‘It’s an emotional home’: first Museum of Homelessness to open in London

New centre allows public to learn from homeless people by viewing a performance-based exhibition and hearing first-person accounts

What makes an item so immensely valuable that it belongs in a museum, carefully preserved for future generations? Britain’s heritage institutions may be full of historic and priceless objects, but at the world’s first museum dedicated to homelessness, which opens to the public in London on 24 May, the treasured artefacts are very different.

There is a bent and much repaired stick, originally made from two pieces of scrap wood, that for its owner was a walking aid, defensive weapon and cherished companion before he donated it, with great sacrifice, to the museum. There is the skeleton of an old shopping trolley that once carried all its owner’s worldly possessions before he offered it to help transport supplies for those in need during the Covid crisis.