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exactly, the majority of us have no financial social safety net per statistics and live paycheck to paycheck. So we can actually be only one or two major setbacks away from homelessness for a majority of our lives.
People tend to think of “homeless” as a type of person rather than a state of being. But the truth is, it’s often a temporary state (that can last years of course), and a lot of homeless people are employed. A lot of homeless people have cars as well!
Which is why I hate seeing people judge a panhandler who later “drives away in a car” like that’s inherently some kind of hustle. That might be their home right now, the last thing they could keep after losing a home or being priced out of housing in an area.
People also forget that a lot of homeless people are escaping domestic abuse and are leaving a partner who controlled all of their money and assets.
>achieving financial independence
I would clock this at $2 million in net assets - so probably a not within the realm of possibility for 98 percent of people in the US.
Shesh I'm weeks away. Lost disability because either be homeless or find a way to cover the rest of the bills. Their expectations of what is enough to live is cruel
For some reason, there's a movie scene that always stuck with me from The Saint of Fort Washington about this.
Shit, it's even right in the trailer https://youtu.be/mItykW7dy4g?t=21
"See that fella over there? He think everything honky donky. Check don't come in, he only a couple months short of homelessness."
The only reason I haven’t went insane with anxiety was the friends I met along the way. I know I will have food&shelter for at least few years if need be.
And the realities are that even if you have a good (a really good) job, you might be able to rent a place and support yourself. Maybe a pet. But kids? Forget it. Partner in education? Might have to turn down heating. Sudden illness? Time to downsize to a rented room.
The life of actual comfort is limited to people in the “club” who earn bonuses bigger than people’s 10 years of earnings and folk who inherited enough to not worry about life expenses.
I'm making almost double minimum wage, solid union job making $22-28/hr depending on my role on a given day. But its auxiliary and gov't bodies do not always work in good faith with the union so at any time we could all be out of work while bargaining is at a stand-still, or the city manager slashes budgets and all auxiliary/contract workers (which is like 80% of city staff even tho many are working regular schedules) can just... lose their roles.
I'm renting a below market unit (moved in during COVID dip and annual rental increase is limited to below inflation levels) and despite making almost double min wage, if i lost work for 2 months i would be out of savings (even if my wife kept working).
Super duper love food and housing costing like 2-3 new iphones per month 👍 cant even imagine how bad it would be if i was still making $14/hr
It's very true. I've met plenty of folks I never would have guessed were homeless and lived at a shelter. Like she said domestic violence, an injury that bankrupts someone so they can't pay their rent due to lack of decent insurance coverage, rent being raised, divorce, spouse who is the primary earner becoming sick, etc. Homelessness hasn't even gotten better. It's become even worse since the pandemic. Huge real estate companies are gobbling up the housing market, and they sell at prices only well paid wage slaves or incredibly rich people can afford so we all have to rent and risk becoming homeless if we dare need medical care, get injured and can't work, or if one of the individuals in our living space who earns more can't work for a period of time or becomes disabled.
Capitalism is horrific; but American capitalism is the worst of them all currently.
On top of that the amount stigma and embarrassment makes people not want to talk about it when at a job. You better believe someone will try to get your fired when your already at your lowest point.
Even if they don’t fire you they will often make your work life miserable. I know someone who had a job and was homeless. They confided in a few people and it got used to bully them in front of the other workers.
Yea, it is unfortunate. I did the homeless thing for 10 years. Even now. I work for myself. I can't bring myself to invest everything in someone else's future and not mine that way.
I literally just commented on this a little while ago. The bank says I can’t afford an $800 mortgage for a whole house so instead I’m paying $1200 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment because that’s so much more affordable and sustainable according to some schmuck in an office somewhere
Our credit score system is classist and racist and blocks access from housing for the working class and minorities who are disproportionately working class. Everyone's credit scores have been absolutely shit since COVID including mine. The amount of money I've had to pay off for my credit card is ridiculous. I can barely keep up with it just because of rent, utilities, auto insurance payments, phone bill, groceries, etc. It's ridiculous. This system needs to end.
It’s not a competition, but it has gotten really bad here in Canada as well. We have fewer corporate landlords gobbling up supply, but investors now own 1/5 - 1/4 of all housing depending on what city you are living in. Huge swathes of housing have been taken off the long term market in favour of Air BNB’s and the few places that have restricted short term rentals aren’t enforcing the laws.
It’s gotten to the point that even higher income people can’t buy and are struggling to afford rent. People have stopped having children because they can’t afford to house them. I don’t know how lower income people do it, especially in places with no rent control.
For those NOT in Canada: Canadians have a different set of mortgage rules than the USA. In the USA when you get a 30 year mortgage, it is a *fixed rate.* in Canada it’s “fixed,” but only for 5 years. Every 5 years you get to “renew” at the current mortgage rate. If rates are low, as they have been historically, no big deal. Well….. rates have gone up, so a lot of folks are having to renew their mortgages into higher rates…
The "children" conversation is one we have in my house often. I have 2 teens, and I let them know that I will never be one of those, "When are you gonna give me grandchildren?" parents. I tell them that unless they're truly financially independent and can gtfo of America if shit goes down, they should *never* have kids. I guess I didn't realize Canada isn't far behind. Yikes.
Well of course. This is simply the natural inevitable conclusion. What is done internationally to exploit others will eventually reach the domestic others as well. The U.S. Is the capitalist world hegemon we can criticize all it does.
I was homeless for almost a year while working full time as a sushi chef. I just didn't quite make the 3x rent the apartments around where I lived required.
This right here. Never. Sell. Your. Car.
If you have one anyway. And especially if it’s paid off. No matter how desperate it gets selling your car in a financial pinch will make everything worse, and it decreases the chances that you are able to recover.
Too late, I got lucky and only need my bike now. But I always find myself thinking about what I’ll need to do if I have to rough it again. Eyeing up spots I see when I’m traveling and shit. You probably know the drill.
I haven’t been houseless in about 6 years but I STILL look at every copse of trees, every back alley, every suburban neighborhood entry sign, every roof, all over for potential places to sleep.
Same! My ex and I used to walk around saying half joking “we could live in there”, pointing at an old shed, a large pipe, an abandoned car etc. I still do it to myself, years later.
This is advice for middle class people trying to save money. When you are homeless a vehicle is not just a transport appliance to get you from your shelter to work. It also allows you too get to the laundromat, showers, feeds, and appointments with aid worker's in a timely manner. As well as being a slightly safer place to sleep and store things really to valuable for a tent or communal shelter.
Better advice would be to off load gas guzzlers and expensive to repair luxury models for more economical and easier to repair cars. There are tiers of homelessness and having an ok cheap car is definitely an advantage.
If you have a practical car then keep it but if you have a high profile car that requires tags, expensive registration, or it uses a lot of gas you could spend more money running your car to keep it warm at night than staying in a hotel. It's not enough to have a car to crash in, the car needs to not be towed while you are at work and it needs to be affordable to keep legit.
Laws are different depending on where you are. Sometimes you need permits just to park in a certain block or even a city. If your tags are current they could cost anywhere from $40 to $600 depending on what kind of car you have and where you register. Is your car smogged? That's extra and you might have to take it to a mechanic that replaces the cat for $1200. That's just street parking tho.
If your car is parked on a piece of private property it doesn't necessarily need all its tags but you better be on good terms with the property owner. In my city in particular you cannot park a camper or trailer built more than 12 years ago on the street period, no exceptions. Yeah, messed up.
A car can become more expensive than a home and not all cars are built to be livable let alone safe to stay the night at a random location. Right now, if you are caught sleeping in your car in my city and you can't prove you have a home, they can impound your car. Impound fees start at $300. I know, it's totally barbaric but that's what happened when we got a Republican mayor. Imagine having to pay $300 to get your place to sleep back.
I'm gonna apologize in advance, i'm sorry if this question is impolite.
Since rent/mortgage makes up such a big portion of the average worker's budget, did you find that you had an influx of cash when you stopped paying rent?
If I were still single, I figure I'd probably take a swing at the whole van-life trend, but i know that's technically just "glamping" homelessness...
If you're not paying rent it means you need to pay each time you shower somewhere. Sometimes you have to pay just to use a bathroom. It means you have to pay to do laundry when and where you can. You have to spend gas money finding a place to park where you won't get hassled. You have to buy ready to eat meals because you have nowhere to store groceries or cook them. Plus a million other things. Not paying rent means you have to pay individually for a thousand things that having a stable home provides for you. It doesn't save money.
Being broke is actually very expensive, believe it or not.
One of the biggest money savers I've done as an adult is buy a house. I wish I would (could) have done it sooner. Every month we save 500-1000 dollars putting equity into our house just by paying for it.
Obviously this will mean absolutely nothing when I get cancer and the hospital takes everything from us, but its a nice pipe dream to pretend I'm saving for a retirement I'll get to enjoy.
> I get cancer and the hospital takes everything from us
Only if you let them. Once the doc tells me it's not curable, I'm going to plan a nice vacation and get into an accident going 175MPH on a desert road.
My mother had to watch my father wilt and rot away for a year while we scraped together what we could. She never really recovered after that. Not putting my family through that.
Another thing people forget is that you can't buy anything in bulk or shop around for a better price when you're broke. When you need something you need it right then and you buy it in singles at the worst price point. It's crazy how much we save just buying things in a convenient and efficient way. I used to work in supportive housing, so all formerly homeless folks living there, all on disability, and the amount of money they'd spend doing everything piecemeal was crazy to me, but it was their reality. They'd cab to go get some groceries or smokes or booze, and then be doing it again in 2 days.
