Built Different with Tiffany Johnson

Amy Hulst:
Hi, this is Amy Hulst, and you’re listening to From Poverty to Prosperity, where we ask what keeps people in poverty in America and what it takes to break free.

In this episode, we sit down with one of CrossPurpose’s very first graduates. Tiffany shares how she went on to become a CrossPurpose board member and build a life that reflects what’s possible when opportunity, relationships, and hard work come together.

Tiffany, thank you for being with us today as our first guest on Built Different. We’re really excited to have you. Tiffany, you are a longtime legend in CrossPurpose. You were its first student, its first graduate. You are board emeritus, which I sometimes don’t even know what that means. So what is a board emeritus?

Tiffany Johnson:
You know, you volunteer for free, and you put your input on certain topics and make changes happen for the community. But they keep you on the board forever. Keep me on the board forever. So whenever they have a question, I’m there. I love it.

Amy Hulst:
You have the board. That’s great. Tiffany, your story is featured a lot in the book Together We Climb, which we’ll get to a little bit later. You’ve been in Denver a long time before CrossPurpose came about. Tell us about your background.

Tiffany Johnson:
I’m born and raised here. We stayed in the East Village, which was a low-income community on 22nd and Tremont. And yeah, Ebert Elementary was across the street. It was myself and my two younger sisters, an older brother, and my mom and her husband. And yeah, we grew up right there on the corner. So Ebert Elementary, I think you have to test in now. But at that time, that’s when busing started to happen, and we actually bused to Cherry Creek. Okay. So we bused to Knight Academy in elementary school.

And I think that kind of just set the tone of not being average, because the elementary school was just so far behind. And it was just right across the street from where we stayed. And so my mom decided to bus us once we had the opportunity to get a better education somewhere else.

Amy Hulst:
What did you think about that when that happened as a child?

Tiffany Johnson:
I don’t recall, right? Like, that was many moons ago. But I do remember feeling out of place. Right. Because typically you’re in the community, everybody around you is pretty much the same. You guys kind of do the same thing, stress the same. So it was definitely different. I was in third grade when we bused, and they were already writing in cursive and doing multiplication and stuff that I just hadn’t even seen.

So yeah, I was behind a lot, and I sat right next to the teacher because of that. And yeah, yeah, there was, I mean, really, you know, no other feelings, but just like, how do I get to that same level?

Amy Hulst:
In the book you share about how you would make money here and there as a kid or even as a teenager, and you’d actually hide it. Talk to me through that.

Tiffany Johnson:
Yeah, so that was more high school. And I don’t know that I was necessarily hiding the money. It was more of a don’t ask, don’t tell. Yeah, it was yours. I was making it. Right. So there was just no reason to bring it up. And so when you live in low income, as long as you’re, I feel like as long as your kids are in school, they don’t take that income and use it as a part of your income. But I know in low income you have to pay thirty percent of whatever you’re making.

And so at the time I was like, well, hey, I need to save for college. So I got a second job, and I just didn’t tell my parents that I had the second job. So I housed that money in a stash so I could use it when I went to college.

Amy Hulst:
Fast forward to 2012. In the midst of you working at Walmart, Jason and Jen Janz, co-founders of CrossPurpose, moved in next door to you. So tell me about how you met them and got to know them.

Tiffany Johnson:
I was at Walmart after college. So my youngest was going to school near there, and I needed to find a way to not have to pay for before-school care or after-school care. And so the tire shop had a little waiting area. And I was like, that’s perfect. Because if I work in the tire shop, then I can bring her to work. She can sit in that waiting area. The school is close enough for me to drive her to school when school starts and then pick her up when school is over.

So I knew absolutely nothing about vehicles and kind of had to teach myself on the fly, so that way I could manage that area, and I managed it well and was very successful.

Amy Hulst:
So, okay, Jen and Jason move into the house next to you. When they entered into your story, because how I love that Jason says it is, we moved into Tiffany’s street. We moved into her neighborhood. There we go. Good. I’m glad you coached him how to say that. He did move into your neighborhood. Let that be clear. They moved into your neighborhood. And at what point in time did they find you, like become friends with you? Like, where in Tiffany’s story did the Janzes’ first sentence get written into your story?

Tiffany Johnson:
That was after he was coached. If you know Jason Janz, you know that that was like instant for him, right? Just extra nosy.

Amy Hulst:
Yes, so many questions.

Tiffany Johnson:
Absolutely. Yes. At the time there were several families just being displaced because of gentrification. So the older ancestors on the block were getting bought out, or kids, you know, weren’t keeping the houses and they were selling, and landlords were not renewing leases. I can’t remember who stayed there prior to them coming in, but I just remember another white family on the block, because it didn’t used to look like that.

