My Story as a Homeless Developer
medium.com
medium.com
I'm also formerly homeless, and now the cofounder of https://LambdaSchool.com (YC S17). We have a nonprofit fund designed specifically to help out homeless software engineers looking for a job.
I'd love to put you in a cheap airbnb or apartment, hook you up with Lambda School's career services team who will help review your resume, get your github and portfolio in shape, practice interviewing, and help you land a job. We've already seen multiple success stories (for example David https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/homeless-man-handing-out..., who is now making almost $100k/yr).
Generous donors have allowed us to continue to grow the fund after Lambda School's original $50,000 contribution.
I know how hard it is to focus on getting a job when you're just trying to survive, so let's try to eliminate that distraction. Hit me up at austen@lambdaschool.com and let's help you focus and get to where you need to be.
PS if anyone on HN wants to donate to the fund it's here - https://www.gofundme.com/lambda-perpetual-access-fund. Generally we can help someone who knows how to write code go from homeless to hired with a couple thousand dollars all-in.
However, I consider recommending that to someone who is homeless and/or destitute exploitative. I can't put my finger on why, but knowing how desperate you can feel in that scenario I don't feel OK turning that into a money-making (or even transactional) scenario.
We've found that the folks who are hired and now-housed tend to donate enough to keep the fund alive once they're on their feet, but I don't feel right requiring it.
That is awesome on both sides :).
Seems like he has housing, but I'll do anything I can to help someone who has enough hustle to be at a library all the time.
Easiest might be that we provide a computer, internet, and can give him self-paced access to our course archives (normally reserved for student review).
Also how do the success rates compare?
To be clear, we can do better. Our company-wide goal is 90% hired within 90 days. More work to do.
We're still working on Canada; have him/her email me austen@lambdaschool.com
The school they are considering has a 97% success rate which seems too good to be true.
They must be fudging something.
The 96% you state is 237/247. Numerator is grads who accepted employment within 120 days. Denominator is grads who were unemployed and working with the bootcamp's career programme.
But only 76 of those 237 were regular full-time positions. Another 78 were apprenticeships which led to full time employment.
The total number of grads was 388 (i.e. much higher than the 247 denominator).
The least generous ratio you can come up with from the supplied figures is 76 (# full-time jobs) * 97% (% technical) / 388 (# grads), which gives 19%.
Personally I’d count apprenticeships; getting your foot in the door is generally the hardest part. That gives a meh 64.9%.
Not far off most bootcamps to be honest, but a far cry from 97%.
That's 40% of 388 total grads.
It's nice that they provide it. I understand why they use such misleading statistics, it just hard to trust people that do.
Some of our grads work remotely but those roles are difficult to find and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend them as a fresh new engineer.
So I would like to ask you a few questions if you allow me to shoot you an email? :)
[1]:https://a16z.com/2016/12/15/refugee-crisis-mobility-technolo...
The only positive(ish) thing I know of is a Bootcamp they do in northern Iraq for Iraqi(ISIS crisis) and Syrian refugees that teach them how to code, but it's most basic stuff that bearly qualify you for an interview but no more.
The problem with these international organization is that they sponsor local educational entities to do the teaching and training... and 99% of them are not even qualified to work in the industry (tech as an example), I know a young girl certified by the "IEEE young professionals", with local & international charities sponsorships, who teaches girls how to code, and her classroom slides are full of errors... in HTML... structure and spelling mistakes all over the place :'(
All mentors/leaders are easily on the high side
If software engineering is a sensible way out, would something like Qalb be a better starting point for learning core fundamentals?
The reason for asking the question comes from a "what can I do to help standpoint". Throwing money over the fence is often the only answer I receive to that question but from my own naive perspective it seems that billions in aid haven't made much of a (self-sustaining) dent. However if a language like Qalb were actively used I could imagine contributing to its development - perhaps making it more elm-like so it compiles into javascript?
Qalb and Noor languages etc.. are only good to help kickstart the logical thinking for poor kids with next to 0 education.
In Iraq, for example, the TOEFL, IELTS, CISCO, and Microtek entry-level certificates are the most common "resume fillers" all English
Years ago, I read a book about the program. It's designed to educate people in terrible circumstances. I am thinking you might find it a useful resource. Among other things, they designed a schedule that helped minimize the damage from missed sessions, iirc.
Best.
Tagging here onto Austen’s thread (for reasons you’ll see below). My startup’s public benefit corporation mission (separate from our product mission) is to hire people in positions such as yours. Gentrification (→ high rents where jobs are located) as well as an unequal economic system (wealth inequality, selective inheritances, etc.) have made your position a challenging one.
About to sign an Apprenticeship Agreement with a woman to whom I’ll be providing free room & board, along with a living stipend, so that she can participate in Austen’s Lambda School full-time Web Dev track. After graduation, she’ll have a chance to participate for another half year as an apprentice, at the end of which I’ll offer her (pending qualification) a position with substantial equity as a Junior Software Engineer (50% of the company is reserved for contributors).
Might you be interested in being added as a fully paid apprentice (remote) after you graduate? It would also entail a highly likely position as a Junior Software Engineer (also remote) with equity on successful completion of the apprenticeship.
https://www.AffiliateGenius.com
Martin
They ended up helping me get a vehicle which will help me get a job here. I have a few projects which are bringing in funds in the meantime. I'd love to talk about a paid apprenticeship if you're still interested.
Thanks, Jesse
I have a family member going through this same thing and struggling with similar issues. The author is right, it won't be easy to rise above the situation they find themselves in, but the key thing is to stop making bad decisions and take small but incremental steps to improve. Big bang "remote programming job" might not be in the cards. But farm laborer could be. Which may be a step in that direction.
This individual sounds more stubborn than your average person but also that he's had a tough life.
Hope the world works out for him.
This seems unlikely, given that the majority of jobs in the US are provided by small businesses.
Outside of agriculture, there are the usual suspects. Bars, restaurants, cleaning jobs, roofing, painting, other forms of low skill construction, landscaping/yard work, and with the unemployment rate so low, other jobs are becoming available as well. Many of these jobs have someone who drives, and a passenger or two to help with the work when they arrive. I know several folks who do not have licenses due to DUIs, and they are gainfully employed without owning a car, in places where cars are almost a necessity.
I never said it would be easy - but it certainly is doable.
I know felons with difficult histories that find work, if they can then anyone can.
