5 ms·

Two hours then, or three. What difference does it make? The goal here is to find something that’s better than staying in your SUV in a Walmart parking lot.

Arbitrary456456 9y ago
Gas costs are significant expenses when you only make $1300 a month.
- civilian 9y ago
  Right. But what transportation costs does she have when she doesn't have to work?
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    Unfortunately she's not here to tell us. Maybe someone could send her a link to sign up and do an AMA on HN? Her life has situations we cannot see from this perspective and we have not lived through. It's unhelpful to discount her situation with a smug "She could be doing XYZ better".
    - jeremyt 9y ago
      I’m open to hearing about what special situations she has that has made it impossible to pursue the obvious options. Those things should’ve been included in the article, but they were not. In the absence of such details, the article is basically just vaguely pulling at heartstrings.
    - civilian 9y ago
      I wasn't being smug, I was being curious.
- vtail 9y ago
  The point is not to drive back and forth, but to relocate.
  - InclinedPlane 9y ago
    Not just to relocate. But to relocate into a permanent situation with no hope of change. Firstly, none of those cheaper rental options fit that bill very well, those aren't places that can be relied upon for years and years. Additionally, moving away from one's support network and from the best opportunities is a hell of a thing and not something to be taken lightly. People here are pretending that this woman can simply guarantee herself a future that is more comfortable than the one she has right now by finding some cheaper apartment somewhere, and that's a proposition that is questionable at best. Especially in this case where the end result was that she ended up just crashing on her daughter's couch, moving down to Olympia or whatever to rent out some questionable super cheap room somewhere seems like it would have been a much worse decision. Perhaps she was just waiting long enough to justify "giving up" and having to rely fully on her daughter.
  - Arbitrary456456 9y ago
    It seems like the only two people she had in her life are in the Seattle area, and she had relied on them for financial support in the past. If she has car trouble or additional health problems, then that's going to be very difficult to handle Why are you so defensive about the mere existence of a homeless person?
stephengillie 9y ago
A two to three hour drive every day is subjectively worse than sleeping in an SUV. Not to mention the health effects of hours of driving, pollution - and about $18-27 a day in fuel[0] that could be saved or used for food. [0] 60mph/20mpg (generous for SUV) = 3 gallons/hour * [2 to 3] hours = [6 to 9 gallons] * (ballpark)$3 gallon = [$18-$27]. For 20 days of commuting that would be [$360-$540] per month.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  She's on disability which is where her sole income is derived from - she doesn't need to drive into the city every day.
- jeremyt 9y ago
  Why does literally every other comment keep assuming that she has to commute? The story says that she makes $1300 a month from disability and doesn’t have a job. Why does she need to drive three hours a day?
  - stephengillie 9y ago
    This reply[1] to your initial comment asked if the person would still be receiving $1300/month if she moved. To which the replies were "to commute". And so we're replying to those. Would she still be making $1300/month in disability if she moved to Olympia? Or would it drop to near $1000? That extra $10 per day is a lot. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873680
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    I’m going to assume that, being a human being, and having a daughter, she has a social life in the city she lives in. To tell her she’s forcibly (by means of economic coercion with potential state violence to back it up) no longer to live near her social and support network is completely unethical, in my eyes - otherwise is to suggest that only the rich are allowed a stable life. No man is actually an island, as much as that is the American ideal. Replace “housing instability” with “being kicked out of their homes and told to live somewhere multiple hours away where they don’t know anybody”, and you get the actual problem.

Arbitrary456456 9y ago

Gas costs are significant expenses when you only make $1300 a month.

civilian 9y ago
Right. But what transportation costs does she have when she doesn't have to work?
- stephengillie 9y ago
  Unfortunately she's not here to tell us. Maybe someone could send her a link to sign up and do an AMA on HN? Her life has situations we cannot see from this perspective and we have not lived through. It's unhelpful to discount her situation with a smug "She could be doing XYZ better".
  - jeremyt 9y ago
    I’m open to hearing about what special situations she has that has made it impossible to pursue the obvious options. Those things should’ve been included in the article, but they were not. In the absence of such details, the article is basically just vaguely pulling at heartstrings.
  - civilian 9y ago
    I wasn't being smug, I was being curious.
vtail 9y ago
The point is not to drive back and forth, but to relocate.
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  Not just to relocate. But to relocate into a permanent situation with no hope of change. Firstly, none of those cheaper rental options fit that bill very well, those aren't places that can be relied upon for years and years. Additionally, moving away from one's support network and from the best opportunities is a hell of a thing and not something to be taken lightly. People here are pretending that this woman can simply guarantee herself a future that is more comfortable than the one she has right now by finding some cheaper apartment somewhere, and that's a proposition that is questionable at best. Especially in this case where the end result was that she ended up just crashing on her daughter's couch, moving down to Olympia or whatever to rent out some questionable super cheap room somewhere seems like it would have been a much worse decision. Perhaps she was just waiting long enough to justify "giving up" and having to rely fully on her daughter.
- Arbitrary456456 9y ago
  It seems like the only two people she had in her life are in the Seattle area, and she had relied on them for financial support in the past. If she has car trouble or additional health problems, then that's going to be very difficult to handle Why are you so defensive about the mere existence of a homeless person?

stephengillie 9y ago

A two to three hour drive every day is subjectively worse than sleeping in an SUV. Not to mention the health effects of hours of driving, pollution - and about $18-27 a day in fuel[0] that could be saved or used for food. [0] 60mph/20mpg (generous for SUV) = 3 gallons/hour * [2 to 3] hours = [6 to 9 gallons] * (ballpark)$3 gallon = [$18-$27]. For 20 days of commuting that would be [$360-$540] per month.

oh_sigh 9y ago
She's on disability which is where her sole income is derived from - she doesn't need to drive into the city every day.
jeremyt 9y ago
Why does literally every other comment keep assuming that she has to commute? The story says that she makes $1300 a month from disability and doesn’t have a job. Why does she need to drive three hours a day?
- stephengillie 9y ago
  This reply[1] to your initial comment asked if the person would still be receiving $1300/month if she moved. To which the replies were "to commute". And so we're replying to those. Would she still be making $1300/month in disability if she moved to Olympia? Or would it drop to near $1000? That extra $10 per day is a lot. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873680
- vertex-four 9y ago
  I’m going to assume that, being a human being, and having a daughter, she has a social life in the city she lives in. To tell her she’s forcibly (by means of economic coercion with potential state violence to back it up) no longer to live near her social and support network is completely unethical, in my eyes - otherwise is to suggest that only the rich are allowed a stable life. No man is actually an island, as much as that is the American ideal. Replace “housing instability” with “being kicked out of their homes and told to live somewhere multiple hours away where they don’t know anybody”, and you get the actual problem.