Of Dead Batteries and Homelessness

Last night's photography excursion was aborted because my camera battery won't hold a charge. Until the situation is rectified, I'll just show you a picture from last summer.

That's a bench in Lincoln Park, down the street from my house.

There are certain markers of homelessness one expects: litter, the jangle of change and, of course, the obligatory "God bless" when you walk by. Seeing evidence of homelessness, though, without the homeless, strikes a deeper chord.

Commonly there are sleeping bags and empty bottles of whiskey scattered in doorways, reinforcing stereotypes. When it's neatly organized belongings, like above, it reveals that homelessness means a lack of privacy. Imagine having no dresser, no closet, no laundry hamper. We rightly worry about the homeless during the winter, when they are in danger of freezing to death, but I don't often think about what it is like to live with no personal space at all.