Homeless population doubles in Mountain View
mv-voice.com
mv-voice.com
Slight tangent, but when I walk down the street at night I see car after empty car and think, why can't it also be a bed? If all of the seats could fold down flat and the car's engine could idle in a fuel efficient way, providing heating/cooling/climate control, it'd be a comfortable double bed. If the windows could have opaque blinds that slide over the windows when the car is set to camp mode for privacy and additional security from delinquents.
It just seems like a wasted opportunity not to make cars that can become a bed when they're using all of this space already - it could reduce drink driving, make staying closer to work easier, provide shelter for people low on funds etc. Perhaps with the advent of driverless cars we could have this and be delivered to our destination upon getting out of bed. Perhaps a family of vehicles, one for each family member, could cart each individual to their destinations, pick them up, then at the end of the day merge the vehicles together to transform into the family home.
Living in a car (when it's obvioua) is unfortunately an invitation for continual police harassment. Been there, done that. Police in Mountain View bang on car windows if you were to sleep in any of the downtown municipal parking lots OR even on private property. They have zero tolerance for poor people and show no compassion whatsoever. There is even this one female officer whom enjoys Schadenfreude to such a degree that it is well past hubris; (she will tow your car even if it's on private property.)
Better to live in a car or van where it's not obvious, (tint, curtains, etc.) because the junked-up cars and people obviously sleeping draw the most attention.
Also, ask me anything.
PS: During the day, it's impossible to tell that I live in my vehicle because it's very clean and everything's put away.
I already did that several times in the past because I was seriously drunken.
Edit: Also as a follow up question on your further writing:
How do you handle very high or low temperature in a car? First I thought it's not a problem due to ACs, but as you pointed out that you've to hide your presence I can't really see that working. Very interesting post!
But it's part of larger issue of subtle, shameful discrimination based on economics and status akin but different how African Americans were treated in the 1950's South. The homeless and poor need a Civil Rights movement. Even if it won't change attitudes of snobs and bigots, there is room for additional protections and tighter limits on police harassment. (There should be federal protections to providing food for the poor because it is illegal to feed the homeless in parts of Florida. In other parts of Florida, it is also illegal to use blankets or any other materials to protect yourself from the elements. Basically, these laws make it illegal for some people to be alive, and those types of laws have no place in America.)
For example, if homeless folks cannot procreate without having sex in public locations, such as behind a bush in a public park, and we accept that banning procreation is unjust, does banning public sexual acts count as an unjust law?
It would be different, for say two shabby-looking folks going at it in Venice, CA in front of a street during the daytime. But a hot couple, at night, in some remote location in a safe area isn't going to raise eyebrows, especially if no one notices. It just goes to show there are layers of socioeconomic biases, plus not all homeless people are given feedback, care or are aware of what's considered acceptable by others.
Perhaps the core issue is should necessary biological functions (and common, strongly desired needs that others are able to fulfill) be disproportionally criminalized based on socioeconomic and other biases? (For most men, sex is a strong motivating drive... which is why the Netherlands includes it in public benefits.). There might be a "time and a place," but people whom have nothing need equal access to water, food, sanitation and whatever else can be afforded to make their lives a little more comfortable. (A society is judged on how it treats...)
There are a couple of these jackasses living in vans whom live like animals, get high and generally make things harder for everyone else, but they don't last long. They're in a minority because the majority are retired guys. There are some retired gals, some younger mostly guys but very few female vehicle dwellers generally.
When it was cooler out I would lay my back seat down and roll out the sleeping pad and sleeping bag and stretch out like that, but it's too hot and humid for that now (south east US).
I'm looking to move to the bay area, are walmarts accepting of overnight sleepers there? Do you use church parking lots at all?
[0] http://www.designboom.com/design/cornelius-comanns-bufalino/ TukTuk Camper!
http://peugeot403arg.blogspot.ae/
Loved that car, but the engine and especially the cooling system struggled in California. The other problem was that the car seat rails were built for lighter Europeans. I was all the time bending the seat rails.
It doesn't relate to any legal or moral value like obligations, entitlements, transitory requirements or some perceived rightfulness of the intent.
It's just the observable ambition of an entity (persons, companies, other structures that produce agency) to gain a good or service.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hotel-22-the-dark-side-of-sil...
One major problem with living in a car is the lack of a toilet.
But honestly, the problem of homelessness is more closely tied to high housing prices, which in the US is associated with the liberal urban areas. The same liberal urban areas that otherwise pride themselves on being "progressive" are just pricing people out of houses by not building enough housing and "maintaining the character of the neighborhood."
Indeed, I don't believe in hand-outs, but some investment would be welcome. You can only walk by people shitting in the street or laying face-down on the sidewalk so long before wanting to kill.
There's one homeless guy with a long beard who's been panhandling on University Avenue since at least the 1990s.