A warehouse full of tiny storage units is a sign of society’s indulgent excess.

Back in the 1970’s when the economy was roaring its monetary might; a company called Public Storage was created to store the excess collectibles from this country’s populace. Small rooms, the size of bedrooms, were rented to store old family photos, 8-track music tape collections, and treasured furniture that just don’t fit into their homes. Last year, Public Storage was a $1.6 billion dollar company.

Today, during a time when a turtle-like economy has slowed job growth and salary increases, these small public storage rooms are becoming less the extra storage space for the middle class and more like the alternative homes for the homeless.

This past week, I sat in community meetings in Los Angeles County where the street outreach teams from People Assisting the Homeless (PATH) presented a snapshot assessment of homeless hotspots in the southeast portion of the county.

They described the high density of homelessness found along freeways, parks, and rivers, the usual places people can hide from the harassment of people who just don’t fit into society’s norm. Shopping carts filled with recycled cans or tattered tents that try to hide a homeless person’s place of sleep just don’t fit onto this country’s main street.

Then the presentation turned to Public Storage buildings. The presenters said homeless people are using these rented storage rooms to store their belongings. It’s much safer than keeping their treasured items out in the open. Some storage managers are complaining that people without homes are sneaking in at night to sleep in their tiny ten foot by ten foot rooms.

It Just Makes Sense

How can you afford a $600 per month apartment when you are homeless? It is much cheaper to pay $100 per month storage unit. People are storing their things in a storage unit, and then finding a hidden place to sleep on the edge of middle class civilization—along urban rivers, ten-lane freeways, or in a pocket park.

Here in Los Angeles affordable housing costs about $250,000 per unit to build, around the country it is about $150,000 per home. Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to just give a homeless person two public storage units, one for sleeping and one for storing their belongings?

Sure, critics would say that such housing is like caging animals. But to me, living in an alley behind a trash bin, or along an urban freeway is true wildlife. Even sleeping in a large warehouse along with a hundred other people in cots is really not dignified living. Of course, if there were an earthquake or hurricane, sleeping in emergency quarters for a few days, or even a few months is tolerable, but for years?

I think I would rather sleep in my own private storage unit than outside worried about sickness from the elements or violence from others. I would feel protected.

The ingenuity of people living on the streets is actually admirable. Renting a $100 per month storage room is better than sleeping on the dirt.

Of course, an apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, and living space is still the ideal. Sadly, ensuring that every American lives with such standards should not be the ideal but the norm.

Maybe Public Storage should get into the homeless housing business. I’m sure with this economy they are having a tough time renting storage space for middle class America who are losing their homes to foreclosure.

Perhaps “PS” will come to mean People Storage, rather than Public Storage.

Photo credit: Jeremy Brooks