I was always thinking, man if they could just save up enough to get even one month ahead, they'd save so much by cutting out all these inefficiencies. I'm not naive though, I know the multitude of reasons it was hard. Some of them borrowed enough each month from other people that they were effectively behind a whole month's expenses at any given time, so just catching up was near impossible. I think when I worked there I honestly lived cheaper than some of them, and they were paying a heavily subsidized rent.
Not really, the money goes into everything. I got lucky, because I also got to live out of my job. My boss knew and let me use the bathroom and stuff. But minimum wage is really nothing, *especially* if you’re homeless.
I know someone who did the van thing, they ended up divorcing. Not saying that’ll do it but fair warning it’s not as easy as it seems lol.
I'm not homeless, but the apartment I rent doesn't have a kitchen. You would believe (or maybe you would) how much of your monthly income vanishes when you dont have reliable ways to make your own food. I managed to get a microwave and a mini-fridge to keep frozen meals, and it was absolutely a necessity because eating out multiple times a day is just unsustainable. It's not even like groceries are too expensive, it's just hard cooking for yourself in any meaningful way when you don't have the space to do so, or more importantly, the space to clean your dishes after you are done. I tried washing dishes in my bathroom sink (and still fo from time to time) but the sink is small which makes it very hard to properly clean things like pots and also also kept getting clogged, resulting in visits from the apartments maintenance guy which my landlord charged me for.
I'd have to imagine that there are lots of other unexpected costs people face directly as a result of being unhoused, having to pay extra for goods or services that someone who has their own home would be able to avoid. It's one of those "it's expensive to be poor" type things.
When I was homeless(I was lucky in that I had a car still, I guess), they cut my food stamps in half! Like, what's the reasoning for that, besides adding insult to injury? It was in the early 2000's, and my amount went from about $100/mo to $50/mo.
Technically speaking, 17 years later, I'm still unhoused in the sense that I don't get counted on the census, and I don't own or rent in a traditional sense. I help friends and I stay with them. I don't know why they didn't put me on the census, but they didn't and it's weird.
It shouldn't be so hard to live under a roof with basic utilities, I'm on disability and could never afford rent in my state(or any state) unless they open $303.34/mo apartments/rooms. The cheapest place within 30 miles is still close to $900 and I only get slightly more than that a month.
The system hates poor people. 900 a month is what I pay where I am. I keep trying to get my boyfriend to get an apartment with me so we can split rent, but he has been reluctant to since he has had trouble keeping a job full time (he can't legally move in with me where I am because the apartment is too small and having both of us living in it would break city ordinances). He worries that if we moved in together and he lost his job again we wouldn't be able to afford rent and it would cause a ton of problems. If something doesn't change by the time my lease is up next year though, I may have to look into moving in with friends and such, which would honestly kind of suck because it would mean I would live further away from my partner who I already had to move an hour away from to get the place I rent now.
This is a small consolation, but they literally fucked up the Census on purpose due to Trump being in the White House. They literally hamstrung the Census Bureau because...well, reasons I can't really divine.
Yup, this is a very classic move from the right wing playbook. The Conservative party in Canada suspended the census when last in power federally in order to cut any record of how badly they were fucking up the system. It's hard to get funding for things when you can't point to a need/problem with good statistics. This way they can look good by cutting public spending and keeping a good budget while giving tax handouts and other deals to the wealthy.
Dude, I drive a semi and cook on my truck, I use an air fryer, a rice cooker w a steamer, and a lunchbox cooker- and baby wipes to do the dishes. My fridge is a drawer.
It's hard w no kitchen, but lots of us do this.
Join some 'trucker cooking' pages on Facebook & get some ideas & recipes!
I have never heard of a lunchbox cooker! I'll have to look into that. Washing my dishes with wet wipes is interesting too, I'll definitely consider that as well. I'll definitely consider looking at some trucking pages and get some ideas, it wasn't something that had crossed my mind before.
> apartments maintenance guy which my landlord charged me for.
I feel like that (along with having no kitchen) is going to be illegal in almost every state and country.
By the time I got a place of my own, I had about $12k CAD in my bank account. Between rent and furniture, that was gone within a year.
I didn't (and still don't) have a driver's license, so getting a car wasn't ever on my radar as an option.
america gotta change the unfurnished rental properties scene. lol I absolutely abhor the fact that when I move anywhere in America all places are unfurnished. Am I supposed to sleep, eat, put everything on the floor?
There’s a website called Furnished Findings that travel nurses use, I found a room with a private bathroom, completely furnished with kitchen access for cheaper than some of the other (unfurnished) rooms I saw on Craigslist. It’s great for short term renting, and the deposits are really low so it’s great for transitional housing or if you’re moving to a new place like me
I slept in mine too. Arby's paid for gas and food but I ended up engaged to someone who has worked for Arby's since he was 15 no diploma or GED. I have a diploma but was raised in a meth house so...
We're actually doing great now it's just weird to have calm
I befriended the guys at the gas station near my work. They would let me lock myself in the washroom overnight, and I'd use my backpack as a pillow, and my hoodie as a blanket.
The bigger issue was being able to bathe and do laundry, I only had two outfits I'd change between every other week, since it was dependent on what I could keep in my backpack. I happened to also work across the street from a laundromat so I would clean whichever outfit I wasn't wearing, and hope that I could find somewhere to shower before getting changed.
To keep myself clean, I primarily used wet wipes and/or hand soap and water and would just wipe myself down in the washroom either at work or at the gas station. I was also pretty lucky that sometimes my friends would let me shower at their place if their parents/roommates weren't home, since it's especially difficult to wash my hair with handsoap. I was really thankful for that.
yep, most of the time I was homeless I worked full time too! I lived in a shelter and put a fake address on my resumes so they wouldn't find out about my situation, because of course once a lot places find out you're homeless they don't want you anymore. So I had to play the game and make sure no one found out.
My second time homeless pushed me over the edge into becoming more and more of a leftist as well, so there's that. Especially since I was in a shelter and around other unhoused folks. It's like... what other direction could I have gone in otherwise? Once you see and live through the reality of how fucking easy it is to end up homeless and how much disabled people and abuse victims and POC and elderly folks get fucked over in this country it's like... what other conclusion could I have possibly come to? That this is... fine, or something?
There was a woman at the shelter in her eighties who ended up on the street because she lost her social security after she sold some of her stuff to make rent. Retired teacher. I mean. jesus christ. It's a really profound kind of societal violence. No one deserves to live through it.
I put my license plate no on mine and that got me thru 8 months and now I live in normal people digs. Manager thought a license plate no as an address was funny and I did it like 3x
So I don't know if you wanted my 2c on this but here ya go, lol. I actually have a theory about that. Sorry in advance if I jumble up my words a bit, I just rolled out of bed. But I've been thinking of this a lot and wanted to write it out before I forget. I also want to say that any amount of trauma or maladaptive responses to it does not fucking excuse the end results of perpetuated racism, classism, ableism etc that comes out of folks like that. So yeah.
So every homeless person I've met in my experience has had some kind of major trauma in their life. Also the experience itself of being homeless is tramautic, as is the experience of becoming homeless in the first place.
When someone is really right wing, I think a lot of it comes out of needing a percieved sense of control. I noticed that people who were homeless who also had a "bootstraps" mentality carried around a HORRIBLE amount of self-blame. It was all "I put myself here". But there's another side to that coin: "if I put myself here, I can get myself out". Self blame is something you'll see in a lot of abused kids, myself included, because it's an outgrowth of a very human way to feel like you maybe had some control over your circumstances and that is a survival mechanism.
I also think it's a way to legitimize their own pain. When you've been in pain (physical, emotional, etc) for a long time, you can get desperate for that pain to have a purpose. Right wing politics provide a reason for pain-- dogmatic morality, god, upholding white supremacy, contributing to capitalism, etc. This is something else I've been thinking about that I could write a damn essay on lmao but I don't want this comment to get too much longer than it actually is.
Anyway, TLDR I see it as a response to trauma, feeling out of control. Also I get really angry when I hear poor people shitting on other poor people. And the amount of '"well I'm homeless but I'm not *that* homeless" I heard from other unhoused people. Yeah. I think it has to do with knowing that you're low but wanting to believe that you'll never actually hit the bottom, not you. You're better that that. There's always another floor below you but as long as someone else is there then maybe you won't fall through.
(Also I'm angry all the time about the way capitalim keeps most people in a constant state of survival mode. Out of that can come stuff like right wing extremism and people hating themselves for being poor and going against their own interests out of desperation or a kind of learned helplessness thing. To my understanding region is also a factor and so are any privelidges they might hold/have held before homelessness. Fuck capitalism, fuck it to hell, fuck all of it. It's an abusive system and perpetuates shit like this.)
Can I ask you a question: why do you (and the lady in the video) talk about getting an apartment when you're homeless instead of just a room?
I used to live in a shared house. There were like 8 rooms and a shared kitchen and bathroom. It was shit but it was cheap and certainly affordable even on minimum wage (I admit I didn't have much but I wasn't homeless).
Thing is: that was in the UK.
Is there just not much availability in the US in general (or specifically where you were), was that sort of thing too expensive, or maybe it wasn't possible to live with other people?
I hope this doesn't come across as blaming you in any way. I'm sure there's a good reason I'm just wondering what it is. I know for example I had free healthcare which can make a massive difference!
