My experiment living in a tent in Hong Kong's jungle(corentin.trebaol.com) |
My experiment living in a tent in Hong Kong's jungle(corentin.trebaol.com) |
Someone has an actual cave to rent out?
Here's some famous advice from Hong Kong's richest man:
--
A daily breakfast of vermicelli, an egg and a cup of milk.
For lunch just have a simple set lunch, a snack and a fruit.
For dinner go to your kitchen and cook your own meals that consist of two vegetables dishes and a glass of milk before bedtime.
For one month the food cost is probably $500-$600. When you are young, the body will not have too many problems for a few years with this way of living.
--
Note he's talking HKD, and HKD 550 translates into about USD 70.
There's "This-This Rice" places (Rice + 2 other ingredients like meat / vegetables) that usually have big portions and feel somewhat healthy.
I read empathy with those in crisis. In Seattle, WA, USA there are many encampments applying what you're learned by doing, and your risk mitigation thoughts unpack this. You have the clear advantage of fallback support, which of course makes this an experiment as opposed to anything more, as you say in the title.
Re: being disappointed in many of the comments here: If you're looking for a culture-war point to make, you can find it. Please don't always go there - consider that the author may not be aimed in the direction you perceive. I recommend listening to David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" speech on YouTube or elsewhere - way better than Infinite Jest.
I kinda understand doing this if at home, and you have no other options. But this comes off as reckless and somewhat naive. To save 2K over a few months you risked serious injury, violated the terms of your visa and ultimately felt a need to humble brag about it.
Not everything needs to be shared.
It does seem that being in school made this experiment distinctly different from just living in a tent. In a sense, tuition was rent. It paid for showers, electricity, and a living room with air conditioning (the library). It also provided a supportive community. School and even society at large is more inclined to help a poor student than an adult trying to cut rent.
I make this observation not to diminish the experiment's value. I am just putting it in context to arrange its utility in my mind.
(edit: I can't imagine why this is flagged. It is def life- hacking if not tech hacking.)
Flagging seems to be one of the big vulnerabilities of HN.
Maybe flaggers should be required to state the reason for flagging, and this reason should be exposed.
Flagging means "no one should even see this on HN", and random people shouldn't get arrogant or cavalier about swinging around that power.
100%. It's a lot easier when you live next to a Google campus. And it sorts all the menial matters that make a huge difference, like access to washing machines.
About the flagging, you seem to have been here for a while, any hint? I get the word usage can comes across as disrespectful now that people mention it, but didn't think a link would get flagged for that.
I could see conservatives disliking that it questions capitalism's viability post AI. I could see liberals thinking you are making light of folks experiencing homelessness.
I think those are absurd, but with a low vote count, your post may only need a few absurd people to flag you.
Naturally, there could be other reasons things get flagged, but I never see them because they disappear too fast.
You could always ask @dang to weigh in. He might see something which violates the guidelines.
This was a choice (essentially to save money) and the author had multiple fallback plans. Real homelessness is born out of desperation and lack of alternatives. Tragedies of mental health issues, abuse, severe financial distress, no savings, debt, warrants. No nice shower at the gym, no locker to keep a laptop and two suits. The constant fear of not just the police but also of getting robbed by another homeless, likely after something to sell for drugs. That's very different from anytime being able to crash on somebody's sofa to save on rent so you can earlier "afford to build companies".
We can even see it in one of the later paragraphs where potential spots in the bay area are evaluated. The local homeless should not be close. Oh, they shouldn't? That gives you an idea of the conditions actual homeless folks need to live under.
The main thing I did different was using a hammock tent (10min setup, 10min teardown each day). So I stayed in very public places (right off major foot traffic routes) and just went to bed early and got up at sunrise.
Also, I told everyone. No authority cared that i was doing it. In fact, i was organizing weekly events for government employees (some quite high level), and they all thought it was hilarious and were supportive.
