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A significant part of this, in my opinion, is that the consequences of homelessness have changed substantially over the last decade or so. The major shift come

A significant part of this, in my opinion, is that the consequences of homelessness have changed substantially over the last decade or so. The major shift comes because of the smartphone. Previously to be homeless meant to be completely disconnected from society. No mailing address, no land line, you don't exist. Today you can have a phone number and high-speed internet access without a permanent address. This alone makes the prospect of dispensing with your digs when you can no longer afford them far less unattractive than previously. People live relatively modern connected lives from vehicles and tents today. I'm not speculating, I'm speaking from experience. I've lived a very vagabond lifestyle for years in CA, and this approach has really taken off in the last 5-7 years or so. Batteries last a long time, solar panels are cheap and efficient, prepay phones are affordable. I used to spend a lot of time in various cafes around the SF bay area. The outlets at these places started becoming contended for by ostensibly "homeless" people looking to charge their smartphones. In 2018 "homeless" people have smartphones, they watch netflix, they do all the things. The last time I was at Java Beach in the outer sunset a guy who just moved off the sidewalk into a van was playing 3d games on a gaming laptop using the cafe's wifi and electricity until closing. I know his situation because he told it to me. He was wearing pajamas getting some gaming in before they closed up to retire in his van down the street. That's a pretty damn comfortable "homeless" life. It's not really much different than what people are doing in their $3k+/mo apartments he parks in front of. I don't know where he bathes though, there is the ocean right there in the worst case, right? I'm not passing judgement. It just shouldn't be surprising, given these circumstances, that relatively sane and capable people are slipping into "homeless" lives. The severity has substantially diminished vs. the homeless of the past, especially places where the climate is nice year-round. I think if there were no smartphone, these "homeless" people would feel much more motivated to relocate someplace affordable. It doesn't bother me if folks are choosing to live homelessly someplace desirable instead of relocating someplace less desirable where they can afford a home. Apartments are overrated, where the weather is nice.

