Furniture Reuse Thrives at Homeless Camps

For every couch that makes it on this feed, there are millions of others that don’t. (Americans threw away over 24 billion pounds of furnishings in 2015.) In my community, it seems the flow of street furniture goes directly through our many homeless encampments.

Furniture cast offs from home and apartment dwellers often find new life within Oakland’s 4,000+ unsheltered population.

Though not often talked about, this is reuse, as much as shopping on eBay or Craigslist is.

In its most basic form, reuse is a survival skill. One that humans have relied on since the beginning of time. We can forget that when we’re lucky enough to choose to purchase everything new, and, increasingly, expect delivery within hours. This conditioning of more, newer, faster blinds us to how many uses the things we throw out still contain.

Many unsheltered Oaklanders live in encampments dubbed last year by the New York Times as “some of the world’s most dire places.” Furniture is a plainly visible, major component of every encampment I’ve seen. Witnessing it, gives testament to how quickly a piece’s useful value overrides its imperfections. Bringing furniture into tents and living spaces can help life feel a little normal, D, a resident of the camp at Mosswood Park, explained to me last year.

Through reuse and repurposing, the life of furniture is extended, until tractors are brought in to raze the camps. People disperse, dumpsters get loaded up and carted away, and the process to rebuild starts anew elsewhere. Last year, I happened upon the destruction from this process a couple times—it is devastating.

As we celebrate, and increasingly commercialize, furniture reuse, for whom will the systems be designed to benefit? Those most in need? Or those who have the most? Who should be leading? Who should be listening? Who’s paying attention?