Here's my learnings: https://github.com/patcon/urban-camping
EDIT: Ah, and these were my notes from living in rented shipping containers with a friend: https://github.com/patcon/container-city/wiki/Notes
I think it's important for every young adult who becomes a well-rounded adult to have experienced a short term of deprivation so they have a frame-of-reference what others in less fortunate situations experience. <my-two-centidollars>The problem today is that there are too many mean, spoiled individuals with way too much power lacking theory of mind, a sense of community, and basic human compassion.</my-two-centidollars>
"I'm currently tenting in the backyard of a friend's place."
"Tenting in a park is not something I'm comfortable advising right now :)"
Any solutions other than a friend's backyard?
The author wisely talks about safety considerations, but there's an it's-expensive-to-be-poor risk I'd like to emphasize:
One injury or illness caused by the frugality could wipe out that $2K savings, many times over, in immediate costs, and might never fully heal.
I think back to all the penny-pinching I did (less impressive than the author's), and much of it was necessary under the circumstances, but a very poor value tradeoff otherwise.
This is much like the couch surfing experience: staying with people for a few days and sharing their space, which often ends in these deep, late-night conversations. It's an incredible experience.
There are a few platforms for that, I recommend Couchers.org. It's free & open source (and I'm one of the core maintainers).
This was in between two stints living and working in a mobile RV hacker lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT1gPmQQkxI
I'm in SF now and we'd probably be best friends.
Ok I was expecting a lot more. So it is one $450 USD per month? That doesn't very low. I guess HK Uni have decent discounts. But
>Living in Hong Kong without a dorm room would push rent up to at least $700 a month
Unless you only rent a bed with share washrooms and kitchen I can assure you it is not $700 but much closer to $1K if not higher depending on your living standard requirements.
If only this experience could reach media outlet. Hong Kong's rental or property pricing is just crazy expensive relative to what they offer.
Another reason is that Hong Kong has a lot more affordable housing in the outskirts, like in the village of Tai Po Tsai that borders this university.
Stealth camping should be done in low profile tents (1.2 meters high). You should pitch tent at dark, and leave before sunrise.
You're safe! No one found me, and I took it away a decade ago.
More people were openly & brazenly wild camping in HK during covid than this.
There also gets a point where some of these things become "penny wise and pound foolish". I'm reminded of the people who spend 20 minutes driving across town to save $0.20 a gallon on gas. Which even in an empty 15 gallon tank, is a savings of only $3.00. Net cost benefit analysis says they would be better off working an a fast food restaurant or something for a higher trade-off of money per hours.
And getting the driving experience is not cheap if you don't know people who have a car you can borrow!
I honestly think everyone would be much happier and less lonely if sleep-overs didn't stop being a thing as we reach adult age.
To solve the housing issues, all we have to do is build basic soviet-era apartment buildings everywhere and all will be good. The fact that we don't do this in many countries with crippling real estate situations must be a symptom of much larger underlying systemic issues. The future will hold a great many things but also some unavoidable and painful refactoring of leadership.
I think the challenge is these sub 500 studios. It requires a functioning economy and state. E.g. land, utilities, zoning, infra, public services, law enforcement, medical, schools; all these things are needed to support housing. So maybe what is missing is a society, with housing just being the symptom, the manifestation, the telltale sign that there is not enough civilisation to support the people currently residing in some of these problematic states.
In 2023, CA population reduced by 268052 people, that is only 0.6% the the 40 mil population though. If 1% leaves every year, I believe that will compound into an 8% drop in a 10 year period. In 20 years, that will be 17%. Maybe that will help aleviate the burden a bit.
1. Did you consider camping in one of Hong Kong’s official free campsites instead? I don’t remember seeing any rules that would prevent long-term camping. So, besides the less convenient location and perhaps raised eyebrows of their staff (if they regularly saw you at the campsite registration desk), it seems like a safer option?
2. I assume you were a taught student, not a research student, right? (If you were a research student, you could have slept in your assigned office, I guess.)
