Incumbent 2018 DC Mayoral Candidate Muriel Bowser Ending Local Poverty and Homelessness Through Gentrification

FIRST OF ALL, I'd like to recognize an employed homeless man named SOLOMON ZAWDEE who recently died after being hit by a driver who never stopped. The homeless shelter is partially responsible for his death. See the explanation at the end of this post.

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"[T]he stricter rules have simply ensured shelter space is available for those who have no alternative, as opposed to others who might not like living with relatives in a crowded home, for instance." 

(Washington Post quote from DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's director of the Inter-agency Council on Homelessness or ICH, Kristy Greenwalt. Maybe this gov official doesn't realize there are laws governing how many people may be "crowded" into a house or apt may be; or, she's deliberately encouraging illegal activity.)

At any rate, that's a loaded statement from Washington, DC's "homeless czar(ina) Kristy Greenwalt who was appointed by Mayor Vince Gray in early 2014 and retained by Muriel Bowser (2015 to 2019 only, hopefully). In 2015 Greenwalt admitted that the homeless services system which she'd led for about a year at the time was terribly flawed. On its face, her statement implies:

1 -- Some homeless parents with small children in tow have no adult family members that will afford them a place to stay -- not even on account of the little ones. (This can be indicative of deep familial problems and possibly of poor behavior on the part of the homeless parents.)

2 -- A DC Government administrator is willing to encourage third-world-style overcrowding of a dwelling, despite the laws passed by the government for which she "works" placing limits on the capacity of a dwelling (two people per bedroom).

However, there are deeper issues behind Ms. Greenwalt's statement -- issues which, once teased out, begin to spell out why it is that DC voters should choose ERNEST JOHNSON in DC's June 19th Democratic primary. (Jeremiah Stanback is no longer a candidate.)

Long story short, Ms. Greenwalt's statement is emblematic of how the administration of Muriel Bowser is playing DC voters for a bunch of fools while taking deliberate actions to gentrify long-term residents out of the city. Coincidentally, the mayor's term begins and ends with her "concern" [sic] for the homeless.

In 2014 Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Bowser jumped on the emotional bandwagon following the abduction (and presumed death) of eight-year old Relisha Rudd who was staying at the DC General Family Shelter. Bowser was going to solve homelessness, ostensibly. Four years later she is so anxious to satisfy the developers who are funding her re-election campaign that she is willing to put homeless children in danger -- a complete 180 or a mere showing of her true colors. It stands to reason that the show of concern in 2014 was just that -- a show. That doesn't bid well for her during her re-election bid. She's counting on voters to be fools who fall for her lies yet again. Let's prove her wrong on June 19th. Should voters research her "work", they'd vote against her (and hopefully FOR Ernest Johnson). It's up to voters who've become all the wiser after 3.5 years of Bowser to ensure that her term begins and ends with her "concern" [sic] for the homeless.

Let's face it: People won't elect a DC mayor based solely or primarily on what the incumbent has done around homelessness. However, if they were to learn how the incumbent's "work" on homelessness relates to broader issues, voters might vote against the incumbent and hopefully for the same opponent -- so as to ensure that the votes against the incumbent don't get split so many ways that we get her yet again. Various voters and mayoral candidates that I've spoken with are aware that a second Bowser term means the completion of DC's plan to gentrify long-term residents of modest means out of the city. Many DC residents are concerned about the harm that a re-election will do, though few residents realize that what her administration has done around homelessness serves as a harbinger of things to come. Truth be told, DC Government's underwhelming response to homelessness or to the 14-year and $2 BILLION failed "effort" to end it is part of a broader effort by city officials to make certain that DC is not a city that those who make less than $60,00 per year can afford to remain in -- no matter how many familial or even generational ties they have here or how long they'd lived here.

