Tick Tock Sheptock

First published on May 12th, 2014 Last updated on September 9th, 2016 UPDATE: Kristy Greenwalt began her job as the first-ever director of Washington, DC's Inter-agency Council on Homelessness (ICH) on April 28th, 2014 -- just months after DC counted 7,748 homeless people (up from 6,859 in 2013). Though she is not to blame for the fact that DC calculated (without doing the canvassing/foot count) an increase to 8,350 homeless people in January 2016, I strongly suggest that she and any person working on ending homelessness should have or quickly develop the ability to wrap their heads around any and all grim realities of life -- especially if they earn six figures..... especially if the number of homeless people is INCREASING dramatically . GRIM PREDICTION (also a header that should be the first paragraphs of the 5-year plan and get updated annually)   Washington, DC's homeless population increased by 889 people from 6,859 in 2013 to 7,748. After dropping...

Homelessness seems to be quite the intractable problem in the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth – having increased from 5,757 in January 2007 to 7,748 in January 2014 and having decreased by 450 the following year to 7,298. Washington, DC had a 10-year plan that was supposed to end homelessness in the city by the end of 2014. It didn't. The news, in recent years, has been full of reports about the city tearing down homeless encampments, about synthetic drug use near shelters, about deplorable conditions and food-for-sex scams being perpetrated by shelter staff and most memorably about an 8-year old girl who went missing from the family shelter in early 2014. Homelessness is Hell. There's just no other way to put it. However, there is at least one organization that is working hard to give some of the many children who experience it in Washington a brief respite from the troubles of homelessness which current DC Mayor Muriel Bowser promises to make “rare, brief...

2015 has been a year of international connections for me. In early February I met a French-born, multiracial woman near the McPherson Square Metro Station. She was talking to homeless people and had a camera in her hand. I inquired as to what she was doing. That encounter led to her, a friend who arrived from France weeks later and myself working together on a project about homeless love which we completed in late May, even garnering some media attention . Also in late May I met a German woman who was visiting several American cities. With her having visited New York and Philadelphia during the time that people were randomly placing”No Cat Calling” signs on streets and in the subways, I asked her if she'd seen any of these signs. She asked, “What is cat calling?” I said, “It's when a man asks for sex from a woman he doesn't know”. She said she'd seen one such sign on the Philly subway. What she said next pleasantly surprised me: “What's wrong with that?! ...

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser is making plans to replace the 248-family (c. 992 person) DC General Shelter with five or six smaller shelters that are scattered across the city. There has been talk of putting one in each of the capital's eight wards. Over the past 10 years the city and various developers have floated plans to redevelop the area that includes the hospital-turned-family-shelter. When DC was in the running to host the 2024 olympic games , there was discussion of building the Olympic Village where the family shelter now sits. I suspect that conversation will recur during the bidding for the 2028 games, though it would have to include consideration of what to do with the jail and meth clinic which are located on adjacent properties. The 360-bed New York Avenue Men's shelter is across the road from the recently refurbished Hecht's Warehouse which is now a condo building with commercial space on the first floor. Developer Douglas Jemal, to his credit, DID hold a ...

This is a follow-up to the post I did yesterday (6/7/15) concerning the biological sister whom I just learned that I have. If you haven't done so already, I suggest that you read that post before continuing to read this one: As it turns out, my sister and I both have our financial struggles with hers having prevented us from speaking, even though we have had each others numbers for one week today – 6 /8/15 (which is also exactly four months since the day that I met the first of two women whose website led to this reunion-in-the-making). As it turns out, I am having some timely fortune which will enable me to pay the $80.00 she needs for her phone bill. I'll have $300.00 this week in addition to my phone being paid for three months. I make semi-regular speeches to groups from colleges, universities, high schools and churches who travel to Washington, DC to do services trips during which they learn about homelessness. (It was one such speech that caused me to meet Lalita ...

In recent weeks many people have asked my thoughts on DC Mayor Muriel Bowser who took office on January 2 nd , 2015. I tell them that, while I believe that she really wants to end homelessness, I worry that she doesn't have the right people informing the process. Like I told Mayor Bowser at the January 28 th homeless point-in-time count (one of at least five homeless/affordable housing events that I know she's attended since December 29 th , 2014), I like her appointment of Laura Zeilinger as director of the Dept. of Human Services (DHS) and a few other cabinet appointments – kristy Greenwalt as director of the Inter-agency Council on homelessness (ICH), Brenda Donald as deputy mayor of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Polly Donaldson as director of the Dept. of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). I also told her that, after the results of the 2014 count indicated that there had been a 13% increase in DC homelessness in a single year (going from 6,859 in '...

Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser's Transition Team Contact Info: www.wearewashingtondc.com or www.wearewashingtondc.org (202) 434-0079 lindsey@wearewashingtondc.org (.com) info@... I contacted the Bowser transition team today and will reconnect with them tomorrow when the person who will work on homelessness is expected to do their first day on the job. I'll update via this blog and social media. **************************************** As I look at the injustices that are perpetrated upon poor people in this country and around the world, I often ask myself, “Where is the outrage???”. Capitalism is a hurtful system that permeates the world and sears the consciences of politicians, businesspeople and the well-to-do. It makes them callous to the needs of those who beg at their feet and want only to consume their crumbs. Yet most people who hear or read the stories don't make it their business to confront the evil forces of capitalism. Budapest, Hungary has...

As I watch events in Ferguson, MO play out in the media, I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., during an interview with Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes” in which he said, “A riot is the language of the unheard. The U.S. Government has failed to hear that the economic plight of the American Negro has worsened over the past few years”. It's crystal clear to the socially and politically conscious that governments in the U.S. are defending the interests of corporations, not defending or enriching the lives of all American citizens. On the contrary, poor people who want a better life often become capitalist cannon fodder. (Just think for a moment about the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.) Once a group is socioeconomically deprived, American governments add insult to injury and compound their suffering. They treat poor people as if their poverty is the result of a character flaw, as opposed to a set of systemic flaws in American governance. They aim to pu...