WHAT I HEAR ON THE STREETS AND SEE WITH MY EYES=> Why Some Homeless Choose Rough-Sleeping to Life in a 'Shelter'

 I live in a shelter as homeless person; I HAVE briefly needed to do 'rough sleeping' only when refused (as transgender female) bedding in shelters that variously DO take the transF folks (names already heretorfore mentioned in this blog, need not then repeat I think). I ask-around to get a gut-level view of what 'the public' and the homeless themselves regard as the prime or central motivation for this 'camping' as I have striven to call this kind of domicile; in this as well my own impressions as forced participant-observer in Louisville homelessness adds timbre and hue to the surmise I have gotten about these matters of 'having not where to lay one's head' even as homeless Jesus said.

As with a lot of 'news' that does not appear in print or electronic media, I happen to use taxicabs for transit, in small part to see how the 'cabbie's view' of this condition frames an attitude not so publicized. I have polled about 8 cab drivers on these matters, and can round out what seems to be a multi-dimensional attitude to 'camping.' As I do not per se rely on cabbies to give me such attitudinal reports, I also 'sound out' attitudes that show in people on-the-street, and too the 'experts' on these matters doing professional outreach with the homeless.

In the main, the prevailing view among these 'drivers on the streets' of Louisville is that THEY HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THE NUMBER OF UNSHELTERED HOMELESS HEREABOUTS, notably from cabbies for instance who are from out-of-town and yes far-out-of-town. Many of these drivers are from Africa, and from Latin America, and one to whom I spoke was from Connecticut. . .THE SHOCK VALUE TO THOSE OUTSIDE-ORIGINATED DOES SUGGEST TO ME THAT HERE AS THE DEPICTIONS ILLUSTRATE, SOME STRANGE AND ANOMALOUS VISAGE AS SEEING TENTS AND CAMP-LITTER ALL OVER THE INNER CITY, ESPECIALLY RIGHT DOWNTOWN UNDERPASSES AND THE BRIDGES

IS WHAT IN OBSTETRIC AND ANCIENT TERMS LIKEN-ABLE TO 

TERATOLOGY  (DEFORMITY SUGGESTING THE WRATH OF ANGRY GODS).

The WHY for rough-sleeping according to these mobile observers of life in Louisville goes according to attitude-telling socio-political frames of reference: the mindset of the majority of the ones this-close-to-the-streets themselves is that CAMPERS HAVE NO CHOICE but to sleep-out, but one driver from about four days ago thought that these rough sleepers simply have moved into Louisville because it is more-Camper-friendly, and that the rough sleepers "always have a Check (presumably from Social Security)" which money is used to sustain drug-dependency of the illegal-sort.

Another factor is voiced, to which I can vouch some agreement=> Shelters for the homeless are not easy for domicile=> both seem to proffer overlord staff who wannabe like 'drill instructors' as well as the necessary association one must make with people whose homelessness derives from conditions-characterological which almost beg a response "You are homeless because you cannot do other than 'foul the nest' of the places in which you have been staying." Theft and fighting-- sometimes physical-- are ever just-barely-beneath the surface interaction. One must FORBEAR much that would in these provocateurs START FECES (if I may use just tiny fig-leaf-type euphemism to this point).

Camp-life may be more-free than living as I do, albeit I do not want the risk for myself that goes with such freedom. For some people, there may be an almost masochistic preference for sleeping under the roof of an overpass or the sky. I CERTAINLY DO THINK IN ALL THIS THAT THE 'TERATOLOGY' OF CAMPING REVEALS A DEEPER SOCIAL PATHOLOGY, A STANCE OF SO-WHAT IN THE FACE OF ARBITRARY/CAPRICIOUS LORDS OF LAND OF SUNDRY TYPES, AND A 'CUSSED' TENDENCY AS WITH MILTON'S SATAN IN PARADISE LOST, TO WISH TO

RULE IN HELL RATHER THAN SERVE HELLISHLY IN THE ?HEAVEN? OF HOMELESS SHELTERS.