About To Be Homeless With Car...Advice Needed From Entire State

[the city]

Santa Monica I hear treats homeless good.

I'd avoid run-down and lower-income areas for safety. I believe San Luis Obispo you can park your car and sleep in it without being fined.

[Fontucky]

I'm in the trucking biz, although I no longer drive. Truck stops will throw in a free shower with a fill up from the commercial diesel lanes. Everyone else pays for access to the shower facilities, usually ~10 bucks per.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

This is what we use, we have another propane fired for days it's not sunny enough for heat.

Cabela's: Stearns® Outdoors Sun Shower

[mr bolo]

stop by a local gym with your gym bag w/ shaving kit, soap, towel and use the rest room and take a shower

once you get in the shower nobodys going to ask questions

[Stephen's doing it big]

I just lost everything and am flat broke. Heading that way from Houston. I want to blog my adventure. I may do the couch surfing thing but as I said I'm broke. Literally 227 dollars to my name after the trip. Was wondering if finding a job is hard in California.

[tikkasf]

If you do end up homeless, try not to let minor maint issues on your car go......one thing you don't need is for your car to break down on you

[MtnSurfer]

Originally Posted by Stephen's doing it big

I just lost everything and am flat broke. Heading that way from Houston. I want to blog my adventure. I may do the couch surfing thing but as I said I'm broke. Literally 227 dollars to my name after the trip. Was wondering if finding a job is hard in California.

This is mostly dependent on what skills, prior experience you have. What have you done for work before? What kinds of education/training do you have?

Other factors:
What parts of CA will you be targeting? Some areas are simply harder to find work in than others. Even larger cities like San Diego, Hollywood, Santa Monica, etc... have fewer entry level type jobs because of the over abundance of young folks including college grads trying to make a living.

Ever thought of military service? Free room and board along with training and the GI bill can be a better life than homeless.

Derek

[seain dublin]

Originally Posted by Ceece

This is why having strong ties with family and friends is so important. Does nobody like you enough to let you stay with them? Geesh. And it seems like you are planning to be homeless for awhile. Why? Can't you work? What is the real deal here? Nobody wants you living in your car in their city.

This is overly harsh. Aren't you the same poster who didn't want to go to FL to deal with your elderly father, and didn't want him coming to CA because you didn't want the burden.

So much for strong family ties.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Interesting thread. I've done the what if for this scenario as well.

Initially I would live in my 4X. I would remove all seats other than the front, and I would build a secure configurable enclosure in the cargo area.

Once I had been going for a while with that set up I would switch to a pick up with camper shell format, with similar situation of having a configurable secure enclosure.

Would use combo of public showers, truck stops and if still working, showers at work.

It is doable.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by Stephen's doing it big

I just lost everything and am flat broke. Heading that way from Houston. I want to blog my adventure. I may do the couch surfing thing but as I said I'm broke. Literally 227 dollars to my name after the trip. Was wondering if finding a job is hard in California.

Try going to the day labor places like Labor Ready Home . You might check for the location of highway rest stops for a place to sleep in your car until you can learn from locals where you can park overnight without getting rousted by the cops. If you are going to be stuck in California for some time, get a California driver's license and apply for food stamps, a California ID will also make you eligible for food banks (a number of them won't distribute food to someone from out of the area). Check craigslist for jobs and check craigslist gigs too. One guy I knew managed to get some one day jobs on CL gigs as a mover's assistant.