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> I would like to have meetings once a week for supporting people interested in trying to make money online. ... Having a place to be for an hour once a week

> I would like to have meetings once a week for supporting people interested in trying to make money online. ... Having a place to be for an hour once a week to get plugged in, charge your devices, get free wifi and a free cup of coffee and talk with people about building a financial future and what your dreams are -- this would be humanizing. This would be a constructive connection to society that most homeless currently lack. ... It would be a connection to a vision of a future self that is better than what you have today and it would be done in a nice way, not in a punishing way. Yes, and if I might add to this, a place to shower and clean their clothes, and access to grooming services like haircuts. I'm sure you've thought about all of this, but these are the things that I notice right away. I can tell a person is homeless (as in actually living on the street), in any context, in a fraction of a second based on subtle visual cues such as hair, their gait, the fit and condition of their clothes, and the extra things they carry. Tiny cues can add up to a striking impression even if the person is trying to hide them, and that's before I get close enough to smell the cigarettes and their clothing. Clothing is, I believe, a solvable problem, but it takes more effort than simply throwing free clothing at them. Clothes have to fit and be at least visually clean, or else they can immediately identify a person as homeless. The bar here is low. America is swimming in clothing. Goodwill and ARC take in so much clothing that they're kind of picky, and readily throw away anything with even minor wear or damage. It certainly seems that some organization could find success in helping folks into clothing that doesn't showcase their poverty.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
The problem with clothing is that maintaining a middle class appearance essentially requires a middle class life. My mother's mother came from a low level German noble family. My mother sews beautifully and clothes was a very big deal for most of my life. I spent some time wishing I could be an image consultant or fashion model. I still fantasize about starting my own clothing line and I recently took over r/ClothingStartups. That background helped me pass for normal while homeless. I am capable of picking out clothes that work for me without trying them on. I was often mistaken for a tourist because I was clean and dressed casually. But the kind of fit and social signaling and cleanliness you have in mind more or less requires housing. In practical terms, homeless people don't have the means to store clean clothes, change into a clean outfit daily, etc. I didn't wash my clothes. I wore it for a week or three, acquired a new outfit, tried to shower if possible and threw the old outfit in the trash. I didn't typically carry spare clothes. I typically only had the clothes on my back. I've been back in housing for over two years. I still largely handle it the same way. I'm in a hundred year old SRO. There is one washer and dryer for the whole building and it isn't especially clean and that's not a solvable problem because of the tenants in the building. There is one laundromat that I know of in town and it has limited hours. I'm not currently in a position to hand wash and hang dry my items. I am still "under housed" and don't have my own kitchen and my fridge is currently dead and so forth. By some definitions, I would still be classified as "homeless", though it's vastly better than sleeping in a tent and I've always wanted to live in an SRO and it's been overall a terrific experience. Still, to have a normal job and dress like a normal middle class person for it would be challenging in my current circumstances. I'm in the process of trying to remedy some of the issues with my unit. I'm waiting on my tax refund and when I get it I expect to replace the fridge, among other things. (Management offered me a used fridge, but I have a compromised immune system. It's not clean enough for my needs. They don't charge enough rent to cover luxuries like new fridges.) Anyway, I do think about things like the hygiene issue. I wrote a piece about wanting to encourage hotel stays to help homeless people access showers more consistently. But I really think we need to do things like bring back SROs and Missing Middle housing. Some things really can't be fixed while you are still unhoused. Trying to stay presentable in a "middle class person with a regular job" way is very challenging. I was only ever able pull off "Passes for a tourist on vacay, that must be why she's in sweat pants and a t-shirt." People sleeping in their cars do have some storage. They may be more able than I was to address some pieces of this. But while living out of a back pack, there were limits to how middle class I could make myself look, in spite of having enormous personal strengths in the clothing/appearance department thanks to my mother and my personal background.
- nate_meurer 7y ago
  > But I really think we need to do things like bring back SROs and Missing Middle housing. Some things really can't be fixed while you are still unhoused. I thought about that as I wrote my comment. I can live out of a backpack for weeks, no showers, no change of clothes, scrounging for food. But I've only been able to do that while suitably "housed", whether couch surfing or in short term rentals. If I had to do that on the street, I'm confident everything would quickly go to shit. I'm a big fan of housing-first in general, as long as it's supported with mental health care, and properly policed to keep units from becoming drug dens. I read all your stuff btw.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Thank you. It's not obvious to people how rapidly that unravels when you don't have routine access to normal middle class stuff. It's part of why I blog. A lot of what I experienced wasn't anything I could have ever predicted. I found that after I was able to arrange one night a month in a hotel, it became vastly easier to pass for normal. I got showered. I got a break from life on the street. I watched a little TV, something not available while sleeping in a tent and which is a common source of small talk for most people. I went more than two years without a proper shower. My first hotel stay took two showers to get the dead skin off. After that, I stayed occasionally in a hotel, but not once a month. I took baths instead of showers to soak the dead skin off. A shower wasn't enough. But with monthly hotel stays, I no longer needed to soak the dead skin off. My feet stopped turning black. Cleaning up at sinks in public bathrooms in the weeks in between did a lot more for me than it did when it was all I had access to. And I absolutely would not have ever sat down and tried to dream up "How many days a month do I need to be in a hotel to pass for normal?" This isn't a thought experiment that would have even occurred to me to try to pursue. I only know this stuff because I lived it and that's how it went down, not because I would have ever in a million years tried to figure out "How many showers a month do I need to make cleaning up in sinks sufficient most of the time?"
    - nate_meurer 7y ago
      Ok, now that is fascinating and completely unintuitive to me -- that just one day a month made that much difference. Do you think many other homeless people would benefit significantly from such a small dosage, or do you think your particular constitution allowed you to take advantage of it better than others would? I'm assuming your kids were with you... did it do them as much good?

