NEWSBYERIC SHEPTOCK

During his State of the Union Address on January 25th, President Obama stated that the federal budget should not be balanced on the backs of the nation's poorest, most vulnerable citizens.

But Congress doesn't seem to be heeding his advice.

One of the final acts of the 111th Congress was the issuance of a continuing resolution which mandated that all departments of the federal government be funded at their 2010 levels until March 4th, 2011. Now the 112th Congress has ordered the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to reduce all non-defense discretionary budgets to their 2008 levels, effective March 4th. If enacted, this could result in the loss of 750,000 units of HUD housing nationwide.

If the meal limit being imposed on the poor and homeless of Gainesville, FL is any indication, then it's our nation's city officials who are leading the charge against the poor and homeless.

City officials are actually validating the callous, uncaring attitudes of some of their entrepreneurial constituents who place value on human beings according to how much money they have. Adding insult to injury, in a recent conference call to plan direct actions for confronting the unjust Gainesville ordinance, a current resident of the city claims that local officials are now saying that St. Francis House (which has vehemently opposed this meal limit) actually requested the legislation!

Over the past eight months, I've written about mentally ill homeless people who received inadequate care and died, an 87-year old woman who became homeless due to a condo conversion and how the homeless get exploited while working as farm hands. But most of the situations described in those blog posts don't amount to direct and deliberate mistreatment of the homeless by our public officials. It would seem that our society has sunken to a new low.

I've also written about actions being taken by local activists to encourage DC officials to create a sufficient amount of affordable housing, how the officials shut down the tent city, the harsh punishments for civil disobedience and Washington, DC's pending legislation that would require someone to be a DC resident in order to obtain homeless services. But the actions taken by the City of Gainesville literally "take the cake" when it comes to mistreating the poor.

The fear of many homeless advocates in our nation's capital just got one step closer to becoming reality.

For the second time, the DC Council voted to require those seeking shelter to provide proof of DC residency. If congress doesn't vote the bill down this month, it will become law and go into effect shortly thereafter.

Low-barrier shelters, as well as victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and human trafficking, are exempt from the new law.

But many are up in arms about the new act, and for good reason.

The law was designed to ensure that homeless families from DC were sheltered before families that come from elsewhere - sometimes having been sent by city officials in Maryland and Virginia. There are also accusations that Maryland and Virginia are denying services to homeless people from DC even as they send their homeless to the capital.

But at the hearing, a number of homeless advocates were visibly upset and pointed out that the bill is hurting the very people that it is designed to protect. An employee of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless led the charge as they told Councilman Tommy Wells and others that families who were actually from Washington, DC were being denied shelter.

I was recently profiled in the Washington Post for using the Internet and social media like Facebook and Twitter to advocate for Washington, DC's homeless community. It has brought out the best and worst in people.

On the one hand, the article has gone viral. It's been translated and published in France,  Italy, Brazil, and in Argentina -- just to name a few. It's landed me interviews with the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Voice of America. I've received support from and made new connections with people from all over the world. And I've entered into a new business venture with some of them.

On the other hand, there is no shortage of people who have negative things to say about what I do. And at least two of them have seen fit to write on-line articles disparaging my online homeless advocacy, in effect giving me another reason to stay online -- so that I can respond to their articles. As this debate plays itself out, there are those who suggest that I work for a non-profit or that I simply get any job at all so that I can contribute to the taxes that are used to pay for social programs that help the homeless.

Fact of the matter is that I actually do work pro bono with a non-profit and I won't accept any job that would compromise my ability to advocate for Washington, D.C.'s homeless (who, since seeing me in the paper, have been thanking me by the scores for what I do).

I lived in Gainesville, Florida from May 1988 until February 1994 while working at Shands Hospital. I then returned in August of 2004 as a homeless man and would remain until July 2005, when I moved to Washington, D.C.

I had not yet become a homeless advocate during my time in Gainesville, though I was involved in a protest against the city's plan to begin closing the public bathrooms in the downtown bus plaza at 5 PM rather than the usual 7 PM. (This was seen as a move against the homeless, many of whom congregate in the plaza, insomuch as they'd have to leave the plaza sooner for lack of a bathroom.)

I've been advocating for D.C.'s homeless since June 2006. During that time, I've gained many new insights into how public policies that affect the homeless are formulated. That said, I have begun to see how Gainesville, Florida treats its homeless population in a whole new light. When I read a recent article about the City of Gainesville limiting the number of meals that St. Francis House may serve the homeless in its soup kitchen, to 130 meals per day, I became acutely aware of the city's pattern of depending on the private sector to care for its needy. The article mentions 8-year old Mackenzie Case who testified before the city commission but was too shy to ask the pointed question at the end of her statements: "So, if I were number 131, you wouldn't feed me?"

Commissioner Randy Wells said, " There was nothing stopping her or others from helping the homeless and hungry." His statement brings back loads of memories and raises questions as to why the city has placed this limit on St. Francis House (where I've eaten).

As you can see, the Change.org website has undergone a few changes. "Homelessness" is no longer its own category, but has now been folded into "Poverty in America." This makes plenty of sense insomuch as the homeless are the poorest of the poor, though the fact remains that some people are homeless for reasons that have little or nothing to do with poverty -- reasons such as mental illness or domestic violence. But poverty and homelessness share yet another similarity in that they both seem to be intractable problems.

The local government in Washington, D.C. -- the capital of one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations on Earth -- has made some rather ambitious efforts to end both homelessness and poverty over the past few years. And they've failed. The 10-year plan to end homelessness (pdf) was adopted in December 2004 with the goal of ending homelessness in D.C. by December 2014. The plan called for the creation of 2,500 units of Permanent Supportive Housing and a net increase of 3,500 units of affordable housing. Over 1,100 units of PSH have been created while the city has lost thousands of units of affordable housing. And, in spite of the creation of PSH, the number of homeless people in the city continues to increase. In January 2008 Councilman Marion Barry began a Poverty Commission that was supposed to find ways of eradicating poverty. (I don't know what has come of that and can't find much about it on the web, though I attended the inaugural meeting.)

