Tick Tock Sheptock

I said late last year and earlier this year that, with 2016 being a seventh year, it would be a "Year of JOB-ilee" for the homeless; and, this is just what it is turning out to be. DC Government is hard at work implementing the piece of federal legislation known as the "Workforce Innovations and Opportunities Act" or "WIOA" which basically mandates that municipalities connect hard-to-employ people to jobs. That group, of course, includes the homeless. The website that bears my name and another website that my colleagues and I worked on with American University both speak to issues surrounding homeless employment. With the CCNV Shelter's future in limbo , much is being said about the need to connect its residents to employment -- a need that can be met even now and does not need to be connected to a shelter closure . But, while much is being said and done about homeless employment issues, there is at least one very important thing that is NOT being...

I maintain my assertion that BENEVOLENT DICTATORSHIP is the only form of governance that effectively helps the working poor . (Maybe after Bernie Sanders becomes Hillary Clinton's vice president , he'll spend his last two years on the planet creating Wall Street regulations and social reforms that eliminate the need for the working poor to obtain food stamps and rental assistance.) The extreme NIMBY -ism that is reaching a boiling point in reaction to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's plan to replace the DC General Family Shelter stands as a testament to my first point. The NIMBY-ists have gotten downright ugly, going so far as to do a mass walk-out on the mayor's administration as the admin held one of its many meetings since 2/11 about he mayor's plan. (These people went so far as to attend a March 17th hearing about the family shelter plan which was held at City Hall and complained while there about having not been given the opportunity to voice their concerns. Go figur...

It's wonderful that DC now has a mayor who is fully committed to making homelessness “rare, brief and non-recurring” . In 2003 and 2004 Tony Williams oversaw the creation of a 10-year plan to end homelessness – a plan that was discarded after three years. Adrian Fenty oversaw the creation of Permanent Supportive Housing for the elderly and disabled homeless. Vince Gray committed to addressing homelessness in the waning months of his administration, following the abduction of 8-year old Relisha Rudd from the family Shelter in March of 2014. In the meantime, the city has gone from having 5,757 homeless people in January of 2007 to having approximately 8,000 homeless people in DC proper now -- which shouldn't be confused with the 12,000 in DC Metro. (The foot count of DC's homeless wasn't done this year due to Snowstorm Jonas “Snowzilla”.) Howbeit, Mayor Muriel Bowser might just be the one to reverse the trend – though not without the help of the DC Council. Mayor...