get what you need.

Anthony Codispoti (13:16)
And some of those things that you need were what food?

Chad Carbone (13:19)
⁓ You know, water was one of the biggest things and one of the harder things for me to get. Water, food, ⁓ you know, ⁓ not so much shelter, but things that will keep you warm out there. ⁓ Those type of things. I’d have to say the biggest commodity on the streets is socks. Socks. Clean pair of socks. You know, when you don’t wash every day and you don’t change, wash your clothes very often.

Anthony Codispoti (13:39)
sucks.

Chad Carbone (13:49)
that can be really bad for your feet and you smell like a shoe eventually. So socks is like, people used to ask me like, well, should I give money to panhandlers? I said, no, you should keep socks in your glove box. I guarantee you those won’t be left behind. I guarantee you those will be used.

Anthony Codispoti (14:09)
You know, I’m glad that you brought this up. I’ve got two young boys, they’re nine and 11 and I live in a city in Columbus, Ohio. So, you know, a lot of times we see people asking for money as, you know, we come through an intersection or off the highway and the kids, my youngest especially is like, dad, why don’t you give them money? And I’m like, you know, how do you, how do you explain to a nine year old? ⁓ But you know, it got me thinking like, what, what could I do that would be helpful?

and so you’re saying socks. Socks is a big one. What about food? Like, is there particular food items or bottled water maybe?

Chad Carbone (14:41)
yeah.

You know, water, like I say, water is a little harder to get because you’re not really wanted in any place where you can get water. So bottle of water, granola bars ⁓ usually got eaten. But I can’t say this for everyone out there flying a sign, but most of them are A campers, what we call them alcohol camp. they’re just flying sign for money for alcohol. you know, what my mom and ⁓ I get my mom to do this as well.

She’ll see somebody flying a sign she’ll drive through McDonald’s drive-thru and get the cheapest value meal for them and they’ll eat it if the folks eat it and That’s that’s another way of doing that but socks socks are the number one commodity out there

Anthony Codispoti (15:33)
So

socks, bottled water, food. ⁓ so, and you seem to be saying what I’m trying to explain to my nine-year-old, money is not a good idea.

Chad Carbone (15:44)
No, ⁓ because you might be an enabler. ⁓ You know, someone might overdose from from using that money, something like that. And you would never know that. But you can think that. But ⁓ what I do now is I keep my cards, my business cards. And what I tell people is like, when you’re ready to change, give me a call when you’re ready to do something different. Give us a call. We’ll help you.

Anthony Codispoti (16:04)
Yeah.

So yeah, in a couple minutes I want to get to the story of how you came to be at Bridge House, but I don’t know. I’ve got some more questions here first. What’s something that would most surprise people about being homeless?

Chad Carbone (16:26)
⁓ this was a little, this is a little harder to answer. To me, the most surprising thing is I’ve probably met the best people I’ve ever met in my life at the very bottom of society. ⁓ they’re good people. There’s a lot of good people. There’s professionals, there’s artists, there’s writers, just moms and dads, know, addiction and a few missed checks can put you, put you out there.

And they’re good people. Most of the people I met were good people. There’s always people out there to take advantage and whatnot. But that’s, I think, what surprised people most about homelessness. ⁓ I have another stat for that, but I wanted to get into it on one of the other questions that you’re asking. But it’s a very surprising stat that would ⁓ really surprise folks.

Anthony Codispoti (17:18)
Well, let’s go ahead and hear it. Yeah, let’s just move right into it.

Chad Carbone (17:22)
Well, 40 to 45 percent of homeless people have a full-time job. They just can’t get housing. It’s too expensive. They don’t get a break to be able to save their money. But, you know, that really opens people’s eyes. Almost 50 percent of the homeless population has a full-time job.

Anthony Codispoti (17:44)
Okay, that does blow my mind because there’s this stigma of, you you see these people on the street and you’re like, man, I’ve been seeing all these like help wanted signs all over town. if you need something, like go up there, get a job, start working, right? But I’m missing something. You’re starting to connect some dots here for

Chad Carbone (18:00)
Well…

Definitely, that’s kind of where I had that stat for that question. ⁓ It’s not as easy as that. It’s easy to say, go get a job. I’ve had people scream it at me and I just chuckle to myself like, I smell like a shoe 30 feet away. I don’t have clean clothes. I have no way of getting to a job. I have no way of maintaining that at the current moment where I’m in. And it’s a silly thing to say unless…

Anthony Codispoti (18:19)
Hmm.

Chad Carbone (18:33)
you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to understand. ⁓ But just saying go get a job, know, gosh, you know, even if you don’t have mental health issues, you’re experiencing some mental health issues if you’re out on the streets because you’re always kind of wondering if the cops are going to mess with you or anything that can happen. I can’t think of anything else right now, but mostly it was hiding from the cops.

Anthony Codispoti (18:59)
Yeah, it’s one thing you said that surprised me. You had to be up at the crack of dawn because you didn’t want to get a ticket from the police. you’re homeless. You don’t have resources and they’re giving you a ticket and saying, what, you got to pay a fine now because they found you camping in a non-camping zone. that right?