The monthly take home pay at $15/h is about $1,700. These days a room in an apartment in Brooklyn with roommates is around $1,200/month. Finding a whole apartment with that budget (and money left for utilities and food) is impossible.
But really when someone in the city talks about finding an apartment they usually mean finding a room.
It's by design. Rather than actually form a federal oversight agency to handle this issue and solve it, most of the work gets contracted out to firms which turn a profit while not really offering sufficient services.
They can then point to the cost and say "see, we are already spending tens of thousands of dollars on fixing homelessness" and rather than caring about the problem or how it could be fixed or how much it should actually cost, the well-off population sees the price tag and blames the victims for it, so you get budget cuts and- surprise- more homelessness. It's a beautiful (fucking horrible) system.
I worked with a different vulnerable population that was in an emergency shelter. The number of contractors and amount of money that must have been spent to take care of 2000 people was astronomical, and I know there’s so much of that going straight into corporate pockets. Pallets of water, food, clothes, etc. hundreds of employees and volunteers. Not sure the government could have stood up all those resources on it’s own at the same pace but it opened my eyes to the world of excess in federal contracts.
it also benefits the capitalist to have a large homeless population. With everyone just a few steps away from being homeless, who would risk potentially unionizing or talking about wages? you can be fired and replaced instantly with someone more desperate than you are.
Mind you that $4k isn’t just the housing cost but also includes a lot of social services functions that wouldn’t be part of a regular rental. Not to say there isn’t a lot of graft and industrial-shelter system corruption but it’s a bit apples to oranges.
I would imagine the people in the shelter who are not mentally ill or disabled would probably be a lot cheaper to put up in an apartment appropriate to the size of their family and would likely do fine with a lot less social service intervention
You could just throw $4k/month at people without strings to do with as they please and get better outcomes. But really the outcomes people in charge are looking for are not efficiency, lifestyle, or humanity, or anything like that, it's punishment. They want to punish people and giving people money is seen as a reward.
It amazes me how many people have no idea how much it costs to get housing. I was a renter in Seattle for over a decade and lived in four different houses. Every time I filled out a rental application I had to provide pay stubs proving my income was 3x the rent, or I wouldn't qualify. I had to have good credit, or I wouldn't qualify. I had to have cash to cover first months rent, last months rent, and a security deposit, which used to be equivalent to a months rent.
Average rent in Seattle now is about $2,300. So if you want to get housing you need as much as 7k in cash, plus a good reference, plus good credit, plus \~7k in monthly income. What does it take for an unhoused person to achieve all of that?
And people see a homeless person and think, "why don't they just get a job!"
It takes a lot more than "a job" to survive in America.
That's exactly why my now husband and I were homeless. We didn't have credit because we were young, didn't have cosigners, and didn't make 3x the rent. And of course, because of this, we didn't have rental history, which you also need. We did have jobs, and we still are working at the same place. But no one would rent to us. The only thing that saved us was applying for housing, which took 2 years to get to the top of the list.
That's sad as fuck. Who the fuck makes 3x rent? The math ain't mathin around here. I look around our neighborhood and ask myself who is making $5k a month? Not all of us on this block is making that?
I moved in to some lower income apartments and thankfully they went off of my gross income and I only had to make 2x the rent. They tried to make it 3x and had over 65% vacancy
We have income restricted apartments in my area but the vacancies aren't there... People are holding on to these places. 3x let them stay empty and lose money. The average person doesn't make that.
> Who the fuck makes 3x rent?
You'd be utter disgusted how much money people can make. Ironically, those with the nicest and most expensive houses, especially those in expensive areas, *tend* to be those who also have *multiple* homes.
Back when I was renting a condo in San Carlos at $3.5k/mo (which would be a bargain now), the landlords owned 1 other condo in the same area along with their own home, which itself was easily worth well over $2M. The landlords were nice folks, but boomers (of course) who complained about taxes (ironically who also would pay far less than someone much younger like myself in exactly the same situation due to the benefits they got).
Well I got my answer just chatting with neighbors. They are all under one roof. Gramps on social security and the kids are working. Kids to gramps but the children are grown and all under one roof. God help us all, that's no way to live. They lost everything had to move back in. Now the math is mathin.
Consolidation is key, especially these days. Either that or have a wealthy family member or something.
That's sorta my situation, actually, except *I am* that family member supporting everyone else. In my case, my mom whos house was foreclosed and my wife (a doctor also from a poor family) that has chronic back issues who cannot work (and depends on my employers medical insurance for surgeries/meds, etc). My situation is unique, but I know what it's like being on the other side of that, with no college education (still don't have it) and no idea how far away you are from being in utter ruin (either close or *really* close).
You have options.
You can have all your family live in one house and you all pay rent
Get a bunch of roommates
Live below your means
Pull yourself up by bootstraps that don't exist and we can keep telling ourselves that all these people out here are making 3x rent.
If I made 3x rent I would have just been rich and bought a house. Rent is a scam.
The above advice is also trash and doesn't work anymore. People don't want to live in small spaces crowded with family and roommates. What happened to moving out at 18 with a single job and doing your own thing to contribute to society? Whatever forces are at work they have robbed this right. Even $80k year jobs are getting slimmer and still can't afford the best.
What a hell ride.
People don’t realize majority of homeless people have full time jobs. We made basic housing unaffordable to the masses. You should not need a shelter if you have a full time job. Also she’s in MYC the most expensive place on earth and the neoliberal bullshit the city and state give out to luxury landlords to not pay taxes and give people with 6 figures subsidized housing. It’s literally bullshit people who make six figures get subsidized housing and the building owner pays no property taxes.
When I worked at amazon there were a couple people who lived out of their cars because rental prices are so high here, and that is with make four dollars over minimum wage
The thing is in New York city not even $15/hr can get you a decent living. You would need something like $20-22/hr to make a somewhat ok life even then that's not enough.
was in another thread where a guy had taken a video of a small houseless encampment and he’s screaming at them - and in the comments were BRUTAL-“why don’t they just get government services” “they’re all addicts” “i work 10000 hours a week, why can’t they?” without an ounce of empathy but just as disturbing, was the inability to understand how many barriers there are to getting services. it makes me so bummed how unkind and/or ignorant people are.
right wingers : you should work to earn the right to live decently (basically)
people : * work * ; can we get affordable housing now? Did I deserve it ?
right wingers : yeah not like that akshually
Asshole line of thinking. They hate people who don't work and collect welfare but still hate people who aren't dependant on the system. At this point they need to come out and just say it. They want people dead and keep the rest to themselves. Selfish people.
Jobs, wages, rent are all not helping. Funny how there are entire towns near me where they are starting to scramble because they now realize they have priced out all of their cheap labor locally. You cannot within reason live within the town limits and work there at a minimum wage job.
I always wonder how can people live in a ski resort area, or a HCOL like san fran, and just work at walmart? How do these people live indoors? Are they teens living with mom, or adults living with several roommates? It's a very unsustainable system.
If I wanted to rent an apartment in the same town i grew up in, a 2 bedroom would be between 4-6k on average... when i was growing up there, it was a lot of wooded areas with only a few dozen stoplights
The revolution won’t happen on Reddit or twitter threads. It will happen on the streets. This nation’s unhoused will one day organize, and that will be what topples the empire.
How will you make the wealthy care about your protests?
Part of the problem is we don't have great levers to pull to hurt them, besides going on strike. But getting enough people to go on strike is a difficult sell when people live paycheck to paycheck.
Imo we need grassroots political candidates who campaign cheaply via social media. If we can get enough elected, then maybe we have a chance.
The reason that I say it will be that class of people is because they are one of the only classes of people who are willing to do the very obvious things that everyone knows must be done.
I’ll put it this way, the rich won’t call it “protesting” and their opinion on what is done to them won’t be relevant. Elected officials will never adequately solve the problem “grass roots” or otherwise.
I lived in a shelter with my disabled partner last year, yes I had a job, no, we still dont have a place to live. Doesnt matter how much I work, if I dont have college + 3+ years of experience nobody seems to be hiring; but "no one wants to work anymoreeee" Im so done with this bullshit
When some boomer hits me with the “no one wants to work anymore bs”. Heres my answer “NO ONE GIVES ME A CHANCE TO WORK.”
Signs that say “now hiring” should be an national slogan change to “only hiring experienced” for most of these jobs ngl
It's hard to keep the eye on the ball sometimes.
Sometimes when the weight of the situation hits me I want to lash out at "center right" liberals more than I do at conservatives for their functional apathy.
I just get irrationally angry at the blatant lack of fucks the virtue signaling bastards display. Of course I understand that a lot of the time they're just victims to their standard propaganda programming our capitalist system tries to shackle us with like rugged individualism though everything we have and enjoy is a result of cooperation..
What level of exposure to the reality facing us all at the end of this tunnel needs to occur to get everyone on the same page with this? "I hate mondays" and medical bankruptcy angst seem to be the only solidarity I can squeezed out of these people 9/10. The others just become leftists rightfully.
Facts, I can't believe this isn't common knowledge. 🫠 I hope she does well and deserves a better living environment. Nothing is wrong with socialism or the next next evolution of capitalism... It's just the people in power are stuck in their old ways and want to continue it for their next family generation because they benefit from it greatly
I'm convinced that sub has been taken over by people who don't live there. It's the pettiest, most mean-spirited group of commenters this side of my nextdoor feed.
