Ask HN: Have any of you become homeless? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have any of you become homeless?

13 pointsthatxliner11 comments

If so, how was it like? What happened?

I was homeless for about 8 months as a teenager (18) after leaving home under contentious conditions with my parents. I ended up hiking up the mountain and finding an off trail and secluded location to pitch a tent and build a fire ring and set up for long term camping. I built a primitive but mostly adequate setup for living. Baths were a nightmare because the river was freezing and rapid, but other than that I got into good routines. Later on I was fortunate enough to have a girlfriend who I could stay with on occasion and get hot showers.

I eventually joined the US military and got out of my hole, and I now have some fond memories of that time thanks to the power of nostalgia. Now it feels like life was a lot simpler then, and it was. I also got in the greatest shape of my life because I had to hike 3 steep miles, often with a heavy backpack, in and out twice a day (sometimes more).

Not going to lie. That sounds awesome and was not the vision of homelessness the title prompted in me.

Not OP, but it sucks in the moment, but brings fond memories later in life. I have a lot of these "sucked at the time/fond now" memories with regard to living in the woods and serving in the military.

If you reach one of these forks in the road, pick the route that sucks. Bonus: it makes you more resilient.

Yeah, type 2 fun is the best. It's just risky because it can very quickly turn into type 3.

yup on and off since nov 22 with no reasonable end in sight. got hacked, identity stolen, almost died twice. no meaningful support most outreach folk are invested in referrals or perscribing medicine after one meeting

all city territories have kind of been divvied up so you never know whose area you are in people try to start fights for dumb reasons. horrible family no friends no resources

got a lil money saved up in case things take a turn for the worse so I can euthanize myself but we'll see odds are not looking good but considering the family I come from not unexpected just working on accepting

my mistakes I can acknowledge and accept which gives a little bit of closure the hardest part for me has been realizing the people i called family and friends kind of set this up and just dealing with the dissonance of it all and the sudden lonliness.

Not yet. I try to remind myself whenever I see a homeless person that I could be in their shoes easily with just a few badly timed unfortunate events.

I was homeless for a few months in my first year of university when I was 18 years old. It was mostly self-inflicted, though I think my life circumstances sort of led up to it.

I had been keen to leave home because I had had a few traumatic things happen in my late teenage years, but also, my mums boyfriend at the time was an islamic dude that was obsessed with virgins and always used to harass me, asking me all the time if I was still a virgin, and some other stuff happened and I just needed to be away from him. So I did my best to get into university, and I managed to get accepted to one and get accepted into a hall of residence. I came from a pretty poor background, my mum, and my grandmother scraped together the money to pay for the first half of the year for my accommodation, and then I was supposed to save my student loan payments that were intended to cover living costs in order to pay the second half of the years accommodation cost for the hall of residence which were due to be paid by August or something. However, as a person who came from a poor background, the concept of saving money was something I hadn't really learned before or ever even tried to do, and also, getting a payment into my bank account was a novelty, i'd never really had money before, so the novelty of having money, combined with my diagnosed but untreated ADHD meant that instead of saving for my accommodation fee's I spent my money on food, alcohol, clothing and other pointless shit. Roll around August, I had no money to pay my accommodation fee's and my family had no money either. So I was evicted. I wasn't really honest with my family about it either, and told them that I had chosen to move out and go flatting with friends, but I actually just had no fixed abode.

As an 18 year old, I was surprisingly unphased by my circumstances, looking back, I was pretty stoic about it, which is surprising given how melodramatic I could be about select things. From about August until December, I basically managed my situation by staying at various friends houses just for a night, sleeping on couches and floors, and also occasionally just staying up late, roaming the city streets through the night, and then sleeping in my university library during the day. Sometimes I'd use the small amount of money I had, to catch a train to the city my family lived to visit, but I didn't want to stay with my mother because I hated her boyfriend. I lost a lot of weight in those months of homelessness due to all the walking and the limited food intake.

After the university term was ended, I went back home just for 6 weeks as most of my friends who i'd try to couch surf at had left town, in that time, I managed to find a flat to actually live in, but it turned out to be a home owned by a dodgy man who was addicted to meth, who was giving quite a few girls cheap rent, for sexual favours, but we didnt all even have our own bedrooms, and I was one that didn't have a bedroom and instead lived in a weird hallway space where people would pass through. I didn't want to go down that road for sex in exchange for rent, so I ended up quickly moving into a "boarding house" which actually turned out to be full of people who had come from either the psychiatric hospital across the road, or they were on probation, having recently been released from prison and their probation office was about a 5 minute walk down the road. Most nights there were violent fights, one of the mental health patients decided to jump off the roof one night feet first, and he broke all the bones in both legs. There was a stabbing one day, and a lot of abuse of drugs, both prescription medications, and other illicit substances. My favourite tenant by far was a man who had been born with hydrocephaly. He was odd, and a bit intellectually impaired but he was endlessly positive and strangely insightful. Another memorable tenant was a man who had schizophrenia, who was non-compliant with his medication, I'd sometimes be just high, from smoking weed, and him and I would have the weirdest, most incomprehensible conversations.. For about a year, I just bounced around different accommodations like that, so not as homeless as I had been when I first got evicted from uni, but I also didn't really have a home. I also failed university, and was unemployed. By the time I was 20 I had an unplanned baby to a guy I met in the first boarding house, who had been there on probation. Eventually when my baby was 1, I was asingle mother with no money to pay rent so the government put me and my baby into social housing. It took 14 years for me to get out of social housing.