Chad Carbone (19:19)
Yeah, definitely. In Boulder where I was, you could lay down on the grass at night, but as soon as you put a blanket or a sleeping bag over you, they considered it camping. So it’s, yeah, well, I learned right away that you don’t sleep in the parks on grass. Grass in the summertime has dew on it in the morning, so you’re always sopping wet when you get up, or you might wake up with a sprinkler in your face.

And you kind of teach yourself how to how to hear that coming and be able to get up and out of there before you get sopping wet. ⁓ I do have to say one of the biggest things I did when I was homeless was the quest to stay dry. ⁓ Even at 45 degrees if you’re sopping wet you could die of hypothermia.

Anthony Codispoti (20:10)
Yeah. And so how would you stay dry? Where, where would you go? What would you do?

Chad Carbone (20:15)
⁓ you know, the places where I would pick where squats are, ⁓ you would be able to maybe put up a tarp or, ⁓ it would be under a little awning, something like that where you could stay dry. Plus, ⁓ you know, the next day at the library, which, you know, a lot of homeless folks hang out at, at least the one in Boulder on the outer area, they had a heating system where you can take your jacket off and put it there for a little bit and get it dried out while you’re reading a book and kind of waiting to go to the next feed.

Anthony Codispoti (20:46)
Yeah, I’ve to go back to that stat, Chad, 40 to 45 % of homeless people have a full time job. That blows my mind. And then, you know, what you pointed out, like, it’s not so easy to just go get a job, right? So there’s the mental health aspect. If you didn’t already have some mental health issues, now you’re living on the street and you’re for sure dealing with a whole lot of stress, but just the hygiene component of it, right?

Chad Carbone (20:46)
So.

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (21:13)
You know, McDonald’s doesn’t want you working there if you you said you smell like a shoe. And so it’s not only that, you know, people have to want to work. It’s I’ve got to have access to clean clothes, a shower so I can get myself presentable, right?

Chad Carbone (21:19)
Yeah.

Yes, sir. ⁓ And in Boulder, there was at the shelter, there was programs that you could get into if you’re working. They would have folks things for that. But ⁓ I kind of chose not to. ⁓ Not at first. I was homeless for nearly 12 years, but off and on. there’s a point when in my mind, for me, it became more of a challenge and a learning experience than anything else.

⁓ Well, I wanted to experience as much as I could in the homeless world. ⁓ I’ve rode freight trains up and down the Pacific Northwest. Just did it because, well, I wanted to. ⁓ But it just, I’m starting to stutter a little bit. Sorry, sir. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (22:02)
How so?

No, you’re doing a great job here. So I’m kind of curious about, you know, 12 years on the streets and you were moving from state to state. Is there some point where you felt like, hey, this is just my life now, like, I’m going to be homeless for as long as I’m on this planet.

Chad Carbone (22:42)
You know, there was some deep dark times when you lose hope ⁓ and you’re like, well, I’m probably going to die out here. But for the most part, ⁓ hope kept me alive. ⁓ You have to have hope. Without it, you’re doomed. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (22:59)
Now, everybody listening to this has been through some hard time in their life, some challenge, and some are darker than others. But, you know, for a lot of us, myself included, I’ve always had the comfort of going back to my home, which is dry, it’s climate controlled, I’ve got food in the refrigerator, like as hard as everything else might be out here, I’ve got this place of respite that I can go back to.

I can recharge my batteries, I can think about what’s next. When you’re homeless, you don’t have that respite, right? Your central nervous system has got to constantly be on guard. There’s never a time to relax.

Chad Carbone (23:43)
Yes, sir. It’s called hypervigilance. ⁓ I’ve been off the streets, it’ll be 15 years in February, ⁓ and I still carry a bunch of hypervigilance with me. ⁓ I find myself looking for squats while I’m driving. Those things never go away. I can’t ever sleep past 4.30 in the morning anymore. It just is so ingrained in me. No matter when I go to bed, I’m up at 4.30 in the morning. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (23:58)
Okay.

Yeah.

Chad Carbone (24:11)
Yeah, the hypervigilance is, I guess you would call it PTSD, you might carry some of that around, but I tried to rearrange the hypervigilance into other things. Like paid attention to all my surroundings all the time, turned into watching how folks are and seeing if their demeanor is changing and it’d be a marker to see if they possibly are using alcohol or drugs again.

So you just kind of change a lot of that, some of the hypervigilance just…

Anthony Codispoti (24:44)
You can’t turn it

off. So you’re trying to redirect that into other things that might be more constructive for where your life is today. Yeah.

Chad Carbone (24:51)
Definitely. ⁓ I’ve

picked up some really good habits when I was out there too. ⁓ I used to read books. It was my entertainment. So I still read books, but a lot of it’s fantasy and just sci-fi and stuff like that. But now I listen to them. I don’t read them anymore. I’m cheater now. ⁓ actually, I’m wearing glasses today because I spent so much time reading when I was homeless. It blew out my eyes.

Anthony Codispoti (25:18)
And where were you getting the books from?

Chad Carbone (25:20)
You know, I was a pretty good ground score and that means if people drop something like money or something like that I usually would be the one to find it. At the public library here in Boulder you could buy paperback books for a quarter ⁓ and this is something I did often. I would get the bestsellers and buy the books for a quarter, take them to the bookstore down the street and sell them for 250 a piece to be resouled.

Anthony Codispoti (25:45)
Okay.

Okay.

Chad Carbone (25:47)
And then I would

go to another used bookstore and buy the books I wanted because I read books, so I’m really picky.

