[ExI] Homelessness (was Re: Social right to have a living)

spike spike66 at att.net
Tue Jul 5 15:42:20 UTC 2011


>... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj
Subject: Re: [ExI] Homelessness (was Re: Social right to have a living)

On 27 June 2011 08:51, Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> Depends on why they're homeless.  Some are perfectly well-adjusted 
>> people with jobs who live out of cars because that's all they can afford.

>...The US are a pretty weird culture, where people who cannot afford what
is required to build a hut or the ticket for a shelter may still own a car,
that is a self-moving medium-tech product with some hundred of thousands of
parts requiring maintenance and fuel.--Stefano Vaj

It might seem weird, but once you ponder it, living in a car makes complete
sense.  Some cars make a reasonably good shelter.  At the lower end of the
scale, they are almost free: if they are sufficiently thrashed, no one with
a 9 to 5 wants them, so their only value is for scrap metal, which isn't
much.  Plenty of people will donate cars to the poor ( I have.)  Cars allow
one to go around locally to find spot employment, they qualify as homeless
for those who would carry signs (when they say Homeless, will work for food,
they aren't claiming to be carless as well) they allow the homeless person
to move on every few days or whenever they attract the attention of the
local authorities, no taxes, no water bill, no utility bill, none of the
regular expenses associated with home ownership or rental, which are much
higher than a spot of petrol on occasion.  

Possibly paradoxically, living in a car is likely a safer existence than
occupying a home in a bad neighborhood.

spike








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