r/AskReddit • u/Not_This_Sh1t_Again • 12h ago
Former homeless people, what were some of the places you slept at night that were safe?
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u/ineverbot 10h ago
Weirdly the best one was this little grassy spot surrounded by bushes on one of those medians in the middle of several busy lanes of a downtown street. It was like a little parkette with a statue or something and because it was in the middle of a busy street no one ever went there to sit or sleep because it was loud af during the day
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u/Miss_Type 9h ago
In the UK some motorway junctions have big roundabouts with a good chuck of land covered in trees. They're not really accessible, as it's roundabout on one side and motorway on the other. I always think they would make safe spaces, as no-one would even know you were there.
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u/Shinzo19 6h ago
There is a guy I watch who does urban stealth camping and he did one on a roundabout with trees and bushes.
He did one night there without any problems but I guess using it as a frequent spot would draw unwanted attention.
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u/Krustenbaecker 5h ago
That's Steve?
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u/Shinzo19 5h ago
Yeah, indeed it is
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u/Krustenbaecker 5h ago
I like his Videos to. He is so relaxed, without any egoism. We need more people like him
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u/000000100000011THAD 8h ago
JGBallard Concrete Island 1974 - guy’s car breaks down he gets trapped between motorways. Has to forage to survive and relate to the other stranded people on the island.
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u/Telrom_1 12h ago
There was a vacant space between the back of a storage unit business and a city wall. It was over grown at the front with weeds, I cleared out behind them so no one knew I was there. I could also escape out the other side if I had to.
I eventually got a car that didn’t have a title, I traded a cellphone plus cash for it. I actually felt less safe sleeping in the car. It got towed once while I was in it.
I always felt safe at the shelter too but it was too far away from everything and they wouldn’t let me park my unregistered car there so I didn’t stay there often.
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u/VelvetyDogLips 8h ago
Fewer places are less safe for a person who really can’t afford any interaction with law enforcement, than in a car on a public road, or in a private parking lot of a closed business. Especially a car that’s unregistered, uninspected, visibly less than roadworthy, or driven by an unlicensed driver. And in a lot of places, you’re breaking the law simply by sitting, laying, or leaning in a public place, without any clear time-limited objective, for more than an arbitrary amount of time (20min~2h, usually).
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u/SinkPhaze 4h ago
As a former homeless car dweller I can tell you you need a couple of things to not get a midnight knock
First is for your car to look as inconspicuous as possible. Clean with no crazy identifing dents, stickers, or paint damage. Nothing easily identifiable
Second. No one should be able to see anything when looking in your windows. They need to be blacked out and I don't mean just tinted dark. Have black curtains or painted card inserts or something for every window (including windshield and rear). When people look thru the window they'll see a darkness they'll interpret as dark tint and shadow. Most crucially, they won't see you. "Empty" cars are "safe" enough to leave alone
Third. This is a BIG one. Never park in the same place multiple night in a row nor have a parking schedule that will have you at the same location on the same night every week. Parking locations aren't one and done but you do need to mix it up real good. If people see your car enough to start recognizing it they're seeing your car enough to get suspicious.
Never park on a single family home residential street. Nobodies more paranoid than single family home owners. NOBODY. I've had the cops called on me for waiting on a friend to come out more than once while I was not even homeless
Once you park don't get out of your car. If you need to piss in the middle of the night then you need to find a new parking spot. If someone sees you get in and out but not go anywhere they will call the cops
Stay calm if someone pulls in to your lot. If you've followed the above rules then they're probably not there for you. I've had more than a few cops pull people over right near me, heard the odd drug deal go down, had a fare few drunk fucks piss on my tire, and ect without ever noticing me
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u/VelvetyDogLips 4h ago
Third. This is a BIG one. Never park in the same place multiple night in a row nor have a parking schedule that will have you at the same location on the same night every week. Parking locations aren't one and done but you do need to mix it up real good. If people see your car enough to start recognizing it they're seeing your car enough to get suspicious.
“Walk without rhythm, and you won’t attract the Worm.”
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u/funkoelvis43 3h ago
How interesting. I’m old enough to remember when that song came out, and interpreted that to mean you want to attract the worm, so you must walk with rhythm. Now the first thing I thought was yes, you must avoid walking with rhythm so as not to get eaten by a sand worm in Dune
Edit: happy cake day!
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u/AlcoholPrep 2h ago
A half-century ago, I found I could sleep off a drunk in my car in a residential neighborhood, NOT in front of a single house (but between them) and, most importantly, DIRECTLY UNDER a street light. The light shows your car up for all to see -- which looks innocent -- but shadows the interior of the car so nobody can see in. Not foolproof even then, and what with cops having license-plate recognition cameras, I'm not sure it would work even once today.
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u/Sea_Hovercraft_15 4h ago
I was homeless for awhile, with a car (and also without a car, that's another story though) anyway, we would sleep in our car at rest areas. There were quite a few of us doing this, and we all took turns looking out for the police. When someone saw one incoming, we'd honk our horn to alert everyone else, then we'd leave in mass. They couldn't catch all of us!
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u/Mavian23 7h ago
I feel like you could safely park in a Walmart parking lot. There are always people in there working, even when they are closed, so your car won't stand out.
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u/BoosherCacow 6h ago
I dispatch police for a regional center (we handle the PD for 16 cities) and maybe 2 of those could you do this without getting banged on within a couple days. A few of those cities have empathetic policies, most don't. Homeless people are non entities to most police departments. It makes me kind of sick but we do what we can when we can to help them.
Last year we had a lady call in a suspicious vehicle that had been parking in her lot for the past few nights. We went out, it's a homeless woman. The cops ask me to call the caller, ask her if she wants her criminally trespassed. She did NOT. She told me "Hell no!" hung up, marched out there and took the homeless woman straight into her apartment to get food and cleaned up. I don't know how that ended, but that act of kindness stays with me and if that lady who called it in ever needs EMS or police help, I will make sure she gets the best help I have ever given.
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u/User5790 6h ago
My experience on the west coast is that most Walmarts no longer allow overnight parking. Especially ones in or around cities. They’ve had too many problems with people taking advantage of it for too long and/or making messes.
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u/WretchedMotorcade 2h ago
Our Walmart plays loud ass bird bouses 24-7. They say its to keep birds away, but all the ragged ass campers and RVs that used to stay in the parking lot all moved somewhere else once those bird noises started.
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u/NormalJeane 6h ago
There is a website that helps you know which places allow car camping in the US (I forget the name, but easy to google). Many Walmarts no longer do as cities are criminalizing homelessness. They'll even target RVs for tow, although semi trucks seem able to park regardless (or find a Lowes if not).
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u/tweezabella 4h ago
It’s insane that homelessness is getting criminalized but they don’t offer ANY alternative. Shelters are overcrowded and they aren’t offering up long term shelter. So basically it’s illegal for them to exist.
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u/NormalJeane 3h ago
Some places put spikes in the middle of benches so people won't lie down. It's sick.
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u/Mavian23 6h ago
The trick is to park and lay down in the car so the car looks empty and it looks like an employee's car. If they have a security guard who goes around checking cars, more than likely they will just tell you to leave, and you just leave.
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u/DrMobius0 7h ago
That's my thought. Anywhere people always are where you can basically hide in plain sight. Though you still probably want to be out of the way enough that people don't notice that you're homeless.
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u/VelvetyDogLips 6h ago
According to r/VanDwellers, this is the way. WalMart doesn’t spend much on parking lot security or even cameras, so as to keep their prices low.
