Ransom Riggs
How to Survive Being Homeless
by Ransom Riggs - January 29, 2009 - 1:25 PM

I live in Los Angeles, confronted by homelessness daily. I’m lucky to never have experienced it myself, but I don’t know anyone in this city who’s never looked at a homeless person and thought to themselves, if just fleetingly, what would my life be like if I were homeless? Would I be able to handle it?

There are resources available on the internet which can help. A great one is the Survival Guide to Homelessness, an absolutely fascinating how-to guide written by a gentleman who was homeless for several years in his twenties, and lived to write about it. His writing is engrossing and his advice is practical, and I’ve reprinted a selection of my favorite passages below, though I recommend reading the whole blog from start to finish (it’ll take you an hour or so, tops).

To put you in the mindset, I recently rediscovered most of my favorite documentary ever, 1984′s Streetwise, on YouTube — here are the first eight minutes. It’s a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, about homeless kids in Seattle, with a few NSFW words. (Skip the first minute, it’s just credits.)

Homelessness happens

The best preparation for homelessness is knowing that you could be, and looking at the resources around you with that in mind.

How secure are you really? How many paychecks could you go without before the rent, the mortgage, the credit card, and the car are not being paid? If you said two, you are doing better than most. If you would be immediately using whatever consumer credit you have available, you’re like most of us. Like storms, earthquakes, and car accidents, homelessness happens. It happens to decent, hardworking people. It happens because our lives are a system, and when part of that system fails the whole thing can come crashing down.

The advantages of homelessness

Imagine working two weeks to pay for your expenses for two months. You can easily go to college with an income requirement so low. My expenses, excluding food, averaged $300 per month for the five years I was homeless. That included storage, mailbox, telephone or pager, gasoline, vehicle insurance, health club membership, dry cleaning, laundry, new clothes, and entertainment. I went to the movies a lot. Imagine what you could do with the time if your work week was two days and your weekend was five.

Get a car

There are two classes of homelessness, with car and without car. Without car is hard, very hard. I don’t recommend it to anyone. If you are homeless and without a car, my best advice to you is couch surf. Stay with your friends until you can get a car. Sell anything you have to get a car. It is best if the car runs, but running is not essential as long as it is small enough to push.

A good parking space is difficult to find. It needs to be isolated, but your car can’t stand out. It needs to be near other cars, but away from the prying eyes of property owners and tenants. It needs to be well lit, and yet your car should be unnoticable. Ideally your spot should be shaded from the morning sun. Such places exist, but usually you accept some flaws.

It is best to be under a streetlamp. A well lit area allows you to have the dome light on in the car without light shining out through your car cover, so you can read or write without fear. Light also deters thieves. Darkness has no real advantages.

Change up your routine

It’s a bad idea to have a regular pattern, like always being in the same place on Tuesdays. Think about it. You might have been observed, and a complaint may have been made, but the police failed to catch you. If the complaint contains an observation of a pattern, they’ll get you on the next cycle, the next Tuesday. Sound paranoid? Police have told me they were waiting for me.

On hygiene

Don’t like a dry shave? Nobody does. Buy yourself some generic sex lube. It’s only a couple of bucks at Walmart or Target or, really, any drugstore. A little dab and a disposable razor and you can get a nice shave. Rub a thimbleful of water over your face and wipe off to finish. It may sound funny, and of course your razor is ruined unless you rinse it out right away, but this works very well. It’s one of my favorite tricks.

If you’re in it for the long term, a gym membership is the only way to go. I had one with 24 hour fitness for the five years I was out of doors, and I calculate that it cost me under 50 cents a shower. Well worth it for the good shave, bright lights, and hot water, and on top of it I learned yoga and stayed in shape. It was also a nice, warm place to go when it was cold or stormy out and I just needed to get out of the weather.

“Homeless shelters are for someone else”

Everything takes so long. You have to sign up for the shelter at 3:00pm, but the van doesn’t come until 4:00pm. You get to the church where you will spend the night at 4:20, but the free dinner of greasy chicken, bread, and green salad, with milk or juice won’t be there till almost 6:00. Then camp pads and a couple of blankets each are passed around and 14 guys find a corner or a wall to sleep against on the cold floor. Stake your claim and then the majority go outside to smoke Top and discuss the presidential election. The consensus seemed pro Kerry, but who can tell? The power distribution in the conversation was a great deal more complex than I could figure out in a night. The entire group watches Jeopardy, then the television is turned off and people begin to settle in. 9:00pm the lights are turned out. I stared at the ceiling for three hours, then slept fitfully and uncomfortably until 5:20am.

Which is when they get you up. 5:20am.

