Hacker News Reader

Comment by titanomachy | Hacker News Reader

> People living in hotels, temporary trailers (in some places even tiny homes count), living with a friend temporarily, etc are all homeless.

You're right. But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"?

And yeah, the paycheck-to-paycheck stat blows my mind. Somehow the standard American experience has become the latest model iPhone (financed), a new car (financed), a rented home, 4-5 meals out weekly, and almost zero money in the bank. And all this in a country with some of the weakest social security in the developed world. I'm sure the half-trillion dollars spent on advertising every year has something to do with this.

View on HN

> You're right. But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"?

No, but this is also not ideal for many reasons

I have a friend going through this right now, actually. The biggest challenge is that her parents don't live anywhere near a strong job market. So the decision for her is "be homeless in a place where jobs are available" or "have a home but no access to employers"

It's not ideal

I have been applying since March 2020 out of New Orleans and I have come up with nothing (5-6 first round interviews) so I think that this is a much bigger problem than people think.

A phone for internet access is basically mandatory now if you want to work, and depending on where you live so is a car.

I'd be surprised if you had no one around you that didn't have an old android laying around collecting dust. I'm still on an old A52s and it works fine.

i might, but i wouldn't want to rely on something i'm uncertain exists.

A serviceable refurbished Android can be obtained for $50. A new iPhone costs at least $800, which is 100 hours of work at the federal minimum wage.

And a serviceable refurbished iPhone isn't that much more, e.g. https://swappa.com/listings/apple-iphone-se-2nd-gen?carrier=...

ok, but could that mean many people that are assumed to have new devices could actually be using older devices?

Probably. The iPhone users I know mostly replace their phones once every 3 to 5 years, and they don't all buy brand new replacements even then (although some do.)

> But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"?

Depends -- how safe is their parents' home?

That answer can vary, for a lot of reasons.

> Depends

It doesn’t.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com