I've been exactly there. You're not making minimum wage when you show up to the farm to pick apricots all day.
Bars - need a bartender license. Yes, you do, nobody is risking it in 2018.
Restaurants, sure, but again, you're not making minimum wage, and if you whiff of hobo you're not working front of house and getting tips.
Cleaning jobs are usually cornered by some immigrant class . If you're an immigrant and have friends/family with the hookup or maybe can speak their language, congrats, you're in (not making minimum wage). If not, move on.
Roofing - you need to bring your own tools. Speaking from experience. Also, this isn't just a "show up and do it job," the shysters that manage to sell shit crews to homeowners never last long, so you'll have to get on with a crew that know what they're doing, and they're not going to want to bring someone on that wants to just do it long enough to "get their feet under them" and then bail. Decent pay, sure, but it's a "career."
Painting - this means standing outside of home depot, just like OP said. Not minimum wage.
Other forms of low skill construction - like what? It's not "low skill," the immigrants you see doing it get trained up by their cousins on the job, and once again, it's bring your own tools.
Landscaping/yard work - market cornered by immigrants and highschoolers. Nobody wants a random hobo mowing their lawn. Maybe you can get on with an immigrant crew. Non-minimum wage.
>unemployment rate so low
Yea, because people are being paid like it's still 1991 (the 2009 raise was putting a finger into a ten meter diameter hole in a dam).
This guy didn't have a family to support him. That's how the immigrants do it, in case anybody is wondering - they stay with families, get jobs due to families, and afford life here because they're all supporting eachother. Random hobo programmer dude is going to have a MUCH harder time scrabbling out of the hole.
Yea, you can scrabble a life, but you're not building a ladder out of the hole for yourself. I'd argue, if you can program, the 3.75/hr you'd make for 3 months is meaningless if you can instead spend that 3 months homeless but then pull a programming job for even a month.
It might also be possible that being a 1099 contractor also avoids minimum wage laws by having a contract based on the job's completion, not the time taken.
That's totally different than some kind of state proctored or recognized bartending exam that a bartender must have passed in order to work at the bar.
It took a loan from my sister (hey, lucky I had a sister with money to loan me!) to get one of those rooms in a shared building where you aren't allowed to have guests and the kitchen cupboards have padlocks on them.
You NEED an address to get anything more than one-off day work that you can't count on to pay the next months rent with. It's not optional.
I did the one-off "go to a construction site, ask if they need help, get 20 bucks for cleaning the work site" thing and that's fine for EATING but that's about it. You can't send resumes out or get back to recruiters during that time, etc. It's enough to keep eating, that's about it.
At that time the rent was like $380 for the room (this was in the Multimedia Gulch days...) so that's like 11 bucks a day for rent, don't miss a day.
So, in one day of programming, I would make rent for the month and then some, but I needed to have a place with a computer to program.
So today, you have laptops, but you still need electricity and internet. You need a stable place where you can plug your stuff in, keep it safe, and work.
I don't consider it a low skill though, it's being handy. Something I am not, so respect them. They build your home that you pay a loan for. While some of us get paid for apps that cost 1$ with a ad supported free version and that gives a 30% commission to the platform owners.
You also missed a large category of jobs, which is retail. And most people working retail are not immigrants. All you need to do is be reasonably presentable for these jobs.
While not Iowa, the farms around here will easily pay you $20-30/hr. if you are willing to work on equipment. Which, anyone who is capable of software development, also has the mindset required to work on equipment. They're pretty similar activities when you get down to it. I'm not sure there is any reason why someone with such a skillset needs to go into picking apricots. We're not exactly talking about a 12 year old who has never worked before and who's greatest ability is being able to turn on his video game console.
Directing him to ag-work here is somewhat of a non-sequitur IMO
But as a farmer, I have to walk up and fix equipment all the time.
There are people who are better at it then me. I will definitely hire them when I am under a time crunch, but they also charge way more money than the figures I quoted earlier, so you cannot afford to take them on full-time (if they are willing to work on a farm full-time) and have them to perform other duties on the farm that do not have the same value proposition.
> would you expect an average mechanic to be able to develop software as well?
Yes, absolutely. I distinctly remember when I started developing software as a teenager and was able to start writing software after a day or two of honing my thought process, without the benefit of having a professional background like a mechanic has. It is a very accessible activity. I don't know if they could walk into a SV tech company offering $200k/year, just as a farmhand who works on machinery isn't likely to walk into higher paying heavy equipment mechanic position. There are going to be better developers out there, but like mechanical work, there is a gradient.
> That's how the immigrants do it
Not really. Lots of generalizations there about immigrants. Some might have networks but many come here on their own with nothing and grind it out for decades to build up their lives. The key is persistence.
Your post seems to be full of assumptions and complaints which makes it clear that you likely have never attempted to get such a job, because it's definitely not as impossible as you make it sound. Also, when you're homeless, anything is better than nothing.
Especially the parts about someone teaching you trade and borrowing tools so you can show up like pretending to be pro instead of like someone who never done that trade. Or relative helping you get job and teaching you on the job. Smart person can learn basics fast, but can't figure them on his own and need someone to cover up basic mistakes at the beginning.
And also ability to find a place to sleep in shared with other non complete strangers (e.g. People you know something about even if a bit) - not as comfortable nor with privacy but cheap and provides connections.
The shared housing was common enough that Americans attempted to prevent it in places (via rules on multiple families in one house etc).
Culture aspect is real but it's highly localized, even to immigrants, meaning you don't get help from "your people" just because you share the same origin.
I suspect that there's more to OPs story than what was told. Substance abuse, etc. Not faulting the guy but I think that he needs to make an honest assessment of his situation. It's not the lack of work, I know that.
Good luck, OP. My parents were both drug addicts and I moved from house to house for most of my life, too. I know how hard it can be. But, I clawed my way out and I know you can, too.
Also, economy in your city being good and job opening for lanscape available does not imply same economy in other cities.
The pairing may happen on individual basis, basically when most of work is teamwork and they don't need you to go around alone anyway. A lot of work is single person work. Or when boss is nice and willing to help you out and organize more.
So I guess that depends on what exactly the company needs you to do. Plenty require car so that you are flexible whether there is acute need for it or not.
And don't forget prejudice against people without cars, it is out of norm and suspect for many people. (Same with being homeless, they may not give you job for fear of you being trouble).
Sounds pretty smart to me, but I don't know anything about being homeless or getting a job in the USA.
