When 2025 started, Marthe Marie Vernet was getting by working as a visiting nurse’s aid for veterans and helping to manage the apartment building where she lived with her adult son, Stephon, and their dog, Gorgeous, an exuberant, mostly white husky mix.
A dispute with the property owner over the building’s condition ended that living arrangement. She needed to move but didn’t have enough savings to put down a deposit and first month’s rent on a new place. No relatives could take them in. Shelters were out of the question because she would have to separate from Stephon and give up Gorgeous, probably for good.
Seeing no other options, Vernet bought a tent. They packed up what they could carry, put Gorgeous on a leash and set up camp behind Garrett Morgan High School on Cleveland’s Near West Side. They kept the site clean, even picking up trash dropped by students.
“That’s my little house that God gave me for now. I’ll get a bigger one later,” she told herself at the time…