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We are at the Homeless Memorial Vigil at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. Could you tell us your name? Eric Sheptock.

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Hi, Eric. Would you mind telling us what you think the biggest causes of homelessness are in DC? Well I think that the list hasn't really changed at all over the years.

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First is lack of affordable housing. Second is lack of a living wage job. Of course, they kind of go together because your income determines whether or not the housing is affordable.

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So those two together are the leading cause. And then of course there's lack of affordable health care which causes the person to have to choose between paying for their health care and medications or paying for their housing, making

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those sorts of tough choices. And then I know that domestic violence is also a major cause. More often than not, it's the

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woman who is the victim and who has to run from a violent man, and that leads to homelessness. And then untreated mental illness can cause people to make really bad choices that cause them to be

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homeless. Thank you, thank you. What do you think are the most critical issues to work on in the movement to end homelessness? Well, I think that the city has

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really stepped up in terms of helping the disabled, mentally physically disabled, but they've really tried to ignore able-bodied people who can work and who want to work and pay rent and hold their own.

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And it's just my suspicion that they feel like if they were to make housing affordable for all able-bodied workers, including those who make minimum wage, that then they'd have a massive influx of able-bodied people who want

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that affordable housing, some of whom used to live in D.C. And want to return. If you could get 50 people to join in with you on any kind of action, What would that action be to end

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homelessness? Ooh-wee. Well, I guess I would want to have an action where we pressure the mayor and the council into confronting landlords, taking away some of their freedoms that they have to basically run roughshod

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over the city and create unaffordable housing and just kind of force them to bring the rent down. Don't just stop the rent from going up if it's already too high. We need to actually force it down and make them justify their

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expenses and make some sort of rule where maybe they can't go more than 5% higher than the calculated cost of providing that housing. Excellent.

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If we, if, for you, what would a better world look like? Well, I'll sound a little bit repetitive here, but all able-bodied people would, number one, have jobs. And number two, they'd be able to afford all of their necessities.

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I mean, let's remember that they talk about many people being unmarketable, unemployable, but during slavery there was 100% employment rate for black people, you know. So I think we can get there again, but without the slavery element.

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And so all people who can work would have jobs and be able to afford what they need. And all people who can't work would be taken care of, not ignored, not left on the street.

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But then I guess that also kind of goes to another issue, which is people's rights, because people who are mentally ill, severely mentally ill, they make bad choices, choices to stay outside even when they don't need to, and to me that's not a choice because

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if you're not thinking clearly, then whatever choices you make that are, you know, unconventional and unusal are not really choices because they're coming from your mental illness.So anyway, there you have it.

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Thank you. Okay, one last question. Is there, today's, we're at the memorial vigil, homeless memorial vigil.

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Is there anybody you'd like to remember tonight? I actually have not received word of somebody that I know that died within the past 12 months. The way that the list is made,

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they used initials rather than full names, which is unusual to me. My first time seeing it done that way.

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So I don't even know who it is that passed away. I do know there are some people that I have tried to contact in the last few months that I've not

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been able to contact, and I don't know if they have passed on. So of the people that I know that have passed on in previous years, there are a number of different advocates that I would say, I wish were still here.

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Rita Samuels, let me see, a man named, oh, I'm trying to think of his name. I can think of his face. I know his last name was Carlisle,

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but anyway. Yeah, and I actually had the honor and privilege of knowing Terry Huff, who used to be a professional singer.

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And he was best known for a song, I Destroyed Your Love for Me. And so those are people I would like to remember.

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And I wish that I actually knew of all the people who I was acquainted with that have passed away. But unfortunately what happens is

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that a lot of times you don't find out about the person's death until this memorial because we really don't have a system for letting people know when their fellow homeless person has passed away. If they pass away in May, June, July, we don't find out until

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December. Thank you. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us tonight? Yes, I would say this, that I've been really hard on city officials

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over the years, and I do like to give credit where credit is due. And it's unusual for me to compliment the government, but I do think that they have made some strides in terms of bringing down the numbers of homeless people, but I I do wish that that they

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would do things even faster than they do now and I do wish that we didn't have to wait until an able-bodied person becomes disabled through years of homelessness and mental and physical stress and so forth until they move on to the disabled list

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and then they get housing. I wish D.C. were affordable to anyone and everyone. Thank you very much.

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Appreciate it. Alright, thank you.