Getting out of homelessness is extremely difficult. You smell, you can't keep your stuff safe, you can't keep your devices powered on, you can't get constant internet, you may not be able to find a place to sit and work in peace, etc.
It's a catch 22: without a job, no apartment. without an apartment, no job. you need a phone, an apartment/living space, internet, and electricity in order to work as a programmer.
If he is any reliable and ask for help locally, he will get it.
There is more to it than his text.
There are homeless people out there with alcohol addiction or other hard drugs. Schizophrenia untreated etc.
How homeless and helpless is your situation when you still can write a blog post?
Don't get me wrong, people should get/need help but people are not "just" homeless and something is missing in his story.
Like others have mentioned, this is a stepping stone job. I mentioned in my post that I, too, had a rough time as a kid and young guy. I failed out of Vanderbilt after my first year and had to take a job assembling trophies to get back on my feet. Believe me, it doesn't feel good to go from playing frisbee on Alumni Lawn to being back home in my crappy town, making $4.25/hr screwing nuts onto threaded rods for eight hours a day alongside people who never even went to high school. It was humbling but it paid the rent on my shitty apartment and paid for my dialup internet connection, which led to my first tech job at an ISP in 1994. It's been pretty amazing since then.
I guess those jobs have stricter requirements.
If I turn up an hour late for my white-collar office job, nobody cares (not that I do that.)
If someone turns up an hour late for their blue-collar warehouse job, they get fired.
I was fascinated by the fact that he knew how to find these unadvertised jobs in a community he had never been to before. Even after him describing it to me, I don't think I would have any hope of figuring it out. I imagine a lot of people whose experience is limited to formal job applications would have no idea how to start. Many would have no idea this is even a thing.
I wish I knew the right thing to say or questions to ask or whatever to use this as some opportunity to gather resources for another angle of approach to write about. I don't. This is wholly alien to my experience.
I think that's probably part of the problem in this country. Casual work connections of this sort used to be more common. Now, it's like only immigrants know how to do this. Most Americans don't.
That's not laziness or whatever. More like a blind spot.
A lot of folks would rather throw up their hands and give up than do most the work I'm talking about - which is too bad because I've seen a lot of success stories start with "casual" jobs. And, in the age of "bullshit jobs" which everyone loves to talk about - a lot of blue collar low-skill work is actually not bullshit. It's necessary and important work that needs to be done, and a lot of it can hardly be automated.
Walk through an industrial park and ask the receptionist at each one if they're looking for help. I got several warehouse jobs this way.
Call lawn and landscaping services. A lot of these are small single owner operations. Most of these guys are too busy to look for people formally, but they can use the help. I have a buddy who runs a lawn service, he's paying $20/hr no questions asked for help. He's desperate to find people but he's not advertising on the internet because he's not tech savvy.
A little empathy goes a long way.
2) the vast majority of jobs will vet for the same "stability indicators" and may even be more of sticklers than the culturally lassez-faire tech industry, which introduced casual fridays to the world.
3) did I mention the superior remuneration for programming jobs versus stacking boxes at Amazon.com warehouses or UPS?
I doubt that the author is "above" other work, as he mentioned doing yard work in exchange for housing at one friends place. This is a tech web site where many tech fiends read "news" items, such as this.
Casual fridays were invented by stuffy British stockbrokers who wanted to escape quickly to their country pursuits for the weekend without having to change first. It long predates the tech industry.
My favorite origin story is one that mixes some truth with fantasy and a religious pantheon of the Casual Gods - https://everything2.com/user/m_turner/writeups/Casual+Gods
> Me: “First thing, is I am looking for a remote position just long enough to allow me to save for a vehicle.”
Onboarding for many positions requires at least a month of time. If you're looking for just long enough to save up for a used car, that means that as soon as the on boarding is done, that person is going to leave.
I'm certain that there are places that are just after long enough to save for a car, but that tends to be at the very low end of the skill set and competing with college students after beer money.
So I'm just going to leave these links here (disclosure: they are my sites):
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/ (Same look, but different site)
https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/
This is listed on the Links page of PocketPuter.com, but I'm going to put it here on HN for maximum exposure (not mine, just an awesome resource):
List of Remote Jobs and Gigs Platforms
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfNAbUX_lN9K3MCNHO15...
Best.
I'm not at all unfamiliar with mental health issues. This is what I deeply and sincerely believe works.
If you disagree, perhaps you could hook him up with a better solution instead of raining on my parade.
Give him credit for admitting he has a mental illness. There are too many people that won’t do that much.
Why would things be any different this time without dealing with the underlying issues? I’m not judging him any more than I would judge someone with cancer. Mental illness is just as real and could benefit from treatment just like any other illness.
No, you aren't judging him. You are merely condemning him to a no win situation. This is done all too often to both mentally ill people and homeless people.
What would be different is that I have given him a list of remote platforms (plus other supporting information sources). If you are homeless but can access the internet, you can do work on the internet and no one cares when your last shower was.
Holding down a job while homeless is a tall order. Some people do it, but it's hard. Doing remote gig work online is very do-able. I did it for years while working on solving my personal problems.
I was frequently a loon while homeless. Doing remote gigs meant that I just didn't work when I was a loon, and I wasn't fired for taking time off. As long as I completed gigs in a timely fashion when I agreed to them, I got paid and I built my skills and reputation and increased my hourly pay and it helped me eventually get off the street.
Best of luck in finding solutions that work for you. :)
You can disagree without offering a solution.
Your parade isn't as important as OP's predicament.
You and the other commenter are offering nothing of help to the OP. Your entire focus is on taking me down for some reason.
Meanwhile, my opening comment offered actual resources to try to help the OP. If you think that addressing his problem is the most important thing here, then you could do the same thing I did and leave comments aimed at being helpful instead of comments aimed at shooting me down.
But, maybe I just need more coffee. :)
The (mentally ill) person does something which they intend as a benefit and people react. The (mentally ill) person feels attacked, often where no attack was intended.
This is the problem that needs to be addressed, as has been stated.
The reason (mentally ill) people don't have jobs is because they can't keep them, due to their illness, not that they can't find them.
I'm not trying to attack anyone in this thread by using the term mentally ill.
I suffer from something that has been variously diagnosed as aspergers/bipolar/borderline/crazy/mentally ill and I understand this pattern completely.