I can't possibly overemphasize the importance of people using the homeless count (which HUD requires all cities that receive its funding to perform annually) along with other data concerning their locale's efforts around homelessness in order to gauge the progress of gentrification in their area. This federally-standardized measurement can be used even by those who don't care at all about the homeless issue to make an educated guess as to when they too will be gentrified or become homeless. That said:

ALL AMERICAN VOTERS SHOULD JUXTAPOSE THE POLICIES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE INCUMBENT MAYORS WHO ARE UP FOR RE-ELECTION AND SHOULD FAMILIARIZE THEMSELVES WITH THE MAYORAL VISION THAT HAS BEEN PLAYING OUT LOCALLY DURING HIS OR HER TERM. THIS WILL ENABLE THEM TO MAKE AN EDUCATED VOTE -- NOT AN EMOTIONAL ONE, LIKE THE PHENOMENON THAT GAVE US tRUMP.

There are volumes of on-line articles and blog posts about what Muriel Bowser has done concerning homelessness. Not all of them are good. In addition to addressing her willingness to endanger the homeless children that she purported to care for, they also indicate that she withheld information about how she chose the sites for the smaller shelters that were to replace the decrepit DC General Family Shelter, tried to steer the contracts for these smaller shelters to her developer friends, cursed out the council chairman for the council's (successful) effort to stop her contract steering, influenced the ousting of government watchdog Traci Hughes (who has taken steps to prevent contract steering) and posted an announcement on February 9th, 2016 for neighborhood meetings about the replacement shelters which would take place on February 11th -- only giving these neighborhoods two-day's notice (a move that all but ensured that only the NIMBY crowd would attend). Other articles indicate that she is in favor of corporations' funding of elections, had to be forced to accept a DC law that the council passed which now affords campaign funding to candidates who can't raise money any other way (a law which is designed to decrease developers' influence on elections), wants tort reform that will prevent activists like Chris Otten from suing the city over planned developments that will adversely affect the poor and has suggested weakening the language currently in DC's Comprehensive Plan so as to make it more ambiguous such that developers will no longer be required to build any "affordable" housing for low-income residents. As a matter of fact, a lawyer by the name of Ari Theresa is initiating a class-action lawsuit against the mayor for her many flim-flams of the city's poor. That said, the jig is up and the verdict is in: DC Mayor Muriel Bowser is all about pushing people out (if they make under $60,000 anyway).

On June 19th we need to push HER out.

Now that I've given DC voters enough matters to research and juxtapose in their efforts to understand the incumbent mayor, I'll use the homeless issue to reveal additional ways in which MURIEL BOWSER seeks to play voters for a bunch of fools. The Washington Post article about the results of DC's 2018 homeless count mentions data that was articulated by Bowser. Though her term began in January 2015 (the month that DC counted 7,298 homeless people), Ms. Bowser mentions the fact that the city had a 17.3% decrease in homelessness since 2016 -- going from 8,350 in 2016 to 6,904 in 2018). She conveniently forgot to mention the fact that there was a 1,052-person increase from 2015 to 2016 (a spike which was not entirely her fault but which happened nonetheless). That said, going from 7,298 homeless people in 2015 to 6,904 in 2018 represents a 394-person or 5.4% decrease in three years and means that Bowser's five-year plan is essentially a 55-year plan. What may be the second most appalling (but least surprising) truth here after her apparent tendency to take voters for fools is her administration's preference to present their failures as successes rather than redoubling their "efforts". This speaks volumes to how DC Government under Muriel Bowser "works" for its constituents. (In short, Muriel Bowser is working for the well-to-do people that she hopes to attract and not for any of the current low-income residents of DC.) All things considered, DC Government is caught in a glitch pattern that they don't seem to want to get out of. They're doing just enough around homelessness to appease voters who are tired of seeing homeless people but making certain that the totality of such "work" sends the message to the poor that DC is not a place that they can expect to remain in -- ending local poverty through gentrification. 