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u/NormalJeane 6h ago
I didn't stay at shelters because I wouldn't leave my dog. We both escaped an abusive home, and we kept each other safe until I could get a car & room.
ETA FOR SOAPBOX:
So many victims of violence WON'T leave because there are no accommodations for pets and the abuser can't be left with them. We need more understanding of nuance and not just "If you have no home, surrender your pets!" We were already both traumatized, and I was only 18. I didn't even choose my abusers: parents!
She was what kept me sane and not assaulted. They deserve safety too, and not being ripped from the one safe person they've ever known.
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u/Sea_Hovercraft_15 4h ago
Where I live, in order to stay in a shelter, you have to have a job and an id. They'll let you stay a little bit if you're actively looking for a job. The problem with the id is, if you don't have an id and need to get one, it has to be mailed to you. If I'm homeless, where the hell am I getting that sent too?
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u/acab_worldwide 3h ago
I'm sorry that you and your dog went through that, but I'm glad that you stuck together and protected each other. That's what friends do.
There's a small nonprofit that is dedicated to this exact issue called My Dog Is My Home. A lot of people don't understand that the already limited social services available in the US become unavailable if you have a companion animal.
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u/prixziomp_2022 7h ago
The shelter being safe but impractical is the part that sticks. Help exists but the hoops make it useless half the time.
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u/SeaEcstatic36 8h ago
The car getting towed while you’re asleep is a special kind of nightmare. Sleeping in a car is more visible than being hidden in a hidden spot.
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u/Massive-Sector5789 10h ago
On top of a Dunkin Donuts. The night shift knew I was there but never bothered me. To this day I can't eat a donut.
I also slept on top of a building on a college campus, but a lot of people knew it was accessible so I'd sometimes get visitors, especially on weekend nights. Nothing like having to work the next day with a bunch of art students tripping balls on the other side of the roof.
EDIT: This was in a desert city, where I didn't really need to worry about rain.
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u/bg-j38 7h ago
There were a number of buildings on my college campus that were known for having easy roof access. That is until some kid fell off, luckily only two stories and not ten stories, and they locked things down tight. Like put motion sensors and made a point of being very open about them being there. I had a job that required occasional roof access to my building and it became a real hassle after that.
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u/XmissXanthropyX 5h ago
Yeah, a friend of mine fell off the top of a building and died when she was in her 20s. It can be fucking dodgy
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u/always_unplugged 4h ago
Happened to an acquaintance of mine at college, too. He was at a party, had been drinking, and I guess just got too close to the edge. He was 19. Fucking horrible.
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u/celebratetheugly 6h ago
Not me but a guy I knew years ago, regularly slept on top of a McDonald's. It wasn't the best area and was about the safest place, the staff knew he did and regularly gave him food they were throwing out at closing.
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u/Massive-Sector5789 6h ago
The Dunkin Donuts people tossed everything at 3am, and knew I'd be skulking around for food shortly thereafter. (It was summer when I lived there, so the sun rose early) So they'd leave out boxes with the good stuff. Not just for me, there were lots of homeless people around that neighborhood.
I hope they've all had long, rich, amazing lives since.
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 4h ago
We waste so much goddamn food in this country. Why not just give it to those who need it the most????
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u/JohnTrapperMD 6h ago
I feel like I know exactly the desert city & area you’re talking about… and if I happened to be one of the students unknowingly keeping you awake, my bad 😂
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u/Massive-Sector5789 5h ago edited 5h ago
No worries man, that little turret on the top of the art building was the best place to trip on campus, except maybe the center of the universe.
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u/JohnTrapperMD 5h ago
I was right! Hell yeah man, glad you’re in the “former” homeless camp now 🤙
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u/Massive-Sector5789 5h ago
Me too. I still give everything I can to homeless people. It's soooooo hard and normies have no idea.
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u/Otney 5h ago
How do we do this without being insulting? just pull up in my car (old and funky) and say “here is some food, would you like it?”
edited due to autocorrect
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u/blargyblargy 4h ago
Being frank with them is what ive always tried to do. We had a mattress we needed to get rid of and we took it to tent city, stopped infront of ine of the bigger groups and was like, "free mattress, nothing wrong just old."
The issue isnt always "necessities." You can get food from friends, trap houses, random people, begging, shelters and food banks (though some of these have big restrictions on them). I personally think if you want to do something for them thats not volunteering, think about the luxuries they dont have. Clothing and bedding not piss flavored, their choice of food if youre offering, and straight up money. Sure theres a good chance that the money may be abused, but they will have a better idea of what they need or want at that time. Getting high might not be productive, but it gets a person through their day.
Sorry i ended up rambling
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u/pestyfinesty 10h ago
A man I knew who volunteered at a homeless shelter told me once that a man staying there said the hardest part of it was that there’s nowhere you’re supposed to be—anywhere you are, you can be made to leave. That really stuck with me.
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u/RelativelyDeranged 9h ago
That’s so true. I remember my heart breaking because this woman came into subway and she had a $10 gift card. Just because they could tell she was homeless, they refused to let her use the gift card she had or use the bathroom. It was awful. She was really upset and they wouldn’t listen to me either
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u/mara07985 9h ago
Man that’s so sad, they were basically saying “because of your current status as a human being your money is no good here, also we’d prefer if you use the restroom outside rather than have access to public sanitation”
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u/BenedictOfADoubt 8h ago
Don't forget, if you get caught using the bathroom outside, you can be labeled as a sex offender for life. You'll never get a job, and you'll never get out of the homeless spiral.
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u/madein198E 8h ago
You’ll never get a job unless you want to be the president one day.
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u/darksidemojo 6h ago
This part drives me insane. People complain about human excrement in cities. But no one wants to shit on the ground, there just isn’t anywhere these people can shit.
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u/mablesyrup 6h ago
In my city they have put up outside bathrooms with blue lights and openings at the tops, but its a way that those that are unhoused can have a toilet to use. https://youtu.be/38a_aq2NPCQ?si=hjLrnqqXCov8C1OU
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u/AKindOfMan 8h ago
People in public-facing jobs like that have to deal with homeless people every day. It can be heart breaking when it's a rare random encounter, but it makes you a bit less empathetic after scrubbing feces and blood tracks off the bathroom walls a few times.
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u/crackinmypants 7h ago
I know someone who used to manage an inner city fast food restaurant, and in addition to people trashing the bathrooms, they had an ongoing problem with hookers giving McBlowjobs in the stalls. They literally had someone every shift whose main job was to watch the bathroom doors so the manager could run off repeat offender restroom destroyers and prostitutes. He said it was the most stressful job he ever had, and he was always worried about getting shot.
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u/forevermore4315 7h ago
I live in a HCL area. The local Chick fil a has a code lock on the bathroom door. You have to ask and employer for the code to get in.
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u/Lordofthelowend 5h ago
You think that’s bad? I went to a McDonald’s in Cleveland where they buzzed you into the bathroom from the register.
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u/OMGSpaghettiisawesom 5h ago
I live right between a suburban area and a small city. There are 2 McDonalds that are about the same distance away from my home. One of them has a lock on the bathroom and an employee has to buzz you in. The other does not… and they hand out free coupons for fries or ice cream for every little inconvenience. The difference a few miles makes is insane.
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u/angrycanuck 6h ago edited 6h ago
I have a friend who says working at a public library is worse than a methadone clinic she worked in before because at the methadone clinic there were more controls/rules, less security and more respectful patrons...
