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We also happen to have an extremely serious homelessness problem, which is not relegated to CA. Go to any warm state in the country and ride through the parkin

by eth0up 10d ago

We also happen to have an extremely serious homelessness problem, which is not relegated to CA. Go to any warm state in the country and ride through the parking lots at night. If you are the observant type, you should see an astonishing number of folks living in their vehicles. And home ownership is not only downward, but no longer part of the American dream for most people now. Storage facilities for many, are a place to lay down, or rent hope that things won't always be "this way". We need to fix this. It's not just drugs and mental problems anymore.

DanielHB 10d ago
It is very interesting that in most big cities around the world, but especially Europe having a car is a big luxury while in the US homeless people have cars.
- AbsurdCensor 10d ago
  And that per capita Europe has a bigger unhoused problem than the United States. There aren't simple solutions, because the real solutions would change how society needs to work. Maybe less about money and more about the right to survive or something.
  - huurtehoog 10d ago
    Not all European countries. There are 20 European countries bellow the per 100.000 level of homelessness than the US.
    - pessimizer 10d ago
      If you want to split up Europe to make the comparison favorable, split up the US to make it less favorable again. How many US states are below the per capita level of homelessness in the US?
      - huurtehoog 10d ago
        Ok fine I went and calculated the aggregate numbers and indeed the homelessness per capita in Europe (EU) is higher than the US EU: 1.1 million homeless people https://www.feantsa.org/files/Themes/Overview/2025/ex_summary_2025.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/files/Themes/Overview/2025/ex_summar... Divided by a population of 451,990,314 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_U... = 0.00243 US: 745,652 homeless people https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2025-AHAR-Part-1.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2025-... Divided by a population of 341,784,857 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... = 0.00218
- zulux 10d ago
  One problem that poorer American people have is too much food, leading to obesity.
  - bronco21016 10d ago
    Do they have too much food? It seems to me that calorically dense foods that provide almost no nutritional value are “cheap” and abundant while healthy food choices are expensive and require time and effort to store and prep. For example, if I’m living out of a car I’m more likely to use EBT to buy some bags of chips I can toss in the car rather than some cheap chicken and fresh veggies or eggs. How would I store chicken or cook any of it if I live in a car? Yes, I know there are solutions here like small fridges and hot plates. But those cost money and require time and effort. Again, scenario is living in a car or the streets.
    - mschuster91 10d ago
      > Yes, I know there are solutions here like small fridges and hot plates. But those cost money and require time and effort. Again, scenario is living in a car or the streets. There's at least one benefit to China dumping solar cells and other stuff all over the world: even as a homeless person... at least as long as you got a car, an EcoFlow Glacier and a shit solar panel are less than a grand, and it provides both a refrigerator, a small freezer and a way to keep your devices charging.
      - diskzero 10d ago
        A thousand dollars may as well be a million dollars. In my personal experience, gifting a thousand dollars to someone in housing distress will not lead to the purchase of a solar panel.
        mschuster91 10d ago
        I'm talking about "working homeless" here. There are many people living out of their cars because they can't afford a proper home but still have money they can spend, and many of them in fact are living some kind of "stealth camper" setup with accompanying gear. But that gear would have been infeasible even ten years ago - the status quo outside of luxury campers for six figures was absorber refrigeration [1] that needs a heat source - either powered by natural gas, which has challenges relating to safety as well as high consumption, or by electricity, which was lead-acid batteries back then. The power density of lithium cells today is what makes that possible in the first place. Poverty-homeless people however are a different thing, agreed on that. If you don't have a lockable place to store stuff you might as well have nothing at all... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
