Joe Rogan Experience #1657 - Mayor Steve Adler

Joe Rogan 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Steve Adler 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Thanks for doing this, man. Appreciate it.

Steve Adler 0:16 No, I appreciate being invited.

Joe Rogan 0:17 What was it like being the mayor of Austin?

Steve Adler 0:19 You know, it's a- it's a- it's a real trip.

Joe Rogan 0:22 (laughs)

Steve Adler 0:22 Uh. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:22 If you could go back and do it again, would you?

Steve Adler 0:25 I, uh, I keep, I keep reminding Dianne that we volunteered to do this.

Joe Rogan 0:28 (laughs)

Steve Adler 0:29 Yeah. I mean, 'cause there's so many things about it that are, that are spectacular. Um, but it is also the most frustrating thing I've ever done.

Joe Rogan 0:37 Have you ever done anything in public service before this?

Steve Adler 0:40 Not in any kind of elected office.

Joe Rogan 0:42 What m- what, what gave you the motivation to do it?

Steve Adler 0:45 You know, I was in and around politics, uh, but, um, you know, I've worked on some campaigns. I had a friend who became a state senator and I took some time off helping him set up his office. I think, you know, really it was, uh, you know, literally the- the city had been real good to me. Uh, you know, I came here as a pretty poor student passing through town, never left. Stayed here for the music and the breakfast tacos.

Joe Rogan 1:11 (laughs)

Steve Adler 1:12 And, you know, 40 years later it's, uh, yeah, I've achieved so many things that I didn't even know existed, and it was a chance to, to give back. This is the classic case of no good deed goes unpunished.

Joe Rogan 1:25 (laughs) Well, and then, you know, uh, the way it stands now... It's such a strange time, right? Like, everything was fine. W- I mean, so many mayors across the country had, m- you know, you have your standard mayor problems. But then COVID hits and you have everything is exacerbated. And like, what- what- what kind of, like, massive change has this been for you?

Steve Adler 1:48 You know, it actually starts before that. You know, you, let's go back. We've had, we've had three 100-year storms in my seven years where people have died. We had a, um, a bridge wash out way north of here sending silt downstream and we ended up having to do a water boil in Austin. Uh, and this was at a time-

Joe Rogan 2:10 Water boil mean people had to boil their tap water?

Steve Adler 2:12 Had... Yeah. You, you-

Joe Rogan 2:12 So the processing wasn't working?

Steve Adler 2:13 In a city of a million people you couldn't drink the water. I mean, that never happens. But yet in my time as mayor in seven years it's happened twice. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:22 (laughs)

Steve Adler 2:22 We had a, we had a bomber that was-

Joe Rogan 2:25 Oh, yeah.

Steve Adler 2:25 ... putting bombs on people's porches. Mailing people and people were, were dying. Uh, you know, we had 1,000 law enforcement agents here in the city.

Joe Rogan 2:35 What... We were talking about that. What-

Steve Adler 2:36 And then COVID. I mean-

Joe Rogan 2:37 Yeah.

Steve Adler 2:38 It's-

Joe Rogan 2:38 Wh- what was the bomb about? Like, what was that about?

Steve Adler 2:41 It was, uh, no motive. I mean, it was just a, a, a, a kid who's obviously, uh, had significant problems. I mean, he, he was e- you know, evil. He was s- he was just randomly sending bombs. And of course when it started we didn't know that it was random. So everybody was trying to figure out who's next and what the plan is and, uh, it was fascinating to watch the, the FBI and then Austin Police Department work on that. Um...

Joe Rogan 3:09 How long did it take to catch him?

Steve Adler 3:11 You know, it was, it was over in a matter of just a few weeks. Uh, and I don't even remember now. I mean, it could be even shorter than that. It could be two weeks. I, I remember it being a really long period of time, because every day lasted forever. Uh, but it was relatively, relatively quick.

Joe Rogan 3:29 What is it like being the mayor while something like that is going on? While you're trying to sleep and you're thinking, like, "When's the next one going to blow?" And, "How do we, how do we catch this guy?" Like, what was that feeling like?

Steve Adler 3:40 It's, it's hard. You know? Because you, you, you have, you, you know your community is scared. And, and you know that the community is looking to you to try and gauge how scared it is that they, that they need to be. Uh, you know, we had the FBI and APD, we had other law enforcement that was working on it. I was kind of like the translator. You know, they, they would listen to the official reports by law enforcement and then they would look at me and say, "So how are we supposed to be feeling for this? What's our swing thought? I mean, what are we supposed to be thinking about right now?" And, um, I... You, you read, you start reading, you know, about other situations, other mayors that have gone through some similar kind of thing looking back in time. And, and so many of these things end where it just stops. They don't catch anybody. There's no finality to it. So there's this lingering unsettled place where you just never know when it's going to come back again. It was, it was a scary, frightening time, except for watching those guys work. Because you watch those guys work. And I knew that it... I got to the place where I knew that if that guy kept sending off bombs they were going to catch him.

Joe Rogan 4:56 And how did they wind up catching him?

Steve Adler 4:58 Uh, you know, they, they, they ended up tracing the, the, the packages that were, that were coming in. They ended up getting a video at a, I think it was, like, a FedEx place. Uh, you know, they, they knew that, uh, bombs had been, been mailed out of different locations. And they have pretty sophisticated equipment to be able to determine in two completely different places what cars happen to be in the same... In those two spots over a defined period of time. So they were doing that. Uh, they were, um, checking the, the, kind of the ring cameras on, on-

Joe Rogan 5:36 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 5:36 ... places where they knew somebody had probably driven by. I mean, it was just a lot of, a lot of police work.

Joe Rogan 5:42 (smacks lips) (sighs) Yeah, that's the thing, right? If you, you have someone doing something like that in your city and there's really no way to figure out why and wh- there's no way to understand and it's random. He's sending them out to random people.

Steve Adler 5:58 A- and when it started off you didn't know that it was random. Right? So, so some of the first, um-

Joe Rogan 6:03 How many bombs went off?

Steve Adler 6:06 You know, in my ... I, I am not sure. My recollection's probably about four, five, maybe. Uh, but the first couple, um, uh, hit, uh, children of some pretty prominent, uh, Black families in the city. So, it initially looked like there may be a link between, uh, who was getting bombed and this might actually be something that was, that was race-driven or ... 'Cause you just don't know when you only have two or three data points. Um, it could be anything, and everybody imagines each one of those scenarios.

Joe Rogan 6:43 So, you've had that, you've had the storm which washed out the bridge, and then this crazy ice storm.

Steve Adler 6:49 Bastrop nearly, uh, burned up, you know, a city just east of here. Wildfire came. You know, when I came into office, we were in the middle of a historic drought.

Joe Rogan 6:59 Right.

Steve Adler 7:00 Um, uh ...

Joe Rogan 7:01 That was when Lake Travis had shrunk, right?

Steve Adler 7:03 It did.

Joe Rogan 7:03 It was crazy.

Steve Adler 7:04 Crazy.

Joe Rogan 7:05 Some pictures of friends that I know that live out here sent me pictures. I was in California at the time, but I was like, "That is nuts." It was like hundreds of yards between their dock and where the actual water was.

Steve Adler 7:15 We were down to like, uh, 25, 30%, and, and-

Joe Rogan 7:18 Wow.

Steve Adler 7:18 ... I was beginning to get shopped, you know, these multi-billion dollar proposals to pipe in water from aquifers from, from east of here. One of the best things I did as mayor soon after I was elected is I, I made it rain and Lake Travis filled-

Joe Rogan 7:35 (laughs)

Steve Adler 7:36 (laughs) Filled, filled right up.

Joe Rogan 7:37 Didn't it fill up in like a day?

Steve Adler 7:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:39 That's crazy.

Steve Adler 7:40 That's all it takes. That's all it takes.

Joe Rogan 7:41 Wow. Yeah. It's, uh ... The, the ice storm out here was pretty bananas. The frozen snow, ice storm that, that lasted a week. It was very strange. And that, that's also a 100-year sort of event, right?

Steve Adler 7:58 Uh, uh, almost in recorded history. I mean-

Joe Rogan 8:01 Yeah.

Steve Adler 8:01 ... it was, it was, it was the most ... And to have that happen at a time when you're in the middle of a pandemic, right? So, all the things that you would have done now gets limited. You know, you're trying to get people off the street and put them into some kind of congregate warming station. It impacts that. It, it impacts everything that you want to do to have that happen in the middle of a pandemic. And then we lost power in the city.

Joe Rogan 8:24 Yeah.

Steve Adler 8:25 Uh, so no one had water, no one had electricity. Um ...

Joe Rogan 8:31 It was pretty interesting. One thing I did find, though, when you went to the supermarkets that people were kind of like bound together with a sense of community. It was, uh ... People were almost ... Every ... People were very friendly here, period. It's a very friendly city. But they were even more. It was like, it seemed like instead of just flat-out panic, people were talking to each other more, people were offering up possible solutions to different people's problems and how to handle things. It was ... It felt good.

Steve Adler 8:59 And you live here now. I mean, I, I really do think this is kind of a magical place, and I think that is one of the elements. I mean, there were ... Not only in the grocery store, but there were people all over the city that didn't have food and didn't have water. And, you know, frankly, when something like that happens, it's like way too big for government relief efforts to be able to get to people.