Anthony Codispoti (25:56)
Did you, how often did you find or did you ever find yourself, I guess I shouldn’t assume, in situations where you had to steal things just to survive? Food, clothing, socks, whatever it is.

Chad Carbone (26:06)
Yes, sir. ⁓ that’s not a very proud moment for me, but, ⁓ I’ve probably got caught shoplifting food half a dozen times through the years. ⁓ and, ⁓ every now and then I’d hit the army surplus store and grab a new pair of pants, you know, but, that was all out of necessity and, ⁓ that’s my excuse for it, but it, it just the situation I was in, there was one year where it was starting to get cold.

It was like October and I just had sandals because it was just over summertime and ⁓ I couldn’t find shoes at any of the places where you could go and get them for free and stuff. So I had to go to Goodwill and just put on a pair of shoes and walk out. ⁓ It just, I did what I needed to do to survive. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (26:53)
those

those times where you got caught Chad, what happened?

Chad Carbone (26:56)
Oh, yeah, you know, end wind up in jail, not all the time, but you know, could be a ticket offense, but you write me a ticket, I’m not going to court and I’m definitely don’t have the money to pay a fine. So I was okay when they took me to jail because I could take care of everything within three or four days. And I actually got some good sleep and some food.

Anthony Codispoti (27:15)
Did you ever put yourself in a position intentionally so that you could be taken to jail? No, it wasn’t worth that. Okay.

Chad Carbone (27:21)
No, No,

my worst day outside was better than any of my best days inside of jail. You know, there were times when you’re hitchhiking in Northern California in the middle of winter and it does nothing but rain and your clothes just fall off one day because they rot in the rain. You know, that’s better than one day in jail.

Anthony Codispoti (27:26)
Okay.

Cheers.

Okay, so what was the turning point that made you decide to change your situation?

Chad Carbone (27:49)
This is a funny one. ⁓ It started with, well, there’s a whole progression throughout the years where when I traveled, I learned things when I traveled. But what really did it was one Saturday morning, I was sitting there, it was cold. And I was like, God, I’d like to be home in my underwear in front of a TV watching cartoons. And that’s one of the most simplest things. I think that’s where I was like,

All right, I’m ready. I’m ready to move on and to do something else. ⁓ I mentioned briefly about traveling. My last traveling trip was to Virginia and I learned community there. ⁓ Really cool little town, small town, really strange small town. was a place we called the folks there Dreadnecks. They were kind of like redneck hippies. I don’t know how else to explain it, but.

So, ⁓ you know, I was there and this one of the community members fell and hurt his back and he couldn’t cut wood for his family that winter. So the whole community got together and we cut enough wood for six winters for him. And I was sitting there watching everybody and what they were doing for their neighbors and how they cared for people. And I think that was the last one of the last things I needed to be able to move on from homelessness. ⁓

I don’t expect people to understand this, but it was very hard for me to give up being homelessness. ⁓ Try to remember back when you were five to seven years old and you were totally free. You could do whatever you wanted. But you still had your parents there directing you. Now imagine yourself being an adult, being able to pick up and do whatever you want, wherever you want with nothing. So, you know, once you learn to travel and how to navigate that.

I traveled, well, I tried to stay out of middle of the country because politics are a little harder on homeless folks in those areas. But you just, learn, you learn how to survive.

Anthony Codispoti (30:00)
You mentioned, you know, riding trains up and down the coast of Pacific Northwest. Were there other ways that you were getting from one state to the next?

Chad Carbone (30:10)
hitchhiking, ⁓ we gas jugged it. that means where you’re with somebody who has a car and you go from gas station to gas station and, know, ask for someone to put gas in your car. And, ⁓ you know, I didn’t fly a sign. was not a flying, well, I can’t technically say that all the way, but I didn’t like flying a sign. I only did it when I traveled and I’ve just had a sign that said, just want food. And I had a gentleman in Northern California test me on it once. He came up and he said, you just want food? I was like, yes, sir.

And ⁓ he’s like, get in my car. So we went and he took me to dinner and paid for it. We’re on our way out. And he’s like, that’s all you want. And I was like, yes, sir. Thank you. Could you get me back to where we started though? And he whipped out a twenty dollar bill and said, I’ll do that. So it was a great experience. ⁓ Hitchhiking can be scary. I will not do it now. In those days, I hitchhiked all over the place. ⁓ Got to be careful. There was one time where I was hitching with a friend of mine and I’m really glad I had

in person with me because we got into a car and I instantly got the heebie-jeebies. This guy’s going to try to kill us. ⁓ He’s like kind of creepy and he’s like, borrowed my car from my grandma on the weekends to pick up hitchhikers and drive in places. And it just freaked me out. And you know, I got out and I told my friend when we got out and I was like, did you think he was like, yeah. He’s like, I’m glad we were together because I don’t think it would have ended the same way.

Anthony Codispoti (31:38)
Wow, that’s scary.

Chad Carbone (31:39)
So

one of the more scarier times, ⁓ myself, my experience, everybody has different experiences out there. I didn’t have too many times when I thought I was gonna be murdered or something like that, that this didn’t happen. In fact, I was more scared of college kids than anything else. drunken college kids in a large group can go cuckoo bananas really quick. Yeah. When I, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (31:57)
College kids, why?

