Why are homeless people in Edmonton always on bicycles ?

[Quagmire]

Cheap transportation, cheap maintenance, you can take it with you pretty much anywhere.

And, I'm guessing that this explanation only applies to a small minority but there are a few homeless people who live the way they do because they just disagree with civilization as a concept, and the automobile does a great job of symbolizing quite a bit of what's wrong with it:

The oil and automotive industries and everything that goes with them, the idea that it's worth sacrificing our health and the health of the environment for the sake of convenience, the idea that it's more important to have parking lots then parks, and just general selfishness and shortsightedness.

If civilization were a baseball team, the internal combustion engine could be its mascot.

 

[JustGeorge]

You see a person on a bycicle, okay -- but then how do you know he's homeless?

Might they not just be poor, and not necessarily homeless?

Someone thought I was homeless once... Gave me money, bought my groceries...

It was a kind gesture, but I was ill. My son was ill. We'd been ill for awhile, but we still had to eat. We looked a mess(who cares about looking good when you feel like crap?) Probably smelled bad. But no one was going to go to the grocery store for me, so away we went... I said it wasn't necessary, but she insisted.

Looks are deceiving.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Because they are natives and have grubby clothes.

You're heading into territory I'd rather not be involved in now, I think. Just FYI, it might be unwise to begin inferring someone's homeless (or not) status based on ethnicty.

 

[Stevicus]

Might they not just be poor, and not necessarily homeless?

Or maybe not even poor. I'm reminded of a local person, who would often be seen riding some kind of old bicycle wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. He'd be out there almost every day, and quite a number of people would see him in various sections of the city. It seemed like that was all he did, and people might have wondered if he was homeless or unemployed or otherwise poor.

When he died, there was a local article in the paper about that, since a lot of people around town saw him riding his bicycle, so he was almost like a local celebrity. It turned out that he had actually inherited quite a bit of money and didn't really need to work or anything. So, all he did every day was ride around on his bicycle.

 

[mangalavara]

It turned out that he had actually inherited quite a bit of money and didn't really need to work or anything. So, all he did every day was ride around on his bicycle.

Man, if I had an inheritance like that, all I’d do is drink coffee and milk tea while lying on the rug.