MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin Department of Transportation added a new step to stop people from living at local park-and-ride lots.

The DOT added concrete barriers at the Holt Avenue lot along I-94.

“I mean first of all you don’t want to be out here. Now you’re feeling like you’re being closed in,” Tracy Bennett said.

Bennett lived in her car at the park-and-ride. She and her husband had nowhere to turn after being evicted in May, but stumbled upon the parking lot in July.

“This isn’t a joyride. This isn’t something we expected, we planned on. It’s not life. It’s not,” Bennett explained.

For months, TMJ4’s Megan Lee has covered the encampments. However, these concrete barriers are new.

People living in the parking lot said the barriers went up a few weeks ago.

When Lee asked the DOT about the barriers, she got this response:

Bennett is worried she will have nowhere to go. She said, “ya know next week they’ll come and push them a little bit farther, come and push them a little bit farther until there’s no place to go.”

Lee asked Bennett if there was a lack of affordable housing in Milwaukee.

“I do. Perfect example. Perfect example right here,” she said.

Bennett is working to get assistance to move into a more stable living situation.

“You can only ask some people so many times for money, for help, for food. You can only ask so many times,” she said.

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