Okay.

Chad Carbone (32:08)
I just put my head down and get away. People used to cross the street at night when they’d see me and I just kind of laughed to myself like, you know, I’m probably the only one around here that would stop someone from hurting you. And I’m not going to do it. I’m not that scary person. I might look scary, but I’m not.

Anthony Codispoti (32:18)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm. So back to this ⁓ community that you were around where people were, you know, chopping the wood to help somebody that hurt their back. What was it about that particular situation that was the last thing that you needed to make a change?

Chad Carbone (32:40)
Um, learning to care for others, um, and give of yourself without anything in return. Um, you know, I think that, I think that’s what it, that’s what it was. Um, I call it community, but if it’s more you give, but you don’t, you don’t receive anything in back, but you do. You, you reserve character, which my dad would love to hear. Um, and things like that. you just helping people.

Makes you feel good.

Anthony Codispoti (33:12)
Yeah. When you spend so much time being homeless, do you kind of lose some of that? that definitely the community, but the even the empathy for other people, because you’re so focused on taking care of yourself and just surviving.

Chad Carbone (33:30)
No, a little bit of the opposite. ⁓ Like I said, you couldn’t really make friends, but we all looked out for each other. Boulder was a small community and we would, you might not like somebody, but if someone’s messing with them, they’re your brother and you’d stand up for them. You just, really got to watch, you know, if someone’s bag was stolen or lost, ⁓ you’d give them what you, you give people, folks what you have.

⁓ what you could afford to give and then try to help them get to a place where they could get what they need.

Anthony Codispoti (34:08)
Okay, so this was sort of the last thing you needed, sort of this reminder of giving, you know, doing for others without an expectation of receiving something back. And then how did that lead you to Bridge House?

Chad Carbone (34:24)
Well, after that, I was traveling with a gentleman at the time and we were all sorts of, there’s a big story around it, but we were staying at this gentleman’s house, our farm, and he had a little cabin on it and we would work for $20 a day, five days a week and ride into town once a week. And so we could get supplies and living in a little tiny cabin with another person that’s a lot like you can, it doesn’t end well.

So, you know, we just started not getting along and, ⁓ I got me a bus ticket out of there as soon as I could wound up in Boulder. And when I got back here, I was kind of, I think I might’ve been depressed a little bit, but I started drinking heavy and my homeless acquaintances, friends, came to me and they said, Hey, we’re worried, you know, you’re doing this pretty hard. And that’s when I was like, Ooh, yeah, you’re right. ⁓ so.

In the process of making this choice to get off the streets, I decided to volunteer at the place called the Carriage House. And it was the Homeless Day Center in Boulder. It’s called Bridge House now. But I started volunteering eight, nine hours a day, five days a week ⁓ for nothing. And, you know, doing whatever needed to be done, cleaning bathrooms, serving food, cooking food, washing dishes, helping a client get somewhere when I was one.

⁓ And they finally said, you know, you want to work here? And I said, yes, that’s why I’m doing this. part of the reason, but yes. So that happened in February of 2011. I literally went from sleeping under a bridge a few blocks away to living in a house and having a job in 24 hours. It was, it was a really crazy turnaround. They’re like, you know, at the same time they offered me the job, they said, well, this gentleman here,

says he would offer you a place until you could find one of your own. So, you know, once again, ⁓ one thing I had to learn being homeless as well is how to accept help. ⁓ I grew up in a family where your family would help you, but you didn’t ask for it. And it took a while to be able to accept help from others and feel good about it.

Anthony Codispoti (36:46)
So how long were you volunteering there before they offered you the job?

Chad Carbone (36:51)
Well, I got the job in February, so I started right after the Christmas time, somewhere in there, ⁓ January. ⁓ One of the coldest nights I ever spent outside was about a week or two before I got the job. was 18 below out with the wind chill. that was ⁓ another thing where I said, OK, you’re getting older. When you were younger, you thrived on this. Now ⁓ you can’t. You know, got ⁓ I wasn’t able to carry my bag anymore as well all day long.

Anthony Codispoti (36:56)
Okay.

Chad Carbone (37:20)
My body was breaking down. 38, just about 39.

Anthony Codispoti (37:23)
How old were you at that point?

Okay. Yeah, living on the street for 12 years, it’s got to take its toll, mind and body.

Chad Carbone (37:29)
⁓

Yes. Well, here I am. I’m 53 now and I have some major back problems. I have some major knee problems, arthritis. And a lot of that is from doing what I did when I was younger. I knew I’d have to pay at some point, but it’s starting to catch up to me now.

Anthony Codispoti (37:52)
Yeah.

So ⁓ Bridge House previously was Carriage House. ⁓ Tell us more about what goes on at Bridge House. What are the services that you guys provide?

Chad Carbone (37:57)
Yes, sir.

Well, are you talking those days or now? Because it’s quite a bit since that time.

Anthony Codispoti (38:11)
⁓ Let’s talk about what present day is.

Chad Carbone (38:14)
Present day, so Bridge House is now, ⁓ we don’t have a day center anymore. What we offer now is ⁓ what we call the three-legged stool housing ⁓ work and ⁓ case management. We provide ⁓ dorm style living for folks, ⁓ room and board. If you came through our program, you don’t have to spend a dollar while you’re there unless you have to get a driver’s license. You don’t have to buy food.

