Meet Jonathan Kumar of Samaritan. Samaritan tackles one of the most complex problems that cities face: the rising number of people experiencing homelessness.
Having benefited from social services and the kindness of community members growing up as a first-gen immigrant, Jonathan had a lot of empathy and drive to build a company that centers around providing resources and hope for those without a home.
California Health Care Foundation invested in his early-stage start-up, which leverages a mobile app, an online community, and financial technology to empower people experiencing homelessness to meet their health care, housing, and other immediate needs.
Over time, Samaritan built a business with multiple funding streams, including corporate philanthropy, health care and social service providers, and Medicaid. Since then, Samaritan has grown to help cities across the nation.
Samaritan shows that purpose and profit coexist in startups. We learn about the company's business model, including the vision, challenges, and opportunities. Jonathan also offers advice for other social entrepreneurs getting started in the healthtech space.
Hilda: The cost of living has skyrocketed, leaving many people unable to afford a place to live. Being unhoused can dramatically impact health and well being. People who experience homelessness have higher rates of illness and die, on average, 12 years sooner than the general U. S. population.
Today on Making Waves in Health Tech, we meet Jonathan Kumar of Samaritan. Samaritan tackles one of the most complex problems that face cities. The rising number of people experiencing homelessness and the health problems that arise as a result.
Janet: innovations that make healthcare accessible and affordable. We're so excited to hear Jonathan's story.
We want to inspire other health tech entrepreneurs. And on a deeper level, we're seeing how tech is solving some of the most complex issues. So without further ado, let's get into it.
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Jonathan!
Jonathan: What up, Janet, girl, good to see you or hear your voice again. It's great to hear, well, it's great to hear your voice. Thank you so much for joining. I didn't know you had such a good radio voice, Janet. You're lit right now. You're doing amazing. Yes.
Janet: Oh man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us.
We're super appreciative. We're super excited to, have you talk to us about like you, your work with Samaritan, the work that you've been doing in California and across the country. Tell us a little bit more about your work and tell us a little bit more about Samaritan.
Jonathan: Samaritan is a support platform that helps people who don't have a stable home access the financial capital as well as the social capital needed to enter a stable home as quickly as possible.
Janet: Walk us through the platform. Say, for example, if I were to be a user of Samaritan, what would my journey look like using the platform?
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. people on, the street. or near the street will get invited to become a Samaritan member. And they get invited by our health and human services partners.
So Samaritan will contract or license, our, like our financial and social support platform to health and human services that are serving this population. Medicaid plans, hospitals, clinics, Traditional social services who get to use Samaritan to better support last mile populations that they're serving that have experienced chronic homelessness and other traumas, other conditions.
We provide these smart wallets, these physical smart wallets to these organizations who then use them as a resource on the street. in street outreach or in case management or shelter settings, often in hospital and clinic settings, to offer as a resource for someone who is in great need. Yeah, I want to make it clear that, we're not solving homelessness.
We don't own any buildings. We're not constructing any apartments. And, the solution to homelessness is in the name itself. it's a home. It's housing. But, we see a couple of things, like one, if you provide cash and social support to people directly. we, we think of them as raw materials.
People often know how to build something for themselves. they have aspirations, they have goals, they have families they want to reconnect to, dependents that they want to claim or grand children they want to live next to and get ice cream with after school. Like it's, there's regular people.
We just want to get behind them and we're excited to be aligning, a massive, massive healthcare industry and the dollars behind that into this population however we can.
Janet: I'm going to give you a hypothetical scenario based on a story you told me once. Let's say someone is experiencing homelessness.She was recently injured and the injury got infected. She did get help. She was admitted to a hospital who treated her, but on discharge didn't know what to do or where to go. Is her stuff where she left it? How would she get there?
Jonathan: On discharge, someone might invite you or talk about you taking a Samaritan membership card or becoming a Samaritan member. They'll show you this like fancy looking credit card thing that, my team designed. It carries 10 on it. It's a start. And then if you, want, you can get signed up and you can basically share some top level goals that you have for your own life and then break those goals down into immediate action steps and needs, based on your situation, based on maybe what that social worker at the hospital is, helping you figure out.
One of those action steps might be for you to establish care at this really awesome community center called St. John's. In St. John's case, they offer both, ongoing longitudinal care for, for your wound that you came into the hospital with, but they also offer social care, things related to how you're connecting to your community, to, to housing, to employment.
