Last weekend my buddy and I decided we'd try and be homeless for a few days. There was a local festival going on so we figured it would be a good opportunity to give it a try. We came up with some basic rules: No money(at least starting out), no cars(we biked), and no mooching(to like friends, etc). We started at 3 in the afternoon and we biked to the grocery store to get some free samples, grapes, bread, oranges. We even sweet talked the bakery lady to give us some cookies. We then proceeded to head down to the festival only to stalk some lady eating a blooming onion for like 30 minutes. We waited till she left(to like the porta-potty or some isht and snatched that mofo right up. This had to be one of the nastiest blooming onions ever. Not only had the lady just been sitting there for like 30 minutes making it cold, she ate all the good parts! All that was left was the uncooked soggy onions. Needless to say I went to a booth to get some ketchup to try and mask the grossness. We were sitting down eating when the same lady comes back and is just watching us scarf down on this sick-nasty deep-fried POS. She gives us the weirdest "WTF" stare and we burst out laughing and ran away. After another drip to the grocery store we figured we'd try and find some cans or someway of making money. This didn't turn out too well because we couldn't find any. Luckily on our bike rides I found two, half full Pepsi's. Chug chug. It started getting late so we were just chilling and talking to friends cause we figured it would be impossible to fall asleep outside. We didn't want to invade on real homeless people's turf a.k.a. under the bridge, hobo island(notorious hobo island sanctuary between two lengths of train tracks that go over the river), and the laundry mat. We first tried sleeping at 1:00 A.M. behind our public library on some concrete benches. After about 40 minutes it was starting to become BS because neither of us had any blankets. I can now reflect that this was a terrible idea. We tried moving to a more "comfortable" place, a beach. At first, it wasn't too bad. The sand was sort of an insulator and molded to your body. It also had its downfalls, such as the paper factory a few hundred yards away. An annoying train crossing signal would be set every 15 minutes or so and would run for about 5 minutes. Cops also patrolled the road along the beach a couple times. Sketchy. I can't put my finger on it but something was making a strange rustling noise making it pretty eerie out. The temperature finally started dropping to about 68 degrees. But, it seemed 10x cooler from the wind coming off the water. I made it to 3 in the morning, got up and finally said "Fuck this bullshit I'm going home!" My friend was pretty much on the same page. So we made it 12 hours, not too eventful but, still pretty interesting. Were any of you blades ever homeless/knew a homeless person?
so basically you and your friend ate free samples at a store, then begged for cookies at the store, then you stalked some chick to eat an onion, then you went behind the library with your friend for an hour, then went to the beach to lay down. nice.
^^ lol I hitchhicked for like 2 weeks and lived out of a backpack...I was expecting something more like that.
I was hoping you would have lasted more than half a day, but it's nice to try and understand how other people have to live sometimes through a first hand experience, even though it was 12 hrs.
ive couchsurfed lol nut never full on homelessness... i met a homless guy named Snowman the otherday who bought me liqour.. he was so happy to get it for us and threw em like 6 bucks, and all he said is "i dont gootta husttle no more, thanks man".
yea sounds like you couldn't have picked an easier day to be homeless, it saddens me you had to run home to your bed. i would also love to say some other things but ain't looking for the banhammer.
If you wanna be homeless, you gotta learn how to hussle, and being homeless is a breeze. I've always had my parents to come home to, but I had a friend that got kicked out and had nowhere to go. As I regret doing this now for the bitch, at the time, I thought it was the right thing to do. The first few nights she spent homeless, she stayed at friends' houses, but after she ran out of places to house hop, I decided I was going to sleep on the playground with her, so she wouldn't have to sleep outside alone. One day, prior to the homeless incident, me, her, and a few other friends were at this park hanging out. It was dark, probably past midnight. We all decided to use the bathroom. Her and another friend tried to open the ladies bathroom, and it was locked. When they proceeded to the mens bathroom, the ladies bathroom door started opening on it's own and freaked them out. We ended up discovering that a homeless guy was living in there. A couple nights later, we were out of smokes, and knocked on the door to see if hes got some. We had some beer, and traded him a beer for a couple cigarettes. The morning rolls around, its about 8am, and the homeless guy that lives in the bathroom was up at the gazebo, listening to his small radio. We walk up, I introduce him to my friend, and explained our situation. He told us that he has a tent back in the woods, it just needs to be put up. At the park, there was a fence. On the other side of the fence looked like some thick woods, with a small trail along the fence. If you follow that trail, it leads to a large open area, that us pretty descrete, unless you're in a helicopter or air plane. it was a pretty awesome spot, we had everything we needed. The park used to be a YMCA, so they had a pool to bath in, sometimes the showers were unlocked, and of course, we had the bathroom. A day or two after "moving" into the woods, the homeless guys gf got a prescription, and asked us if we wanted to get anything from her. well we knew plenty of people at the time, so we helped her get rid of her script. this is how we made money, as well as selling pot. A week goes by, and I run into an old friend, and she invites us into her home to live. That was the end of my homeless days. It was fun. I probably smelled funny, and looked like hell, but I wasn't doing it to impress anybody. It was a test of my skills on the street, and helping a friend out. I wanna go back onto the streets, because I had a fun time. You get to meet some new, nice people; You learn how to live life in a different perspective, and gain a new respect for the world. The only reason I haven't is because it really is a dangerous life, you never know who you're gonna run into or how long it's gonna be before you get caught up into a really sticky situation, either with the cops or some really strung out drug addict.
Most homeless people are psychopaths who's families won't even see them anymore. (because when they let them stay in their house they steal everything)
most homeless people i've met are addicted to some sort of drug, whether it be alcohol, crack, or opiates. addicts typically steal when they have no other method of getting their fix, so you're probably right...
Fuck all you homeless lazy ass thiefs. If you ask me for something I will tell you to get your lazy ass a job. It's that easy. You have skill & work ethic, you get a job, you have money, you are not homeless. Focus on bettering yourselves, not seeing how long you can be homeless. If you want to test yourself, go out into the woods with a knife, a rifle, and a fishing rod. I have spent weeks in the bush, catching steelhead and shooting rabbits, not stealing from hard working people. . Fuck that. . .
I rode Greyhound buses from Vermont to Florida and back once. The whole round trip took about three weeks and by about the second week I had run out of clean clothes and was starting to stink pretty bad. Some hobo in CT tried to rob me and I chased him and threw him down a hill. It was an awesome experience.
That's pretty good what you did but I'll tell you it's not even close to being homeless, your probably only experiences 10% what it's like. You still knew that after you were done you would have money, and safe place to sleep ,and be warm. You weren't ill, you didn't have any diseases and you weren't starving. Now with that being said, kudos to what you did. I was legit homeless for about 2 weeks and it was fucking shitty. Barely ate, only showered once and I basically just walked around all night so I didn't get kid napped or anything ( I was 14,) and let me tell you, not something I would ever want to do ever fucking again, even for fun.