1. That would have been a great option had there been one close to the university! Proximity was a top criteria because commute is expensive money-wise and time-wise. Also, weirdly enough I think I was much safer in this illegal spot than in a regular camping where traffic makes robberies more likely.
2. I like how you think because I happen to have befriended a research student who did just that! I didn't envy him one bit thought because he had no windows while my tent view was magnificent. And then summer came and I would have given anything to have his AC!
The convenience of a place with electricity, running water, a table and chair, you are legally allowed to sleep there, etc. Seems easily worth 450 Dollars a month. In the end he says he saved 2k, but that is not a relevant amount of money to save over months if you become a software developer in America.
I've stayed in many inconvenient places and the immediate benefit is often that it forces you to go out of your way to find good places to work from, to get food, entertainment, etc.
I've actually gone out of my way to meet homeless in the Bay. You'd be surprised how much of a continuum homelessness is. Most are definitely living hell on earth, but many I personally met have both fallbacks and money. Could be they're too attached to their family's image of them. Or that they weirdly enough have a better life now - I met a guy who led a small community and made quite some money from crime, he could have afforded to live anywhere, but this would mean taking a menial job like he had in the past, and he didn't want that.
Of course, the disclaimer is that many homeless care a lot about their self-image and will create stories to justify their current situation so it's hard to judge. But the point still stands that, even in hell of earth for the homeless, you'll find it's a continuum. And the world is much broader than SF - I've met people at every point of the spectrum, the most extreme being a multi-millionaire who lived Swiss forests for fun!
To summarize, there is no "actual homelessness", it's not a boolean but a spectrum, and I fail to see how gatekeeping the use of the most adequate word in this situation helps anyone.
If the problem is that it using the word comes across as disrespectful to people who mainly know homelessness through the prism of the Bay Area, maybe another avenue could be to add a link at the end of the article to promote a relevant NGO, which I'm definitely open to adding if people suggest a good one.
> If something isn't important to know, there's no answer to the question of why people don't know it. Not knowing random facts is the default. But if you're going to write about things that are important to know, you have to ask why your readers don't already know them. Is it because they're smart but inexperienced, or because they're obtuse?
So you can claim to have been homeless, or have experience having been homeless, but then you will be judged as having that experience. That isn't how you presented the story, but as a successful experiment where living in a dorm for $450 a month was also a good option. The redeeming lesson from such an experiment is that "being homeless isn't that bad" because "you weren't really homeless" not because "others also could have somewhere to live". The two has completely different implications.
You aren't being "gatekept" out of bad faith, but because it is nicer to believe that you are mistaken than the alternative. Because if you claim to actually have been homeless the story reads more like you put yourself above the rules, didn't consider your friends and don't understand the difference.
A millionaire in the Swiss forest is not homeless. Choosing to live in a tent is not homelessness. To me, the term "homeless" implies a lack of alternatives. As soon as it's a choice, to see romantic sunrises or fall asleep to ocean waves or whatever, that is, if calles "homeless", to me, a misuse of the term. It's a nice life, I've done it too and loved it, but I'd not start to call it "homelessness" and place myself into the same category as the poor souls sleeping under a bridge.
Of course it's a spectrum. Some folks have been forced out of their home and are living out of a car while finding a new place. That's homelessness. For some of those, it's temporary. For others, it's a spiral into misery, next is to lose the job, having a mental health issue, soon the car breaks down, and eventually they are sleeping under a bridge. Insubstantial of whether it's in SF, Berlin, Sao Paulo or Tokyo. Similarities to a concious choice are only superficial. Once it's a choice, it's outside the spectrum and is doing the fight against homelessness a disservice.
A pork steak is a piece of meat taken from a pig. Once it's made of beans or some mushroom it may still be tasty (and I love good veggie food), but it's not a pork steak.