I was homeless for 3 months when I lost my job because of problems interacting with other employees. I seem to be too sensitive or maybe I'm imagining slights. Whatever the cause, the result is I have serious problems maintaining any relationships with anyone, even my family members.
I can be highly functioning for months at a time and I did have a 10 year relationship with someone, so I'm not beyond help and I'm not an awful person (though I feel like one despite my best efforts at positive affirmations!) but something seems to build inside me until it erupts in a stream of negativity that most people would rather not have to deal with, and so they don't.
My parents were both alcoholics, so I'm sure that is part of it, but being a slave 8 hours a day is very difficult for me, and always has been.
I'm 54 years old and on the verge of homelessness again after working IBM and Intel, among other industry giants.
There is no safety net in the US for unmarried males without dependents. It is assumed we are immune to struggles and should be able to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps.
I applaud the efforts of people like AustenAllred who are attempting to find market solutions to problems like homelessness. Bravo!
For me the problematic dynamic came from having things upset me and build up until I would get so angry it would explode outward. I grew up learning to hold it in, so I had no idea I could talk about problems with people. It wasn't so much letting go of the anger as talking about feelings and difficulties with people allowed me to avoid hitting that breaking point and over time, the anger and resentment has faded. Additionally, those conversations led to a level of trust where I feel like I can reach out to the person when something comes up or even strongly supported by them.
Coming from alcoholic parents, you might want to check out Al Anon. I found that and Codependents Anonymous invaluable as places where I was surrounded by people struggling with many of the same social issues I did. Also, it was unique in that it's an environment where talking about these sort of things is encouraged and invited, in public I tend to find that people find these topics uncomfortable and unwelcome.
There are many possible responses here, but your pattern of response is very consistent with some need to prove me wrong, even if only to prove me wrong in my claim that you have an agenda to prove me wrong.
It's recursive.
And I think I shall stop replying at this point. I think I've made my point and I don't want to keep putting more into this unpleasantness.
Do you mind if I get in touch? I ran into a young homeless man (who has a felony on his record) in a big box parking lot in Central Florida the other day. He has an AC HVAC technician license, and is having a hard time finding someone who will hire him, and I'm looking for suggestions into how best to help him not just get back on his feet, but maximize his available skillset by getting back into an AC HVAC gig (instead of a minimum wage job). Is it just a matter of me cold calling every AC/HVAC company in a 30 mile radius and inquiring if they'd hire someone with his record?
Edit: There are job hunting resources for felons in specific, such as this:
As someone who has careened on the edge of homelessness, due to mental illness, but thankfully not yet fallen into it straight out: thank you for your replies and posts in this thread :)
Kind regards.
As a cleaner myself I'd suggest him building up a small round anywhere there's retired folks. He'd need a small ladder, a stepladder, squeegee and applicator, bucket, cloths. The problem isn't really the capital costs - just having attention to detail, observing for good working techniques, being patient, polite and once you're seen actively working in the neighbourhood people begin to start offering you all sorts of odd jobs.
I say this because I think some times people from middle class families identify so strongly as 'software person' it detracts from other possibilities when they're stuck for $$$.
> Me: “First thing, is I am looking for a remote position just long enough to allow me to save for a vehicle.”
> Recruiter: “Sure. spends 20 minutes gathering as much information about me as they can”
> Recruiter: “We’d love to move forward with a position but you do not have a vehicle and the position requires you to have reliable transportation.”
Why would do you that? The recruiter and employer don't care if you unicycle, hitchhike, swim, or teleport to work. The conversation should be about your skills, experience, professional goals. The recruiter won't feel good about shopping you around if you make it sound like you're going to quit once you've saved a couple grand for a used car.
But in some sense, having a reliable vehicle is a microcosm of a particular location and mindset. Nobody I know owns a car. We still mostly get to work on time, though.
Most jobs out here require we own a car, or have some way to reliably get to work. Most of the time that does not involve public transportation in any way.
[1] http://www.afb.org/info/blindness-statistics/adults/interpre...
You wouldn't want the the interview to feel like a sappy therapy session. You should steer it to the important questions.
And I live in a reasonably sized city, it can be even worse in other places, like no bus route at all.
Our society is not set up for poor people, let alone homeless people. _everything_ is harder when you are poor, and an order of magnitude more so when you are homeless.
Emmanuel (we call him Mani) is a 50 (or 60?) year old homeless man who would smile and shake our hands every day when we showed up at our local library to hold coding hours. He came in to every single office hour from (4-8pm) to learn as much as he could and literally never missed a day in the 3 months pilot that we were there.
We learned from the librarians that for the past year, Mani has been coming to the library right when it opened (9am) and stayed until it closed (8pm) every day (including the weekend), trying to teach himself how to code. He was hoping to launch his website so he could make some money off ads. With a notepad++ on his usb drive, he coded every day piecing little things together. We taught him basic JavaScript and simple server stuff and helped him get his website up! https://newsgusher.garagescript.org/
Our office hours has ended, but Mani is still plowing away at the library. If you want to meet him, you can find him at Downtown San Jose Public Library on the third floor.
I burned out of my first job because of poor mental health, which I didn't prioritize because work was all-consuming and being sick makes it hard to seek out help. I took a few months off before interviewing, and realized that I needed to get a job and really fight to break the cycle I'd been trapped in.
I don't have any great suggestions for the author getting back on his feet, but once he does he should prioritize building a 6-month safety net and working through whatever he's struggling with. Yoga, running and medication all helped me.
Shelter: Get a van. Live in it. Boondocking is better than the cardboard box or couch surfing.
Food: Noodles. Vegetables. Rice. Chicken.
Tech: android tablets can run Linux and can support mouse and keyboard. Tablets are easier than laptops to charge. Laptops can do more. Trade offs.
Security: get some money into bank account ASAP. Make it a regular habit. Any money you’d put into alcohol etc put it into bank account. This is your safety net. Start from zero.
Street address: get a mailing address. Parents/friends may be able to help. You only need to visit. post office box can help as well but costs money.
Relationships: be careful. Your safety net is likely not strong enough to tolerate much failure. Counter argument: having someone else around can help in little ways.
Decisions: think critically. Need versus Want.
Mental health: read autobiographies. Read fiction. Read. Improve all gaps that seem easy to fix. Understand that homelessness is a hole you can dig yourself out of.
Health: teeth, hair etc hygiene is king. Drop any kind of drug other than coffee. Alcohol etc will make you an easy target.
Small steps.
