The brutal mistreatment of homeless people by police forces is such a common thing in our society that connects to ideas of taking up space and a way waste is used to justify aggression. People’s unease around seeing waste in public places is apparent. I think this relates to the way we are allowed to have or not have a certain amount of stuff in public places. Being that the majority of one’s possessions exist in their home impacts the way people operate in public places. Connecting space to gender expectations I think is an interesting starting point. Oftentimes, we see women having external bags to carry their things in public. While in general, women are not allowed to take up as much space as men, therefore I find this kind of ironic. However, maybe this connects to the idea of women being told they need things or relationships with others to be valued. Even in traditional men’s and women’s clothes, women’s clothing always have way smaller or even a lack of pockets. I have always connected this to capitalism and how women are then expected to buy bags, in order to carry even basic things like their phone, wallet, or keys. The things that people are allowed to carry in public spaces are based on context. For example, one might not carry a briefcase to a restaurant but would have it in an office. However, homeless people are really not allowed to have anything in any context. Being that homeless people don’t have any privacy with their belongings, police forces detect that as vulnerability, and therefore feel they have control over their things and personhood. While someone entering another’s home and taking or destroying their things is a criminal offense, and the police are considered to be the saving grace force in that scenario, that same argument does not apply to police entering homeless people’s spaces. Police forces have applied aggression to homeless people and argued that it is because their innate existence is not allowed in public spaces. The face-to-face interaction that the police forces have with the poverty they are systemically perpetuating when engaging with homeless people is different than the “disorder” they claim to be separate from and having to deal with. Overall, the terrible mistreatment of homeless people by police forces connects to ideas of taking up space and who and which objects are allowed to be present in certain contexts.