And I went to Manual right around the corner. Yep. Manual High School. Yep. So that’s where I graduated from, Manual High School. So the neighborhood definitely shifted, and they came right at the end of that shift, where it was like just really spotty of who was still gonna stay in that neighborhood and who wasn’t. And if they make the right deal to the landlord, she’s gonna take it, and then I’m gonna be looking for a place to stay. And there were two strips of low-income housing that were still on that block, but pretty much everybody else had bought in that area that didn’t look like us.

And I remember they wanted to have a block party. And I was like, this is crazy. You moved in. And I mean, we partied and we had barbecues, but they were really knocking door to door, saying, hey, this is my address. Come and say hey and tell us who you are and where you live. And so of course, I’m right next door. Free food. I’m going over there just to check it out. Plus I wanted to see the inside of the house. Yes.

And so instantly it was, let me protect them. You know, I just went into protect mode and was like, hey, I didn’t trust their position in the neighborhood. You know, we were cordial, we spoke, but we weren’t friends.

Amy Hulst:
So what turned the corner for you into friendship with Jen and Jason?

Tiffany Johnson:
So yeah, I mean, there were a ton of pivotal moments, but the one that you all hear the most was their foster daughter. And coincidentally, I ended up knowing her mother thereafter. I didn’t know at the time. But I have a girl, and I just know how complicated it can be. And Colorado’s really dry. Colorado’s so dry when it comes to hair care.

And I think the kids were outside, you know, playing with each other as kids do, and her hair was just not sitting right with me. And so I was like, okay, well, maybe I’ll do her hair on the porch or spark up a conversation, because that can also be uncomfortable to the other side as well. Not wanting to listen. And it wasn’t that way with Jen. And so I gave her products and then gave her a list of stuff to buy just in case, you know, that didn’t work on that particular texture. Because again, we all have different textures.

And yeah, she took to it, and she was like, well, hey, can I sit with you when you do your daughter’s hair, you know, so I can learn? So I taught her some pretty quick techniques and just some protective styles, and, you know, did her hair and then walked her through how to do it. And I was very happy that she did not look how she was looking before.

But yeah, so that, you know, kind of launched it, because, you know, at the end of the day, like, we’re all moms. So there was this common ground of you need my help, and I’m knowledgeable in this area, and I’m gonna help you. And I’m helping her. Yeah. You know, I’m helping the foster daughter, but I just felt like we all won in that situation, because she has to go back to her mom. I wanted the mom to feel okay that her daughter was in this house. It was deeper than just seeing her look some type of way. It was also a heart for the mom who didn’t have her daughter at the time, and just to make her feel a little bit more comfortable where her daughter was at while she got her stuff together.

Amy Hulst:
What were some of the challenges that you faced working full time as a single mom?

Tiffany Johnson:
I’m married, and I was married at the time, but my husband was incarcerated. So on paper, married legally, but any other avenue, you’re not, because that person is not there to sign documents or, you know, make appearances. So yes, on paper married, but everywhere else single.

So that was a really big, difficult piece for me. And I say that is a big, difficult piece because when you think about community as a single mom, you would hang around probably other single moms. But that wasn’t the case, because I didn’t want to do single mom things, because I wasn’t a single mom, and I honored my marriage. So then you want to hang around married people. But then married women, if they were insecure, they would feel some type of way, because in their mind you’re single.

So it was very lonely in a sense, because there was no crowd for you to actually be in, which in turn causes isolation, because you’re like, well, I don’t really fit in either one of these buckets. I still want my kid to see healthy homes and lifestyles. But then I also don’t want to force-feed that to them either, because that would in turn, you know, cause trauma, or, you know, now they’re upset because they see a family and don’t have a family. So yeah, it was a really difficult time.

Amy Hulst:
Okay, can we rewind slightly? At what point in your story did Jen and Jason have the conversation with you of, hey, if we started something, which the something is now CrossPurpose, if we started something, would you want to do it?

Tiffany Johnson:
Yeah. So me and Jen worked together in the community, and it was MOPS, Moms of Preschoolers, which we used that platform to then create Single Moms Night Out. And so that was just our way in the community to give moms a day off. And so I directed that program along with Jen and some other community leaders. And I mean, we did a ton of stuff for the moms. It was pretty cool. From photo shoots to actual days out, and had makeup artists come in.

