Safety of Belongings: A privilege or a right?

Are your things safe?

I don’t mean protected by insurance, rather I’m talking about safe from a loss in the first place. Is your wallet accounted for? How about your clothes, your electronics, your tools, your bike? If so, that safety likely comes from having a place for you to keep your things.

I’m talking about safety from having a place you call home, or a car you control, or even a dry storage box. Keeping these spaces that are exclusively yours lets you keep your assets where they are in custody and protected from theft or loss. 

Safety becomes is a privilege enjoyed by affording those services. Knowing your things are all accounted for enables you to have freedom of movement, engage in hobbies you like, and see people you care about. That safety also lets you get on with your day knowing there’s security of your self and your possessions. We can figure out the extent we depend on our sense of safety by how we would react without personal security.

Without personal safety of your possessions, you are less likely to feel empowered to make decisions that you may consider second-nature and part of life. Instead, you’d have to carry everything you own around and take risks when doing so. Things become risks, making activities like these become harder:

• look for or have a job
• keeping your identification
• traveling virtually any distance
• entering buildings
• sleeping
• simply having belongings

All of activities that we can take for granted become part of a gauntlet you’re forced to navigate every day and night if you don't have a place to keep your things. 

But what about people who cannot afford the luxury of keeping things safe? What if we can make safety less of a luxury service and something accessible to everyone? We’ve already figured out it’s rather essential to have a life. 

Safety shouldn’t be a service bought and acquired, but a common benefit for everyone to enjoy. Thankfully, there are agencies and nonprofits out there making safety accessible, but together we can do more through awareness and advocacy to expand these services to more places. 

You can learn more about safekeeping programs here.