Inside the world’s first museum of homelessness

I’m sitting in a small, cramped room with 20 other people staring at a stick. Not just any stick, mind: it’s been customised with gaffer tape and paint so it looks like a punk shillelagh. The stick has a range of purposes, says the young black woman giving the presentation: comfort, protection, and its primary purpose, support. She recounts how, disembarking from a bus one night she forgot her crutches, and plucked the stick from a garden. It’s been a source of support ever since.

I’m confused. The young woman doesn’t seem in need of a crutch, nor does she look the type to assault potential assailants with a stick, painted or otherwise. Then I realise the words aren’t her own, but those of the benefactor who generously donated his beloved stick. His long and, frankly, rambling explanation of why the stick was so important was recorded for posterity, and now she is repeating his words for our delectation.