On December 10th, 2008 the D.C. Council declared Washington, D.C. to be the first human rights city in the nation. Sadly, the Council still has not taken any steps beyond that to enforce any human rights, least of all the human right to housing.

One of my first posts here was about the human right to housing and focused on the 2009 visit by U.N. Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing Raquel Rolnik to the United States. At the time, her recommendation to put a moratorium on all foreclosures was ignored by leaders in the U.S. Recent developments have made it even more necessary to issue a moratorium on foreclosures and to recognize housing as a human right — to "decommodify" housing so that it is no longer seen as a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, but rather as a necessity that should be afforded to everyone. So I've decided to revisit the issue.

Since I first wrote, three large lenders — Bank of America, GMAC and J.P. Morgan Chase — have been found guilty of improperly processing tens of thousands of foreclosures. Even though Bank of America was among the companies that got bailed out by taxpayers, BoA executives demand their money from private citizens. This serves to reinforce the notion that corporations, instead of common citizens, have all of the rights in this nation. Fortunately for some, there have been several sheriffs across the country who have refused to evict "good people who fell on hard times" from their homes.

The homeless are often targets of hate crimes. They are regularly told by cops to move along. They are unwelcome guests at some public places like libraries. They are sometimes even prevented from "loitering" in front of the shelter where they live. They are an underprivileged class that many people love to hate. But it really takes the cake when the government of the wealthiest nation on earth is pushing the homeless around.

What's more is that viable solutions to homelessness are often just beyond reach due to NIMBY-ism — for instance, renters not wanting the government to house the homeless in their apartment complex — and by a solution working too well.

In my previous post I mentioned that homeless people from Silver Spring, Maryland were being sent to Washington, D.C. to receive homeless services and that D.C. officials were pushing back by trying to require that those seeking shelter in the District prove residency. Then there is the case of Mayor Michael Bloomberg giving many homeless people one-way tickets out of New York. I was truly appalled to hear from another homeless advocate that many of the homeless are sent to Alaska without coats. This is so inhumane that it should be considered a crime.

During the recently-concluded election season, Mayor-elect Vincent Gray was asked about the prospect of housing all D.C. residents. He responded by referring to a housing program in Paris that was so good that the homeless came from other parts of France in order to be housed. Gray said that he didn't want to draw homeless people from other parts of the country, due to the strain that it would put on the city's budget.

Well, Washington, D.C. will soon join the ranks of cities who like to make the homeless someone else's problem.

Local government, trying to mitigate a $175 million budget shortfall, has determined that about 10 percent of those who apply for shelter and other homeless services in the city are from elsewhere — and officials want them to go back to "elsewhere."

People from neighboring Prince George's County have been known to come to D.C. looking for shelter, in some cases claiming to have been sent by service providers in Silver Spring, Maryland. In response, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells introduced legislation that would require all people seeking homeless services in the District to produce city identification. He later withdrew it in an effort to avoid creating any unintended consequences.

Washington, D.C. gave the homeless a "right to overnight shelter" in 1984 and rescinded it in 1990, due to the financial burden that it put on the city. (This is reminiscent of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent claim that he was saving taxpayers money by sending New York's homeless elsewhere.) Now homeless Washingtonians only have a right to shelter if the temperature is 32 and below or 95 and above.

However, D.C.'s "low-barrier" shelters have traditionally allowed people to enter without showing identification and even allowed them to give a false name. Those who are on the lam, undocumented or avoiding family need not worry about having the police called, so long as they don't commit any new crimes while in the shelter. The same is true for those who enter the shelter drunk or high. The city has, in effect, removed all barriers to entry in an effort to encourage people who might otherwise stay outside and freeze to come in, thus saving their lives. Tell D.C. to provide winter shelter to people in need!

Last winter, with a record 55 inches of snow, was a harsh one for Washington, D.C. The city's homeless outreach quite understandably was unable to reach and assist many of the street homeless in their time of crisis, as roads became impassible and all above-ground metro service was halted. The city was literally shut down.

D.C. Central Kitchen, which provides food to all city shelters, was unable to deliver some of the meals, causing those without money to go hungry or go to the park in hopes of being fed by church groups and other do-gooders. Those with money had to fight their way through knee-deep snow to buy a meal at McDonald's. Many people could do little more than sit around for days on end, as they waited for their streets to be plowed and life to return to normal. With last winter having been a "perfect storm" of troubles for D.C.'s homeless, this hypothermia season is shaping up to become more of the same.

While the severity of last winter may have been unpredictable, local government was given fair warning, despite some people's statements to the contrary. In July 2009 dozens testified in front of a city councilman about the shortage of shelter and the fact that many shelters were at or near capacity in mid-summer, creating grave concern about how the city would deal with the spike in shelter usage that always occurs in winter. During that hearing a video was shown in which various homeless people described their need for shelter. The last interviewee had died in June — just three days after being videotaped.

During a post-winter hearing, D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells, who oversees the Department of Human Services, seemed appalled by reports of over 200 families being crowded into a shelter that was made to accommodate only 135 and of male employees having sex with female residents. During that same hearing, he addressed news reports of a shelter employee arrested for dealing drugs at the shelter. Councilman Wells maintained that there was sufficient shelter for single men and women, but said that we needed more shelter for families. The city admits that it still lacks sufficient shelter for families, which leaves one to wonder why Wells and his colleagues still haven't fixed a problem which they became aware of 15 months ago.