The Chattanooga Community Kitchen is one of the primary homeless centers in Chattanooga.  It’s a few blocks north of Main Street, right next to the railroad tracks.  On our first day there, we meet Br. Ron Fender.

Br. Ron Fender, a case manager at the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.

Br. Ron Fender is an Episcopal monk with the Gregorian brothers.  He’s lived in Chattanooga for the past seven years.  He walks down Main Street, ministering to the homeless people there. He loves Main Street, but he also sees the misery first hand.

“For me, Main Street is a sad place.”

He’s seen some horrific things: a homeless man died in his arms, he’s helped a young boy who was being prostituted by his parents for crack, he witnessed babies living in the woods just off of Main Street.

Yet Br. Ron still finds hope and humanity here.  He is a man with an overflowing amount of compassion for the down and out, yet Br. Ron is not a pushover.  Part of his vow as a Gregorian monk, he says, “is to live dangerously through his ministry.”  Br. Ron faces danger everyday on this Main Street, and he does not back down.

A man sits outside an abandoned building on Main Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

We finally arrive on Main Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee.   Kara and I will be here for two weeks documenting the city’s infamous Main Street.  During our story research, we discovered a website called “Trick the Johns” which is a site created by residents of a neighborhood on Main Street that is trying  to rid the area of prostitution.

We were intrigued to document a Main Street that is not the place  politicians are talking about when they say, “We need to get back to Main Street.”

Chattanooga’s Main Street is a known  prostitution stroll.  On this Main Street, people sell crack.  Right off of this Main Street, there are homeless camps and abandoned buildings.  Yes, the city is revitalizing a portion of Main Street near the downtown area. But out of the more than a mile or so of Main Street which stretches west to east, the revitalization covers only a few blocks.

We park the car at a gas station on the corner of Main and Holtzclaw and take a few pictures of buildings and people out on the street.

A man shows off his leg brace as he walks over to the gas station on Main Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

A sign on an abandoned building on Main Street.

Crossing Chattanooga's Main Street.

I walk down Main Street  and take a few photos, too.  As I’m crossing the street, a truck whizzes by me and a man yells out “PROSTITUTE!”

What?

I’m shocked. I’m wearing a below the knee dress, far from revealing.  In fact, I think it’s a little dowdy.  I look around to see if anyone else is on the street…perhaps he was talking to someone else.

Nope.

No one else is around, it’s just me. Apparently, the only women walking on Main Street in Chattanooga are prostitutes, or at least that is what people assume.