Pasted from e-mail (with edits):
Below is the comment that I posted on the WaPo site as well as FB concerning [THIS ARTICLE about] the homeless count. It seems that a government official has sunken to a new(???) low by encouraging illegal overcrowding of an apartment or house.  KRISTY GREENWALT'S possibly illegal suggestion (which, in all fairness, was not spelled out well enough to denote full illegality) carries yet another trait which, though legal, amounts to A SYSTEMIC GAME.

This Bowser appointee (with Bowser up for reselection next month) is PLAYING THE PUBLIC FOR A BUNCH OF FOOLS. Not only is her suggestion  bordering on being illegal. It's also an imitation of the Gray admin's policy -- the very policy  which served as Bowser's defense after Gray artificially deflated the 2015 numbers and the homeless came out of the woodwork during her term. It also plays on the public's limited understanding of how government "works" (for lack of a better term) and of gov jargon. Needy families are "encouraged" to couch surf so that they won't be "counted" among the city's homeless. They're still in need; but, the number of "literally homeless" is artificially deflated by Bowser, just like Gray before her. That's not to speak of the fact that local and federal governments spend many man-hours discussing the definition of "homeless". (Your tax dollars hard at work.....doing nothing meaningful.) 

THE PUBLIC CAN SHOW THEIR INTELLECT by researching about "TOTAL UNMET NEED": the number of rent-burdened, extremely rent-burdened, those on the housing waitlists and the literally homeless. They could go to the COG website below and learn about the glitch pattern. They could construct some very intelligent questions and then contact the advocates for answers. (It doesn't make sense to seek honest answers from a government that tried to dupe you -- or to reselect that chief executive either.) That said, it is the total unmet need which really matters here. This speaks to the fact that Mayor Muriel Bowser (2015 to 2019, only) was unable to adequately address the affordable housing crisis. That explains why singles homelessness actually rose over the past year.

"Let's change the narrative from 'the failures of the poor'.....

.....to 'the failures of poverty pimps in and contracted with government'"

Bowser gets a D- on Ending Homelessness.

A 7.6% decrease still IS a decrease; but a 5-year plan requires a 20% annual decrease. Maybe she's in over her head and we need a [new] mayor who will pull up all the stops. EJ would do better.  I know that EJ  can't run on the homeless issue alone; but, this data speaks to Browser's failure in the affordable housing arena too.

One thing that stands out to me is the fact that, in spite of there being a 21% decrease in homeless families,  there was only a 7.6% coverall decrease. That means there were increases in other subpopulations. We squeeze the balloon on one end and it expands on the other. I'm guessing that the interventions for families are working to some degree, while single people are becoming homeless at a faster rate due to some new or worsening housing crisis among smaller residences.

See my WaPo and FB comment below.....

"[Kristy] Greenwalt said the stricter rules have simply ensured shelter space is available for those who have no alternative, as opposed to others who might not like living with relatives in a crowded home, for instance."

[In the article,] Amber Harding pointed out that Bowser artificially drove the numbers down by denying families access to shelter. There was a 1,052-person increase in DC homeless people from Jan. 2015 (weeks after Bowser took office) to Jan. 2016. Amber, in the spirit of fairness, said that the shelter-denying policies of Mayor Gray [Jan. 2nd, 2011 to Jan. 2nd, 2015] had artificially deflated the numbers for 2015 and that Bowser's shelter access policies caused those who needed it during Gray to access it during Bowser. Now Bowser is using Gray's practice to artificially deflate the numbers until the next mayor opens the floodgates in [early] 2019 and has a massive increase from 2019 to 2020.

[A year after their 2019 inauguration, this new mayor will be able to "blame" the 2019-2020 spike in homeless people on the draconian policies that will have been implemented toward the end of the Bowser administration and to say that her end-of-term draconian policies combined with the new mayor's renewal of shelter access led to the spike. DC GOVERNMENT IS PLAYING THE PUBLIC.]

