Tick Tock Sheptock

Update on the Future of CCNV Because you have a right to know DC GOVERNMENT has asked me “NOT TO HIT THE PANIC BUTTON” – that is NOT to worry HOMELESS people with a guess of a 2017 or 2018 CCNV shelter closure. So, I made THIS INFORMATIONAL FLYER which I'm sharing in print and electronically. Please click on and share it with any and ALL of your interested contacts .   DC GOVERNMENT insists that NO DATE HAS BEEN SET for the closure of CCNV. Nonetheless, I suspect that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser MIGHT be developing plans to close the Federal City Shelter which is also known as the Community for Creative non-Violence or CCNV before the end of 2017, but probably not before the presidential inauguration following what I believe will be a Clinton/Sanders victory in November 2016. I've been asked by the administration not to speak "definitively" about the mayor's plans irrespective of what I see happening in the neighborhood. There is t...

Great news! Congressman John Conyers, Jr. presented his jobs bill to Congress at 2:30 PM on March 28th, 2012. John Conyers, Jr. is in his 80's, served as the lawyer for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and is presently serving as the congressman for Detroit's District 14. His jobs bill presently has two names as well as two bill numbers. It is known as the "Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act" as well as the "Work Opportunities and Revitalizing Our Communities Act" . Until March 28th it was bill number H.R. 870 . (H.R.= House Resolution.) It has been assigned a new number: H.R. 4277 . Many people call it H.R. 870/4277 in order to avoid any congress-induced confusion. (The numbers don't correspond with the names.) The bill aims to employ any and all Americans who are ready, willing and able to work, offering job training when necessary. You're probably wondering how it differs from any of the other jobs bills being cons...

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...

On Monday, March 12th at 10 AM, dozens of people gathered outside of the Wilson Building (DC City hall) to give Mayor Vincent Gray (or his staff) our budget recommendations for Fiscal year 2013. This year we came out about a week and a half BEFORE he is expected to issue his budget proposal to the DC Council, as opposed to the usual manner of reacting to the budget in mid-April AFTER it has been issued. This more PROACTIVE approach is what advocates decided on during a debriefing in June 2011, following last year's budget cycle. I'm glad to see that we're pulling it off. We got at least a dozen of DC's nearly 7,000 homeless people to come out and self-advocate. Several other people who would be directly affected if the mayor were to make cuts to human services spoke about their struggles. They included a blind, single mother of three and a man whose 7-year old daughter is chronically ill and presently in the hospital. Councilmen Jim Graham, Michael Brown and Tommy We...

It's been quite some time since my last blog post, as I've been pounding the pavement in my capacity as an organizer for Stop the Machine-Create a New World (www.october2011.org). I've also been spending a considerable amount of time at the other tent city located in McPherson Square on K street NW. The movement has come to Washington, DC and it's picking up steam. And the movement has no shortage of reasons for which to be outraged and rise up. Tom Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, recently stated that the government should stop bailing people out and helping them to maintain their housing. He literally said, in no uncertain terms, that" we need more foreclosures; because, government intervention is bad for the housing market". He evidently fails to realize that housing is made for people, not people for housing. He has lost his humanity and seeks only to do what is good for the market, irrespective of people's basic human needs. ...

On Saturday, September 10, President Obama and his daughters paid a visit to DC Central Kitchen located in the basement of the Federal City Shelter which is right on the edge of Capitol Hill. The kitchen feeds 5,000 of the many impoverished, socio-economically disadvantaged people in our nation's capital every day. And it was a grand event indeed. While many were excited about the fact that our commander-in-chief would take time out of his busy schedule to visit those who are overlooked all too often in our society, others were a bit more analytical of the situation and less apt to praise him. The excitement began on the night of September 9th when the Secret Service came out to survey the building, making sure that it was safe, planning their route and choosing places to post their officers and snipers. The next morning, as the homeless left the building which sleeps up to 1,350 homeless people (one-fifth of DC's homeless population) in 3 separate shelters and also houses t...

