User Panel
Posted: 5/21/2014 5:37:52 PM EDT
Just wondering how many of you have been really homeless. Not just crashing with friends and the like in college but really homeless like sleeping in a car the street or bouncing from house to house not really knowing where you might sleep any given day.
|
|
Technically yes, but never on the street on in a shelter. I was technically homeless when left in a grey area between the end of my lease and the closing of my mortgage.
|
|
No not really. The closest is when I moved to Juneau for a really low paying job (until I passed licensing and training after 6 weeks or so) and I had no money, was living off a credit card, and the company put me up in a transient hotel where the homeless lived to get off the street if they ever came into some money.
Oh also, the homeless shelter in Juneau is called "The Glory Hole". But my hotel was an awful place, and it had shared bathrooms which were often covered in urine, excrement, and blood Cops and or ambulances showed up usually every night. Lots of screaming and fights in adjoining rooms. God it sucked. Plus since I was 20, my credit card had a $300 limit, so I would get $1 boxes of steamed rice from Chinese restaurants for dinner. I got all sorts of shitty looks for that, like "Are you kidding?". I'd go to cafes to read library books, and the owners would shoo me off as soon as they recognized me for spending $.50 on coffee and sitting there alone not buying anything else. It sucked but I could have quit, called my parents and gone back home. They could and would have helped me. After the training, me and 2 other coworkers got an apartment together. When I left in mid August, I had been there for about 5 months, including the training poverty time, I had $8k in the bank, which I used for college. |
|
|
Quoted:
Technically yes, but never on the street on in a shelter. I was technically homeless when left in a grey area between the end of my lease and the closing of my mortgage. View Quote Same here but it was winter time in Iowa and I lived in my 1992 chevy 2500 for about 2 months, it made me a better person and thank full for what I have now. |
|
|
Quoted:
Technically yes, but never on the street on in a shelter. I was technically homeless when left in a grey area between the end of my lease and the closing of my mortgage. View Quote He means with no home, no way of paying for a home, and no home to go to. and Yes, I have been homeless.....unless a tent is considered home. I miss my tent living.....for damned near 2 years I lived in a tent....riding around the country on my motorcycle....homeless......best time of my 44 years here....period. can I do it again? |
|
Never been homeless, but I spent a night in a car in winter time and it is not fun.
|
|
|
yep, lived in a car for a month and showered at a buddies place after he and his dad went to work. It sucked.
|
|
Quoted:
Same here but it was winter time in Iowa and I lived in my 1992 chevy 2500 for about 2 months, it made me a better person and thank full for what I have now. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
Technically yes, but never on the street on in a shelter. I was technically homeless when left in a grey area between the end of my lease and the closing of my mortgage. Same here but it was winter time in Iowa and I lived in my 1992 chevy 2500 for about 2 months, it made me a better person and thank full for what I have now. Yeah that counts. |
|
Nope. I've been poor...pretty hand to mouth existence at times. But never homeless.
|
|
I slept between a row of lilac bushes and a block retaining wall for about 8mo.
|
|
Quoted:
He means with no home, no way of paying for a home, and no home to go to. and Yes, I have been homeless.....unless a tent is considered home. I miss my tent living.....for damned near 2 years I lived in a tent....riding around the country on my motorcycle....homeless......best time of my 44 years here....period. can I do it again? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
Technically yes, but never on the street on in a shelter. I was technically homeless when left in a grey area between the end of my lease and the closing of my mortgage. He means with no home, no way of paying for a home, and no home to go to. and Yes, I have been homeless.....unless a tent is considered home. I miss my tent living.....for damned near 2 years I lived in a tent....riding around the country on my motorcycle....homeless......best time of my 44 years here....period. can I do it again? If true sounds like an interesting story. |
|
Come pretty close a few times but always managed to pull through by the skin of my teeth. Paid off home now so as long as I can manage to pay the taxes I should be good.
|
|
|
|
I will say this - in this day and age, you have to work HARD at remaining homeless.
|
|
I moved from college to Albuquerque after graduation without a firm place to land, but I had an apartment by that first night.
So about 10 hours. |
|
Quoted:
If true sounds like an interesting story. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Technically yes, but never on the street on in a shelter. I was technically homeless when left in a grey area between the end of my lease and the closing of my mortgage. He means with no home, no way of paying for a home, and no home to go to. and Yes, I have been homeless.....unless a tent is considered home. I miss my tent living.....for damned near 2 years I lived in a tent....riding around the country on my motorcycle....homeless......best time of my 44 years here....period. can I do it again? If true sounds like an interesting story. well documented online. |
|
OTR driver count?
Been close a few times but never slept in a cardboard box. |
|
Not technically homeless. While I was going to grad school my commute was 2 hours away from my house without traffic. I bought a camper top for my track truck bed, got a fan, sleeping bag etc...and would sleep in my truck at night. It wasn't bad. Especially since I was in the library or hospital most of the time. I could shower at the gym and study at the library or various common areas at school that had wifi. I did that 4 days a week for 9 months or so. The summers were pretty miserable but spring, fall, and winter were great.
|
|
|
After my mom kicked me out of the house I lived with two friends for a period of two weeks each (it destroyed my friendship with one of them).
After my second friend told me that I was no longer welcome I lived in my car in a local regional park for a couple of months. Sleeping in a VW bug is something I would not willing do again. I did have a job during the entire time I was homeless. I spent the money I made on "other things" and not housing. |
|
I was very close in my late teens but, I worked my way through it.
|
|
Lived in my truck for a little over a month last year after my divorce.
Was waiting for my renters to get out of my rent house so I could move in. |
|
When I left home for the first time with a new job across the country at age 21 - I've come as close as you can get to being homeless without actually being homeless..