Similarly, the term "homeless" also has a certain meaning, and using it for something else muddies communication waters. And at worst, it makes the fight against actual homelessness harder: Next time some tax dollar is planned to be used for relief, somebody will point to those cases and say "well some homeless enjoy the sunrise and love the outdoors and have two suits in locker, and ain't none of my tax dollars go to that!!"
If you want to call that "gatekeeping", then sure. What's the purpose of your comment then? Gatekeeping me and telling me I should not call out the misuse of the term?
Wikipedia says homelessness is "the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing". It doesn't say anything about it having to be a choice. I know people who say they're homeless by choice. Would you say that's an oxymoron?
That’s my takeaway and others on the difference here. Homelessness driven by choices then turn into necessity to live. I don’t think responding to the sentiment with technical definitions from Wikipedia is the right discourse either (as done in other comments not yours). You can see the problem with this story without having to cite your comment to try to bring some strength to it.
Edit: the word “lack” really is the key word. This implies no choice, right?
So yes, considering it not to be actual homelessness if it's a choice is perfectly reasonable. You can't wikipedia-lawyer your way to a functional understanding of natural language.
To me, that's a blatant misnomer. Elon Musk also calls himself "homeless". (By choice, quite obviously.) There is not much to discuss once the term is assigned that meaning.
There's no single cause or experience for being homeless. There's no "real homelessness" either.
You might be interested to read "20-25% of all 'homeless' actually have housing" by Kevin Dahlgren.
https://truthonthestreets.substack.com/p/20-25-of-all-homele...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kevin-dahlgren-former-gresham-emp...
also this seems a really entitled take to say, "there is no homelessness" when there clearly is.
If you know how to survive in a forest, you're a good candidate for a homeless or a migrant. Such decision point might be closer than you think.
I truly hope you will never be in such a situation and then meeting somebody telling you that you are a refugee because of a choice you made.
For the rest, I'm with you it might be hard to replicate beyond this n = 1 sample, but I'm convinced this experiment's ROI is actually much more positive than suggested in the post.
Not only did I get better grades that semester from being forced to spend more time in the library, but I learned a lot living at people's places afterwards, and, most importantly, the feeling of freedom from materials matters allowed me to make bolder bets that paid back multiple times over.
You can even go further: even if my grades had gone down, I still would have been more employable for many types of companies, starting with early stage startups.
I noticed in myself that when I stay in minimal places (camping/jungle hut/tent), I tend to be more connected to the real world and less addicted. More productivity, clearer thought.
Learned a lot living at people's places: you could plan a month of no accomodation and couch surf, don't think that's such a stretch. More fundamentally, the tent piece was just a "social opener" to learn more about others. Many other things can be this social opener.
Material freedom: I buy that the experiment showed you that and that's awesome, but I also think some solid therapy around one's understanding of material reality could play a similar role.
These are the real dangers that a roof and walls offer you protection from. If you happen to find a benign niche where you don't face these threats, it's likely because there is an invisible layer of defense being provided to you by the societal structures around you.
The “Community Support” section was my favorite. I would love to hear you elaborate on experiences and lessons you learned while staying with others.
Trebaol was not forced into homelessness, but he was not play-acting or apeing a lifestyle for kicks. He was in a situation where he judged squatting four and a half months illegally in the jungle was worth saving a mere $2,000.
If you prefer to describe your past lifestyle as bandit camping instead of homelessness, by all means do so. But don't insist the rest of the world conform to your arbitrary redefinition of a term from its everyday meaning because it doesn't always fit your preconceptions.
Are you really helping the unhoused by insisting that someone is only truly homeless if they are schizophrenic, strung out on fentanyl, or otherwise totally incapable of being a productive member of society?
I'm sure homeless people have more pressing thoughts than what words nerds on the internet use to describe outdoor living
*Sure, not a 'Hey, this looks fun' choice, more a conscious understanding of a tradeoff where homelessness is not choosing the alternative life.
Edit: I've taken a crack at it. If there's a better way, we can change it again.
Also, by your invented criteria for language monitoring, many homeless people in many cities would themselves no longer be considered homeless.
