Negotiating Her Way Home: Turning Empathy Into Permanent Housing
Eva Niedermeyer, Negotiation Works intern and JD Candidate, Class of 2022, Georgetown Law , interviewed Sherylon Starks about her experiences with Negotiation Works' programs.
After years of sobriety, Sherylon Starks fell back into active addiction: “I was homeless, I was helpless, and I was very depressed.” Upon completing treatment, Sherylon came to Calvary Women’s Services, which provides transitional and permanent supportive housing for women experiencing homelessness. At Calvary, Sherylon heard about Negotiation Works and its two-month course in Negotiation Strategies from her case manager. The case manager thought she would be a good fit. “I guess because I’m outspoken,” Sherylon laughingly acknowledges.
At the time, Sherylon was no stranger to negotiation. An electrician by trade, she had sustained a bad fall back in 2005 and found herself forced to navigate both the social security and workers’ compensation systems. Sherylon admits that sometimes navigating these negotiations did not go very well, but armed with the knowledge of her rights and the obligations of the social security and workers’ compensation systems, she was able to secure financial awards.
Recognizing her previously successful self-advocacy, but anticipating more negotiations in her future, Sherylon decided to give Negotiation Strategies a try. What she found was a course that “turned what some people would read as bland into very exciting.” Through informative scenarios and role-plays, the course demonstrated various negotiation strategies. These scenarios and role-plays often touched home for Sherylon. “Either I knew somebody that had that same negotiation at one point, or I had been in that same situation.” She remembers watching a role-play about a landlord-tenant mold dispute, and thinking that the exercise would “help me when I leave here, because I’ll be dealing with a landlord. That was very good for me to see how those strategies can go down and what course of action can come about.”
These exercises taught Sherylon the terminologies and reasoning behind some of the negotiation strategies she had used in the past. For example, she knew the importance of using good communication skills, listening attentively, and expressing herself clearly, but the course reminded her that “what I could get out of listening, sometimes helped me to know what my next steps would be.” She also learned what she used to call an “ace in the hole” but now refers to as a BATNA, or best alternative to a negotiated agreement. A BATNA lays out the best alternative course of action that can be taken should negotiations fail and the parties cannot come to an agreement. “I love the BATNA. It gave me the strength to negotiate for myself, because I’m having to do it now. To have that ace tucked away, knowing that if this doesn’t work, I have a go-to, I have something that will suffice….but I’d rather get an agreement.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Negotiation Works instructors to transition the course to a virtual format, the instructors offered some much-needed normalcy in addition to their continued lessons on negotiation. “They were still dead on; they were still feeling the pulse of the room and what we were doing, and how to best bring that information to us. It gave us so much to still have a little bit of normalcy in our day, in our week, to have that normalcy even if it was just looking at a screen. To have them coming to us from outside it was really really a blessing. It was.”
That first course ended in May. Since then, Sherylon completed two additional four-week Negotiation Works courses and was invited to join the Negotiation Works’ Ambassador Program. Negotiation Ambassadors are community members who have previously completed the negotiation course and who have demonstrated great skill and facility with negotiation. They serve as informal advisors to Negotiation Works, assisting with developing scenarios, identifying promising community partners, and, at times, facilitating workshops. It is this advisory role and continued negotiations practice that appealed to Sherylon: “As an Ambassador, I look forward to helping other role plays come about and to keep up on my own strategies for negotiation because I know I’ll be negotiating through my life.”
So far, these first few post-course negotiations have gone well. Sherylon recently had to negotiate for access to mental health services and housing. She approached these negotiations equipped with confidence in her strong BATNA, but also with an empathetic understanding of the other parties’ perspectives. Sherylon’s approach was successful, and she achieved her negotiation goals.
Sherylon recently sought psychiatric services from a local behavioral health services agency. She knew there were services that the agency was required to provide to her, but she also recognized that the agency would likely be overloaded with clients given the tremendous strain of the COVID-19 pandemic. When she contacted the agency, she let them know she understood their situation, but she also clearly and directly communicated her own needs. “It was a situation that everyone was dealing with right now. They were overwhelmed with clients….it was a full on assault, everybody now needed mental health services. I understood that, but I didn’t understand not being in that number.” By showing empathy about the agency’s burdens while simultaneously framing her needs in terms of their responsibilities, Sherylon achieved a great result. Not only did she receive the psychiatric care she needed, but she also developed a positive relationship with her caseworker at the agency.
Sherylon used a similar approach when she sought permanent supportive housing. Before reaching out to the Open Arms Housing program, she considered her negotiation strategy: think about their perspective, use empathy, know your BATNA. With this confidence and preparation, “to know that at any time I can turn to my BATNA, to know that if all else fails, there’s something to turn to,” Sherylon successfully secured housing for herself. She felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment, particularly because these negotiations took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. While she is sad to leave Calvary, “it's just been a really, really good experience here”, Sherylon is excited to be “moving into the next phase to put me closer to getting my own place.”
Sherylon also intends to continue in her role as a Negotiation Ambassador with Negotiation Works. “After I leave Calvary, I would like to do that because I think I have something to offer to other women in my situation now, to show them that, yeah you can do it, if I can do it, you can do it.” To those who are considering the Negotiation Strategies course, Sherylon offers the following advice
“It can be used in any part of your life, even if it's negotiating with your kids. To know the strategies behind it, behind every negotiation, every agreement, to learn those strategies can be very helpful, just in everyday life. That this course is taught so well. It’s taught with understanding. It’s taught with care. It’s always mentioned that if you feel uncomfortable with something then we don’t have to discuss that. We can move to something else. But, in any scenario, the skills are the same, the skillset is the same. And to see it from different angles, from different perspectives has been invaluable.”