Two Sides of the Street

"It would be less expensive in the long run to do it the right way," said Sister Mary Scullion, a longtime advocate for the homeless and cofounder of Project HOME, which provides housing and services to the homeless.

"Otherwise, it will be the same old thing, with the numbers going up and down."

Charlene and her bunker

The First Baptist Church sexton is worried about the woman in the bunker. With flurries in the morning, the afternoon temperature is falling fast.

By the makeshift shelter on Moravian Street, Lafayette Phillips kneels on the sidewalk and lifts a flap. "Hello? Hello?" he shouts into the darkness.

"I don't know where to begin to look for a person in here," he says.

Charlene lies on a mattress amid a jumble of blankets. Inside, it is dark, the air heavy and rank.

"What's your name?"

She looks up fleetingly and mumbles.

"What?" Phillips asks. "You don't feel like talking to me right now?"

He presses: "This isn't a good place to be building a house. You don't think it would be best if you went into a shelter?"

Nothing.

Phillips steps back. "Wow," he says, surveying the chaos. In just a day, the bunker has grown. It's now about eight feet long, four feet high, and as wide as the sidewalk. There are even more blankets, more plastic sheeting, more junk.

Phillips then checks on Monty, lifting up a blue tarp. He's not there.

Many mornings, the sexton will leave Monty a cup of coffee.

"What I don't want to see," Phillips says, "is lifting up the sheet and seeing someone deceased."

Two days later, Charlene has a seizure outside the Starbucks at 16th and Walnut.

Paramedics rush her to Pennsylvania Hospital for observation. She is later discharged to a shelter.

Days later, city workers come to Moravian Street with a truck and remove her bunker.