Experience being homeless

Hi. My name is mike. I’m homeless in San Antonio and have been so for coming up on a year. What would you all like to know what homelessness is like?

I’m so sick of this crap. I’m in Japan right now for a couple of months, but when I’m in the US, I’m still living in my car. It sucks! I thought it would be temporary, but with LOW paying jobs, and the price of rentals and gas skyrocketing, what are people supposed to do? I ended up loosing almost everything I owned (and I had some good stuff!) because I couldn’t pay my storage rent. I need to get out of California ASAP! I do appreciate the “little things” in life so much more than I ever thought possible. Like food, and showers, clean clothes, sleeping in a bed, and heat! I hope everyone appreciates everything they have, like hot showers!

I think it is a completely different experience between “being homeless” for a couple days, and actually not having a place to go after your social experiment of being homeless.

People have a fairy tale view of the homeless. Yes, there are plenty of people that are just down on their luck and need a little help. These are not usually the people you find actually living on the streets, these are the people you normally find in shelters, and work programs. The majority of the people that are actually living on the streets are mentally ill and addicted to crack or other drugs. Experiencing that is not a life changing experiment, it is possessing poor judgment, especially if you yourself are not mentally ill or addicted to drugs.

Been there. Done that.
Nothing I’d like to do ever again.

I’ve been on my own since I was 16.
I’m currently 17 years old, 18 in July.
Still on my own.
Not homeless anymore, i’m moving up!

I cannot wait, to feel freedom. [:

So I guess I am. I went homeless for about 6 months but I cheated, I had a well paying job and a truck to live in. Further, I had the company gym to use for showering and the security controlled parking lot to sleep in. I just got tired of paying so much for an apartment and buying a home was not an option in the part of California that I lived in.
The ironic thing is now that good job moved me to Az and then dumped me. Now it looks like I will be homeless for real… well, I still have a job but it does not pay the rent so it looks like the streets for me.

It was an insightful character building endeavor the first time but not something I look forward to doing again if there is anyway to avoid it.

I guess I’m putting it on my list to make myself feel better! I have never been homeless, but I think that’s what my life is coming to, at least for a while.

Here’s my story in a nutshell. Was kicked out of my parents at 15 because I had my daughter…She is now 19 and has her own family and lives in Japan…I have lived in this apartment for almost 8 years now…Lost my job (with no notice of course) on Oct. 30 of this year…5 days later got a pay or quit notice…8 days after that served with a summons for unlawful detainer.

So here I am, waiting for the court date. I figure I have about one or two more weeks here before I have to get out. I am currently selling all of my stuff to try to scrap together enough money to live for a while. I filed a wage claim for unpaid wages against my previous employer, but it takes up to 8 months to go to the labor board.

My plan is to live in my car part of the time and camp at a camp ground sometimes. The sucky part is that to stay at any camp ground around here there is a $17 fee per day. Sucks. So…I’m chalking this up to life experience, I guess.

I won’t be collecting cans or pushing a shopping cart…hopefully!

There’s a billboard outside where I work that says “If you’ll work for food, why don’t you get a job?”

That’s what most people just don’t get. How do you get a job with nowhere to send your paycheck to? How do you get an interview without a phone? How do you make it to work on time every day when your sleep is interrupted by weather, cops, or idiots?

It’s a vicious cycle.

only for 2 weeks in 1982, this is not something i EVER want to do again at all!!!!

I did this once in Caracas. I became some sort of a bump for two days. So called ‘recogelatas’ or ‘can collecter’, these people who live like nomads, most of them addicted to rocks, homeless, pick up empty aluminum cans to get some money out of recycling so that they can drink buzz and smoke rocks. I did this bacause I had a friend who lost his family and bacame so depressed that he ended up on the streets like one of them; one day I saw him passing by with a bunch of dogs; the way he looked toward the horizon made me think of someone somehow enlightened, so I wanted to know what he found when he crossed the line. From then on I became buddhist and never more question others reallity.

At age seventeen, I was homeless on Haight Street in San Francisco…I knew that I had other options, but it was just something I needed to try, I guess to prove to myself that I was able to survive on my own, with no money, no roof over my head, and no one to lean on. I wasn’t a runaway or anything; I was already out on my own, an emancipated adult. It was only for a couple of weeks, but definitely an experience! I slept in Golden Gate Park on Punker Hill with the gutter punks most nights, and learned to make money panhandling. I spent a night asleep on the beach, and a night sleeping on a sidewalk atop a piece of cardboard. It was strange not knowing where my next meal would come from, or when I would have a chance to use a bathroom, but I learned a lot and would recommend it to anyone. I met a lot of amazing people, and learned to appreciate the little things. It was nice to see that kindness towards strangers still exists. And I definitely have great respect now for the homeless and the things they must put up with on a day to day basis.