Baltimore squeegee kids find work, risks and cash at stoplights

BALTIMORE (AP) — A clock starts ticking when the light turns red at Baltimore intersections.

Young men huddled on the sidewalk jump into the street, a squeegee in one hand, a bottle of glass cleaner in the other.

For these “squeegee kids,” every idling windshield is an opportunity - to make a little cash, and to find work that doesn’t involve the drugs or gang violence that plague much of the city.

Nathaniel Silas’ goal is to make a dollar during every red light by cleaning windshields.

Most drivers will give only a handful of change, if anything.

Silas knows he has 24 seconds during each light.

He keeps count in his head.

Silas is among about 100 squeegee kids — ages 14 to 21, mostly black and from low-income neighbourhoods — regularly working intersections in neighbourhoods across Baltimore, city officials estimate.

For some, it’s a primary source of money; for others, a side hustle.

They say it helps pay for groceries, rent and clothes. But many drivers call the squeegee kids a nuisance in a city with a complicated history of race relations and violence, and officials have tried for years to steer the workers to alternative jobs and have now launched a program to mentor them.

Silas, 19, scans motorists’ faces, watches for hand gestures.

He passes cars with drivers mouthing “no” or shooing him away.

Some turn on their wipers as a signal to stay away.

But he also finds smiley drivers, and, after three years, he has regulars.

He approaches one who gives a quick look of permission, and he stretches over the windshield. He jokes about accepting credit cards and Venmo.

He takes the change from the outstretched hand. The first windshield took 13 seconds. Other squeegee kids try to work at half that pace.

Silas and others know the work is illegal.

Data analysed by The Associated Press show that more than 3,100 complaints were logged about squeegee kids in 2019, the first year Baltimore used a specific designation for reports involving those cleaning windshields.

The City Council outlawed the practice in the 1980s, with white council members passing the ban and black ones opposing it.

The city opened “squeegee stations,” where youths with approved badges could work after receiving safety and etiquette instructions. But the idea never caught on.

Baltimore officials have stopped short of arrests, a practice that made windshield washers virtually extinct in New York.

Baltimore officers ask squeegee kids to leave the corner but don’t force them away.

One was arrested in February after refusing to get off the street and fighting and biting an officer, according to a police report.

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