You'll get 10 just for becoming a member, and then you'll get 10 more by checking in with, Esther, let's say, at St. John's. Once you have a Samaritan card, you start to earn bonuses, five, 10, 20 bonuses for taking positive action steps related to your own housing journey, your health journey, your journey to access income.
And, if you have needs that are barriers to those action steps, you just need, but to share them with Samaritan. And we have a, Network of philanthropic good Samaritans who will often fund those things and, provide financial support, but also just words of encouragement that you get through text or email or your case manager at St. John's. The sum total is that you'll be able to access this financial support and this social support connected to, your own goals and, your, weekly or daily journey to reach those goals.
Hilda: One of the cool things about having founders here with us is that we get to learn about how the companies were founded. So for those who are listening, could you please tell us how you started your company, Samaritan? Was there a particular point in your life that you thought, okay, this makes sense, or there's a need that I want to address?
Jonathan: Yeah, definitely. It goes back to even before I was born, really, my parents, got a chance to immigrate to the States from South India and in the late 80s, and they went to Buffalo, New York of all places. Basically, my dad was there studying, my mom wasn't working, and I was around. the three of us, were very much in a position of need. We were living off a student stipend of about 600 to 800 a month. We were in public housing, on Medicaid, all of that stuff, food stamps. It was a position of vulnerability.
We were never, homeless. We were never on the street. We basically had a group of people from a local ministry adopt my parents, and they sort of brought them in almost like they were their own kids and provided, friendship and also financial resources, legal support for us. And it was just so catalytic for us being able to make it and be successful in those first five years or so while my dad was finishing up school and applying for jobs, etc.
Thank you. Once my dad got a job, things were mostly on the easy street for my family. moved to the Midwest. I studied at the University of Michigan, studied, design and user experience design specifically, but you never really forget what that experience was like. And so fast forward 25, 30 years, I'm in Seattle, Washington at a startup.
And I'm thinking about what my next step might be. And yeah, as I'm puzzling through that, career process, just, notice how pervasive, homelessness, human suffering was in this beautiful city around me. As a, someone deep into product and user experience design, wanted to better understand that user experience.
So I just started spending time with people on the street, talking to them, understanding a couple of basic questions like. How'd you lose your housing? Where have you come from? Where are you trying to go? What's keeping you from getting there? Just learned a ton from these conversations. And there's one conversation in particular that stood out to me.
He was a guy flying a sign at a street corner in downtown Seattle, and the intersection that he was at was about 50 yards away from a lunch spot. And so I was eating this outdoor, rare sunny day in Seattle, this outdoor lunch, looking across the street, kind of watching this guy while I was eating my sandwich or whatever.
And so I finished the sandwich and, 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later, he's still there. And as far as I could tell, like not a single person had even acknowledged that he existed. A bunch of cars drove by, a bunch of people walked by and just no one really responded with or engaged with him.
So I went up to him. I want to, again, better understand the user experience. so I asked him like, excuse me, do you mind if I ask you what you feel your challenges are in terms of raising this money? So he had a sign out that read, I need medication for the diabetes in my feet. he's standing there gingerly and he's, asking for this help and I'm asking him what, what do you feel like quite a few people, aren't, supporting you.
And he basically said, well, I've got the wrong look for this, the wrong clothing, the wrong skin color. Nobody actually believes me. Nobody actually believes I am who I say I am. And, it was like, hard for me to hear, for sure, when he said that. my next question after kind of receiving that for a second was, if you don't have any money, you shouldn't have to pay for your medication.
Do you have access to a doctor or something, that could give you this for free, this medication? And he said, yes, I have a doctor through the shelter I'm staying at, but he only trusts me with about a fifth of what I need on a monthly basis to manage the pain. He, doesn't want to give me more because he thinks I'm either going to sell it or get addicted to it.
And just like a really stark conversation that showed me the lack of social capital this individual had and, both from a community sense as well as from a professional provider standpoint. It wasn't the only conversation I had that, that led me to, to want to really take a shot at solving for, it, but it was a critical, crucial one.
I just started taking steps forward to, to address not just the financial poverty, but really the relational poverty that this person had to the extent that he had felt like he had to go beg strangers on a street corner for the help that he needed. And, I don't think we need to have people doing that.