It seems to me that you could wait to sign people into these shelters until 6:00pm or 7:00pm, assuring that people who found work that day might still be able to find shelter. Then people might find a way out of their difficulties. If it were me, I’d let people stay in the shelter until the sun began to warm the world up a little, and I would not return them to a closed hygiene center. I’d coordinate drop off time with the time the hygiene center opened. The total time controlled by the center was sixteen hours, from 3:00pm to 7:00am. That is two thirds of life regulated by the rules of others, one third remaining to try to build something better. Is it any wonder that they opt to simply pass a bottle between themselves? These are people who have little in the way of reserves, and you’ve just taken two thirds of their time.

How to look like you have a home so you can get and keep a job

Have work shirts laundered and pressed at a dry cleaner. Best is to hang them on a hook in the backseat of your car, but you can also have the laundry fold them and place them in boxes.

Get a cheap pager, and use it as your home phone. Tell prospective employers that a page is the best way to reach you because otherwise members of your family may fail to give you messages. When you can afford it, generally after you’ve found some employment, move up to a cell phone.

Get a mailbox at a UPS store or similar establishment, and use that as your home address. Don’t get a post office box. PO Boxes are dead giveaways, but a commercial mailbox has a street address.

Okay, now you look like the rest of the housed world. Keep clean, wear a smile, and market the skills you have. You can add finishing touches to your look by keeping a nice haircut, and getting a $6 manicure at your nearest nail salon. Yes, men, too, can and should get manicures. Clean nails and hands convey the impression of wealth.

Wear sunscreen

Seriously, wear it. Sunburn is a terrible hazard to the homeless. You can get a sunburn even on overcast days, since the radiation that burns isn’t even slowed down by cloud cover. Chronic sunburns can lead to open sores and infections. It is thought that skin cancer can be caused by only a few serious sunburns, and may show up decades later, so stay safe. A sunburn is a tipoff that you are homeless, in addition to being a health hazard.

Again, this is just a teensy sampling. Check out the Survival Guide to Homelessness for much more.

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Comments (20)

  1. I’m going to have to go read the whole thing.

    It’s scary that something like this HAD to be written. Scarier still is how many people could use it.

    posted by Beth on 1-29-2009 at 1:35 pm

  2. My ex-bf’s mother just passed away, and as of this past week he is officially homeless because of it.

    Sleeping 20 minutes at a time on the bus and dodging cops has been hard on him, so this article has amazingly coincidental timing.

    I’ll be showing him the article and blog link as soon as I can, because I really have no other way to help him.

    Thank you so much, guys!

    posted by Sara on 1-29-2009 at 2:17 pm

  3. I never understood why homeless people would stay in cold places. (aside from those who have family or friends nearby.) If I were ever homeless, first thing I’d do is hitchhike down to San Diego. I don’t care how interesting the scene is in San Francisco or Seattle. Why be cold?

    posted by Leah on 1-29-2009 at 2:22 pm

  4. Wow. This is so well written and well thought out I am going to assume the job the author did get showcases him abilities. On the flip side it shows that someone who is intelligent, organized and articulate can end up homeless. Scary.

    posted by JaneM on 1-29-2009 at 3:25 pm

  5. Do homeless people have access to the internet generally? How will they read the blog?

    posted by Norkio on 1-29-2009 at 4:24 pm

  6. i did a month and a half stint in philly homeless and the streets are a hard place to be, but at least if i have to do it again at any point i’m a little more informed

    posted by zzz on 1-29-2009 at 4:31 pm

  7. Norkio, most public libraries have free internet access. Although the library I work at is in a small town, we get plenty of poverty-stricken (and occasionally homeless) people on a regular basis.

    posted by Kelsey on 1-29-2009 at 4:43 pm

  8. The boyfriend and I were briefly homeless in San Luis Obispo California, which, to be more accurate, was like a mandatory adventure/vacation. It was a lovely 70 degrees all the time, and we had a car to store our crap in so we looked like college students as we roamed the town.

    posted by Mandragora on 1-29-2009 at 5:06 pm

  9. I did four months in NYC back in 98….luckily i never spent a night on the streets….my advice is when you do something for someone or lend them money don’t collect on the favour if you’re living comfortably, but do keep in touch…

    posted by brian on 1-29-2009 at 5:59 pm

  10. I’ve never understood the attitude that homeless people are somehow inferior to the general population, or how being homeless somehow makes you a criminal. You shouldn’t have to “dodge cops” simply because you have no permanent address. The laws covering vagrancy and loitering need to be rewritten. Like the article says, most Americans are a couple of paychecks (or a man-made or natural disaster)away from ending up on the streets.

    posted by Pam on 1-29-2009 at 7:04 pm

  11. @Leah:

    The homeless stay in cold places like Seattle, because in warmer areas (like where i live, fla) it’s generally more touristy.. and they really crack down on the homeless being around and making the cities look dirty. it’s pretty much expected for seattle to smell bad and nyc to be dirty, but not cocoa beach, ya know?