bojackstorkman 8y ago
Though I strongly disagree with the overall sentiment here, as well as some of your specific statements, your post touches on some interesting points. In an earlier post, I mentioned a very, very small group of people that I have met that were almost mystifyingly homeless despite them having very few limiting factors that regularly contribute to homelessness. The one thing they all had in common was that they stayed in places that didn't have harsh winters or dangerously hot summer (e.g. coastal California). I have not, however, met any person that fits that description in the Oregon/Washington deserts, Utah, Colorado, or even inland California. In a nutshell, yes it is technically possible to sleep outside in coastal California without risking death from exposure. However, climate does not mitigate the risks posed by arrest for illegal lodging, violence from those around them (other homeless people, and others that are simply cruel), starvation, theft etc. It also does nothing to help with access to (even critical, immediate) healthcare, counseling, education or really any other factor that helps people get into a better situation. As far as smartphones go, I agree that access to one can be life-changing to a homeless person, bt I could not disagrew more strongly with your characterization of that access making living on the street -with all the risks that that entails- as "less unattractive". To be earnest, I suppose I don't understand that point. If your landlord shows up with a police officer to forcibly remove from your home for not paying rent, the relative "unattractiveness" of what comes next for you isn't a variable that is taken into consideration. You have what you can carry, and hopefully an idea of where to walk next. If "what you can carry" includes a smartphone, your chances of getting access to help is certainly improved dramatically, and yes, if you can find a spot that is near an open wireless AP, you might watch some Netflix. It is hardly the equivalent of living in a 3k/month apartment. From my experience, cars and vans break down or get towed, phones break, phone plans run out of data (or in some cases, phone minutes. The poorest peole often still don't have reliable access to unlimited plans, even in 2018), you can get banned from coffee shops for making others uncomfortable by your appearance alone (people don't like to look at a person that has to carry all of their belongings with them). I lived in a car for a while, but sold it for $300 for a train ticket to a place with fewer police. I had an eight year old laptop running an old distro of Ubuntu (without a working battery) that I traded for a weekend inside during a particularly bad cold snap. On two different occasions I have had to leave every single object I owned behind, and start over with only the clothes on my back and whatever was in my jeans' pockets. If your point is that there is a differnce between homeless people and, as you put it, "homeless" people, then yes I agree. The biggest difference here is that of access to resources that can help bring one off the street, and whether or not perfectly healthy, capable people are making intentional decisions to reject those resources. The latter group is a genuinely fascinating anomaly, and does not reflect the reality of the problem. Personally, I find that "move somewhere that's more desirable or manageable" to be problematic. The only reaon why I was able to leave a particular city was because I had a car to sell for tickets. If I hadn't, I simply would not have left. Even when I got there, I didn't have two nickels to rub together, so housing prices didn't really matter. I would encourage anyone that feels this way about the homeless to do a bit more digging, or just have a conversation with a few people that are currently or were recently homeless. This particular attitude of lumping everybody under the umbrella of The Worst Examples doesn't seem to serve the goal of fixing this problem.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  My point is that the word homeless has become more ambiguous than ever. Even your post is conflating what I was describing as "homeless" for people living out of vehicles/tents as living rough on the street. But the general vocabulary everyone uses does not distinguish between the two, it's all just homeless. And this is how we arrive at people being surprised by the quality of people they find as technically homeless. There are many people who technically qualify as homeless who are simply not paying expensive ass rent, but living out of vehicles in desirable areas where the rent is expensive, and doing so quite comfortably and connectedly thanks largely to the smartphone. We need a different word to describe this class of homeless people. They're more willfully homeless than the classical meaning of homeless, because their homeless option doesn't really suck as much as it used to. I've lived out of a car quite a bit throughout the bay area, and talked to a bunch of people doing the same thing along the coast in the process. There are numerous folks living out of vans waking up to million dollar views every day without paying any rent or mortgage. They're living the dream, should we still call them homeless?
  - bojackstorkman 8y ago
    I have been homeless in very affluent cities on the California coast, including San Franscisco. I strongly disagree that having a "million dollar view" constitutes "living the dream." If a person is at risk of assault or arrest for their inability to go indoors and has no immediate ability to remedy that, I have no issue calling that person homeless. Regardless of how one views that person's life decisions they face the same systemic issues as any other homeless person. If your point is strictly that the language is ambiguous, perhaps it would be more appropriate to use "people that choose a vagabond lifestyle" (which is close to your original statement) over a confusing mix of "homeless" and " "homeless" " to refer to the tiny subgroup that you are referring to.
- rectang 8y ago
  > just have a conversation with a few people that are currently or were recently homeless A couple decades ago in San Francisco, I used to host an open mic. One of the regulars was Keith Savage, a poet who would occasionally compose and perform appreciations of the other regulars who had moved him. He was so empathic, so good at capturing what people were trying to communicate and then reworking it and responding... he gave so many people a rich reward for being brave enough to take the open mic stage. Keith happened to be homeless, though that's not the most important or interesting thing about him... Folks, if you exclude the homeless from your life, you may be missing out...

