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someone who has the intelligence and work ethic to do this probably wasn't going to be homeless for long. And capacity. Many people on the street have serious

• Swizec 9y ago
  Honest question: why don't you charge enough for your freelance work so you wouldn't be homeless?
  • Mz 9y ago
    When I work, I often make more than $20/hour. Not always, but often. But I am not always able to put in the hours, due in part to my health problems and in part to logistical issues from being homeless. I also have trouble promoting myself, in part because I am homeless so people online don't take me seriously, but in part because I am a woman, so a lot of people didn't want to take me seriously even when I had an apartment. Plus, my student loan is being paid off this week. With that paid off, the odds of me getting off the street start going up. There are plenty of articles on how much of a burden student loans can be in the US. So google it if you can't fathom how that matters.
    • jameskegel 9y ago
      Gender and home situation are two things not conveyed over the internet; I don't think this stigma is legitimately a risk. The fact is you're propagating that information, which is a choice.
      • Mz 9y ago
        Given that I am the highest ranked woman on Hacker News, I think you are clearly in error. Historically, women have not been warmly welcomed here and not taken as seriously as the men. And if you can't admit your gender for fear of discrimination, that closes doors in terms of business. The men are never advised to hide their gender. Yet people seem to think that's an actual solution for a woman. I can't fathom how on earth anyone can say that and not realize they are just reinforcing sexism in an extreme and horrible manner. Also, it seriously doesn't work to tell me "there is no stigma -- all you have to do is hide those facts about yourself." If there is no stigma, why on earth would I need to hide them? Or to blame me for admitting that I am female and homeless. Hiding information about yourself is another burden to communicating and can complicate the hell out of attempts to accomplish anything when you need to work around certain things but are compelled to not mention them for fear of stigma.
        • jameskegel 9y ago
          Your response has given me greater perspective to your situation, bless your heart.
          • placeybordeaux 9y ago
            > bless your heart Did you mean this in good faith? Where I was raised throwing that in is fairly insulting.
            • thephyber 9y ago
              Not the poster, but I didn't notice this until you replied. Being from the South, I've heard this in both the straight version and the condescending version. As you point out, without sufficient context, it's bodylanguage-ambiguous.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    • mjevans 9y ago
      An important reminder for anyone not in the US. Student loans are one of the (the only?) forms of debt in the US that cannot be discharged via bankruptcy. I believe that too is a major factor in the rising cost of college and other secondary educations; there's no market pressure to price the services at a rate based on the student's success.
    • Swizec 9y ago
      Thanks for clarifying and congratulations on paying off your student loan! If I may offer one piece of advice that worked well for me when I was starting out in freelancing: "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog". You don't have to tell people that you're homeless, if you think that diminishes your chances of getting a freelance gig. In my experience, for a lot of things that would harm my chances at getting gigs, people never asked. So I didn't say anything myself either. They often come up in the course of normal conversation later once you already have a relationship with the client, but by then they no longer care. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • Mz 9y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14590353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14590353
    • thephyber 9y ago
      Congratz on paying down your student loan! Have you considered coming up with a resource for those paying off student loans? Not so much a pity-party community, but more of financial resources + legal contacts + "life hacks" + community / forum. I'd imagine the potential audience is quite large in the US and the emotional appeal of getting debt collectors off your back is pretty enticing. I imagine the next generation of resource websites like this will use "brain hacks" (concepts in BJ Fogg's persuasion techniques -- similar to gamification) and may even be able to charge a subscription if it can change habits and encourage positive progress on paying down loan debt. I paid down A LOT on a family member [A]'s student loan to take the pressure off another family member [B]. I would gladly pay a subscription fee for [A] to learn to take control of their own finances and figure out how to save money on their own.
      • Mz 9y ago
        I recently started this site because I think most money problems are really life problems, but it isn't exactly taking off: http://notanothermoneyblog.blogspot.com/ http://notanothermoneyblog.blogspot.com/ I would welcome feedback on it. That would help me figure out where to go with it. Most of my financial advice stuff ends up here: http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/p/money.html http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/p/money.ht... I don't really plan to create anything with a subscription because the kinds of problems I talk about tend to leave people with too little money to survive. My hope is that as my writing helps people start solving their problems, they will leave a tip when they can better afford it. But I do have a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia
        • thephyber 9y ago
          I don't know if I have any useful feedback for the linked sites. notanothermoneyblog: I tend to be turned off of traditional blog layouts because of navigational structure. As a reader, I don't care about when an article is written, I care about matching my reading interests quickly with what is available on your site (perusing the titles / tags / categories). If there is a config to toggle away the year-month navigation style, I would prefer that. YMMV sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide: The site seems niche and, as you have mentioned in other posts, there is a stigma against homelessness. Non-homeless (awkward description, I know) readers might feel immediately turned off before reading anything. You might be able to convey the same type of message by describing it as "scraping by", although this may be counterproductive. I would suggest you might try to review your previously-written articles and see if you can make them more reader-friendly. Currently, they seem a little writer-friendly and not very optimized for the reader. Having a TL;DR at the top might keep interest. Eg. the "gift card" article #2 was interesting because it mentions the CA state law that gives consumers the right to cash out sub-$10 balances. That is very useful for me, as a California consumer and I probably would not have thought I would find a nugget on a site and wouldn't have found it if I wasn't trying to review your site. Having the nugget of wisdom in the article title (eg. "Gift cards can be cashed by state law") rather than a less-specific "Cash for Gift Cards -- Addendum" Small bug: The link from the /p/money.html page to "Starbuck's and Domino's Rewards and Gift Cards" is broken (there is a stray "http:/" at the beginning). If you can, try to get an Amazon Affiliate account and add Amazon affiliate links when you describe / review books like "Book recommendation: How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt and Live Prosperously". It might not be useful short-term as they won't cut checks for amounts smaller than ~$25, but they pay 4+% on lots of products.
