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Comment by jinushaun | Hacker News Reader

You ignore the whole part about joining the system. Grand has only been homeless for three years, so I'm sure he vividly remembers the struggle of maintaining a "normal" life—the daily struggle of making enough to pay for food and housing. It's not easy. In a city like New York, it's even harder. These are the chains that bind the non-homeless. We're basically running on a mouse wheel till we die.

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It seems to me that having a bank account is barely "joining the system". We're not talking about having a house, paying taxes or working a regular job. We're just talking about having a bank card that can get money at the ATM. He doesn't even need to put money back in the bank account.

The story looks very suspicious / incomplete because of that. But then again, I'm not in his shoes. Maybe I'd understand if I was.

You need to imagine the personal torment that occurs when a person becomes homeless. It is not a quick process. It takes time, perhaps years of struggle just on the brink before a series of setbacks collapses the person's shallow safety net. During this time, a person will be a shamed, emotional wreak, whose every waking moment is a panic. Now, imagine being in this situation. Not just casually. Really imagine the loss of support from everyone you know, including your family. Now, that prior non-homeless life is a memory of struggle and failure. You can get by here on the streets. You're alive, on the streets, and that is an incredible success in itself. Would you want to return to that non-homeless life that you failed?

> Would you want to return to that non-homeless life that you failed?

You're eating burgers from restaurants from "that life", you're sleeping on a park bench from "that life", you're wearing used tshirts from "that life", you're watching tv at the shelter and the news are about the politics from "that life", you're getting napkins from a shopping mall from "that life" ...

This is why I don't get the bank account thing. It's definitely one foot in "that life", but so are a ton of other things in a homeless person's life (as I picture it).

Have you gotten a bank account without a state issued photo id, a SSN, and a mailing address?

Have you gotten a photo id without a birth certificate?

I have not, but that doesn't seem to be the point of the article, unfortunately.

The article says that this might be complicated because you might need an address, but then it goes on about how it is some kind of mental state of disconnection that prevents this guy from someone realizing the value of the $10k in the bank.

Oh, it's joining the system. It's having your financial activity monitored by the IRS (if just by proxy); the mere act of depositing the $10,000 will be reported thereto and documented for closer inspection (as in "how did a homeless guy suddenly come by a $10,000 deposit?") and require tax reporting (anything over $5,000 gets scrutinized for "drug violations"), which in turn will lead to documented addressing of quarterly payments (may be $0, but prove why). It's having your money held by people you don't trust behind an impersonal machine accessible only by a magic plastic card (which, under the circumstances, is almost as risky to have as the whole amount on hand in cash). Having the card, it's hard to not get sucked into using the card instead of cash (how many here experienced the abrupt realization we haven't carried cash for _months_?), leading to further data-mining by the system; not having instant/quick access to bank software, becomes harder to keep track of how much money one actually has on hand - risking expensive overdraws, which fire all kinds of additional attention from the system. You likely can't open an account without a fixed address (where to send official notices?); finding a sympathetic soul to provide one, now you're chained to that person, each at risk of consequences of the other doing something suspect. Who knows what other legal obligations he faces - the moment he opens the account, someone else may have immediate notification & right to seize the funds (tax delinquency, child support, etc). Further issues abound.

Easier just to have cash. Except that someplace like App Store isn't going to mail you an envelope of cash, they'll want a bank account to deposit in ... and now Leo is dealing with someone else holding his $10,000 and won't give it to him; that alone is enough to crush any faith in the system.

> Who knows what other legal obligations he faces - the moment he opens the account, someone else may have immediate notification & right to seize the funds (tax delinquency, child support, etc).

Yes, and I would have liked to read about this instead of reading about some vague uneasiness concerning banks that this poor guy developed by being homeless for so long.

Then it would turn into a story about how the System is giving no chances to a man who deserves a chance, about the "entry fee" to get back into the System, instead of it being about him feeling awkward about what it would mean to open up a bank account like a non-homeless person.

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