I think wondering why a person wears a winter coat when its 98F out – something most people would find intolerable – is rather different than wondering why a homeless person has an object of obvious utility. No one’s wondering why homeless people wear heavy winter coats in the winter.
Also, if your regular clothes are all dirty and torn, or if they smell bad, you keep your overcoat on to cover that up. It’s partly a desire to look as descent as possible under the circumstances, and be least offensive to other people, calling as little attention to yourself.
You must not actually have ever lived in a big city . . . your aesthetic sense is not high on their priority list.
How about the second largest in the nation? One of my work sites, in fact, serves the population of skid row. Don’t make the mistake of lumping the “aesthetic sense” of all homeless into one description. A great number of people who find themselves homeless are highly self-conscious of their pariah status–especially those who have only recently become so.
You must not actually have ever been homeless yourself, either.
For some. Not for others.
Some homeless try VERY hard to not show it. Staying clean and presentable helps you keep pride in yourself, not get kicked out of libraries and restaurants, not get stared at… Not to mention that it can help with getting a job.
Some homeless have given up on this stuff, or don’t care for other reasons. But many do.
-D/a
Yeah, at least he’s not fat!
Reread. I wrote clothes that DON’T match the season.
To answer the question my post has gotten. I just assume part being homeless is not being able to buy new clothes. So, you have to wear (lug around) your winter shit in the summer. Which is better imo than having to wear shorts and t-shirts in the winter.
It’s also a storage issue - most homeless I know keep their stuff hidden in bushes, underbrush, etc. You have to be careful not to be seen getting at your hiding place. If someone on the streets sees you, they might steal it. If someone who isn’t homeless sees you, they might report it, and various authorities may throw your stuff out.
Sometimes areas will be cleared out of underbrush just because they suspect homeless people hang out there.
All this makes long term storage a tricky issue. I’ve always felt that providing a clean, safe solution for storage is a big need if you want to help the homeless.
-D/a
Heroin withdrawl or one of these conditions?
The question was why it’s sometimes worn, instead of toted - say, in a plastic bag or something. If it’s in the 90s outside and you had to walk to a cleaners to get a down parka cleaned, you’d probably put it in some kind of bag rather than wearing it zipped up the whole way.
Given my experiences with them when I worked at the library, they are probably afraid it would be stolen if it were off their person.
I do not have schizophrenia.
But I think I would be this type of homeless person. It’s less about temperature, although I do believe schizophrenics have problems with thermoregulation, being either unusally intolerant to heat and/or cold. But rather more about emotional security. If you’re bombarded with voices and crazy images and delusions about people coming after you and snakes biting you and other crazy things, as well as the bizarre physical sensations that are associated with schizophrenia (like your limps falling off, things “itching” you), then I could see wearing a heavy coat acting as a psychological protective barrier against all of that. Schizophrenia = split of oneself. There’s this constant feeling that you’re falling to pieces and disintegrating. The more clothing you’re wearing, the more bundled up and “together” you feel. I imagine it’s like those weighted vests that they give kids with sensory integrative disorders. Schizophrenia impacts how well you integrate sensory input. A heavy coat would “ground” them, just like that weighted vest grounds those kids.
This is the first time I’ve thought about it, but at work, I don’t feel right if I’m not wearing a sweater. Even if it’s not that cold in the building, I have to wear an additional layer to what I have on. I also tend to keep myself bundled up in an ugly afghan, frequently drawing it up over my mouth as I work. I know it’s bizarre and I tell myself that I look crazy, but it makes me a more functional worker. I just try to keep my door closed as far as I can without drawing negative attention so no one can see me buried under my blanket, typing away at my computer.
There was a This American Life episode that followed these two guys, both professionals, who decided that they had enough of the NYC rat race and decided to become homeless poets, surviving off of whatever they could get from poetry slams and the like. They made a point of staying clean and looking “normal”, distinguishing themselves from the group they called (IIRC), the “schiz’s”. These were the guys bundled up in heavy jackets and dirty. They didn’t want to become lumped in with those guys, because those guys had clearly hit rock bottom. But sadly, as their little “experiment” continued on with no big breakthroughs, they found themselves being more and more like that group. The two stopped hanging out and became more isolated from life. Eventually, they resurfaced and were mainstreamed back into regular society with the help of a homeless advocacy group. It was a strange yet interesting story.
Where are they getting these bags? Most stores will shoe them out. They’ve been shown to want to spend what little money they have (get!) on food or other substances.
I think what a lot of people aren’t realizing is that the homelesss (who don’t have some type of mental/drug problem) are not like you and me. They don’t have disposable income and they don’t have reliable storage. The most likely place they’d find a bag to fit an adult sized coat is in the garabage. Would you want to put your clothing in the garbage? Smell even worse than most of them do. :dubious:
I think the key element here is people are confusing homeless with elderly/crazy people who wander the streets. While the second group can be homeless, most of them aren’t and the majority are on some sort of government aide. Most of them living in housing (usually senior citizen housing). Those aren’t homeless people.
Laying all over the ground, stuffed into garbage cans, blown into culverts and the like. A number of towns have been so plagued by disposable plastic bag litter in trees/creeks/etc. that they want their shops to charge a small fee per bag so that more people will stop taking a bag if they don’t need one, only to half-toss it into garbage (or on the ground) upon leaving the store. I’ve seen a number of homeless people with small bundles of bags stuffed full of things.
The OP was wondering something along those lines - why wear rather than pack it away in a bag? I think the answers about mental illness/fear of one of their most valuable items being snatched away/wanting to symbolically “bundle” against the world/drugs/etc. cover the situation pretty well.