‘We’re not monsters,’ just hungry, says one of the folks booted from the old Weiss Memorial Hospital parking lot

“Ashley,” 32, a resident of a homeless encampment in the park east of Weiss Memorial Hospital, sits inside her tent as protesters with #RiseUptown gathered nearby to discuss homelessness in the area and call for more affordable housing in Uptown Tuesday morning (Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times)

A flag of the Hawaiian Islands fluttered outside the woman’s tent, set up on a patch of brown grass littered with little mounds of spent charcoal.

“We all have dreams,” muttered the woman, who would only give her name as “Ashley.”