About 4 a.m., I was taking the Red Line from Lake to Roosevelt. When I entered the State/Lake subway, there was an apparently homeless man asleep on one of the benches. A couple of minutes later, a female Securitas employee woke him up and told him he couldn’t sleep there, that he had “to get on one of the trains.” So he sat up, she walked away, and he fell sleep again with his chin on his chest.

About 10 minutes later (it was a long wait for a train), she comes back with a male Securitas employee in tow. He sits down next to the guy and starts speaking to him. I didn’t hear the brief conversation, but he seemed polite, actually touching the man’s shoulder when he got up to leave.

Shortly after, a train arrived, and the gentleman boarded the same car I did, where he joined the other two or three homeless riders and promptly fell asleep.

Despite whatever rules/orders CTA management may pass down, it’s the rank-and-file whose decisions actually affect us. And I just can’t see them having the heart to eject the homeless into the streets. They certainly didn’t during this morning’s snow storm.