12/15/20 Why Do The Homeless Live By The Roads?

     I am starting to wonder if the homeless people living in tents by the roads are being paid by somebody, it just doesn't make sense to me.  Why are they doing this embarrassing feat where everybody can see them?  Why not have a quiet dignity and set up camp in a wooded lot away from all the mayhem and noise from the roads?  I understand hard times and living in a tent has to be better than no shelter at all, I am sure some bleeding heart thought to give some of these people tents and it instantly became the de facto homeless temporary solution, all that I get and has a logical progression to it.

    What I don't understand the more I see of this, is why do they have to set up underneath turnarounds, why are they congregated under where roads fly above?  A lot of these tent villages are just along the bigger roads, like Ben White here in Austin.  The biggest problem to me would be the noise.  We live in a big community and the big road is a good half a mile away, but every time some asshole in a motorcycle does his vroom vroom show off asshole-ness mess, it vibrates through the house.  I cannot imagine trying to sleep or rest under those turnarounds, for example.  Almost every time I go through the one at Ben White and Pleasant Valley to get to work, one of the vehicles running along with me has a louder than normal muffler.  That would shake me to my core, to have to sustain that every five minutes, that tent material isn't insulating any noise, even with the best noise cancelling headphones I think you would be screwed and those people aren't putting on Bose headphones and lying on foam memory beds.

    I keep thinking a better solution at least than tents would be taking an old storage place with hundreds of 10x10 storage rooms and making them temporary apartments.  I know it sounds inhumane, but it is a step up from a tent, it would give them solid walls for protection, the city is already providing port a potties, just add the portable shower stations and an outlet or two to the storage places so they can connect a TV or charging station for their phones.  At the very least, it would remove them from the dangers of living on the side of the road which has to have a certain danger from reckless drivers.  I hate to see the homeless, and a lot of them seem too young to have given up on life, whether because they can't afford a real place or because of drugs.  If they were all focused in a place like an old storage place, services could be brought to them more easily, I know shelters exist, but some of these people want to live by their own rules, they don't want to be locked up at 8:00pm or whatever, having a door to the outside would give them the freedom to come and go, yet their stuff could be locked up and protected if they dared to actually go out and try to work to better themselves.