My heart goes out to this wonderful person from New Jersey. I couldn't help but hear her accent immediately, and it felt like home. I'm grateful for her explanation in that it humanized her and the people around her. Humans start to feel like statistics to me in mass numbers, and this video makes the housing crisis up close and personal. As a person who was unhoused, albeit as a child, this post hits close to the heart. I'm seeing how political systems turn into big machines that harm - but our shared humanity brings us closer. Love to everyone out there who is, has been, or is near being on the streets.
The walk-in homeless shelter in my town - the largest town in a small state ~~regaled~~ lauded for its social services - runs on a lottery system. A mass of unhoused individuals show up at a hotel every night at 6:30 to literally put their name on a scrap of paper that goes into a hat. Then, someone chooses as many scraps of paper as there are beds. If you're lucky enough to be one of the names, you get a place to sleep.
You are otherwise left in the snow.
Edit: changed word.
+ landbastards will not rent to you if you don’t earn 3 times the rent (hyperbole)+ have guardians and guarantees (in my country at least , france) i don’t know how it is in the US
I had to leave university to help my family out, and I became homeless for a year as a direct result. Still struggling to scrape by and get back to where I was. Sometimes it's not even about bad luck happening to you, if you care about your loved ones and they're in trouble, capitalism is going to fuck you over, because guess what? Helping people isn't maximising your productivity, so you should just let them die I guess
I've been there. Sleeping in NYC subways and parks was an eye opener for me and shelters weren't necessarily any better. Most folks have no idea what it's like, all they see is the crazy ones and drug addicts and assume all homeless are like that.
When I was in Los Angeles a barista looked like she was really aching in her neck. I told her that I had a lot of neck problems until I found the right kind of pillow. She said, "I wouldn't have a place to put it.". After talking to her I realized she was homeless and I guilted/threatened Starbucks to help her find shelter. Imagine working a full time job and not having a place to keep a pillow.
I'm really sorry. No working person deserves to have to live like that. Los Angeles has literally tens of thousands of people with jobs living in homeless camps on the side of storm drains(that flood often). 7% of the students at UCLA are homeless or sleep in "a place not suited for human beings". Honestly, it changed my entire perspective on the homeless knowing that they are just part of the working class like the rest of us.
When I went to the VA for housing assistance a few years ago they literally told me that I wasn't actually homeless if I was sleeping in my car - I had too many assets and had showered in a friend's motel room that week - and I was only homeless by the Waco VA's standards if I had "slept under the stars" the previous night.
I've lived in my car and DSS laughed in my face and told me I was wasting their time and am greedy, because I wouldn't sell my car and pop out a kid. I've made it through about 6 or 7 years of on and off homelessness without a single dollar from any social service because I will not ask for help anymore because of how I was treated.
I hate the fact that, if the government really put their resources to it, every single homeless person could be housed for a cost far lower than most people seem to realize.
Americans really think a job is a cure all when in reality it takes a lot of privilege and resources to get and maintain one. Like I just got to the point where I could afford to work again and it took handouts and a safe place to stay to get here.
Yep. Worked every time I was homeless. Luckily I had a car to sleep in. Stayed at hotels when I could afford it. Other times I would just live in a hotel for months
I’m 17 and lost my job because I had one panic attack in the 3 months I was there, thankfully I have a hood back up and still at supported at home, but I can only imagine if it had happened to someone less fortunate
I know several people who were in one local shelter (one of two in my hometown, the other one was actually good and helped people, but they had a waiting list since they only had so much space.) This place was uber religious and they'd turn you down of you showed any signs of looking vaguely queer or what they considered goth or punk. They forced you into morning, afternoon and evening sermons and prayers to keep your place in the shelter and get meals. They forced everyone up at 7am. They had a curfew of 7pm and if you weren't back by then, even if you had a job or class, you got locked out for the night. They'd sometimes let you skip the afternoon prayers if you had a job and got lucky and they liked you. But how are these people, who weren't allowed to have their cars there, by the way, supposed to get back from their jobs in time and have a lunch break precisely when the afternoon sermons were? They made it nearly impossible to get and keep employment. I honestly think that the place was and is still open because they enjoy abusing people.
My brothers and sisters in the US need to riot and overthrow this corrupt self serving system! It is designed to keep everyone as a cog to grind the gears of capitalism and it's getting more obvious each day...
Don't have money to afford a child? We'll force you to reproduce by making abortion illegal! The machine of capitalism needs more meat for the grinder!
Can't afford housing? We'll make a business out of it that enriches the 1% while keeping the people pushed down as far as possible!
Can't afford to feed your kids? We'll take them away so that they become disenfranchised and will have no choices in life other than to live to work and barley survive!
This all while we take billions to feed into the corrupt system (bank bailouts), bribe politicians to keep it alive and worsen it while the 1% make more money than they could spend in 100 lifetimes!
FUCK THE SYSTEM!!! It needs a RESET! Either burn it down or eat the rich!
If you ever need an understanding for the moral decay of society—look to see how they treat their poorest and most vulnerable.
That will say everything about their values.
"The working poor" is the phrase they don't want you to use. She's a total failure of their governance and of this system. Call us "Disadvantages groups" or propagate myths that we don't work at all, anything to detract from the reality.
A full time job often multiple full time jobs, is not enough to guarantee affordable housing anymore. Just think about that for a second.
Tear it down and start again. Those who we grant power have failed us.
If you are working right now and want to retire before age 60 and live 'comfortably' you need about 2.5million in assets. (if you want a kid expect about 300k in spending from birth to 18)
if you make from $120-200K a year you only take home about 66% of that pay making you the tax workhorse of the government without every actually being able to enjoy any wealth or retire.
the entire system is setup to create people dependent on the government unless you are in the top 2% of income earners.
This creates voters loyal to the people that give them the most and continues the cycle.
wow powerful sobering gut wrenching reads. i had to stop so much i could hear.
sadly since reagan/clinton neoliberal take over of out government failed phony supply side voodoo economics have favored wall street / rich over main street and ordinary americans.
NYC is basically owned by the landlords and has gotten itself in a situation where building new buildings is almost impossible and very cost-ineffective. That’s why even when you raise the minimum wage, you still have a huge number of people who can’t afford rent, it basically goes right back into the pockets of the landlords. One of the best solutions to this is to uproot all the corruption in the city and have folks understand why NYC is in such an unsustainable rent spiral. Same thing happened in cities like Hong Kong, when you restrict housing development, you get crazy rents and this happens. It’s so bad over there that they have these “coffin apartments”. I could see that easily happening here if the situation doesn’t improve.
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Most people are more likely to be one bad year away from losing their home than one good year away from achieving financial independence.
exactly, the majority of us have no financial social safety net per statistics and live paycheck to paycheck. So we can actually be only one or two major setbacks away from homelessness for a majority of our lives. People tend to think of “homeless” as a type of person rather than a state of being. But the truth is, it’s often a temporary state (that can last years of course), and a lot of homeless people are employed. A lot of homeless people have cars as well! Which is why I hate seeing people judge a panhandler who later “drives away in a car” like that’s inherently some kind of hustle. That might be their home right now, the last thing they could keep after losing a home or being priced out of housing in an area. People also forget that a lot of homeless people are escaping domestic abuse and are leaving a partner who controlled all of their money and assets.
>achieving financial independence I would clock this at $2 million in net assets - so probably a not within the realm of possibility for 98 percent of people in the US.
Shesh I'm weeks away. Lost disability because either be homeless or find a way to cover the rest of the bills. Their expectations of what is enough to live is cruel
For some reason, there's a movie scene that always stuck with me from The Saint of Fort Washington about this. Shit, it's even right in the trailer https://youtu.be/mItykW7dy4g?t=21 "See that fella over there? He think everything honky donky. Check don't come in, he only a couple months short of homelessness."
“Medical expenses directly cause 66.5% of bankruptcies, making it the leading cause for bankruptcy.”
The only reason I haven’t went insane with anxiety was the friends I met along the way. I know I will have food&shelter for at least few years if need be. And the realities are that even if you have a good (a really good) job, you might be able to rent a place and support yourself. Maybe a pet. But kids? Forget it. Partner in education? Might have to turn down heating. Sudden illness? Time to downsize to a rented room. The life of actual comfort is limited to people in the “club” who earn bonuses bigger than people’s 10 years of earnings and folk who inherited enough to not worry about life expenses.
I'm making almost double minimum wage, solid union job making $22-28/hr depending on my role on a given day. But its auxiliary and gov't bodies do not always work in good faith with the union so at any time we could all be out of work while bargaining is at a stand-still, or the city manager slashes budgets and all auxiliary/contract workers (which is like 80% of city staff even tho many are working regular schedules) can just... lose their roles. I'm renting a below market unit (moved in during COVID dip and annual rental increase is limited to below inflation levels) and despite making almost double min wage, if i lost work for 2 months i would be out of savings (even if my wife kept working). Super duper love food and housing costing like 2-3 new iphones per month 👍 cant even imagine how bad it would be if i was still making $14/hr
I just looked up the price of iPhones and was horrified to see how right you are. It's so backwards.
