Apartment City

The more than three dozen people who live in tents under the Lake Shore Drive bridges at Wilson and Lawrence avenues know better than anyone that the structures need repair. Concrete from the Depression-era bridges is crumbling onto the sidewalks and streets below, posing a deadly hazard to tent-dwellers, as well as motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians. So it may seem strange that a homeless advocacy group might sue the city to stop bridge repairs before they start in mid-September. But attorneys for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless want to stop the city's plans to put bike paths on the wide sidewalks under the bridges, which the coalition said would permanently drive the homeless out. "If they put the bike paths in, we ain't going to have room for our tents," said Thomas Gordon, 58, who lives under the Lawrence bridge. The sidewalks can currently accommodate both tents and pedestrians — bike paths would cut the space. The dilemma highlights two local tren...

View Comments Local volunteers whip up healthy meals for Portland's 'houseless' -- along with a dollop of human connection If it weren't for Gales Creek farmer Lise Monahan and a bitterly cold night last winter, teens Katy Schlesser , Sarah Ornelas, and Heather Monahan wouldn 't have been beating eggs, grating cheese, and chopping parsley in the Forest Grove Senior and Community Center kitchen on a hot summer afternoon . Monahan was driving her organic goat dairy wares home from the Portland Farmer 's Market last January when she stopped at a traffic light and saw a few people sleeping outside. Huddled beneath sleeping bags under a doorway on the sidewalk, they had just cardboard between their bodies and the frozen ground. Remembering someone had frozen to death in Portland just days earlier, Monahan stopped to ask if she could give the sleepers a ride to a shelter. But when she called to find which shelters were available, she learned they were all ful...