Tick Tock Sheptock

Of late I've thought a lot about and said a lot about the need to be mean and forceful in order to get government and others to do what poor people need done in order to afford to live. And while I have talked for my full eight years of homeless advocacy about what able-bodied homeless people need in order to find meaningful employment (with the last five years being well-documented on-line), I recently decided that homeless employment is ALL that I'll focus on. At the October 21 st meeting of DC's Inter-agency Council on Homelessness (ICH) I announced that decision and explained that there are many people speaking up for other sub-populations of the homeless community. I also said that we should get the homeless working before they reach retirement age. That statement actually drew a little laughter, speaking of which, there were several times during that meeting that well-paid people broke out into laughter. Some of the homeless and formerly homeless people were act...

It is the mission of SHARC to engage the poor, homeless, formerly homeless, community activists and concerned citizens in advocacy efforts for the poor and under-privileged community with an emphasis on self-advocacy. SHARC's efforts to meet with Mayor Gray Below is an article which I recently wrote and am trying to have published. It describes the trouble that DC homeless advocates are having getting a meeting with Mayor Vincent Gray. I delivered hard copies to the Washington Post and the Examiner on December 10th, 2012. On December 11th Mayor Gray was the first mayor to visit an Inter-agency Council on Homelessness (ICH) meeting. On that day I got a card from his special assistant as the mayor told me to set up a meeting through him. hopefully this will cause things to take a turn for the better..... To whom it may concern, I am Eric Jonathan Sheptock, a relatively well-known homeless advocate in Washington, DC. Since I began advocating in June 2006 in opposition to for...

Vincent Gray visited the homeless in Franklin Square Park on August 28th, 2010 in an effort to get their votes and has since gotten mine. I voted early in DC's general election, casting my ballot on Thursday, October 21st (a process that took less than 10 minutes due to their not being a line). VOTE!!!!! In spite of me having voted for Vince Gray already, I am still quite uncertain as to what he'll do for homeless people here in the nation's capital, which begs the question: "Why, then, did I vote for him?????" Well, the short answer is that he's not Adrian Fenty. While that is definitely a good reason in and of itself, it is not wise to vote for someone only because you dislike their opponent. It is good to know what the person whom you voted for will do if elected. I must say that I also dislike former Democratic candidate Leo Alexander due to his stance on undocumented workers (illegal immigrants). I believe that everyone should have the right...

The Committee to Save Franklin Shelter will host a MEETING TO "RECALL" (OUST) DC MAYOR ADRIAN FENTY The citizens of Washington, DC have more than a few reasons to want Mayor Fenty to be FORCIBLY removed from office early. His litany of offenses includes: 1 -- the fact that he is a flip-flop who pretended to care for the poor and homeless and has now been bought and paid for by the developers. 2 -- the fact that he ran on a platform of transparency and accountability and now heads a government that is plagued with scandals and is extremely secretive. (The amount of money lost during his term due to scandals exceeds the amount of money that has been cut from social services within the same time frame. The government could afford to care for the poor if we could get these scandals under control.) 3 -- his many broken promises which include: the promise to keep Franklin School Shelter open as a shelter, the promise to open ...

DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty touted his Permanent Supportive Housing plan as justification for closing Franklin School Shelter (which was closed on Sept. 26th, 2008). He said that he would have AT LEAST 300 men placed in PSH prior to the shelter closure. He actually met that goal shortly AFTER closing Franklin. The date on which he met that goal is just a small matter insomuch as he DID meet it. He also promised a downtown, low-barrier men's shelter with 150 beds. Franklin had 300. That half-size shelter has yet to materialize. What is noteworthy is the fact that on September 3rd only 3 people had been housed. Less than a month later, that number stood at around 250. While it is laudible effort to house DC's homeless, the nascent housing program (which was only conceived in April, 2008) was not given enough time to blossom prior to the mayor closing another homeless shelter. Furthermore, the funding for the PSH program was slashed in November due to the economic downturn. Though it...