Now days, my lifes much different and I think most people would have absolutely no clue of the background I came from as I live a mostly standard life. But then sometimes, when I stop and actually think about where I actually started in life, I sometimes think I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I ended up going back to University, getting multiple degree's, and eventually getting myself onto a six figure salary. I still don't own a home yet, but I'm super close to finally making it. I think my accidental baby will actually be a grown up by the time I actually achieve that goal, but I think that's just sometimes the cards we draw in life. I didn't have a very privileged background to start life at all, and I can definitely see how it is easy for people to fall into poverty, homelessness, unemployment, addiction etc. What people don't really talk much about is how hard it is to break that cycle. It's so hard.

That's quite a story, Quinzel. I'm glad you're in a better place now, and I wish you all the best for you and your child.

Have you thought of mentoring or speaking to young people from a background similar to yourself? I think hearing your story will help them realise that making a better life for themselves is not beyond them.

Thanks for your comment. I haven’t really considered it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I don’t think my story is remarkable enough, and nor do I have a platform to really do that and have any solid impact. Secondly, I think my overall outcome still hinged largely upon luck, rather than hard work alone. Yes I had to work hard to get my degree’s and get through the training for my job, but some of it was still lucky. For example, the social housing I was placed in was in a very affluent community where people drove BMW’s, Merc’s and Porsches, all owned their own nice homes and were lawyers, doctors, accountants and IT professionals, and diplomats, and where I was there were only a few social houses in the neighbourhood rather than being in a neighbourhood that was all social housing with a litany of social issues. So the people I was surrounded by were affluent, crime was low, the people I interacted with were not plagued by social issues and that became my new frame of reference for what a normal life is, and what people aspire to achieve. So by luck, I was moved into a different social context and environment that encouraged more pro social and socially acceptable ways of living. Secondly, I was lucky with my job, I just happened to have studied a degree that was relevant, for a position that was one of the last few in the medical field that did apprenticeship style training which was paid for by the government rather than me having to pay for it. By having a degree I had a slight advantaged over other people (my hard work paying off), I cut my training time in half and was guaranteed a job at the end. That doesn’t happen anymore, you have to have a degree and pay for all your training yourself. Thats how timing and luck played a part. I also think, perhaps I was lucky to be born with a slightly higher than average IQ as well and it all culminated in me being able to experience a slightly upward shift in social status. I don’t think it’s inspirational and motivational at all.

I think you do yourself a disservice. Luck always plays a part but for this piece:

>> So the people I was surrounded by were affluent, crime was low, the people I interacted with were not plagued by social issues and that became my new frame of reference for what a normal life is, and what people aspire to achieve.

You can be that new frame of reference for people from less fortunate backgrounds. "I was once like you, but by luck I got moved to an affluent area and this is what I learnt..."

Maybe in 10 years time somebody will be telling their colleagues how lucky they were to hear your story :-)

And yes, IQ is a factor as well, but not everyone can be a brain surgeon or a CEO but a lot of people can aim a bit higher and raise their expectations for what "people like them" can achieve.

I started a group at my employer to help people from lower socio-economic backgrounds get into my industry, and it has honestly been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. My upbringing wasn't as disordered as yours, but I grew up on state benefits and was the first person in my family to go to university.

Here's a secret you don't often hear;

Luck plays a part in everyone's story.

"Luck" of course being defined as right place, right time etc.

But "luck" is happening all the time, to everyone. What really matters of course is how you react to the opportunity.

In your case, at some point, you were lucky enough to get back into college. But ultimately that means nothing. What matters is how uou grasped that opportunity.

I would encourage you to tell your story. Perhaps reach out to social workers you met along the way.

The goal is not to tell people how lucky you were. Or to provide them a blue-print for life. But rather to say that opportunities happen - but recognizing them is important, responding to them is important.

You can't control the Luck. But you can control what you do with it.

I found your story inspiring. Not that it was "special" but because every person has a unique story to tell, and because it shows that you forged a path "making your own luck".

In other words, yes life happens around us. Yes life is unfair I all respects all the time. My journey is not your journey. But ultimately we still control much of the path. We can choose to move forward. We can set goals and work towards them. We can seek out new opportunities.

So yes, I think your story is inspiring. Not necessarily to everyone. But if there's one person who needs to hear it, to give them hope for the future, it's worth telling.

Now, isn't that person lucky I was here to write thus comment to you today? :)

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