The squeegee kids don’t see themselves that way at all.

“Everybody got a reason to be out here, or they wouldn’t be here,” James says later in the afternoon. “Not everybody has two parents at home or people looking after them the way they should.”

Derrick uses some of the money he earns—$100-$150 after six to seven hours on a busy weekend—to help his mother pay rent. “I’ve got four siblings,” he says. “I come out before school some mornings to have money in my pocket and get something to eat after. Who else is going to help us?”

Donovan, 19, wearing a Ravens cap, is among the oldest here—most are between 10 and 18—and knows firsthand the other alternatives to making money for black males growing up in poverty in Baltimore. He got caught selling drugs when he was younger. “I’ve seen friends die and go to jail with long sentences,” he says. “I’ve seen some pretty terrible stuff, and I don’t want that.” He picked up a squeegee a year ago, even though police do charge squeegee workers with aggressive panhandling and illegal solicitation from time to time because “I’m my only source of income,” he says. Young guys like Derrick and James are actually positive role models to the boys in their neighborhood, Donovan adds, because they aren’t selling drugs and have their own money to buy shoes and clothes, as well as the occasional soda for an 8- or 10-year-old. That said, Donovan adds, they get profiled regularly in public places.

“If we go to eat at a restaurant after being out all day, what we get is, ‘No, no, no. Too many of you,’” he says. “And we got money. That doesn’t happen if you’re white. Same when it comes to using the bathroom. Can’t use the bathroom even when we are buying something. Same at the mall, security following you around. Secret shoppers, following you around. You’ve got have your money out when you’re in a store or you get chased out.”

Personable and thoughtful, Donovan says he plans to go back to school and would like to learn how to buy and invest in real estate. James, who’s adding a job washing dishes, wants to own a car wash after he graduates and employ some of his cohorts.

“Instead of them experiencing unfair treatment for bringing income into their homes, they would benefit from more outreach support—school and career counseling and other services, ” says India Bell, a Baltimore social worker and former resident advisor with the Department of Juvenile Services who regularly engages the young men along Martin Luther King Boulevard near Route 40. “Things have fallen apart in this city, in this country. We have long incarcerated black males at disproportionate rates, and that has impacted the families and neighborhoods where these kids are from. As well as segregation, redlining, and disinvestment. I know—I’m from one of those neighborhoods.

“The bottom line,” Bell adds, “is that kids shouldn’t have to spend their childhoods out in the street earning money.”

Baltimore author D. Watkins, editor at large for Salon, went from dealing drugs to a career as a teacher and writer. He spends a lot of time in local schools and knows some of the same squeegee workers that Bell does along MLK Boulevard, including a former high-school student he taught at the Friendship Academy. Watkins also made a few dollars as a squeegee kid in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “A lot of people don’t understand the perspective of these kids,” Watkins says. “They are scared to interact with them and a lot of people get frustrated with them. Everybody is scared of everybody and nobody is talking to each other. Meanwhile, the former mayor initiated the Squeegee Corps, and that went away and she kind of abandoned them.”

“People sell drugs on the corner every day. I got no interest. Not for me.”

Kaye Whitehead, who teaches at Loyola University and hosts a WEAA talk show, echoes Bell and Watkins. “If this was a lacrosse team in the street raising money with buckets for a trip to play in a tournament, no one would have an issue,” she says. “We as a city need to lean in and find ways to support them. The folks who were doing this 40 years ago have grown up, but this generation is running up against the same problems.”

Bell stresses that no one believes it’s a good idea for children and teenagers to be bouncing through traffic at stop lights. But in a sense, she says, the squeegee corners are “safe spaces” for many kids. “They have a measure of independence, they can act like 15, 16, 17-year-olds. In their neighborhoods, there’s always a lot of trauma and stress, and they feel like they have to keep their guard up and watch their back.” In fact, one 14-year-old squeegee kid mentioned the threat of getting robbed by older teens and young men walking back to his own neighborhood in the evening with squeegee money in pocket.

Local business owner Chris Wilson, who did 16 years in prison for a crime committed while a juvenile, sees himself in the young men wielding squeegees. “I tell every single one of them I respect the hustle and I respect them trying to make a living,” says Wilson, author of The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose. “They’re doing all the things an entrepreneur does. They’re calculating how much cleaning supplies to buy, how much water to buy if they’re selling bottles of water, what’s the best time to work, the best location, how much they need to make. The next step is setting longer-term goals. Nobody teaches them how to set goals, make a plan, and then walk down that road.”