Kraig Kalka and Ken Brown, neighborhood officers in the central police district, rolled slowly down State Street on Wednesday looking for anyone who might be homeless.
But State Street, normally bustling with students and pedestrians on a Wednesday afternoon, was a ghost town of mostly shuttered restaurants and stores. On a normal winter day, Kalka and Brown see about a dozen homeless individuals. On Wednesday, as temperatures plunged below 20 degrees with wind chills in the negative 40s, they saw none.
“The collaboration that has happened in the last couple of years between the city, all entities: The Beacon, First United Methodist, Friends of State Street and everybody, that stuff is working,†Kalka said. “Our folks are somewhere right now. They’re somewhere warm.â€