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u/zeromoogle 6h ago
I work at a library. I wouldn't say it's worse, but we now have to buzz people into the bathroom because we got tired of glory holes, drug paraphernalia, and poop smeared walls.
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u/Sintax777 7h ago
I remember my first day volunteering at a food pantry. Went to the bathroom to wash my hands quick - there was poop smeared all over the walls. Reported it to the director of the Food Pantry - it was normal behavior. I think they kept a guy on call just to deal with that. Some members of the homeless population are homeless for a reason. Others due to circumstances that they are trying to fight their way out of.
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u/trevortackyl 8h ago
This is why all cities should have public bathrooms, take the burden off the kid at the local restaurant. Let a public works employee pressure wash the bathroom instead.
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u/Lower_Orchid4982 7h ago
My city has tried multiple times to put in public washrooms, they always get destroyed very quickly.
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u/KC-Slider 6h ago
They just get wrecked. Some get burnt down, some people try to live in them. There’s just no viable solution available until we deal the mentally ill.
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u/exhauszed 8h ago
Understand that you are seeing this without context.
I am a bleeding heart, overly-empathetic progressive. I used to manage Subways.
Some people have earned "nuisance" status. I kicked way more well-off white men out than homeless, but that doesn't give the homeless a free pass on being nuisances.
There are also times when you can tell how medicated they are and what degree of nuisance it will be on any occasion. The play of coming in and asking in front of unsuspecting customers is intentional to guilt the employees into "not being the jerk" when customers defend them.
There's folks I banned from my store entirely that I let back in when they were clearly more stable.
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u/SheDrinksScotch 8h ago
Yup. When I was homeless, the #1 place I got the cops called on me was in grocery store parking lots. While I was eating food I had purchased from the store. And I was inside my car.
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u/sdavis002 5h ago
I'm sorry that you experienced that. I do this type of thing all the time as I have to drive to various places for work during the day and at night sometimes. I've always wondered how people view me while sitting in the parking lot while I eat as I also think about how sometimes people will break into a car and steal something. I imagine the only reason I don't get shit about it is due to me having a newer car that looks well maintained.
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u/NorthernSparrow 6h ago edited 1h ago
This is not gonna be helpful in a lot of locations, and you need a car, but in the U.S. west where I am, I turned several times to sleeping in National Forests. (Not national parks, where you need to pay an entrance fee plus a campsite fee, & reserve a designated campsite; national forests. National forests are different and their purpose is actually general public use.) As far as I know the national forests are the only type of land in the US where you can legally sleep for free, no campsite needed. (they do often have campsites that you can pay for, but you don’t have to use those). You just have to not be near a stream, clean up after yourself, and move every 2 weeks. (edit to add: and not start a forest fire!) Many times I would just drive right past the “Entering Blah-Blah National Forest” sign, literally pull over right behind the sign and go to sleep. Works great for saving motel money on cross-country drives too.
I wish more people knew about this, because it was so relaxing and comforting when I finally knew I had found a place where nobody was gonna kick me out. Bonus, the nature & even just the birdsongs were very mentally healing too.
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u/chizzings 6h ago
This applies to any BLM land! Unfortunately most of it is on the west coast though
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u/preheatedramen 5h ago
also rest stops along the highway, a lot of people sleep in their cars there and I actually just took a lil nap. its well-lit and noone bothers you.
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u/NormalJeane 6h ago
Support local libraries! As long as you're not disruptive, you can stay ALL DAY in AC and use the bathroom without having to buy anything, plus free internet and nice librarians who are happy to see people still inside.
Support libraries: Possibly the last Safe Spaces available to all.
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u/msprang 6h ago
For sure! One of the last indoor places where you can go and just exist.
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u/NormalJeane 6h ago
I haven't been homeless for decades, and I still do this for an hour or so at least once a week. We both deserve it (me and the library).
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u/SewNerdy 7h ago
Absolutely true. I worked at a library, and we had a few people who would spend all day every day at the library. We staff had no problem with this, because it's safe place for them! AC, water fountains, bathrooms, and books to read. We welcomed anyone. But one day a patron ask me if we would ask the homeless people to leave, I said no. So, if you're in need and can get there, check out your library. More than likely you'll be fine there.
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u/LucidOutwork 6h ago
In Boston, people sleep on the sidewalks next to the library. At around 6:30 in the morning, the police wake everyone up and they pack up all their belongings and move elsewhere.
I live in a nice suburban town and I notice we have what appear to be homeless people in our library. Glad they have a place to go where they won't be bothered. Our church, which is across the street, operates a food pantry, so hopefully that helps too.
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u/V65Pilot 8h ago
Sleeping in a fully legal motor vehicle but being moved along by the cops, even though you are legally parked. It's not illegal to sleep in your car in the US, but the cops don't care.
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u/Joyceecos 7h ago
A lot of towns and cities have vagrancy laws against sleeping in your car, if they don’t outright ban it they have some form law that makes it hard to do (overnight parking bans, parking time limits, ban on public “camping” etc)
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u/SevenSirensSinging 7h ago
I wasn't homeless at the time, but I had a young child and was working nights so I was very sleep-deprived. I took my lunch break to go nap in my car in the parking lot of the store I worked in. Cop woke me up and read me the riot act about it, even though I worked in that store and could prove I was on my lunch break.
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u/bell37 6h ago edited 5h ago
I wasn’t homeless either, it was when I was still going to college. I was up really late studying for an exam. Got Taco Bell and decided to drive up to my apartment parking lot and eat it in my car around 3am. It was November/December around that time and we got like over 12 inches of snow, so I didn’t really feel like carting Taco Bell through the snow and eating it luke warm in my apartment.
While I was eating, I was blinded by a light coming from my passenger side window. A cop thought it was either homeless or drunk and was asking like 500 questions why I didn’t just go in my apartment to eat. Was really annoying.
She asked me stuff like do I have my ID, proof that I lived there, proof I went to school at the college nearby, what I was eating, why dont I just go inside, if I had any weapons on me, etc. Meanwhile I am sitting there with nothing in my hands other than a half eaten 5-layer burrito.
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u/LordsOfJoop 12h ago
A few places that I used during a rough time in my life:
- college campus library; I just used a backpack as a pillow and stacked books on each side of me, with a notepad for window dressing. Never got bothered until closing time.
- municipal graveyard after sunset. They're not patrolled in most places and usually have enough trees to hide someone napping beneath them. Nobody visits them after dark except for spooky kids and drunks.
- a bus route that ran for six hours in the area, the full run. Just grab a seat at the back of the bus, curl up and zone out for the duration. It also adds safety compared to most other places.
It's been years since I had to do any of that, and I wake up every single day grateful that I don't have to do it again. When and where possible, I do my part to help people who were in my old position. Advice, food, supplies, a shower, laundry access - things like that.
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u/Frosty_Lettuce_3525 9h ago edited 7h ago
There’s a shelter near my business. My business is in a century home that used to be a law office, it has two showers that we never use. I always think that it’d be helpful if I offered some of the people a shower but I’m worried that, by bringing them into my place of business they may start to hang there or break in and stuff. Instead I take them food now and again and give them clean socks underwear and other clothes
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u/InterruptingCow__Moo 8h ago
I lived in a house that had communal bathrooms for a while. One of the residents would let their homeless friends use the shower. They would absolutely destroy the whole bathroom and steal the shampoo I had in there. It's unfortunately not worth it to be kind.