Joe Rogan 9:18 Yeah.

Steve Adler 9:18 You need neighbors that are, that are stepping up to help other neighbors. And that was happening all over the city.

Joe Rogan 9:25 When you first became mayor, or when you were running for office, did you have certain objectives that you wanted to fulfill? And when you got into office, what was the difference between your ideas of what you could do and the reality of doing them once you got in there?

Steve Adler 9:41 Well, you know, when I ran, the, the highest priority, if you polled people was, do something about transportation. Uh, a lot of people moving into the city. Everybody's, you know, looking at that congestion issues that they'd never seen before. Do something about transportation. We have no real mass public transit. We have an I-35 here, one single high state going through ... Uh, interstate going through the city. Uh, one of the most congested in the, in the, in the country. So, transportation, I knew I had to focus on. But-

Joe Rogan 10:10 I nee- ... I need you guys to stop talking about your traffic, because it's a joke.

Steve Adler 10:13 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:14 Traffic here is literally a joke. My friend Tony calls it adorable. It is adorable, right?

Steve Adler 10:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:20 Jamie's from out of town. We're from LA.

Steve Adler 10:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:22 Traffic here is a joke. It's hilarious. People are like, "This traffic is crazy. Took me an extra five minutes to get somewhere." You guys don't have traffic.

Steve Adler 10:30 I know.

Joe Rogan 10:31 If that's your biggest problem, you literally live in Narnia. This is a utopian village. There's-

Steve Adler 10:36 And, and-

Joe Rogan 10:36 There's no traffic.

Steve Adler 10:37 And we- ... And we've been accused of that.

Joe Rogan 10:38 (laughs)

Steve Adler 10:39 It's true. (laughs) On lots and lots of occasions. But, but coming in, there were two things that I hadn't anticipated. Uh, the, the first one was the, uh, the level of incoming volume was something that I hadn't anticipated. I ...

Joe Rogan 10:52 When did it start? When did the, it like ramp up, the people moving here? Because it wasn't just the pandemic, right?

Steve Adler 10:57 I'm just talking about people reaching out to me.

Joe Rogan 10:59 Oh, okay.

Steve Adler 10:59 I mean, in the job. I mean, the ... You could spend your entire time not doing anything but responding to constituents.

Joe Rogan 11:05 Oh, okay.

Steve Adler 11:05 Or you could spend all your time doing nothing but trying to mediate the zoning cases that show up every week. I mean, you could spend your whole time never doing anything that's actually big picture and affirmative in a city. And I used to blame city councils before me that they would never actually get in to deal with the really big issues. Well, it was real apparent to me three weeks into this why it is that that happens. And it's really hard to do a ... To do that. The second thing was that, uh, government is hard in Austin. One, you know, your mayor, you're not a ... You're not a strong mayor like in Houston or New York. Uh, so the city manager has significant administrative and executive powers in the city (inaudible) .

Joe Rogan 11:50 When you say, "Not a strong mayor," could you explain that to people? The difference between the way, uh, government works here versus the way it would work in, say, like Chicago or somewhere like that?

Steve Adler 11:58 Right. So, the mayor in a lot of cities, uh, is, is the CEO of the city. Uh, sometimes they don't serve on the city council, and the city council's kind of like the Congress or the legislature. Uh, in a lot of cities, it's the, the mayor that appoints the police chief and the executives and the head of the departments. Uh, that system is in a lot of cities. There's also a lot of cities in the country, uh, where the city manager, appointed by the city council, is really the chief operating officer of the city, and really makes all the appointments in the city. The city council operates almost like a, like a-... a, a board for a, for a company and deals with policy-related issues, not the, the management or the executive issues. And that's what we have in Austin. So I'm on the city council. I'm, I have no greater vote or power than any of my peers on the city council. So it makes it difficult to come into a city and lead when the other 10 people on your council have identical powers that you have, with this exception of I have a, probably a better ability to be able to convene people, 'cause I'm the mayor, and I have better access to the bully pulpit, uh, than, than they do. So you learn an entirely different way to lead than I was used to in my companies, in my law firm, because there I was the, the, the executive.

Joe Rogan 13:25 So the difference between the way it seemed the job was versus the actual abil- your actual ability once you got in was pretty stark.

Steve Adler 13:35 Yes.

Joe Rogan 13:36 (laughs)

Steve Adler 13:36 Yes.

Joe Rogan 13:36 So this is why things don't get done.

Steve Adler 13:39 It makes it hard. I mean-

Joe Rogan 13:40 Yeah.

Steve Adler 13:40 ... and, and, you know, I'll give you another example. Um, in Texas, because of the open meetings requirement, I'm not allowed to talk to half of my city council about an issue before it comes up at a city council meeting. I'm not allowed to know-

Joe Rogan 13:58 Why half?

Steve Adler 13:59 'Cause a majori- I'm not allowed to have s- you can't have a majority of the city council that spoke to each other prior to a meeting about an issue.

Joe Rogan 14:08 Because then you would collude?

Steve Adler 14:10 The thought is, is that that government would then be in, in the smoke-filled back rooms cutting deals and making things, and they would show up and find out.

Joe Rogan 14:18 That sounds like fun.

Steve Adler 14:19 I just said that.

Joe Rogan 14:20 (laughs)

Steve Adler 14:20 (laughs) You know, that's a, you know, you make decisions that way.

Joe Rogan 14:23 Yeah.

Steve Adler 14:23 Families make decisions that way.

Joe Rogan 14:25 Yeah.

Steve Adler 14:25 I go to my daughter and I say, "You know, we're gonna have a family talk about this issue. Tell me what, before we go there, though, tell me what you're scared of."

Joe Rogan 14:32 Right.

Steve Adler 14:32 "Tell me what you're worried about. Tell me what you need. Tell me what you want."

Joe Rogan 14:35 You can't have these conversations with your city council?

Steve Adler 14:37 You can't and, and, and any kind of business does that kind of thing. No. If I know what a majority of my city council's gonna do on an issue when I walk out onto the dais, then there's a good chance that something went wrong.

Joe Rogan 14:50 That seems, uh-

Steve Adler 14:52 Crazy.

Joe Rogan 14:52 ... like, yeah, it seems... I get the motivation for doing something like that, but it doesn't seem like a s- an efficient way to handle things. Seems like the more talking you could do and work things out, the better. You, the idea is you're supposed to be representing your constituents, right? That's, that's what everybody would hope. The best way to do that would be to communicate and see what's, what's a solution? How do we solve these problems?

Steve Adler 15:12 Right. Well, you know, you used an interesting word in your description, which was efficient.

Joe Rogan 15:17 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 15:17 You know, I, I come from private market, private sector, and efficiency is key to, to operating and running and, and the results that you make. In government, efficiency is not what is prioritized. In efficiency, uh, uh, engagement, uh, it has a, has a greater value, currency value. Um, uh, openness, transparency, uh, with government is a higher value. All of those things are not about efficiency. Uh, but, but that's the values that people have, have placed with, with government.

Joe Rogan 15:58 Under the premise that they're trying to avoid corruption?

Steve Adler 16:01 Correct.

Joe Rogan 16:02 Um, so what were things that you wanted to get done that you haven't been able to get done?

Steve Adler 16:08 You know, I wanted to, uh, get a land development code rewrite in the city. O- one of the, you know, there are so many things that are going right about this city. Uh, you know, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, an economy that's on fire. We are one of the safest big cities in the country from a public safety standpoint. Um, we're the fastest growing large metropolitan area and have been, I think, for, like, each of the last nine years. There are so many things that are happening right. But one of the things that, that follows from that is housing prices are just off the charts. Now, for somebody who's just coming here from California or from, from New York, it looks like deals. If you're living here, kinda like traffic. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:50 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 16:51 You get used to being able to get anywhere in 15 minutes. But housing prices in Austin is appreciating more rapidly, I think, in Austin right now than any other city in the country, which means we have to increase the housing supply in the city. But when you start talking about increasing the housing supply in the city, you immediately run into the culture wars on real estate development that you see in these neighborhoods. Uh, how do you increase density? How do you increase the number of units? How do you increase height? How do you increase the change, uh, so that you can increase housing supply? We were, that was, like, a big battle for years. Uh, we inherited that battle and the process. We were about seven days away, uh, from adopting a new land development code, and then the court stopped us. Uh, before-

Joe Rogan 17:40 And what was the goal of this new land development code? Was the goal to increase density?

Steve Adler 17:44 It was to increase more housing supply in the city of all different kinds.

Joe Rogan 17:48 Do you, do you get resistance from the residents, the current residents that don't want you to overbuild? They w- they don't want the neighborhood to change? Is that the idea?

Steve Adler 17:54 Y- you get resistance from neighbor- neighborhoods that are trying to preserve a certain quality of life or neighborhood character-

Joe Rogan 18:03 Yeah.

Steve Adler 18:03 ... uh, that, that is, that's important to them.

Joe Rogan 18:06 And is there a common ground or a middle ground rather? Like-

Steve Adler 18:09 I think so and, and, and before I leave my office, I hope, this summer, uh, uh, we're gonna be able to, to join with people that were on opposite sides, uh, a year and a half ago and say, "Okay, what is, what is it that is achievable? How much of what we need to do can we get done and get the, the votes for?" What the court said was in order for us to pass what we were doing, we needed a super majority to get it done. So on my, uh, our 11-person council, we needed nine votes as opposed to seven votes.

