Yeah, I could do it since my husband would see to things on the home front. By the rules I’d be heading to Chicago as I have family in both New York and LA, and my contacts in the midwest would make it a bit easier (not friends, more like contacts of people I have worked with). I’ve lived homeless for a time in the past and while it wasn’t pleasant I could make things work.
I’d use my contacts and knowledge to find ways to exchange work for food, a place to sleep and showers at various shelters. I’m sane, healthy, 50-ish, take no drugs legal or otherwise, and have a lot of skills and willingness to do whatever. Clean the shelter, make soup, do office work of all kinds, etc. A few hours of work a day to guarantee a meal, a safe place to sleep, and an occasional shower or opportunity to wash clothes at various women’s shelters should be doable
As long as I’m clean and not obnoxious, libraries would have no problem letting me pass time reading or using the computer. I have reciprocal memberships at a number of historical museums, so there is another place to pass time.
Being winter, I’d layer heavily and use the duffle to carry a half dozen changes of underwear, two pairs socks, one pair shoes, one pair sandals, a small address book with contact info, some bags of trail mix & food bars, a pack of handiwipes, deodorant, toothbrush & toothpaste, shampoo, liquid soap, and any remaining space gets additional clothing.
I went through a pretty horrific time a few years ago - a low paid job, renting, had $7.00 in the bank. It’s not that I was on the brink of homelessness, but when I looked ahead, my future was just a big dark cloud. It was just a blank space where I saw no hope, no joy or happiness or whatever. That’s what true poverty is - it’s a state of mind, not just having no money or home for a year. Knowing there’s a pot of gold at the end - yeah, I would do it. Bring it on.
This. I wouldn’t last the single day. The fact that any family/friends I’ve ever met in my entire life wouldn’t step up and let me get back on my feet? Praise Jebus for “Internet friends.”
I have spent some time on the streets. It really is not all that bad. No responsabilities or bills or commitments. Sometimes when life is really rough I have brief famtasies of laying it all down and taking to the streets or finding a way into jail.
I have no health issues however after further co.sideration I would probally make a quick trip to a doctoer to pick up a script for some xanax or something.
It wouldent be hard to get a scrip for some of my behaviours and they could be useful on the street or jist to take.
The usual eccentric billionaire approaches you with a proposition. You’re being offered the chance to earn a cool ten million dollars, after taxes, if you can survive as a homeless person for one year. Here are the rules:
[LIST]
[li]If you agree to the challenge, you cannot do it in your current city, any city you’ve ever lived, or any city in which any family member or close friend lives. (For this purpose, family means parents, stepparents, children, stepchildren, siblings, stepsiblings, aunts, uncles, first cousins, and second cousins). You will be taken to the largest such US city that fits the bill, and, yes, it must be a US city. If you call on any family member or friend for help, the challenge will end and you will forfeit the ten million…[/li][/QUOTE]
Interesting. By “city” do you just mean the city within the formal city limits, or the entire metropolitan area? E.g. if I have friends or family in College Park, Maryland or have lived there myself, does that rule out Washington, DC as a city because they are part of the same metro area?
And, would I have to stay within the city limits, or could I move around the metropolitan area? E.g. if my city is NYC, could I go to Nassau County?
Two points that I don’t think have been already covered:
Do you have to return to the original city monthly to receive your C-Note? I would start, according to the rules, in NYC, from which I would make my way south. I may re-think this plan, though, if I am obligated to return to New York every month.
One factor that may affect my ability to accept the challenge: my family relies on my income, which would be absent for a year. I suppose we could take out loans to cover their living expenses during that time, but that seems mighty risky.
mmm
Do I get a written contract detailing the agreement?
What would count as “help”?
Because I can imagine doing it this way:
Get the contract and give it to my wife.
Go to the city.
Hitchhike/catch a bus to somewhere warm.
Call my wife.
My wife, who has used the contract (or, failing that, our house) as collateral on a loan sufficient to support herself and our daughter for a year, flies out to a city near the city where I’m holing up.
She and my daughter visit me for a couple of hours every day so we can all hang out–but they don’t provide me any help other than emotional help. (thus question 2 above)
I do my best to scrounge for the year. If homeless shelters/soup kitchens give me any grief about the arrangement, I’ll point out to them that having a grateful multimillionaire in their debt sure can’t hurt next year’s fundraising goals. No explicit loan, but simply helping them see the obvious.
There are plenty of ways to game the deal (how much really, really spendy clothing could I pack in a single duffel bag, for example?), but if I can do it and spend time every day with my family, I’m in. If I can’t, I’m out.
No need to return to the original city each month. I’m sure your handlers (there have to be mroe tha none) are going to be following you around if you go walkabout; they have to, in fact, both to bodyguard you and to keep you from cheating.
I suspect the billionare will call that a personal problem.
I think the scenario you name is gonna be ruled out; the loan’s explicitly forbidden, and I suspect the wifely help is going to be verboten too in a written contract.
Not sure if I was clear: the loan is something that my wife gets, not me, and it would be against our house if it can’t be against the contract. And the only help my wife gives me is talking with me: no food, no clothes, no money, no nothing else. Just visits. Are visits considered help?
If I were the billionaire and you insisted on the written contract, with more detailed rules than I listed in the OP, I’d probably end up counting visits as help and including that in the contract. Not to be a dick, but because it wouldn’t have occurred to me till then.
ETA: I don’t see how a loan obtained by using the contract, whether nominally to you or your wife, can count as anything as against a loan against future income based on the challenge, which is disallowed. I expect the contact would have a confidentiality clause. No reason your wife can’t mortgage the house while you’re on walkabout or whatnot.
Absolutely. Your list dumps me in Phoenix, and if I can find a decent place to stay for the nights, I’m sure I can spend days in the library easily enough. Maybe hitchhike east to the South before winter comes, and I’m sure I’ll be just fine in some place like small-town Alabama; just start going to church and letting it be known that you need help.
Fucking A yes, for probably a cool 50K. It’d be like camping (in the sewer) with my fellow travelers a choir to the symphony of my soul. Not kidding, either.
I note, OP, that there’s nothing in your contract or further elaborations restricting travel outside city limits. First question is: “Why not? Don’t you know how to make an hypothetical?” First observation? Fucking ride the rails like those hipsters out West do (or their roommates best friend whose stories you overheard).
Nah. I’m a single parent and her life would be utterly fucked by me leaving for a year.
Also, I have been homeless before, when I was much younger; without the occasional help from my friends, I wouldn’t have survived. There’s a reason a lot of homeless women (IME - no stats) turn to prostitution (I didn’t, thanks to said help) - and there’s a reason homeless women often get raped and murdered. It’s not a life worth living - even if you manage to actually live for that whole year - for any amount of money.