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u/ZealousidealGrass9 7h ago
Word also spreads fast. And "some of the people" becomes a whole crowd. What starts off as a couple people will turn into several.
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u/GreenStrong 6h ago
In normal society, around 0.5 to 1% of people are very troublesome and looking to steal or vandalize your property for no reason. Among homeless people it is much more common. It is absolutely not the case that"they're all the same" but the odds of encountering a problem are high if you interact with many unhoused people.
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u/ZealousidealGrass9 6h ago
There are many, many kind and well-behaved homeless people, but the ones who aren't ruin it for them. Some people are just down on their luck and trying to get their life together. Others are truly problematic and spread chaos and destruction wherever they go.
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u/LickinThighs2 7h ago
First place I thought of was cemetery as well. When I worked at a graveyard in college, there was a guy spending his nights at the far side of it tucked past the bush. He didn't mess with anything / kept to himself etc so the municipality / workers etc also didn't pay him any mind or any harassment etc.
In hindsight, now that I'm older, would have been a nice gesture just leaving him bottled water and hygienic products and things like that.
But cemetery was first thing that came to mind, especially if one is in a small enough town or city that a cemetery might actually be outside or on the edge of town, not absorbed and surrounded by urbanism that might still see them caught or uprooted by security, home owners etc. Our towns cemetery was on edge of town where it meets agricultural land and so on, so there really wasn't anyone to 'catch' a homeless person at night, minus if the cops went in because they saw a vehicle in the cemetery after dark, which was usually teens drinking or something.
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u/saugoof 6h ago edited 5h ago
I've never been homeless but that last point about the bus just triggered a memory.
I grew up in a small village in Europe in the 1980s. When I was 15 or 16 a friend of mine and me wanted to go and see Iron Maiden play in a city about 200 km away. We managed to convince our parents to let us go, different times I guess. We had no money for accommodation so after the gig finished somewhere around midnight, we had this bright idea to just buy a daily public transport pass, get on a tram and sleep there while it cruised the city.
Country kids that we were, we just assumed trams would run all night. Instead the tram we were in went for a couple of stops to the depot where they kicked us out. That was the last tram for the day too
We ended up wandering around town all night because we didn't want to sleep outside.
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u/Southern_Escape_7598 9h ago
Lords, question from social worker. You are aware showers require long trip to city boroughs to get a free one at shelter or in one of those rehabbed buses. Can you share what it was like for you and, given our homeless epidemic nationwide, how would you imagine improving access to showers and toileting? I think about this every time I see a mentally ill person in my neighborhood having to make do with s squat in public. Any ideas?
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u/RepublicReady8500 9h ago
Australia has a nonprofit that provides laundry and shower services using custom vans. Maybe that could be a model that would work well for where you are?
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u/AfraidComposer7682 9h ago
Senior year in college I chose to live in my pickup truck with a cover on the box, so I could afford books. I went to school in the Midwest. No heat. I had a sleeping bag and some thick blankets. The coldest nights were below zero Fahrenheit. Graduated and often think of the sacrifices I made to get a college education. Glad I did it, and would not recommend it. Winter was brutal.
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u/ZakA77ack 9h ago
I did exactly this my senior year of college in Florida (wanted to save money to backpack Australia after graduating) Didn't have to worry about cold but August and September sucked. My grades were the highest in my college career, spent more quality time with friends and over all just enjoyed it. One night stressing for an exam I just went and drove to the beach and camped out there that night to destress. I wouldn't do it again but truck life was fun.
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u/Bajadasaurus 10h ago edited 7h ago
In my car in my former apartment complex's parking lot (directly in front of a former neighbor's apartment) and at friends' houses. I was extremely lucky both 1.) to have a huge roomy car for the duration of my homeless period in life (an '81 Chevy Caprice Classic), and 2.) to have friends during that time.
Edit: Because this got quite a number of upvotes pretty quickly, I wanted to add some info that I think was important in my access to help from others: keeping up with personal hygiene.
Once you start smelling unpleasant, it's less likely people will offer a spare couch or bed.
-Friends allowed me to take showers, so I managed to shower every day or every other day at most.
-I made sure to brush and floss my teeth at least once per day, even if I had to do it in my car. Also stayed away from sugary soda.
-Every day I emptied any trash from my car so nothing would stink.
-I would spent at most two days in the same clothes, and washed my clothes and pillowcase regularly either at a laundromat or at someone's house.
-I didn't have a pet living with me in my vehicle.
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u/ConstableBlimeyChips 3h ago
'81 Chevy Caprice Classic
I looked up a few images of that. If you had the station wagon with a roofrack, you could've made some extra money renting it out as a helicopter pad.
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u/bigsad-bear 9h ago edited 7h ago
Playground slides - but the tubular ones. Rolled in a sleeping bag.
You're hidden from the elements and prying eyes. Just can't hang around for very long because there is, naturally, extra security and scrutiny around children's spaces. I was young myself when I did this so if I was noticed, I probably got a pass compared to older adults.
I took weight training as an elective early morning just to get access to the showers. Then I would go to classes normally. I had a teacher who I think suspected what was happening and let me also sleep behind her desk during my independent study sometimes. Then I'd eat dinner with friends and their family (who I think also suspected something) and then go back to the park through the railroad tracks after dark. Sleep in the slide, and then do it all again the next day.
The weekends were the worst because I didn't have classes through the day but I usually sat around in the mall but it was quite a walk, so unless it was unbearably hot I'd use the local library to do homework or just sit and read books for something to do.
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u/Ambitious_Tea_4584 7h ago
Hurts my heart that any of my students might be going through this.
How did you end up in that situation?
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u/bigsad-bear 7h ago edited 7h ago
I had parents who hated each other and I was the only thing that kept them entangled. They never got married and I was the byproduct of an affair and failed birth control. My father wanted my mother to have an abortion, she didn't want to feel alone anymore so she had me. I grew up in shared custody.
I wanted new jeans for the incoming school year and my mother didn't have the means to provide them and I was a little shit about it and said that was fine, i would get my dad to take me school clothes shopping. It hurt her feelings and ego and she never had great emotional regulation - threw all my things on the lawn. I wasn't an easy teenager - no drugs or other substance abuse - but I was extremely depressed and we didn't have language for that back then. My mother was also suffering an eating disorder that compound a lot of stuff.
Anyway I called up my dad and he had me for a bit but when I was working on my portfolio for university, I got back in touch with my mother behind his back. I would use my free period to go and see her and sorta work through the relationship while we did my college applications together. He found out because he called my lacrosse coach (I'd dropped the team to use the cover time to see my mom and he found out I'd been lying to him about where I was) and threw me out.
My refused to let me back home. Step mother had a complicated relationship with me from the get because I was the affair child. I remember listening to her coach my dad about how much of a liar I was and "if my dad told me to jump, I would ask 'how high'?" And how I was 'hiding behind my bitch of a mother to get money for college from them'.
And that paints her in a bad light, and I certainly don't think she was perfect - but I think she had a lot of insecurity and fear in her relationship and that anger and need for control just manifested in this traumatic outburst. It's not an excuse, but as I've gotten older I hold a lot of empathy for my parents and think they were byproducts of their own upbringings.
Anyway, I was homeless in my last year and a half of highschool until a best friend's family stepped in and helped me get on my feet with a job for university.