I've been working to put teams of volunteers as well as professionals around each person, each Samaritan member, so that they can access the financial and also the in kind resources they need to be healthier, be housed, and, be self sufficient.
Hilda: You mentioned something that really caught my interest, and that was the relationships, connecting people, and how that is sometimes missing, and is really important, particularly when you're dealing with people experiencing homelessness.
Jonathan: I think one thing that gets tragically forgotten is that, around homelessness is just, how isolating and depressing that state can be and how often, it's reinforced that this is who you are and you're not going to be anything better. And, You might as well accept that. This is how little you matter, to society.
I hear stories of people being looked through, sped upon, and it's just awful, and it's really, I think, hard to keep positive, and it's really easy to get kind of shaken off of your point and, fall into depressive or, dangerous states. You also look at research that shows that, for foster youth, actually, That hopefulness is, as you're able to measure it, is one of the greatest predictors of outcomes or success for foster youth. It has the most impact on outcomes than the other variables that we're testing. With the idea that hopefulness and emotional well being is so critical for people to actually make it out of their situation, which takes concerted effort, for weeks or months, 26 steps, to get into stable housing.
The impact that social support from strangers, from everyday people, who are not being paid to be their friend or their case manager, It makes such a big difference. When we started testing this in 2017, a long time ago, we were giving people 50 bucks, and this 50 wasn't coming from some like government office. It was coming from 10 people who chose to give that person 5. And that had significance. the fact that it was coming from Martha and Jonathan. Our members get text messages or emails, or if they don't have a phone or email, they get it through their case manager. They see the names and they see the words.
Of our Samaritans who are, giving these first names. We hear time and time again that makes a difference. the fact that these people want to invest in me makes me want to invest in myself. That's what I would share to someone who's not sure about the necessity of addressing some of those social needs.
Hilda: People need more than their physical needs taken care of. There are some deep emotional needs as well.
Jonathan: The same thing goes for rich people too, right? It's whether you're rich or poor, yeah, you need a team. You don't have that. There's a problem, serious problems. Again, it applies for both poverty and prosperity. we see the repercussions of that and it's harder. It's hard for people on the street. It's hard for people off the street to access that all the time.
Hilda: You've talked a little bit about the impact on people who are experiencing homelessness. What about the impact on the providers, those that are providing the care? Have you seen an impact there as well?
Jonathan: Yeah, I mean, would love to be able to, have them speak on their own accord. But yeah, we, see that we, in the data, we see that, when you give people a Samaritan membership, when they start, receiving these tangible benefits or rewards, these action step bonuses or the dollars or these words of encouragement around meeting, very real needs, like people's capacity just increases and people are able to be more proactive around accessing care, whether it be, social services or primary care. The word proactive has come up several times in our work. When we hear a back from our, the frontline partners using Samaritan in outreach or hospitals or clinics, it's a really cool tool for them to use in their work to help, drive outcomes.
Janet: It sounds to me that there's something about the words of encouragement and also the community support. Would you say that's one piece of, the Samaritan platform that's very valuable for some of your members?
Jonathan: Yeah, the message of support, incredibly meaningful for some of them. And I think it's important, yeah, to, distinguish that it is a portion, but not all of them because, folks are so different. Some people, they don't need, words of affirmation. Some people need, structure and, bonuses. Some people just need cash in their hands. Some people don't really need the money. It's, it. it's about being reminded that they matter and are worth, worth something, to help them choose to take steps forward.
Hilda: Curious about what have been some of the biggest challenges that you've faced with Samaritan and how have you overcome them?
Jonathan: One challenge has been like, the members themselves, they don't have a lot of things that are designed for them. And so pretty quickly, we were able to see okay, this is making a difference that they appreciate, they want to use and they're engaged with, but making sure that this is not only a win for the members, but a win for the frontline organizations where they're like seeing a significant value add was, a challenge for us and still is sometimes, but learning how to deliver a unique value, a compelling value proposition, again, not just to the user, but like the frontline caregivers, to, to align the, intervention with their own goals and their own needs and their own initiatives and their existing workflows. It has been a challenge and is, now I would say it's an area of strength for us.
If you talk to, our frontline partners, and so that was a big challenge that took, years to, that has taken years and will continue to take years to figure out how to do the right way in a way that not just benefits, again, the user, but the implementing partner, the case managers, so forth. The second big challenge is we've iterated through a lot of business models. Again, we kind of had our user figured out and we knew that we could create value for them. And it's just okay, how do you get paid for that? Is it as a nonprofit? I think most services targeted towards this population are nonprofit.
