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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

There is a spectrum of choice when it comes to homelessness. One extreme are those with severe mental and physical disabilities and the other is... https://vanlifecustoms.com/vans

There are quite a few people who actively aspire to live in vans on the streets of the bay area. There are more who are on the end of having other options (but don't want to, say, have a connivance store job in a small midwest town) but don't take them for whatever reason. If you had a few resources, wouldn't you rather try to make your way to live in SF instead of NY, especially in January?

Being young makes it more likely that the lifestyle is a choice and when it isn't, being young makes it easier to migrate to the best possible place to be homeless.

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We can debate about definitions, but I wouldn't call people living out of expensive, customized vans homeless.

Those people still have a roof over their heads. They just don't have a mailing address.

EDIT: I stand corrected. Apparently, San Francisco does count those among the homeless.

> The number of people living in cars and campers grew — a big part of the reason the number of unsheltered people increased, the city said.

A lot of those, I expect the vast majority of them, are in a regular 4 door sedan, or a shitty old camper that barely runs. People living in cars, on a friends couch, etc, all count as homeless.

The streets in the peninsula are lined with campers and vans in varying levels of decay, but mostly functional if a bit unclean.

I've been thinking about doing a dashcam of 10 miles of El Camino Real to show the extent to people unfamiliar.

I'd love to see that. When a video surfaced a few years back, of the Santa Ana riverbed behind the Big A in Anaheim, it was much easier to share the video with family and friends who were unfamiliar than it was to try to explain what I was seeing (I stopped into that particular tent city a couple of times searching for an ill family member who contends with bouts of homelessness).

In San Jose there are/were several on ramps to 280 and 101 lined with tents where people lived last time I was in the neighborhood. It's kind of mind-blowing the first time you see people living like that here.

Really that many vans? 10 miles?

I thought it’s anecdotal

Yes it's really that many. The vans and campers tend to move around to different areas as the police crack down on illegal long-term parking in particular spots.

It is not 10 miles bumper to bumper, but in that 10 miles you will see very many apparent vehicle residences.

Not sure what you're saying, sounds like you're agreeing that they aren't living in "expensive, customized vans"?

The cities that have to manage the people living on their streets in vans (usually much less fancy) can't treat them as anything but homeless.

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