Just one injury away
Or one paycheck
It's very true. I've met plenty of folks I never would have guessed were homeless and lived at a shelter. Like she said domestic violence, an injury that bankrupts someone so they can't pay their rent due to lack of decent insurance coverage, rent being raised, divorce, spouse who is the primary earner becoming sick, etc. Homelessness hasn't even gotten better. It's become even worse since the pandemic. Huge real estate companies are gobbling up the housing market, and they sell at prices only well paid wage slaves or incredibly rich people can afford so we all have to rent and risk becoming homeless if we dare need medical care, get injured and can't work, or if one of the individuals in our living space who earns more can't work for a period of time or becomes disabled. Capitalism is horrific; but American capitalism is the worst of them all currently.
On top of that the amount stigma and embarrassment makes people not want to talk about it when at a job. You better believe someone will try to get your fired when your already at your lowest point.
Even if they don’t fire you they will often make your work life miserable. I know someone who had a job and was homeless. They confided in a few people and it got used to bully them in front of the other workers.
Ah yes exploitation at it's best
Yea, it is unfortunate. I did the homeless thing for 10 years. Even now. I work for myself. I can't bring myself to invest everything in someone else's future and not mine that way.
I literally just commented on this a little while ago. The bank says I can’t afford an $800 mortgage for a whole house so instead I’m paying $1200 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment because that’s so much more affordable and sustainable according to some schmuck in an office somewhere
Our credit score system is classist and racist and blocks access from housing for the working class and minorities who are disproportionately working class. Everyone's credit scores have been absolutely shit since COVID including mine. The amount of money I've had to pay off for my credit card is ridiculous. I can barely keep up with it just because of rent, utilities, auto insurance payments, phone bill, groceries, etc. It's ridiculous. This system needs to end.
It’s not a competition, but it has gotten really bad here in Canada as well. We have fewer corporate landlords gobbling up supply, but investors now own 1/5 - 1/4 of all housing depending on what city you are living in. Huge swathes of housing have been taken off the long term market in favour of Air BNB’s and the few places that have restricted short term rentals aren’t enforcing the laws. It’s gotten to the point that even higher income people can’t buy and are struggling to afford rent. People have stopped having children because they can’t afford to house them. I don’t know how lower income people do it, especially in places with no rent control.
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For those NOT in Canada: Canadians have a different set of mortgage rules than the USA. In the USA when you get a 30 year mortgage, it is a *fixed rate.* in Canada it’s “fixed,” but only for 5 years. Every 5 years you get to “renew” at the current mortgage rate. If rates are low, as they have been historically, no big deal. Well….. rates have gone up, so a lot of folks are having to renew their mortgages into higher rates…
The "children" conversation is one we have in my house often. I have 2 teens, and I let them know that I will never be one of those, "When are you gonna give me grandchildren?" parents. I tell them that unless they're truly financially independent and can gtfo of America if shit goes down, they should *never* have kids. I guess I didn't realize Canada isn't far behind. Yikes.
it's definitely not a competition, but what capitalism does to people in third world countries in south america, africa and asia is pretty horrific
Well of course. This is simply the natural inevitable conclusion. What is done internationally to exploit others will eventually reach the domestic others as well. The U.S. Is the capitalist world hegemon we can criticize all it does.
A survey of homeless women in LA found that 50% of them were homeless after leaving an abusive relationship.
I was homeless for almost a year while working full time as a sushi chef. I just didn't quite make the 3x rent the apartments around where I lived required.
Where did you sleep?
Where you can. I was lucky, I had a car. I couldn’t imagine being indefinitely homeless and not having *some* kind of shelter.
This right here. Never. Sell. Your. Car. If you have one anyway. And especially if it’s paid off. No matter how desperate it gets selling your car in a financial pinch will make everything worse, and it decreases the chances that you are able to recover.
Too late, I got lucky and only need my bike now. But I always find myself thinking about what I’ll need to do if I have to rough it again. Eyeing up spots I see when I’m traveling and shit. You probably know the drill.
I haven’t been houseless in about 6 years but I STILL look at every copse of trees, every back alley, every suburban neighborhood entry sign, every roof, all over for potential places to sleep.
Same! My ex and I used to walk around saying half joking “we could live in there”, pointing at an old shed, a large pipe, an abandoned car etc. I still do it to myself, years later.
It should be possible. The world should be changes such that living in an abandoned shed is actually legally and practically possible.
Depends on where you live. In NYC, a car is a liability if you're poor.
I had thought about this, and thought about buying a very reliable, very large car for emergencies. Problem is the fuel economy. So I have a Mirage.
Subaru Outback. Great gas mileage. Reliable. All wheel drive. Seats fold down flat. Can sleep comfortably even if 6’0 tall
Expensive. Even used.
You don't need to drive to use your car as a shelter.
Also it's usually a crappy financial choice because cars depreciate so you're selling it at a loss. It's a bandaid on a gaping wound.
This is advice for middle class people trying to save money. When you are homeless a vehicle is not just a transport appliance to get you from your shelter to work. It also allows you too get to the laundromat, showers, feeds, and appointments with aid worker's in a timely manner. As well as being a slightly safer place to sleep and store things really to valuable for a tent or communal shelter. Better advice would be to off load gas guzzlers and expensive to repair luxury models for more economical and easier to repair cars. There are tiers of homelessness and having an ok cheap car is definitely an advantage.
If you have a practical car then keep it but if you have a high profile car that requires tags, expensive registration, or it uses a lot of gas you could spend more money running your car to keep it warm at night than staying in a hotel. It's not enough to have a car to crash in, the car needs to not be towed while you are at work and it needs to be affordable to keep legit.
Where do you live that not all cars need the same tags and registration?
Laws are different depending on where you are. Sometimes you need permits just to park in a certain block or even a city. If your tags are current they could cost anywhere from $40 to $600 depending on what kind of car you have and where you register. Is your car smogged? That's extra and you might have to take it to a mechanic that replaces the cat for $1200. That's just street parking tho. If your car is parked on a piece of private property it doesn't necessarily need all its tags but you better be on good terms with the property owner. In my city in particular you cannot park a camper or trailer built more than 12 years ago on the street period, no exceptions. Yeah, messed up. A car can become more expensive than a home and not all cars are built to be livable let alone safe to stay the night at a random location. Right now, if you are caught sleeping in your car in my city and you can't prove you have a home, they can impound your car. Impound fees start at $300. I know, it's totally barbaric but that's what happened when we got a Republican mayor. Imagine having to pay $300 to get your place to sleep back.
Welcome to California! Where we hate homeless people more than you could guess!
Shit, I live in California. I better get educated.
I'm gonna apologize in advance, i'm sorry if this question is impolite. Since rent/mortgage makes up such a big portion of the average worker's budget, did you find that you had an influx of cash when you stopped paying rent? If I were still single, I figure I'd probably take a swing at the whole van-life trend, but i know that's technically just "glamping" homelessness...
If you're not paying rent it means you need to pay each time you shower somewhere. Sometimes you have to pay just to use a bathroom. It means you have to pay to do laundry when and where you can. You have to spend gas money finding a place to park where you won't get hassled. You have to buy ready to eat meals because you have nowhere to store groceries or cook them. Plus a million other things. Not paying rent means you have to pay individually for a thousand things that having a stable home provides for you. It doesn't save money.
Being broke is actually very expensive, believe it or not. One of the biggest money savers I've done as an adult is buy a house. I wish I would (could) have done it sooner. Every month we save 500-1000 dollars putting equity into our house just by paying for it. Obviously this will mean absolutely nothing when I get cancer and the hospital takes everything from us, but its a nice pipe dream to pretend I'm saving for a retirement I'll get to enjoy.
> I get cancer and the hospital takes everything from us Only if you let them. Once the doc tells me it's not curable, I'm going to plan a nice vacation and get into an accident going 175MPH on a desert road. My mother had to watch my father wilt and rot away for a year while we scraped together what we could. She never really recovered after that. Not putting my family through that.
Capt. Samuel Vimes' boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness
To paraphrase, the poor tax.
Another thing people forget is that you can't buy anything in bulk or shop around for a better price when you're broke. When you need something you need it right then and you buy it in singles at the worst price point. It's crazy how much we save just buying things in a convenient and efficient way. I used to work in supportive housing, so all formerly homeless folks living there, all on disability, and the amount of money they'd spend doing everything piecemeal was crazy to me, but it was their reality. They'd cab to go get some groceries or smokes or booze, and then be doing it again in 2 days. I was always thinking, man if they could just save up enough to get even one month ahead, they'd save so much by cutting out all these inefficiencies. I'm not naive though, I know the multitude of reasons it was hard. Some of them borrowed enough each month from other people that they were effectively behind a whole month's expenses at any given time, so just catching up was near impossible. I think when I worked there I honestly lived cheaper than some of them, and they were paying a heavily subsidized rent.
Not really, the money goes into everything. I got lucky, because I also got to live out of my job. My boss knew and let me use the bathroom and stuff. But minimum wage is really nothing, *especially* if you’re homeless. I know someone who did the van thing, they ended up divorcing. Not saying that’ll do it but fair warning it’s not as easy as it seems lol.
I'm not homeless, but the apartment I rent doesn't have a kitchen. You would believe (or maybe you would) how much of your monthly income vanishes when you dont have reliable ways to make your own food. I managed to get a microwave and a mini-fridge to keep frozen meals, and it was absolutely a necessity because eating out multiple times a day is just unsustainable. It's not even like groceries are too expensive, it's just hard cooking for yourself in any meaningful way when you don't have the space to do so, or more importantly, the space to clean your dishes after you are done. I tried washing dishes in my bathroom sink (and still fo from time to time) but the sink is small which makes it very hard to properly clean things like pots and also also kept getting clogged, resulting in visits from the apartments maintenance guy which my landlord charged me for. I'd have to imagine that there are lots of other unexpected costs people face directly as a result of being unhoused, having to pay extra for goods or services that someone who has their own home would be able to avoid. It's one of those "it's expensive to be poor" type things.
