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Yes, but that's because there was a time when I provided legal assistance to people who were homeless. Also, if I had not paid my best friend's overdue property taxes, she would have ended up homeless. Although she was pressured into applying for help when her furnace needed to be replaced in the middle of winter, she has not applied for financial assistance. I'm guessing this is because she was also an attorney who provided services to homeless people and is well known in the legal community. BTW, temporarily sleeping on a family member's couch is considered to be "at risk of homelessness" because more often than not, they end up on the street.
There's a lot of homeless people but to end up the street you really need to have some sort of other problem. If I lost my job and had to make spending money driving Uber Eats and doing odd jobs, there's a long list of people I could crash on a couch, spare bedroom, park my car on their property which is isolated enough the neighbors wouldn't rat on them which I've slept in my car plenty of times and it's fine. Basically the only way I'd end up on the streets is drugs or gambling where I'm stealing from people. I'm not a mean drunk but that would be the other one. Basically have to burn all your bridges. For families it's harder with kids but for singe people or couples with no kids it's hard to end up on the streets. There's more resources for homeless families with children but they do fall through. It's a lot harder to fit into the niche in someone else's lives. E.g., probably a tenth of the people I could crash with if it came to it could accomodate putting up a family of four.
dont bet on sleeping in other people's couch,driveway or even the street ,who is that president who said guest and garbage,they all smell after a week?
No one wants a loafer in his home,unless he is their child or grandchild.
There are subtle and non subtle ways to let you know -you have overstayed your welcome.
Middle class definitely yes. A good friend of mine.
Long story short - abusive husband kicked her and the kid out of the house and locked her out of all the assets. She and her son couchsurfed, lived in motels, lived in her car, and then a family member gave her a 20 year old RV, which she sometimes could afford a space to hook it up, sometimes not, for months. It took 11 months on a waiting list to get into a subsidized apartment.
The house she was kicked out of was worth about 1 million dollars.
No drugs. She doesn't even drink alcohol. The son is special needs, so no one would take the both of of them as roommates.
Last edited by redguard57; 03-25-2022 at 01:32 AM..
A local TV station was doing a spot on homeless and when they went to interview the homeless, they admitted that they were college kids doing a class project on the homeless.
I'm not saying that there isn't any homeless but when I see homeless, I think are they college students?
I come into contact with homeless people through my work. Some do have severe mental problems, but others were working and lost their job due to an injury that was not covered by worker’s comp and/or workplace disability insurance. Those people may have had really good jobs until their injury. A lot of people do couch surf, but it may not be something they can do all the time. In the interim nights, they may have to stay at a shelter, or if those are full, sleep in their car or the streets. The people without transportation are usually in the worst situation, because even if they can get Medicaid, they often have difficulty actually making it to medical appointments.
A local TV station was doing a spot on homeless and when they went to interview the homeless, they admitted that they were college kids doing a class project on the homeless.
I'm not saying that there isn't any homeless but when I see homeless, I think are they college students?
I know here in Ireland (and in many other European countries) there are organised street beggars. Most of them are Roma gypsies.
I used to work assisting recently disabled working class people apply for Social Security disability benefits. It would take 2-3 years before most of them received any benefits. Younger people in their 40's usually had parents, siblings, or even working children to help them through. People in their late 50's or early 60's usually only had children, who were struggling themselves. I would see people with over 100K in home equity, sit in the home until the home was foreclosed and the sheriff's office put them on the street. It made no sense. Even those who had homes and cars and were able to sell them off if they couldn't keep up with payments, never really got enough back pay to get back to a similar standard of living. I stayed in that job for 18 years and it really changed the way I felt about money. There was never enough money to make me feel secure. Even in retirement DH and I continue to save money so that our two sons will have a level of protection should they become disabled.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I don't know that there is any good source of data on this, but I would think that most real middle-class people have a good support system of family and friends to help them through a financial crisis. A younger brother, for example, was faced with homelessness when he left his job to start at a police academy, and would not be paid for a couple of months, so we took him in. When my nephew lost his roommate and couldn't afford his apartment alone, he moved back in with his parents at age35.
Having been around the homeless of Seattle, I would expect very few to have had successful careers before living on the streets.
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