Dumpster Diving in the Great Recession: 'I Did It Because I Was Hungry" (Hard Times, USA)

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/poverty/tales-dumpster-diving



In 2012 Cornelius, an older homeless man who has been living in a suburb north of Chicago, started by telling me of the first time he ever tried dumpster diving.

I did it because I was hungry. I was proud and I did not want anyone to see me doing it. I went through dumpsters behind apartment buildings in Chicago. In the first block, I did not find anything, but in the next one I discovered a large pizza with only half eaten. I took it over to the house of a friend, who heated it up so everybody there had some. I did not tell them where I got it from.

I used to do it to find clothes. You would find a pair of pants or shirt and take it the laundry to clean it. I want decent clothing. I don’t want people to know I am poor.

Behind grocery stores, I’ve gotten polish sausages, hamburger meat, and even steaks. Often, I’d find corn, butter and milk and, recently, cottage cheese. I don’t like it, but my friend did, and I gave it to him.

Sometimes, he and I find a lot of food and we take what we can get and share it with others.

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. K&R Find & vote for new candidates that support sensible economic policy.

[Mnemosyne]

2. It is beyond heart-breaking to know people are forced to live like tihs in the supposedly greatest

country on the Earth.

And it really, really pisses me off...

[JaneyVee]

3. Been there, done that.

[DotGone]

5. Ditto.

When my parents die, I'm probably going back to it.

[woo me with science]

4. K&R

with rage.

[jwirr]

6. Years ago our local grocery store would set the "over ripe" fresh fruit and vegies out when they

could not sell them. My dad would pick them up for the geese, ducks and chickens. We soon learned that much of it was still edible.