Homeless and Hoarding For those in poverty, excessively stockpiling possessions can act as a link to a more prosperous past or insurance for a difficult future.

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Fear meets Sarah Wolff in the elevator.
It’s standing beside her as she rides to her third-floor apartment. Taunting her. Tapping her shoulder and whispering in her ear.
“When I get off the elevator up here, I panic,” she says. She can’t see her apartment door from the elevator. “Is there a note saying ‘You’re evicted, you can’t live here anymore?’ I have that panic every time I leave the apartment … I’m like, ‘Oh please don’t let there be anything on the door. Dear God. Please.’”
Wolff, a 29-year-old formerly homeless mother, is haunted by that fear. She thinks about loss constantly. Losing her apartment. Losing her things. Losing Aiden, her 9-year-old son, again.
READ MORE:http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/homeless-and-hoarding/384036/