Joe Rogan 18:43 Hm.

Steve Adler 18:43 There weren't nine votes.

Joe Rogan 18:45 Now this is to increase, like, what, what is the actual, what, what, what is, what are you trying to achieve? Like, what is the actual stated goal?

Steve Adler 18:54 S- it's to increase the, the, the number of-... units of housing units that can build under our land development code.

Joe Rogan 19:03 So for particular ... like, per acre?

Steve Adler 19:05 So it's like- Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:07 So a certain amount of houses per acre?

Steve Adler 19:09 It depends on the area. Each area has its own rules.

Joe Rogan 19:12 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 19:12 It begins with saying, "On commercial corridors where our zoning says you can just build commercially, we're gonna let people build residences there, too."

Joe Rogan 19:20 Mm.

Steve Adler 19:20 So if you wanna put on a floor above the commercial use that's residential use, we're gonna do that. So we're gonna enlarge what you can build in a commercial area.

Joe Rogan 19:29 So you could add condos to the top of an office building, perhaps?

Steve Adler 19:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:32 Something like that.

Steve Adler 19:32 And then maybe it's letting more people build auxiliary dwelling units or apartments, uh, in the backyard.

Joe Rogan 19:37 Hm.

Steve Adler 19:37 Maybe it's going to people and saying, "If you preserve the house that's on the lot, we'll let you build two other houses on the back of the lot instead of one house on the back of the lot." So it's increasing the, the number of units perhaps. It's increasing the, the, the square footage that you can put, uh, o- on a lot relative to the total area. Maybe it's increasing the height that you can put, uh, in a particular zoned property. So if you can ... you could go from only three stories to four stories if you build a certain amount of residential along with that, or affordable residential.

Joe Rogan 20:14 And is there any consideration to the idea that maybe the city shouldn't grow?

Steve Adler 20:18 Yes. I-

Joe Rogan 20:19 Like some ... I'm sure there must be some resistance about that, like people are like, "Look, we should keep it exactly the way it is as long as we can. Don't let more people build. And if they're gonna move here and there's no houses, guess what? You can't move here. Or move outside of town or, you know, figure it out. But don't ruin this thing."

Steve Adler 20:36 When I ran for reelection, there were lots of people coming up to me and their one ask was that I would stop the city from growing. You know? But as I explained to people, there's only one way to really stop a city from growing.

Joe Rogan 20:47 Bring in crime.

Steve Adler 20:48 Bring in crime.

Joe Rogan 20:49 (laughs)

Steve Adler 20:49 Make it an undesirable place to live. Anything short of that-

Joe Rogan 20:53 I know. (laughs)

Steve Adler 20:53 ... and a desirable place is gonna grow.

Joe Rogan 20:55 It's really ... I mean, I hate to keep saying this 'cause I've said it too many times on the air and I think I've fucked it up. It's too good here. It's such a good city. It really is. There's so many good things about it. Like, you think you know what ... You think you know what city life is. You think you know what it's like living in a city. Ah, there's a certain amount of crime, certain amount of this, certain amount of that. And then you come here and you're like, "Oh, no. This is like most of the good stuff and very little of the bad stuff." It's an unusual combination of things. It's not too big, it's not too small. What does Matthew McConaughey say? He goes, "This is a place where everybody's good enough and no one's too good." No, I fucked it up. "Everyone's too good." No. "No one's too good-

Steve Adler 21:34 Totally.

Joe Rogan 21:34 ... and everyone's good enough." That's what he says. Yeah. Which is a great way to say it. But I think he's, I think he's onto something. It's like y- ... It's a utopian-sized city with great values and really friendly people and amazing restaurants and a great art scene and a great music scene, and now a great comedy scene. Well, it had a good comedy scene before, but since the pandemic when a lotta places were shut down, there's been three new comedy clubs, four new comedy clubs that have opened up here just within the last year, which is crazy.

Steve Adler 22:03 No, and I love ... You, you started describing, you know, kind of what this vision is of future, of, of Austin as a kind of a center for this.

Joe Rogan 22:10 Yeah.

Steve Adler 22:11 And I just ... And I love that.

Joe Rogan 22:11 Yeah. I think Austin easily could be the center for comedy because it's ... Comedy doesn't need, um, show business. But we've always been connected to show business because comedians have gotten jobs on sitcoms and gotten jobs on television shows and movies. But the reality is over the last few years that's all shifted anyway to the internet. And now comedians have found it's much more profitable and more fun to be independent and there's more freedom. Because being independent and being able to say whatever you want and do whatever you want, then, then the audience finds you and y- they know what you really are. They don't ... It's not you from The Tonight Show or you from this show where you gotta kinda pretend to be something that fits some sort of a corporate mold of what th- they would like a host to be. You can be yourself. And comedians now have found this sort of community thing going on where we support each other and we get on each other's podcasts and we put ... put each other on each other's comedy shows and it's just ... We don't need show business anymore in that sense, like the Hollywood show business. And we'd be better off if we were independent. So, so many of us are moving here and I've had ... Ten friends have moved here within the last year and it's continuing to pile up. And as more comics hear about the great Austin scene, more will move here.

Steve Adler 23:30 And, and, uh, you des- ... You described something that is cultural, I think, to the city. I mean, that ability to be able to come here and be who you are-

Joe Rogan 23:38 Yeah.

Steve Adler 23:38 ... and to be able to think outside the box and set up different kinds of systems. You know, the watchword in Austin, uh, and I think we've talked about this in the past, is, is "Keep Austin Weird." You can, like, buy it on a coffee mug or a T-shirt.

Joe Rogan 23:50 They've ruined that, that saying though, with those shirts.

Steve Adler 23:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:52 My daughter has one of those. I'm like, "Take that off."

Steve Adler 23:54 Really?

Joe Rogan 23:55 "That's ridiculous. Get rid of that shirt." (laughs)

Steve Adler 23:56 You know, but what does that mean, you know?

Joe Rogan 23:57 What does it mean? (laughs)

Steve Adler 23:58 That it's okay to be weird? I think everybody probably has their own answer but-

Joe Rogan 24:00 They have them in Portland too. You don't wanna be weird like Portland.

Steve Adler 24:02 You don't.

Joe Rogan 24:03 (laughs)

Steve Adler 24:03 You only wanna be weird like Austin. But I'll tell you what I think it means in Austin. I th- ... In, in Austin, I think what it means is it's okay to be different.

Joe Rogan 24:10 Yes.

Steve Adler 24:10 It's okay to take risks. And one of the neat things about this city is that there's a higher risk tolerance than any other city in the world that I've ever been in. It's okay to, to try stuff. Uh, and, and if you don't succeed, you don't get punished the way you do in many other cities. I mean, you're expected to, like, learn from that and, and try again fast. It, it's that, that, that culture of try something, learn, try something, learn, which is behind startups which is why there are more startups per capita here in this city than anywhere else. It's a city of early adopters. It's a, it's a, it's a city where, you know, a mayoral candidate a few years back who finished second in the race was a guy who drove through town on a thong on his bicycle and he just-

Joe Rogan 24:54 (laughs)

Steve Adler 24:55 ... finished second. Really.

Joe Rogan 24:57 I like how you said he finished second. Imagine if you lost to that guy?

Steve Adler 25:00 Really.

Joe Rogan 25:00 You'd be like, "Oh my goodness, I gotta go back to the public-

Steve Adler 25:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:04 ... or private sector." Um, the biggest issue by far...... over this past year, has been the homeless crisis, right? That's the biggest thing, is the increase in the tents and the chaos. And, you know, when, uh, Dave Chappelle and I were doing Stubs, we'd go down Eighth Street and there's that underpass, and it was just like a village down there. It was crazy. Um, what happened? How did that all get going? Like, what, what was the motivation for allowing people to camp in public places?

Steve Adler 25:34 Well, that's a cou- that's the action the council took two years ago. But so let's go-

Joe Rogan 25:37 Okay.

Steve Adler 25:38 ... back before two years ago. You know, when I came into office, we had, uh, an outdoor area that kind of looked like, you know, what you have downtown in, in Skid Row in LA, but ours was just in a, in a, in a block area. Uh, but that's what everybody talked about. And you... A lot of people-

Joe Rogan 25:55 And where was that area?

Steve Adler 25:56 It was, um, over toward I-35, uh, toward the highway. Um, it was at the, the ARCH, which was a shelter. Uh, but most of the people there never went inside. They kind of gathered outside. It was an open-air market of all kinds of, of, of horrible things. And, uh, people wanted that to disappear. The problem with making that disappear is that you... This challenge is not one you can just make go away. You can move it, but, but if you close it down anywhere, it's going... The people don't disappear, so they'll come back. But that was a challenge coming into office. Uh, but in my second, third, and fourth years in office, I started going to neighborhood association meetings. Uh, and whereas in the past, people wouldn't want to talk about zoning or flooding, now all they wanted to talk about was this homeless encampment that was near them somewhere. In the woods, in the streams, somewhere nearby. Uh, they were blaming the, um, the, the, the petty crime happening in, in the neighborhood on them. Every one of them had a wife or a daughter that had a horrible experience related to them. And I was going to these neighborhood association meetings and people were as angry as I have ever seen at a public meeting, demanding that something be done. Uh, I had one of them, uh, here, a neighborhood. A guy came up to me after it was over and he said, "You're mayor, fix this. And if you don't, I have a gun and I will fix this myself."