bojackstorkman 8y ago

Though I strongly disagree with the overall sentiment here, as well as some of your specific statements, your post touches on some interesting points. In an earlier post, I mentioned a very, very small group of people that I have met that were almost mystifyingly homeless despite them having very few limiting factors that regularly contribute to homelessness. The one thing they all had in common was that they stayed in places that didn't have harsh winters or dangerously hot summer (e.g. coastal California). I have not, however, met any person that fits that description in the Oregon/Washington deserts, Utah, Colorado, or even inland California. In a nutshell, yes it is technically possible to sleep outside in coastal California without risking death from exposure. However, climate does not mitigate the risks posed by arrest for illegal lodging, violence from those around them (other homeless people, and others that are simply cruel), starvation, theft etc. It also does nothing to help with access to (even critical, immediate) healthcare, counseling, education or really any other factor that helps people get into a better situation. As far as smartphones go, I agree that access to one can be life-changing to a homeless person, bt I could not disagrew more strongly with your characterization of that access making living on the street -with all the risks that that entails- as "less unattractive". To be earnest, I suppose I don't understand that point. If your landlord shows up with a police officer to forcibly remove from your home for not paying rent, the relative "unattractiveness" of what comes next for you isn't a variable that is taken into consideration. You have what you can carry, and hopefully an idea of where to walk next. If "what you can carry" includes a smartphone, your chances of getting access to help is certainly improved dramatically, and yes, if you can find a spot that is near an open wireless AP, you might watch some Netflix. It is hardly the equivalent of living in a 3k/month apartment. From my experience, cars and vans break down or get towed, phones break, phone plans run out of data (or in some cases, phone minutes. The poorest peole often still don't have reliable access to unlimited plans, even in 2018), you can get banned from coffee shops for making others uncomfortable by your appearance alone (people don't like to look at a person that has to carry all of their belongings with them). I lived in a car for a while, but sold it for $300 for a train ticket to a place with fewer police. I had an eight year old laptop running an old distro of Ubuntu (without a working battery) that I traded for a weekend inside during a particularly bad cold snap. On two different occasions I have had to leave every single object I owned behind, and start over with only the clothes on my back and whatever was in my jeans' pockets. If your point is that there is a differnce between homeless people and, as you put it, "homeless" people, then yes I agree. The biggest difference here is that of access to resources that can help bring one off the street, and whether or not perfectly healthy, capable people are making intentional decisions to reject those resources. The latter group is a genuinely fascinating anomaly, and does not reflect the reality of the problem. Personally, I find that "move somewhere that's more desirable or manageable" to be problematic. The only reaon why I was able to leave a particular city was because I had a car to sell for tickets. If I hadn't, I simply would not have left. Even when I got there, I didn't have two nickels to rub together, so housing prices didn't really matter. I would encourage anyone that feels this way about the homeless to do a bit more digging, or just have a conversation with a few people that are currently or were recently homeless. This particular attitude of lumping everybody under the umbrella of The Worst Examples doesn't seem to serve the goal of fixing this problem.

newnewpdro 8y ago
My point is that the word homeless has become more ambiguous than ever. Even your post is conflating what I was describing as "homeless" for people living out of vehicles/tents as living rough on the street. But the general vocabulary everyone uses does not distinguish between the two, it's all just homeless. And this is how we arrive at people being surprised by the quality of people they find as technically homeless. There are many people who technically qualify as homeless who are simply not paying expensive ass rent, but living out of vehicles in desirable areas where the rent is expensive, and doing so quite comfortably and connectedly thanks largely to the smartphone. We need a different word to describe this class of homeless people. They're more willfully homeless than the classical meaning of homeless, because their homeless option doesn't really suck as much as it used to. I've lived out of a car quite a bit throughout the bay area, and talked to a bunch of people doing the same thing along the coast in the process. There are numerous folks living out of vans waking up to million dollar views every day without paying any rent or mortgage. They're living the dream, should we still call them homeless?
- bojackstorkman 8y ago
  I have been homeless in very affluent cities on the California coast, including San Franscisco. I strongly disagree that having a "million dollar view" constitutes "living the dream." If a person is at risk of assault or arrest for their inability to go indoors and has no immediate ability to remedy that, I have no issue calling that person homeless. Regardless of how one views that person's life decisions they face the same systemic issues as any other homeless person. If your point is strictly that the language is ambiguous, perhaps it would be more appropriate to use "people that choose a vagabond lifestyle" (which is close to your original statement) over a confusing mix of "homeless" and " "homeless" " to refer to the tiny subgroup that you are referring to.
rectang 8y ago
> just have a conversation with a few people that are currently or were recently homeless A couple decades ago in San Francisco, I used to host an open mic. One of the regulars was Keith Savage, a poet who would occasionally compose and perform appreciations of the other regulars who had moved him. He was so empathic, so good at capturing what people were trying to communicate and then reworking it and responding... he gave so many people a rich reward for being brave enough to take the open mic stage. Keith happened to be homeless, though that's not the most important or interesting thing about him... Folks, if you exclude the homeless from your life, you may be missing out...