Tick Tock Sheptock

DC MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER is indeed a beautiful woman. I can't take that away from her -- no matter how many OTHER men might say that she's not (always) voluptuous or bodacious enough for their taste. With regard to her physical appearance, I can't honestly say, " [S] he-a look-a like a man". However, her policies and mannerisms hearken back to those of other male mayors and bring to mind the words of the Asian woman on Mad TV -- " [S]He-a look-a like a man " . I noticed on December 29th, 2014 -- just four days before her inauguration -- that many of the cabinet members that Ms. Bowser had chosen were women -- several of whom flanked her during an Event at Miriam's Kitchen (which serves the homeless and where Michelle Obama visited in 2009). That was fine with me; as, I'm all for gender equality, so long as we don't lower the bar when a job that has hereto now been done by men is opened to women. Some would argue that I'm not true to...

DC Government is putting the closures of multiple homeless shelters on the fast track. As a man of reason, I understand that shelter is meant to be a stepping stone and not a landing pad. Shelter residents usually have permanent, safe, affordable housing as a goal. However, that goal often remains out of reach for Washington, DC's 8,000 homeless and counting as well as the 70,000 who are on the wait list at the DC Housing Authority with DCHA housing approximately 800 to 1,000 people (about 200 families) per year. Not only is the shelter which the homeless want to get out of being closed ; but, the public housing which they seek to move into is being demolished . In either case, the government's argument is the same: “The building was unfit for human habitation”. Oh how sweet! They care too much about the poor to allow them to remain in a dilapidated building; so, they close down the shelter or public housing complex, only to put the residents into hotels, motels or housing...

Occupy DC: Franklin School (Shelter) Takeover Well Washington, DC's Franklin School Shelter is in the headlines again. It's the issue that won't go away -- with good reason -- and may very well be the most read-about building in the nation. It is on the fast track toward becoming the centerpiece of the Occupy DC Movement. On Saturday, November 19th, 2011 13 people re-entered the former homeless shelter which has sat vacant for over 3 years now -- closed by former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty after he claimed to care too much for the homeless to allow them to be warehoused in the "old building" (built in 1869) which was "unfit for human habitation". Ironically, several homeless people have frozen to death outside since the closure on September 26th, 2008. "Caring" was used as a pretext for closing the Franklin School Shelter and is now being used as a pretext for raiding the Occupy Movement's camps. That's not to speak of the fact that many...

It is with great sadness that I say that Mary Ann Luby -- the woman who gave me my start as a homeless advocate -- passed away on November 29th, 2010 after a short battle with cancer (less than 2 weeks). While it stands to reason that she might've had cancer long before it was detected, I can definitely appreciate the fact that her suffering was cut short. She is greatly missed by myself and others nonetheless. Mary Ann was one of two women who entered the Franklin School Shelter in mid-June 2006 to tell its 240 residents about the plans of former DC mayor Anthony Williams to close the shelter and to re-open the Gales School as a shelter with 120 beds, leaving half of us with nowhere to go. Mary Ann was a nun of the Dominican Order who did outreach work for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. The other woman was a community activist named Becky Sambol who fought for several different causes. They called a meeting amongst the shelter residents and about a dozen att...

I first posted this article on March 19th, 2009. New information came out in the headlines this morning stating that Catholic charities might stop doing business with the city of Washington, DC if the gay marriage bill is passed. This would lead to the loss of about 2,000 shelter beds in shelters that are run by Catholic Charities. The homeless have become pawns and bargaining chips in the game of local (and "loco") politics. As I type up my blog post pertaining to this latest development, you can read about why people thought that all DC homeless shelters were threatened in March. I believe that there may be a correlation between what happened in March and what is happening now. I'll explain in my next blog post later today. Read on..... Several homeless people have told me that they read a newspaper article which stated that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty (a man) plans to close ALL DC homeless shelters by 2011. Unfortunately, I didn't read that article myself and h...

Much has been happening lately to move the cause of the homeless forward. This, of course, is why I haven't been blogging as often as I'd like to. I'm glad to say that progress is being made and that the cries of the impoverished and homeless have reached even as far as the UNITED NATIONS. On October 7th, the case of SHEPTOCK, et al v. FENTY, et al was back in federal court for a status hearing. This is the case that was begun as a result of Mayor Fenty closing the Franklin School Shelter on September 26th, 2008. Many people are surprised that the case has lasted this long and not been thrown out of court. We are due to return to court on December 11th. So long as the case remains in court, there is still a chance for justice to be served. On October 22nd, my fellow homeless advocates "Better Believe Steve", Skip Watkins, Brenda Wilson and others pre-taped 2 shows for STREATS TV. In the first show we spoke to Tommy Wells who is the Ward 6 councilman as well as...

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...

First of all, I recently landed a new job. The most recent video on the right side of my blog shows me speaking with my new boss. This job, which I began on April 21st, as well as the many meetings and other events that I attend have kept me from doing much blogging lately. (Homeless advocacy involves a lot of meetings and plenty of footwork. The footwork is compounded if you are a homeless homeless advocate who lacks funds for public transportation.) In the little bit of time that I was able to squeeze in for blogging today I decided to copy and paste a slightly edited version of an e-mail that I originally sent as an answer to someone's questions about the Franklin School Shelter closure process. I hope you find it to be interesting. Soon I will blog about my new job as well as efforts by several homeless advocates to collaborate with DC Government and create a comprehensive process for employing the homeless. Until then..... The mayor announced his plan for ending chronic homel...

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...

I can't count the number of times that the homeless have asked me if I knew where they could get help finding a job. Some have advised me to ask the mayor for jobs for the homeless rather than shelter or housing. Then there are the ones who've suggested that they be allowed to work on an old, dilapidated government building and turn it into affordable housing. (This idea is known as "sweat equity" and has been shot down by the DC Council in the past.) Needless to say, the homeless are an industrious lot of people; but, there seems to be either a shortage of jobs or an inability on the part of DC Government and homeless service providers to connect people to the jobs that are out there. In the past I've even heard the DC Council discuss how employers often need to look outside of DC to find qualified employees due to many DC residents being unskilled. As chance should have it, Mayor Fenty recently visited the DC Jail to promote the Central Detention Facility Employ...