Joe Rogan 27:28 Jesus.

Steve Adler 27:29 And, and I don't know that he actually meant that, but, but there was... That was the fervor and the feel. And I had, as, as a member of the city council, nothing to offer that neighborhood association. They were complaining about people that were under an overpass at, uh, the, the, the highway not t- too far away from them. Uh, and I knew that if we fenced in that overpass, which of course we couldn't do because it's not city property, it's state property, but if the state fenced it in so that those people weren't there anymore, uh, they don't disappear. So all they're going to do is, is move up the highway or down the highway or somewhere else. And I was going to more and more neighborhood associations that were complaining more and more about encampments, and, and I had no solution to that. And what hurt was, is we knew what worked. So in that same period of time, we said, "Let's house every vet in our city that's experiencing homelessness." You know, there was a national program doing it. A lot of cities participated. Austin was one of a handful of cities to successfully get that done. The community came together. We, we, we... When you take someone who's experiencing homelessness and you put them into a home and get them wraparound services, there's like a 90, 95% success rate that that person will either reintegrate back into society or will sustain themselves in a, in a positive way, wherever it is. 90, 95%.

Joe Rogan 29:03 And it seems like Austin, being-

Steve Adler 29:05 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:05 ... a fairly small city, you're dealing with much smaller... Even though it's a large number of people per se, it's, it's, it's, it's almost a manageable number. Like, you might be able to do that with all these homeless people. Whereas if you're in a place like Los Angeles, you're dealing with 100,000 people. Like, what's the number of homeless people in Austin?

Steve Adler 29:23 Right. You are... You're, you're dead on. And, and quite frankly, that's the, the, the gamble or the, the... What the city council was trying to do two years ago. So on our streets, on any given night, there's about 3,000 people that are experiencing homelessness. LA City, almost 50,000. LA County-

Joe Rogan 29:43 It's... I think it's more than that.

Steve Adler 29:44 70 some-odd thousand. The... My, my numbers could be off.

Joe Rogan 29:47 I don't even think they know, you know?

Steve Adler 29:48 S-

Joe Rogan 29:48 But it's, it's, it's increased to the point wh- I... It's hard to say whether or not it's increased or its exposure has increased because they've all moved to, like, Venice Beach where there's just thousands of tents.

Steve Adler 29:59 The num- the numbers are going up.

Joe Rogan 30:00 Yeah.

Steve Adler 30:00 You know? And in Seattle, San Francisco, smaller cities than Austin have three to six times as many people experiencing homelessness. You know, I was with the mayor in LA, uh, and I, and I said to him, I said, "God, I don't even know what you do. I mean, the scale of your challenge is so great. The cost to actually turn this around," I said, "I, I, I don't know what you do." And I said, "So I'm not here asking you what you do. But I'm asking you, what do you wish you had done eight years ago, 10 years ago, to prevent being where you are today?"

Joe Rogan 30:34 What did he say?

Steve Adler 30:34 He gave me the same answer that the experts gave me in San Francisco and Portland and Seattle. They all said, "If you hide this challenge, it's going to continue to grow until it is so big you can't hide it anymore. But at that point, it's going to be too big for you to actually meaningfully deal with it." They said it's... It is like the political issue right now in, in LA and in San Francisco. It's like-

Joe Rogan 30:59 Yeah.

Steve Adler 30:59 ... important. The p- they said, "I wish that we were as resolved to fix it-"... eight, 10 years ago as we are today, because we would have been able to set up the systems so that we could have reached equilibrium. And now, we wouldn't be here.

Joe Rogan 31:14 You've got places like San Francisco-

Steve Adler 31:16 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 31:16 ... that have such tolerant policies towards homeless people that people gravitate to San Francisco to be homeless, which is really kind of crazy but true. People have actually moved there with the intention of, like, taking advantage of all their services, taking advantage of food and shelter, and the ability to do whatever you want. And, you know, you could actually get money for, for certain services in, in San Francisco. There's, like, a fine line between helping and encouraging people to continue a lifestyle. And, you know, for some people, the freedom of just being able to camp and do whatever you want, like, they're, they're checked out, right, for whatever reason, whether it's mental illness, whether it's just they pre- prefer this sort of vagabond lifestyle. I don't know whatev- what it is. But is there a l- like, is there a line that you have to make sure you don't cross over, where you don't make it easier for them to be homeless? You want to encourage them to take advantage of these things that you were trying to set up, where you're talking about providing them with wraparound services, where you can actually reintegrate them to society. Like, how do you make that distinction?

Steve Adler 32:25 Well, you know, so much of the debate and the discussion around homelessness has turned so political, like so many other kinds of discussions, but, but homelessness is, is one of the big ones. So, I have continued to ask the people that are working daily with the universe of people experiencing homelessness in our city, about 10,000 people in any given year intersect with our homelessness system, about 3,000 people on any given day in our city experiencing homelessness. And I've asked that question, "Are we pulling people in?" And what they tell me consistently, for the last six years, seven years, is that you can find anecdotally where that has happened. But generally speaking, the overwhelming number of people experiencing homelessness in our city are people who fell into homelessness here. The people that are coming into our city, most of them are coming from the areas immediately around us. I had one of them tell me once that there's not a, a, a Fodor's Guide to, to cities for people experiencing homelessness. And Austin would be in danger of going from two stars to three stars and people would start coming. We have enough challenge getting people experiencing homelessness to go from one side of the city to the other side of the city once they have a, have, have a place. Um, so where I'm looking at here, and I know that, that the governor, you know, Gavin Newsom in, in California, um, uh, told people that, uh, that Austin and Texas were giving people tickets and sending people to, to, to California.

Joe Rogan 34:03 Did he say that?

Steve Adler 34:04 He said that. Not true-

Joe Rogan 34:06 Is it?

Steve Adler 34:06 ... from ... I mean, I'm ... No.

Joe Rogan 34:08 Wait a minute. That guy lied about something? That's crazy.

Steve Adler 34:09 That's what I hear. Uh, (laughs) but the, uh, um ... So-

Joe Rogan 34:15 (laughs)

Steve Adler 34:15 So, I'm, I'm, I'm just ... You know, we, we just need to get-

Joe Rogan 34:18 That's not how to handle it, right?

Steve Adler 34:18 We need to get people, we need to get people off the streets. So-

Joe Rogan 34:21 So-

Steve Adler 34:21 ... what the council did was we said, um ... We, we made it work with veterans. And then I tried to scale up what we did with veterans, but I couldn't get the, the resolve to spend the money. And part of the reason was, is because people didn't see the challenge. So, there'd be some neighborhoods that were willing to do it. I knew as, as sure as the sun was gonna come up the next day that this was now accelerating in our city. So, what we said was, "We're gonna maintain the ordinances that say if you threaten public safety or public health, you can get arrested and ticketed and put in jail," 'cause that's important. If somebody's doing that, they should be arrested and ticketed and put in jail. But if they're not doing that, if all they're doing is surviving, then it is inhumane to either put that person in jail or to force that person to live down in the streams and in the woods, 'cause you, you k- it's an even un- worse place for them to be. So, we said-

Joe Rogan 35:20 Why is it a worse place for them-

Steve Adler 35:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:22 ... to be camping in the woods than to be camping on a public street?

Steve Adler 35:25 Well, in ... Well, one, you don't want anybody camping in a public street either.

Joe Rogan 35:29 Right.

Steve Adler 35:29 Right? So, that's not a solution to the challenge. You, you can't have that happen either. Uh, but if somebody is in the woods or down by the streams, they're not interacting with anybody else. So, you have, you have hundreds of women that are getting assaulted every night as the price to be able to live in that environment because they're, they're secluded and they're not safe. I've had-

Joe Rogan 35:56 So, you mean if a homeless woman moves to the woods, she's in danger because there's no one around her to protect her.

Steve Adler 36:02 Unless she picks a protector.

Joe Rogan 36:02 There's not a community. Right.

Steve Adler 36:03 Unless she picks a protector.

Joe Rogan 36:05 She's not in a community-

Steve Adler 36:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:06 ... of homeless people. And so, this is one of the reasons why these people gravitate towards these places like that 8th Street underpass because there's a lot of them together and there, there's a sense of belonging.

Steve Adler 36:16 And it's public and they can see it. Our health officials can find them.

Joe Rogan 36:19 Right.

Steve Adler 36:19 We, we're now vaccinating our entire population of people experiencing homelessness 'cause we can find them. The mistake that we made is that when we did something that meant people were gonna come out of the woods and the streams, we should have identified at that point where people could go and not go.

Joe Rogan 36:35 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 36:36 And we didn't do that. We didn't, we didn't manage the public spaces, the shared spaces, the way that we should have. So, what the council did that summer is we said, "Okay, we're going to decriminalize it," because every person who ... You know, in, in 19- in, in, in, in 2016 thereabouts, we wrote like 18,000 tickets.And as you imagine, very few of those people ended up in court the following Thursday to pay-

Joe Rogan 37:00 Yeah.

Steve Adler 37:00 ... their fine. They end up benchworn, issued for their arrest, and then you can't get... They... Six months later, they have trouble getting a job or an apartment because now they have a criminal record.

