3 ms·

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 9d 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 9d ago
  Not all European countries. There are 20 European countries bellow the per 100.000 level of homelessness than the US.
  - pessimizer 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago
One problem that poorer American people have is too much food, leading to obesity.
- bronco21016 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago
      That's a feature, not a bug.
      - rangestransform 6d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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.

AbsurdCensor 9d 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 9d ago
Not all European countries. There are 20 European countries bellow the per 100.000 level of homelessness than the US.
- pessimizer 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago

One problem that poorer American people have is too much food, leading to obesity.

bronco21016 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago
    That's a feature, not a bug.
    - rangestransform 6d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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.