Took me six years to get on my feet. |
|
I spent February of 1995 homeless in Maine. My folks kicked me out of the house and I didn't have enough money to get my own place. I had a job the whole time. I spent most nights crashing at friend's places or with my brother. There was one night, however, when I slept on a park bench. At the end of the month, a friend offered to let me move in with him.
|
|
I acted homeless during a college project.
Being homeless for real? Fuck that. |
|
I spent a month or two sleeping in my car or work truck. I had a room I rented but the other tenants sucked so much the last 6 or 7 weeks before I got my own place it was just somewhere to store my clothes. Showered at the gym every day. Not truly homeless, just young and broke.
The rainy days help you appreciate the sunny days. |
|
I was homeless for 8 months back in 2009 I learned a lot from the experience |
|
I spent some time in an office building after a chat with a nice security guard.
I would have frozen to death in my car. |
|
|
|
Quoted: You've been around here a while. Tell us the story if it's not too personal. Where were you in life and what led up to it? If you don't want to share that makes sense too. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I was homeless for 8 months back in 2009 I learned a lot from the experience You've been around here a while. Tell us the story if it's not too personal. Where were you in life and what led up to it? If you don't want to share that makes sense too. I would be more open to it in Team Not here in GD I will say that everything that could go wrong did go wrong at the same time |
|
|
Spent a winter living in the bushes in a city park in Lewiston, ID many years ago. Long story, but I ended up there. Collecting aluminum cans for cigarette money and eating out of KY Fried Chicken's dumpster. Had to bathe in the Clearwater river...in December. No vehicle. Walked everywhere to look for work. It's a real bitch when you don't have a phone in case somebody calls you about a job...or a washer & dryer....or a decent way to shave. The little things we tend to take for granted....you don't realize just how much we depend on what we have. Within 90 days I was hangin' iron on a Corps of Engineers project and owned 1/2 of a small Cajun café. I swore that I would never again get myself into a predicament like that. It was just plain old-fashioned fucking tough. I've been there...I can empathize...and you can't keep my ass down. I'm tenacious. |
|
Yes, when I was a teenager for about a year and again right after college. Both were short stints, but my mom was sick and in and out of the hospitals with some crushing medical bills...I was trying to stay in school and finish working my way through, but by myself it didn't leave much money for rent or shit so I stayed in my car or crashed at other people's place for a night here or there. When I was in high school I bummed places with schoolmates and for a while slept in the laundry room of one of my football coaches. I guess that's not "homeless" like on the street, but I had no residence or permanent place.
It was sucky, for sure, but I never felt destitute or without options. Always knew I could find a job and work harder....for me it was something to have to do to get through school. |
|
Not really. I lived on a 20' sailboat for a summer where I had to stand in the hatch to put my pants on but that was by choice. I also had my home badly damaged in a hurricane and lived in a motorhome for 6 months, I could have rented a place out of the area but it was more convenient to live on the construction site. Never because I was poor.
|
|
Technically yes. I had all my stuff in storage and had a P.O. Box, for about three years when I worked for a software company. But I was making a shit load of money, had zero living expenses and was single.
|
|
|
Yes. Eight years. 1981 to late 1989
Living under bridges, riding freight trains all over the Western US. Lots of Night Train, cheap vodka and Orange Jubilee. At that time I was quite the advanced student of various illegal chemicals. Smoked Top tobacco normally.. If I was feeling rich I bought Drum tobacco. Store bought smokes were a luxury. Worked when I could. Sold plasma when I couldn't. The whole begging on the street corner hadn't been invented yet. I may have been one of the few that actually used food stamps for food. The only time I held up a sign was to get a ride on the freeway if I couldn't hop a freight. Pulled my head out of my ass in December 1989. This ends my press release. I'm not taking questions from the floor. I have to get up at 2:30am PDT to drive my cab. |
|
Quoted:
Spent a winter living in the bushes in a city park in Lewiston, ID many years ago. Long story, but I ended up there. Collecting aluminum cans for cigarette money and eating out of KY Fried Chicken's dumpster. Had to bathe in the Clearwater river...in December. No vehicle. Walked everywhere to look for work. It's a real bitch when you don't have a phone in case somebody calls you about a job...or a washer & dryer....or a decent way to shave. The little things we tend to take for granted....you don't realize just how much we depend on what we have. View Quote Fingernails were a real pain in the ass, I remember. Fingernail clipper is a pretty specialized tool, you can't really use a scissors for the job because of the shape of a fingernail and even then you can only get them so short and they're hacked all to fuck. I was lucky to be a short walk from a McDonalds and a Burger King on opposite corners of the street. Kids never eat all of their food so I would grab the Happy Meals first and usually score pretty well. |
|
Sorry, but no. Never f##ked up that badly......one of many pluses of being married to a good woman for 40 yrs......
|
|
Sign up for the ARFCOM weekly newsletter and be entered to win a free ARFCOM membership. One new winner* is announced every week!
You will receive an email every Friday morning featuring the latest chatter from the hottest topics, breaking news surrounding legislation, as well as exclusive deals only available to ARFCOM email subscribers.
AR15.COM is the world's largest firearm community and is a gathering place for firearm enthusiasts of all types.
From hunters and military members, to competition shooters and general firearm enthusiasts, we welcome anyone who values and respects the way of the firearm.
Subscribe to our monthly Newsletter to receive firearm news, product discounts from your favorite Industry Partners, and more.
Copyright © 1996-2024 AR15.COM LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Any use of this content without express written consent is prohibited.
AR15.Com reserves the right to overwrite or replace any affiliate, commercial, or monetizable links, posted by users, with our own.