I have a startup that went through some very low lows. I had just quit my cushy job and had saved enough money to last for 2 years, but not my co-founders. When we ran through our funding, things became harsh. I funded everything out of my pocket.
The CTO couldn't afford his apartment anymore so I paid for his rent. Not long after, I got a family emergency and couldn't afford it anything anymore. I told him to get a part time job to help out. He squarely told me no. "Every successful startup founder lived in a van and dined on Ramen."
I stopped paying his rent. He moved into the office. I urged him to get a job because I couldn't afford it anymore. He refused. I stopped paying the office rent. He went homeless.
He lived on the generosity of strangers, though he went days without eating. He refused to get a job. As long as someone was helping him, he wouldn't work. We had to trick him to help him, a friend gave him some space to live together, then later told him that he needs to participate on paying rent. Only then he started looking for work.
There are a lot of conflicts the OP only mentioned in passing and didn't go into details. There is a lot more to this story, maybe the mental health issue nullify anything I say here. But thinking your story is like that of every unicorn tech founder can lead you to make terrible decisions.
Sometimes you have to be humble and make sacrifices to be able to move forward.
When I hear entrepreneurs talk about how much they risked to build their startup, I roll my eyes.
Once you've had to to do whatever it takes just to be able to afford to keep a roof over your head, what a lot of people call 'risk' actually doesn't seem risky at all. Would they have ended up sleeping on the streets if it didn't work out? It doesn't seem like it.
I understand now that difficulty and hardship are highly subjective. Probably some people would look at my experience and think that I had it easy.
I wonder if it would be just ok in a warm place with near zero crime rate.
* food & water
* access to shower
* laundry
* medical care
* dental care
* education
* legal advice / support
* the list goes on...
I eat low and don't feel hungry (although I don't suffer cold which drains energy fast)
I agree that it can be daunting but I think it's not the quantity it's the regularity of supplies.
A bit related too, if you're homeless, cut your hairs. You won't look homeless and you'll need less water :)
This measurement is meaningless without calibrating for how dirty you were to start with. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you were mostly clean and presentable, wearing freshly cleaned clothes daily, only needing to wash off some sweat and skin oils.
A person living rough on the streets will probably be wearing dirty clothes for days or weeks, and constantly be exposed to the elements. The grime accumulates, and unless you've reproduced these conditions in your experiment, your figures are unrealistic.
Some things that increase safety on the street:
Don't take any disrespect off of anyone. Push back or walk away at the first insult. Otherwise, it escalates.
Try to stay clean and look middle class. Short hair and cleanliness can get you mistaken for a tourist. It helps.
Camping in a wooded area is a good thing. Don't sleep too close to housing. They will call the cops.
Try to not be a trouble-maker yourself. The cops are much less likely to hassle you if you are merely dirt poor and sleeping outside somewhere.
Pushing back is a fast way to get arrested. No one questions a cop tackling a "crazy homeless guy" who was having an altercation with a fine, upstanding citizen.
If there is no reward, some work, you can be on your way.
An important concept here is your agency in interactions, dialog.
You do have control of your end of it, and that is a significant contributor to how it all goes. Put simply, there are a lot of options besides righteous indignation. Use them.
Doing that is not taking shit, more like managing it down and away.
Where power differentials are in play, this all matters. Peers, in that sense, allow for more.
These can be life saving when we are vulnerable and lacking resources, friends. Been there in my past. One time, it involved a gun, pointed right at me, loaded.
At that time, my agency, it's implications were never more clear.
The way I see it, being here to talk about it is a nice problem to have. Priorities. Sometimes they end up being really basic.
In my experience, that basic nature, personal agency --what is proper, what may be needed, what that all means, even just seeing the options possible, like all of them, or more than expected, is hard for people who have not had these kinds of experiences.
It's something I do a lot of. What you want is to avoid standing idly by while people slippery slope you into something super bad.
There was an incident at a library in Fresno where someone working for services sent their people to come "help" us and they were horribly disrespectful and I refused to answer their questions and called them on their rudeness. They went and complained to the librarians who basically sent them away.
After that, all library staff were vastly nicer to us.
Push back doesn't mean calling them names. It means calling out their socially unacceptable behavior.
I also sometimes refused to give my name to strangers who wanted to help and were inappropriately grilling me for information. I would point out that if I weren't homeless, they would never in a million years think it was okay to walk up to me and start peppering me with invasive questions.
Police regularly steal and destroy homeless folks' belongings in most major cities. Every time a "tent city" is broken up, it means that everything someone owns that they can't carry on their person is being sent to the dump. Any time a homeless person is arrested, even for small infractions or for warrant violations because they couldn't afford to pay a ticket (I know several homeless folks who've gone to jail because they were ticketed for sleeping on public property and then couldn't pay the ~$300 fine), they probably have to start over when they get out...anything of value they had will be gone.
Homelessness could be much less destructive than it is, but people don't want it to be. They want "tough on crime", they want police to "clean up the streets", etc. Most cities, and their police, are actively out to get you on a daily basis if you're homeless. It just adds to the pile of uncertainty and stress that the very poor endure, and it's part of the cycle that keeps people homeless.
If you have a high income at least you can get into AirBnBs or hotels, because they don't do credit checks.
I was running out of money and couldn't find a job as a developer in Moscow due to language barriers (also, developers don't get paid very well over there) - I tried to apply for jobs in London from Moscow but recruiters were ignoring my resume (probably because I was in Russia and didn't have a UK phone number). So I decided to fly to London and rent various AirBnBs (changing every week or so) while desperately applying for jobs and attending interviews. Thankfully my risky strategy worked out in the end and I managed to get a decent job and found an apartment in London.
Also, the prospect of ending up homeless in Russia without speaking the language was much more terrifying than being homeless in London; at least I would know how to beg in English lol. So I had a strong incentive to move even though I knew that my situation would become a race against time.
I never meet anyone from my actual company until 7 months after being hired... So I guess that just seems normal to me...
Isn't that the kind of situation that you can turn up to the Aust consulate and say "Need ticket home!", which they'll generally make happen (for Aust citizens, in actual need).
By the way, Russia is a particularly bad choice. Russians are not permitted to work in London, it's outside of Europe and there is no immigration agreement. The resume won't survive the first pass from HR.
Remember that you're competing against 300 million Europeans who can move to and work in London overnight. You better have a great profile to be worth the hassle. Forget about low level roles and smaller companies.
