Do homeless people steal each other’s stuff often? Do they respect each other’s personal space and belongings? This is one of the questions I get asked most frequently.
So this week, I will give you my answer along with that of a few others living on the streets.
When you’re homeless, you don’t have a lot of “personal space”.
So yes, a great deal of your stuff gets stolen or goes missing.
But let me tell you, my personal experience speaks volumes again about why homeless people seek community, for example, in encampments, where people take turns looking after each other’s stuff.
My experience wasn’t in an encampment but at “Stukkende Huis”. This is the notorious broken-down building as you drive onto the station deck. These days, you see taxis parked in the parking lot of the building.
You will not believe it, but I was the first person to move back in there about five years ago, after it had been locked up for quite some time.
I traded my second-hand stall on the Grand Parade and deck at that stage, and one afternoon, I was not feeling well and couldn’t even contemplate going back uphill to Sea Point, where I stayed at the time.
I saw the gates to Stukkende Huis had been pried open, and I decided that I was going to sleep over there for the night. I will be honest with you, I was scared and “slept” with one eye open in that very scary building.
I survived that night to tell the tale, and so I decided to move in there permanently. People thought I was mad. But it wasn’t long before I was joined by others. Within a month, we were in a group of 15.
My next-door neighbour, who is no longer with us, was high up in the number. Let me tell you, that man would ensure no one entered my space. He protected it as his own.
Anyone who knew me then will tell you I had what looked like a major warehouse of second-hand goods, but all the while I was there, no one ever broke in there to steal something.
The only things I lost there were due to friends I had invited over – friends I knew well, stealing things from me, never people forcing open my place to steal from me.
My mountain experience is similar. Neither in Sea Point nor Vredehoek, where I lived on the mountain, did I ever lose anything due to theft. In fact, in Sea Point, I used to leave a note that if people wanted to take a rest in my place while I was out at work, they were welcome to, but if they wanted something, they should stay and ask me for it and not just take, and I promise you, I never lost anything to theft while there.
Where I lost a lot of things was when I used to store things in the drains. But this wasn’t always homeless people.
In a shelter, you’re in an open-bay type of setting. Think of a school gym with beds, as you’d see in a disaster emergency shelter. They pack as many beds in as they can, with minimal space to move between them. You lose a lot of your belongings when you stay in a shelter.
If you’re unsheltered, you might be sharing the doorway, fence or a wall with two or three others. As for the stealing – more theft occurs by non-homeless people stealing the homeless people’s belongings.
Some people think it’s funny to take the homeless person’s backpack or set their shopping cart on fire, even though that contains every single thing the homeless person owns in the world.
But there will always be homeless people preying on one another, too. Richard says he was very careful to always keep his wallet (which had his ID in it) in a pocket that wasn’t easily accessible if he fell asleep. His backpack – the most likely thing to be snatched from him – had mostly books and clothes.
Then he had a very small “day pack” that contained his medications (he has congestive heart disease and high blood pressure and was taking six to eight pills a day), so he kept that pretty close, too. But somehow, that was always the bag that got stolen from him.
“I have lived in the CBD in an empty building, where the homeless took over. I am on the bottom floor with a door opening outside. No way to lock it. I have people that I call my homeless neighbours,” Nick says.
“Not one homeless person has taken a thing from me. They let me know when I’m unsafe. If I hear someone is hungry, they wait on a bench. I’ll always share my food with them.
“Treat all people with kindness and respect. You might have it returned to you.”
Surprised and impressed? SO AM I!
* Carlos Mesquita and a handful of others formed HAC (the Homeless Action Committee) that lobbies for the rights of the homeless. He also manages Our House in Oranjezicht, which is powered by the Community Chest. He can be reached at [email protected].
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
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