And so essentially from that program, a lot of those moms then joined at the Janzes’ house for community group, which was Bible study. And then we kind of formed a bond as the moms from that program or just from Bible study. And real hard conversations came up during that time, whether or not we were praying for each other, or we were just using that time to vent about our day, our week, that month, our kids, whatever it was. It was just a safe space for us to, you know, just talk and, you know, get some input from each other.

And that’s kind of where it stemmed from, because there were a lot of moms in that group. We had degrees, we were smart, and we just weren’t making the money that we needed to make to either purchase a home or to get out of whatever bind we were in at the time. And so Jason, the ideas man.

Amy Hulst:
So many ideas all the time.

Tiffany Johnson:
Was like, hey, what if I can create something that would help you guys and increase your income by fifty percent? And I was like, that’s El Chapo talk right there. Like Dugma. And so essentially from there I was just like, sure, like, I mean, what can I lose?

Amy Hulst:
Yeah, is this legal? If you’re guaranteeing me fifty percent and I’m gonna make more money.

Tiffany Johnson:
I already thought that I was making decent money, right? I just, you know, it was that fear in the back of my mind that if my landlord increased rent, that, like, I’d have to move out or figure something else out. And I just loved where I was at, so I didn’t want to move. Yeah. But yeah, so, you know, he sparked the idea. We really didn’t know how it would work or how hard it was actually gonna be, but I was game.

Amy Hulst:
Tell me about the struggle that you felt leading up until what I know is now CrossPurpose. And there was struggle all through that of the first iteration of whatever we want to call that. But yeah, talk to me a little bit about the struggle up until and up even through the hardness of doing a new idea, but that you were hopeful could maybe change part of your story.

Tiffany Johnson:
Yeah, so I think if you’re smart and you’re poor, then there’s an ego problem.

Amy Hulst:
Talk to me about that.

Tiffany Johnson:
So it could be imposter syndrome, it could be fear of change, it could be you’re comfortable in the state that you’re in. But a lot of it just came from the mindset of either I can’t turn off those voices that are telling me that these people think this of me, and it kind of overtakes your personality, or then you start to turn into what people perceive you as. And that was a really hard moment for me, because it was never that I wasn’t capable. It was never any of those things that I mentioned. Because once that light switched off, where it was like, hey, stop paying attention to the messenger and actually pay attention to the message. Yeah.

And so from that moment the delivery didn’t matter. Only what was being said mattered. I didn’t pay attention to who was giving me that information. And that’s when I started to notice the change. Just a change in the mindset, the change of how I pushed through certain situations, how I showed up to a lot of situations.

I feel like when you’re in poverty, or even culturally, there’s a space where it’s like you’re either a friend or a foe. Like, there’s no in between. Right. Like, there’s no in between. And so once you figure out that there’s a spectrum of friendship, and that you don’t have to allow certain people access to your emotions or certain people access to your past or whatever, like, you show up as the person for that person, depending on where they are on that spectrum, and you stop taking everything so seriously, or your emotions are not caught up in a ton of your decisions, and more things are based off of facts. Yeah.

Amy Hulst:
When was that mindset shift for you? Can you look back and say, I think it started kind of in these moments?

Tiffany Johnson:
Yeah, so I mean, you definitely have to surround yourself with truth tellers, and truth tellers that you trust, what they’re speaking into you. And Darius Wise was the mentor at the time. And I remember he was like, you’re rude. I was like.

Amy Hulst:
What a great mentor.

Tiffany Johnson:
I’m just telling it like it is. And there were just conversations like that, or somebody who, like, he knew parts of my story and he had his own background. But it was never like, well, I get why you act like that. No, it was, girl, get it together. You need to fix this, and you need to fix this. And that’s why you’re here. And then it took, you know, some other mentors and allies within the program as well. So I said, nobody wants to be your ally.

Amy Hulst:
That’s what you got told, that no one wanted to be your ally?

Tiffany Johnson:
Yes. And so at the time I was pissed. Because I was like, yeah, of course, because it’s too hard, and, you know, they don’t want me to tell them the truth, and, you know, they just want a yes man. And they were like, well, you know, we found somebody that actually wants to work with you. And it was Rachel Griman, and I said, what am I gonna learn from this lady who’s younger than me?

And she had a ton, a ton of knowledge and stuff to teach me. And she was from Philly, so there were pieces of her background that were just different, and she could kind of relate to some stuff in my background, and it kind of worked out. But again, I had to turn off not taking information because of the messenger, and just had to really hone in on whatever the message was.

Amy Hulst:
For you to be able to also bring what you had to the table.