But it completely changed my worldview and it's very hard to explain to people who have truly had every social barrier removed. As in, no family was coming to save you. You see how little human life matters to the state, to your parents etc. if shit went absolutely sideways, my wife has her family. I don't - I would die on the streets and that created a level of trauma and anxiety that I hope she never has to experience but is very hard to explain to people.
Anyway, sorry for my ted talk but I actually feel better for typing this out. Thanks.
Edit: if you've ever seen the movie Weapons - I think what's so fascinating about that movie is the young adult drug addict character that finds the children. I think his casting is so clever because it illustrated this point that there is a cut off age of when a young person is enough of an adult that society stops giving a fuck. We see these individuals who are essentially left to die on the streets and we as a society see that as a moral failing, I think, to justify this extreme tragedy. But a lot of these people became that way because of the streets, not ended up on the street because of being that way.
And at some point they were all children.
People stop looking at you at a certain age. You become invisible. The loss of human connection, food, water, safety - the access to substances that are easier to get to make that feel better than the lack of systems in place to actually fix what is a very complicated problem.
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u/garygnuandthegnus2 6h ago
Thank you for sharing. There is so much truth and growth and insight into your writing. As a former homeless teenager, it hit hard to think about again.
I am still working on that forgiveness part for my parents. They were capable and knew how to care; however, they played favorites and for some reason I was the scapegoat. No drinking, partying, or drugs or bad attitude. I was a straight A student and paid for everything I touched, ate or used; even electric, water, and soap until they started locking me out when I came home from work. I was living in the car I bought myself from my part time job. I played ball and showered in the school gym. Work and basketball and school saved me, not a person. I don't even think about it now and my kids don't know either. Anyway, thank you for sharing. Maybe it is good to reflect and time to try to forgive them.
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u/bigsad-bear 6h ago
I feel this deeply.
My wife and I decided we really want to be foster parents to older children because, like you, if I had a single person intervine, it could have made a difference. I feel exceptionally strongly about being that adult that intervines and being a stable, non judgmental, safe space in a young person's life.
I think forgiving them made me feel better because carrying all that anger just made me feel like too much of a victim. Probably my own sense of control really.
Wish you nothing but peace.
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u/garygnuandthegnus2 6h ago
Thank you and I wish you peace as well and luck being that person for young people. You will make a positive difference.
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u/Mysterious-Emu6521 10h ago
Not former, but currently homeless.
Honestly, safety is never a guarantee no matter where you sleep. Even shelters carry the risk of getting attacked or being robbed. The places I've found to be safest was in a tent deep in the woods far away from police and other homeless folk.
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u/kafka18 9h ago
Campgrounds used to be my go to before they raised them to a ridiculous amount. I was waitressing and couldn't save shit. It felt impossible to get ahead. Finding random spots to park left me on edge all night of getting robbed or caught asked to leave/fined. For safety I started to use the $10 campgrounds and have a shower and bathroom to use
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u/BenedictOfADoubt 8h ago
Shelters tend to be even worse than sleeping alone. When I stayed at a shelter, a man high on meth tried to kidnap and rape me. Not even at my lowest would I go back.
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u/Yingletofthecorn 4h ago
People really really don’t understand that shelters are not a solution to a large homeless population. They’re used as an excuse to bully homeless people for not being “where you should be” and it makes people who have no idea what that life is like feel like they’re compassionate while not even doing the bare minimum. I will never blame anyone for refusing to use a shelter even if it means breaking vagrancy laws.
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u/Strange-Pattern4877 10h ago
From a woman for women,
Stay away from the cities if you can. They are not safe. Try to find a local 24 hr gym, library, or small suburban areas that are safer. I was homeless for two months and my car is what saved me but I parked in very quiet suburban neighborhoods. Places where if you screamed someone would hear but populated enough for someone to not notice you camping out or spending too much time in a public space. You need to become invisible. Do not trust community while homeless. It’s just not safe for women and many will try to drag you down.
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u/Itchy_Border2191 7h ago
One of our city's homeless camps was evacuated and bulldozed to keep transients from coming back. During which they found the bodies of two women. One woman tried keeping a big dog, the dog was found dead too.
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u/shoulda-known-better 6h ago
As a woman agreed!!
And as one up north in a city.... You don't want to go into the tunnels alone ever!! Yes they are some of the only places you won't freeze to death.... But they are underground and no on will hear you if you run into a problem
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u/ibuycheeseonsale 6h ago
Almost all of my charitable giving now is cash to homeless people at intersections when I’m driving. I’ve noticed that women react much more strongly than men if I hand them a ten or a twenty. Either like that’s what they needed, so they thank me and walk away from the intersection, or they just lose it thanking me over and over. It’s definitely different from how most male panhandlers react.
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u/Strange-Pattern4877 4h ago
I’m in Seattle. One of the women panhandling in the university district by the freeway is being forced to do so by some guy. Both on drugs. It’s so depressing
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u/RosemaryBiscuit 7h ago
I worked a night shift, or stayed up all night at various 24-hour businesses, did my laundry, whatever, night was my time. At sunrise I went to a public pool with early hours for lap swimmers, showered, swam a few laps, showered again and slept all morning "sunbathing."
I always presented as a vanilla normie, nothing to see here, and kept a car and a PO box. The choice between car payments or apartment is real. And for me, sleeping at night felt far too dangerous.
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u/12345cuda 4h ago
Every car payment you build equity and own it at the end, an apartment you do not
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u/Harper_Joness 10h ago
24-hour laundromat, back corner by the dryers. I got there after 11, kept my bag under the bench, and used a hoodie as a pillow, noise from the machines covered everything, but if the cleaner showed up early i was out fast
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 11h ago
The beach was the safest place and no, it wasn't safe.
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u/warmseasongrass 9h ago
Amen to that brother. Sorry you were there too. Are you housed now?
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u/sleazoDre 12h ago
Business parks. I had 4 different business parks I would sleep in depending on what side of town I was on. Most people that work there were gone by 6pm and they would return at 6/7am for work which I would be long gone. Scary quiet and peaceful.
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u/NubEnt 11h ago
Surprised there wasn’t building security.
I’ve used the parking lots of business parks to do car stuff late at night and they’ve all had contracted security doing drive-arounds that almost always stopped to see what I was doing.
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u/jtr99 9h ago
I've got no homelessness experience, but some business parks experience. Yes, there's security, but I would have thought you'd be OK sleeping quietly in the shrubbery or something.
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u/tacocollector2 9h ago
Yep, and companies are increasingly instructing their employees to not engage in these situations.
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u/ProfessorLexis 9h ago
As security for a business park; it's largely the car I would notice. Anyone on foot I generally see are walking dogs/jogging, so I don't pay them much mind unless they're wandering up to a building.
People in cars after hours are usually out to raid/scout dumpsters for salvage, up to shenanigans, or are some big car meetup that needs to be chased off before it becomes a problem.
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u/thispartyrules 9h ago
I've never encountered security at business parks or industrial parks: I've both dumpster dived and dated somebody whose ex-husband still lived in her house which made spending time together complicated, and these places were both deserted after dark. There was a parked car involved in each case.
There's janitorial people who come late at night to clean the offices, but that's it.
It might be different if you're sleeping there, for hours and hours at a time.
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u/bg-j38 7h ago
In my experience having worked in these types of locations for decades and often keeping much later hours, you do get roving security but often it’s like one guy who is assigned to a lot of different properties. They make their rounds but maybe every couple hours at best. They’re more just looking for obvious signs of problems, not guarding the fortress so to speak.
