Tick Tock Sheptock

NOTE: Please read the blog entry below this one, as this is a follow-up to the previous blog post. The investigation into the death of a homeless veteran right outside of Washington, DC's New York Avenue Shelter continues. As if his wrongful death isn't sad enough, those who work for DC Government's Department of Human Services (DHS) and for the shelter have gone into "self-defense mode" and seem to be more intent on covering their tracks than they are on finding out the truth. Should we expect more? also of note is the fact that the homeless and homeless advocates are gathering facts about this case more quickly than the government. DHS is doing its own internal investigation. And we all know how those things go -- self-defense all the way. On a more positive note, I was able to get the name of the deceased. The man's name was Luther "Sarge" Hill and he was ex-military. It's always good to be able to refer to a person by name, as the system ...

Saturday, October 29th was a wet, cold miserable day in Washington, DC. There was a light rain throughout the day. It felt like the temperature was somewhere between 35 and 40 throughout the daylight hours, though I missed the forecast. We even got some snow that evening and had an even colder night. DC Law defines "hypothermia season" in two ways -- by date and by temperature. DC Government's Department of Human Services (DHS) is required by law to provide enough shelter for all people who present as homeless between November 1st and march 31st. However, if it freezes before or after that time frame(including the windchill factor), they must be prepared to provide shelter to all who are in need of it and are within the city limits at that time (regardless of whether or not that person claims to be a resident of the city). But on that fateful day in October, a homeless man in a wheelchair was denied shelter and died in the parking lot behind the shelter. I've yet ...

Spring has made an early start. The last couple of days have been beautiful. However, a few short weeks ago, quite the opposite was true. Washington had more snow this winter than in any other winter on record. They broke the 1898 seasonal record of 54.5 inches by a half inch. The snowstorms were coming back-to-back. President Obama and others had come to know the event as "Snowmageddon" or "Snowpocalypse". And the names were indeed fitting, especially for the homeless who were getting by on 1 meal per day in some cases. About a year ago, the president chided Washington for not having that "Chicago toughness" after the city was shut down by 2 inches of snow. (Some people believe that that statement is the one correct thing that Mr. Obama has said or done since taking office.) While his statement isn't any less true this year, the considerably larger amount of snow this winter justifies the more recent city-wide shutdowns. No matter how ...

I am just beginning to get back in the swing of things after "snowmageddon". I could not access the internet for more than a week due to the high level of snow in DC. The libraries were closed and I couldn't log on. I will blog about the horrific problems that the homeless community had to deal with (probably within the next 3 days). However, I WILL say that many of the homeless only got one meal a day during "snowmageddon". I will let DC Gov's Dept. of Human Services know about this and other problems that occurred during this time. I apologize for being cut off from the world and not keeping you updated, as I am aware that many concerned citizens want to know what is happening to our society's most vulnerable citizens. Stay tuned for more info......

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...

Reposted for Facebook viewers I've made the rare move of doing 2 blog posts in 1 day. Please see the REVISED post below this one if you haven't already. In a previous post I described the tenuous situation created by recent cuts to DC Government's Homeless Services budget. The loss of $12 million almost resulted in the closure of 6 homeless shelters which serve 900 men, 400 women and 600 children. The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (TCP) is contracted under DC Government to provide homeless services to the District. Catholic Charities is subcontracted under TCP to provide the majority of the homeless services. This enabled Catholic Charities to do a power play on DC Government. So, when they heard that the budgets for all DC homeless shelters would be cut by 30%, Catholic Charities said "All or nothing. If we can't provide a robust array of services that include substance abuse counseling, employment services and life skills training...

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 ...

While I haven't yet had time to do the blog post about the planned closure of the CCNV Shelter as I promised, I wrote the following article for the STREET SENSE newspaper and decided to post it on my blog as well. Besides, more info about the closure is still forthcoming. I will write about it soon. In the meantime, I hope you find the following to be both interesting and informative..... Sometimes it seems that the homeless have no place to go. First of all, they have no home to go to. Then, they are often chased away from storefronts or told not to sleep in certain parks. Even shelters are not immune to being made to move on. The Central Union Mission was NIMBY'ed (Not In My Back Yard) out of its very own Petworth property and won't be relocating to the Gales School as previously planned either. Now the homeless shelter itself might become homeless after 125 years in existence. The Fenty administration is still reeling from the closure of the Franklin School Sh...

Spring is here!!!!! Many people are getting spring fever. For some it means that they will tend to the garden. Others will go to the Cherry Blossom Festival. Some will paint the house. Then there are those who will do some spring cleaning. This final group includes DC Government and the DC homeless shelters. For most people the onset of spring is a time of great pleasure. For the homeless it means that they lose their right to shelter. DC Law only gives the homeless a right to shelter if the temperature is 32 and below or 95 and above (including the wind chill factor or heat index). So long as the temperature remains between 33 and 94, there is no right to shelter in our nation's crapital. The homeless are put out of shelter and into the rain quite often. Some shelter employees will allow people to come in if it is raining hard enough. However, they do this at their own discretion and risk, with many insurance policies not covering the shelters during usual off hours except during ...