Tick Tock Sheptock

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should say that I come to the discussion about terrorism as one who realizes that the world society is a sinking ship that has hit the icebergs of capitalism and political ignorance with all of its occupants now fighting their way to the uppermost deck and many getting thrown overboard into the freezing waters below. My homeless advocacy is more about teaching people what led to this titanic catastrophe than it is about averting disaster at this point. It was a warm June day in Washington, DC as I stood in the hospital room of homeless advocate Michael Stoops and watched the news about Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid. Though he wields much influence in my birthplace of Atlantic City (another sinking ship), I've never cared for his show “The Apprentice”. However, when I knew he was running for the highest office in the world, I began paying attention to him and jeering at his outlandish statements; thereby bringing to bear the first ...

Homelessness seems to be quite the intractable problem in the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth – having increased from 5,757 in January 2007 to 7,748 in January 2014 and having decreased by 450 the following year to 7,298. Washington, DC had a 10-year plan that was supposed to end homelessness in the city by the end of 2014. It didn't. The news, in recent years, has been full of reports about the city tearing down homeless encampments, about synthetic drug use near shelters, about deplorable conditions and food-for-sex scams being perpetrated by shelter staff and most memorably about an 8-year old girl who went missing from the family shelter in early 2014. Homelessness is Hell. There's just no other way to put it. However, there is at least one organization that is working hard to give some of the many children who experience it in Washington a brief respite from the troubles of homelessness which current DC Mayor Muriel Bowser promises to make “rare, brief...