- eth0up 10d ago
  I find little of interest in that. The US enforces private property in a far more aggressive manner than most other countries, and the definition of public property, and functional amount thereof, are also very different. Merely laying down behind a bush can be a violation of "Illegal Camping within City Limits"/ Additionally, rent can easily be inaccessible for the employed. And for those who don't have vehicles, 'just moving to a cheaper area" is not a practical option.
- diskzero 10d ago
  Cars are plentiful and cheap in America and can be had next to free in many cases. They will be in terrible shape, operated without insurance, registration and driven by someone without a license. They will also be gross polluters but won’t be taken off the street unless there are a series of criminal actions. Many states will only cite and not tow for lack of insurance or a valid license. The chance of getting pulled over is also quite low in many areas due to distribution of police resources. These vehicles are allowed to be parked and serve as shelters in many cities who choose to allow this as a tacit form of shelter. Just look at the transformation of the streets in Seattle, parts of the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and more. This is an ad hoc solution to a situation that can’t be addressed effectively.
  - DanielHB 10d ago
    It is not even the cost of the car, but the upkeep. In large European cities parking alone can be prohibitive. In Sweden cars older than 2006 pay extra tax because they don't have emissions testing data.
    - diskzero 10d ago
      The issue in America is that you can own a car, not pay for upkeep, not pay registration, not pay for insurance, not pay to park and still drive it many times without consequence.
      - DaSHacka 10d ago
        That's a feature, not a bug.
        rangestransform 8d ago
        Personally, I would not like judgment proof people, who won’t be able to pay the medical bills of anyone they hit, on the roads at all
    - bluGill 10d ago
      In the US car taxes are based on value. Where I live once a car is 10 years old the tax is $50/year. Buy a cheap car for $5000, pay $1000/year to insure it, and $50/year for a license and it is fully legal. You still have to pay for fuel, but that is fairly cheap. You also have maintenance expenses, but generally the poor have a network of mechanics to do the labor for free (in exchange for your labor for something else). Even if you buy a different car every year, you will be hard pressed to find an apartment for $6000/year. Downtown in US cities parking is prohibitive, but that is only a small part of the city. Most of the city you can park for free. You want to move the car every day just so it doesn't look abandoned, but otherwise this is a cheap way to live and you get transportation as a bonus.
- neutronicus 10d ago
  I assure you we have plenty of homeless people without cars. When people are falling into homelessness, they keep the car for longer because (a) it generates income, either directly through something like Uber or by getting you to a job on time, (b) lower cost of ownership and (c) it serves as shelter in a pinch.
- dlcarrier 10d ago
  Many areas make it difficult to build housing, especially small units with low market rates, so living in your car is a much cheaper option. It's a secure area to sleep and house belongings, and while most jurisdictions limit parking in one spot to 36 hours, cars are easy to move, and the limits are rarely enforced, and usually with a warning first.
api 10d ago
Required link I always leave in these discussions: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/ https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every... IMO high housing prices are destroying civilization.
- Swizec 10d ago
  > IMO high housing prices are destroying civilization. It's like a game of musical chairs. There aren't enough houses to go around. You go around and the music stops. Everyone scrambles to their nearest chair. Obviously the person on crutches will be the first to fall out of the game. The rest then talk about laziness, drugs, bootstraps, and all the rest. But add 1 more chair and there's no problem, even the dude with the broken leg can sit.
  - cousin_it 10d ago
    Yeah. I like how Kat Woods phrased it: "You can give the slowest child sprinting lessons, but there are still nine chairs."
    - api 10d ago