We can get you clothing. We can help you save as much money as you can. Most people don’t. But we take care of the basic needs so you can start taking care and healing yourself. ⁓ You can start focusing on kind of legal issues you have, some mental health issues, maybe some other types of things that are barriers for you to move on with your life. Mental health is a big one.

for us. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (39:16)
So you say you’re not a day center. So carriage house was a day center before which is what the place people can come to and just spend time during the day.

Chad Carbone (39:26)
Yeah, well, it’s a little tiny building and it’s called the carriage house because it was in an old carriage house. And ⁓ you could come and get a cup of coffee. ⁓ There would be bread and stuff. You can make toast, but there was always lunch available. It wasn’t the best, but it was food. ⁓ You could also get IDs, certificates, sometimes socks. And they did offer a shower a couple of days a week. You couldn’t take one every day, but, you know, maybe once or twice a week you could shower.

⁓ Every now and then you could get a haircut, just basic needs. ⁓ And some folks came to be safe. ⁓ One other surprising thing is, and this is a statistic, it just blows my mind, is nearly 100 % of females that are homeless have been assaulted in some way on the streets or before. It’s an alarming number. And the day centers make it little safer for you.

Anthony Codispoti (40:26)
Okay, so today it’s a bridge house and there’s the housing dorm style living ⁓ work. so tell us more about the work. Are they doing work there at the site? Explain how this functions.

Chad Carbone (40:42)
So when we accept someone in the program, there’s a whole process. We fill out an application, we talk to you, we do an assessment, it’s called the ASI, and we learn more about you there. And then we accept you into the program. Then you become an intern for up to a month and some people longer if you’re waiting for an ID. And they clean the house. So it’s a great time for us to get to know the new folks and them to get to know us.

Sometimes it doesn’t work out. ⁓ And that’s what that time is for. So once we have our case management meeting, we accept folks that are in the intern program to become a trainee. They start the outdoor work phase or the work phase of the program. We have two social medias. We have a community table kitchen and then the department I run, which is called just out plain outdoors. We do very general landscaping. ⁓

graffiti removal, trash cleanup, painting, just about any low end unskilled job you can do. We have shifts from either four hours, five hours, six hours, and some are eight. Depending on where you are in legal status is where you kind of get placed in those areas. If someone comes into our program on drug court, afternoons are always taken in IOP, which is intense outpatient treatment type stuff.

So that’s why we offer so many different types of hours there. Then they come back to the house, either take a shower, go to groups. We have mandatory groups here that they have to go to, or they can go to Outside AA, stuff like that. And then, you know, one of the biggest things we really try to get these guys to experience is, this is your house. We just work in your house. So this is your house. And…

you know, keep take care of ⁓ Shepherd, we, you know, try to get our clients to help shepherd the new folks and lead them in the right direction and keep them out of trouble.

Anthony Codispoti (42:52)
What is that application process like? What are you looking for?

Chad Carbone (42:56)
You know, they’re just basic questions. We’re seeing, you know, if ⁓ you’re actually willing to work a full-time job afterwards, ⁓ where your mental health might be, ⁓ where you’ve been, some of the legal stuff that you might be, challenges you might be experiencing. But most of it’s getting you to show up. Because showing up is, if you show up, it says you want to be there. So, you know, in the beginning it was just a

walk-in process. Now it’s a little more involved with internet and phones and stuff. you know, when they make an appointment with the intake specialist, if they show up, most of time they get in the same day. If we can get them through ⁓ some of the process, they have to run a background check. We do have some disqualifiers for the program, arson and sex offender. ⁓ Our insurance can’t handle that and I can’t really send those guys out on my work crews because we usually work near a school. ⁓

in the public view somewhere. ⁓ fortunately, there’s other programs for folks like that.

Anthony Codispoti (44:02)
And so is there a term to this program? Like do you expect people to sort of graduate out of it or is this kind of a, this could be something that as long as they’re following the rules, they can stay in it forever.

Chad Carbone (44:16)
No, no, no, that would be counterproductive on our end. So it’s about a year long program. I’ve left out a lot of stuff. Thank you for reminding me. So the intern phase is about a month and then I get either myself or Community Table Kitchen. We get the trainees for about seven months. Once they enter their seventh month, they start what we call employment classes. And from that point forward, they can start looking for an outside job.

but they still have to complete employment classes. It’s resume building, how to do interviews, lots of mock interviews, those type of things. And then once they get a job, they’re able to stay up to a year. We try to encourage once you have enough money saved up to make room for somebody else, but it could be up to a year. We’ve had some folks over a couple of years that there’s some circumstances around it. ⁓ Maybe some cognitive issues where it’s hard for us to find a job for somebody. ⁓ Legal issues where they’ve

Their legal past is pretty bad and it’s hard to get past any kind of background checks for a job. ⁓ sometimes those things take a little while longer to work out.

Anthony Codispoti (45:23)
What kinds of jobs are you typically able to help people get into?

Chad Carbone (45:27)
You know, we’ve got people of all different types of skills, but I would say the most jobs that we get filled are hospitals, cleaning up in emergency rooms, cooking. We send a lot of folks to the airport to get jobs ⁓ at the, where they cook food for the airlines. We’ve had a couple bus drivers come through and we’ve had several people get their CDL and are driving over the road right now with trucks. But most of it is, you know, lower level, entry level positions.

