Entire
Store

20%
OFF

jews d

in
the

continued from page 12

Ryan Hertz, CEO
of South Oakland
Shelter (SOS),
confers with a
staffer.

“Homelessness is a solvable problem;
the only thing lacking is our community’s
will to solve the problem.”

— Ryan Hertz

STONE'S

JEWELRY

NEW MERCHANDISE
ARRIVING DAILY

6881 Orchard Lake Rd. on the Boardwalk

(248) 851-5030

www.stonesfi nejewelry.com

14

May 18 • 2017

jn

“Even when we are very funded,
the public spirit has never been
enough for the scale of the prob-
lem,” Hertz noted. “I am of the
mentality that our organization
might not know all the solutions,
but we do know how to implement
effective programs.”
All clients work with a case
manager who assists them in
developing and implementing an
Individualized Service Plan that
outlines goals and action steps to
achieve them. SOS claims impres-
sive success rates: 80 percent of
sheltered households successfully
exited into housing, and 86 percent
of Follow-Up Care participants
sustained housing for a full year.
Many believe — wrongly, Hertz
said — that homelessness is a
problem for other people.
“People think, ‘Of course, that
would never happen to me; I would
never make the choices they have.’
That’s a fallacy. The belief that it’s
a lack of will, a lack of character, is
just patently false,” Hertz said.
“We should respond rather than
look the other way. Homelessness
is a solvable problem; the only
thing lacking is our community’s
will to solve the problem. And
solving the problem is a win-win,
regardless of your reason for want-
ing to solve it. Economically, the
better bet is housing them rather
than ignoring them. My personal

approach is that it is a human
rights tragedy.”
Human rights, and the meaning
of humanity, has occupied much of
Hertz’s thoughts.

SEARCH FOR TRUTH

“Growing up secular, I didn’t even
realize the opportunities for spiri-
tual growth — but I don’t want to
say the nonorthodox is not offering
meaningful spiritual opportuni-
ties. I am not the kind of person
who would say this is the only way
for a Jewish person,” Hertz said,
noting a propensity to “get into
trouble” when he tries to explain
his embrace of Orthodoxy. “In col-
lege, my major was folklore and my
minor was anthropology. I thought
if I understood the various perspec-
tives of everyone in the world I
could glean the underlying truth.”
But finding fulfillment wasn’t that
simple. Hertz studied Buddhism
(pointing out that “something like
50 percent of Buddhists in the
United States are Jewish”), went on
monastic retreats at a Korean Zen
temple and participated in many
spiritual rituals with the Lakota
Sioux Nation in South Dakota.
In a Lakota sweat lodge several
years ago, Hertz had a mystical
religious experience in which he felt
the presence of his departed grand-
parents.
“I felt this sense of comfort that