      They really do this. They give subsidies to people to be able to afford homes when there’s insufficient supply. Huge surprise: it makes prices go up. More money chasing the same goods. We will do literally anything to fix housing shortages but build housing. Of course now we’ve decided to start dumb penis length measuring contest trade wars with our main suppliers of raw building materials. That will help.
  - titzer 10d ago
    Well, for generations now, exponential growth in all things has been state policy and it was good (tm). Because of population growth, there's always a shortage of housing. Population is projected to peak this century. Whatever will we do when there are already enough houses for everyone to have one?
    - 10d ago
micromacrofoot 10d ago
Of course the storage unit living has been romanticized in literature too, I recall the unit in Snow Crash being a whopping 600 square feet. A palace compared to the reality of storage unit and car living today.
- chrsw 10d ago
  600 sq ft is about the size of my apartment, which at market rate is about $3k/mo.
- DeluluDon 9d ago
  Illegal and in reality would only last a few hours into the night before security calls the police and you get trespassed. It's been romanticized but people have tried it and they didn't fare well.
diskzero 10d ago
As someone who has worked directly with these people in Los Angeles and Seattle, I tend to focus locally, otherwise the enormity of the situation is overwhelming and fills me with despair. When you say “we need to fix this” no one can agree what “this” is. There is no one “this” and it becomes a morass of generational systemic issues, localized problems, competing views on economics, morality, government and more. It reminds me of when tech people show up to “fix” education. It just isn’t a single issue. I agree we need to fix something, but as soon as I think about the big picture it feels futile and I have been involved in efforts for decades.
- eth0up 10d ago
  >I agree we need to fix something, but as soon as I think about the big picture it feels.... Yes, "fix" is a weaselly word, and 'futility' might be more appropriate if the subject has similar etiology to many of our other problems here. At minimum, tolerance is due to the ones not causing significant problems. In my opinion, a substantial portion of the US will experience homelessness in the near future, but that won't discuss well around here. And note, I am from Florida. The East Coast version is quite different, as well as most of the median state situation. Very different. Especially in places where drugs are not the impetus.
- reasonabl_human 10d ago
  With your experience in this space, are you able to provide some pointers for how to get involved in a productive manner? The housing problem feels so daunting that I struggle to understand how one could help move the needle. Knowing which organizations to volunteer with or places to donate that actually improve the situation would be a helpful start.
  - diskzero 10d ago
    When I lived in downtown Los Angeles, I volunteered at the Midnight Mission and various veterans organizations dealing with addiction and homelessness. Only you can really define what is productive to you, but people are always needed for running the shelters, working in the kitchens and more. It isn't glamorous at all. People need to be transported from one facility to another, to medical appointments, to court, to counseling and more. I currently work with youth at risk, helping them finish their high school degrees and families who are right at the brink of falling into serious problems. I can't really tell you which organizations to volunteer, as there is a spectrum of them; some are religious like the Salvation Army and some have social and political agendas that may not align with you. Without recommending or condemning, for example, you will find organizations who work with pregnant teens who are anti-abortion. This may not be for you. The same goes for sexual and gender identity issues. One thing that seems very unpolitical to me, and it is how I started, was volunteering at a local shelter. If you have more affinity with helping women, there are shelters that deal with them. If you have more affinity with dealing with people with addiction issues, there are shelters dealing with them. Because of my background in the military, education and addiction, I find affinity working with veterans, addicts and at risk youth. The problem is daunting, and the needle feels unmovable most of the time. In the big scheme of things I feel powerless, but I know reducing local misery is possible and is something I can help with.
suopspaces 10d ago
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by eth0up 10d ago