Quite a few of them could somewhere, under some circumstances, find a place to stay even though it cost them just a bit too much to like, just like the guy who created this clever and interesting post.
I’ve been to the ER in Ecuador, Mali, Angola, Australia, Canada. Even as a tourist it was so cheap I didn’t bother using any travel insurance ( less than $50, including prescriptions)
Can’t comment on all the other countries you listed, although I can add that urgent care in Germany was pretty reasonably priced.
Edit: added! thanks for the feedback again
All Hong Kong residents are eligible (anyone with an HKID and permission to remain >= 180 days).
Risk is complicated, anything could happen. Not just doom and gloom. Individuals circumstances and appetite for risk versus reward varies.
In that case, the appetite for risk versus reward is only appetite for reward.
If risks pointed out, at least that's closer to an informed choice they're making, and maybe they'll do the same risky thing but now be more careful about mitigating risk as they do.
(Source: Person who's bet it all at least a few times, and about to do so again, but finding ways to avoid stupid decisions and mitigate risks along the way.)
Looks like it might have to do with the title, or at least the title was changed before it got unflagged. Good learning!
I unflag completely normal posts every day on the "New" page of HN. Many of them are actually very good posts, and some of them reach the number one spot of the front page after being unflagged.
Very rarely do I see the flagged posts being very objectionable.
It's an odd sort of worship but very common in the Bay Area.
People's places: have you heard of people doing this? I'm genuinely curious because I could never bring myself to be a nuisance if I didn't absolutely need it, meaning the blocker is definitely real yet fully in my head here.
Material freedom: I guess I haven't seen enough to agree with this one yet. The only intellectual pursuit I know that would genuinely get you closer to not caring about life so much as to reduce your fear in homelessness is the study of physics!
I usually see people complaining about misleading headlines when it does not match the linked article. To be fair, it is sometimes an improvement but the point is that it’s always editorializing. Keeping that to a minimum only when the article’s headline is particularly objectionable seems to be better than letting every poster editorialize as a matter of course.
No worries, I got ya, buddy:
Imho instead of eschewing quantification altogether, rules should have a ELO style rating computed from the effects of their pair-wise combinations :)
The hard part could be the combinatorial explosion lol
Words bring vibrations? Perhaps I don’t know, but they bring very strong meaning very often and in most languages also, even though English being famous for the same word meaning different things in different contexts, the conveyed meaning itself is still very important.
And homeless implies less of something which can be a moral choice also, but still there’s the ‘less’ which is not there when your bank account has enough for other options. The mental less in homelessness is bitter and very often related to certain major calamity.
Example in France, “homeless” is called SDF, and it means “no home” (no fixed address to receive mail, although shelters allow mail) but doesn’t mean “no roof”. And that was done to include women, because women were practically not represented on the street, as they often have someone who can host them, even if they cannot call it home. There is no word (except derogatory like “Claudo”, or workarounds like “on the street”) to describe the homelessness that men suffer.
Now, since women represent 16% SDF, but most of them are hosted, they do not tend to die during winters. They do not tend to face street violence. They do not match those stats. Unfortunately, since they still represent 16% of SDF, they also get reserved budgets in addition to the budgets which are destined to homelessness in general (and which are themselves already allocated with a slant towards the female gender - the whole thing is absolutely despicable).
So, since words are perverted for political goals precisely in this area, I’d rather we let history written by the writers, with their own appreciation of the words’ meaning. The usual side will win again, but when there is an odd article not written in “the correct way”, let it live.
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
But I think it's best to let the people vote if they value a story on how lifestyle hacking can help you go straight to building startups instead of having to first save up in a job.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Specifically, I was paraphrasing this part:
> That includes more than hacking and startups.
Also this was not about voting or not voting, but about people flagging the submission.
Regardless I still really enjoy reading his blog.
> also this seems a really entitled take to say, "there is no homelessness" when there clearly is.
