I had all my shit stolen by ave rats when I was in college. I relate.

And I don't think it could be you. One thing I've learned is that the homeless are not monolithic. There's this one guy with a bike with about eighty dozen mirrors on it. He's well-groomed. He's friendly. He's never looking for a hand-out. I always say hi. Then there's this other posse that has a couple dozen bikes and maybe a dozen shopping carts chained up. There's the dude who sweeps the river (really) and there's the lady who's always squatting to take a dump downstream about a mile who never gives the first fuck who sees.

I think that the unseen homeless are the ones that aren't stealing your shit because they recognize that the costs-benefits analysis on it doesn't pencil out. They're the ones that aren't flaunting their condition, that see the homeless as "them" instead of "us" and are every bit Steinbeck's temporarily-embarrassed millionaires. And I don't see you stealing someone's packages just to see if they're something you can use.

_wage? _wage totally woulda stolen packages.

We all deal with adversity differently. I think part of our frustration is we mostly encounter those who deal with adversity by disregarding the social compact. Those who abide by it are invisible to us.