From The Indianapolis Star, Thursday, January 12, 1922: “I’m for the underdog,” Mayor Lew Shank declared in announcing a plan to put cots in the old county workhouse building, Twenty-first St. and Northwestern Ave., to provide overnight lodging for the needy and “broke.” Speaking to representatives of the Indianapolis Church Federation, the mayor said, “Those poor down and outers are lying around on stone floors and even steps, trying to get a little sleep in a warm place…I’m thinking of taking up with the county commissioners a plan to fix up a couple of rooms at the county workhouse for people who have no other place to stay.” He also proposed building “poor men’s clubs,” community houses. “If you can give a man entertainment and work to occupy his mind, he’s going to make a pretty good citizen,” Shank said.