Let's ignore for a minute that the parent was not Russian. Having a Russian number is a red flag that the candidate may be abroad and not have the right to work in the UK. It's definitely screened out by HR.
London is full of employed Russians so your information is perhaps outdated.
Very basics are still in play, and secure for periods of time. Plans can be made, changed. And the set of options is broader.
Homelessness, coupled with, or rooted in poverty is a much more difficult thing than hopping from hotel to airbnb, etc... is.
Not that I want to marginalize or judge this excellent thread, or anyone sharing.
Not my intent.
Just some clarity to improve relevancy.
A homeless individual is defined in section 330(h)(5)(A) as “an individual who lacks housing (without regard to whether the individual is a member of a family), including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility (e.g., shelters) that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing.” A homeless person is an individual without permanent housing who may live on the streets; stay in a shelter, mission, single room occupancy facilities, abandoned building or vehicle; or in any other unstable or non-permanent situation. [Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C., 254b)]
And even if you weren't you should show more kindness to those that experience hardship - because that's what good people do.
[1] https://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition-homelessness/
Homeless colloquially implies it's involuntary and they want but can't afford a more secure place to sleep.
I've technically lived homelessly many times, often while employed, commuting from beautiful campgrounds w/showers in off-seasons or nice hotels.
I know rich people who live entirely out of hotels and airbnb's who are technically homeless. There's a literal meaning to homeless and a figurative one, most people are using the latter.
Rough sleeping is not the only situation that qualifies as homeless. A home is about more than a literal roof over your head.
For one thing, sometimes they bring up good points that legitimately need to be addressed, even if they aren't brought up in a very nice manner. I do my best to focus on replying constructively, though, granted, it can be hard to figure out where to draw that line and sometimes the framing of a remark makes it hard to reply without sounding defensive or something.
For another, if I take a hard policy of "ignoring the haters," then someone not being "nice enough" has committed an unspeakable crime, so to speak. My experience suggests this creates more problems than it solves. It is a form of shunning and I don't really want to do that. It works better to be willing to talk to people who are engaging me about the issues, even if it isn't always sweetness and light.
I continue to try to figure out how to do that in a way that furthers constructive discussion of the issues and without making it overly much about me, but sometimes that isn't obvious to other people. Sometimes people think I am upset and taking it personally when I'm not. I'm just trying to make a larger point and using this detail as an example to further that goal.
I don't know a solution for that. Maybe, someday, I will have everything figured out. But today is not that day. For now, I will continue to muddle forward as best I can, however imperfectly.
Have a great day.
When I am out of money I am done. Come take what you want.
Don't spend what you don't have. Ever.
If there is something of yours that I want, it has monetary value, and thus you are not actually out of money until everything that we could possibly want is gone.
Just sayin'.
Also I am curious; I read often about the US (I presume you are from there, apologies if not) that people say what you say 'have to live on the streets if it didn't work out'; don't you have friends and family? Friends and/or family would take us in or provide a house until we get out of the hole; don't you have people like that? I read a lot in the news (but news is not very accurate these days) that for instance 60% of Americans couldn't get $1000 in an emergency; I wonder if this is some group where everyone is completely broke or if it's just sensational press.
The first employer that got me off the streets I didn't tell I was homeless. I worked for them for a month crashing out in friends' couches until I could move into a tiny apartment walking distance from the job.
(there's levels of homeless. I only spent weeks on the streets themselves and about a year living out of an old beater car I could keep functional)
I don't really have anything to add, other than try to work other stuff. Unless you live somewhere ridiculously expensive (like - oh - my last city of Vancouver BC) - you'll probably be able to drag yourself out with even a minimum wage warehouse job or the like, and get yourself set for going back into main career.
My favourite warehouse job I worked for a year. Every day saying how great my vacation was going ;) (half of that was living in a car. But I made it)
Next I would suggest you stop looking for remote jobs and temporary gigs. Those things are only useful when you already have roof over your head and food to eat. Based on maslow hierarchy of needs, your number one focus should be to get roof/food etc. I see you are creating side projects but I would ask you to focus on getting a full time job which can give you reliable salary. This may require mind shift but its not written in stone.
Third thing I would say is that past is gone. Its literally gone, it only exist now in your memory so hopefully you can let go and create path forward. Seems like you are already step ahead because you are taking responsibility for all that has happened. I would also suggest you try to change your environment and get to a bigger city where you can find more jobs and some better city resources.
Good luck
Now, some harsh advice: You are being completely unrealistic in your expectation of a remote position while you live in rural Iowa.
Problem 1: Where you are located
_____________________
Get out of Iowa. Seriously. The tech-hub effect is real and Iowa has very few job opportunities for programmers. Source: I grew up in rural Iowa and I know how to use Linkedin.
All of the places I've chosen to live in my life have been VERY foot-traffic friendly. Examples of such cities: Denver. Chicago. Portland, Or. San Francisco. Austin. Columbus. Kansas City, MO. Minneapolis. Somewhere you can walk and live without having a car. Places that have companies hiring programmers. You can save a ton of money by not having a car and just using public transit and walking.
Problem 2: Transportation:
___________________________
I have NEVER owned a car. I lived in Chicago for 10 years. I took public transit or biked. Saved me thousands of dollars over the years. Why do you want to spend $300/mo on car payments for an asset that is constantly deprecating and has poor resale value while you are struggling to keep a roof over your head?
Problem 3: The Remote Position
____________________
Some harsh advice on this remote position notion: You need to look for another job while learning coding on the side if you want to stick to your guns as a remote developer. I'll enumerate the reasons below:
1. Nobody wants to take a chance on an unproven 20-something programmer for a remote position. Remote positions tend to be for people with a proven track record.
2. Your Linkedin is not filled out enough to compete for remote positions. You don't seem to have had any real programming positions for an extended period of time. You should be going for entry level positions currently.
3. You have no formal education, which can often be substituted for actual work experience. Google touts that they hire TONS of people with no formal degree. Almost 15% (on certain teams)! Yep, degrees don't matter if you're willing to roll the dice on being part of that lucky ( Or extremely brilliant ) 15%!
4. Remote positions are still relatively rare. By limiting yourself to remote positions you are excluding yourself from most possible jobs.
Edit: On the list of great cities to move to, Des Moines is also a viable option.
I didn't think about this before, but that looks a really good observation. Hiring someone working remotely means it's harder to track their performance and productivity. So you will need some credentials to prove that you have the discipline to work remotely.
