Tick Tock Sheptock

Homeless people in Washington, DC and their advocates have been trying for quite some time to find out about the plans that the city and homeless service providers have for closing various shelters. It's been like pulling teeth. That's just DC politics for you. Nonetheless, people have a right to know about decisions that will directly affect them and to be involved in the decision making. After all, making the homeless feel like they matter and are part of society might help them to grow beyond homelessness. Furthermore, it makes no sense to close shelters or to decrease other human services in these tough economic times. The CCNV (Community for Creative Non-Violence) Shelter has been threatened with closure for years and those threats have yet to materialize. But we have reason to believe that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty might have a trick or 2 up his sleeve for closing CCNV. His predecessor couldn't close Franklin School Shelter either; but, Adrian Fenty pulled it off. The fut...

While I haven't yet had time to do the blog post about the planned closure of the CCNV Shelter as I promised, I wrote the following article for the STREET SENSE newspaper and decided to post it on my blog as well. Besides, more info about the closure is still forthcoming. I will write about it soon. In the meantime, I hope you find the following to be both interesting and informative..... Sometimes it seems that the homeless have no place to go. First of all, they have no home to go to. Then, they are often chased away from storefronts or told not to sleep in certain parks. Even shelters are not immune to being made to move on. The Central Union Mission was NIMBY'ed (Not In My Back Yard) out of its very own Petworth property and won't be relocating to the Gales School as previously planned either. Now the homeless shelter itself might become homeless after 125 years in existence. The Fenty administration is still reeling from the closure of the Franklin School Sh...

Lately, many people are beginning to take interest in the homeless issue. Maybe it's due to the economic downturn. Maybe it's because they realize that they're just a paycheck away from being homeless themselves. Maybe it's because they are seeing more and more homeless people on the streets of America. Then again, it might be all of the above. Regardless of the reason for their interest in the issue, It's good to see that they care. However, most people don't sufficiently understand the root causes of homelessness. Many believe that people are homeless by choice. this is only true in few, if any, cases. Those who "choose" to be homeless are usually mentally ill. Making an irrational choice as a mentally ill person doesn't constitute true choice as far as I'm concerned. Then there are those who believe that people become homeless due to their own missteps such as drug use, failing to pay the rent and going to jail. While this might account for ...