Another luxury I always took for granted was having a safe place to leave my ‘stuff’. This point was driven home when a friend, who was staying at the Salvation Army shelter where they require people to take their belongings with them when they leave for the day, heard that the Rail Road Police had given the acquaintance she was storing her stuff with during the day a limited time to move his camp. Shortly after this I saw someone pushing a shopping cart full of his belongings along and recalled the fellow I had met just a short while ago, who had been displaced when the brick plant downtown decided to level the patch of bush he was camped in, pushing his salvaged belongings along in a shopping cart. Later in the same day I saw my acquaintance pushing a shopping cart of her stuff along to the place of a friend who had offered to store it for her. The picture most of us associate with those we see pushing a shopping cart full of stuff along is that they are crazy in some way or another – a favourite depiction of television and films. Now, I do not claim that all these people are the mentally healthiest; after all I admit I found myself in my current circumstances due to mental health issues, just that using a shopping cart is an entirely reasonable choice under the circumstances. It is just that society has decided to attach a stigma to this mode of transporting your belongings. Once you are homeless you do not, as a general rule, have a lot of possessions and your time on the street tends to whittle what you have down even further. Remember that at this time of year extra clothing and bedding can be important to you living through the night. If you do not want to chance losing it you need someplace safe to store it or a way to carry it with you. Carrying requires something with room for your belongings and an easy way to move it. Hmmm? Wheels, big basket, rack, and a handle for pushing it – sounds like just what is needed – sounds like a shopping cart.

Now I can think of several different approaches to filling this need for safe storage that do not require large cash outlays, only the goodwill to want to address the need. The real point here is that the next time you see a ‘crazy’ person pushing a shopping cart remember that it is an intelligent response to that person’s situation and needs. If you want to cut down on the number of people pushing shopping carts and various other contraptions full of their belongings around town, you need to be as intelligent in your response to the situation. Address not the effect (the shopping carts etc) but the cause – the need for storage. I have, all too often, seen ill considered responses to issues related to or raised by homelessness increase the problem or worsen some other aspect of it. Knocking down the bush to move the homeless along = more homeless sleeping in the open on the streets. Answers are easy – it is asking the right questions that requires intelligent thought and achieves results by addressing the root causes, not just symptoms.