question: hobbies, collections, relationships: desires on the street

hi,
my name is yulia and I am student in parsons school of design, in New York.
I am doing a research on the homeless. through my observations I noticed how many homeless people appear to collect things beyond the obvious needs for shelter, food and clothes. I have seen some really amazing collections of 'stuff' people had, that show that a person who lives on the street has 'desires' as well, not just 'basic needs'. I read posts on this website about hobbies, dating and relationship, and woud like to hear more about how people try to make it possible to make these little 'desires' true on the street.

thank you very much,

Yulia :)

Hello Yulia, and a belated welcome to the forums ...:)

Very interesting observation about how [some] street homeless people tend to accumilate more 'stuff ' than they will ever need.
We have one individual here in London that has three trolley loads to move about .. :(

I don't know why this is, I can only suppose it is a determined attempt to associate themselves with material pocessions .. maybe there is some sort of comfort factor in this.

Having said all that .. how many [non homeless] clutter up their homes like that .. ?

I have also observered people (some homeless others not) at soup runs that take all the food that they possibly can ... walking away with enough sandwiches to last three or four days, sometimes more than that, carrier bags bulging with goodies. Yet they will be back at the soup runs the next day.

In my personal experience, I find that it is those that are in accommodation that mainly indulge in the latter of these two activities .. some going to several soup runs each day to fill their carrier bags. Streeties seem to take only what they need.

Good luck with your research ...