    Oh, and they probably get more money in cities, where there’s more people.

    that being said, we do have a bunch of homeless people.

    posted by Casey on 1-29-2009 at 9:19 pm

  12. Being homeless myself for quite some time, I found out just how baddly homeless people are treated by none homeless people, and why so many are not in shelters (the nearest shelter to me was a 5 hour drive by car and I don’t have a car!)

    My family of 7 became homeless after a flood took away everything we owned and left my dad in a coma. My mom was a stay at home mom, who was disabled, but still took care of us kids.

    My dad’s hospital bills were more than $12,000 just for the life support machine that he was on, not including all the tests and treatments besides. In the end his medical bill topped 2 million dollars!

    Without a house to live in anymore and with my dad no longer working because he was in a coma, we ended up homeless and living in a tent-thing made out of a tarp and cinderblocks, and we had to fight off a winter in Maine under that thing.

    We were not eligible for any of the state programs that supposedly helped homeless people either.

    Well, when you are homeless, it doesn’t matter what happened or how you became homeless, because just the fact that you are homeless “brands” you as inferior and worthless and sets you up for all sorts of a abuse by “regular” people (non-homeless people). I had no idea people were so mean or that homeless people were being treated so shamelessly until my family became homeless. That was the worst year of my life and I don’t ever want to have to go through anything like that again, and I wish that no one else had to go though it either.

    You can find out more about what life was like for me while I was homeless by clicking on the ID link, it goes to my blog about when I was homeless and what it was like.

    posted by EelKat on 1-31-2009 at 12:01 pm

  13. I’m researching all the material I can get on how to live in homeless environment because within two months my loving grandmother will eventally die from cancer and other illnesses. so I’m sticking by her side till she goes and which I’ve lost my job. I can’t find any work and wish not to commit any criminal activity to regain finacial loss. I have nothing sell of value to make money. the only thing I have is the ability to draw. which should be clear that I’m choosing not to recover because my family and friends are not prepared to help someone in need and i cant ask a public that is helpful to one hand and hateful on the other. so I tell myself I’ve lived long enough and would hate to see … well I will resort to something clever or starve to death bye

    posted by what's the point on 4-9-2010 at 3:23 am

  14. This is great I am going to be homeless soon unless I can find a job I need something like this.. one good thing that I find though is that homeless people like seattle good thing I am already there.

    posted by great on 6-29-2010 at 4:03 am

  15. I love the part about getting a $6 manicure. I’ve never done that nor have ever thought of it, but it’s funny. The funniest thing is, as you’re reading through it, it doesn’t seem like he’s talking about being homeless. It just sounds like any other lifestyle advice.
    So have a car, a gym membership, cell phone or pager and access to laundry services and you too can be a successful homeless person.

    posted by Joe M on 7-6-2010 at 9:48 pm

  16. You know Joe M its sadly more common than you think, in this economy. There are many people that were in top positions but because their companies couldn’t afford to keep them they got layed off. People like this become homeless all the time. I used to be a teacher and am now currently living in my car. Thankfully I found a job, but its tiny paycheck only pays my car insurance and cell bill . (So yes, homeless people DO use the internet.. :/)

    Just realize people it can happen to anyone.

    posted by FL "homeless" girl on 2-11-2011 at 1:19 am

  17. Thanks for the tips. I have been living with my father for about 9 mos. I recently left my job and haven’t been able to get another one. The stress between me and my father is getting unbearable. I’m broke with a clunker of a car that burns more oil than gas. Thinking about going to OKC, Ok. about 100 miles away and try living out of my car. It’s terrible to try doing this by myself. I hope and pray everyone else’s situation will improve. Good-Luck See you in the next life.

    posted by Rex T. on 9-28-2011 at 2:37 pm

  18. I’m looking at the possibility of going homeless in the next couple months. Been told to use magicjack at Starbucks to get internet. I have job skills, but no job. I’ve posted my resume online, I’ve contacted temp agencies, and nothing. I am limited to certain jobs like retail because of my disability. Unemployment is exhausted. Have yet to apply for disability. Hoping to work. I’m scared.

    posted by thudson on 10-14-2011 at 6:25 pm

  19. Oops. I didn’t mean to suggest I can work retail, but in fact I can not because of my osteoarthritis in my knees. I am hoping for a desk job in front of a computer. I wish there were more shelters available.

    posted by thudson on 10-14-2011 at 6:27 pm

  20. Most of this article is unrealistic. And there are NO advantages to being homeless!

    posted by Rebecca on 12-25-2011 at 3:39 pm

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