Tick Tock Sheptock

The following is a testimony that I, Eric Jonathan Sheptock, plan to read at multiple hearings during the budget season for FY18. Dear Chairperson, In late 2012 I was one of several people who met with Chapman Todd to discuss the future of the then-1,350-bed CCNV Shelter. On January 13th, 2013 I sent a FOIA request to the feds in order to obtain information about the property transfer from the feds and the accompanying covenant. That led to the 6/27/13 CCNV hearing and a nine-month long task force from October 2013 to July 2014. Other advocates were part of the effort and dozens of well-paid city officials as well as non-profit employees attended the many task force meetings. In July 2014 the DC Council (which Muriel Bowser was part of) passed a law that set forth the 17 guiding principles that a mayor would have to adhere to if he or she were to close the current site of the CCNV/Federal City Shelter. Congress passed it in December 2014. This law, while it ALLOWS the sittin...

Dearest Mayor Muriel Bowser: In my previous post I visited the matters of how DC's Inter-agency Council on Homelessness (ICH) grades its performance vs how the public perceives what the media says about homelessness and of what this could mean for your 2018 re-election bid (especially if the DC primary comes AFTER the mid-May article about the homeless census). To be sure, you know a thing or two about the way in which the general public understands what it is told by politicians and the media -- how that, no matter how accurately a politician, reporter (in some cases) or subject matter expert explains a matter, the truth is lost through several communication turnovers as people try to remember and regurgitate what they heard or read. Even so, Aristotle and others have written about the "wisdom of the crowd" -- the principle whereby numerous incorrect guesses (of things like the weight of an ox at a country fair) average out within a percentage point of the correct...

"I know people are working hard; but, sometimes we work hard at the wrong things." [such as manipulating numbers and definitions] DC ICH Director Kristy Greenwalt [minus bracketed words] in early 2014 (I wonder if she recalls saying that.) Dearest Mayor Muriel Bowser: In my previous blog post I commended the fact that you, unlike any other politician that I'm aware of, have made addressing homelessness into your pet project -- a truth that means that what you do as mayor and what I do as a homeless advocate are quite inextricably connected. But the fact remains that you can't devote all of your time to your pet project; nor can you possibly keep up with every single happening of the DC Inter-agency Council on Homelessness . Additionally, it stands to reason that your administration will always paint a positive picture of their efforts -- a picture that gets turned on its head if and when the media blitz that always follows the mid-May release of the res...

Dearest DC Mayor Muriel Bowser: First of all, I'd like to congratulate and thank you for taking the totally non-political step of making addressing homelessness your pet project. I've never heard of another politician at any level of government doing that. Others like Bush 43 and Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry  (both Republicans) have addressed it; but, they've not made it their pet project by any means. You, on the other hand, have set the lofty goal of making the homeless experience in DC "rare, brief and non-recurring" . You've arranged meetings that, unfortunately, were well-attended by NIMBY-ites while those who were supportive of your shelter replacement plan stayed home. You've embarked on a journey that three male mayors before you began but couldn't complete -- the first of them overseeing the creation of a 10-year plan in 2004 when DC counted 8,253 homeless people (a number that ROSE to 8,977 the following year ) and the third issuin...

A Howard University Sociology professor whose Marxist study group I was part of (though I'v never been a university student) used to say: "There are 20 years that don't make a day ; then, there's that day that makes 20 years  [worth of effort]". When about a dozen men -- including myself -- began advocating against the closure of the Franklin School Shelter in June 2006, one of our arguments was that Franklin's location in downtown and near many public transportation options made it a perfect location for the working homeless to get to and from work. Additionally, my personal efforts to get city officials to address the employment challenges of homeless people are well-documented on-line as far back as mid-2009 -- with similarly documented efforts by my advocacy colleagues going back about that far as well. I now have some great news: DC Government has heard our cries and is beginning to take action!!! As you may well know by now, Obama signed the Wo...

If we're going to get there anyway, we may as well get there in a GOOD way. All of us can relate to this scenario: Someone asks that another do something for them; gets turned down; gets upset and gets what they originally asked for. It's enough to make you wonder: Why didn't the latter person grant the request BEFORE the temper tantrum ??? Sadly, this scenario plays itself out time and time again in the relationship between government and the public they are supposed to be serving. Advocates for various causes have, in times past, developed detailed agendas that included stepping up the pressure on government if and when government failed to make good on the requests of the people immediately following the first time that a request was made. They then transition from making a request at a calm meeting with a few advocates and politicians present into staging large rallies or protests at which the advocates make demands to the politicians and might create bad pr...

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...

I would like to congratulate all homeless advocates, non-profits, council members and administration officials who had anything to do with the city committing at least $22.16M to housing at least 2,431 homeless DC residents in Fiscal Year 2017. If the calculations that I list below are correct AND if we were to maintain the same level of funding through the end of Fiscal Year 2020 (adjusting the baseline budget for inflation) , then the city could conceivably house 9,724 homeless people in the next four fiscal years (FY 17 thru 20). That's 1,374 more than the 8,350 homeless people that DC had as of January 2016. THAT'S PROGRESS!!!!! I calculated that as many as 1,122 of the 2,431 people that the city could house in FY 17 are able-bodied adults. Most or all of these adults would need to use the services of the Dept. Of Employment Services ' Project Empowerment program. However, Project Empowerment served 585 people in FY 15 and not all of them were homeless. This re...