Contrary to stereotypes, many homeless people do work. The characters in “Carts of Darkness” get their “spending money” from “binning,” or scavenging for bottles and cans and returning them for cash. A 2002 study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan U.S. research center, showed that 45 percent of homeless adults had worked in the last 30 days. But that number likely doesn’t include binning and other informal jobs.