Brogdor places, ⁓ Havocs, we really try to push a career rather than just a job. So we try to discourage people from working at fast food places. Not that that’s a bad thing or not a noble thing, but we want more of a career for somebody where they can work into a career.

Anthony Codispoti (46:16)
And so as you’re helping them with that transition into finding a job, ⁓ how are you also assisting them in finding a new residence?

Chad Carbone (46:28)
So that’s another part of the program. So a third of what you make when you’re working for one of our enterprises goes to your savings. A third goes to your pocket and a third goes to a room and board. most typically if you don’t call in sick a lot and you’re there pretty much every day, by the time you finish the seventh month, you have about $2,500 saved up.

So it’s in that area somewhere and you can choose some folks have chosen to put 100 % into savings that they could and they walk out here with $6,000. So that’s a mandatory part of the program. We put a whole lot of money and time and work into helping folks figure themselves out, not figure themselves out, work through their issues, work through their stuff to get out only to not have a place to go or be able to afford a place to go.

Anthony Codispoti (47:04)
Yeah.

Chad Carbone (47:25)
the unfortunate thing is everywhere is really expensive right now and the dollars really aren’t available. We used to have some, ⁓ some, some money that would come from this, from either the county or the state to help folks get into housing and, ⁓ that that’s gone. So, ⁓ it’s been gone for a few years for us, but, ⁓ we, that’s when we really, really got our savings program robust and operating at the way we really want it to be.

Anthony Codispoti (47:54)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Carbone (47:55)
You gotta have that. ⁓

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (47:59)
And do you

have good relationships with like a number of places that are like, Hey, we appreciate the employees that you’ve sent us before. Consider us part of your pipeline. Please continue to send us more folks. Or is it not as structured as that?

Chad Carbone (48:16)
yes, with some of them, especially the hospital, which I mentioned first there, ⁓ we have a really good relationship with them. ⁓ And they’re open to some of the past that our folks have. So they’re willing to overlook the past because your past doesn’t define you. That’s a big belief of ours. So we look for partners like that. ⁓ Right now we’re in three different cities, Boulder, Aurora, and Inglewood.

There were an Inglewood buildings haven’t, you where I’ve been there about five, six years and Inglewood just opened. So we really haven’t established ourselves in the community wholly yet. So a lot of that comes through the work I do with the cities. ⁓ Word of mouth, you know, I can go back. ⁓ I love telling this story ⁓ and it’s a little off of what you’re talking about. But so when I first got hired to. ⁓

Run the ready to work. was the very first person hired to hire Isabel McDevitt as the ⁓ director of it. She hired me to help build and run it. So, you know, her and I, we went to the city of Boulder and said, Hey, you know, we got this idea. want to put these folks to work. You know, we’re to have five people, you know, would you like to start a contract with us? And they basically laughed at us and told us no. So we went back and we said, we’ll do it for free.

for six months. And that’s how we got our start. And the word of mouth from that is really, I get most of my new jobs from word of mouth from other cities superintendents that they meet all the time and talk. So, you know, hey, I just met Dennis Warrington from the city of Boulder. says, you guys are great. Would you like to come to West Westminster and do the same thing for us? ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (50:01)
like set

up a whole new operation there, like new dorms and everything or?

Chad Carbone (50:03)
Well,

no, a contract for work. It’s a big process opening a building. That takes a couple of years most of the time. ⁓ no, it’s word of mouth to where what we do aligns with social, I’m not sure the right word there, but they align, the cities are trying to help homeless folks and look like they’re helping homeless folks and we’re there to do it with them.

Anthony Codispoti (50:06)
Got it. Okay.

Chad Carbone (50:33)
Does that make sense? So it’s a win-win situation. Our program also transcends political divides and lines. Everybody needs a job. Everybody needs some help every now and then. it, whether you’re one affiliation or the other, it works in your town. A couple of years ago, Melissa and I, the CEO here, we went to a place called Denton, Texas and helped them start a place called Ready For Work.

Anthony Codispoti (50:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

It’s a partnership.

Chad Carbone (51:02)
They, you know, it’s a little different from ours, but ⁓ in this ⁓ little town in north of Dallas, you know, it’s ⁓ a little different than Boulder, a lot different. And it’s thrived there. I talked to my, to the gentleman, we, we helped them hire to run it out there all the time and they’re, they’re doing really good. The city of Denton loves them and they’re helping people get off the streets, which is my main goal. One of my main goals.

Anthony Codispoti (51:14)
Yeah.

That’s great. I’ve got a good friend who lives in Denton. I’ll have to hit him up and see if he’s familiar with the program.

Chad Carbone (51:35)
It’s ran out ⁓ of the shelter called Our Daily Bread.

Anthony Codispoti (51:40)
Okay, our daily bread. ⁓ What specifically does your department do there, Chad?

Chad Carbone (51:47)
Well, my specific job is to get, not get, find contracts with cities or whoever and then start working there. From there, I have my teams built underneath me. I managers about, they’re called managers of outdoor operations. Wonderful, two wonderful folks. We’re gonna have another one soon. so they, our scheduling is a big puzzle because there’s so many different moving parts. There’s different hours of all this stuff. ⁓

They, um, they schedule out in the morning or weekly before each one does it a little different. And then, uh, we’ll send folks out either to the city of Aurora, the city of Boulder, the city of Littleton, or we go work at the animal shelter in Adams County. Um, and you know, we’re a training program. So we try to train folks, not try, we train folks to learn how to work. Um, there’s a really neat recent experience I had with the lady in, um, Inglewood.