Tiffany Johnson:
Correct. And still stubbornness, right? That’s the ego speaking again. But I feel like we all have something to teach, and we all have something to learn from one another. So once we started to build that community together, a lot of the leaders started to flourish. Because then, you know, we, you mentioned handouts, and then it just doesn’t feel like a handout, right? Like, it feels like, I need to, you know, go to this family gathering because I have to meet this leader, and I have to show them, you know, how to do this. And then it just helped us to just build a community together, and then the isolation just wasn’t as present.

So I was still at Walmart. There was a time in between other people either getting a better job or, you know, they might have went for a different trade and they were making more money, and I wasn’t making any more money. I had, you know, a few raises during that time. And so Jason Janz says, all right, go talk to your boss. Of course you do. So he’s like, I’m gonna go talk to your boss.

Amy Hulst:
So I’m so excited for you to share.

Tiffany Johnson:
And Thomas Michaels was the store manager at the time. So he goes to Walmart, we schedule a meeting. And Jason, what does she have to do? We’ll pay for it, like whatever it is, whatever classes she needs to take, what does she need to do to get to the next level? And he said, when Tiffany is passionate about something, like, she’s sticking to her guns.

Amy Hulst:
Reflecting back on where you found yourself in that story, changing tires and oil at Walmart, did you think that’s where you would be just a handful of years later? Or did you think, even sitting here today, you work now for Public Storage. You work from home. Yeah. So.

Tiffany Johnson:
So I think that when you’re in the thick of it, you’re more or less, I wouldn’t say living in the moment, there’s definitely a lot of planning that goes into place. It just seems like that question is for a dreamer, right? Like, do you imagine this happening? So no is the short answer.

Amy Hulst:
Want to be in five years from now.

Tiffany Johnson:
It may be the ego talking again, but I feel like I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know that there’s a point in time where I’m like, I’m not supposed to be doing this, I should be doing this, you know, instead. And so every step of every way I’m like, it would be nice if this, but my credit score is almost perfect. Like, I have a home. My kids are investing. I have everything that I need. So I mean.

Amy Hulst:
Do you feel like you’ve made it? Because I sit here and I think, as people read Together We Climb, they’re gonna say, she made it. She climbed out of a story where systems and neighborhoods and narratives painted a specific story for her. She met some people at a certain time in her life where she was ready to make a change. And you did. And certain voices spoke into you in those seasons. And you did the hard work. CrossPurpose, or at the time Upstream Impact, didn’t do the hard work. You did the hard work, and you climbed out. Do you feel that reality today, sitting here with me, that you have climbed out of your story into a totally different story?

Tiffany Johnson:
Yes. I think the first thing that comes to my mind is legacy, right? So yes, I’ve climbed out, but now it’s, are my kids set up for success, right? It’s more than just me climbing to the top of that mountain and sticking my flag up there, right? Like, it’s, can it, it is my daughter investing early gonna grant her that same success? Is she ready to purchase her own home? Like, can we not create the same errors or systemic issues or, you know, like, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s legacy is more to me to say that I made it. If I can come out of this, you know, time, and my kids have purchased a home, my kids have that financial freedom that I had, then that’s what success would be for me.

Amy Hulst:
What do you hope your two daughters, if I could bring them in here with us and they stood here and I asked them, what would you want to say to your mom? What do you think that they would say to you?

Tiffany Johnson:
So my youngest, so we were just in Cabo, and kids are funny. And she tells me, mom, this is buns. I was like, what buns? So I guess it means, like, you know, it’s not good, it’s mid, whatever their language is. And I said, Cabo is buns. She’s like, yeah, we should have just went to Seattle. They got better seafood there.

But the fact that she can say that in conversation is night and day from when I grew up, right? And I used to, you know, like, they go to school, you ask them what do you want to be when you grow up, and my youngest would always say, I wanna be a mom. And at first I would get pissed, because I’m like, girl, you gotta think bigger. And then it was like, that’s really cool that you’re painting this picture of, that’s what, like, she wants to be what you are, and that you are that person in her life.

And so yeah, I believe that they understand how hard I worked. They definitely listen a ton more when it comes to who that messenger is, right? They trust and know that if I’m saying, hey, you need to, you know, do this, then they’re like, my mom knows exactly what she’s talking about. Whereas when I was growing up, I would have been like, okay, girl, I don’t believe you. You know. So.

Amy Hulst:
It’s really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Tiffany, thank you for spending time with us today, sharing part of your story, your journey. And I’m always inspired when I hear it, and it’s even more fun to hear it straight from you. But I look at you and say, you are leaving a beautiful legacy behind for your daughters and for your family. And I hope for you that you can start dreaming and see what’s possible for you in the years that are to come.

Tiffany Johnson:
Thank you.