I’m starting a very small, very local charity (”Keeping It Together”[?]) to help distribute goods to (mostly unhoused) folks in the OKC metro. Flagship/cornerstone item will be large, durable “moving bags” (e.g., IKEA FRAKTA carrier bags).

This whole thing is personal, but on a personal taste note, I find these bags 100% indispensable for everyday life. I think everyone should have them. I give them to all my friends. As a single woman, living alone, upstairs… look, I can get ALL my groceries upstairs in one trip. I can empty all the random stuff from the day’s errands out of the car. I’ve brought multiple cinderblocks up, at once, in one bag. The materials and design (e.g., double-handles) make them incredible in moving heavy and bulky loads with minimal effort.

But, we don’t have an IKEA here. I would have to pay a premium (at least double in price, if not more) to get them online (usually from a reseller), but that also means I’d have to know about them, which most people here simply do not (yet). The closest store is 3-4 hours away (depending on traffic) and IKEA doesn’t really do small-item shipping the way a lot of other retailers are willing to do.

It’s funny, but, these bags are generally only seen here in the hands of imports, transplants, and people who have disposable income for shopping while travelling (which all imply pretty comfortable people, if you know about the people moving to Oklahoma and from where they’re moving). For such an inexpensive item, it’s ironic, it’s completely unavailable to the people who would benefit most from it.

So, how did I put 2+2 here? Do I just love the bags so much that I think the world should subsidize them for everyone? Well, I mean, kinda? But, to add to the irony of the above statements, I learned about them initially from some hard-sleeping homeless folks travelling from Boston to NYC.

I’ve struggled with housing most of my life, even as a kid, and when I was at my worst I found local resources that helped me get the physical and mental healthcare I badly needed at the time (basically sliding scale, meaning at little or no cost to me). While I have insurance now, I’ve had better medical outcomes with these clinics than the other options available to me. It’s great that they accept my insurance, so I’m able to now pay into the system that helped me before.

I noticed that many unhoused people in my area are constantly doing what I call a “struggle-juggle” of several bags and backpacks (mostly backpacks) to carry everything they need. Literally imagine your day if you had to carry 5-6 backpacks… especially on foot. No matter how clever the configuration, it leaves you vulnerable, off-balance/clumsy, and slowed down.

While some use shopping carts (our city invented them, after all) our metro isn’t the best environment (sidewalk/road-wise) for that. Also, carts leave you open to theft while you’re indisposed using the restroom or buying food. It’s hard to get anywhere urgently with a cart.

It might seem like a small, silly thing, but this very inexpensive item (along with whatever sundries/snacks we have available) can make a huge difference in a person’s life. The plan is a multi-prong distribution system: personal handoffs to people found in need, and through the aforementioned clinic(s) already providing evaluations and services to the people that would benefit most.