He's never said that and that's not the point of the article I linked either. Kevin has dedicated his life to recording the life of homeless people so he's clearly aware of it's presence. I think his work is quite important. There doesn't appear to be many people researchig homelessness who actually spend time on the street interviewing them. His posts and videos have given me a whole different view of homelessness, most of which in more vein of what the first commenter here was talking about. But it has also taught me that homelessness can be quite diverse.
If you're interested in the life of the homeless at all you should definitely read some of his blog. His collaborations with Tyler Oliveira on YouTube are also extremely interesting.
Sorry, then I misinterpreted this sentence
That’s a nice out for anyone who gets caught lying. “I didn’t think it was morally wrong to repeat lies.”
I don’t have enough medical knowledge to assess this claim, but I made a simple rule: don’t touch the phone before getting out of bed! (except to turn off the alarm)
So far, it really seems to work!
Hard to quantify how much of a difference this made, but it definitely translated in higher drive and propensity to being present.
Arguably a dorm is pretty minimal as well, it’s just a climate controlled room with a bed.
If you have to physically remove yourself from housing to stop using technology negatively, that’s an addiction problem, not a problem with housing.
Also, the success apps like tiktok and instagram does suggest addiction is more the norm than the exception.
Theoretically they could choose to get treatment for addiction or mental health problems, but practically that isn't available to them.
As adjudicated by whom?
> they can't just go get a job, or they can't get the money together for a deposit. They can't afford to travel to where the work is.
Many could actually. Some could move to lower cost of living areas. Some could choose to get education or training that enables them to get a job in the future. Some could get jobs, some could certainly move to where there are jobs. Some could choose to quit recreational drugs and alcohol. Some could use their welfare or disability payments and move to lower cost of living areas. Some who dislike living with others could choose to put housing above that preference and could afford move into group housing. Many do these things actually, I have heard many first hand stories from people getting themselves out of homelessness.
So how are we weighing up all these choices and deciding who is a "valid homeless" and who is not?
ie doesn't seem like there'd be a functional one that would work
So it's pretty clear he didn't have an "official" home during that period.
If was an interesting read and experiment, but it has its limitations as a real world comparison to homelessness.
Also, virtually all the "real homeless" I met went to the gym to shower.
There's definitely wrongthink/ideological flagging and downvoting going on.
(On some comments I make, I know when I make it that it's going to get downvoted, because it pushes against an opinion of the kinds of people who will downvote to suppress criticism. It used to be that criticizing cryptocurrency would get downvotes, but now it's popular to criticize. I can get reliably downvoted any time that I suggest that adding a fee for some basic public infrastructure (e.g., to drive on street in a city), in a "market-based" way, is a handout of the basic public infrastructure to the wealthy. Also, suggestions that there's still any bias against women, in anything, somewhere, seems to reliably get downvotes, no matter how relevant; I don't know why, but I'd guess it's because the topic has a lot of general angry sentiment, and people who are angry the other direction aren't represented as much on HN.)
I'd distinguish wrongthink from something being off-topic and done-to-death or a flamewar magnet. Maybe one mental exercise test for this is whether the same person would also still downvote as "topic" if the opinion of the post/comment were flipped.
I’ve lived in China for a few years and I noticed anytime I write anything even remotely positive about my experience there I will get downvoted or flagged. Even completely neutral comments sometimes gets downvoted.
I appreciate people who are saving flagged comments because what made HN great 10-15 years ago was that I often changed my views because people would articulate why they are right and they sometimes indeed were.
This isn’t opinion. The great firewall of China isn’t a farce, it would be good to remember that.
I actually vouch for a lot of comments I disagree with that was flagged, and upvoted it because I want it to be shown to the world. And in other times I disagree with it but vouch and upvoted because I dont want HN discussions to be one sided.
Flags are not downvotes and are not to show disagreement. They do seem to get used that way.
