LOUISVILLE, KY (AP) - Political activity has slowed and food donations have declined, but nearly 20 protesters remain camped at the home base for the Occupy Louisville protest.
Despite a dwindling presence at a downtown park at Fifth Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard, the occupation in its fifth month still has meaning for many of the remaining protestors.
"I was never political. . Now I have a voice," David Barfield, a 52-year-old former telemarketer and waiter told The Courier-Journal. "I used to think nothing could change; now I feel it can. . People need to see us here."
The camp, with 18 plywood-floor tents and a few picnic tables has also become a destination for some chronically or temporarily homeless. Some of them are drawn by political advocacy, others by the electricity, donated food and warm tents.
Barfield is homeless himself and acknowledges that most of the remaining Occupy campers are too.
But they bristle at the idea that being homeless makes them illegitimate activists. They are proud of being on-site representatives of a local movement.
"We need a physical presence. It's the only everyday direct action there is. Some of us have a place we could go," such as relatives' homes, said camper Curtis Huffines, 42, who became homeless last year.
Many other encampments around the country have been diminished by time and the cold of winter, and in the past several weeks, police in cities such as Washington, D.C., and Oakland, Calif., have moved to evict campers. In New York's Zuccotti Park, once the center of the Occupy Wall Street movement, there's only a symbolic presence after protestors were evicted in November.
In Louisville, fears that officials would move to evict demonstrators led the group to seek a legal injunction that landed in federal court. But that was put on hold after the city recently granted a camping permit for up to 70 protesters through March 31. It required the group to put up $500 for electricity at the site.
Some members of the Louisville occupy movement have stopped staying overnight but continue to push for political change. Many group members meet weekly at the downtown library for a "general assembly" - where discussions range from upcoming protests to camp logistics.
Jesse Garrido said he got into political activism battling mountaintop mining and other causes living in Lexington, and when he came to Louisville, he was thrilled to read about the local Occupy movement.
"It was perfectly in line with the stuff I'd been spouting on Facebook for the last few years," Garrido, 33, said.
He stayed at the Louisville camp for about six weeks, he said, before becoming frustrated by the endless meetings and the implications of holding a physical space.
"We were spending all our time on infrastructure - who is going to do the dishes - the larger issues were getting lost in the minutiae of day-to-day camp life."
Some other members are questioning whether a full-time camp is necessary to maintain.
"When it started, it was a 24/7 movement. . (but) when they realized there's nothing you can do overnight about how to run society on a grand scale, a lot of them went home," said Occupy member Robin Cook, a 38-year-old University of Louisville employee.
"If there were more people making that statement by living there, I'd be a thousand percent behind the camp," Cook said.
But "I don't see losing the camp as a danger to the movement."
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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