Joe Rogan 37:08 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 37:08 Right? So we said, "We're just not gonna do that anymore." But on the same day we did that, we asked the city manager to come back with a set of rules that would say, "Okay, so we, we, we... Where is it that people can go and can't go?" Uh, and, uh, for lots of reasons, that never happened, and that's where we made our mistake.

Joe Rogan 37:30 So if you could go back and do it all over again, from the moment you got into office, what would you have done differently?

Steve Adler 37:38 Well, uh, w- what we did initially, uh, in terms of the veterans was real successful. I would do that again. It proves up the model. And it sh-

Joe Rogan 37:46 Can you explain how, how that works? Like, uh, what, what, what, what did you do exactly for the veterans?

Steve Adler 37:51 Well, veterans are a little bit easier because they come with resources. So they come with what are called VASH vouchers from the federal government, which is support to, to help do rent supplements. Uh, but then it was reaching out to everybody in the city, uh, that had apartment buildings, big managers of apartment buildings with these vouchers, and we would say, "Would you take in these vets?" And, and, and people were willing to do that. Um, we had some landlords that were suspicious of it and say, "I'm not gonna do this 'cause if I take someone like this, they're gonna trash out the place and we're gonna need-

Joe Rogan 38:22 Right.

Steve Adler 38:22 ... it'll take me six months to evict them." So I got together with some private, uh, businesses in the lake. We created a risk fund outside of city government, and we put it into the community foundation, and we said, "If you take a tenant and they trash out your place or create a problem, you call in the morning, you get a check in the afternoon."

Joe Rogan 38:41 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 38:41 All the landlords said they don't believe me 'cause it's city. It's gonna take you five months. I said, "It's not in the city. It's privately funded. We're doing it outside the city." Uh-

Joe Rogan 38:50 That's a great solution.

Steve Adler 38:51 It was great. And, and it, it took trusting the landlords that they weren't gonna be making claims unless they actually had problems.

Joe Rogan 38:58 So, you, you start with this.

Steve Adler 39:00 It worked.

Joe Rogan 39:00 You d- take the veterans. You have this, uh, these vouchers. You bring them into apartment buildings. You get them places. That's step one. So now they have a roof over their head, but how do you help them clean up?

Steve Adler 39:12 The, the service providers in the city-

Joe Rogan 39:14 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 39:14 ... all said... 'Cause we all got everybody together and we said, "Let's, let's, let's get to equilibrium with veterans." Which means that... I mean, you can never end homelessness, but what you can do is get to a place where the rate at which you house people and they come out of housing back to life is the same rate at which they show up experiencing homelessness. I said, "Let's do that with veterans." It was part, again, of a federal program.

Joe Rogan 39:38 What percentage of the homeless folks are veterans?

Steve Adler 39:40 You know, I think it's probably right now about 6%, something like that. I think the number was higher back then 'cause we had more veterans on the, on the, on the streets. But the service providers all came in and said, "Okay, if you can house vets, if you can find places for them, we'll start prioritizing them for giving them services."

Joe Rogan 39:58 So how do you let these vets know about this and how do you locate the vets?

Steve Adler 40:01 Well, the, the, the people are on the streets right now. I mean, the, the service workers, the, the, the mental health interventionists.

Joe Rogan 40:08 And they basically go tent to tent and they ask folks, "Are you a veteran?" If, if you are, there's-

Steve Adler 40:12 And then there's special programs.

Joe Rogan 40:14 ... programs.

Steve Adler 40:14 Special, special programs. What I had thought was, is that once we were successful there, we would be able to scale it up to everybody.

Joe Rogan 40:20 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 40:21 But much to my distress, I learned that a lot of people were involved not because they wanted to help people experiencing homelessness, they wanted to help vets. And I understand that. But when we moved out of vets, I had trouble getting the commitment to raise the resources to be able to do it for everybody. And that's... And so, so for, for two years, we were really unable to get the resources necessary to do it. The reason that I feel optimistic right now on homelessness and, and, and I do, more than I have in the last 10 years in this city, is because in our city right now, because it's become a political issue, because of the vote we just took, um, because of everybody getting so engaged-

Joe Rogan 41:04 We should explain to people the vote. The vote is that now it's illegal to camp on the city-

Steve Adler 41:09 The s- yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:09 ... in the city streets.

Steve Adler 41:10 Yeah. There was a, there was a referendum, and, and the community said, "We don't like tents. Get rid of the tents that we're seeing." Uh, let's criminalize it again. Um, you know, as a practical matter, criminalizing it isn't ultimately going to help. We have to enforce the new law, so, so the manager and the police chief are charged with doing that. But what we need to do is scale up the same thing we did with veterans. And for the very first time, we have our Chamber of Commerce, business organization, Downtown Austin Alliance business organization locked arm in arm with the Austin Justice Coalition and our homelessness leftist advocates all s- all agreeing on what it is that is the plan. And for the very first time, we have, I think, the access to the resources using, uh, the 1.9, our share of the $1.9 trillion coming out of DC. And what several of us on the council, and I think a majority of us on the council, have said is, rather than taking that dollars f- from the federal government and splitting it up 50 different ways and sending it out to people, what if we actually took those dollars and put them toward the homelessness challenge in our city? Let's take the lion's share of that money, put it to one challenge. Let's get the county to do it, then let's go to the foundations in the community and say, "We're gonna take this challenge off the table in our city." This is the moment because it's only 3,000 people on any given night, going back to what you said earlier.

Joe Rogan 42:40 Right, it's a theater full of people.

Steve Adler 42:42 We can do this.

Joe Rogan 42:42 It's not that, not that big. Yeah.

Steve Adler 42:44 We can do this.

Joe Rogan 42:45 It's workable.

Steve Adler 42:46 We can set up the system. And if we set up the system, then that system then, that equilibrium place then takes this challenge off the table for us for, for an indefinite period of time.

Joe Rogan 42:56 If there was no fiscal considerations, if someone could come to you and said, "Steve, you got an open check," and they're like, "Tell me what you need to do. What do you, what do you want to do?" How would you handle it?Wow.

Steve Adler 43:06 If there was no worries whatsoever about money, if you could just build structures and house the homeless and then it's not just about getting them housed and cleaned up and fed, it's also about figuring out drug programs, it's figuring out mental health programs, it's figuring out how to get them gainfully employed, how to get them counseling. Maybe there's some serious psychological issues that are leading to them being on the street. Everyone's different. You've got a wide spectrum of problems and issues. And what would you do? You would, you would, you would ... We know that there are a lot of people that need services. But we also know if you try to give those services to people while they're in tents or while they're in congregate living situations, the success rate is down, like, at 20%.

Joe Rogan 43:54 Why is that?

Steve Adler 43:55 Because you can't always find them because they'll move in and out of those places. So it's hard to actually know where they are to focus. Makes it harder for them to get a job when their address is in a congregate shelter somewhere. Um, they lose their papers. It just ... Life is that much harder if every moment of every day you're trying to survive to the next moment. Get somebody into a home, then they can work with their social worker and actually begin to pull things together. So if you get them into the home, much more successful, those services. So we have to get places for people to be, plus those wraparound services. Most of the people that is experiencing homelessness are not people that have mental health challenges or substance abuse challenges. Most people are the victims of the perfect storm. I mean, they are literally people, married, family, uh, and then there's this, like, huge medical bill and they can't pay it. And it starts causing problems between them and their spouse. They have a, a, a c- bill collector that's now calling them all the time. So they start paying that bill sometimes and then not their car bill all the time, and then they lose their car. That causes friction in the, in the household. Things are getting, like, really ugly at this point. They don't have the car and one of them loses their job and then the next thing you know, spouse leaves with the kids, car's gone, uh, medi- the bill collector's still coming and then, and then person loses their apartment and they end up on the streets. And they raise their hand and they say, "I need help. I don't know who to call." 'Cause they literally have no one to call. And they say, "If you can just help me, help me for a month or two or three, I can right this ship and get back." If you can get them off the street and into a home with a job training program or even just stabilize them, get them what they need, real good chance they can get back into life. But if you ... The longer you leave them on the street, the longer they're there, the harder it's going to be for them to be able to pull back. The wait list right now in Austin for somebody in that situation who raises their hand is y- is, is like a year, year and a half to get to the living-

Joe Rogan 46:04 Jesus.

Steve Adler 46:04 So we're creating a lot of the challenge that we, that, that we're dealing with 'cause we don't have the capacity. Uh, and, and that's been the frustration. But for the very, very first time, we actually have the agreement on the plan, the way we measure it over time, exactly what it's going to cost. We have the b- we have the resources from the federal government. I think we're having foundations now that are, uh, in discussions willing to, to, to, to step up and take a, a big piece of this. Before I leave office here in the next year and a half, my number one priority is to track this issue.

Joe Rogan 46:42 Now, if you could, what would you do? Would you build large apartment structures? And e- when you do that, how do you connect that to, to guidance? Like, how do you connect that to counseling? How do you connect that to, you know, f- uh, healthy meals for these folks? How do you connect that to m- y- you know, someone who's going to give them counsel? Someone who's going to tell them, like, "Here's the steps that you need to take to get back on track. Let's work on this together. Here's your project. This is what you have to do today and this is what I'm going to do to help you."

