Taiwan 2024 - Taitung Area, Umbrella Home (front side) / My Almost-Homeless Experiment

This view, the front door of the same "home" posted yesterday, is fascinating to me.  This is clearly a homeless person's patch of sidewalk, yet it has the same accoutrements found in any Taiwanese household:  a bucket for cleaning on the left with cleaning gloves attached to the roller cart next to it, and outdoor sandals placed conveniently to the right.  As you can see, the occupant is inside and either putting her shoes on to venture out, or taking them off to settle in.

Slightly different perspective of same below:

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Running across a scene like this, can't help but think of a time that I decided to try homelessness myself.  I'd been wandering around Manhattan for a few days while searching for a job in the summer of 1984, basing out of hotel across the Hudson in Union City, NJ, when it entered my mind that it might be interesting to sleep on a park bench one night to experience what it felt like to be homeless in the city.  During the day I walked Central Park and picked out a bench that would be suitable for the experiment.  However, as nightfall approached I had a change of mind, concluding that my station in life - that of a solidly middle-class American, never having experienced hunger and in no dire straits - would in no way compare with the circumstances of a real homeless person, so would really be a sham.  Besides, what if I took somebody else's bench?  What if I became a victim of crime, having rendered myself vulnerable to the darker side of city life?  Thus better judgment prevailed and I just went back to the hotel, getting some good rest to continue my job search the next day.