DanielHB 10d ago

It is very interesting that in most big cities around the world, but especially Europe having a car is a big luxury while in the US homeless people have cars.

AbsurdCensor 10d ago
And that per capita Europe has a bigger unhoused problem than the United States. There aren't simple solutions, because the real solutions would change how society needs to work. Maybe less about money and more about the right to survive or something.
- huurtehoog 10d ago
  Not all European countries. There are 20 European countries bellow the per 100.000 level of homelessness than the US.
  - pessimizer 10d ago
    If you want to split up Europe to make the comparison favorable, split up the US to make it less favorable again. How many US states are below the per capita level of homelessness in the US?
    - huurtehoog 10d ago
      Ok fine I went and calculated the aggregate numbers and indeed the homelessness per capita in Europe (EU) is higher than the US EU: 1.1 million homeless people https://www.feantsa.org/files/Themes/Overview/2025/ex_summary_2025.pdf https://www.feantsa.org/files/Themes/Overview/2025/ex_summar... Divided by a population of 451,990,314 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_U... = 0.00243 US: 745,652 homeless people https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2025-AHAR-Part-1.pdf https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2025-... Divided by a population of 341,784,857 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... = 0.00218
zulux 10d ago
One problem that poorer American people have is too much food, leading to obesity.
- bronco21016 10d ago
  Do they have too much food? It seems to me that calorically dense foods that provide almost no nutritional value are “cheap” and abundant while healthy food choices are expensive and require time and effort to store and prep. For example, if I’m living out of a car I’m more likely to use EBT to buy some bags of chips I can toss in the car rather than some cheap chicken and fresh veggies or eggs. How would I store chicken or cook any of it if I live in a car? Yes, I know there are solutions here like small fridges and hot plates. But those cost money and require time and effort. Again, scenario is living in a car or the streets.
  - mschuster91 10d ago
    > Yes, I know there are solutions here like small fridges and hot plates. But those cost money and require time and effort. Again, scenario is living in a car or the streets. There's at least one benefit to China dumping solar cells and other stuff all over the world: even as a homeless person... at least as long as you got a car, an EcoFlow Glacier and a shit solar panel are less than a grand, and it provides both a refrigerator, a small freezer and a way to keep your devices charging.
    - diskzero 10d ago
      A thousand dollars may as well be a million dollars. In my personal experience, gifting a thousand dollars to someone in housing distress will not lead to the purchase of a solar panel.
      - mschuster91 10d ago
        I'm talking about "working homeless" here. There are many people living out of their cars because they can't afford a proper home but still have money they can spend, and many of them in fact are living some kind of "stealth camper" setup with accompanying gear. But that gear would have been infeasible even ten years ago - the status quo outside of luxury campers for six figures was absorber refrigeration [1] that needs a heat source - either powered by natural gas, which has challenges relating to safety as well as high consumption, or by electricity, which was lead-acid batteries back then. The power density of lithium cells today is what makes that possible in the first place. Poverty-homeless people however are a different thing, agreed on that. If you don't have a lockable place to store stuff you might as well have nothing at all... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
eth0up 10d ago
I find little of interest in that. The US enforces private property in a far more aggressive manner than most other countries, and the definition of public property, and functional amount thereof, are also very different. Merely laying down behind a bush can be a violation of "Illegal Camping within City Limits"/ Additionally, rent can easily be inaccessible for the employed. And for those who don't have vehicles, 'just moving to a cheaper area" is not a practical option.
diskzero 10d ago
Cars are plentiful and cheap in America and can be had next to free in many cases. They will be in terrible shape, operated without insurance, registration and driven by someone without a license. They will also be gross polluters but won’t be taken off the street unless there are a series of criminal actions. Many states will only cite and not tow for lack of insurance or a valid license. The chance of getting pulled over is also quite low in many areas due to distribution of police resources. These vehicles are allowed to be parked and serve as shelters in many cities who choose to allow this as a tacit form of shelter. Just look at the transformation of the streets in Seattle, parts of the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and more. This is an ad hoc solution to a situation that can’t be addressed effectively.
- DanielHB 10d ago
  It is not even the cost of the car, but the upkeep. In large European cities parking alone can be prohibitive. In Sweden cars older than 2006 pay extra tax because they don't have emissions testing data.
  - diskzero 10d ago
    The issue in America is that you can own a car, not pay for upkeep, not pay registration, not pay for insurance, not pay to park and still drive it many times without consequence.
    - DaSHacka 10d ago
      That's a feature, not a bug.
      - rangestransform 8d ago
        Personally, I would not like judgment proof people, who won’t be able to pay the medical bills of anyone they hit, on the roads at all
  - bluGill 10d ago
    In the US car taxes are based on value. Where I live once a car is 10 years old the tax is $50/year. Buy a cheap car for $5000, pay $1000/year to insure it, and $50/year for a license and it is fully legal. You still have to pay for fuel, but that is fairly cheap. You also have maintenance expenses, but generally the poor have a network of mechanics to do the labor for free (in exchange for your labor for something else). Even if you buy a different car every year, you will be hard pressed to find an apartment for $6000/year. Downtown in US cities parking is prohibitive, but that is only a small part of the city. Most of the city you can park for free. You want to move the car every day just so it doesn't look abandoned, but otherwise this is a cheap way to live and you get transportation as a bonus.
neutronicus 10d ago
I assure you we have plenty of homeless people without cars. When people are falling into homelessness, they keep the car for longer because (a) it generates income, either directly through something like Uber or by getting you to a job on time, (b) lower cost of ownership and (c) it serves as shelter in a pinch.
dlcarrier 10d ago
Many areas make it difficult to build housing, especially small units with low market rates, so living in your car is a much cheaper option. It's a secure area to sleep and house belongings, and while most jurisdictions limit parking in one spot to 36 hours, cars are easy to move, and the limits are rarely enforced, and usually with a warning first.

api 10d ago

Required link I always leave in these discussions: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/ https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every... IMO high housing prices are destroying civilization.

