[Easy_C]

Got a guy I know who was. Woman drama led to the guy losing his apartment in NYC, so he couch surfed for about two months. Interesting takeaway: if you really need it and look decent, a surprising number of the women there will let you crash at their place.

[AboveAverageJoe]

Been Homeless many times. Everyone should be homeless at least once. It is character building and gives you a renewed sense of appreciation for the mundane things in life. I banged even more chicks when I was homeless because I was willing to lower my standards to include girls that I could manipulate for money, food, cars, cell phones and places to stay.

[Jnx]

Nothing better than being "homeless" and having a lot of money in your bank account.

Freedom defined

[AneroidOcean]

(05-09-2016 06:11 PM)Jnx Wrote:  

Nothing better than being "homeless" and having a lot of money in your bank account.

Freedom defined

Care to elaborate? Sounds interesting.

[takashi hanzo]

I was homeless for 3yrs in fucking Phoenix, lost my job had an apartment with a chick who I loved then the trick dipped out to chase her man. Poor lil ole me couldn't afford a two bedroom place and ended up homeless.

*Lost all my friends
*Lost my car
*Slept on old clothes for a pillow
*Ate 10cent bagels and lived off of powerade from circle K

It was a shitty 3yrs but it did make me much more aware about life and money. Was an interesting experience

[Gustavus Adolphus]

I have no ambition to be homeless, and God willing I won't be any time soon- but y'all make it sound like being poor is a profound experience that the paying their keep people lack- those who have known a struggle get this for sure. I also have no desire to lower my standards to fuck some dumpster bitch for a blanket to sleep under. Some of y'all motherfuckers are weird.

[weambulance]

I've been homeless to the degree that I had to live out of my car twice, for a couple months each time. It wasn't so bad, really, other than being kind of embarrassing. I just slept during the day in busy parking lots and I was on good terms with the local cops so they left me alone. I had a gym membership so I could take showers and work out, and fortunately my old pickup has a nice bench seat so sleeping was relatively comfortable, even though I'm about 6 inches taller than my truck is wide inside.

I'd barely call that being homeless, really. I had transportation and shelter, I had enough money to eat alright though I ate a lot of ramen, and I was even able to improve my lifts. My first homeless stint is when I really started trying to change my life, to get out of the rat race and do my own thing. All in all, I think it was a fairly positive experience because it stripped my life down to the essentials. It was clarifying, I suppose.

I didn't get laid, no. Didn't really try.

I'm not endorsing homelessness or anything. I'm just not one for regrets, and since I like who I am now and where I'm going, I wouldn't go back and change things if I could.

While I have no plans to be homeless without a choice in the future, I am planning on going nomadic as soon as my online income settles down into something reliable.

[Elster]

I got back to the roadbl two months ago.
Was trying to make it work with a bird but her family kept meddling so I flipped them the finger, went back to stealth camping and peddling art in the streets. With the money I made I upgraded all my gear (backpack, tent, heavy duty clothes, stove survival tools. Etc) . I've harnessed it into my own thing now,I guess.

I'd say that if you find good gear and if you like outdoors and adventure it just flows.

[Leonard D Neubache]

I've been homeless in the sense I had no fixed address, which I figure is about the most apt definition. Did it for about two years. Sleeping around in multiple senses. Not always in comfortable places but back then my standards were abysmally low.

In hindsight I could have saved myself a lot of drama by at least getting a meagre car loan, buying a used van and tossing a mattress in the back of it, but in those heady days I had enough trouble finding my ass with both hands.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

[Jackreacher]

Almost anyone could benefit from being homeless for at least a few weeks once in their life and preferably by choice. Provided one has a car/truck/van and some wits it's a very worthwhile experience. It showed me how little I actually needed banks, landlords, property or huge sums of cash. And while this was happening I was building computers and my motorcycle, selling them and just having an all around good time. No one, not even my friends and family knew where I was living

I can say if you have a fear of being homeless there's no better way to conquer it then to live the experience for a short time.

[Thoroughbred]

Never really homeless, but I've crashed at friends places while between houses and had two separate stints of living "off the grid".

Picking fruit, working on farms, living in camp sites and on river banks. Blowing into and out of country towns with just a car and some gear.

