You are driving down the road and you see a dumpster filled with what looks to be perfectly good furniture and you say to yourself "Why would anyone be so wasteful as to throw away perfectly good furniture?".
Have you ever done that? Have you ever been homeless?
Ive never been completely homeless. The closest I came was when my apartment complex decided it didnt want to accept any subsidized people living there anymore
and so I had to move. The first thing I did was "downsize".
You see 'homeless' means 'without home'. It doesnt mean 'without furniture'. It doesnt mean without cat or dog or kids or television or even food. It means 'without home'.
When you lose your 'home' its often becasue you cant afford to pay the rent anymore.
You dont have the money. You dont have money to afford a place to move your furniture to. you may not even have the money to move at all.
In my case I had enough money to rent a storage place and a truck and I proceeded to throw away all un-needed stuff becasue I didnt have help moving and I couldnt afford a big storage place.
If it werent for my mom being willing to pay for me to stay in a motel for a week and a half, I would have become homeless. Its the closest I ever came.
Its a weird feeling riding the bus around and looking under bridges and such and thinking "I could probably live there". I spent alot of time outdoors as a kid and I supposed that I could repeat what I had already done as a teenager.
Im glad I didnt have to. but it feels like its always close. I live in subsidized housing and they are always looking for ways to take things away. I wish they would treat corporations at least as badly as they treat people. I know how hard it is for a human being to get assistance from the government but it seems like the politicians just throw money at the corporations. They even let them write their own rules. but I digress...
People dont just happily throw away their belongings. They get forced into it.
Consider if you lost the ability to pay for your home. You'd still have everything you do now. You'd sell everything you could and you would discover that no one actually wants any of your stuff. It only has value to you. and a lot of it becomes a burden when you have no money. and so off to the dumpster it goes.
Thats why there are dumpsters full of furniture. especially at apartment complexes where lower income folk tend to reside. Its not their choice.
I used to think they were being wasteful. But then I faced the situation myself and I learned a few things. Have you ever learned this sort of thing? its not fun.