Steve Adler 47:16 Ah, you don't, you don't create any living situation without already having those support services part of it. You don't do-

Joe Rogan 47:24 So you don't just put them up in a hotel?

Steve Adler 47:26 No.

Joe Rogan 47:26 No.

Steve Adler 47:26 It wouldn't w- it wouldn't work.

Joe Rogan 47:28 Right. Right.

Steve Adler 47:29 And there are lots of different models about what that could w- look like. So we're, we're buying now some motels, hotels, uh, because it's, it's, it's cheaper and better for taxpayers to do that, uh, than it is to, to build something new. We're working with developers in the city that have a track record of success. We have people like, uh, Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Alan Graham that have built small kind of communities of, of mini homes. I mean, there are lots of different ways and, and the people that are doing this, again, are like 90, 95% successful. I don't know what you do, Joe, about, about, about poverty. I don't know what you do about racial dispar- I mean, uh, uh, uh, wealth disparities among ... on racial lines. I mean, there are some issues that are societal issues that are so big, I don't know what you do with. But homelessness, we know exactly what works and it's purely a question of, is a community serious enough about putting the resources against it to fix it?

Joe Rogan 48:30 Has any community brought homelessness back from, like, uh, uh, uh, a very high level to a much more manageable level? Has anyone been successful?

Steve Adler 48:41 Houston, just down the street-

Joe Rogan 48:43 Houston.

Steve Adler 48:43 ... is real successful. So but, but Houston did, is they started doing this 20 years ago.

Joe Rogan 48:47 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 48:48 So 20 years ago, they went to HUD in DC and they said, "We want to start building and buying places for people to go. We're gonna give them services 'cause we think this will work." And HUD supported them, like, as a pilot program and it was successful. So every year they've gotten more and more-

Joe Rogan 49:04 What does HUD stand for?

Steve Adler 49:05 Housing and Urban Development. It's one of the cabinet offices in DC. So they, they, they, uh, um, got funding. They were successful. So every year, they've gotten more and more funding. So every year, I think this past year recently, they got over $40 million. I think Dallas was, like, at 11 and Austin was, like, at three.What we need to do in Austin is what Houston did over the last 20 years. We need to do it over the next three years. I mean, it works. But it's going to be more expensive for us in the next three, uh, years or so-

Joe Rogan 49:37 Yeah.

Steve Adler 49:38 ... than it is in Houston. But once you get there, once you set up a system, because people move in... You know, o- one, you divert as many people as you can before they get to that place. Once they... if they get past the diversion you didn't diversion, then you get them into some kind of rapid re-housing, emergency housing, exiting them to permanent supportive housing, hopefully exiting them back, um, to, to, to, to society. And then you keep filling, backfilling those spots. Then, uh, if... once you reach equilibrium in that system, then, then, then it, then it doesn't cost. L.A. budget this year, did you see that? The L.A. line item for homelessness this year in their budget, a billion dollars.

Joe Rogan 50:19 (laughs)

Steve Adler 50:20 A billion dollars. I don't even know what you do. I mean, it's crazy.

Joe Rogan 50:25 And guess what? It's not gonna do anything.

Steve Adler 50:27 It... And it won't.

Joe Rogan 50:28 It won't.

Steve Adler 50:29 Their numbers are so big that it won't set up their systems.

Joe Rogan 50:32 It's insane, yeah. It... And then it becomes just massive bureaucracy and nothing gets done. The problem with a place like L.A. is that it's too big and there's too many people and it's just not gonna get done. And that's the one thing that I look at Austin, I go, "This might work." Like, you can kind... It seems like you can kind of manage things way better when you're dealing with a million people than when you're dealing with, you know, whatever Los Angeles has now. When you're talking about 3,000 homeless folks, how many counselors do you need? How many people do you need working on this problem? How many... Like, you're obviously gonna need folks that are experts in helping people rehabilitate and getting back into society. And you're gonna deal with a bunch of different kinds of scenarios. Some people have extreme mental health issues. Some people have drug addictions. Some people are like the story that you just laid out earlier, just a bunch of things happen, the perfect storm, and they wind up being homeless.

Steve Adler 51:32 So the plan that... So, so our Chamber of Commerce got together with our criminal justice advocacy group and, and, and I've watched them over the last five years be at town hall meetings where they argue with each other over what it is that's supposed to happen. Uh, they, they, they engaged in a facilitated conversation. Chamber, D.A., Downtown Austin Alliance, ECHO, the umbrella organization, a facilitated conversation. They invited me to participate. It felt like a marriage counseling session. And what they, what they... (laughs) They brought in an outside person, uh, and they were trying to come up with a small exercise project that they could do together to build trust. And what became apparent when they were actually got in the room with the facilitator is they could agree on what it was that was the whole plan from, from, from A to Z. Uh, they couldn't fund it, but they could agree on what the plan was. But the fact that they could agree on it was the first time I had seen that in, in my lifetime in this city. Uh, and then more and more people started surrounding that and saying, "You know, if they're going to agree that this is the right way to go, then, then we ought to figure out how to fund this thing." And that's where we are right now. So that plan that they came up with, with the facilitator, by the way, one of the architects of the practice in Houston came in, and I think that it said that they have to increase their capacity of people to do the kind of casework that you're talking about by about 250 people.

Joe Rogan 53:09 So they bring in about 250 counselors/rehab experts/job specialists, people that can help these people become gainfully employed, people that can help these people clean up, and then what, what could be done to incentivize these people? Like, could... I- i- is it giving them hope in the sense of, like, uh, marking progress and making a, you know, making a, like, a show of it, like saying, "This is fantastic. Look what we've doing. We're all working together. I know everybody here is down and out or you're in a situation where you'd rather be in a better situation. We can all help. And look at these examples of ways we've done it and look at these examples of people who've been like you, who've gone through this program and are now happy, normal members of society." And maybe some of those folks can even come back and help and offer counseling and maybe even speak to these people and say, "Hey, I was in the position that you were in and we can all get out of this together."

Steve Adler 54:08 And they, and they, and they do. But remember that this universe of people that are experiencing homelessness run the gamut, and most of them don't have the mental health challenge or the substance abuse challenge. Most of them don't. So it's a question of just helping those people right themselves and then get back. Uh, but... And there'll be some people who are just gone.

Joe Rogan 54:31 Right.

Steve Adler 54:31 Uh, and, and really what you're really trying to do is to find a safe place for them to be, uh, and, and decrease the frequency with which they're interacting with police and showing up at emergency rooms.

Joe Rogan 54:43 Yeah. How do you do that?

Steve Adler 54:44 Well, you know, in our, our city, just by way of example, the 250 people that are most chronically experiencing homelessness, that have the most significant challenges they're dealing with, the frequent flyers in our emergency rooms and in jails and all that, are costing our collective community, our collective community about $220,000 a year.

Joe Rogan 55:09 250 people are-

Steve Adler 55:11 Two hundred and fifty people each, $220,000 a year.

Joe Rogan 55:13 Each person?

Steve Adler 55:13 Each person. About $50 million our community pays every year for those 250 people.

Joe Rogan 55:20 That seems like a problem.

Steve Adler 55:21 That's... (laughs) You think?

Joe Rogan 55:23 Yeah.

Steve Adler 55:23 All right. So-

Joe Rogan 55:23 That's how reality shows like The Hunger Games get started.

Steve Adler 55:26 What if we-

Joe Rogan 55:27 Somebody looks at... (laughs)

Steve Adler 55:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:28 Somebody goes, "I got an idea." (laughs)

Steve Adler 55:30 There's an- and there's a better idea. But- but to take those 250 people, you know, and- and- and really get them to a safer, better place, all the statistics, all the studies show they're going to end up in emergency rooms less, end up in the hospitals less, end up in jails less. Most of the people are eager to be able to actually get a job. There's a dignity in having a job.

Joe Rogan 55:56 Right.

Steve Adler 55:57 And- and, you know, in our city, we have Workforce Solutions, which is the local arm of the Federal, uh, Department of Labor where they bring in programs, and we're trying to train people at our city. We have tons of great jobs in this city. What we don't have in this city are the middle-skilled, trained people to take the middle-skill jobs, 'cause we have a lot of them that are available. We don't have people that are trained to do them. We have a lot of people who can step into $150,000 a year job plus. So we have a program to train people to give them less than a four-year degree, less than a two-year degree, a certificate, so that they can go do something. By the way, uh, a welder in this city right now with a brand new certificate makes 80 and $90,000 a year. Uh, and that's not a two-year degree. But- but so our Workforce Solutions, I asked the number the other day. How many people have you brought into your program that self-identify as experiencing homelessness? It was like six- 650 people in their program over the last two years. I said, "What success do you have of actually putting somebody into a job?" At 65%. We ought to be doing that kind of thing. So part of it is new people, part of it is giving greater capacity to the- to the services that exist so they can create more slots. Um, but that's where we are right now. I mean, it's pulling all those pieces together, uh, so that we can actually do th- And if we do this, if we do this on this timing, I think we're going to be the first city to be able to accomplish that kind of- of turn-

Joe Rogan 57:33 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 57:33 ... in that period of time. And it only happens because our challenge at this point is about average. I mean, people see it in this city right now because of what the council did two years ago. So it is, you know, in everybody's face right now. And people want to do something about it, which is- which is great. But what they don't want to do, I don't think, is send people back to the woods. They want people out of tents. It is inappropriate, it is wrong to have people tenting on our streets or in our overpasses. That is not a good place for them. It might be better than being in the woods, but it is a bad place for people to be, and we have to get tents gone.