We are technology based. And so we decided to be a, benefit corporation that had a social mission, but could raise capital to build technology. It's hard to build technology based nonprofits. Access to capital is limited when, you're asking donors to pay iPhone developers versus, provide food or clothing or housing directly.
I guess our mission at the front was, we want to deeply impact people without a home at scale. We wanted to reach more than 100, 000 lives. We needed to find partners that we could create incredible value for and we wanted to do it for more than just, donors. We wanted to do it for a customer, someone who had a repeatable problem, that we could help solve for and that we felt we could scale faster through solving customer problems than versus solving only donor problems.
Who that customer would be, whether it be, city governments or, individual nonprofits delivering care or, downtown. I mean, we've went through a lot of business models, our target customers, downtown. business associations or real estate groups or yeah, the city county government, like we've been through a lot of things.
And how did we overcome that? we were able to survive long enough to get enough, contracts put together with hospitals and, Medicaid plans to now give us a really good shot at scaling to, to reach that a hundred thousand number. We 2000 people so far who have been on the street, help them, Take action step or to meet a need and that's something I think, I mean, yeah, 2000 people is a lot of people, something we're proud of, but also it's just, a starting point.
Janet: So Jonathan, you shared a lot about your challenges as well as your wins and your key lessons from those. And those key lessons would be really helpful for social entrepreneurs who are looking to build. solutions that impact our communities. What would you say is your advice for social entrepreneurs?
Jonathan: I would say that the key takeaway was what I mentioned earlier around making sure what we're doing is not just a win for our members or even just a win for our customers, but is a win for, that the frontline caregiver who, has a caseload of 60 people is, there because they want to have an impact, but they are working around the clock and are maybe struggling to meet all of their bills themselves. wellness around, frontline care is something I, yeah, wasn't familiar with and in an area that we, want to, it's sort of a secondary outcome for us or, in an additional thing that we want to see change around is not just outcomes for our members, housing and employment and, recovery or, healthcare management, which, all lead to people living longer, healthier lives that rely less on emergency departments and hospitals, which our customers care about, but also see, less burnout for caseworkers or community health workers, more satisfaction, more retention, that sort of thing on that end too.
Hilda: Let's talk a little bit about your business model. How is it that Samaritan gets paid?
Jonathan: So our customers are Medicaid plans and also hospitals, like any, healthcare entity or, government entity that's serving this population or is, bearing financial responsibility for them could be a customer of ours.
Typically. When you're on the street, it's really, hard for you to engage with resources, health care services, social services, just so many different things that you're supposed to be doing and like very little capacity to do any of them consistently, just because, again, you're not sleeping well, you're, fearing for your safety, you may not have a place to store your belongings.
May feel, like you can't go anywhere because you haven't been able to bathe in the last week or you don't have clean clothes and it's just. so many reasons, that can interrupt progress. And our, customers have a really tough time getting resources that are available, adopted by these individuals, these last mile patients or members.
And so they'll essentially contract Samaritan, Hey, give us a list of, A thousand folks that they're having trouble reaching or helping or, are just constantly seeing in the hospital. And it's sort of this revolving cycle and of, degrading health and increasing costs. And they'll just say, Hey, see if you can get 200 of these folks off of this list of a thousand to, find a way to get them.
The Samaritan membership and, get them financial, social support that they can leverage to A, survive and B, make strategic progress towards their goals. We get paid either a monthly fee per person that's using Samaritan or an annual fee that covers our costs.
Janet: I think one of the biggest things about creating a solution for people experiencing homelessness or Medicaid is that when you try to get funding, people, well, traditional venture capitalists get so weary, they’re like, “Oooh, Medicaid.” Because they’re so focused on financial return, right?
Jonathan: I'm hopeful that, in the future that there are more environments created to enable social entrepreneurship.
I know that like venture philanthropy is, newer and there may be some growth, but you know, how do we help people start, nonprofits with capital that can, that grows over time as milestones are achieved? How do we help, startups that choose a for profit tax status to access the capital that they need to test their ability to scale for the founders themselves spending as little time.
Building as possible and as much time, selling as possible. like sticking with the basics around interviewing folks, validating problems, validating markets, so less time building 30 page business plans, more time spent with the user, spent with your customer, getting pre orders, getting commitments.