She came up to me and she’s so excited and I was like, what’s going on? And she’s like, I got my very first paycheck I’ve ever gotten today. And that was cool. And she’s a little older than me. ⁓ and then, know, every time I ask her, say, what you doing with your paycheck? You saving it? And she’s like, I’m saving every last time. it just, we have some folks that’s never worked a real job in their life a lot. They’ve either sold drugs or I’m not.

Exactly sure. ⁓ But and then there’s other folks we, you know, try to train people how to not have power struggles at work. You know, you’ll get the high, high, higher maintenance folks that have some angry issues and stuff like that. And that’s the reason part of the reason why they can’t keep a job is they explode on their boss. So we recognize that. And sometimes I pull them into my office and let them explode on me and then I work them through it.

Anthony Codispoti (53:35)
you

Okay. What was

that like for you, Chad, sort of making that transition from being on the streets to volunteering to now working in a professional capacity?

Chad Carbone (53:53)
It was ⁓ interesting. ⁓ we were talking, and I, few last couple of years ago about it. ⁓ I got hired on to help start Ready to Work, a founding member, when I was seven months off the street. So when I look at it now, and we’re seven months working with me here, and I’m like, I look at some of the folks and I’m like, wow, I was a lot like that. ⁓

It took a while to get used to and just, ⁓ I’m sorry, I’m losing my train of thought on that one.

Anthony Codispoti (54:30)
No, you were doing great. know that, you know, making that transition from, you know, being on the streets to now you’re working in a professional capacity for the first time in a long time, probably some things that you had to get accustomed to, you know, the idea of compromise, perhaps.

Chad Carbone (54:48)
Yes, well, compromise was a big one for me. was, you know, I was on the streets and it was my way because it was just me. And I did what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. And, you know, ⁓ I had to learn politics as well. Politics goes along with compromise. ⁓ And, you know, I learned pretty quickly if I get 25 % of what I’m asking for, it was a good day. So that was…

Difficult to learn and accept, but it was something I had to do. I really had to readjust a lot of stuff in my life. I had to relearn how to talk to folks and brush up my language and not be so blunt with things. And that was kind of like a hammer. And then I learned that that’s no way to really get people to do or to be with somebody else, especially if you’re trying to help them. It doesn’t work like that.

Anthony Codispoti (55:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Carbone (55:48)
You

Anthony Codispoti (55:49)
Of course. You mentioned mental health is obviously a big part of, you know, issues that people are dealing with there and some of the support that you’re trying to provide them. What does that look like that that mental health support or maybe even like, you know, physical health support that people get there?

Chad Carbone (56:05)
So, you know, I mentioned earlier that we have an assessment tool called the ASI. That’s where we find out for us and our program, we serve probably about 30, 35 % of the homeless community. Some folks are just way too mentally ill. Some folks are just not ready to do it. But the mental health piece, we encourage folks to see a therapist.

or a ⁓ medication assisted ⁓ treatment. It comes along with counseling, but ⁓ during the ASI, we can kind of identify where some folks’ mental health is, especially by the meds they take. ⁓ And we found a little sweet spot in there to where if it’s not a certain amount of this and this, people are more successful. ⁓ So we’re not targeting.

folks, but we know what works best. ⁓ A lot of times ⁓ we don’t avoid taking younger people, but we found that most young people aren’t ready to do this. Even if they stay sober through the whole program, they fall off the wagon pretty quickly afterwards. just you’re too young. You got to go through a little more before you’re ready to give it up.

Anthony Codispoti (57:27)
Okay. What advice would you give to someone who is currently experiencing homelessness, Chad?

Chad Carbone (57:34)
Don’t lose hope. Don’t lose hope. And when you’re ready and you want to do this, come see us. I’m not going to force you because we don’t do the work for our clients, our trainees. The trainees do the work and the most successful ones are the ones that actually address their issues and work hard to overcome them.

Anthony Codispoti (57:55)
Don’t lose hope, think is a big one. It’s a big message even for folks not experiencing homelessness, but I think it’s one of those things that’s easier said than done. From your perspective, Chad, somebody who’s been through the wringer, 12 years on the streets, addiction issues, having to find a place to sleep, having to find places to eat, I don’t know. What advice do you have for everybody, anybody listening? How do you hold onto that hope during those really dark times?

Chad Carbone (58:22)
⁓ Keep your humanity. ⁓

Yeah, for everybody be as kind as you can to folks. ⁓ You know, I find myself driving in traffic nowadays and everybody’s angry and I let everybody in. I go out of my way to be kind. ⁓ It’s just the better way to… I’m stuttering a little bit. It’s just a better way to go. Hope, kindness, ⁓ honesty.

taking responsibility, all of those things together can make anybody successful.

Anthony Codispoti (59:07)
love it. What’s your favorite thing or your favorite hobby? Something to do outside of work, Chad.

