Tick Tock Sheptock

"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...

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...

On May 11th, 2016 I reviewed the stats for this blog and saw that it has become more popular in RUSSIA than it is in the United States. Maybe it's because Moscow, a city of approx. 13 million and the billionaire capital of the world has approx. 110,000 homeless people (.85% of population); while, Washington, DC, a city of 670,000 now has 8,350 homeless people (1.25% of population). The nation with the most billionaires in the world can make the case that its capital has a smaller homeless problem percentage-wise than the capital of the wealthiest(?) nation in the world which also happens to be the most powerful -- treatment of the homeless notwithstanding. Maybe Vladimir Putin (whom I really like) is building his case against President Obama or President Hillary Clinton and planning for a human rights showdown (which I'd love to watch, though Iran's Press TV has already started the ball rolling on that issue). Maybe this blog is being used to teach Russians English while ...

 Below are 2 of the many "threats" of closure that CCNV has received over the years. The portion that describes the 2011 threat also explains why these threats should be taken seriously. Even so, I promote living-wage employment and affordable-on-the-open-market housing for able-bodied homeless people, not just a better shelter. (But "Dr. D.C. Houser" is currently doing triage -- housing the disabled and families with children in hopes that able-bodied, low-income, single, homeless people will just leave town or die) From 2012: On Friday, August 31st, 2012 all 300 men on the third floor of the CCNV shelter received notices from the CCNV administration which, among other things, stated that the shelter might close as early as next year. The Federal City Shelter (which actually has three separate shelters within it) holds 1,350 of what was DC's 7,000+ homeless people (a number we're trying to get back DOWN to in 2015). CCNV holds 950 itself. In Ap...

Before homeless advocate Michael Stoops had his debilitating stroke, He would introduce me to the college and university groups that had come to learn about homelessness by swaying and moving his hands from side to side as if he were playing a six-foot tall keybord as he said the following: “I've been doing this work for forty years. And, if we don't start doing more than feeding and sheltering the homeless, then in forty more years when all of you are MY age, you'll still be talking about wanting to end homelessness.” That succinct spiel had come to replace an earlier and shorter one in which he would say, “We here at the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) are trying to work ourselves out of a job”. As it turns out, he did just that on June 7 th ,2015, though not in the way that he had hoped. With the CCNV organization having begun in 1970; Mitch Snyder having joined them in 1974; NCH having been established in 1982 and a host of other advocacy organizati...

Let's start with a little word smithing. “Administrato-prudence” (as opposed to “Jurisprudence”): The pragmatic sum or totality of the efforts of an administration as indicated by empirical evidence. How a combination of laws, policies and administrative efforts actually improve or worsen the lives of that administration's constituents. OK. Now that we have a working definition for "administrato-prudence", we can proceed with a discourse on DC's efforts to end homelessness, efforts that began [in earnest?] in 2004 and were supposed to end homelessness in the Capital by December 31 st , 2014. We had 7,298 homeless people onJanuary 28th, 2015 – a drop of 450 or 5.8% from the previous year. The city didn't end homelessness by the set date; however, the story doesn't end there – fortunately. During the quarterly meeting of the DC Inter-agency Council on Homelessness (ICH) on June 2 nd , 2015 Tom Fredericksen of The Community Part...

I've often been bothered by how people distort scripture, science and the words of historic figures or deities in order to make the case for supporting their chosen lifestyle. I tell people to self-validate rather than twisting the words of God, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr. or the forefathers. After all, if you're already Hell-bent on living a certain way, why do you seek another opinion??? Your mind is already made up. I also worry that, when I've gone on to the next life, people will attribute beliefs and ideas to me that I never supported or that I was indifferent to. In this blog post, I intend to make my views very clear and unmistakable while creating a permanent record that will outlive me. Spirituality: I believe that God can best be described as the “God of Necessary Evils”. He told people to do good, swayed our circumstances in favor of us doing evil, came down hard on those who lived before Christ for not living up to His standard, required the blood...