Swizec 10d ago
> IMO high housing prices are destroying civilization. It's like a game of musical chairs. There aren't enough houses to go around. You go around and the music stops. Everyone scrambles to their nearest chair. Obviously the person on crutches will be the first to fall out of the game. The rest then talk about laziness, drugs, bootstraps, and all the rest. But add 1 more chair and there's no problem, even the dude with the broken leg can sit.
- cousin_it 10d ago
  Yeah. I like how Kat Woods phrased it: "You can give the slowest child sprinting lessons, but there are still nine chairs."
  - api 10d ago
    They really do this. They give subsidies to people to be able to afford homes when there’s insufficient supply. Huge surprise: it makes prices go up. More money chasing the same goods. We will do literally anything to fix housing shortages but build housing. Of course now we’ve decided to start dumb penis length measuring contest trade wars with our main suppliers of raw building materials. That will help.
- titzer 10d ago
  Well, for generations now, exponential growth in all things has been state policy and it was good (tm). Because of population growth, there's always a shortage of housing. Population is projected to peak this century. Whatever will we do when there are already enough houses for everyone to have one?
  - 10d ago

micromacrofoot 10d ago

Of course the storage unit living has been romanticized in literature too, I recall the unit in Snow Crash being a whopping 600 square feet. A palace compared to the reality of storage unit and car living today.

chrsw 10d ago
600 sq ft is about the size of my apartment, which at market rate is about $3k/mo.
DeluluDon 9d ago
Illegal and in reality would only last a few hours into the night before security calls the police and you get trespassed. It's been romanticized but people have tried it and they didn't fare well.

diskzero 10d ago

As someone who has worked directly with these people in Los Angeles and Seattle, I tend to focus locally, otherwise the enormity of the situation is overwhelming and fills me with despair. When you say “we need to fix this” no one can agree what “this” is. There is no one “this” and it becomes a morass of generational systemic issues, localized problems, competing views on economics, morality, government and more. It reminds me of when tech people show up to “fix” education. It just isn’t a single issue. I agree we need to fix something, but as soon as I think about the big picture it feels futile and I have been involved in efforts for decades.

eth0up 10d ago
>I agree we need to fix something, but as soon as I think about the big picture it feels.... Yes, "fix" is a weaselly word, and 'futility' might be more appropriate if the subject has similar etiology to many of our other problems here. At minimum, tolerance is due to the ones not causing significant problems. In my opinion, a substantial portion of the US will experience homelessness in the near future, but that won't discuss well around here. And note, I am from Florida. The East Coast version is quite different, as well as most of the median state situation. Very different. Especially in places where drugs are not the impetus.
reasonabl_human 10d ago
With your experience in this space, are you able to provide some pointers for how to get involved in a productive manner? The housing problem feels so daunting that I struggle to understand how one could help move the needle. Knowing which organizations to volunteer with or places to donate that actually improve the situation would be a helpful start.
- diskzero 10d ago
  When I lived in downtown Los Angeles, I volunteered at the Midnight Mission and various veterans organizations dealing with addiction and homelessness. Only you can really define what is productive to you, but people are always needed for running the shelters, working in the kitchens and more. It isn't glamorous at all. People need to be transported from one facility to another, to medical appointments, to court, to counseling and more. I currently work with youth at risk, helping them finish their high school degrees and families who are right at the brink of falling into serious problems. I can't really tell you which organizations to volunteer, as there is a spectrum of them; some are religious like the Salvation Army and some have social and political agendas that may not align with you. Without recommending or condemning, for example, you will find organizations who work with pregnant teens who are anti-abortion. This may not be for you. The same goes for sexual and gender identity issues. One thing that seems very unpolitical to me, and it is how I started, was volunteering at a local shelter. If you have more affinity with helping women, there are shelters that deal with them. If you have more affinity with dealing with people with addiction issues, there are shelters dealing with them. Because of my background in the military, education and addiction, I find affinity working with veterans, addicts and at risk youth. The problem is daunting, and the needle feels unmovable most of the time. In the big scheme of things I feel powerless, but I know reducing local misery is possible and is something I can help with.

suopspaces 10d ago

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