I like the others above have show-flagged enabled. "90%" of things I vouch are things I disagree with that represent what I consider a point of view that deserves to be known, has been at least reasonably well presented, and isn't flame-bait.
in every remotely political discussion here, reddit opinions are allowed to be expressed as non-constructively as you please, but all dissent, no matter how factual and constructive, gets flagged within minutes.
I wouldn't be so quick to call delusion/dissent when designers of our spaces have simply made it far too easy to turn private affects into public effects..
(& It might be rude of me to be so concrete.. so.. apologies)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44213954
& What if everyone starts camping on pristine beaches? That'd be something! To marvel at!
Tech people often miss the social connotations such terms bring with them. Understandable, as many got into tech because of its clear definitions and lack of ambiguity and baggage, but the real world just doesn't work that way, and we have to acknowledge this.
I helped a bit as a volunteer in an orga that among other things worked with refugees and I heard their stories. Every single one had this moment that one day they have risen and took ownership of their lives, instead of succumbing to helplessness. If they didn't, they probably wouldn't make it. That is something to admire.
One thing migrants and homeless need is to recognise they're humans that are disposed to make decisions about themselves, by themselves. To deny that is cruel, because it's inhumane. Humans can make decisions, non-humans can not. I don't know how it is on other side of the pond, but over here in Europe there's a big campaign to portray refugees (and all migrants) as non- (or sub-) humans, and denying them agency is part of that effort.
I'm not sure about the exact context of the language you quoted(not a native speaker), but ISTM you mean “well it's their choice that they are homeless” as somehow demeaning. Is it used in your country as a rhetorical device to imply that a person could have just chosen not to be poor (or persecuted), and then as an excuse not to help someone in need? That's very wrong and not matching reality I saw. Usually the choice was to either flee or something even worse happens to him/her (or the family).
I commented instead of downvoting. However, to speculate, you implied a person isn't homeless if they have a van. You were responding to a comment containing:
> I was technically "homeless"/vanliving
Wherein they were relating their experience and recognized that they were vanliving (living in their van as their home) and even quoted their use of homeless, calling themselves "technically" so.
Even someone living in a tent or sleeping on the ground, if they keep returning to a site could say that site was their home. Some say the world is their home or that the region they stay in is. They would still be very clearly considered homeless despite having a "home".
As I understand it, it is a gray area whether vanliving is legal. You are allowed to park a vehicle but the owner doesn't have unlimited right to leave the van in one spot and live there. Even living in a van on your own land can be against code. People sleeping rough generally have no recognized right to sleep where they do. They are frequently moved and more often harassed. The situation is similar for those living in a van.
Anyway, that aside and trying to speculate about your downvote(s?), the context was that you started a language specificity discussion with someone who appeared to be unsure about the right words and hesitant to call themselves homeless. There were plenty of places on this thread to have that discussion but this doesn't seem an appropriate spot to me. I don't know whether that poster even knows you responded but if they do, I could see your response causing some difficult thoughts and/or emotions.
I doubt you intended harm but it can be helpful to consider the context to minimize the risk of harm or even just better understand the diverse manners in which your comments could be received. Hope you enjoy commenting here and learn from it and the comments of others.
Why does it imply that? Many homeless have alternatives, but they aren't either applicable, or the person don't simply want that. Just as one example, a homeless person with a dog could probably get rid of their dog so they can stay at the homeless-shelter, but instead chose their close bond with their dog over that. Does that suddenly mean the person isn't homeless?
Another (personal example) is when I first arrived to Barcelona and barely could afford food. I spent two nights sleeping outside in the city instead of paying hostel fees, so technically I had the choice of spending a bit of money so I had roof for the night. Lets say that situation was longer instead of just two nights, would I not count as homeless then because I could have spent my money differently?
Yeah, I mean I don't live in the bay area, nor have I ever visited the place. My experience is mainly about homelessness in Spain I guess.
So whatever you think I've got from American politics, I can ensure you I haven't and it's entirely based on on-the-ground experience where I live.