A close friend saved the Metro section from February 4th edition of the Washington Post and gave it to me several days later. She had marked a certain article that she knew would be of interest to me. It was an article about DC Mayor Adrian Fenty entitled,"Heavy Hitters Contributing To Fenty's reelection Bid". It explained that Mayor Fenty has developed close friendships with many wealthy people -- developers and lawyers alike. It said what many of DC's poor and underprivileged already knew, having learned it the hard way -- that Fenty doesn't really care for the poor or working class people of DC. In order to understand the full gravity of the situation, you must know what he did prior to becoming mayor. Just prior to becoming mayor, Adrian Fenty was the Ward 4 councilman. As the Ward 4 councilman, he was also the chairperson for the Committee on Human Services. (Most councilmembers, though they have their respective wards that they oversee, also have a citywide ...

Something suspicious is happening to the homeless people of DC. There has been a sharp, sudden decline in the numbers of homeless people that frequent certain parks and other areas of town. The recent murders of homeless people in DC creates a definite cause for concern -- one man having had his head bashed in as he slept outdoors, the other having been beaten by 2 men as the result of a verbal altercation and left to die in front of a grocery store. (In the latter case, video footage shows people walking past the man as he lie incapacitated and dying for 20 minutes.) There have also been at least a half dozen non-fatal attacks on homeless DC residents as they slept outside over the past few months. Putting aside all sensationalism, I don't believe that the decreased number of homeless people in the parks is the result of foul play. If so, it's probably non-violent foul play on the part of Mayor Fenty and/or those acting on his behalf; but, don't quote me on that. A certain...

As you know, the mayor has begun a Housing First program called Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH). Though it has its flaws, it is a step in the right direction. However, it is important for homeless advocates to continue to prod him to improve his program. Unfortunately, many people have stopped fighting for improvements to homeless services, most likely because they feel that the creation of Permanent Supportive Housing was enough to prove that the mayor has a genuine desire to help the homeless and that the homeless are being helped sufficiently, neither of which is true. Let me remind you that it was Councilman Fenty who promised to keep Franklin School open as a shelter while he was running for mayor, only to close it shortly after becoming mayor. After becoming mayor, he also promised to create a downtown shelter that was half the size of Franklin Shelter while at a WIN (Washington Inter-faith Network) meeting on April 7th, 2008. In addition to breaking these and other pr...

Below is a slightly modified message that I sent to a friend and sweetheart of mine who works for the U.S. Dept. of Labor. I figured that since parts of my message apply to the fight against poverty, homelessness and corporate greed, I would send this modified message to others. I therefore modified the message, removing the parts that only pertained to her and forwarded it to others. Below my message is her response. She has stated some very interesting and intelligent insights into "The First Thing That Needs Changin'" Enjoy..... From: Eric Sheptock Date: Thursday, November 6, 2008, 3:38 PM Many of the homeless have asked me to help them to get jobs. They don't just want a hand-out. They also want a hand up. As it turns out, DC has a terrible workforce development dilemma. There is supposedly a large job market in the city. However, most jobs require a high level of skill. There are not enough people in the city with those skills. Therefore, employers look...

Page 54 of the October 2008 issue of Hill Rag contains an article about DC Mayor Adrian Fenty which aptly describes what I know to be true about him. As he indicated during a meeting that he held with ONE DC ( a grassroots organizer)on October 8th, 2008, he can be headstrong and assertive. (I attended that meeting as a collaborator, though I am not a member of ONE DC.)However, what stood out to me was a certain consistency that I see in how one can get a meeting with the mayor. In order to help you to better understand what I am about to explain, I must take you back about 6 weeks and explain an earlier attempt to meet with the mayor. On August 19th, 2008, approximately 30 people -- homeless people, homeless advocates and supporters from local churches and the DC community at large -- did a walk-around at the Wilson Building (City Hall). It consisted of us going to the offices of the various city council members to present our cause: keeping Franklin Shelter open for the homeless ...