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> They had basically accepted they had failed at life and had come to terms with an existence of scraping along the bottom of city existence. At that point the

> They had basically accepted they had failed at life and had come to terms with an existence of scraping along the bottom of city existence. At that point they have a job, it's working at being homeless full time.

ben_jones 9y ago
Was this comment actually downvoted? It is important to recognize that survival is a full time endeavor to many people and will directly impact their ability to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps".
harlanji 9y ago
It's true, the less money you have the more time you have to spend on the basics. As much as I love laundry and housekeeping services, if I'm not making income they're gone and there's 4 hours a week I now have to spend to be clean. No credit card? No Amazon Prime delivery, needs more time to go to the market +1hr/day. No money for quality restaurant food? Time to start going to farmers' markets and learning to cook, +2hr/day... etc. Car service? LOL. No cash to load Clipper? Hours of travel time. Medical care? I pity the fool.
klenwell 9y ago
Reminds me of one of my favorite short stories: I’ve been homeless for six years now. If there’s such a thing as an effective homeless man, then I suppose I’m effective. Being homeless is probably the only thing I’ve ever been good at. I know where to get the best free food. I’ve made friends with restaurant and convenience-store managers who let me use their bathrooms. And I don’t mean the public bathrooms, either. I mean the employees’ bathrooms, the clean ones hidden behind the kitchen or the pantry or the cooler. I know it sounds strange to be proud of this, but it means a lot to me, being trustworthy enough to piss in somebody else’s clean bathroom. Maybe you don’t understand the value of a clean bathroom, but I do. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/21/what-you-pawn-i-will-redeem http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/21/what-you-pawn-i...

ben_jones 9y ago

Was this comment actually downvoted? It is important to recognize that survival is a full time endeavor to many people and will directly impact their ability to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps".

harlanji 9y ago

It's true, the less money you have the more time you have to spend on the basics. As much as I love laundry and housekeeping services, if I'm not making income they're gone and there's 4 hours a week I now have to spend to be clean. No credit card? No Amazon Prime delivery, needs more time to go to the market +1hr/day. No money for quality restaurant food? Time to start going to farmers' markets and learning to cook, +2hr/day... etc. Car service? LOL. No cash to load Clipper? Hours of travel time. Medical care? I pity the fool.

klenwell 9y ago

Reminds me of one of my favorite short stories: I’ve been homeless for six years now. If there’s such a thing as an effective homeless man, then I suppose I’m effective. Being homeless is probably the only thing I’ve ever been good at. I know where to get the best free food. I’ve made friends with restaurant and convenience-store managers who let me use their bathrooms. And I don’t mean the public bathrooms, either. I mean the employees’ bathrooms, the clean ones hidden behind the kitchen or the pantry or the cooler. I know it sounds strange to be proud of this, but it means a lot to me, being trustworthy enough to piss in somebody else’s clean bathroom. Maybe you don’t understand the value of a clean bathroom, but I do. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/21/what-you-pawn-i-will-redeem http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/21/what-you-pawn-i...