Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016

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Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com

IDS

IDENTITY INSIDE magazine on stands today

PHOTO BY FEYI ALUFOHAI

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Hoosiers to wrap up road trip in Texas By Josh Eastern jeastern@iu.edu | @JoshEastern

The road has been a mostly unkind place to the Hoosier women’s basketball team this season. Tuesday, IU finishes a stretch of five road games in six matchups, so far winning just two. Both wins were against sub-.500 teams. IU hasn’t yet been able to come away with a marquee win away from the friendly confines of Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. IU Coach Teri Moren and her team will get another shot to win a road game Tuesday when it travels to Denton, Texas, to face the North Texas Mean Green. “It’s really good for us because that’s what a lot of Big Ten play will be,” junior forward Amanda Cahill said. “On the road, having one-day turnarounds, needing to adjust quickly to different teams. It’s good for us.” IU, 4-3, has lost its last three away games away by an average of nearly 10 points. It was on opposite sides of comebacks but couldn’t get it done either time. IU nearly came back at North Carolina State and blew a 17-point fourth-quarter lead at Auburn. This is the schedule Moren said she wanted, however.

“It’s really good for us because that’s what a lot of Big Ten play will be. On the road, having one-day turnarounds, needing to adjust quickly to different teams. It’s good for us.” Amanda Cahill, junior forward

On Tuesday, IU will have another shot at a sub-.500 team, and will look for a chance to get things back on track before returning home Thursday for a three-game home stand. The Mean Green, 2-5, have lost their last two games and will also be looking to get back on track when the Hoosiers enter the Super Pit on Tuesday. The Hoosiers are coming off a performance Thursday in which junior guard Tyra Buss scored 38 points and the team went on a 15-0 run yet couldn’t complete that comeback. Road games can be tough on teams, and IU freshman Bre Wickware said they require a bit of a different focus. “You stay in a hotel, so you don’t do your normal home routine,” Wickware said. “Between shootarounds, you have to stay focused on yourself. I think the seniors help with that.” IU has yet to put it all together in a road game this season, and there seems to have been one stat each game that has doomed them. Whether it’s free throws, turnovers, rebounding or field goal percentage, IU hasn’t been able to put together a complete game on the road. The Chattanooga win was the closest, but IU was still out-rebounded and shot just 60 percent on free throws. Against the Mean Green, the Hoosiers should have the advantage. IU averages nearly 18 more points per game and has three players averaging in double figures compared to just one for North Texas. IU assistant coach Rhet Wierzba stressed after the game at NC State the importance of playing with high energy from the opening tip. That lesson, if learned, will serve the Hoosiers well in the future. “It’s really good for us since we’ve played really good teams so far at the beginning of the season,” IU senior guard Karlee McBride said. “It’s definitely preparing us for Big Ten play and the NCAA Tournament.” Women’s Basketball, page 9 Freshman Bre Wickware is going back to her hometown of Denton, Texas, to play the Mean Green.

VICTOR GRÖSSLING | IDS

A transient Bloomington man leans against a newly painted mural in Peoples Park on Kirkwood Avenue. The artwork was created in wake of the "Keep the People in Peoples Park" demonstration and is symbolic of an ongoing struggle for coexistance.

FROM SUNDOWN

TO SUNRISE Bloomington homeless community lives life in a different reality. By Carter Barrett bcbarret@indiana.edu | @carter_barrett

I

n Peoples Park, dozens of people sat on broken tables, concrete ground and along the brick wall. Some people chatted, and some smoked. Not everyone who spends time in the park is homeless, but the nervous stares from the sidewalk don’t discriminate. At the corner of the park there was a commotion. A young man in an IU jersey was screaming and pushed another man into the raised planter at the corner of Dunn Street and Kirkwood Avenue. It was IU’s Homecoming, one of the rowdiest nights of the year. “I’ll fuck this kid up,” said the man, slurring and stumbling with his fist raised high in the air. Several men from the park rushed over to separate the two young men. “Hey, it’s not worth it,” some of the homeless men said. “This isn’t the right guy.” Finally, when the fight broke up, one of the men walked back to the park. His friends call him Beads. He’s 39, and almost no one knows his real name. Beads is the first to say he’s not homeless. He’s houseless, but he’s still the guy the others look to to speak on their behalf, to represent their loose, often-pitied, oftenreviled little community on the busiest corner in town. Three police cars were parked on the street. Their red, white and blue lights illuminated his face in the darkness. “It’s OK for that to happen, but if that was two of us, they would have taken the whole park to jail,” Beads said.

EMILY MILES | IDS

Peoples Park and Kirkwood Avenue are nearly empty Monday, Dec. 3, with the exception of several homeless men and women. Peoples Park has sparked controversy this semester, with an ongoing debate about who has rights to the park.

“We are on skid row. This is what you gotta deal with at the end of the night.” Daniel Floyd

one another’s belongings on fire, and causing raucous 24/7,” the petition on change.org said. “It is time for an END to People’s Park being a home for the homeless.” As he peered down at his annotated copy of the article, Beads read aloud a quote from one of his friends. “We don’t have money. We don’t pass go, we go to jail.”

* * * * * * Across the street, the line outside of Kilroy’s Bar N’ Grill grew underneath the yellow haze of the streetlights, illuminating a sea of cream and crimson. Inside, IU’s Homecoming game against Nebraska was playing on dozens of televisions. In the park, Beads pulled two things — a small flashlight and a folded copy of the Indiana Daily Student — out of his backpack. He spread the newspaper’s front page on the concrete and squatted next to it, the flashlight shone onto the headline: Community discusses discrimination of homeless people. The article was about how Peoples Park had been the center of controversy after a petition on change.org called for the removal of homeless people from the park. “Over the past several years, the homeless have decided to make this park their home, starting fights, doing drugs, setting

While Beads looked over the IDS, IU senior Joe DiBenedetto was at Nick’s English Hut with a few friends from out of town. They spent their Homecoming night enjoying a few drinks in what DiBenedetto said was a quiet night. DiBenedetto posted the change.org petition after what he described as an unsettling evening. One night at Kilroy’s, he saw a woman beat a man unconscious in Peoples Park, he said. The same night, around midnight, he heard screaming from the park through the closed window of his Kirkwood apartment. DiBenedetto received a flood of messages since he posted the petition. Some comments asked why he deserves to speak on this issue. He isn’t even a Hoosier, they said. Others praised his petition and said the

park was a safety concern for the students at the bars. Another post said “Make Peoples Park Great Again.” DiBenedetto said people didn’t understand the message he was trying to get across. “Five years from now, I would love to see a brand new building from tax dollars for the homeless and less fortunate,” DiBenedetto said. “A pillow to sleep on, a bed to sleep on and a roof over their heads.” Still, DiBenedetto said he is not comfortable walking through the park, “When I’m walking past it and see needles and fights going on, it’s not an area where people would feel comfortable walking through.” In another IDS article from Oct. 3, a local homeless man called Leprechaun John was quoted in his response to DiBenedetto’s petition. “I’d tell him to come out here and sleep where I sleep,” he said. * * * Midnight came and went, and there were only 15 people left in the park. Beads is a short guy, with piercings on both eyebrows and his hair pulled into a low ponytail. His T-shirt said “Life is Good.” SEE PEOPLES PARK, PAGE 6


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Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016 by Indiana Daily Student - idsnews - Issuu