'NO FRILLS HOUSING' UNDER A CO-OP FOR DOMICILE=> A 'SOMETIME DERBY-LIKE TIME' HERE/LOUISVILLE COULD BE 'MORE-PERFECT-UNION' T0 CONSTITUTE DECENT-LIVING FOR THE 'ROUGHLY SLEEPING'

Yesterday, I had the occasion to take a cab from the Louisville Free Public Library to the mission/shelter where I stay (St. Vincent de Paul [for 'men']); the driver for the cab by his accented speech suggested to me that he was/is from Africa. As I get conversations with cabbies to 'check the news' as many people say they do as well, I happened to ask him what he thought about

the great number of "campers" all about town. . .

He said he had never seen anything like it, which to me was telling-greatly, because of his origin from what likely was a Third-World country, and he spoke as well of his terror of the plight one might have by 'being without digigalized ID or money $,' and said to my concurrence of opinion that the "cops"/police in Louisville are NASTY, especially to his hue of complexion (Black).

The cabbie went on to say that he was aware that at "Derby Time" (the Kentucky Derby, first Saturdays in May unless disruption [as the C19 'plague']) or "Breeders' Cup" the City rounds up all the people on the streets and underpasses and puts them in a building (would this be a warehouse? . . . as suggested in my last blog entry here?)

My modest tip to the driver on arrival as SVP ($3) did not convey my peaked interest at what he said. IF     SOMETIMES    THE CITY OF LOUISVILLE CAN PUT THE HOMELESS UNDER THE SHELTER OF A (LARGE?) BUILDING, WHY WOULD THIS NOT BE OK ON AN 'UNDERSTOOD' BASIS IN A RATHER MORE SYSTEMATIC WAY, AS I MIGHT SUGGEST AS FOLLOWS. . .

Housing, I do believe from some experience, must in this Metro correspond to certain regulations; I think the matters under the purview of expectations of the Louisville Tenants' Union may not always exist/obtain, and it may be expected that the deepest-economy of rental fee would apply to such places below-regs. 

. . .There might be, however, or rather on another bifurcation, a provision for the homeless to say in a more-or-less cooperative living arrangement, yes  including an incorporated 'housing co-op' whose function would be as an consensual arrangement for domicile to say 'go-easy on frills' not specifically in violation of housing/building codes. . . I am uttering these ideas really in speculation, having awareness that 'waivers' for decent-but-ugly housing by these desperate humans may run counter to the living thrust-cultural for 'well groomed and air-conditioned comforts,' which seem to be a strong factor-- in addition to entrepreneurial desire to let out living spaces that bring-in-as-much-money-as-possible.

. . . This way of thinking here might suggest that a housing co-op for the homeless-- incorporating under Kentucky state law for $5, might tell its members that the living arrangements would be 'a work in progress,' with then a 'waiver' that all-frills beyond essentials not violative of 'The Codes' could be offered, in a process endeavoring for self-improvement of domicile as time-goes-on.

. . . Everywhere I go in the more-downtown part of Louisville I see what must be defunct shelter space, as I have mentioned including a huge number of industrial or warehouse type structures, and the most-common visage of 'upstairs-like flats' that could with some un-pretty accommodation be made into living-space for those of my present most-concern (the ones who like Jesus said, 'have not where to lay their head[s]').

It seem then so ABSURD that 'shelter' of this less-pretty sort is so availing, while at the same time rents are dollar$exorbitant and there are utterly living communities of homeless folk rough-sleeping under an open-sky, or not-much-less-roughly living in shelters/missions where the DI/drill-instructor mentality prevails, get-arse-outa-here at dawn, come but back at sunsetting time, and you dare not be a 'sissy'/trannie or do anything that with such ease could get the non-conforming ones sent back to camp-in-the-streets (and indeed some homeless folk prefer to sleep-rough-indeed in preference to the brash militarism of most missions/shelters for the homeless).

Co-Op, Rough-Sleepers! The Universal Declaration of Human Rights suggests that recourse to active and aggressive rebellion may be an option when humans are so-violated as in conditions now among the homeless in Louisville. . . I would suggest that REBELLION-VIOLENT would dysfunction/boomerang/self-implode on the ones I have called, generically, 'Rough Sleepers.' The will to cooperate is at least as strong and prevalent as any urge in humans to violence: let us unite toward union, not dys-union!