Have you ever noticed a homeless person pushing a shopping cart down the street? This is an all too common occurrence for anybody who lives in a city. Maybe you’ve recently become homeless yourself and you’re wondering if a having a shopping cart might benefit you as well.

Most people really don’t have a clue as to why homeless people and shopping carts go together like peanut butter and jelly. The truth is, there’s a number of different reasons why people living on the streets use these shopping carts. In almost all cases, these shopping carts were illegally stolen from local grocery store parking lots.

Even if you happen to come across one that’s become abandoned somewhere, you’re taking a risk by using it. If a police officer or even an employee from the store where it was stolen from sees you with it, you might end up in jail over it, even if you’re not the one who originally stole it.

So as an ex-homeless person myself, I strongly urge you not to use these shopping carts if you are a homeless person that’s come across one. But I can at least explain why so many homeless people use these types of carts based on what I’ve witnessed first-hand. The following are the top 5 reasons why the homeless often have shopping carts with them.

 

To Carry Pets
You might not see that many homeless people with pets, but many actually own dogs, cats, and even other types of pets. What would you do if you had a home and pets but suddenly found yourself losing your home or being evicted from where you’re at? Pets are just like family to most people in today’s society, so why should homeless people be any different?

So it goes without saying that many people who live on the streets still have their pets. They will often use these shopping carts as a way of transporting them and providing them with some type of shelter during the day that they themselves do not have.

You might think that the shopping carts would slow them down when they’re walking, but if they walk with their animals all day, their animals will become more tired and require even more food to replace the lost energy.

This is often a way for homeless people to use up less resources so their pets can save more energy and keep the pounds on when times are tough.

 

To Protect Themselves
Some people even use shopping carts as a form of shelter at night, by flipping them on their side and crawling halfway into them or flipping them upside down and using them as a roof.

There are all types of dangerous people on the streets and some will randomly harm other homeless people in the middle of the night. This is a tragic reality of being a vagrant and so because of this, homeless people often have to become creative when it comes to protecting themselves at night.

By sleeping with the upper portion of their body inside the shopping cart when it’s flipped on it’s side, they’re protecting the most vital parts of their bodies in the case of an unsuspecting attack.

The same is true when they flip the cart upside down and they will often use it as a shade from the sun and elements as well. The way they do this is they’ll flip the cart upside down but use something to slightly prop it up so that they can still crawl under it.

Then they’ll take cardboard, blankets, and even plastic bags or other materials to cover the cart with so it becomes a sort of roof or shelter that they can crawl under.

You may not see them using the carts in this way unless you visit a homeless encampment or a place in the woods or under a bridge where many people sleep. I say this because they won’t normally go through all this trouble unless they’re in a place that they know they won’t be disturbed by authorities or others who might make them move or deconstruct everything.

 

To Transport Their Possessions
Then, of course, there’s the most common reason that most people who are homeless use these carts, which is to transport their possessions. Just because a person loses their home, it does not mean that they’ve lost everything that was in it.

Many people have sentimental belongings they feel they can’t just do without or they have valuables they think they might be able to sell if they can find an interested buyer. For both of these reasons, they will often transport these belongings in a shopping cart until they find a safer place for them.

In my stints on the streets, I always had storage units nearby that I paid for and I had at least enough income to pay for these units, so it wasn’t something I often had to worry about. I would simply put all my things in storage and go to that storage unit whenever I needed to get something out. But not all homeless people think to do this or even have the income for this.

Also, if you’re wondering why they don’t just leave their things with someone they trust. Think about their situation and why they might not be able to do it. If they had family members or trustworthy friends, chances are they wouldn’t be homeless in the first place because they’d probably have a place to stay in that case.

 

To Collect Cans
In the early morning hours of the day, many homeless people make their daily earnings by going out into the neighborhoods and collecting aluminum cans.

They’ll often do this by pushing shopping carts around with them so they can haul large amounts of cans until it’s time to trade them in. When they’re finished for the day and feel they’ve collected enough cans, they’ll then normally find a redemption center that will pay them for the cans by the pound.

This is particularly true for those that live in states that allow redemption of these cans. However, even those that don’t live in “redemption states”, as they’re called, still cash in if they know the right people. When I lived in Los Angeles, I knew many people who collected cans in our area and then went down the street about two miles from our encampment to get paid for all the cans and bottles they collected.

But when I stayed in Nevada, the homeless people there would sell their cans to a ring of people who would transport the cans over the border into California to redeem them because there are no redemption facilities in Nevada. This is highly illegal and these types of people are caught all the time by the authorities.

So I am not recommending that you or anyone do this. I’m simply explaining why you may see people with shopping carts filled with cans in both redemption and non-redemption states.

 

To Use as Walkers
Then there are some people who simply feel they need the shopping carts in order to walk steady. Many people on the streets have disabilities or impairments that cause walking to be difficult for them.

Because the homeless life is a stressful one outside that normally doesn’t involve the use of a vehicle, many people have to walk plenty of miles each day to get between shelters, libraries, social service departments and wherever else they may need to get to.

Sometimes they may use a shopping cart just to make the walk easier, as it gives them something to balance themselves while they’re walking and also something they can lean against when they get tired.

Not everybody who is homeless can afford a walker or a cane and those that might qualify for low-income medical services may be waiting on approval or to see a doctor for non-emergency problems.