Nobody sees you.
Alone.
I did do that.
Like I said, no matter what I say I would do, you guys are going to fight the hypothetical and tell me I can’t do it.
“I would do A.”
“What if you can’t do A?”
“I would do B.”
“What if you can’t do B?”
“I would do C.”
“What if you can’t do C?”
All the way thru the alphabet.
You kids have fun moving those goalposts.
Regards,
Shodan
I think you have to be honest about what your circumstances would have been like for you to wind up homeless in the first place. If you assume you can make choices to get you out of homelessness that you could have just as easily made a week earlier to avoid winding up on the streets in the first place, then you’re just bullshitting yourself about what it means to be homeless.
I’m reminded of an interactive text based fiction game called Depression Quest, where it walks you through what it actually feels like, from the perspective of a depressed person, to be depressed. You are given multiple choice options for how to proceed in this game, but sometimes options are written down and “crossed off” as unavailable to you in the depressed state. It’s quite educational, IMHO.
It seems to me that I’m now faced with a similar task. But since I’ve never actually been homeless, I’m probably not the best person to write “Homeless Quest.”
Are we talking about Goodwill specifically, or thrift stores in general? And if we use Wal-Mart as a benchmark, how do they compare?
Because I’d get fresh clothes for sure. And toiletries. A couple of changes of socks, underwear, t-shirt, jeans, a long-sleeve shirt. Toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, a cheap washcloth, a bar of soap, a cheap disposable razor. A new pair of sneakers if there was enough money left over. They have cheap cans of mixed nuts at Wal-Mart; if I’m there, I grab one of those for immediate protein.
Go into Wal-Mart (or wherever is cheaper), buy this stuff while I look like crap, change behind a dumpster somewhere nearby, go back in at least dressed decent, use the restroom to wash up, brush teeth, comb hair, shave.
Then apply for jobs at Wal-Mart and MickeyD’s and places like that.
This is one more reason why we should have postal banking, or something like it. If you’re homeless and you get that job at MickeyD’s, you need to save up money for a place to live. Where do you save it? If you have money on your person, there’s too good a chance someone’s going to take it from you. But bank accounts at commercial banks hit up small-balance accounts with enough fees that it almost amounts to the same thing, only the bank gets your money instead of some street thug. (My one big takeaway from my adolescent years at a private school: a thug in coat and tie is still a thug.)
IOW, I’m really not sure how I get out of homelessness, even if I get a Wal-Mart/MickeyD’s job.
No. It’s more like “If you have A, B, C and D, why are you E?”
I was referring to Goodwill in particular.
Some food pantries also do clothes, and might be able to supply you with those toiletries on your list. Applying for jobs and McDonald’s or Wal-Mart will require you to have reliable transportation, a home address and a phone.
I don’t know for sure because I’ve never been homeless - I guess I would probably try to eke it out for maximum value, but that’s because I am a bit of a skinflint even when I’m not homeless.
If I give money to homeless people, I always hope that they will find themselves able to spend it on something that makes them feel happy or provides a little respite of some sort from their situation (only if respite would make them happy, of course) - because my one-off handout isn’t going to change their world permanently, so it might as well change it temporarily, in a way they find enjoyable.
IOW, I would explicitly desire that my donations would be able to be treated as ‘disposable income’.
And you can lie about your home address, but even a cheap burner phone is either going to gobble up most of that $50, or cost even more than that. (Haven’t had any need to price them.)
With all the teens that apply for jobs at Micky D’s and the like, home addresses are definitely checked by a service. Also, you will need a place to stash what little you own while you are at work, it will be noticed if you wear the same clothes day after day, and keeping those clothes clean on a regular basis will be difficult.