When will the national movement implement "stronger tactics" that effectively usher in the "revolutionary change" that we are working toward? Well, Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute (a think tank on worldwide socio-economic trends) has predicted that this country will see food riots, tax rebellions and revolution by 2012. And his long track record for accuracy has some people worried. But you don't need to be a well-paid academic to see that societal conditions are ripe for revolution. The news is chock full of reports of increasing unemployment, a worsening housing market and struggling families. The U.S. economy is so bad that Obama himself recently told people in a small town in Iowa that he doesn't believe that Washington knows best (and it doesn't). People have begun to polarize around Tea Party/Congressional demands on the one hand and the demand for the state to fund human need on the other, with there having been a strong u...

In case you didn't already know, politics are about power. Politicians are always looking forward to the next election unless serving their last allowable term. (Lame ducks seem to be those most likely to follow their conscience[?], as they can't run again anyway.) politicians are most likely to address the concerns of those who help them to remain in power. They kowtow first and foremost to those who contribute the most to their campaigns -- corporations. Next in line are wealthy individuals. Eventually and at long last, there are the voters. If you don't fit into any of these categories, your discontentment becomes an issue of "mind over matter". As you voice your opinions, the politicians don't mind; because, you don't matter. (Being a taxpayer doesn't impress them all that much; because, the government will MAKE you do that anyway.) Then there is the issue of "political will". Once a politician has taken the oath of office, they be...

On April 14th, 2011, the Coalition of Housing and Homeless Organizations (COHHO) held its monthly meeting. We discussed the devastating impact that Mayor Vincent Gray's proposed budget cuts to Human Services for FY 2012 will have on DC's poor and homeless community. (There were about 30 people in the room of which about 5 were homeless or formerly homeless.) A formerly homeless man asked, "Who's going to tell the many poor and homeless people in DC about the cuts that are going to affect them?" In response to his question, several people said that they would remain after the meeting to plan an outreach strategy. I secured a meeting room in the basement of the CCNV (Community for Creative Non-Violence) Shelter and we scheduled a meeting for April 26th.(There were about 30 people in the room of which about 25 were homeless or formerly homeless.) That Tuesday we decided to meet every Monday thereafter. At the May 2nd meeting we had about 50 people present. The...

A NEW, "REVOLUTIONARY" WAY OF ENDING HOMELESSNESS Some of the shelters in Washington, DC are threatened with closure in less than a year. The "Doom's Day" Date is April 1st, 2012. This is nothing new. We've been here before. But it's definitely much worse this time around. When the Randall Shelter was closed the 801 East Shelter was opened as a replacement. (I believe it was in early 2005, the year I moved to DC and a year before I became a homeless advocate.) When the DC Village Family Shelter was closed in October of 2007, families were placed in a housing program (though I've been told unofficially that some have since been ejected from the program and are sleeping in cars with their little ones). When Franklin School Shelter was closed, the Permanent Supportive Housing program was initiated and has since housed at least 1,200 people. But now the conmversation is about closing several shelters which hold at least 1,300 homeless people total. Pro...

UPDATE: On April 10th I did a blog post about how I chased down a robber whom I'd witnessed taking a woman's camera. I ended my post rather abruptly and failed to say that the culprit was caught by police less than 5 minutes after I indicated where I'd last seen him and only a half block away from where my chase ended. We don't need to give people a reason to stop feeding the homeless or the cops a reason to clear the homeless out of the parks where they are often fed by churches and other groups of do-gooders. A Homeless Revolution Is Unfolding DC Mayor Vincent Gray's budget proposal was released on April 1st with horrendous cuts to Human Services. The homeless advocacy community, service providers and government officials working on Human Services have all been in an uproar over the negative impact these cuts will have if the budget is passed by the DC Council. Everyone is worried. I have DC Councilmen Jim Graham and Tommy Wells on video saying how terrible it...