In the Shadows – The Flood Beneath the Freeway

“When it rains, it rots,” Luis tells us, gesturing toward the piles of soaked clothing and cardboard beneath the overpass where he lives with his two daughters. It’s been their shelter for 14 months.

This is not a story about failure. This is a story about systems. About a working father juggling three jobs in a gig economy that pays less than the cost of staying alive.

In this piece, we explore the quiet resilience of a makeshift community under I-94 in Detroit, where families share meals, watch each other’s children, and fight every day to stay visible—without being seen.

We also trace the red tape that prevents access to housing subsidies, how blanket “anti-camping” laws criminalize survival, and why the narrative of “just get a job” is one of the cruelest lies in modern policy.