Say you lost your job, were unable to find another, were about to cash the last unemployment check, and were burning through your savings to keep up with the mortgage or rent.
I might be willing to crash with some friends, but ultimately I would probably move back in with my parents. I’m a married man and this would be incredibly humbling, but I would rather swallow my pride than end up on the streets. They also have a nice basement and I figure living rent free with them would also give me a chance to build my savings back up once I did find another job.
Couches. Many of them in rapid succession. I’ve had to do it before (weird housing situation) and I find the experience of living out of a bag incredibly motivating, as far as getting your shit back together.
Family.
well, it would involve mrAru - right now he is the one that is able to work [i have issues with needing to telecommute and finding me a job that i can telecommute right off the bat is problematical.]
I have lived in a tent in Virginia for several months, so I have no problem with that idea. Many campgrounds are reasonable in cost and have nice locker rooms with very nice shower facilities.
We could move in with my mom and brother, they would be very happy to have us there and it would be fairly comfortable. I wouldn’t mind this at all - it would help stave off the time that my mom would need to have a full time care giver [i could make sure she ate and took her meds, and remind her to bathe … she would still need a visiting nurse once she needs physical help bathing]
I would imagine if this happened we would simply move back in with my family =)
We have a sailboat that’s paid for. We could live there. Plus my mom lives about 100 miles from here - we could store our crap with her till we had a place to live. We’d have to beg her to tend to our animals, too, since there’s no way they’d be able to live aboard with us.
Living with Mom would be the absolute last straw. It just wouldn’t work - she and I would drive each other crazy in very short order.
I would seriously consider blowing the rest of the money I have on moving somewhere warm (Indiana isn’t…let’s say Phoenix) and just being homeless.
I hate being a charity case. I haaate it. I’m practically a giant charity case in my life now and I can’t stand it, and I would almost rather be homeless and all by myself than have to get that horrid sympathy from family or friends.
Nothing against them obviously, and if it came to moving home with the 'rents, or my brother, or friends, I am sure they would have nothing but good intentions and would never look at me that way. But from a personal standpoint I would honestly consider just being homeless to avoid what is, IMHO, a worse fate in being a charity case.
Well I would be torn. I could maybe move the family in with my brother so we could stay in the same city, but if neither of could find work here than why stay?
My husband and I both work in the same field and full time jobs are hard to come by in our profession. But we have our roots and more importantly our contacts here so staying in case something came up would be tempting.
It would be a pain in the butt but would probably make more sence to move across the country to live with the In-Laws. They have plenty of room in their house, are on the verge of retireing so babysitting wouldn’t be a problem, and live in a central location that has more options for work. We could easily transfer our union locals to get casual work and network the contacts we have over there.
I know of a few empty houses that we could probably squat in (with the owners’ knowledge and permission).
True, the cold sucketh, but keep in mind that there have been homeless people in Las Vegas who died because they had nowhere to go to get out of the heat during a string of 115 degree days.
If I still don’t have a job by the time my unemployment runs out, we’re going to have to ask my wife’s kids if they’d be willing to assume our mortgage in exchange for our signing the house over to them.
If absolute worst comes to worst, my mom goes in a senior home care of my older brother in New Jersey, my wife gets taken in by either her daughter or youngest son, and I… find a cardboard box somewhere.
Oh? You mean like how my last unemployment check was over a year ago now? And my savings are rapidly dwindling NOW?
Crashing with the parents is problematic because mom died this year and dad moved in with my eldest living sister. Truth is, if the worst came to pass, I’d probably wind up living with eldest sister. As her husband is gone pretty much all the time seeking work himself, and she’s a doctor and thus isn’t home much, and dad has the “father-in-law” apartment this probably won’t be too intolerable.
Over the past couple of years I’ve been whittling down my stash of stuff just in case I have to move. Which effort was derailed when mom died and I inherited a bunch of her stuff. Oh, well. I only have a couple of pieces of furniture I’d really feel a need to keep, and the truck and car are paid for - I think I could transport the essentials in one trip, particularly if we were able to get a trailer for the truck.
