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...

On May 15 th , 2015 the Washington Post ran an article about a documentary on homeless love which was done by two French women – Lalita Clozel and ArianeMohseni . I was both their guide who helped them to penetrate the homeless community of DC as well as their subject matter expert. The documentary and article bring out what may very well be the greatest epiphany of our time: We all need love – yes, even the homeless. Who would ever imagine that homeless people like to give and receive love? As with other populations, there are good and bad people in the homeless community. Some have given their lives to save others or been the only one to show concern for a suffering person while others passed by in droves – too busy to care. The story began on Sunday, February 8 th , one week before my birthday. As a member of the National Coalition for the Homeless and its Faces of Homelessness Speakers' Bureau , I was doing an outreach run during which I led a group of university stu...

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...