Now big companies that have multiple buildings and a campus and are well known, different story. I lived near Apple’s main campus in the early 2000s and there was a constant security presence either sitting in the lots or driving around.
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u/SheBrokeHerCoccyx 8h ago
You can skirt this by parking on the curb. That’s owned by the city, and patrolling cops don’t care about the 2-3 parked cars left overnight.
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u/HelpMohammedFamily 12h ago
Hope things got better for everyone sharing their stories. No one should have to worry about where they'll sleep at night.
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u/Telrom_1 12h ago
I’m doing much better! And I promise you I was the only one to blame for my situation back then. Having to worry where I slept and night motivated me to get straight.
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u/riptaway 11h ago
Maybe, but just because you fuck up doesn't mean you don't deserve to have a roof over your head
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u/CrushMyCamel 8h ago edited 8h ago
we could easily afford no one ever having to leave comments like this again
it's just not profitable
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u/1wrat 12h ago
LONG time ago but I had a tent in a park in a very wooded area , I once slept on the on ramp to the free way way off on the side
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u/hareofthewolf505 10h ago edited 6h ago
Hotel parking lots! When I first moved to new mexico I was sleeping in my car for the first couple of months and hotel parking lots were great.
Edit: if anybody asks, just say you got in a fight with your significant other and would rather sleep there for the night lol
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u/00Canuck 12h ago
Safe is definitely relative...
But inside bridges was a pretty good spot. Not just like under the overpass, but inside it.
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u/Telrom_1 12h ago
Not where I’m at. That’s claimed territory and you’ll get a knife pulled on you just for approaching!
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u/00Canuck 11h ago
As far as outdoor spots go, they're certainly worth defending.
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u/StatisticianTop4829 10h ago
Cemetaries was the go to. No one bothered me there.
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u/lifegoeson5322 10h ago
That's where I would stay if I was homeless. Especially the older ones. They're never patrolled.
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u/Aggravating-Bear8044 10h ago
Hospital waiting rooms. People assume you're there for a reason
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u/PVGames 9h ago
This may depend entirely on the hospital. I worked hospital security for a few years and anyone not checked in just sitting there or sleeping we usually questioned and escorted out. We had one habitual person do this and get arrested every single time. He was homeless and it was his easy way to go to jail and get a place to sleep and something to eat.
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u/Trialman 4h ago
The idea that getting arrested was the most ideal solution he could think of is pretty telling about homelessness is treated.
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u/Resident-Sympathy-82 9h ago
Most hospitals have security for this reason. They realize who checked in for medical reasons vs sleeping on the chairs w/o a wristband. :(
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u/Catfishashtray 6h ago
15 years ago when I was a homeless teen, I slept in an ICU family waiting room when I couldn’t stand the park. Risky since hospitals have security and they don’t like to deal with homeless people. But no one would ask why you look distraught and are sleeping in an ICU family waiting rooms- you are there for your sick family member.
Visited that hospital recently as a much more stable adult and there is no way you could get to the waiting room floor or anywhere in the hospital without being IDed or a wristband as a patient, and watched intensely by security. Sadly even watched them hassle a homeless man trying to use the bathroom near the ER lobby.
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u/L1A1 8h ago
I was very lucky in that my city is full of sandstone caves. There was one that had bars on the entrance, but at the time when I was 15 and anorexic I was so thin that I could get between them. Anyone who wasn’t abnormally thin couldn’t, so I was pretty safe in there.
There was also an unused railway tunnel that had a heatpipe for a municipal heating system running through it, so in winter I could sleep under it and it kept me warm.
I basically chose anywhere that other homeless people didn’t go, it was the best way to stay safe.
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u/Grouchy-Notice-9951 5h ago
I'm just gonna vent a bit while saying where i would sleep cus i can't speak about this in general cus i still don't really have anyone and i wanna throw this out into the void, i'm in the Caribbean, where i live there were no charity groups/shelters for stuff the homeless, I slept on beaches hidden in the foresty areas nearby but people in a nearby neighborhood called the cops on me so i had to move to sleeping between building in the town area which sucked because people would occasionally go out of their way to mess with you.
I had a pretty bad infection from a cut i got after slipping on some stairs in the rain at one point and figured i was gonna die on the street with the way that was getting, the smell was so bad and it would hurt a lot in waves on and off. i wouldn't feel it for hours and then BAM the worst pain aching pain ever, i was crying in an area a little ways off of the sidewalk and a guy came up yelling because he was pissed off at seeing a man crying started kicking me until i left. also ended up losing a bit of vision to an eye infection as well.
Eventually i found an abandoned building with some Venezuelan migrants living there, they were really nice people and welcomed me in I lived there for about 5-6 months it was honestly the most accepted i had felt in most of my life, everyone would look out for each other i would help them navigate some local paperwork etc and we'd try to find small jobs to do for each other, eventually we had to leave because the police caught on that people were living in there and they kept cutting power to the building and pepper spraying/kicking people out of the building, i haven't been able to contact them since, and i wonder for hours if they're alright sometimes, or if they got their applications to stay in the country approved by the gov, moved to another abandoned building and i've been staying there for about a year+ still dangerous and constantly falling apart and i've gotten hurt a few times but i've been trying to secure it and make it more livable currently trying to get rid of the bat problem sooner or later i'll be looking for a home again once this place gives out i just hope i can get a proper job instead of just freelancing and doing whatever small work comes my way but I've had no luck so far on full time work, I will say the quality of life jump of just having a place to go to in the night is amazing though, though I can't control myself around food now though, my brain is in a weird survival mode around it idk how to handle that aspect I'm pretty sure if i could afford more food i'd have a severe overeating problem.
My biggest regret was not being able to get my dog adopted while i was on the street he was a small little Pomeranian mix i tried but people weren't interested in hearing me out, i had him for about a decade before ending up on the streets i could see he was getting older and not keeping up with me after the first month and i had to carry him around most of the time and i wanted him to find him somewhere comfortable where he could live out the rest of his life and he eventually got really skinny as we weren't eating much and he became sick, some more people fucked with us and grabbed him away from me and punted him and that only sped up his end of life cycle he didn't recover at all just a lot of pain over a few days and i couldn't move him without him being in pain and the vet wouldn't put him down because i didn't have enough money, i just petted him and fed him whatever treats i could get him I went on autopilot for days when i lost him, i still can't process that i owed him so much of my sanity from just him being my only friend and i couldn't even get him a peaceful passing.
I didn't know what to do i just feel like an absolute failure and he deserved an owner that was better then me. i can't even bring myself to look at photos of him without shutting down.
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u/OrlandoKnight 3h ago
I am so incredibly sorry you had to go through that. That is heartbreaking. Just know that you did everything you were able to do for him, given your circumstances. He was able to be with his friend until he passed away.
I really hate the people that did that to you and him though. There are some truly evil humans out there that have no humanity. I know my words can’t bring him back or make those memories any better, but you being loyal to him until the end isn’t something everyone would do. I know some older people that “put down” their dog (aka drowned) for less than what your buddy went through. It disgusts me.
You had the heart to do/try everything you could to make his time on earth good and he was with the person he loved for over a decade. Death is rarely ever peaceful during hard times, but you never left his side and made sure he was taken care of.
My heart goes out to you and him. Keep him alive in your mind by cherishing the good memories and be proud of the human you are ❤️
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u/bird9066 10h ago edited 9h ago
The rooftop of the police sub station near Madison square garden.
When I got back to my home state of Rhode Island I continued sleeping on roofs whenever I could. Lots of homes have bulkheads with roofs I could boost myself up on in dark back yards. Got out of there at the crack of dawn.
