Impact Spotlight: Fort Wayne YMCA Uses RSD to Navigate Access for People Experiencing Homelessness
“We heard from everyone. With that structure, they were able to speak vulnerably about how they really felt with no repercussions.”
Sam Simonson, the executive director of The YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne’s Central Branch, attended EP’s 2024 Fort Wayne Y training. She was so inspired by what she learned that she used the RSD method right away, in one of her executive leadership team meetings, to address a thorny issue.
The Central Branch Y, located in downtown Fort Wayne, is walkable to a rescue mission. Prior to Simonson’s tenure as executive director, the Central Branch Y had had a policy of allowing individuals experiencing homelessness to use the Y lobby.
“We have a culture of compassion here,” Simonson says. “The last two words of the YMCA’s mission are ‘for all.’” Although the Y staff wanted to respond with care, there was also a feeling that “we don’t have the training, the tools, or the resources to help everyone who walks through our doors.”
This was still a “hot-button issue” when Simonson became executive director. She had worked at the Central Branch Y, so she understood the culture. But she was having “a really hard time as a leader,” she remembers, “because I never want to not do the right thing from a moral standpoint.” She struggled with the issue: “I knew deep down in my heart that we were probably not providing the best member experience by continuing this practice.”
Simonson brought the concern up over the course of a number of weekly leadership team meetings, but for a long time, the leadership team was not ready to move forward with a change—“myself included,” Simonson recalls. “We all have big hearts.”
Then Simonson landed on the idea of using RSD. She prepared intentional questions in advance of a weekly staff meeting and led the team of six people through a dialogue about the issue of individuals experiencing homelessness using the Y lobby.
The RSD approach “really brought out some different perspectives and people,” Simonson says. She had noticed that there were some people in the room who had not been speaking at previous meetings, and she was pleased that RSD encouraged everyone to contribute and gave the quieter team members the resources they needed to gather their thoughts.
“We heard from everyone,” she recalls. “With that structure, they were able to speak vulnerably about how they really felt with no repercussions.”
As the conversation wrapped up organically—after the questions, the go-round discussion, and the reflection—Simonson says, “It was so clear in the room, like seeing that lightbulb turn on.”
By the end of the meeting that day, the leadership team had decided that it did need to change the policy. Now people who are not Y members are not allowed to be in the lobby, but everyone who walks through the Y’s doors has access to become a Y member. If they do not want to do that, there are other resources in the community that the Y might not be able to provide.
The dialogue affirmed what Simonson and her team already knew: “Everybody cares here.” But they also recognized that there are “people paying to be members of the Y.” They realized that they “can help everyone while still providing a great member experience” and that “it’s okay to not be everything to everybody.”
“I saw great value [in RSD] on my own team,” Simonson concludes. “We have a lot of moving parts, and time just goes by so fast. Taking that time to be intentional about conversations and to make sure that everyone is included is really cool.”
This impact spotlight is drawn from an in-depth case study on the YMCA-Essential Partners collaboration.