BROWNSVILLE STREET PEOPLE PREPARE TO FACE ANOTHER DAY

 (Ed.'s Note: While most of us are brewing the morning cup of java to get going, these street people meet the day in Washington Park where they probably slept. The closest homeless shelter is miles away, on Minnesota Road, which is distant from stores, transportation, etc., Brownsville has had ample opportunities to fund a shelter closer to downtown but has steadfastly refused to establish one closer to town and the amenities.

As a result, the homeless are forced to perform their bodily functions between dumpsters in the alleys and to procure drinking water where they can find it. With the city pouring millions into buildings in the city's inner core, it in incongruous for visitors to see these wandering people sleeping where they can, from doorways of empty stores, or under oleanders along the alleys where they can find shelter.

Russian writer Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn once said that you cannot impress upon a man drinking a hot cup of coffee inside a warm house looking out at  a snowstorm how cold it is for someone out in the gale and storm who has no shelter. That seems to be the case of the situation for the homeless in Brownsville.)