Besides saying "You don't know the truth", is there any specific you can respond to from my comment you feel is incorrect or you disagree with?
- Vanlife (not homelessness)
- living in a tent out of necessity (homelessness)
- living in a tent for an experiment/fun/holidays (not homelessness)
> Your saying there is a difference between making choices that resulted in homeless being the only option and choosing homelessness because its the best available option?
Absolutely. For example, if a city wants to build systems to help them, one group would need counseling, temporary housing, while the other would rather haver access to public showers, a dispensary, and another group none of that.
Let say you're in a place that attracts a lot of backpacker/vanlife, whatever you build there you would make people pay for it. There would not be any food bank close to that place.
The folks pushing for different words seems to be coming from a fear that grouping all "not sleeping in a home" into one bucket risks having stories like this (opt-in, mentally capable, not-in-deep-danger, safety net) make ALL homelessness seem easier or safer or a choice, which is a common pushback for helping people in modern politics (get a job, shouldn't have had sex/been dressed that way, shouldn't have tried drugs, etc). There is also a trauma of so much bad faith out there in the world right now making this kind of point implicitly on purpose (along the same vein as "I'm just asking questions").
They aren't phrasing it that succinctly but that's my good faith reading.
The holy war on the other side is "don't project your XYZ on my story" and "don't put words in my mouth" which seem valid to me given the context; I think someone should be able to tell their own story in good faith without being responsible for how other use it, within reason, which is likely not a terribly controversial take.
I personally see points in both sides and mostly think this is an issue because of the choice of venue. I think it isn't helpful to start an argument/debate without agreeing on what to argue/debate about and we're seeing that here (plus the topic being a proxy argument for a group of underlying political/social philosophy values not directly being discussed).
My experience is from São Paulo and Seattle but entertaining this notion that it's a thought-out choice full of intention is wild. Most homeless people just want some shade of stability and would leave that situation any day any time if given resources.
They are not primates with 0 agency but most societies don't really give them a lot of options.
Indeed, I intended no harm, but having spent time on desolate beaches, retreats and similar, I could definitely disambiguate between living in a tent, in the forest, like even doing some coding from there, and being homeless. My comments joined the... seemingly overall uproar against author's choice to call his experience homelessness.
But you make a valid point reg. how many ways a comment can be interpreted.
My point was that precisely, and with my other comment - that homelessness is not a state you typically get to by choice. It is social status more or less. Unless the choice is to become sannyasa or traveling Buddhist monk and renounce the material world, which is not op's story, really. Given my previous experienced living in the tent in a forest for... months, well I can definitely say is not the same as being homeless. I have also met refugees (mostly levantines in Europe) who are much more homeless even when being crammed together in "homes" dozens at a time. They have interesting perspective of what is home, and having the world for your home is not always a good thing to say.
I completely agree that living in a tent can be lovely and some of my life's favorite moments include tent living (e.g. in the temperate rain forest of Olympic National Park) and moving every day.
I even mostly agree with the overall uproar. It feels like bending the term pretty hard for the author to claim homelessness. The further point that there may be moral hazard in that use seems reasonable.
I like your point about homelessness more or less being a social status. I think it adds insight and I have enjoyed that this whole discussion (ours and other bits in the context) has really stimulated me to more deeply examine what homeless means.
Your point about even having a standard shelter to live in (house seemed implied but isn't important) not wiping away homelessness is excellently instructive. I certainly know people I consider homeless who have assigned housing. Considering the counsel housing system in the U.K. seems like it might start to step to the other side of that line on the other hand, shifting the discussion to other dimensions of a person's needs and "enfranchisement".
Let me reiterate my gratitude for sharing your thoughts and even more for getting to a discussion that feels more like peace and curiosity.
An actual homeless person would have a quite different experience of a bust.
"I decide who is homeless and who isn't in retrospect by analyzing whether something happened to their tent in the woods or whether they were not discovered".
by what means did you determine that was his cause?