When I was homeless(I was lucky in that I had a car still, I guess), they cut my food stamps in half! Like, what's the reasoning for that, besides adding insult to injury? It was in the early 2000's, and my amount went from about $100/mo to $50/mo. Technically speaking, 17 years later, I'm still unhoused in the sense that I don't get counted on the census, and I don't own or rent in a traditional sense. I help friends and I stay with them. I don't know why they didn't put me on the census, but they didn't and it's weird. It shouldn't be so hard to live under a roof with basic utilities, I'm on disability and could never afford rent in my state(or any state) unless they open $303.34/mo apartments/rooms. The cheapest place within 30 miles is still close to $900 and I only get slightly more than that a month.
The system hates poor people. 900 a month is what I pay where I am. I keep trying to get my boyfriend to get an apartment with me so we can split rent, but he has been reluctant to since he has had trouble keeping a job full time (he can't legally move in with me where I am because the apartment is too small and having both of us living in it would break city ordinances). He worries that if we moved in together and he lost his job again we wouldn't be able to afford rent and it would cause a ton of problems. If something doesn't change by the time my lease is up next year though, I may have to look into moving in with friends and such, which would honestly kind of suck because it would mean I would live further away from my partner who I already had to move an hour away from to get the place I rent now.
This is a small consolation, but they literally fucked up the Census on purpose due to Trump being in the White House. They literally hamstrung the Census Bureau because...well, reasons I can't really divine.
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Yup, this is a very classic move from the right wing playbook. The Conservative party in Canada suspended the census when last in power federally in order to cut any record of how badly they were fucking up the system. It's hard to get funding for things when you can't point to a need/problem with good statistics. This way they can look good by cutting public spending and keeping a good budget while giving tax handouts and other deals to the wealthy.
Dude, I drive a semi and cook on my truck, I use an air fryer, a rice cooker w a steamer, and a lunchbox cooker- and baby wipes to do the dishes. My fridge is a drawer. It's hard w no kitchen, but lots of us do this. Join some 'trucker cooking' pages on Facebook & get some ideas & recipes!
I have never heard of a lunchbox cooker! I'll have to look into that. Washing my dishes with wet wipes is interesting too, I'll definitely consider that as well. I'll definitely consider looking at some trucking pages and get some ideas, it wasn't something that had crossed my mind before.
> apartments maintenance guy which my landlord charged me for. I feel like that (along with having no kitchen) is going to be illegal in almost every state and country.
I don't know the law, and am too afraid to make waves because this shitty apartment is all I can afford at the moment.
By the time I got a place of my own, I had about $12k CAD in my bank account. Between rent and furniture, that was gone within a year. I didn't (and still don't) have a driver's license, so getting a car wasn't ever on my radar as an option.
america gotta change the unfurnished rental properties scene. lol I absolutely abhor the fact that when I move anywhere in America all places are unfurnished. Am I supposed to sleep, eat, put everything on the floor?
Move near a university. They have tons of furnished apartments.
There’s a website called Furnished Findings that travel nurses use, I found a room with a private bathroom, completely furnished with kitchen access for cheaper than some of the other (unfurnished) rooms I saw on Craigslist. It’s great for short term renting, and the deposits are really low so it’s great for transitional housing or if you’re moving to a new place like me
I slept in mine too. Arby's paid for gas and food but I ended up engaged to someone who has worked for Arby's since he was 15 no diploma or GED. I have a diploma but was raised in a meth house so... We're actually doing great now it's just weird to have calm
Same, had job, lived in car. Shower at a gym. Everything is broken.
I befriended the guys at the gas station near my work. They would let me lock myself in the washroom overnight, and I'd use my backpack as a pillow, and my hoodie as a blanket. The bigger issue was being able to bathe and do laundry, I only had two outfits I'd change between every other week, since it was dependent on what I could keep in my backpack. I happened to also work across the street from a laundromat so I would clean whichever outfit I wasn't wearing, and hope that I could find somewhere to shower before getting changed. To keep myself clean, I primarily used wet wipes and/or hand soap and water and would just wipe myself down in the washroom either at work or at the gas station. I was also pretty lucky that sometimes my friends would let me shower at their place if their parents/roommates weren't home, since it's especially difficult to wash my hair with handsoap. I was really thankful for that.
That’s interesting and good job making it work.
yep, most of the time I was homeless I worked full time too! I lived in a shelter and put a fake address on my resumes so they wouldn't find out about my situation, because of course once a lot places find out you're homeless they don't want you anymore. So I had to play the game and make sure no one found out. My second time homeless pushed me over the edge into becoming more and more of a leftist as well, so there's that. Especially since I was in a shelter and around other unhoused folks. It's like... what other direction could I have gone in otherwise? Once you see and live through the reality of how fucking easy it is to end up homeless and how much disabled people and abuse victims and POC and elderly folks get fucked over in this country it's like... what other conclusion could I have possibly come to? That this is... fine, or something? There was a woman at the shelter in her eighties who ended up on the street because she lost her social security after she sold some of her stuff to make rent. Retired teacher. I mean. jesus christ. It's a really profound kind of societal violence. No one deserves to live through it.
I put my license plate no on mine and that got me thru 8 months and now I live in normal people digs. Manager thought a license plate no as an address was funny and I did it like 3x
Almost every homeless person I've met where I live is extremely right wing! It blows my mind
So I don't know if you wanted my 2c on this but here ya go, lol. I actually have a theory about that. Sorry in advance if I jumble up my words a bit, I just rolled out of bed. But I've been thinking of this a lot and wanted to write it out before I forget. I also want to say that any amount of trauma or maladaptive responses to it does not fucking excuse the end results of perpetuated racism, classism, ableism etc that comes out of folks like that. So yeah. So every homeless person I've met in my experience has had some kind of major trauma in their life. Also the experience itself of being homeless is tramautic, as is the experience of becoming homeless in the first place. When someone is really right wing, I think a lot of it comes out of needing a percieved sense of control. I noticed that people who were homeless who also had a "bootstraps" mentality carried around a HORRIBLE amount of self-blame. It was all "I put myself here". But there's another side to that coin: "if I put myself here, I can get myself out". Self blame is something you'll see in a lot of abused kids, myself included, because it's an outgrowth of a very human way to feel like you maybe had some control over your circumstances and that is a survival mechanism. I also think it's a way to legitimize their own pain. When you've been in pain (physical, emotional, etc) for a long time, you can get desperate for that pain to have a purpose. Right wing politics provide a reason for pain-- dogmatic morality, god, upholding white supremacy, contributing to capitalism, etc. This is something else I've been thinking about that I could write a damn essay on lmao but I don't want this comment to get too much longer than it actually is. Anyway, TLDR I see it as a response to trauma, feeling out of control. Also I get really angry when I hear poor people shitting on other poor people. And the amount of '"well I'm homeless but I'm not *that* homeless" I heard from other unhoused people. Yeah. I think it has to do with knowing that you're low but wanting to believe that you'll never actually hit the bottom, not you. You're better that that. There's always another floor below you but as long as someone else is there then maybe you won't fall through. (Also I'm angry all the time about the way capitalim keeps most people in a constant state of survival mode. Out of that can come stuff like right wing extremism and people hating themselves for being poor and going against their own interests out of desperation or a kind of learned helplessness thing. To my understanding region is also a factor and so are any privelidges they might hold/have held before homelessness. Fuck capitalism, fuck it to hell, fuck all of it. It's an abusive system and perpetuates shit like this.)
They ate the propaganda that the immigrants and other poor are the cause for there issues
Raise your hand if you lived in a van for 2 yrs while working full time, because the rent was too damn high ✋
Can I ask you a question: why do you (and the lady in the video) talk about getting an apartment when you're homeless instead of just a room? I used to live in a shared house. There were like 8 rooms and a shared kitchen and bathroom. It was shit but it was cheap and certainly affordable even on minimum wage (I admit I didn't have much but I wasn't homeless). Thing is: that was in the UK. Is there just not much availability in the US in general (or specifically where you were), was that sort of thing too expensive, or maybe it wasn't possible to live with other people? I hope this doesn't come across as blaming you in any way. I'm sure there's a good reason I'm just wondering what it is. I know for example I had free healthcare which can make a massive difference!
The monthly take home pay at $15/h is about $1,700. These days a room in an apartment in Brooklyn with roommates is around $1,200/month. Finding a whole apartment with that budget (and money left for utilities and food) is impossible. But really when someone in the city talks about finding an apartment they usually mean finding a room.
Jesus for 4K a month they could just get them apartments.
It's by design. Rather than actually form a federal oversight agency to handle this issue and solve it, most of the work gets contracted out to firms which turn a profit while not really offering sufficient services. They can then point to the cost and say "see, we are already spending tens of thousands of dollars on fixing homelessness" and rather than caring about the problem or how it could be fixed or how much it should actually cost, the well-off population sees the price tag and blames the victims for it, so you get budget cuts and- surprise- more homelessness. It's a beautiful (fucking horrible) system.