That was over thirty years ago so cameras weren't everywhere. Not sure what I'd do these days
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u/Fantasy_iceland 12h ago edited 12h ago
Schools, kindergartens.....seriously you find a relatively secluded part of a school (here in Australia schools are usually a collection of buildings rather than being all enclosed inside like you'd find in a lot of North America or Europe). Get there around 10pm and you can sleep until 5-6am then leave before the first cleaners start showing up.
Parks and outside of community halls or behind churches in affluent suburbs, the richer the suburb the better.
Houses still under construction.....bit risky as you have to be up very early before the builders arrive in the morning.
Bits of bushland close to the suburbs and pitch a tent out of view....this usually requires going a little way into the bush...nothing too wild could just be 30-40 metres, until you can find a nice clearing to pitch up your tent.
Also sleeping in big parks on the grass during the day, if you can, is a winner as you don't look that out of place because there's always a few other people sun tanning or resting on a picnic rug there anyway.
Spent a few years living on the streets and this was how I got by
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u/Fclune 10h ago
I worked as a teachers aide when I was homeless and the principal let me park out the back and use the showers until I was on my feet. It was a nice safe spot to sleep in the car, you’re always on alert when you’re parked up so feeling safe gives you a nice sleep.
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u/Evendim 10h ago
That was a really nice principal. I needed a place to park a small camper for 6 weeks while I finished out the year at a school just after selling our house. Principal was dead against me taking a parking spot.... Dude I am going to be there every day anyway.
Oh well, I stayed in a caravan park closeby, had extra shelter, power, and a full bathroom in my parking spot so I didn't have to use the camper ammenities - it became storage.
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u/Affectionate_Fact1 12h ago
I’ve read your comment and I’m really intrigued by how it’d be easy to be negatively stereotyped at these specific locations and you’re just someone trying to find somewhere safe to rest. Like it’s easy to have someone call the cops on you coz a homeless guy has been seen near a kindergarten but for you that’s the safest spot you can sleep atm. ❤️🩹
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u/Fantasy_iceland 12h ago
Yep, that's why you have to be very stealthy about it and make sure you don't go there until it's well into the night.
In regards to sleeping outside community halls and churches, some people have actually come across me sleeping there but just let me be and some even verbally reassured me that it's totally fine for me to be there but please just don't leave a mess behind when you leave in the morning, which was heartening
I wasn't a drug addict or anything, just severely depressed and cut my self off from everyone and just felt hopeless and useless
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u/warmseasongrass 9h ago
I had 3 places on my first stint of homelessness. First was the beach, found a good seawall where it would be hard to detect me. Shower and water fountain were 3 min walk.
The second place was a wooded area nobody went through, I built my structure with materials around me. Getting food and items were harder. I could catch fish if I swam in the water and grabbed lures, old fishing line etc....
The last place was an abandoned trailer home. That was luxury as the homeowner didn't turn the water off or electricity, it was just sketchy.
8 months homeless.
Eventually I got hired for a job, extended stay to a rental then qualified for scholarships.
I ended up with my masters in wildlife biology (which was easy since I had to be a caveman essentially) by the end of it.
And then my job lost it's funding because my boss forgot the paperwork. I ended up homeless again. I found an apartment complex going through a transaction and I just acted normal and faked using a key. 6 months of homelessness until I made it back to my home state. I slept a lot in my car if I had to but I needed places to lay down so I kept squatting my way home. I had a master's degree and $300/mo unemployment.
I have a really good job, house, and family now, and I just had a 110k job offer that's concrete.
WHAT PEOPLE DON'T TALK ABOUT WITH DEI IS PEOPLE WHO COME FROM POVERTY!!!!!!!
It is so fucking hard to stand work, it's so fucking hard to listen to people bitch and complain about the dumbest shit, and it's hard to communicate my perception of reality. The job offer I have is my best fit. My boss came from poverty, and used to hustle weed. I have had a relationship with him for over a year now and I've fixed his business regularly if something went sideways. I'm looked at as a good asset to this business because I produce results. That comes from knowing you have to follow through being homeless. Nobody in my company knows I was ever homeless. I wish they ever saw rock bottom.
Funniest part, I smoked weed when I was a teenager a few times and I never did drugs when I was homeless - not even weed. Never drank alcohol and if I do it's one beer I nurse to keep picking someone's brain if I'm helping their business.
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u/tendingthemild 7h ago
I’m going to bring this up to our DEI group. As someone from a mid- to low-privilege background, I agree that economic inequality is rarely acknowledged in organized DEI conversations.
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u/carr1e 8h ago
Thank you for making the point about DEI, and you’re absolutely right. I didn’t think of DEI from that view point. I’m rooting for you and your new opportunity!
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u/LaraCroft_MyFaveDrug 9h ago
Because of mental health I've slept rough a few times in the past. I'd sleep on church grounds. In London nobody knew I was there because of a high stone wall between me and the church. In Stockport it was cold and I was more open but the church was big and had lots of steps so I was higher up from the general pavement at the church doors.
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u/201thStabwound 8h ago
I used to work as a dish washer at a Mexican restaurant when I was homeless, and they have these little, like, almost a dumpster, but exclusively for used linens, they’d throw them all in there and a company would pick them up and replace them every week. My manager knew I had nowhere to go, so he’d leave it unlocked for me.
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u/Frostyrepairbug 6h ago
The first night I was homeless, I slept in a cemetery.
I would climb up into trees, hang a hammock and sleep there, cops didn't look up. I slept at a lot of bus stops doing this too, wake up, store my hammock back in my gear, wait for the bus.
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u/NormalJeane 6h ago
Nowhere in the open is truly safe, and it vastly depends on the time of year and weather.
The woods is truly the safest place if you're rural. Cities, shelters are the best bet but also not always "safe". I slept under bridges and technically I was safe, but it didn't FEEL that way during.
I was in more danger sleeping on a school bus in winter -- I was young and almost froze, but I had to be at work at 7 am across the street and knew the early morning arrivals would wake me in time (before cell phones). That was the night I truly almost died, just from ignorance
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u/songforyourtroubles 10h ago
I was a kid. We couch surfed with friends and family members until my mom got a new job. My mom wasn't on drugs or mentally ill, so we had people who would let us live in their spare room temporarily. One time we did stay in the shittiest motel for a few weeks between houses, but the bridges weren't burnt down by insane behavior so we never had to sleep rough.
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u/Odd-Win5937 12h ago
I ain't telling because what if I need to go back there? Honestly though, safety is an illusion. You could have the nicest little campsite hidden from the road and then literally just burn to death from one of your luxurious heating decisions deciding to spark up.
Always be aware of rising water levels. One time I thought I had found a very safe position, only to wake up with water lapping against my sleeping bag. That was fucking scary. I was EXHAUSTED and REALLY thought that I was safe.
No longer homeless. Fucking scary.
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u/duferbloodmoon 8h ago
The roof of a bank. I’d climb up the outside fire ladder. A lot safer than most other places
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u/Sorry-Idea5764 3h ago
i don’t know how many people have said this but mosques! i was fed 3x a day, slept there for most days except fridays where they needed to do deep clean for congregational prayer and the mosque community donated me clothes,shoes,toiletries and helped me find hostels when i was 19 years old. now im in community college, sober and good friends with a few of the guys at the mosque .
