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...

Last edited on 1/20/16 Martin Luther King, Jr. whose work we celebrated on January 18th fought for the rights of Blacks and poor people from 1955 to 1968. Mitch Snyder (1943-1990) fought for the homeless (the poorest of the poor) from 1974 to 1990. I've been fighting for the homeless since mid-June 2006. Were you to compare our lives, you wouldn't find that we have a lot in common – probably nothing more than the fact that we all have fought for the poor – MLK, Jr and Mitch having died doing so. Though I make no effort to emulate either man , I see yet another thing that we all seem to have in common. In all three cases we seem to have a moment of clarity after about 10 years of advocacy and/or activism. Between 1963 and his assassination MLK, Jr. made multiple speeches in which he talked about the lack of progress in terms of how Black Americans are treated . During this same time he was at odds with Malcolm X and other movement leaders about the way forward – nam...

We're at no shortage of governmental flaws and failures to talk about -- whether addressing the federal government or state and local governments. We all watched the congressional bickering play out in the summer of 2011 as many people whose lives were destroyed by natural disasters were made to wonder if Congress would add insult to injury by cutting off their assistance, we almost defaulted on our national debt and President Obama urged Congress to play nicely (with people's lives, I must add). While some disasters were averted, Americans (and the whole world, thanks to technology) were made keenly aware of the ineffectiveness of our national government (if they hadn't already known). My anti-capitalist friends and I are left to wonder how much of the dysfunction of government is due to the shortcomings of our elected officials and how much of it is due to them being unsympathetic, intransigent, war-loving, imperialistic capitalists who are deliberately throwing th...

I apologize for failing to post regularly, as I have been extremely busy lately. There is a lot happening in the way of homeless advocacy and activism as well as social justice. I am deeply involved in the planning of direct actions which are designed to speak truth to power and encourage the U.S. Government to fund human need here at home, not wars abroad and Wall Street. Even so, here is something I wrote yesterday and e-mailed to many people. It sums up the CONTINUING homeless crisis: FOREVER HOMELESS -- Forward widely Many poor people in what has been said to be the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world -- the United States of America -- are doomed to be HOMELESS FOREVER. Now there's no telling just how long this country will retain those titles and some people think we're losing ground rather quickly -- which is all the more reason (in the eyes of Congress and the president) to put our precious resources into imperialistic pursuits abroad rather than domestic ...

On March 11th, during the Human Services Budget Oversight Hearing, many people listened to the testimonies of 4 young mothers who were denied shelter during the winter right along with their little ones. Several of them told of how they were given bus tokens by those who are contracted with the city to provide shelter to families with children and were then told to ride the bus all night in order to stay warm. One mother told of how she gave birth on February 10th, left the hospital on the 12th and slept in the Greyhound Station or the stairwell of an unsecured apartment building with her baby for the entire first month of his life. On April 19th, during the ICH (Inter-agency Council on Homelessness) meeting, Fred Swan of DHS (the Dept. of Human Services) explained that the budget for Fiscal Year 2012 contained a $20.5 million budget shortfall for Homeless Services -- a line item that usually runs right around $60 million. During the pre-meeting he led an exercise that was designed t...

Well, it looks like Congress is formulating an agreement on where to cut spending in the federal budget. A government shutdown has been averted once again, though we're not out of the woods yet. They've decided to slash $38.5 billion from the FY 2011 budget (with less than 6 months remaining in this fiscal year). The numbers are still subject to change and the details have not been finalized, though we can be certain that domestic spending on social services will take a hit. The question is "How big of a hit will social services take?". They continue to work on the FY 2012 budget (and hack away at much- needed services). Here in the nation's capital (which many locals call "the last colony" due to Congress having oversight of what the local government does) DC Mayor Vincent Gray submitted his 2012 budget proposal on April 1st, in accordance with DC Law. On April 8th the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI) issued its analysis of his proposal. The DC Cou...

On Tuesday, May 11th, DC Government held its bi-monthly Inter-agency Council on Homelessness (ICH) meeting. In attendance were department heads from the Dept. of Human Services (DHS) and the Dept. of Mental Health (DMH) as well as the chief of police and representatives of Emergency Medical Services (EMS). There were also shelter employees and other homeless service providers as well as homeless advocates, some of whom were homeless themselves. As various committee members gave reports on their respective areas of expertise, one report stood out to me. It was that of Sue Marshall, director of the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (TCP) which is contracted under DHS to manage most of the city's homeless services (www.community-partnership.org). She read the results of the annual point-in-time homeless count which her agency conducts during the last week of January each year, as mandated by HUD. The report indicated that there had actually been a 5% increase ...

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...

Below is my testimony to UNITED NATIONS Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik, which I delivered to her along with the testimonies of several of my colleagues. Ms. Rolnik visited Washington, DC from November 5 to November 8th and heard many testimonies concerning the need for safe and affordable housing in DC. She visited 6 other jurisdictions in the country. DC was her seventh and final stop in the country. I'll write about the experience and what came out of it soon. Enjoy..... From: Mr. Eric Jonathan sheptock, Homeless homeless advocate Washington, DC To: Ms. Raquel Rolnik, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing Re: The Need for Emergency Shelter and Affordable Housing In Washington, DC. I, Eric Jonathan Sheptock, would like to impress upon the UNITED NATIONS and the special rapporteur on adequate housing the fact that the capital of the wealthiest nation in the world is in dire need of both emergency shelter and affordable housi...

Some time ago, I blogged about the news that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty might be planning to close all DC homeless shelters by 2011. (He leaves office in January of that year.) At the time, many people didn't believe that any mayor -- even Mayor Fenty -- would try something like that. Nonetheless, while I can't pin this one on him entirely, Washington, DC stands to lose over 1,300 shelter beds within a month if the budget crisis is not dealt with immediately. Homeless service providers are scrambling to save the shelters so as to avoid a repeat scenario of the 80's and 90's when many of the homeless were freezing to death in the capital of the wealthiest nation on Earth. The deaths of homeless people in Franklin Park while a vacant government building sat across the road was the impetus for turning Franklin School into a shelter in 2002. It was abruptly closed by Mayor Fenty on September 26th, 2008. The Franklin School Shelter closure was predicated on the success of ...

The Unwelcome Homeless In November of 2008 a Washington City Paper article indicated that the homeless are not welcome in the libraries of our nation's capital. An August 2009 New York times article addressed the criminalization of poverty nationally. Then, a September 2009 Washington Examiner article mentioned that the homeless are not welcome in the parks of Downtown Washington, DC. It's no military secret -- the homeless are America's most unwanted. What's most disturbing about this news is that our public officials are often the ones leading the charge against the homeless. Most homeless advocates wouldn't take offense to any reasonable request, such as wanting a homeless person to be presentable and well-mannered; but the mentally ill are one of the most underserved populations in the city, often leading to some very public psychotic episodes. And many of the homeless wouldn't loiter around businesses and other public places if they had some...

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...