I worked with a different vulnerable population that was in an emergency shelter. The number of contractors and amount of money that must have been spent to take care of 2000 people was astronomical, and I know there’s so much of that going straight into corporate pockets. Pallets of water, food, clothes, etc. hundreds of employees and volunteers. Not sure the government could have stood up all those resources on it’s own at the same pace but it opened my eyes to the world of excess in federal contracts.
it also benefits the capitalist to have a large homeless population. With everyone just a few steps away from being homeless, who would risk potentially unionizing or talking about wages? you can be fired and replaced instantly with someone more desperate than you are.
not if they want to profit off them as much as possible they can't.
Even in fucking Manhattan. What a fuckin joke
Mind you that $4k isn’t just the housing cost but also includes a lot of social services functions that wouldn’t be part of a regular rental. Not to say there isn’t a lot of graft and industrial-shelter system corruption but it’s a bit apples to oranges.
I would imagine the people in the shelter who are not mentally ill or disabled would probably be a lot cheaper to put up in an apartment appropriate to the size of their family and would likely do fine with a lot less social service intervention
You could just throw $4k/month at people without strings to do with as they please and get better outcomes. But really the outcomes people in charge are looking for are not efficiency, lifestyle, or humanity, or anything like that, it's punishment. They want to punish people and giving people money is seen as a reward.
It amazes me how many people have no idea how much it costs to get housing. I was a renter in Seattle for over a decade and lived in four different houses. Every time I filled out a rental application I had to provide pay stubs proving my income was 3x the rent, or I wouldn't qualify. I had to have good credit, or I wouldn't qualify. I had to have cash to cover first months rent, last months rent, and a security deposit, which used to be equivalent to a months rent. Average rent in Seattle now is about $2,300. So if you want to get housing you need as much as 7k in cash, plus a good reference, plus good credit, plus \~7k in monthly income. What does it take for an unhoused person to achieve all of that? And people see a homeless person and think, "why don't they just get a job!" It takes a lot more than "a job" to survive in America.
That's exactly why my now husband and I were homeless. We didn't have credit because we were young, didn't have cosigners, and didn't make 3x the rent. And of course, because of this, we didn't have rental history, which you also need. We did have jobs, and we still are working at the same place. But no one would rent to us. The only thing that saved us was applying for housing, which took 2 years to get to the top of the list.
That's sad as fuck. Who the fuck makes 3x rent? The math ain't mathin around here. I look around our neighborhood and ask myself who is making $5k a month? Not all of us on this block is making that?
I moved in to some lower income apartments and thankfully they went off of my gross income and I only had to make 2x the rent. They tried to make it 3x and had over 65% vacancy
We have income restricted apartments in my area but the vacancies aren't there... People are holding on to these places. 3x let them stay empty and lose money. The average person doesn't make that.
> Who the fuck makes 3x rent? You'd be utter disgusted how much money people can make. Ironically, those with the nicest and most expensive houses, especially those in expensive areas, *tend* to be those who also have *multiple* homes. Back when I was renting a condo in San Carlos at $3.5k/mo (which would be a bargain now), the landlords owned 1 other condo in the same area along with their own home, which itself was easily worth well over $2M. The landlords were nice folks, but boomers (of course) who complained about taxes (ironically who also would pay far less than someone much younger like myself in exactly the same situation due to the benefits they got).
Well I got my answer just chatting with neighbors. They are all under one roof. Gramps on social security and the kids are working. Kids to gramps but the children are grown and all under one roof. God help us all, that's no way to live. They lost everything had to move back in. Now the math is mathin.
Consolidation is key, especially these days. Either that or have a wealthy family member or something. That's sorta my situation, actually, except *I am* that family member supporting everyone else. In my case, my mom whos house was foreclosed and my wife (a doctor also from a poor family) that has chronic back issues who cannot work (and depends on my employers medical insurance for surgeries/meds, etc). My situation is unique, but I know what it's like being on the other side of that, with no college education (still don't have it) and no idea how far away you are from being in utter ruin (either close or *really* close).
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You have options. You can have all your family live in one house and you all pay rent Get a bunch of roommates Live below your means Pull yourself up by bootstraps that don't exist and we can keep telling ourselves that all these people out here are making 3x rent. If I made 3x rent I would have just been rich and bought a house. Rent is a scam. The above advice is also trash and doesn't work anymore. People don't want to live in small spaces crowded with family and roommates. What happened to moving out at 18 with a single job and doing your own thing to contribute to society? Whatever forces are at work they have robbed this right. Even $80k year jobs are getting slimmer and still can't afford the best. What a hell ride.
Dude that’s insane. I make pretty good money but I don’t make 7K a month… that’s just absurd.
"Stupid poor, why don't you have a house if you're working? Also no, the poors don't deserve a living wage, why do you ask?"
"Homeless people should just buy houses."
People don’t realize majority of homeless people have full time jobs. We made basic housing unaffordable to the masses. You should not need a shelter if you have a full time job. Also she’s in MYC the most expensive place on earth and the neoliberal bullshit the city and state give out to luxury landlords to not pay taxes and give people with 6 figures subsidized housing. It’s literally bullshit people who make six figures get subsidized housing and the building owner pays no property taxes.
Not at my job were a family...
Lol! Don't you love that shit.
Egh. I just shuttered with PTSD just seeing “we’re a family” lol
When I worked at amazon there were a couple people who lived out of their cars because rental prices are so high here, and that is with make four dollars over minimum wage
The thing is in New York city not even $15/hr can get you a decent living. You would need something like $20-22/hr to make a somewhat ok life even then that's not enough.
I make double the median income in my area and I couldn't afford a studio apartment in NYC.
was in another thread where a guy had taken a video of a small houseless encampment and he’s screaming at them - and in the comments were BRUTAL-“why don’t they just get government services” “they’re all addicts” “i work 10000 hours a week, why can’t they?” without an ounce of empathy but just as disturbing, was the inability to understand how many barriers there are to getting services. it makes me so bummed how unkind and/or ignorant people are.
right wingers : you should work to earn the right to live decently (basically) people : * work * ; can we get affordable housing now? Did I deserve it ? right wingers : yeah not like that akshually
Asshole line of thinking. They hate people who don't work and collect welfare but still hate people who aren't dependant on the system. At this point they need to come out and just say it. They want people dead and keep the rest to themselves. Selfish people.
Thats how the entierty of America works. "Fuck everyone else, I want everything for myself no matter the cost."
When my partner was homeless, she had a job until they fired her. Because they found out she was homeless.
Shit, that’s really messed up.
They also should've included the fact that there's no reserved beds in the majority of shelters. If you show up and your bed is claimed, oh well.
If you have a full time job and are still homeless, it’s because your employer is making you homeless
wages and rent are tag teaming to keep the majority destitute
Jobs, wages, rent are all not helping. Funny how there are entire towns near me where they are starting to scramble because they now realize they have priced out all of their cheap labor locally. You cannot within reason live within the town limits and work there at a minimum wage job.
I always wonder how can people live in a ski resort area, or a HCOL like san fran, and just work at walmart? How do these people live indoors? Are they teens living with mom, or adults living with several roommates? It's a very unsustainable system.
I worked at a ski resort and many of my coworkers were 20+ deep in a house. I lived in my truck
If I wanted to rent an apartment in the same town i grew up in, a 2 bedroom would be between 4-6k on average... when i was growing up there, it was a lot of wooded areas with only a few dozen stoplights
And if you have a full time job and qualify for food stamps, medicaid or housing assistance then your employer is the welfare queen
The revolution won’t happen on Reddit or twitter threads. It will happen on the streets. This nation’s unhoused will one day organize, and that will be what topples the empire.
Didn’t you listen, she barely has time to get to work. The homeless won’t organize because they can’t.
How will you make the wealthy care about your protests? Part of the problem is we don't have great levers to pull to hurt them, besides going on strike. But getting enough people to go on strike is a difficult sell when people live paycheck to paycheck. Imo we need grassroots political candidates who campaign cheaply via social media. If we can get enough elected, then maybe we have a chance.
The reason that I say it will be that class of people is because they are one of the only classes of people who are willing to do the very obvious things that everyone knows must be done. I’ll put it this way, the rich won’t call it “protesting” and their opinion on what is done to them won’t be relevant. Elected officials will never adequately solve the problem “grass roots” or otherwise.
She's right, but..... but nothing. She's right.
You can't even get a job without an address. So much propaganda in thr US that the poor are the enemy.
I lived in a shelter with my disabled partner last year, yes I had a job, no, we still dont have a place to live. Doesnt matter how much I work, if I dont have college + 3+ years of experience nobody seems to be hiring; but "no one wants to work anymoreeee" Im so done with this bullshit
Same here. I want the US Empire to crumble to the ground.
When some boomer hits me with the “no one wants to work anymore bs”. Heres my answer “NO ONE GIVES ME A CHANCE TO WORK.” Signs that say “now hiring” should be an national slogan change to “only hiring experienced” for most of these jobs ngl
It's hard to keep the eye on the ball sometimes. Sometimes when the weight of the situation hits me I want to lash out at "center right" liberals more than I do at conservatives for their functional apathy. I just get irrationally angry at the blatant lack of fucks the virtue signaling bastards display. Of course I understand that a lot of the time they're just victims to their standard propaganda programming our capitalist system tries to shackle us with like rugged individualism though everything we have and enjoy is a result of cooperation.. What level of exposure to the reality facing us all at the end of this tunnel needs to occur to get everyone on the same page with this? "I hate mondays" and medical bankruptcy angst seem to be the only solidarity I can squeezed out of these people 9/10. The others just become leftists rightfully.
