Tick Tock Sheptock

Breaking with tradition, I'm actually posting some good news about DC mayor Adrian Fenty (a man) and his plans to house the homeless. He too is breaking with tradition by doing something he hasn't done much of until now -- housing families. As of February 25th, 2009, only 1 family (and 414 homeless singles) had been housed through his Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) program. Bear in mind that DC had over 6,200 homeless individuals as of February 25th, 2009. (See my own comment, which I sent in response to Deb's comment, in my previous post. It will tell you where to find stats on the homeless.) I received the following info in my e-mail account recently and decided to post it. However, I take issue with how certain stats are presented. Toward the end of the document, it states that, according to Downtown BID (Business Improvement District), there has been a sharp decline in the number of downtown homeless. It fails to mention that the reason is that the Franklin School S...

There is my blog as well as other blogs about homeless issues. Then there are the frequent news clips about homelessness and the highly contested closure of the Franklin School Shelter. Then there is Michelle Obama's visit to Miriam's Kitchen, a homeless soup kitchen. All in all, the issue of homelessness is taking center stage. As if that weren't enough, there is proof positive that the image-conscious DC mayor Adrian Fenty is running scared. See the story below..... Michelle Obama visited Miriam's Kitchen, which feeds DC's homeless community breakfast and has other helpful programs, on Thursday, March 5th. Her visit, in and of itself, was reason enough for conversation. Nonetheless, the fact that she wasn't accompanied by the mayor is all the more reason for conversation. The homeless community is extremely disgruntled with the mayor. What's more is that they got the chance to speak to the first lady without him being there. He doesn't know what was sa...