DoreenMichele 7y ago

The problem with clothing is that maintaining a middle class appearance essentially requires a middle class life. My mother's mother came from a low level German noble family. My mother sews beautifully and clothes was a very big deal for most of my life. I spent some time wishing I could be an image consultant or fashion model. I still fantasize about starting my own clothing line and I recently took over r/ClothingStartups. That background helped me pass for normal while homeless. I am capable of picking out clothes that work for me without trying them on. I was often mistaken for a tourist because I was clean and dressed casually. But the kind of fit and social signaling and cleanliness you have in mind more or less requires housing. In practical terms, homeless people don't have the means to store clean clothes, change into a clean outfit daily, etc. I didn't wash my clothes. I wore it for a week or three, acquired a new outfit, tried to shower if possible and threw the old outfit in the trash. I didn't typically carry spare clothes. I typically only had the clothes on my back. I've been back in housing for over two years. I still largely handle it the same way. I'm in a hundred year old SRO. There is one washer and dryer for the whole building and it isn't especially clean and that's not a solvable problem because of the tenants in the building. There is one laundromat that I know of in town and it has limited hours. I'm not currently in a position to hand wash and hang dry my items. I am still "under housed" and don't have my own kitchen and my fridge is currently dead and so forth. By some definitions, I would still be classified as "homeless", though it's vastly better than sleeping in a tent and I've always wanted to live in an SRO and it's been overall a terrific experience. Still, to have a normal job and dress like a normal middle class person for it would be challenging in my current circumstances. I'm in the process of trying to remedy some of the issues with my unit. I'm waiting on my tax refund and when I get it I expect to replace the fridge, among other things. (Management offered me a used fridge, but I have a compromised immune system. It's not clean enough for my needs. They don't charge enough rent to cover luxuries like new fridges.) Anyway, I do think about things like the hygiene issue. I wrote a piece about wanting to encourage hotel stays to help homeless people access showers more consistently. But I really think we need to do things like bring back SROs and Missing Middle housing. Some things really can't be fixed while you are still unhoused. Trying to stay presentable in a "middle class person with a regular job" way is very challenging. I was only ever able pull off "Passes for a tourist on vacay, that must be why she's in sweat pants and a t-shirt." People sleeping in their cars do have some storage. They may be more able than I was to address some pieces of this. But while living out of a back pack, there were limits to how middle class I could make myself look, in spite of having enormous personal strengths in the clothing/appearance department thanks to my mother and my personal background.

nate_meurer 7y ago
> But I really think we need to do things like bring back SROs and Missing Middle housing. Some things really can't be fixed while you are still unhoused. I thought about that as I wrote my comment. I can live out of a backpack for weeks, no showers, no change of clothes, scrounging for food. But I've only been able to do that while suitably "housed", whether couch surfing or in short term rentals. If I had to do that on the street, I'm confident everything would quickly go to shit. I'm a big fan of housing-first in general, as long as it's supported with mental health care, and properly policed to keep units from becoming drug dens. I read all your stuff btw.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Thank you. It's not obvious to people how rapidly that unravels when you don't have routine access to normal middle class stuff. It's part of why I blog. A lot of what I experienced wasn't anything I could have ever predicted. I found that after I was able to arrange one night a month in a hotel, it became vastly easier to pass for normal. I got showered. I got a break from life on the street. I watched a little TV, something not available while sleeping in a tent and which is a common source of small talk for most people. I went more than two years without a proper shower. My first hotel stay took two showers to get the dead skin off. After that, I stayed occasionally in a hotel, but not once a month. I took baths instead of showers to soak the dead skin off. A shower wasn't enough. But with monthly hotel stays, I no longer needed to soak the dead skin off. My feet stopped turning black. Cleaning up at sinks in public bathrooms in the weeks in between did a lot more for me than it did when it was all I had access to. And I absolutely would not have ever sat down and tried to dream up "How many days a month do I need to be in a hotel to pass for normal?" This isn't a thought experiment that would have even occurred to me to try to pursue. I only know this stuff because I lived it and that's how it went down, not because I would have ever in a million years tried to figure out "How many showers a month do I need to make cleaning up in sinks sufficient most of the time?"
  - nate_meurer 7y ago
    Ok, now that is fascinating and completely unintuitive to me -- that just one day a month made that much difference. Do you think many other homeless people would benefit significantly from such a small dosage, or do you think your particular constitution allowed you to take advantage of it better than others would? I'm assuming your kids were with you... did it do them as much good?