BY CHRISTOPHER HARRISON ELDRIDGE
Violet Barnes exemplifies the wide range of people who spend time panhandling in an effort to make ends meet. She lives with her daughter not far from the Lake and Hiawatha intersection, having moved to the cities from South Dakota with her family in hope of better prospects. “Today’s been slow, and cold.” She sits at the edge of the highway onramp and tries to make whatever she can to bring home to her daughter.
“I’m just trying to stay warm, man.” We were standing in the rain at the mouth of an overpass where Martin and many like him hope to find charity in the rush hour traffic. Martin lives under the bridge at Franklin and Cedar, but won’t be there for long. “I’ll be leaving in a week or so, somewhere south, Miami, maybe … I’ve been in the penitentiary five times, so I can’t get an apartment … I don’t go to the shelters, I can’t be around big groups of people anymore.”
Every morning at 9 Steve Brown makes his way down Hiawatha to the intersection with Lake Street, not 50 yards away from Violet, where he maneuvers his wheelchair up onto the median. “It probably sounds funny, but I’m a better man now,” Steve explains with a smile as a passing driver hands him a dollar. “If I met those guys that did it again now, I’d shake their hand.”
They are just big enough for 2 people and could be parked in a lot nearby when not in use..
the cities should build some tiny houses on the stadium fields and take down when a game is being plated and then put back up. i am not trying to be funny . the stadium owners and politicians need to look at themselves in the mirrow.
I put this idea on FB and someone answered that they could get these tiny houses on wheels and roll them off when there is a game. If people could put their minds together they could come up w.some creative ideas to house the homeless.