Being poor rather than middle class put them about a decade behind on the tech curve.
To me it looks like a lot of hobbyists here started their dabblings with QB until web development (read: PHP) took over.
But I agree QB was surprisingly long-lived, this 80s era tool probably lasted as long as Windows 98 (i.e. till XP became the "default" windows version).
https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/
Being homeless is HARD and does not make it any easier to address any of your other problems.
We should all be telling our elected officials we want a "housing first" approach.
It had an interesting description of various strategies used.
I think he lived in Hawaii and would eat "free" Burger King by rummaging through the trash during a sweepstakes and finding the coupons for free food.
He also rented a small storage unit to keep his possessions (including a laptop), and had a gym membership for showering.
Anybody else come across this?
One root motivation is just wanting to be lean. Needing to generate X per month can be something people do not want to do. Or cannot do.
If high expectations are not set, what remains can be met.
Meeting low expectations is definitely a choice.
I have a couple of probing questions, and I mean no offense, just to provoke thought:
1) What good is atheism as a worldview if it prevents you from communicating, and even receiving help you desperately need?
2) Why would a recruiter or potential employer care about your past, living arrangements, or financial troubles?
You sound like a smart, driven guy, but I think you're letting your situation and your beliefs cripple your potential right now. You don't have to _change_ those things, they're real, but you might want to limit who you share them with, or in what context, especially until you can find the help you need.
Wishing you the best!
The advice I would offer is self love and hustle. Anytime you hear that voice saying you fucked up, acknowledge it and let it go. Today is a new day full of opportunity. Have you tried grabbing gigs on Upwork or Freelancer? If you've got the chops, most gigs would pay well enough to get you rent in Iowa pretty quick. Keep your chin up, and keep hacking!
I looked at the GitHub expecting to genuinely find actual examples of really bad code due to your statement, but that is not what I found, mostly I found a pretty empty GitHub, which is not too interesting, I know lots of perfectly good coders with empty GitHubs or no GitHubs at all.
> maybe would've left the GitHub link out, it doesn't add anything (positive) to the story
That is another matter, unrelated to you saying they "never learned to code" without, what it looks like, any evidence.
Someone's GitHub presence isn't necessarily a good judge of their skill as a developer, nor how much experience they've had in general.
IMO this is the work of someone who could become a great asset to any software development team.
[1]: https://github.com/jessehorne/life
Reading this whole thread, I really don't get it. This guy has to have fucked up a lot to get to this point, and noen of those details were evaluated in the article.
My own grandmother is a hardcore christian, and I am an "atheist". At no point in my life have I ever burned so many bridges as to not be able to stay with her if things got bad enough. It reads like the childish mind of some edgy early 2000s 15 year old trying to rationalize why their family is pissed at them.
I read through this whole thing and all I could think of was that this guy is absolutely pathetic for wasting so many opportunities. Sometimes you just deserve the shit you get.
He seems to have, uhhhh..., burned every bridge he ever had; yet, apparently has absolutely no idea what he's doing to turn everyone else away! Don't want to be too harsh, but that's what is written between the lines. He desperately needs social skills.
All the best from hopefully a future colleague
I could have easily been homeless during the 2 years after I graduated, but thanks to the social welfare system, I was taken care of as a job seeker.
I'm now interested in something I call self startup ideas, which is currently making games for (mostly) mobile that might take off. This is only a hobby I allocate a couple of hours a day to though. Otherwise I'm doing unskilled labour for minimal wage.
I've had mixed feelings about my experience as a web developer. It was something I had so much passion for (even before I went to study it), but now I'm kind of glad I've walked away, as it has been a source of so much toxicity in my life recently. Kind of like kicking a really bad habit.
- https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/how-would-you-make-an-ext..., most interesting I found the "teach chinese kids english"
- Small freelance gigs, as a native english speaker you have distinct advantage - https://www.upwork.com/, https://www.fiverr.com/
- Probably not an option because of initial costs but there is a huge shortage for developers in Europe, especially CEE where costs are low and wages growing fast. Even call centers would gladly pay $1000+/month just for your english.
- Drop me a line (email in profile). I don't have anything right now but sometimes I'm looking for some help for side projects.
Good luck!
There's a guy in his 40s on freenode/#SDL who is constantly ranting about being unable to find work because he was involved in some gang stuff in his youth giving him a criminal record.
I want to recommend two books for you to read. One is about developing your monetary power. The other is about developing your career capital.
"Early Retirement Extreme" by Jacob Lund Fisker.
"So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport.
You might be homeless right now because you haven't been protecting your personal power. The personal power to command a good salary. The personal power of having money in the bank.
You might have been giving away your power and depending on other people. Try to watch out for that.
The more you build your career capital, and the more you build your bank capital, the more free you'll be.
Imagine having money in the bank that lets you walk away from a shitty job. Imagine having the savings that lets you take a few months to find a new & better job.
We know you have skills. Your linkedin profile could be improved, some more detail on what you did at each job, and include some of your portfolio in there.
You can find work on upwork.com or other sites. Setup a profile on there, set your hourly rate at $20/hr, and start from there. On your profile, highlight the fact that you're in Iowa and fluent in english.
I know it’s really common but it still shocks me when charities make receiving support contingent on believing whatever they happen to believe.
FWIW, I can't think of any other country this is possible in besides the USA.
Than with a small flat, internet and a computer you have enough to try again a career in it.
"My interest in computers and programming was more like an intense obsession. It affected my ability to focus at school." <- this makes no sense. To me, programming is an exercise in formulating a plan, executing the plan, and verifying the outcome. Every step requires focus. How do you "study" and "program" without being able to focus?
"Undiagnosed mental-health problems led to some fairly poor decisions." <- what health problems? what decisions?
"Relationship issues for a now twenty year old developer proved to be too much. Emotionally I was devastated when that relationship ended. It affected me and I had no one to help me through the emotional stresses of the situation. It affected my work. It affected my activism." <- Every sentence here is interesting. If he went into detail and wrote about this, it would fit the title and it would grab my attention.
It makes perfect sense; an obsession makes it easy for you to focus on the subject of obsession, and hard to focus on other things. As school likely mainly consisted of things other than programming, an obsession with programming would naturally adversely impact overall focus at school.
For example, It doesn't sound like you have ADHD. A classic symptom of ADHD is the ability to hyper-focus on one thing, to the exclusion of anything else. Such as being stuck so deep into a book or project that you'd barely notice if the building was burning down. Any sort of school/life balance would be extremely difficult to achieve.
