I tend to come into school early. When I was at a different school from the one I work at now I came in at 6:30 one day and found one of my students in the back of the room. He'd discovered that the big cabinets at the back of the room weren't really being used for anything and taken one over to store his stuff. He'd hung up posters inside and neatly stacked his clothes and sneakers. He was listening to music and didn't notice me walking in.

"David* when did you get here?"

*not his name

"The school opens at 5, miss." He said.

Basically, he'd made himself a little corner of a typical teenager's bedroom in the storage cabinet. Because at the shelter your stuff might go missing.

Not because people steal either, no the people who run the shelters just throw things away without warning.

Think about what that does to you mentally, to never feel like you can even put an item down and ever find it again.

In the next year he and his dad were doing much better.

More to the point the shelters in NYC are not a place anyone wants to be and with very good reason.

There is a lot of low hanging fruit. Anyone who is homeless with a job and kids should just be admitted to this kind of program with few questions. These are people who will get on their feet again if we'd just stop making it so hard.

There are more complex and difficult cases and maybe the shelters could do a better job if some of the pressure was taken off.

But for most of that year he'd stay at the building from 5am to 7pm every day.

I had a chance later to talk to someone who works at a big city shelter and I told them about my student and how traumatized he was by having his stuff just vanish without warning. She swore up and down it didn't work like that, but reading between what she said I detected that there are just too many people, not enough staff and not enough space.

So, the people running the shelters have "trash out days" where they just throw things out. Otherwise the place would fill up with garbage.

You have people who really need mental health services, former hoarders mixed in with teens like my student, and so there is a "no stuff" policy.

But, everyone needs some space that they can *control* not having any place to put anything will make your lose your mind.

@futurebird A great service for homeless people would be lockers where they could keep their really important small items but God forbid we treat homeless people like actual people, right?

@futurebird There are a lot of lies about homeless people like that most of them “don’t want housing and refuse it,” which is actually them not wanting to stay in temporary shelters that are unsafe and/or will require them to give up their stuff, separate from loved ones, etc.

Almost all homeless people are homeless because they don’t have money and the rent is too damn high, not because they are contrarians or something.

@MisuseCase @futurebird there's also a lot of addiction in homelessness, and a lot of stigma about getting help for that. I mean, it makes sense to get the easier cases done and dusted, but addiction treatment is really key as well. And yeah some of those people have jobs too! But some of them are far from being able to work.

@quinn @MisuseCase @futurebird

Stop it. More addiction issues result from homelessness than the other way around. Unless you've been there, you have no idea how much stress is caused by not having a safe, private place to sleep; from being treated like nothing; demeaned, degraded, insulted, or forced to leave a place you feel safe and comfortable; by not having anywhere to shower and brush your teeth, and so much more.....HOUSING FIRST resolves most of the problems related to homelessness.

@Oma_Trisha_F @MisuseCase @futurebird I have absolutely been there. More than once. At one point with a young child.

@quinn @MisuseCase @futurebird

Then there is NO EXCUSE for your comment. Not one. It's nothing but judgmentalism and cruelty.