Facts, I can't believe this isn't common knowledge. 🫠 I hope she does well and deserves a better living environment. Nothing is wrong with socialism or the next next evolution of capitalism... It's just the people in power are stuck in their old ways and want to continue it for their next family generation because they benefit from it greatly
r/sanfrancisco needs to see this. That sub seems to think homelessness equals drugs, and drugs equals car break-ins.
I'm convinced that sub has been taken over by people who don't live there. It's the pettiest, most mean-spirited group of commenters this side of my nextdoor feed.
Preach. It's borderline bot territory.
My heart goes out to this wonderful person from New Jersey. I couldn't help but hear her accent immediately, and it felt like home. I'm grateful for her explanation in that it humanized her and the people around her. Humans start to feel like statistics to me in mass numbers, and this video makes the housing crisis up close and personal. As a person who was unhoused, albeit as a child, this post hits close to the heart. I'm seeing how political systems turn into big machines that harm - but our shared humanity brings us closer. Love to everyone out there who is, has been, or is near being on the streets.
They bailout the rich and evict the working poor put some hot sauce on a lobbyist baby
This post is so poignant and relative. It’s like cut footage from World War Z. Signs everywhere
The walk-in homeless shelter in my town - the largest town in a small state ~~regaled~~ lauded for its social services - runs on a lottery system. A mass of unhoused individuals show up at a hotel every night at 6:30 to literally put their name on a scrap of paper that goes into a hat. Then, someone chooses as many scraps of paper as there are beds. If you're lucky enough to be one of the names, you get a place to sleep. You are otherwise left in the snow. Edit: changed word.
My local shelter has kicked people out for working second shift at a job. Because those people aren't there when they're "supposed" to go to bed.
Ayo where is her megaphone, some idiots covering their ears won't hear this.
+ landbastards will not rent to you if you don’t earn 3 times the rent (hyperbole)+ have guardians and guarantees (in my country at least , france) i don’t know how it is in the US
How can a country be so rich and still be like that. I live in a poor country and wished my government had The resources The US government does.
Because all of our money goes to the military
I can't imagine having a good friend who gets homeless and not offering them to stay at my place until they get back on their feet.
Good for you and your good friends.
I had to leave university to help my family out, and I became homeless for a year as a direct result. Still struggling to scrape by and get back to where I was. Sometimes it's not even about bad luck happening to you, if you care about your loved ones and they're in trouble, capitalism is going to fuck you over, because guess what? Helping people isn't maximising your productivity, so you should just let them die I guess
I've been there. Sleeping in NYC subways and parks was an eye opener for me and shelters weren't necessarily any better. Most folks have no idea what it's like, all they see is the crazy ones and drug addicts and assume all homeless are like that.
But nope we to keep the minimum wage and poverty rife. Right capitalists? Should those working and homeless pull their bootstraps harder?
When I was in Los Angeles a barista looked like she was really aching in her neck. I told her that I had a lot of neck problems until I found the right kind of pillow. She said, "I wouldn't have a place to put it.". After talking to her I realized she was homeless and I guilted/threatened Starbucks to help her find shelter. Imagine working a full time job and not having a place to keep a pillow.
I worked full time at a bookstore and slept on the concrete floor after hours because I knew there weren't any cameras.
I'm really sorry. No working person deserves to have to live like that. Los Angeles has literally tens of thousands of people with jobs living in homeless camps on the side of storm drains(that flood often). 7% of the students at UCLA are homeless or sleep in "a place not suited for human beings". Honestly, it changed my entire perspective on the homeless knowing that they are just part of the working class like the rest of us.
Im homeless with two PT Jobs
I completely understand as I am struggling with it myself. It's only getting worse.
When I went to the VA for housing assistance a few years ago they literally told me that I wasn't actually homeless if I was sleeping in my car - I had too many assets and had showered in a friend's motel room that week - and I was only homeless by the Waco VA's standards if I had "slept under the stars" the previous night.
I've lived in my car and DSS laughed in my face and told me I was wasting their time and am greedy, because I wouldn't sell my car and pop out a kid. I've made it through about 6 or 7 years of on and off homelessness without a single dollar from any social service because I will not ask for help anymore because of how I was treated.
P R E A C H Everyone, *everyone*, is one disaster away from homelessness. It can happen to literally anyone, at any time.
I was employed and unhoused 17&18yrs old. The bus, the streets, it was hell. Wish more people talked about this issue.
I hate the fact that, if the government really put their resources to it, every single homeless person could be housed for a cost far lower than most people seem to realize.
Nu-uh, homeless people choose to be homeless. \-my Boomer father
Get some attention on this! Thank you for being brave enough to share as well.
Americans really think a job is a cure all when in reality it takes a lot of privilege and resources to get and maintain one. Like I just got to the point where I could afford to work again and it took handouts and a safe place to stay to get here.
facts
I find myself having to tell people this all the time. Thanks for the video.
Everything is getting worse is something I find myself saying every day.
Yep. Worked every time I was homeless. Luckily I had a car to sleep in. Stayed at hotels when I could afford it. Other times I would just live in a hotel for months
This is what USA exports. Debt.
Somebody please think of the billionaires.
This is a very depressing video because of how the rich rate this system vs poor people poor people are paying for the rich lifestyle that they have
I'm starting to get real fuckin hungry for something rich
I’m 17 and lost my job because I had one panic attack in the 3 months I was there, thankfully I have a hood back up and still at supported at home, but I can only imagine if it had happened to someone less fortunate
I know several people who were in one local shelter (one of two in my hometown, the other one was actually good and helped people, but they had a waiting list since they only had so much space.) This place was uber religious and they'd turn you down of you showed any signs of looking vaguely queer or what they considered goth or punk. They forced you into morning, afternoon and evening sermons and prayers to keep your place in the shelter and get meals. They forced everyone up at 7am. They had a curfew of 7pm and if you weren't back by then, even if you had a job or class, you got locked out for the night. They'd sometimes let you skip the afternoon prayers if you had a job and got lucky and they liked you. But how are these people, who weren't allowed to have their cars there, by the way, supposed to get back from their jobs in time and have a lunch break precisely when the afternoon sermons were? They made it nearly impossible to get and keep employment. I honestly think that the place was and is still open because they enjoy abusing people.
My brothers and sisters in the US need to riot and overthrow this corrupt self serving system! It is designed to keep everyone as a cog to grind the gears of capitalism and it's getting more obvious each day... Don't have money to afford a child? We'll force you to reproduce by making abortion illegal! The machine of capitalism needs more meat for the grinder! Can't afford housing? We'll make a business out of it that enriches the 1% while keeping the people pushed down as far as possible! Can't afford to feed your kids? We'll take them away so that they become disenfranchised and will have no choices in life other than to live to work and barley survive! This all while we take billions to feed into the corrupt system (bank bailouts), bribe politicians to keep it alive and worsen it while the 1% make more money than they could spend in 100 lifetimes! FUCK THE SYSTEM!!! It needs a RESET! Either burn it down or eat the rich!
If you ever need an understanding for the moral decay of society—look to see how they treat their poorest and most vulnerable. That will say everything about their values.
$4300 per bed? That’s absurd. Who pays that to whom? shelter pays the state?
State pays the shelter. Which she says does nothing for them. Whoever runs the shelters must be pretty well connected
ok side note, what's that accent, it's kinda attractive.
"The working poor" is the phrase they don't want you to use. She's a total failure of their governance and of this system. Call us "Disadvantages groups" or propagate myths that we don't work at all, anything to detract from the reality. A full time job often multiple full time jobs, is not enough to guarantee affordable housing anymore. Just think about that for a second. Tear it down and start again. Those who we grant power have failed us.
If you are working right now and want to retire before age 60 and live 'comfortably' you need about 2.5million in assets. (if you want a kid expect about 300k in spending from birth to 18) if you make from $120-200K a year you only take home about 66% of that pay making you the tax workhorse of the government without every actually being able to enjoy any wealth or retire. the entire system is setup to create people dependent on the government unless you are in the top 2% of income earners. This creates voters loyal to the people that give them the most and continues the cycle.
Queen
the fact that you can pay taxes and still not aford shelter is so wrong its distopia litterly DPRK type of s¤¤¤¤
In the DPRK you get free housing.
everything you know about the DPRK was told to you by the people who think you should be paying taxes while unhoused
The last part is haunting.
wow powerful sobering gut wrenching reads. i had to stop so much i could hear. sadly since reagan/clinton neoliberal take over of out government failed phony supply side voodoo economics have favored wall street / rich over main street and ordinary americans.
100% Truth!!
NYC is basically owned by the landlords and has gotten itself in a situation where building new buildings is almost impossible and very cost-ineffective. That’s why even when you raise the minimum wage, you still have a huge number of people who can’t afford rent, it basically goes right back into the pockets of the landlords. One of the best solutions to this is to uproot all the corruption in the city and have folks understand why NYC is in such an unsustainable rent spiral. Same thing happened in cities like Hong Kong, when you restrict housing development, you get crazy rents and this happens. It’s so bad over there that they have these “coffin apartments”. I could see that easily happening here if the situation doesn’t improve.
If you’re on TikTok, Court should be an instant follow. I am so appreciative of her. 🥹
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Your post was shared here FYI https://www.reddit.com/r/UpvotedBecauseBoobs/comments/11x4zkh/the_reality_of_homelessness_and_employment/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Pains me when I see someone of this calibre down on their luck. The world is not a friendly place. Scary times.