Joe Rogan 58:12 So buying up hotels and motels, buying up places that are available, and then having all these people in place, you think this can all be ramped up and become a successful program by the time you're- you're out of office?

Steve Adler 58:27 I don't think it will be finalized, 'cause I think we'll be in the middle of this three-year period of time, but I think it'll be tracked. I think the money will have been committed and raised, uh, and there'll be a glide path for three years. There'll be a- a group that is in charge of governing this and holding people accountable that op- operates outside of government. It won't be the city or the county because these challenges are too big for the city or the county. There's got to be a place that has funders and foundations and businesses all part of the- of the governance of this- of this process.

Joe Rogan 59:03 Now, the hard asses amongst us would look at this and say, "This is a personal accountability issue, and these people need to get their shit together." You know? And then why should we help them? Nobody helped me. That kind of thought process. Um, but then the more compassionate would look at maybe those 250 people that keep getting arrested over and over again and saying, "How much would it cost to talk to those 250 people and work with those 250 people and figure out a way to change their perspective and bring..." Like there's two different schools of thought, right? There's a school of thought, w- you know, these people need to figure it out on their own. There's a school of thought is they are, regardless of their circumstance, they are part of our community, and we need to figure out how to help them. Like what arguments do you get pro and con in that direction? Like what- what arguments do you get in terms of like the- the 250 problem people that keep getting arrested and wind up in the hospital? Like what- what-

Steve Adler 59:58 There are two extremes, all right?

Joe Rogan 59:59 Right.

Steve Adler 59:59 So there's the- there's the one group of people who say, "I am only concerned about the aesthetics of this issue."

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 Right. Get them out of here.

Steve Adler 1:00:07 "This is none of my challenge."

Joe Rogan 1:00:08 Right.

Steve Adler 1:00:08 "I don't want to see it."

Joe Rogan 1:00:09 Right.

Steve Adler 1:00:09 "Put it somewhere where I don't have to deal with it." Not... I mean, just make it go away. And then there are the people that are only concerned about, um, um, taking care of people, and they- and they don't believe that, uh, there is a need to- to- to manage shared public spaces in a way that actually preserves for the public the use of public spaces.

Joe Rogan 1:00:32 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:00:33 They're only concerned about the person experiencing homelessness. What I have found in our city is that there are... While those two extremes exist, almost everybody in this city has some of both. They- they don't want to see it.

Joe Rogan 1:00:46 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:00:47 And there's got to be a better answer to it. But they want you... In a city that has so much going for it, as much resources as this city has, we ought to be able to solve for this in a way that we're proud of.

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 Yeah. Uh, it's almost like... I wish there was like a contest where people from around the country or around the city or wherever it would be could come in, and like there would be a prize if you could turn any of these 250 people into working, productive members of society. Figure out how to clean them up, counsel them. I wonder what could be done if there was like real incentive, you know? If like, say, if there was like a million dollar prize for whoever could take these people and turn them... Turn... Whether it's a small number of them or even just one-... take a person who's completely down and out and look, and just go over their record, look at their, what, what's happened in their life. It seems like it could be done with enough resources and attention. You could change people's lives. But could you ch- you know, like how much would that cost? And would it be ... If you're thinking about $250,000 a year for each one of these people? That's what you're saying?

Steve Adler 1:01:59 220. Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:01:59 $220,000 a year. It seems like you pay someone $100,000 a year just to f- babysit these fucking people. You'd save $120,000 (laughs) a year and you might be able to fix it. Like some of these people, it's, there's gotta be a way to get through to them. People can change. It's really hard. But they can change if you get enough attention and enough motivation, you hit the right frequency with them, talk to them in a way that resonates with them, give them like manageable goals that they could sort of get momentum going and start recognizing that, "Oh, if I do these things and continue to do these things, I can actually live a better and healthier and happier life." It seems like-

Steve Adler 1:02:41 Helljer, I'll vote for you.

Joe Rogan 1:02:43 Yeah. (laughs)

Steve Adler 1:02:44 And, and (laughs) and, and, and I would love to see that and, and, and there's gotta be, has to be more and more of that because what Austin is dealing with right now is not very dissimilar from what's happening in a lot of cities around the country right now. They're just not dealing with it.

Joe Rogan 1:02:59 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:03:00 Which means like in another four to six to eight years, what you're seeing happening in LA is gonna start happening in, in many, many more bigger cities around the country.

Joe Rogan 1:03:09 And less steps are taken to mitigate it.

Steve Adler 1:03:11 'Cause they're, 'cause people aren't.

Joe Rogan 1:03:12 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:03:12 They're hiding it. They're, they're letting it ple- in places people don't see. It's gotta come out. This is a national issue.

Joe Rogan 1:03:19 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:03:19 And then my hope is, well I would love to happen- have it happen today, but at some point in the next, you know, four to six to eight years, uh, it's gotta be that, that nationally the government's stepping into this and saying, "We've gotta, this is an emergency. We've gotta fix this."

Joe Rogan 1:03:36 Yeah, it seems like it has to be e- e- a- and there's this thing that people want personal accountability, they want people to just go and figure things out on their own. But it has to be recognized that different people start off in life at different places. This idea that we, we all have equal opportunity is nonsense. It's just not the case. And so if e- equal opportunity doesn't exist, you can't have equal ex- expectations. You just can't. Some people come from horrific abuse and j- drug-abused families and, uh, violence and crime and they're, they're just, they didn't start at the same spot as you or I. They, they got unlucky with where their, their station in life is. And as a community, uh, the compassionate thing to do is to try to give those people a hand, reach out, give them a hand. But it's like how much? How much do you do? And how much is it, how much are you doing where you're just enabling and encouraging people? You don't want these sort of like really, uh, overly progressive programs that ultimately do more harm than good because they just enable people to continue to live this life. You wanna kinda guide them, right?

Steve Adler 1:04:50 Right. And, and, and what the studies show is that most of these people, and it is not everybody, but most of these people, if you can give them a key to a room, they will take that room rather than being out on the street so long as they can bring their pet or their girlfriend, uh, so long as they're not being asked to, to do another 10-point program 'cause they've done 20 of those and they're just not gonna do that again. But if you can get some into a place where they're safer and then get them the services, you'd be surprised at the number of people, the success rate of getting people to stabilize themselves. Uh, and then there's just dignity in work. There's, there's dignity in community. There's, when you start giving people back that measure of dignity, that's what, that's what most all of these people want. Not everybody. There are, you know, but, but most all do.

Joe Rogan 1:05:51 Yeah. And you gotta have, I guess, different plans in place for different kinds of problems, right? Different plans in place for the people-

Steve Adler 1:05:58 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:05:58 ... with mental health issues, different plans in place for the people who are drug addicts.

Steve Adler 1:06:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:06:02 Different plans for the people that just are unfortunate. This last year, um, I would imagine as a mayor of a city had to be insanely challenging with all the issues regarding whether or not to open or not to be open. And this is the only time in our lifetimes where the government has actually stepped in and said, "Hey, we have to shut down businesses and we have to deem certain businesses essential." What was that like?

Steve Adler 1:06:31 Horrible. And, and especially horrible here in Austin, uh, because we had SXSW, which is a huge festival, you know, brings in 250, 300,000 people from all over the world coming into our city the second week in March. And we're looking at this, this, this virus that is like moving across the, the world and, and people are dying. Seeing it now hit in California and, and Seattle and we're just about to bring 5,000 people from Seattle into our city. You know, we could be bringing in 10, 15, 20,000 people from Asia, uh, into our city. Um, so the very first thing that, that, that I had to do was working with the SX folks who were incredible and the doctors and the data was to say, "We're gonna pull down this event." Uh, and it was hard-

Joe Rogan 1:07:27 How much resistance did you get for that?

Steve Adler 1:07:30 Uh, there was a lot of resistance. Uh, there was also a lot of support.... uh, because people were seeing what was happening. You know, within 10 days, it wasn't an outlier anymore. I mean, everybody was pulling down big events in cities across the country. And it all happened within 7 to 10 days. Uh, but that first one, uh, was, was, was hard. I mean, it was hard all year long with businesses 'cause you wanna keep things open. Uh, you know, Austin has, has done as well so far. The, the mortality rate in Austin is half of the state average. The mortality rate in Austin is less than half of the, of the national average.

Joe Rogan 1:08:10 It doesn't... Don't you think that has to do with a lot of the active people here though, too?

Steve Adler 1:08:13 It has.

Joe Rogan 1:08:14 Yes.

Steve Adler 1:08:14 It does. I mean, uh, we're a younger population-

Joe Rogan 1:08:17 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:08:17 ... healthier population. But it's also true about cases.

Joe Rogan 1:08:19 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 1:08:20 And it doesn't explain the number in, in, in cases, uh, you know, as the same way it does death or, or hospitalizations. Uh, you know, this... Uh, and a lot... And, you know, as I was ex- uh, as I've said to my community from the very beginning, this is not about laws or ordinances 'cause ultimately, you can't enforce these things anyhow.

Joe Rogan 1:08:40 Right.

Steve Adler 1:08:40 It's trying to get the information out to people as best you can, and then the community makes a decision about what it's going to do culturally, uh, in, in its communities and in the city, the people needing to do it.