In 2004 DC had 8,253 homeless people and made a 10-yr plan to end homelessness. Let's be fair: Had THAT plan worked, Mayor Bowser wouldn't have needed to address homelessness. In 2016 (a year into Bowser admin), we had 8,350. As this article implies, it's a glitch pattern (which poverty pimps aren't trying to break out of). Bowser who has a 5-year plan that started with about as many homeless people as the failed 10-yr plan (c. 8,000), renamed it, reused it (as though she'd house the same number of people in half the time while using the same plan) and still can't even decrease homelessness at a 10% annual rate -- let alone a 20% rate. This is just poverty pimping that fits into Mayor Bowser's plan of gentrification by being designed to fail while serving to create a visage for the general public that she cares about homelessness. The public should study the year-to-year data and get a real sense of the deliberate systemic failures since 2004: https://www.mwcog.org/homelessnessreport/

It's also interesting that, while family homelessness went down by 21%, singles homelessness went up. Squeezing the balloon.

[You can click on any of the 18 DC Metro census reports by going to THIS WEBPAGE. Please take notice of how the 2001-2008 reports have short titles that take up 1/4 of a line; whereas, the reports from 2009 to the present have titles that take up multiple lines. It's also worth noting that the 2001 report was 17 pages long and the most recent reports are well over 100 pages. Each DC homeless service provider evidently has a BS in BS.]

From a DC homeless service provider:

From: Tom Fredericksen

Sent: Wednesday, May 9, 2018, 4:08:41 PM EDT

Subject: 2018 District of Columbia Point in Time Count Results

Attached is the TCP Fact Sheet detailing the results of the District of Columbia’s 2018 Point in Time count that was conducted in January. Point in Time is conducted annually by the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, on behalf of the District, in accordance with U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development’s (HUD) reporting standards.

A total of 6,904 persons experiencing homelessness were counted during the enumeration. This a 7.6 percent decrease from the 2017 count, which was driven by a nearly 21 percent decrease in families experiencing homelessness from year to year.

For more detailed information on the count in the District, please visit http://www.community-partnership.org/facts-and-figures.

 

TCP conducts its PIT count in conjunction with the neighboring jurisdictions in partnership with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG). MWCOG released its report on homelessness in the region today, which can be found here:

 

 

 

Tom Fredericksen

Chief of Policy and Programs

The Community Partnership

801 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 360

Washington, DC 20003

202-543-5298 ext. 114 (direct)

tfredericksen@community-partnership.org

  Below you can read the e-mail that I sent to DC's attorney-general concerning the wrongful death of a homeless man. You can also click on an article that shows the total disregard for human life which was displayed by the driver who accidentally killed him after he was wrongly put out of the shelter that should have kept him in on account of him having been inebriated and in danger of getting hurt or killed. In all fairness, I acknowledge that, prior to taking the first drink that day, Mr. Zawdee (an employed homeless man) should have considered what needed to be done to secure shelter and to remain safe. Given the fact that he'd entered the shelter after drinking (which is allowed and advised, as long as one doesn't have alcohol on their person), it seems that he DID consider these matters.

Responsibility then fell on the shelter staff to play a protective role by overlooking any non-physical belligerence, allowing him to go out to the gazebo just beyond the back door to smoke a cigarette at 12:45 AM (which is what he was belligerently demanding he be allowed to do) and to let him back in five to eight minutes later. He might still be alive today if that had been done:

[DC Attorney-General Karl] Racine,

 

Here is some additional information that might fall within your purview or require that you work with the inspector-general if you are to address the matter. The follow article contains the sad news that a homeless man was hit and killed by a vehicle yesterday. The driver never stopped (an issue that clearly falls within your purview). However, there is another layer to the issue which I'm not sure if you can address. It has to do with a DC Government contractor breaking a departmental regulation such that a service recipient ends up dying. This is not the first time that this type of thing has happened within DC homeless services or at this particular shelter.

