Did You Know Cornelius Taylor?

Cornelius Taylor was a regular human being who was killed on 16 January 2025 in Atlanta. His cause of death was blunt force trauma to his chest and pelvis, per the Fulton County Medical Examiner. He was killed by a city truck that was clearing the encampment that Mr. Taylor called home, while asleep in his tent. No one had checked. Source.

Cornelius Taylor is dead because too many politicians, along with SCOTUS, and lots of regular folks, made it illegal to sleep in public.

Recently, I was asleep in public. The circumstances were very different, but even if there were police around, it’s like 99% certain that they would not have arrested me, fined me, nor done anything untoward. I had to have a medical procedure, and after, thought I could walk to the car. But as soon as we came outside, I realized I couldn’t. In front of the building is a wide brick planter, on which I sat down. While my husband went to get the car, I flopped over, asleep. Maybe passed out, but definitely not awake. Had there been a police car in the area, they would have looked at me, a well-dressed, white senior citizen, and thought it was a medical problem. Had they opened my purse, they would have found ID, money, credit cards, car registration. They would either have called an ambulance, or, since this was a free-standing medical facility, gone inside to find someone to render aid. In my case, my husband put me in the car and we came home. Yes, I fully understand the privilege I have.

As you know, there are two systems of EVERYTHING - one for the haves, one for the have-nots. And yes, potentially a third for the untouchables because they’re so very rich, or got the Supremes to say they could never be convicted of a crime, so they can do anything.

I read about Mr. Taylor, and others who were killed in similar situations, and both sadness and anger overwhelmed me. More info.

When I think about what people are opposed to relative to the fascist regime, it’s all about “us” and “me”. **I** lost my government job. **My kids** are impacted by a lack of a federally-funded IEP. **My family** needs SNAP, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, CHIP, Head Start.

One of the problems is that too many people have forgotten about the moral imperative of WE THE PEOPLE.

Too many people, of all ages, view homeless people, and poor people, as sub-human: hinderances, problems, unworthy. Too many people don’t consider that a job loss, followed by a serious illness, could put themselves and their families in the same position. “It’s them, not us.”

And in certain ways, that’s how problems DON’T get solved. Because not enough people care about other people.

There are a set of proposals being floated to turn public lands over to developers for housing. And yes, there are too few housing options. Overall, there is a lack of 4 - 7 MILLION units nationwide (depending on whose stats you believe). One estimation. But if you look at the proposals, and dig in, they relate to building houses for people who can afford houses.

Building on Federal lands is generally dicey, because in many cases they are either very far from where jobs are, or very small plots in more urban areas. They tend to lack infrastructure (water, electricity, sewer, etc., not to mention roads) which someone has to pay to build, and this ends up precluding affordable housing.

BUT

There’s a good chance that if we thought outside the box, we could construct the kind of villages on some of those small parcels of land that could have saved Cornelius Taylor, had he been able to live there. In fact, I found 24 parcels of public vacant lands that could be used to construct tiny home villages if anyone was willing to use some tax dollars to fund them.

Think I’m nuts? Here is some information on tiny house villages for the homeless. If you scroll down the site, you can link to information and videos of successful projects. These projects have small footprints, and a lot of benefits. Thus, you wouldn’t need a huge amount of public land.

Where to put them? Here are the parcel locations I found: Mobile, AL, Nome, AK, Tucson, AZ, Lone Pine, CA, Clovis, CA, Canal Point, FL, Jeffersonville, IN, Buzzards Bay, MA, Columbia, MI, Browning, MT, Browning, MT, Helena, MT, Reno, NV (4 Parcels), Portsmouth, NH, Edison, NJ, Lyons, NJ, Bernardsville, NJ, Albuquerque, NM, Piketon, OH, Cordova, TN, Freer, TX.

How did I find these parcels? I used the FY23 Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) Public Dataset (updated 2024), downloaded the dataset, filtered for vacant lands, and then used the maps in my Rand-McNally Road Atlas.

Now, I’m one person. And I can’t check on whether any of those lands are SuperFund sites, or already committed to something else, or surrounded by NIMBY neighbors, or anything else that a cursory search wouldn’t uncover.

But it’s an idea. And it’s not a bad idea. ‘

Cornelius Taylor is dead because no one thought to check that there were no humans before the big truck crushed him. He was homeless because no one was able to build a house for him to live in. And his lifetime of sadness, missed opportunities, problems — that happens to millions of people. And no one seems to care enough.

You might look at the tiny house projects for the homeless and say “250 square feet!! That’s so tiny. No one would want to live there.” And I say: that’s a lot bigger than a tent, or the back of a car, or a park bench, and there’s a roof that doesn’t leak, heat in the winter, and indoor plumbing. And in a lot of those communities, it’s an opportunity to receive job training, mental health services, and other helpful programs.

Think it costs too much to save people that really need saving? Quixote Village, one of the villages in the link I put in above, had all-in costs of just over $ 3 million, including predevelopment costs, infrastructure improvements, building materials, and construction. It sits on 2 acres and houses 30 people.

Extending the 2017 tax cuts would cost $ 4.2 trillion dollars. There are one million millions in a trillion. I get confused with really large numbers, but I think $ 3 million is a tiny fraction of $ 4.2 trillion. (Correct me if your big number math is better than mine.)

I read about Cornelius Taylor and I can’t get my head around what we, as a country, have come to. I know intellectually that more homeless people will die: in accidents, of the Phoenix heat, from freezing to death in NYC, because no one cares about these human beings. I understand that more and more people will end up homeless because of what the fascist regime and Elmo and his Musketeers are doing. The one thing you can never do is get people to care.