If churches, buildings, any business wants to offer their premises to the most vulnerable people in our community during times of extreme weather, I don’t understand what the problem is.
Rep. Morgan McGarvey speaks at ‘Housing Not Handcuffs’ rally
Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., spoke in Louisville in April 2024 in response to the US Supreme Court hearing Johnson v. Grants Pass, which will weigh banning homeless people from sleeping outside.
- Louisville’s ongoing homelessness issue and lack of effective action is frustrating.
- Homeless individuals face challenges securing a shelter bed, such as transportation and timing, especially during extreme weather.
I just finished reading the article regarding the homeless shelters’ emergency ordinance. Every time I see this particular topic come up, it never fails to infuriate me. Homelessness and the lack of shelters in this city have been an ongoing problem for years. Years! And nothing is done about it. This issue should have been addressed and taken care of years ago, but here we still are, tripping over opinions and red tape and dumb comments from the council people of this city.
Scott Reed wants to make sure that there are permits in place to prevent what he calls bad actors from opening up an emergency tent to help the homeless people in our community? Are you kidding me? There are people in this city who actually want and are trying to do something about it and then you have people like Scott Reed trying to stop it.
You know, I found myself homeless about two years ago for the first time in my life. I was fortunate I had a car, whereas, most people who are homeless do not. I was in my car for two weeks because I could not find a shelter anywhere in this city that had a bed available for a single female without addiction issues or in a domestic violence situation. It was ridiculous.
Getting into a shelter on a good day is hard. It’s worse during extreme weather.
Like I mentioned above, I was fortunate enough to have a car to not only sleep in, but to get myself around in to get to the shelters to find out if they had beds available. Because, as I quickly learned, you had to contact the coalition for the homeless before 2 p.m. to find out if there were beds, and then they didn’t even hold the bed for you. You had to show up at the shelter to claim it. How are people are supposed to get there without transportation? Or by the time they’re able to get there they don’t have a bed available because it took them too long? It’s crazy.
The only reason I ended up with the bed was because I finally went to Southeast Christian and they got me a bed down at Wayside where I was for six months between November 2023 till June of 2024. Had it not been for them, I don’t know when I would have gotten a bed. During the winter months, we were wall to wall, people sleeping on the floor, kids sleeping on the floor because Wayside and Salvation Army are the only two shelters who had emergencies service shelters during times of extreme weather. If churches, buildings, any business wants to offer their premises to the most vulnerable people in our community during times of extreme weather, I don’t understand what the problem is.
If they’re on the street, they want to arrest them and put them in jail. If they’re in tents on the streets, they just want to scoop them up, dispose of their belongings and make them go where? What are they supposed to do? The city isn’t providing solutions; they’re creating additional barriers, making it harder for homeless people, and it’s already an extremely difficult situation.
Tracy Sunley is a 49-year-old Louisville native. She has five kids and one grandbaby. Sunley currently works as a UAV diagnostic and repair technician. She wants to utilize what she’s learned from her life experiences to create better ones for the people in her community.