 

DC Government's Dept. of Human Services designated several different types of shelter that they recognize many years ago. Low-barrier shelter is designed to eliminate all barriers to shelter (within reason, thus "low" as opposed to "no"). At low-barrier shelter a person:

 

1 -- will not be reported to police if they are on the lam (unless they commit a new crime while in the shelter)

2 -- will not be reported to ICE or juvenile 

3 -- don't need to have ID

4 -- don't need to give their real name (though they aren't told that before shelter staff asks their name)

5 -- may be high or drunk, so long as they don't have the substance in their position (ex-corporally).

 

The reasoning behind low-barrier shelter is to encourage homeless people to enter and be safe. Otherwise they might remain outside to avoid police and freeze. or they might remain outside while drunk and freeze or fall into traffic and get killed by a car. At this juncture, we have at least two homeless alcoholics who have died outside of one shelter -- one for each of the two main reasons that drunks are supposed to be allowed into shelter. NY Ave Shelter continues to break the city's shelter regulations, resulting in the premature deaths of multiple homeless people. If we don't learn from premature deaths, what WILL we learn from??? DHS is crazy. We need you to set them straight.

 

Homeless Man Killed in Hit-and-Run Near Northeast DC Shelter

 

Homeless Man Killed in Hit-and-Run Near...

 

Homeless veteran Luther Hill froze to death outside of the same shelter after being denied entry because he had alcohol in his possession. Though much of what I said to Roz Plater got cut, I'm sure that I told her that a person is supposed to be allowed into low-barrier shelter even if they are drunk, though the alcohol is not permitted. The protocol says that a security guard may wrestle the substance away from them and then allow them entry, lest they die from hypothermia, getting hit by a car while drunk or by some other preventable means. In the clip other advocates and I mention wanting folk to learn from Mr. Hill's death and to do better. That hasn't happened over five years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEOCVrq_KHA 

 

My group spoke with you about the homeless encampments too. While pulling up the article about yesterday's homeless death by hit-and-run, I also ran across this update to the tent-city issue. The city is being sued for illegal search and seizure of homeless people's possessions. This puts you in the precarious position of needing to fight on behalf of the city while also wanting to fight for the poor. I'd be interested to learn how you deal with this cognitive dissonance (the fight within): Class-Action Lawsuit: DC Is Destroying Property of Homeless

 

Class-Action Lawsuit: DC Is Destroying ...

 

It should also be noted that the trend of placing homeless shelters on the outskirts of town has come back to bite us. This low-barrier shelter is on a highway out of town where these two truths have converge in a way that has ended a life. Drunks know that they can stay there, if they can make it down a busy highway and cross it safely in order to enter (assuming they miss the free shuttle). Who knew that the busy highway and the inebriated-allowing shelter would come together in this way??? of course, after Mr. Zawdee made it into the shelter, he was turned away; and, that's what led to his death. The plot thickens.

 

Though developer Doug Jemal probably didn't have this particular issue in mind when he suggested that this shelter go from having 360 low-barrier beds to having 150 high-barrier (cream of the homeless crop) beds, this story adds credence to his ADHD-induced suggestion. Mr. Jemal didn't want a bunch of undesirables right across the road from his redeveloped Hecht's Warehouse (which I believe he has made into condos). His motives aside, it now seems to make sense to move a shelter that allows drunks (when the shelter is keeping the rules) from a busy thoroughfare to a low-traffic area. I hate to promote the out-of-sight/-out-of-mind way of thinking; but, it's necessary to promote an out-of-high-traffic/out-of-the-morgue policy at least for the most vulnerable substance users. In the meantime.....

 

.....let's get DHS and its contractors to keep the rules they have on their own books.

 

1 -- Allow substance users to enter shelter and be safe.

2 -- Tell new shelter applicants that they don't have to show ID or give their real name BEFORE THEY ACTUALLY DO.

3 -- Don't throw out what little bit homeless people have to their name.

 

Thank you.

Eric Jonathan Sheptock

TEXT!!! (240) 305-5255 (4 swift response)

Isaiah 8:13: Sanctify the Lord of hosts Himself; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. Proverb 1:7: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.