8x10 tarp - 8 dollars
lighter - 2 dollars
cheapo fishing rod and reel combo with hooks - 20 dollars
Goodwill khakis, button down shirt and tie -15 dollars
cheap backpack - 5 dollars
Sooo… that’s me as a homeless person, but that doesn’t mean that’s what all homeless people should do. Typically, there are services within towns that can supply clothing and toiletries. Honestly, there are services in most cities that can help most homeless people. The problem with homelessness is generally not with people who are rational thinkers and able to make good decisions with that 50 dollars. Those homeless people certainly exist, but they are usually able to find ways out of their situation. The problem is the chronic homeless who tend to have mental disabilities or addiction problems. We’re also starting to see the rise of the working homeless. These are people that are holding down jobs, but they tend to be menial jobs – in large coastal metros, even people making 10 or 12 dollars an hour simply can’t afford housing, so they are making do living out of their vehicles or flitting between couches and shelters despite working full-time. Estimates put the working homeless at roughly 1/3 of the total homeless population.
When I was homeless … food was very easy to come by … spend a couple hours picking up garbage and cleaning up behind a restaurant would at least get you leftovers … helping some farmer would get you a seat at his table and a barn to sleep in … along the coast you could help offload a fishing boat and get a bucket of shrimp … but I had two sets of clothes, a bedroll and the basic cooking utensils in my backpack …
What money was given to me was spent on soap, shampoo, LSD, matches and the like … the main challenge was buying Grateful Dead tickets … not all venues were easy to sneak into … so that’s what I’d spend the $50 on …
Yeah, that. But I’ll play anyway.
Things I won’t do with it:
• clothes: I can get all the free clothes I need by diving into the goodwill box or going to various charitable organizations. Exception: shoes or boots, if I don’t have decent ones at the moment
• large quantities of alcohol: I’m not buying more than I can drink at the moment of purchase and then be hauling it around (heavy) and/or have it stolen out from under me
•medical: Unless I need something specific and unusual, I can cadge what I need from medical providers without paying for it
• books: that’s what libraries are for
• food: getting free food is easy
• laundry: maybe but only if I really like the single set of clothes on my back; otherwise I’ll just discard them and switch to whatever I filch from the Goodwill box. And if I find a place where I can handwash undies and socks and then hang them long enough for them to dry, I’m going to do that instead of paying. And also some charities may give me laundry money.
Likely purchases:
• a backpack; if I only own what I’m wearing I need a way to keep additional possessions with me without having to carry them in clumsy bags and stuff. Some folks would prefer a rolling cart but I vastly prefer a backpack; I’d try to find a cheap used one first.
•“burner” phone; One of the most important things is to be able to provide other folks with a way to get in touch with you. In the old days I would have rented a PO Box.
Checked, how? Sure, you can look up the property owner of record, and there are databases like InfoUSA that can tell you who gets mail delivered there. But those databases don’t weed out the old names at the drop of a hat (I’ve worked with them), and people get mail delivered to their old address for years after they stop living there. (We’re still getting some mail for the previous owner of our house. He lived there for six years. We’ve lived there for 20.) So you just give your last address, and if it turns up a different name, “yeah, that’s my roommate/stepfather/spouse/whatever.”
ISTM that the phone number is a much bigger obstacle.
So I can be reasonably sure that the homeless are alcoholic, schizophrenic, off his meds, has no friends, no family, has no marketable job skills, and is “malnourished, tired, smelly, susceptible to illness more than you are now, deprived of most medications you now rely on”. Or else he wouldn’t be homeless.
Regards,
Shodan
Nobody has said they have to be all those things.
Just as you have never said under what circumstances you could see yourself as “homeless” when you have friends and family and skills and good physical and mental health.
If you give a fake address, that is the address that will go on your check, so you better have a good fake ID to match it. Same problem if you go with direct deposit.
Do fast food places who are hiring anybody care about what address is stated? If you move, do you have to update your address at Burger King?
Once again-That is the address that will go on your check or your direct deposit form, so even if your employer doesn’t care, the bank will if the ID doesn’t match. BTW, there is also the problem of giving a false address on your tax form.
Small business owner here. My employees fill out a form that includes their address (mostly for tax purposes), but I’ve had people who gave a friend’s/parent’s address because they were currently crashing somewhere temporarily. I do not check to see if the address is valid. I also have had employees cash their paycheck out of the drawer, saying that they didn’t have a bank.