Joy Gilfilen, host of iChange Justice podcast interviews a woman who went "on walkabout" down I-5 this past year, living homeless. She has been an advocate for social issues of poverty, mental health, public safety and homelessness and shares what she learned.
How have cities adapted in the past two years to the civic crisis issues, to the injection of CARES dollars for emergency intervention in different cities? What has happened to the people living without shelter, emergency services, and without resources during the past few years? What is it like today as different from before? How is this impacting people, what are the side effects of different leadership attitudes on the community?

As Part of our March & April Creative Retreat

We ask for your participation and feedback.

During our creative retreat to record new and innovative material, we’re sharing an encore of one of our Top Shows of 2023 — Episode #67, “CORE Mental Health Services.”

Host Joy Gilfilen talks with Ben Hoppie, Mental Health Practitioner, and Trisha Johnston, Peer Counselor, about how they work alongside law enforcement, courts, and hospital emergency departments in Cowlitz County to support people facing substance use, mental health challenges, homelessness, poverty, and justice system involvement.

Their lived experience and professional training allow them to meet people at the moment of crisis, helping redirect lives toward recovery and stability.

The iChange Justice Podcast, produced by the Restorative Community Coalition, shares real stories about homelessness, addiction, incarceration, recovery, and the nonprofits working on the front lines to help people rebuild their lives.

Please share the podcast with friends and family, support local nonprofits, and stay connected as we prepare our next season.

Listen. Learn. Stay informed.

In this encore presentation, Host Joy Gilfilen speaks with John Fitzpatrick about the real impact of peer mentoring, supportive housing, and community-integrated services for people rebuilding their lives after incarceration.

John shares what it means to serve as a peer mentor and why integrated services — housing, employment support, and trauma-informed care working together — significantly increase the chances of successful reentry. Programs like these help stabilize individuals facing complex challenges including trauma, addiction, and the difficult transition back into community life.

Their supportive housing model offers at least a 90-day program with fully integrated services designed to help people regain stability and reconnect with meaningful work and community support.

This conversation highlights the kind of leadership and lived experience the iChange Justice Podcast seeks to bring forward — individuals working directly in communities to create practical pathways toward healing, accountability, and long-term stability.

Episode #226 is part of our March and April encore series while the iChange Justice Podcast takes a creative pause to reflect and explore future directions.

The fourth conversation featuring James Addington, Mel Hoover, William Gardiner and host Karen Ball. We examine what it truly means to be “fit to survive” in an era defined by climate instability, political division, and social fragmentation.

This discussion frames climate change not simply as an environmental issue, but as the central moral challenge shaping ecological, economic, and cultural realities. When we isolate crises instead of understanding their interconnected roots, we weaken our collective ability to respond.

James reframes “survival of the fittest” into something more urgent and hopeful: being fit to survive. Fitness, in this context, means adaptability, preparedness, and the capacity to build systems grounded in shared responsibility.

The episode explores leadership beyond title or position, leadership grounded in reality orientation, accountability to systems of power, historical imagination, hopeful engagement, and a commitment to viable, inclusive community.

Reparations are discussed not merely as financial compensation, but as an essential strategy for rebuilding the societal fabric and ensuring all communities can participate in shaping a sustainable future.

Grounded in the concept of Tikkun Olam — repairing the world — this conversation challenges listeners to move beyond denial and polarization toward moral clarity, collective resilience, and long-term responsibility for generations yet to come.

Unpacking Inclusion, Control, and Affection: A Clinical Look at the Structures of Power and Systemic Trauma.

How can communities collectively imagine self-determination and liberation from systemic domination? This episode tackles that question by examining the "moral imaginary" required to move past our current social chaos. Mel Hoover sets the stage by citing James Baldwin’s 1963 reality check: “We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over.” The panel explores how the truth of our lived experience has been covered up by dehumanizing ideologies, undermining our capacity to pursue an equitable future.

To understand this landscape, the guests introduce a clinical framework for evaluating community health through three core principles: Inclusion, Control, and Affection. Dr. Bill Gardiner traces the history of "who is in and who is out" back to the Naturalization Act of 1790, which legally defined citizenship based on whiteness. The panel connects this history to modern-day voter "integrity" efforts and the habitual use of power—and often violence—to suppress successful, interracial movements like the "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa or the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Finally, the group defines Affection as heartfelt, emotional connections that can only blossom once Inclusion is addressed and Control (power) is shared. The conversation concludes with a call for authentic solidarity, encouraging listeners to heal collective trauma by having "skin in the game."

