Features:
- Indoor plumbing
- Built in Kitchen
- Access to laundry
- Indoor gym
- Bedding provided
Rates negotiable *
Where I live, housing is getting past what any regular person can afford. Any dry space, that you can fling a mattress down, is appealing.
Its heartbreaking to see folks living in doorways, under bridges, in their cars, in broken down motor homes… but they are surviving, they will not die.
There was this man – a while ago now – who was living in his truck… on a back lot of a local grocery store. The whole community, however, walked by him on their way to and from . . . their lives. I’m not sure if he chose it so that he’d feel safe, but placing myself in his shoes, I wonder.
The trouble with some secluded place, is that there’s nobody there to help you, when you are in distress. It turns out, this fellow was going to and from work, so he left his mobile home – it was a pick-up truck with a canopy, he slept sitting up at the wheel – he left it by itself… so if it was in some secluded place, it’d be vulnerable, and his possessions with it. When he’s vulnerable, fast asleep there, if nobody is close at hand.
And then there’s all of us here. Complicit in what happened. For one afternoon, we who live next door in our housing complex, heard yelling, at first I couldn’t make it out what was being said. But it was rhythmic like a chant; like a toddler who’d dug in, and would have his way.
“Give me back my truck!”
He stood there where his truck once was, loudly, chanting, over and over again, at intervals…
“Give me back my truck!”
“Give me back my truck!”
“Give me back my truck!”
“Give me back my truck!”
Eventually police were called, and he was taken away.
I wish I was a nobody that day, and those days as I walked to and from the bus stop, the grocery store, the bank, the bakery… but I wasn’t.
Because nobody helped that man to find a better way, they just dropped the dime on him, in the cowardly darkness…
Yes, somebody reached out to snatch away the little he had. I’d like to think that he was given some help, and a better choice of place to live.
I realize it’s not the way it could be. No stone soup that day.
“Cut out the cancer, while its just a pollup…” that’s how it was that day.
Anxiety Fast forwarded to the imagined encampment, strength in numbers, all those that are of like station in life, left behind each day to care for the camp, so that none can could rob, steal and destroy. Tow Trucks can be hampered, police . . .
…mischief? Then there’s the real stuff. Where did he go pee? or worse? He’s peaceful, with a small footprint, barely noticeable, kept to himself, but the next and the next, in the parking spots beside him… soon there’d be less than desirables that would come. They would begin to push the envelope, there’d be discarded needles, live poo piles, shredded pizza boxes, barking dogs, mattresses, tents, salvaged nick nacks from nearby bins… heaped up by their home. Noise, at inconvenient times, then our path to and from our cozy lives, would be blocked, as they defended their territory, “halt who goes there!” Yes… cut out the cancer.
What’s happened here!?
I read old books. Resurrection, by Leo Tolstoy. He was a wealthy landowner’s son. Not like you and me know. A landlord. This is back in 1886. In motherland Russia. The folks who lived on his land didn’t own the land, and they didn’t even own the fruit they grew on it. He and his family lived in opulence. I wish I knew what opulence meant, I wish YOU knew what opulence meant, then you’d know that he didn’t reuse or launder his silk hanky’s. They were single use nose blowers, then discarded. There were maids, and servants, pearl handled brushes, and parties, and sleeping around. The idle rich. Fake hair, and fake problems, fake distresses as they devour one another. Picture money pouring in from one side, it looks like money, but if you peeled it, you’d see its made of the blood sweat and tears of little boys and girls, and their parents in squalor – and on the other side, through a drain, over there by the wall, the river flowed out, into the pockets of those who attach themselves to the rich. When Neckludoff had his life slammed up against a wall… but when I think about it, it was more like the awakening, that’s another Title for “Resurrection”
he woke up from the dream, the drunken stupor, to find his markings, and puss all around him. It shattered his opulence, I should go look up opulence, and he was confronted….
In Nekhludoff, as in all people, there were two beings; one spiritual, who sought only such happiness for himself as also benefited others; and the animal being, seeking his own happiness for the sake of which he is willing to sacrifice that of the world. During this period of his insane egotism, called forth by the life in the army and in St. Petersburg, the animal man dominated him and completely suppressed the spiritual man. But, seeing Katiousha, and being again imbued with the feelings he formerly experienced [Pg 55]toward her, the spiritual man raised his head and began to assert his rights. And during the two days preceding Easter an incessant struggle was going on within Nekhludoff of which he was quite unconscious.
What’s interesting is that this is the flashback.. of his innocence and his animal man inner man… drawing up the battle lines… for soon you’ll see who/what wins out… and the calamity of… the results of making those wrong decisions…
Something happens that shatters the whole paradigm… and Nekhludoff began to repent… in every area of his life… and repentance isn’t as easy as he thought…
its worth the read… here it is… again… but here read>
All the efforts of several hundred thousand people, crowded in a small space, to disfigure the land on which they lived; all the stone they covered it with to keep it barren; how so diligently every sprouting blade of grass was removed; all the smoke of coal and naphtha; all the cutting down of trees and driving off of cattle could not shut out the spring, even from the city. The sun was shedding its light; the grass, revivified, was blooming forth, where it was left uncut, not only on the greenswards of the boulevard, but between the flag-stones, and the birches, poplars and wild-berry trees were unfolding their viscous leaves; the limes were unfolding their buds; the daws, sparrows and pigeons were joyfully making their customary nests, and the flies were buzzing on the sun-warmed walls. Plants, birds, insects and children were equally joyful. Only men—grown-up men—continued cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. People saw nothing holy in this spring morning, in this beauty of God’s world—a gift to all living creatures—inclining to peace, good-will and love, but worshiped their own inventions for imposing their will on each other.
Running Down Vimy 