@mekkaokereke this is very true. There is also an added level of complexity: even a good shelter is not theirs.
If you are sleeping rough on the streets, or even in a tent city, you have things that are yours. Not much, but some. Your scarcity makes you protective of your things, and the hostility of the general public makes you fearful of others. Homeless communities are rife with substance abuse, mental and physical health issues, and occasional interpersonal politics among those who have been there the longest.
Many shelters also come with weird assumptions—strict religious values, personality judgements, little health support, arbitrary rules that infantilise you—and most reach capacity or shut down or kick you out at some point. So if you leave your spot (or swag, or tent, or trolley) to go a shelter, you feel like it will just be taken from you soon and then you’ll be back here but without your spot/stuff. And maybe having rubbed others in your community the wrong way.
Starving and exposure and scarcity and fear changes you in a way that makes it more difficult to re-integrate than simply being given things or opportunities or aid.
uastronomer
mekkaokereke