“It’s life-altering; it’s life-changing,” Neal said. “It’s psychological warfare within one’s own self to be able to find any kind of peace or rest with horns honking, sirens wailing, the firing of weapons or the loud banging of construction or people arguing … dismay all around you and you don’t have nothing to shelter you from that.”

Around Thanksgiving, he got a housing voucher to move in to Louisville’s Arthur Street Hotel. He said it was an adjustment at first because he was so used to sleeping on the streets. 

“Like an astronaut, I had to be debriefed physically, mentally and psychologically before my psychological tribulation allowed me to actually understand that, ‘Hey, you’re not in the streets no more.’” Neal said.

Neal is one of hundreds who have been moved off the streets into permanent housing by the Arthur Street Hotel since it opened around Oct. 2022. The hotel provides temporary housing for Louisville’s homeless population.