Will stays here between bouts of employment, preferring the blanket and dusty ground to the bottom bunk of a shelter bed.

The last time he stayed at Star of Hope, 46-year-old Will says, a bunkmate urinated on him. Will also recalls, with a hint of sincere horror, the size of the lice festering in another man's hair. And even though he'll eat the food given to him, he sneers at such social service organizations. In Will's mind, the shelters see him and his homeless brethren as dollar signs.

"They don't give a damn about the homeless," he says. "It's all about money."

The officers ask Will for ideas on how to get the homeless off the street for good.

Let them rehab the vacant buildings downtown and live there, Will says. There are masons on the streets, carpenters, people with technical skills.

Of course, until Will attains a political office higher than that of mayor of an overpass, that will never happen. Back in the squad car, Reed and Sessum list the reasons why Will's idea is a pipe dream. That doesn't mean they don't like it, though, the idea of Dong and Overcoat and Farina out there on the scaffolding, hammering a heartbeat into a decrepit old building, moving into a new apartment and a new life.

But instead, Reed and Sessum will be out here again tomorrow, telling Dong and Overcoat and Farina to wake up and move along.

"It's a matter of a patience thing," Sessum says. "Who's gonna outlast who?"

Patience is hard to come by for some in downtown and Midtown.

When Noel Cowart moved to 2016 Main nine years ago, he didn't see too many street people or their problems. Nestled in his condo that borders both Midtown and downtown, Cowart says he and his wife weren't accosted by pushy panhandlers and they didn't have to step over anyone sleeping off a hangover on the sidewalk.

But as downtown's rebirth gobbled up vacant buildings and land, many homeless squatters headed south toward Midtown. The Pierce Elevated, right by his building, became one of the popular gathering points. Cowart, a member of the Midtown Coalition -- based out of 2016 Main -- began speaking out about the issues, garnering a reputation among homeless advocates as a real Scrooge.

After a few years living in the heart of the problem, Cowart figured one thing out: "Whenever you speak out against the street people, you come under immediate criticism from people who don't necessarily know what the heck they're talking about."

Cowart says he sees the difference between those who seek help from shelters and job placement agencies and those who choose a life on the street.

"People who choose not to help themselves make that choice and I will certainly accept that choice -- but I don't like 'em," he says. "And those that are trying to help themselves, [I'll] bend over backwards to help 'em."

The Midtown Coalition has a good relationship with the two police jurisdictions that patrol Midtown, Cowart says. Regular patrols have broken up large camps like the one under the Pierce Elevated.

"Street people don't seem to like police very much, so they find places where the police aren't patrolling," he says. "And that's basically it. That's really all we can do…We have no fireworks. We haven't formed a vigilante committee."

But some in Midtown think the police and the city could do more.

Dan Bryan, manager of a strip mall at Main and Webster, says his tenants regularly complain about transients huddling in his parking lot and disturbing shoppers. Because the part of the civility ordinance prohibiting sleeping on sidewalks during the day applies only to the central business district, many street people have flocked to Midtown. Bryan and Fran Bregenzer, manager of 2016 Main, are petitioning City Council to amend the ordinance to include Midtown.

But perhaps the most outspoken critic of the police isn't in Midtown.

Kirk Farris owns part of the Harris County-managed James Bute Park, a 13-acre parcel off McKee Street on the northern edge of downtown. Like Root Square, James Bute Park is a haven for the homeless every Sunday. The homeless also use it so much during the week that the men from the Star of Hope shelter a few blocks away have worn a path from the shelter to the park. But that's not as bad as what he says is a 65-foot pile of trash the homeless have built with everything from old beer bottles to bicycle parts.

"I can't succeed with these fuckers in my park," Farris says. Families won't use the park as long as the homeless have claimed it. And lax police enforcement is part of the problem, he says.