This I get. One of the hardest mental blocks that I had to get around was thinking that it would be deeply embarrassing and triggering if I talked about my decisions and experiences. That I would be "found out" and "be exposed as a fraud".
It is quite the opposite. Talking about your experiences is extremely liberating. You can be who you are, you don't have to make anything up to fill in the gaps, and it is just in general much easier than worrying about conforming to some expectation. AND you will be much more interesting, because you have lessons to pass on that somebody else may find valuable and apply to their own lives.
I would caution you not to. What goes on the internet stays there forever. Google will fight your right to be forgotten. Real names are a great way to attract batty twitter haters who want to ruin your life due to some perceived slight from reading your stories. You can easily go from pity story of the day to "ZOMG I hope you never get a job and die in the streets" in just a few words on this board. Be wary.
Don't you think you should probably stop your activism? It isn't good for you and you're in no position to advocate for anyone.
Because when it's time to study biology, all one thinks about is how to distribute units of work across GPUs for that thing they're working on. Kind of like the two pit bull terriers I have at home. Oh, they can focus like a motherfucker. Too bad that when they're focused on a squirrel they have no bandwidth left for my commands.
Have you thought about this deeply? Seems like perhaps the experience of being kicked out by grandma because of your atheism has perhaps poisoned religion to you to the extent that now you're so headstrong about denying it that you are missing a huge opportunity to get some stability by simply nodding your head and saying what they want to hear at that shelter. Might be worth sacrificing your principles temporarily to find a place to stay. If you can't do that, try finding a church that will you help you if you agree to at least hear them out - maybe you don't need to profess faith but they'll at least accept you listening to their beliefs (even if deep inside you know nothing they say or do can change your mind, letting them feel that possibility and try might be enough for them to shelter you).
The truth is that small towns are probably one of the worst and best places to be homeless, but a lot of that 'best' comes from churches. So if you're going to lock yourself out from their help, you probably would be better off street begging or something in SF or NYC or some larger city with government assistance for homeless and staying in a non-religious shelter there. Because small towns don't have that government infrastructure, but they do have churches with foodbanks and religious families looking to get someone back on their feet if they can feel that they've turned that person into a Christian.
If you're so passionate about secularism - you could lie about believing, live at that shelter, get your life together, and in 10 years use the income and resources you have then to advocate for secularism or atheism.
My other piece of feedback is remove the secret keys from your GH account (I saw some on your IRC bot), you may be missing out on lots of potential work because that's a huge security flaw (or some other word greater than flaw) - no company will want you to work for them if they think you could expose secrets to the world wide web.
Last - try to do less experimentation with code and more experimentation with your job application process.
If you are repeatedly starting phone screens with your story about needing a car and it isn't working, try something different. You're not going to find many articles on the web telling you to lie about yourself, your history, your reasons for resume gaps, or your home situation. But most people aren't as desperate as you are. Maybe get creative with the truth and sell yourself as something you aren't.
Have you considered just making up an address or choosing a random house address when you put down your place of residence on an application?
Not that I think it's morally acceptable for faith-funded charities to turn away some people based on their lack of faith, but:
a) Individuals acting on their own founded and run the organization. It would be a violation of several important rights (theirs) for a government to regulate how they choose to run their charity, or whom they choose to help.
b) I have a hunch that a lot of these anecdotes attribute discrimination incorrectly -- i.e. I suspect the person in question was more than "not a believer". People who get turned away because they're chronically abusing the system (or for similar reasons) tend to infer malice where there is none, and level accusations accordingly.
That being said, I strongly disagree with any open-to-the-public charitable organization discriminating on the basis of religion or any other categorization, beyond the "this person is abusing the system and we don't want to hurt them further by continuing to enable this destructive pattern in their life -- so we can't provide further X to them until they do Y and Z".
They formed a charity to get the tax relief from that same government. With that relaxation on taxation comes a restriction on activity.
Not at all. They formed a charity because they wanted to make a positive difference in the world.
That US law originally recognizes charities, churches, and other non-profits as tax-exempt is a a recognition of the solid, positive contribution to society that such organizations make. Their tax-exempt status was originally granted as such, and not with any idea of using it to stipulate how they should do things.
So I strongly disagree that tax-exempt status somehow grants the government authority over an organization's affairs. It would be better to revoke all organizational tax exemptions than to begin to use it as such leverage.
...Is a false statement. It doesn't “originally recognize” any such thing.
It permits charities, including churches and some other non-profits with specific functions, to voluntarily apply for status that includes tax exemption, a public subsidy via tax deductibility of donations, and a wide variety of restrictions on behavior.
Nope. They formed a charity to help people.
No, it wouldn't, especially if they want the tax subsidy of being a 501(c)3 charity; they aren't merely tax exempt, but donations to them are tax deductible. That's an outright public subsidy: the government literally is paying people (and paying rich people more) for every dollar they donate.
Government subsidies come with government restrictions.
You can have a lot more freedom if you choose not to drain the public treasury, and even more freedom if you also don't choose the liability shield associated with the corporate form (which also comes with favorable tax treatment, in some regards.) And even more if all the work is done by partners in the effort committed to the cause for its own sake, and not as wage labor.
But, yeah, volunteering for optional, preferential government status and engaging in the employment market subjects you to government rules associated with those things
Hey Jesse, pick up a solar panel. You can get waterproof two usb port that'll crank out 20-30 watts ~$50. I'd recommend an ARM laptop too. They're cheaper and Intel is generally too power hungry anyway. A Samsung Chromebook Plus used on swappa would be really nice. It has a really bright display so you can still see it outdoors in the sun. For data, T-Mo is unlimited for $30/mo pre-paid.
Put your panel in the sun, sit in the shade at a park, tether your phone for internet, and you're golden. You can strap the panel to your backpack and charge on the move too.
https://www.amazon.com/SOKOO-Portable-Efficiency-Reinforced-...
https://www.amazon.com/Foldable-Waterproof-Efficiency-Cellph...
https://www.amazon.com/Balight-Outdoor-Foldable-Powered-Char...
28W basically gives you an fourth panel, but your backpack is probably 3 panels tall.
If you want a decent portable solar panel, get the non-flexible monocrystalline one.
I like the flexible one because it's lightweight and not easy to break. I'd be open to other options though if you have suggestions.