Was bloody great to be honest.

It's living that life that gives an awareness of another world beyond the "civilised" world of mortgaged, insured "citizens".

There is an entire underworld of vagabonds and drifters that live their entire lives that way. I met some interesting people around camp fires.

As for inner city 9 - 5, urban life homelessness?

(03-07-2016 09:35 PM)Begriff Wrote:  

What are you willing to do to achieve your goals?

Yeah nah, not that.

I need a lockable door and a functional kitchen to put up with this shit.

[Mojorisin808]

I lived in a minivan with a mattress parked right next to a beach in Waikiki my first 3 months in Hawaii. I showered at the beach and used the public restrooms. It wasn't terribly uncomfortable, in fact I met a lot of cool homeless "hippy" people that were in a similar situation. We smoked weed, and played music until sunrise many nights. I banged a few girls in that van. I worked a job as a server in restaurant in Chinatown and eventually saved money to get a share in an apartment. My roommate was a Korean stripper for 6 months, until she moved back to Seoul. Interesting time in my life. Great memories, wouldn't have changed it for anything.

[Jackreacher]

Fun challenge remain homeless until you score an invite to live with a chick who wants to take you in

[Rigsby]

There are ten degrees of homelessness, as there are ten degrees of success and happiness.

I've only skimmed over the posts here, but a few seemed to be saying it was an interesting, enlightening experience. I doubt those that have suffered the lower levels of it, and the true misery it brings, are posting here. Apologies if I overlooked anyone's viewpoint. I'm trying to make a broader point.

It doesn't take long for true homelessness to break you. It's the little things, like not being able to brush your teeth, that can make a massive impact pretty quick and have life long repercussions. Obviously, any idiot can brush his teeth, right? A toothbrush costs very little. But what if you were without any money as well? Then it gets interesting. Drugs/alcohol come in to play for a lot of people. There's a reason most people drink on the street, even if many of them are not alcoholics.

I don't want to come across as some kind of person that has compassion or empathy (god forbid), when I know that most people despise and look down on homeless people. The difference is, I know that most of them are scumbags from personal experience, where as those that criticise the less fortunate in society do it out of cognitive dissonance or sheer mean-spiritedness. You are entitled to your viewpoint. I base mine on hard won knowledge. There's a difference.

Most people who have been there don't make their way back, and even when they do, they have major problems readjusting to things. I could talk at length on this subject, or write a data sheet even. But I've said more than I care to, so I'll just leave it there.

[Jnx]

(05-09-2016 10:39 PM)AneroidOcean Wrote:  

(05-09-2016 06:11 PM)Jnx Wrote:  

Nothing better than being "homeless" and having a lot of money in your bank account.

Freedom defined

Care to elaborate? Sounds interesting.

I guess the lifestyle I was talking about when I made the post, and the one I live, is more along the lines of "backpacking"

But backpacking is something young kids do when they're in college to "see the world." They strictly stay in hostels. I'm willing to sleep on a bench for the night if the weather permits and I'm not gonna find a finger in my butt at some point. Train and bus stations are awesome, airports, parks, etc. Going off on a tangent of where to sleep which is not what I'm trying to get at here.

Here's the thing. I have an awesome job that would put me in a luxurious apartment and $50k car if I desired, and wanted to live the way most people do. If you breakdown the costs of living for most people, rent is a large portion of that. I spend about the same or more under this "homeless lifestyle" per month as the average person, but I'm spending it on going out EVERY night, restaurants with lambos parked outside, travel, etc. Much better in my opinion. Every one has their own priorities.

I've also been down to my last $100 after blowing through $50k under this same scheme. I made that $100 last weeks. $1 cheeseburgers from McDonalds, twice a day. So if my employer ever decided to fire me, I'm good. The ultimate confidence. No matter what happens, you can make very little last along time. No boss can ever make you his bitch, because at any point you can say "Fuck you, I'm out." That's aside from the point that in my industry it's normal to have a new employer every 6 months anyways.

[Elster]

I agree with Aneroid-ocean that back packing has been over run and prostituted by the hostel brigades but there is still a world that deserves to be studied for the inquisitive and explorative mindset.
I think my own experience puts me more in tune with Jack's London "the Call of the wild" that
kerouac'dor Steinbecks stories(though Steinbeck definitely deserves a read) even though I'm not yet leading a wolf pack I'd say I came out a long way from the sad little mangina I was to rolling with life s punches and giving back.