Featuring an Encore of 2025’s Most Popular Episode #174 with Josef Tichy, Mel Hoover, Kurt Krueger, and Host Joy Gilfilen.

We are bringing back this essential conversation for a special encore presentation on February 12th.

Joseph shares reflections on growing up in Prague, while Mel discusses their diverse American roots. They tackle the impact of history, like the fall of communism, on personal freedom and responsibility.

The panel calls for a NEW educational framework that nurtures holistic consciousness. Language and perception are key! They stress the need for innovative vocabulary to define humanity and connect with nature.

America's "melting pot" identity is questioned, urging a reevaluation to embrace multicultural and multigenerational wisdom. Ultimately, they highlight the transformative power of IDEAS and the importance of CONSCIOUS efforts to drive societal change and envision new realities.

Joy Gilfilen, co-host Karen Ball and our panel continue a deep historical reflection following their clinical analysis of the historical structures of law in episode #221, this session shifts the focus to the immediate present. The panel examines the social turmoil and confusion in our streets and headlines today, arguing that these are not isolated incidents of unrest. Instead, they represent the predictable breaking point of a globalized logic of dominance, and the pathologies of historical amnesia, social anesthesia, and collective denial.

In this episode, James Addington, author of Tragic Investment, explains how the artificial fabrication of race continues to sabotage communities and jeopardize our learning to think and feel like ancestors. He invites listeners to grapple with the dynamics of racialization and its connection to power and how that plays out.

Bill describes the colonization process where western European countries sent ships to subdue people living in other geographic locations and imposed their image of government control. This process was brutal and extractive. This historical theme has continued to today and Mel points out that it is time to intentionally change our vision and create a new story for the generations to come.

Join us as we learn to see the world through a lens of restorative justice and uncover the tools necessary to transform our present.

Host Joy Gilfilen brings you an extraordinary, “local-to-global” high-stakes conversation with a dynamic trio of leaders: Mel Hoover, James Addington, and William Gardiner. These three men offer a rare "Bird’s Eye View" from the epicenters of social change, possessing direct, real-world lived experience with intentional change over time. Past cross-generational issues of habits of slavery, structural imprisonment, religious caste, and economic class are 2026 issues for tomorrow’s children.

In this episode, we explore the ripples of the Civil Rights movement specifically as it gained steam and shifted from the Atlantic Seaboard and the deep South toward the West. Our guests reveal the waves of change through time, how they’ve seen the "logic" of these bioregions travel, shaping the civic systems we inhabit in 2026.

The "Practical Historian" Framework

James Addington challenges us to move beyond academic history and become ‘Practical Historians’. This means developing the comfort to look at the "complexity and ambiguity" of our past so we can understand exactly how we got here. As James notes, citing theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and academic Olufemi Taiwo, we must learn to “think and feel like ancestors” to ensure the options we deliver to future generations are rooted in shared humanity.

Inside this Episode:

The Invention of "Race" for Power: James Addington explains why "race" is an artificial fabrication—a system of classification created solely to determine social value, access, and participation.

From Indentured to Enslaved: Mel Hoover breaks down the turning point in American law where white and black indentured servants began to organize together. To break that power, the wealthy elite created a new category: lifelong chattel slavery, intentionally stripping humanity from African-heritage people to protect property and wealth.

The Global Blueprint: Discover the sobering truth that the American ‘Indian reservation’ system and legal segregation served as the functional engineers for South African Apartheid and were even admired by the Nazi regime.

The "Asterisk" of Whiteness: Bill Gardiner and James Addington discuss growing up in "American Apartheid" and the "asterisk" of whiteness—how many white families have forgotten their own immigrant histories of discrimination (Irish, Polish, Italian) and their own complex heritages (including Choctaw and enslaved ancestors).

Bioregional Logic: We parse the differences between the political and religious structures of the East and South, and how those cultural "logics" of dominance were exported across the nation.

Mel Hoover, James Addington, and Bill Gardiner demonstrate how becoming practical historians reveals and can promote productive community changes. We cannot remove the "foot on the neck" of the present until we understand the biased structure of the law that placed it there.

Join us for this "Major League" conversation on rehumanizing the human race.