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Doug Courtney lives in the blue tent pitched beneath the power lines on Harry Hines Boulevard a few yards north of Walnut Hill Lane. Just below his perch are the storm-drain tunnels, where people live until the waters rise high enough to wash away their belongings. Courtney has lived in the easement along Harry Hines and in the tunnels below for seven years. That\u2019s when he lost his job and his woman and everything else.<\/p>\n
\u201cSituations bring you out here \u2014 or they will put you here,\u201d he said last week. He was dressed in an old black pullover, faded jeans and well-worn work boots, and puffing on a cigar stub. The grass beneath a small barrel near his tent was scorched. Cars raced by. Planes flying into and out of Dallas Love Field sometimes made it hard to hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Good Book it always says, until you pass that test, she\u2019ll keep making you repeat it until you pass it,\u201d Courtney said over the din. \u201cOr you\u2019re set out here for a reason \u2014 maybe to tell a story, to tell somebody else\u2019s story or make them take a leap of faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve visited Courtney several times in recent weeks when waiting for \u2014 or, more often, looking for \u2014 the man named Charlie Brown<\/a>, whom Container Store co-founder, environmentalist and civic leader Garrett Boone hired to clean the creeks spewing trash into the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. Brown disappeared again several days ago, last seen at the Stewpot, where he was supposed to pick up a new ID for a meeting with a disability caseworker to which he didn\u2019t show yet again.<\/p>\n Boone, who found Brown in those tunnels more than two years ago, hasn\u2019t heard from him in days. Courtney hasn\u2019t seen him, either. Because that\u2019s just what happens. People come and go in the city you drive over, away from. Everyone knows everything about everybody down here. But eventually they drift away to become just another name, another ill-fated anecdote. <\/p>\n Opinion<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n Like Tall Lucky, who folks down there say drowned in the floodwaters that tore through the tunnels before Christmas last year. Or Dorian, who, so the story goes, passed out face-first into a fire along Shady Trail \u2014 or maybe he was set on fire, hard to say. Or Mike, who lost his leg to frostbite.<\/p>\n Charlie Brown lived in Tunnel Six for five years. He said he often clung to this pipe during flash floods, and kept his belongings chained to the pipe so they wouldn’t wash away.<\/p>\n Robert Wilonsky<\/p>\n Doug and Charlie spent five years as neighbors in these tunnels, alongside a man who calls himself Lucky Brown, who still lives down there with his girlfriend, who goes by Chocolate.<\/p>\n Charlie Brown got housing in a North Dallas apartment he has long complained keeps getting broken into. Courtney and Lucky and Chocolate have told me on several occasions they\u2019ve been waiting on promised places for a long, long time. <\/p>\n \u201cFor probably a year or two,\u201d Courtney said last week; Lucky, too.<\/p>\n In recent weeks I\u2019ve heard that a lot from folks along the tunnels and in the increasingly crowded field behind the Shell station off Walnut Hill and North Stemmons Freeway. Last week I finally found Leanna Brosh, the woman with whom Charlie sometimes stays, cleaning up around her green tent along the fence line. She left for a few days and returned to find someone had set fire to some of her belongings left in the dead grass.<\/p>\n Brosh\u2019s left leg was wrapped in white gauze; she said she was disabled, with a stack of documents from Parkland Hospital to prove it. She was disheveled and frustrated, complaining that she, too, was awaiting a roof promised but never delivered. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen a few of my friends get places,\u201d she said, ticking off a handful of names. \u201cBut it\u2019s never my turn.\u201d<\/p>\n Because, to put it plainly, there\u2019s no money. <\/p>\n![\"Charlie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766713534_793_GV7SSHBFCJD3NNP3642GVBCSB4.JPG\")
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![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/UOJHUNSLYFDLFEK3MOXUPLUXHM.JPG\")
<\/p>\n![\"Garrett](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/YGZ45LDGU5F5TPMVQQPOIO7YVA.JPG\")
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