Chad Carbone (59:13)
You know, I’m an avid fly fisherman. My entire family is, ⁓ I got to take a few seconds to brag about my oldest nephew. ⁓ He’s on the USA men’s fly fishing team and they won third in nationals this year and him and his team just took ⁓ national championships here in the States. So it’s pretty cool. But we actually…

got him addicted to that when he’s starting at three years old. But that’s mainly what I do, that reading. I help take care of my mom. She’s getting a little older. I lost my dad last year. And it just, I like a boring life now. I like mowing the lawn and watering it. It just sitting on my porch, you know, watching birds. It’s so much better than stress and stuff.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:06)
What was it like reconnecting with your parents?

Chad Carbone (1:00:10)
Oh, well, that was a tough one. So I traveled around a lot and I sent them letter here and there. I have one particular story. I was in the library in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I called the librarian over on the computer. I had a question for her and she wore the same perfume as my mom. And I lost it. I hadn’t talked to her in two or three years. So that night I wrote her a letter and, you know, she said, hey, how you doing? That type of stuff. But as far as reconnecting back here, it was interesting.

I got back from another traveling trip and every time I traveled, I never knew if or when I would ever get back. Sometimes it took a couple of years, but I’d get back and I had done some stuff ⁓ in the illegal world before I became homeless and it caught up to me. I got ID’d basically a day or two after I got back and ended up in Jefferson County jail and somehow my family found out about it.

I was, we kind of come, well not kind of, we got reunited in a county jail visitors booth. It was pretty cool. But yeah, for me it was. I’m sure it wasn’t for my mom and dad, it’s probably the last place they would ever want to be. But right there in that moment, as I got, haven’t seen them in so long, it’s so good to see you. So that happened.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:20)
It was pretty cool. Yeah.

Chad Carbone (1:01:38)
You know, I established more contact with mom after that ⁓ a lot. So, you know, when I was still homeless, mom would come to Boulder once a week and she’d take me to the Y so I could shower and then we’d go to lunch. then ⁓ I’d see her next week at the library again.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:56)
And so what was the timeline between reconnecting with your folks and you finding your way to carriage house?

Chad Carbone (1:02:08)
So there was a stint in there where I was really, really well connected back with them because I had spent some time in rehab and I was doing well and then I just fell off the wagon. But, ⁓ and then stopped communicating again. It was probably about, I waited about nine months, almost a year before I called my mom and said, hey mom, I’m living in a house and I got a car and I’m working. ⁓ I didn’t want to get everybody’s hopes up again and then just to let them down.

So I had to make sure I was pretty solid where I was before I did that again. There’s so much you do to your family when you’re in this situation where you don’t realize it. You’re like, I’m not hurting anybody, but you are. You’re hurting a lot of folks.

And I, yeah, go ahead.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:54)
chat. Go ahead.

I want to hear it.

Chad Carbone (1:02:59)
No, it’s just ⁓ you it still kind of makes you tear up a little so ⁓ without

I hear stories now of folks that their parents were awful to them and they had nobody and they still crawled their way out. And I, yeah, I feel for them because, you know, your parents, they’ll always love you. Always should.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:27)
I love that. Just one more question for you today, Chad. But before I ask it, I want to do a few things. First of all, anybody that’s looking to get in touch with Chad directly, his work email address is Chad at BHRTW.org. And anyone who wants to learn more about what they’re doing at Bridge House, it’s boulderbridgehouse.org.

boulderbridgehouse.org and we’ll have those in the show notes. Also as a reminder to folks, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for your organization, reach out to us at adbackbenefits.com. Finally, if you’ll take just a moment to leave us a review or a comment on your favorite podcast app, I’ll be forever grateful. Thank you very much.

And Chad, so last question for you. A year from now, you and I reconnect and you are celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from today?

Chad Carbone (1:04:37)
Wow, ⁓ that’s a hard question. ⁓ I would love to ⁓ buy me some property in some acreage up in Wyoming outside of Laramie. And it’s dream of mine. ⁓

Yeah, I’ve lived some dreams already and not that I’m thinking of leaving this place, but next year I would love to move on to the next big adventure.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:07)
Okay, and why specifically that spot in Wyoming?

Chad Carbone (1:05:12)
⁓ you know, it’s, ⁓ it’s near Centennial and near the Laramie Plains lakes. My, my mom, dad, and I, mostly my dad and I spent a lot of time there when I was younger. My dad, my dad and I were, ⁓ seriously addicted fishermen and we were mad men with it and now my nephew is, but yeah, that, it’s just have a big connection with it. the entire family has been going to some of these places over a hundred years. So, ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:40)
wow. Okay.

Chad Carbone (1:05:42)
Yeah, but I’m happy in my job and I don’t want to leave, I’m pushing, I’ll be starting my 16th year in February, or 15th year. I know, it’s either one of those. And ⁓ yeah, I’m kind of ready to live the next dream. Yep, yes sir.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:00)
Sometimes you gotta spread your wings. Yeah. Well,

Chad Carbone from Bridge House, I wanna be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Chad Carbone (1:06:11)
Thank you for having me. It’s a great honor to speak about this with anybody. Yeah, the more I get out there, you know, my main goal is to change people’s minds and homelessness. It’s not that scary and it’s your brothers and your mothers and your sisters and others as well.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:31)
You’ve done a lot of good in sharing your story today. And I know the 16 years that you’ve been at Bridge House, you helped countless people. So thank you for that.

Chad Carbone (1:06:39)
Thank you.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:41)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.