Fortunately, I have been able to obtain enough (intermittent/part time) employment to keep things functional here. Also fortunately neither the husband nor me have expensive bad habits and we’re both able to live extremely frugal lives without undue emotional distress. Nonetheless, I have considered the scenario and in fact have plans for how to deal with such a situation.
Immediate or extended family would take me in, or close friends. If, for some strange reason that didn’t work out, my church would be there to back me up. I have lots of support there. They’d make sure I had all my needs met.
We could move in with either of our parents.
Family, friends, fellow parishioners. I don’t think I’d have a problem finding somewhere to stay.
This may actually be something that I’ll be confronting within the next several months - I’m currently unemployed and going through a divorce, and a resulting bankruptcy. The house will probably go into foreclosure within the next couple of months (assuming that I don’t do the short sale I’m contemplating), though my lawyer assures me that I should be able to still live here for free for up to a year while the case works its way through the courts.
Fortunately, I finally won my appeal and received my back unemployment. And if I’m reading the NJ website correctly, I should automatically receive an extension after I exhaust my unemployment next month, with another extension after that, and a possible third after that, adding up to more than a year and a couple of months.
My current plan is to finally get a job, then negotiate a deal with the bank to reaffirm the mortgage at a lower payment that I can swing on one salary. Plan #1B is to do the short sale (to prevent the bank from coming after me for any shortfall in the future) and get an apartment in the near future while I still have a decent credit rating, which would burn through my remaining savings faster.
If I can’t get a job, then I’ll stay here or in the apartment until the final paperwork comes through or I get down to my last $5000, put most of my stuff into storage, and move in with my grandmother, brother, or mother (who is last on the list because she smokes and I get instantly sick after spending a couple of hours in her house). Any of them will put me up, though my three dogs and three cats would most likely need to stay with Mom regardless, for space reasons.
Since both my parents are dead, I’d probably have to room with either my step-father or one of my siblings. However, that wouldn’t help me with my twelve animals. I could probably sell some of my acreage to pay off my mortgage (I owe about $40K). I have enough in savings right now to pay off the house.
StG
I don’t know. Some family would take us in, but that would make me absolutely insane in short order. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that I have three cats, a dog, and a bird to consider.
I’d live with my parents and get back on my feet. Sometimes you just gotta suck up and take your hat in your hand and ask for help, you know?
just found out yesterday my job is in jeopardy due to budget cuts. i anticipated this months ago and have been on the job hunt. i have applied to close to 100 jobs. so far, nada.
to answer the question, “what would you do if you were on the verge of becoming homeless?” i don’t have the option to live with parents/siblings for many reasons, but it’s just not an option.
i have a car i suppose i could sleep in, but it’s very small and i have herniated discs in my back so i guess that’s not an option either.
i have a tent but i can’t sleep in parks because all parks are closed at dark.
i have toyed with the idea of a selling all my possessions and purchasing a conversion van. but in the hot/cold months, that would be unpleasant.
i have almost $100,000 in student loans to pay, a job about to be dissolved, and health issues. i never imagined it would turn out like this.
The closest I’ve ever been to that - which was probably six months before actual homelessness would have set in - my wife and I called everyone we knew looking for any job opportunities. That’s ultimately how we wound up in Seattle. A position was opening up about four months from the time we called, and my wife found something temporary for three of those months to tide us over. I was working for myself and portable, but not making a lot of money… and what I did make came in too sporadically to count on it paying the rent every month.
This is just how I operate - I’ve learned to prepare at least six months in advance for paying expenses like rent. If I’m not reasonably confident I can hack it, I start looking for different jobs, different places to live, etc. Getting the point of cashing the last check means I was already in panic-and-do-anything mode a month before. If my only option was sleeping on someone’s couch, I’d already be doing that even before I cashed that last check.
(In fact, without oversharing: I’m a little worried right now about where I’ll be in January of next year. If I don’t see the solution showing up by August, it will be time to take drastic measures in September. By November, it’ll be too late to do anything about it, let alone in January.)