Thanks @big e - 2 days ago I walked into my local ALDI and there was an older woman sitting on the ground, reading a book, with a sign saying 'HOMELESS' and a collection something on the ground, which I didn't inspect it but gave her a $10 note and asked her about how come she was homeless - she said her landlord tossed her out, because she couldn't pay the rent - I think maybe alcoholic - but I believe - no-one in this wonderful country should be without a place to spend the night.
She was out there begging until she had enough to pay for a night at a youth hostel and she seemed remarkably calm about how she was managing her life.
@NoBoDe is not easy, but he is enthusiastic and he has many compensatory features; he was really happy here, just sitting outside on the back verandah and looking and observing the fairly natural landscape, which is an open lawn area with bush in the background - and he wouldn't eat at normal times, but do the midnight strike - . But he is interesting and often amusing, certainly non-compliant with 'normal' standards of any kind - he also has a generosity of spirit which I find attractive.
He loved driving my car - which i also love now, but it is historically doomed (Ford Falcon 2011 - not exactly a petrol guzzler, but big and impressive, but fun to drive - HOWEVER: I should save for an electric car)
Back to homelessness: I considered giving that woman a place to stay but i am very much my own person and wouldn't like having someone here for long and if 'alcoholic' that could turn into a nightmare.
We need to pressure our governments to provide cheap accommodation - maybe now, with the pandemic happening, some money could be utilised for the homeless??
My own country and especially the City of Vienna built hundreds of buildings for the 'workers' in the early 1920s - and they are still in existence, solidly built and are still very reasonable and roomy accommodation, because they were built to the then latest standards.
I grew up in such a place, however, it didn't have a shower, but a tiled kitchen area, which my Mum later re-organised to have a shower installed in it next to the stove, just partitioned off - before that we had to wash from a basin - inside - (in the old tenement buildings there was a collectively used water basin and one toilet per each floor, out on the common landing) - these flats (ours was 90 m2) had water inside and their own toilets and the rents were cheap. They also had large yards for children to play in, some grassed areas and ours had the most beautiful and big chestnut tree right in the middle - the original builders had built around this existing tree. These were ground-breaking innovations in the early part of the 20th century. The Communists built similar blocks of flats many years later in the Eastern bloc countries.
Memory lane . . . better concentrate on the here and now - so much still to do - a cake to bake - shopping . . .
Go well
Taurisk
