2017: A Homeless Odyssey

Modern life is essentially comprised of a series of boxes and keys. For each box, a key.

Each key on a keychain represents an obligation to a box. The key to a car, gym, or workplace all grant access to a box. The more boxes, the more keys. When you’re homeless, the biggest key comes off: your home.

For normal people, they wake up in their home box, rev up their moving box, drive to their work box. When they get home, they check their mail box. If they have extra time before or after work box, they stop by the workout box.

Boxes.

I became homeless this past year. It was a tough day taking off that one key that lead into a box with a bed, toilet, shower, stove, and refrigerator. It happened after I lost my job. The closest job opportunity was in New England. I packed up my car, turned in the key to my home box and headed East.

When you’re homeless, the number of boxes doesn’t change. You need the same basic things. The key is to find a way to find a new box to fulfill a need.

Part 1: The Job

aka “Scent of a Paycheck”

The job is located in an area of the Northeast associated with a very high cost of living. Apartments typically start at $1,200 and go up from there. Occasionally, there’s a shady $900 studio available. Home prices hover around $255,000. The position pays $45,000 a year with decent benefits. I told myself the job is somewhat stable. But, really, I was out of options.

My starting assets: a working vehicle, personal effects, $500 in savings, $500 in checking.

Faced with an uncertain living situation, I crunched the numbers.

After deductions from that first month’s pay, I expected to get $2,600. With the average single room apartment requiring $950/month plus a whole month’s security deposit and a $40 background check, I would need $1,940 to move into a place. This wouldn’t include electricity or anything else — just a roof and a cold shower.

If I spent absolutely no money on food, water, gas, or bills, I could come up with that amount in a single month. Even with my $500 in emergency savings, I knew that wasn’t likely.

I searched craigslist in the shared housing section. If I could find some accommodation that would work for even a short time, I could avoid homelessness. Most of the rooms for rent wanted 75%-110% of what a one bedroom apartment would cost anyways.

It would take an alarming amount of time to save up enough to move to my own apartment if I was paying to sleep in a bedroom in someone else’s place.

I also had a big strike working against me. Even with no criminal background and okay credit, a lot of people I spoke to just didn’t seem to bite at the opportunity to have me live with them. As Dr. Jordan Peterson, pre-eminent cultural magus once said, ‘it’s not them, it’s you.’

I was the problem.

Part 2: The Basics

aka “Little Ticky Tacky Boxes”

Looking at the stark, cold reality of my economic situation, I decided that there was simply no way I could avoid homelessness. Instead of stressing out, I prepared for the inevitable.

Boxes, right? Life is just a series of boxes.

I looked at my car, crowded with clothes, bags, and camping gear.

As Dr. Jordan Peterson, the pre-eminent contemporary philosopher once said, ‘it all starts with cleaning your room.’

The first thing I did was get a small storage unit. Anything that I didn’t absolutely need to keep in my car, I placed into the unit. The unit cost $89/month but it offered 24-hour access.

Plus one key.

With my non-essential equipment safely stored, I addressed hygiene.

I got a membership to a decent sports club. It offered a lot of amenities but, most importantly, it offered a shower and sauna. Morning shower and shave were covered.

Added bonus: I’m homeless — I have nothing but free time to work out.

Plus another key on the keychain.

My workplace has a decent cafeteria that offers breakfast and lunch. Eating out is expensive. Workplace cafeterias aren’t notoriously cheap, either. Menu items can get pricey but I found I could pay only $2.50 scrambled eggs and bacon and $3.50 for a salad with protein. Two out of three meals of the day could be covered for $6/day. Dinner would be split between a handful of almonds and an apple or whatever dry goods I could get from the local grocery. Those costs could be spread out across weeks rather than days and there was little chance of anything rotting.

I could budget myself under $10/day for food. That’s big.

My day-time stuff is covered. I’m employed. I have a functioning vehicle that I can sleep in. I have a storage unit and a gym. I can eat reasonably well for not much money.

Now comes the hard part: government bureaucracy.

Thankfully, I had a driver’s license when I began this process. The address was wrong but there’s no sense in trying to explain my situation to every government bureaucrat I encounter. I got a post office box at the local USPS. Now I had a point of contact where I could be reached by mail. Most of my important documents were delivered electronically. Really, the PO Box was just for receiving packages if I needed to order something online.

Ah, the last key.

With all my major bases covered, I got ready to bed down for the first night after working a full day and going to the gym.

Part 3: The Night

aka “Dr. Strangesleep: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Night”

There’s no specific stressor score for becoming homeless but I figure in 1967, when Rahe and Holmes came up with their Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory, they were probably more concerned with ranking normal people problems. In 1967, homelessness didn’t make the list.

The average person lives in a home.

I didn’t make the average. I probably didn’t even make the lowest twenty-fifth percentile. Thirty-five years old, no children, and five hundred dollars in savings — where does that fall in the scheme of statistics?

With night setting in, these are the thoughts swirling around in my brain as I look for a parking lot to bed down for the night.

In New England, we’re perpetually surrounded by woods. Outside the cities, there are acres upon acres of wilderness where no one lives. However, as someone with a vehicle, a vehicle has a massively bigger footprint than a lone person sleeping under a tarp. Those woods would be effectively useless to me because the likelihood of discovery — and the pitfalls that holds — greatly outweigh looking for alternate places to sleep.

With a vehicle, options are generally limited to parking lots.

Public parking lots are patrolled and privately owned ones may or may not be. Most are lit and empty by 11pm. Lit and empty are two bad traits when looking for a place to sleep. It makes one lone vehicle stick out like a sore thumb. This is bad for a whole host of reasons.

Police notice. Thieves notice. I want the attention of neither.

There’s also an inherent risk with parking around buildings. Buildings have security cameras. Even if you sleep the night with no one noticing, I could still be recorded and potentially prosecuted. Also bad.

Starting a new job and getting charged for trespassing isn’t on the high list of desirable options. I need that job or everything else falls apart.

After scouring the area, I finally set upon a place: a state senator’s re-election campaign office. There were two other cars spread out sporadically and, with no senatorial elections for another two years, I figured this would work for the night.

The basic rule: Arrive in darkness. Leave in darkness.

I set my phone’s alarm for 4:30 am, wrapped myself up in my sleeping bag, and settled in for the night.

Part 4: The Effect

aka “One Hundred Years of Solitude”

After the first week of being homeless, I noticed the weekends were the hardest to adjust to. People stay out later. They pay more attention to cars in parking lots. They ask more questions.

I am constantly scouting for additional overnight locations. That’s become a regular thing.

Everywhere I go, I keep an eye open for places I could park without anyone paying too much attention. This means getting off the main roads and going down those windy New England side-roads.

Sleep, during the work week, is in short supply. Arriving after 10 pm and leaving at 4:30 am has been wildly successful in terms of not being noticed. The downside is that I fight against fatigue more than anything else. It’s impossible to immediately go to sleep. I end up walking around or doing push-ups or reading my phone until I can go to sleep by, hopefully, 11 pm.

Sometimes I’ll head to the library and find a book. I’ve started and stopped on at least a dozen books so far. I jot down their names for the next weekend. If they’re in, I read them in no particular order. If they’re out, I have others to read.

I ghostwrite articles for popular online websites in my spare time. Sometimes I stay late at my regular job so I can use their internet connection. The extra pay isn’t much but it covers a lot of my superficial expenses. I tell myself that if I get fired from my current job, at least I have a small amount of money to keep going.

At night, sometimes I listen to Dr. Jordan Peterson. Everything is okay. Everything fits into its proper box. Every box has its own key.