Tick Tock Sheptock

In the course of history, more than a few people have found that they've been sent on wild goose chases or realized that they've been given a bum steer. Sometimes the misinformation is given intentionally. Other times it is given out of sheer ignorance. Sometimes it results in a person trying for years to do what can't be done -- the impossible dream. Consider the recent resignation of Robert V. Hess, the former director of New York City's Dept. of Homeless Services. He took on the job in 2004, with Mayor Bloomberg having set the goal of reducing homelessness by two thirds by the end of 2009. Six years later, there are actually MORE homeless people in the city than there were in 2004, due to a spike in family homelessness. (While homeless individuals are often blamed for their situation with some of them having used drugs or indulged in some other form of delinquent behavior, homeless families are understood by most to be victims of the economic downturn.) The econom...

On March 31st DC Councilman Tommy Wells (Dem-Ward 6) who oversees the Dept. of Human Services (DHS) held a post-hypothermia hearing during which he intended to hear testimony from the homeless and their service providers about homeless services this past winter. As is always the case, people strayed from the intended topic of discussion. Very little was said about homeless services that are specifically related to hypothermia. Much was said about year-round problems. There were the usual complaints about dilapidated buildings. several women complained about crumbling ceilings at the Families Forward Shelter on the grounds of the defunct DC General Hospital. At least one woman described how she moved her child to a spot where the ceiling wasn't crumbling and placed herself under the hole in the ceiling as a way of keeping the child safe. She was horrified by the thought of rodents falling out of the ceiling onto her or her child. People also described the filth that one sees upon ...

On March 12th, 2010 a fellow homeless advocate and I co-hosted a meeting with the homeless during which they could learn about how crime expungement works in Washington, DC. We invited a woman from the re-entry program at the office of the public defender to speak to the group of about 25 homeless people who were hoping to get their crimes expunged so that they could re-enter the workforce. There were about a dozen other people present as well -- a couple of sociology professors and a few of their students, a reporter for DC's street paper (www.streetsense.org) and at least one man who wasn't homeless but wanted his single crime from 45 years ago expunged. This meeting had originally been scheduled for February 12th, but was postponed due to Snowmageddon. That might've been a good thing after all; because, many of the homeless who would've come in February as an excuse to get out of the cold didn't come to the March meeting and thus avoided the upset which those o...

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 ...

This blog post is a "CALL TO ACTION". Get involved in the ongoing effort to truly make housing a human right both in this nation and around the world. There is something for everyone to do. On January 28th and 29th of this year, about 40 people from all over the country met in New York City at the office of the Center for Constitutional Rights (http://ccrjustice.org/) to discuss doing vacant property takeovers across the nation throughout the month of May. The meeting was organized by Take Back The Land (http://www.takebacktheland.org/), an organization which has been successful in acquiring vacant property for use by homeless people and in preventing evictions in Miami, FL. Other organizers include Picture the Homeless (http://www.picturethehomeless.org/) of New York City, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI -- http://www.nesri.org/) and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP -- http://www.nlchp.org/). All of the aforemention...

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......

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 ...