Tick Tock Sheptock

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...

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...

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 ...

Well, election season is in full swing now. And though many people may be unaware, homeless people vote too, having won that right due to a myriad of court cases. A federal judge in Ohio has even ruled that a homeless person may list a park bench as their address when registering to vote. The National Coalition for the Homeless has its own bi-annual election campaign -- a campaign to get the homeless who have the right to vote to do so . But getting the homeless to vote isn't easy and keeping them engaged in the political process after the candidate of their choice has won the election and then failed to deliver on his or her promises is even harder, as this only adds to the feelings of disenfranchisement that many homeless already feel. Some of the homeless laid aside their feelings of doubt and despair in the fall of 2008 and decided to cast their ballots, many of them voting for Barack Obama who ran on a platform of "hope" and "change". They seemed to...

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 ...

I just wrote the following article for a paper called the People's Tribune. I decided to cover the issue of Obama possibly being a Socialist in the next post, not this one as previously stated. (See previous post.) I hope you find it to be insightful..... The nation is up in arms about the healthcare issue. Obama is being depicted as a Socialist, the Joker and Charlie Chaplin. He is bearing the brunt of frustration with the healthcare system that people have felt since before the Clintons. As a matter of fact, Rush Limbaugh had a heyday mocking Bill Clinton's administration for having written a 100,000-page healthcare plan that never got implemented and went so far as to sell a Bill Clinton backwards-running watch. The fact of the matter is that, in spite of what manner of man Barack Obama is, he was elected as the head of a failed system which the best of us can never hope to heal. Nonetheless, the healthcare issue may very well become the impetus for systemic change. It ...

Dear President Barack Hussein Obama, I would like to remind you of a former effort of yours that you seem to have all but forgotten. On October 25th 2006, you sent two (2) men from your senatorial office in the Hart Building to the Franklin School Shelter so that they could tour the facility and be informed on the issue of homelessness. Their names were Ian Solomon and Nicholas Colvin . The tour was led by the Committee To Save Franklin Shelter (CSFS), a group that was later incorporated as Until We're Home, inc ( www.untilwerehome.org ), a non-profit that spoke up for the rights of homeless people and advocated for solutions to homelessness. I was the field marshal/public relations specialist for the group, which has now been dissolved. After the tour, we never heard back from either man. We were left to assume that they were just part of an exploratory mission to see what platform you would run your campaign on. Nonetheless, homelessness remains a major problem in thi...

I recently exchanged e-mails with DC Government concerning the fact that the homeless are going hungry while remaining in the hypothermia shelter all day during hypothermia. It didn't go well. Long story short, the homeless will be fed additional meals if they remain in the shelter all day due to there being snow or ice on the ground. If they remain in the shelter all day due to it being 20 degrees outside, they will only receive the usual dinner, no lunch or breakfast. Read our exchange below and my further explanation that follows: From: Eric Sheptock [mailto: ericsheptock@yahoo.com ] Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 4:01 PM Subject: No Food For The Homeless During Hypothermia!!!!! NO FOOD FOR HOMELESS DURING HYPOTHERMIA I personally have yet to stay at 801 East throughout the day when it is hypothermic. However, more than one man has told me that food was not provided by DHS/Catholic Charities during hypothermia. It is my understanding that, a couple of days ago, the men di...

Franklin Shelter's doors were closed by Mayor adrian fenty on September 26th, 2008. The former residents were scattered throughout DC. Many have suffered great losses and inconveniences as a result of the closure. A few have even put up a fight so as to try to be compensated for their losses and to re-open Franklin Shelter. All of this begs the question, "What now, is there life after Franklin?" I must say that there is indeed life after Franklin and there's probably more life than the mayor thought there would be. Let's bear in mind that the homeless often feel disenfranchised and marginalized. They, for the most part, don't stand up for themselves. When mis-treated, they often take it lying down. I'm inclined to believe that the mayor thought that would continue to be the case. Boy was he wrong!!!!! Prior to the closing of Franklin Shelter, it was difficult to get even 5 homeless people to go to a meeting or hearing that was arranged for them. ...