They are the faceless individuals you don’t see standing on the corner when you’ve stopped at a traffic light. They don’t want to work. They are shiftless and lazy. They are to be avoided. They are to be mistrusted. They are to be arrested for trespassing, for panhandling, for bizarre behavior. They are dirty and dangerous. They have no value. They are the homeless.

Call them Willie, Joe and Betty. They were among Richmond’s homeless yesterday, with no ID and just $5 and a bus ticket. In real life, they’re Art Raymond, principal of Moody Middle School; Alex Evans, minister of Second Presbyterian Church; and Cathy Howard, vice provost for community engagement at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Timothy Joseph Harrington Sr. would do what it took to help. The founding board member of Caritas led local volunteers in repair work in South Carolina after Hurricane Hugo. He traveled to Tanzania several times on Baptist International Mission Board mission trips. And he was not above tackling a plumbing problem that flooded the basement of Bon Air Baptist Church, where he was a deacon.

A man who recruited homeless people to cash stolen checks—including five he drove from a Virginia Beach shelter to Richmond—will be sentenced in federal court today. Myron Kylen Nelson, 25, of Charlotte, N.C., is facing up to 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a scheme in which homeless people were paid to cash the stolen and altered checks worth a total of $65,071.32.

Chesterfield County police have identified a man whose body was found last month in a marshy area off the 12000 block of Jefferson Davis Highway as Christopher Otis, 59. The state medical examiner’s office has not ruled on a cause of death but noted yesterday that foul play is not suspected. Capt. Robert Skowron said Otis was homeless and apparently living in a car that was found parked at Bermuda Self Storage in the 10500 block of Jefferson Davis Highway.

Sub-freezing temperatures caused problems inside and outside yesterday in the Richmond area, icing over roadways, freezing pipes and causing power outages. Icy conditions forced Richmond police last night to close a stretch of northbound Brook Road where it crosses railroad tracks just north of downtown, police Capt. Gary Ladin said. Not far away, a water-main break early yesterday morning forced the closure all day of West Leigh Street between Bowe and Lombardy streets near Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School.

Utility crews worked yesterday to restore power outages blamed on high demand and made more difficult to bring back on line because of frigid conditions, Dominion Virginia Power said. In Richmond, a water-main break on West Leigh Street between Bowe and Lombardy streets was thought to be weather-related. And the cold weather meant another full house for Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church at 14 W. Duval St. in Jackson Ward, said the Rev. Tyrone Nelson, the church’s pastor.

No one likes being panhandled. I can’t imagine the panhandler enjoys it, either. The giver (or rejecter) wades through a sea of emotions—intimidation, guilt, mistrust, anger. Compassion mingles with the nagging fear that you’re subsidizing an unhealthy habit. I can’t speak for the beggar, but the act looks depressing and demeaning. If it’s a hustle, it lacks glamour.

If Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus arrived in Richmond, they’d probably end up on West Grace Street. True to its name, Grace east of Belvidere Street is buoyed by good will that seems divinely inspired. This strip is home to The Daily Planet, a beacon for the homeless, and the Salvation Army. This area is a safety net for people who have run out of options.

Stephen Holc never imagined he’d learn how to market a sports drink and sew in the same class.

Joyce A. Clanton came to the Greater Richmond Convention Center yesterday to get help restoring her Social Security benefits. She left with a lot more. Clanton was one of 575 area residents who visited the second Project Homeless Connect, a clearinghouse of services and information for the area’s homeless.

WASHINGTON—On a cold January morning in 2001, Mel Martinez, who was then the new secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was headed to his office in his limo when he saw some homeless people huddled on the vents of the steam tunnels that heat federal buildings. “Somebody ought to do something for them,“ Martinez said he told himself. “And it dawned on me at that moment that it was me.“

These squatters live beneath tall Richmond buildings on two small islands in the middle of the James River. They say they like the shade, water and privacy—but not everyone is happy with their lifestyle.