Actually, I've spent the last year and am still drawing a tongue in cheek index of the various traveler/backpacker and or bum archetypes I've met on the road...

[Sandstorm]

My mum kicked me out of home when I was 17; she finally became too much to bear (she was quite a feminist) and I ended up physically pushing her over. That was the last straw for her.

I stayed with a friend I used to go clubbing with every weekend, he lived with an Ecstasy dealer and used to run raves down on the coast. In return for letting me stay there rent free, we had to help him out with his "business". He had a fucking hot girlfriend with ginormous tits, man, I used to enjoy waking up in my little nest in the living room and watching her walk around the kitchen in just her little grey singlet top with no bra on, Om Nom Nom....

I was able to secure a semi-permanent place at the YMCA (yes, of the gay song fame) mostly paid for by the council and supplemented by my other "income" from the nightclubs. The YMCA was weird - it was somewhere between a really, really nice prison and a shitty hotel. They would include a roast dinner meal every night but I was often too fucked up on a come down from all the clubbing to fully appreciate the free meal. Met a couple of dodgy dudes in that place who were proper hardcore ravers and we would often run into each other at clubs off our heads.

Stayed there for about 5 months and finally secured a place to rent with my friend from the other house. We shacked up with two older guys from the university and finally I was no longer "of no abode". We had some awesome parties there, one in particular that got out of hand where some Hell's Angels types turned up and took it upon themselves to be the security for the night!

That was all going well until it transpired that our landlord did not own the property, it was in fact an asset of The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and we received an order from the county Sheriff to vacate it henceforth. We had one last big party and made sure to absolutely destroy the place, including graffiti on the walls, pouring milk into carpets, even pissing into some furniture. It was bad.

We sat on the pavement across the road eating kebabs the next morning, watching these men break the front door, then look around the property, we could see them reading the weird graffiti and cartoons on the walls.

They locked the place up and that's when it hit us that we actually had nowhere to sleep that night. I believe we spent the next few nights just out on the streets walking around to keep warm, then going to places to keep warm during the day. Having almost next to no money was a bummer too.

Finally, we hatched a plan to break back into the property and squat there, and that's what we did. Once inside, we regretted our previous plans to destroy the place and piss everywhere, as now WE were the suckers who had to live amongst it all!

WE stayed there like that for a month or more but gradually the utilities were shut off as bills were not paid. First gas, then electricity and finally water. When you can't flush your toilet it's time to leave. My friend made peace with his own family and moved back home. I couldn't (wouldn't) do that, so needed a new scheme.

It was then that I got the thought, why even stay in this country? There is nothing here for me. A friend mentioned a contact he had in Hong Kong - a possible working gig. I discussed the idea of going there with a few other friends. Two of them were up for the adventure; one of them had a bank account his parents had set up for him when he was a baby but it required two signatures. It just so happened that I'd broken my wrist in a minor skateboard accident a few weeks ago, so when we got to the bank, we used that as an excuse as to why my signature of the other person didn't look very good. And it worked. The funds were released to my friend.

We bought our one way tickets to Hong Kong, and began to prepare for our new adventure............... and that's a story for another time

Perhaps not homeless in the true sense of the meaning, I always seemed to have some kind of option to work with but probably the closest I've come. Perhaps another person might not have those options and things could have been a lot more bleak.

Like others have said - it's fun and freeing - so long as you have an option to exit - but being truly homeless... that shit could destroy a man. Respect to those who have pulled themselves out of true homelessness.

[Vaun]

When I was 18 I used to sleep in squats in different cities with friends. For one summer I was legit homeless, but slept in some of the best squats. Slept in parks, next to churches, under bridges, etc. All voluntarily. My friends and I would do day labor jobs and make small pocket change, but you never really needed much. The lifestyle was just laying around drinking. Never interested me much, but had a friend that did it for over 10 years all over the world, hitchhiking and hitching trains all over the US, Europe and Asia. Meet girls all the time and stay with them. Most of the time it was with their parents.