And then as it relates to, financing and fundraising and stuff, just being focused on milestones for your organization and trying to, show, Hey, for us to get to this seed financing where we could raise 2 million, we need to do these three things or we need to do these five things. And for us to do these three things or five things.
We need 250k. Or we need 100k. Or we need 50k. Or we need 500k. Whatever it is, have those milestones be something that you believe that you are able to convince you know a funder, let's say, to believe. And they're like, Oh okay, I see that. If Jonathan is You know, Motley Crue does these three things or does these five things, I could see how they would be able to raise 2 million after that.
So because I, believe in the mission or, and, this team's ability to do these three or five things over the next 12 months or 18 months, I'm willing to, participate in this 250K.
Hilda: I like to ask this next question of founders that we have on our podcast, because I think that it gives us insight from founders about what makes them tick. And they always provide such interesting and motivational responses. What excites you about the work that you do?
Jonathan: The things that have excited me most in terms of the work the last couple years, I mean, I remember, very distinctly getting our first dollar delivered from a Samaritan to a Samaritan member and just how amazing that was.
And, seeing it, not just a dollar, a few more, redeemed for something meaningful. And then seeing our first life changing outcome, hearing that a member went because of a relationship they built through Samaritan, they, connected, there's so many cool stories on our website of people who have taken these action steps and as a result have met people, developed a relationship with a case manager or an employer that ended up leading to a housing entrance or a job or something like that.
Like just seeing that first. Life changing outcome and then the 50th life changing outcome and now more those stories as people those situations Like truly excite me and excite our team and you know We start to see it now not in just Seattle where we started but in Baltimore or in Jacksonville or in Louisville or in LA or in Yeah, now we're launching in Oakland and Sacramento and San Diego and, seeing the first, like the first second city or, the third city or now we're in eight markets.
That's exciting. And again, now having enough proof points. enough outcomes to justify these partnerships with national organizations that are serving tens of thousands of people that don't have housing, that are struggling with poverty, mental illness, substance use, the justice system, and just seeing like this wide sea of people that we can serve and will serve with enough time. That is exciting. So it's like the life-changing outcomes for one person and thinking like, man, we really could, we could really do this. We could really grow to serve 100, 000 people and see that type of impact multiplied. Those are exciting things.
Janet: Wow. Whoa. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much, Jonathan, not only for, joining us today, but all of your work, because, for people who are experiencing homelessness, that is a population that not a lot of people really develop solutions for, and, you are one of the few entrepreneurs that we've seen that really addresses, how we can be more helpful to them. We're really appreciative again, for you being really open with us, sharing your story, sharing the stories of some of your members and sharing the stories of some of, the partners that you work with. Again, thank you so much.
Hilda: The evidence is pretty clear that social determinants of health, like safe housing, significantly impact health outcomes. One of the aspects of Samaritan's work that really sticks with me is that we know people are experiencing homelessness and that they're struggling with financial poverty. But perhaps what we don't think about enough is what Jonathan calls relational poverty.
They lack the connections to people and resources who can provide the help and the support that they need. And that's really a critical piece in developing hope and the structure needed to find a stable home.
Janet: I really appreciated how Jonathan said that we all need a team regardless of what our situation looks like. And the cool thing is, that with all of our founders, it's awe inspiring to see how much humanity can exist in tech startups. That is what's needed. Another big takeaway for me is how Jonathan is bridging healthcare with the CBOs. one thing I want to emphasize on is that there aren't a lot of tech solutions designed for people experiencing homelessness. Now, Samaritan alone cannot solve all of the problems, but what's interesting is that Samaritan is the first mover in this space. they're building the blueprint. And another entrepreneur can come in and build on top of that foundation.
Hilda: And to add to that, because Samaritan is centered on health equity, the company attracted funding from a wide range of sources, including venture capital, corporate giving, and philanthropy, in addition to their contracts with Medicaid plans and hospitals.
It could be that diversifying income sources helps a purpose driven company like Samaritan withstand an economic downturn like the one we had during the pandemic. I invite you to check out Samaritan at samaritan. city and look for it in your favorite app marketplace. It's an important service and it's a fascinating model that straddles the worlds of innovative technology and helping others.
Janet: And that's all we wrote. I look forward to our next conversation, Hilda.
Hilda: Igualmente. Likewise. Until next time.