Joe Rogan 1:08:52 What was it like watching different cities all across the country have different responses? Different states have different responses. And to try to figure out who's doing this the right way, what is the right path today? Is the path to give people personal responsibility? Is the path to insist on very strict government-inspired lockdowns? Like, how did you sort of navigate that?

Steve Adler 1:09:16 You know, we, we had a, an incredible team of people. We had the University of Texas, um, uh, you know, the, the physicians at the Dell Medical School, but also the, the, the statisticians and the, and the modelers. Uh, modeling out all kinds of different scenarios and then the data getting better and better for the models, uh, as, as each week passed. We had a really good, uh, uh, health authority, uh, here in, in, in Dr. Escott, uh, you know, uh, Director of the, of the Public Health Department, um, uh, Hayden Howard. Um, we just had... We had good people, uh, and we got positive results from some of the early steps we, we took. Uh, but I watched what was happening in the country. It was hard for everybody, you know, around the country 'cause no one knew what to believe.

Joe Rogan 1:10:13 But I do... I have to say, you guys handled it so much better here than so many other places. So many other places, they, they put these very draconian methods into place and it just ruined the economies of these places. You guys didn't do that here, you know?

Steve Adler 1:10:28 Well, right now, you know, we, we have not only a mortality rate that's less than half of what it is in the state... If our state mortality rate was the same as in Austin, there'd be over 25,000 Texans still alive today. But we also have one of the lowest unemployment rates of any city in the country.

Joe Rogan 1:10:46 That's pretty amazing. Um, I think, uh, unfortunately, obesity is a factor in Texas. I mean, the food here is just too damn good. (laughs)

Steve Adler 1:10:55 (laughs) Breakfast tacos.

Joe Rogan 1:10:55 It's a real issue. Well-

Steve Adler 1:10:57 It's a lot of tacos.

Joe Rogan 1:10:57 ... it's a lot of tacos. Barbecue. Barbecue. But that seems to be a gigant-... I mean, 78% of the people that are in the ICU for... with COVID are obese, you know? It's, uh, it's a real issue. And so fortunately, Austin is an incredibly active city, you know? You go down on the lake and you see all these people running around, and it's like... It's a very, very active city. And, uh, there's a lot of, uh, people that engage in all sorts of different outdoor activities and, you know, all those things are conducive to good health and healthy immune systems, and I think that's one of the good things about this city.

Steve Adler 1:11:31 Magical place.

Joe Rogan 1:11:32 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:11:33 Wel- wel- welcome home.

Joe Rogan 1:11:34 It's pretty fucking awesome, man. Um, you had a little problem during the pandemic with that one thing you did when you, you kind of told people to stay home when you weren't staying home. (laughs)

Steve Adler 1:11:46 I was already gone.

Joe Rogan 1:11:47 (laughs) What was that, what was that about? What was that storm like when, uh, people got upset at you?

Steve Adler 1:11:52 You know, it was a, it was a mistake on so many different levels. You know, I went on a trip at a time when it was okay to take a trip, I got information while I was on the trip. I should never have, have warned people back home with that information.

Joe Rogan 1:12:04 What was the motivation to warn people? Like, what were you thinking?

Steve Adler 1:12:07 I got new information that once I wa-... As I was gone, I got new information that indicated that, uh, there was a, a growing cloud and I reported it. Uh, and I should have come home first, then report it.

Joe Rogan 1:12:19 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:12:20 Uh, and I didn't. I mean, on so many levels-

Joe Rogan 1:12:21 How'd you get busted?

Steve Adler 1:12:23 Hmm?

Joe Rogan 1:12:23 How'd you get busted?

Steve Adler 1:12:25 Uh, you know, I... It was nothing I was hiding, you know? So I was publishing pictures of it and, and-

Joe Rogan 1:12:32 Oh.

Steve Adler 1:12:32 ... I just didn't think there was anything... I, I hadn't realized it, but it was a month afterwards, so it happened like the first week in November. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:12:39 And then in December, you got-

Steve Adler 1:12:40 Yeah, in December, somebody raised it.

Joe Rogan 1:12:42 So people figured it out. They put the two and two together and said, "Oh my God, that guy was on vacation when he was saying to not do anything."

Steve Adler 1:12:48 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 1:12:49 Yeah.

Steve Adler 1:12:49 So it was a mistake and, and, you know, I obviously regret that and, you know, it's been a, it's been a, a sore spot and, and I wish I hadn't done it and I apologized, but, you know, now I just need to focus on, on what it is that, that is the work to be done.

Joe Rogan 1:13:07 Well, it was quite a long time ago, but there, uh, there was these different schools of thought about how to handle the, the pandemic, right? There's... Some people said, "Just leave." Like, like the governor, when he said, uh, "We're gonna be 100% open. No mask mandate. Do whatever you want." Everybody was like, "This is crazy. You're gonna kill people." The, the president called it Neanderthal thinking. But then months later, everything's fine. I mean, he... It turned out he was correct and it was a good move.

Steve Adler 1:13:38 You know, I... You know, I...... if I was governor, I probably would have done things a little bit differently. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:13:44 What would you have done differently?

Steve Adler 1:13:45 I probably would have extended some of the stuff another couple weeks. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:13:48 But why, if you see how it worked out?

Steve Adler 1:13:51 Well, I'll remind you, you know, our mortality rate is half in Tex-

Joe Rogan 1:13:55 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 1:13:55 ... in Austin as what it is in the rest of the state. Uh, so there was no question but that it was time now to open things back up again. But, you know, we, we, we, we encouraged our city to keep their masks on and, and not to do big blowout parties on New Year's Eve. Uh, and I think that that, that reduced our numbers from doing that. Uh, so, you know, I don't know. You know-

Joe Rogan 1:14:20 I don't know either. That's the question.

Steve Adler 1:14:21 ... no one knows right answers.

Joe Rogan 1:14:22 You know, I mean, it's like everybody's a, a Monday morning quarterback in this thing.

Steve Adler 1:14:26 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:14:26 Right? Ex- except for the governors and the mayors. You know, you folks are the ones that have to make the tough calls. And, and when you're looking at it, like, I talk a lot of shit, but the reality is I'm not a mayor, I'm not a governor, you know, I would not know what decision to make or not to make. My inclination is to always give people freedom. But I also know that some people are way more vulnerable than others, you know? And if you're a person like myself who's always exercised and ate healthy, that's one thing, but if you're a person who has not, um, I'm n- I ... You know, I'm a compassionate person. I don't think you should be thrown to the wolves 'cause you've o- overindulged and you drink too much and you should just die now because there's a disease floating around that, you know-

Steve Adler 1:15:04 Picks you out.

Joe Rogan 1:15:05 ... mis- ... Yeah, it just, for whatever reason, it, it finds people like that, and it's much more dangerous to them. Did- was there any- ever a time where you guys decided or thought ab- about some kind of a program put together to try to get people to e- to exercise and to eat better and to supplement with vitamins? Because those are the steps that we've shown to absolutely help in increasing the potency of your immune system.

Steve Adler 1:15:32 And, and I think, you know, cities need to play in that space. Uh, that's why we've, we've really, uh, put resources against the running trail a- around Lake Austin.

Joe Rogan 1:15:41 Mm-hmm.

Steve Adler 1:15:42 You know, there are, you know, tens of thousands of people that are, that are on there all the time. You know, we do pretty big programs with the employees, city, so, you know, 14,000 people. And then we, you know, encourage kind of contests and motivational stuff with other large employers in the, in the city.

Joe Rogan 1:16:01 Is there something you could do, though, to get the word out about that to the rest of the population, just to let people know? I mean, particularly things about, like, vitamin D supplementation, which you really ... You don't get vitamin D unless you get it from the sun or you supplement it. Those are the only two options. And one of the studies showed that out of the people that were in the ICU for COVID, 84% of them had insufficient levels of vitamin D. It has a tremendous impact on your immune system. Like, just telling people to supplement with vitamin D would have a tr- a huge impact on people's health and immune system. Getting people to take multivitamins, d- getting people to drink more water, getting people to cut a lot of crap and processed foods out of their diet. All these things, you know, could be promoted, and really should be at a time like this, where it really does make a big impact on who lives or dies.

Steve Adler 1:16:46 Yeah, we should have been doing a better job of that. We should be doing a better job of that. You know, if this pandemic's told us anything, it's, it's this, this virus sought out people with comorbidities.

Joe Rogan 1:16:57 Yes.

Steve Adler 1:16:57 This virus sought out people. Y- you know, not everybody. There were some healthy people that got really sick too. There were really healthy people who died. Um, but by and large, the, the lesson of taking care of yourself really shown to be true in this c- this, this virus.

Joe Rogan 1:17:14 Did you do anything different with yourself over this past year, recognizing that i- it does make you more vulnerable?

Steve Adler 1:17:20 You know, I should have been doing more than I, than I was. You know, I, I ended up creating a little studio like this, you know (laughs) , right off of my bed, and I'm not sure I ever moved very much from the, from the, from the screen. I mean, it's been really hard this past year to

Joe Rogan 1:17:34 You've mostly been working remotely?

Steve Adler 1:17:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:17:36 Yeah. Well, listen, man, you don't have an easy job. It's thankless. It's very difficult. But you're the mayor of one