  • peterwwillis 9y ago
    I don't think you should have been downvoted because you appear to be trying to find out why this person doesn't have a home. I am not the poster, but here's an example of a plausible answer. (Apologies for the lengthy post) You have $50K in collections debt, no insurance, no credit, no bank. Any money you have, you carry with you. Getting paid is a pain in the ass, because even though you could conceivably receive money through an online service that does not require a credit card or bank acct, actually extracting the money as cash is quite difficult. Nobody wants to Paypal a client, anyway, and nobody wants to learn how Bitcoin works, much less figure out potential tax issues. You apologize profusely for making the client send you your fee via Western Union. You pay for a prepaid cellphone. You need internet with a sizeable data cap, which isn't very affordable or reliable via mobile, so your first stop for internet is probably libraries or cafes, which you can only work at for a certain period of time before you're not-so-politely asked to move on. Just getting your work done or having a regular video call can be troublesome. You carry your possessions with you, and the more you carry, the more homeless you look, and the more homeless you look, the more people have a kind of ick-response to your presence and want you gone. If you ever have to put your stuff down for a moment you risk your only valuable possessions disappearing. You don't have enough yet to cover first, last, and security on an apartment, but that doesn't matter anyway because nobody will rent you an apartment without proof of income. You have no permanent address, so getting billed (among many other things) is an issue. Your options for housing are dangerous and filthy weekly or monthly rate rooms in the equivalent of a halfway house or crack motel. A shelter is sometimes a better option, when a bed is available. Getting to your semi-housing is not easy, because it's invariably located on abandoned stretches of US-1 or a highway (and obviously you have no car). You are very lucky if there is public transit that goes from your shitty motel to a place where you can use wifi regularly. You may have to pick between paying for taxis (no, Uber doesn't run out there, but will charge you a pretty penny to take you there) with the little money you have, or walking a couple hours each way. If you have an in-person client, you obviously need to be presentable, so now you're spending as much as you can on a place with a shower, taxis to and from the job, and maybe an upgrade to a place with wifi. All of this for basically one or two clients that occasionally hand you a small piece of work at a very-sub-standard rate. Because of your bad credit, lack of recent work experience, lack of a bank account, lack of transportation, etc etc, few people want to work with you. When they do, the work is infrequent, and done when you can actually get to doing it, due to the aforementioned impediments. You pray your stuff doesn't get stolen, that you don't get mugged, that you will get another contract soon. You don't haggle over payment because you're lucky someone will deal with your awkward payments, and what if you lost that client and had to start over? Without some kind of miracle, there is no math that puts you in stable housing any time within the next year. The answer "It's complicated" isn't satisfying, but it's often reality.
• logicallee 9y ago
  >I have been homeless 5.5 years This is a huge personal revelation. I have happened to be in touch with the parent poster via HN and they are simply an intelligent, thoughtful, person with important and good opinions on whatever topics they write about. I hope you resolve your issues with housing soon. As you write, you have a lot of capacity for high-level work.
  • Mz 9y ago
    Thank you.
  • Diederich 9y ago
    Posted on her behalf: https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia https://www.patreon.com/MicheleinCalifornia http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/ http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/
  • gpawl 9y ago
    FYI, Mz has been here sharing her perspective on homelessness for several years: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+mz+homeless https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+mz+ho...
    • logicallee 9y ago
      Thanks, though that doesn't change my impression of mz from our interaction, which I listed. Since we're on HN: I don't see how it's fundamentally different from people who fail for years to raise money, until they finally do. My interaction with GP is from not that long ago. They're a smart, clear writer and I hope they resolve their housing situation soon. Then, if they ever want to do a startup they'll be better at it than most people, based on my interaction. They've also studied GIS, though I'm not sure if they want to work with it or in a different field. I am confident they can resolve their housing issue and I believe in them. By the way Elon Musk lived in an office and took showers at a YMCA.[1] That meets the definition of homeless. If you want a chance to back the next elon musk, invest in whatever mz does whenever they're ready to take money (though I'm not sure if they have any such intentions - but surely there's a reason they're on this site). mz, I hope this reply is not out of place and again, I hope you resolve your housing issue soon. I am basing my opinion of you based on an interaction with you and based your writing, which is all anyone gets if someone sends a pitch deck, emails, or business plan. you might have huge difficulty and perhaps its stretched for years but I believe you will go through it based on your talent and abilities. you can do it. go. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=elon+musk+showers+ymca https://www.google.com/search?q=elon+musk+showers+ymca