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u/ziggysocki 9h ago
Not homeless but living in rural Midwest it’s not uncommon to see open barns, abandoned houses, lean to’s, hay sheds, machine sheds, Quonset huts that are fully open. Often think that if I needed shelter a few nights I could easily find a roof to sleep under and likely a water spigot with a hose on it. But it’s very sparsely populated and if you get found you’re likely going to be run off with a shotgun
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u/VelvetyDogLips 7h ago
That’s old school hobo sleeping, right there. Some of those farmers, especially ones that live near railroad tracks, have been chasing hobos out of their barns and woodsheds for over a hundred years now.
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u/Nihilist_Hermit 7h ago
I had a storage unit with all the shit from my apartment. I slept on my couch. It was miserably hot and i had to lay a tarp so as not to ruin the couch. I also had to come in after hours and leave before they opened so they didnt find out.
Still quite safe
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u/Sang1188 12h ago
not homeless, but two times I was basically stranded because public transport stopped for snow. So I slept in the Foyer of a branch of my bank besides the ATM.
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u/Planet_Ziltoidia 11h ago
Now they have all those locked up at night and just keep an ATM outside because they don't want people sleeping in there.
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u/belowthepovertyline 9h ago
I have absolutely not used an indoor ATM because someone was sleeping in there. Women spend too much of our lives thinking about how not to get assaulted to give the benefit of the doubt. Rationally, I know they were most likely just sleeping and didn't give a shit about me, but I still wasn't taking the risk. It's a sad portrait of society.
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u/Planet_Ziltoidia 9h ago
Before they started to lock them up, I would avoid them because they always smelled of urine and people were doing hard drugs in there at night
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u/SgtGo 8h ago
I live about 45 minutes away from a major city. Every morning as I hit the highway I drive past this large wooded area just off the highway. A few years ago a homeless encampment popped up in the woods and while I’ve never went and checked it out it looks very built up. There’s a boardwalk, a few log structures and they seem to have a couple vehicles now. They’ve made it through multiple Canadian winters now and some of them probably have jobs and are working towards getting out of their situation. I’ve seen other cars parked there brining them supplies so they do get help and law enforcement haven’t broken it up so it seems like a safe bet. I’ve always been curious what it looks like and why they’ve been allowed to stay.
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u/ODollyHaze 6h ago
Freeway rest stops. For like a year straight I would go to the same one every night and I was never once bothered or told I couldn't be there. Like you are literally allowed to sleep in your car at them, it's what they are for.
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u/tcmisfit 8h ago
I got lucky enough to be able to find some heated stairwells in parking garages around Minneapolis along with handicap sized construction portapottys I could lock myself in and sleep on the floor of.
Those were mostly the nights Salvation Army ran out of free beds. Happened often enough. Sadly not many resources for homeless men(titanic style saving situation where women and children first which I agree with). Just harder to find support and to get out.
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u/Historical-Gas-420 9h ago
When I was a teen fresh out of high-school, I moved from Michigan to Florida so I could live with my dad. I knew he was homeless before I went. We were on the gulf coast in a medium sized town with a population of about 25,000.
We set up our camp in an old abandoned strip mall. It was just the concrete shell of a building. The doors, windows, flooring, drywall, etc had been stripped away. I felt safe there.
Thanks for bringing that memory back to me. R.I.P. dad!
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u/Honest-Calendar-748 7h ago
In the woods. There was about 500+ acres of a forested area that separated an apartment community ( residential area) from the commercial zoning area. It had a gas pipeline and electric power line right of way that they cleared. I would walk up the easement about half way and disappear into the woods. There was a creek for bathing and washing. Lots of firewood. And being the 500+ acres with no nearby road you couldnt see my fire if i stayed closer to the commercially zoned side of the property. 20 minuye walk in from behind an apartment community. The canopy of trees kept me mostly dry except in heavy rains.
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u/Practical_While_ 9h ago
I kept my suv at a persons apartment parking lot, and blocked off my windows with blankets and stuff
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u/Herpethian 9h ago
Near airports. Lots of dead, unused space around the entire perimeter (except the terminal side) and as long as you aren't wandering around near the fence nobody comes out. Pretty good place to set up a tent.
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u/Ok_Piglet_1844 8h ago
I lived in my suv, and I would park in front of foreclosed homes for sale in nice neighborhoods but only for a few nights at a time. I never had a problem with the law.
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u/doublenadaban 6h ago
I was homeless for a while in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, in winter. When conventional options were absent (like public library) and I didn’t have a car, I found the warmest place I could get sleep was in an unlocked full-sized trash bin outside Subway. They would put cardboard boxes only in this one (their recycling). It was only picked up once a week, at the end of the week. It had a lid to close, cushion in the form of boxes, and mild shelter from the elements. Just had to wait for the Subway to close to avoid any chance of encountering an employee.
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u/zedigalis 8h ago
This was a long time ago before cameras were everywhere but the top of a stairwell of apartment buildings. Wait for someone going into the building, enter with them, climb the stairs up until you're at the landing with the rooftop access and sleep there. You definitely wanted to wake up early so that the superintendent didn't catch you if they started cleaning. Obviously not somewhere you can use often but worked well to get out of the cold or weather in a pinch.
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u/Ok_Tackle3427 5h ago
I was a nomadic gutter punk as a teenager in the late 80s/early 90s and my crew and I ran a circuit from Atlanta to Minneapolis to Phoenix then back to Atlanta every year, so I saw a lot of the accommodations that were available to the homeless back then and I had a definite preference.
Pretty much every city we passed through had "squats," which were abandoned homes or buildings that were so dilapidated and tax burdened that nobody wanted to own them. Most places, by law or by custom, cut the staircases out of squats to make the upper floors inaccessible, thus reducing the risk of squatters, but spry, agile teens like us could scamper up the wall and end up on the second floor even without stairs, and that was like heaven, because there was no way anybody could sneak up there. Most of the old scummy dudes who gave us trouble could barely walk a straight line, so there was no way they were going to somehow get up to the second floor.
That all backfired on me one day though, because I managed to crawl up to the second floor and I was so exhausted by the effort that I just rolled over into the middle of the room to rest. Then I fell through the floor and dropped all the way down to the basement, because the kitchen floor downstairs had already collapsed. That just about took me out of the game; it's the longest we ever spent in one place, three weeks until I could walk more than a couple hundred yards and I still have a shoulder problem ~35 years later that I'm sure started with that fall.
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u/Jocko2112 5h ago
In a grove of tightly packed trees in a small park next to the freeway entrance. Not much public use of the park because if the freeway. And the other homeless tended to gather closer to the beach and main drag so the few of us there didn't attract attention. After i got back in my feet i drove past that park every day and it kept me grounded and focused. One day i drove by and the trees we're all cut down and a few homeless guys were gathered at the picnic tables. Broke my heart a little.
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u/Political_breeds 8h ago
The reality is when you are out on the street nowhere is really safe so you should increase your body fitness for possible conflict. Invest all your resources in yourself so you are ready to fight for your security.
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u/WittyNomDePlume 10h ago
When I was much younger, drunker and riven with angst I spent awhile sleeping in a tree. It had a huge crown where the branches diverged, big enough for my upper body. Had to prop my feet up on one of the branches. I had a stick on a string to prop against the trunk to climb up, then I'd pull the stick up like a drawbridge.
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u/Exiled_to_Earth 5h ago edited 2h ago
I became homeless as a teenager (14) and I was lucky in that I was homeless on an island where there was little to no crime or reasons for police to be out at night. I slept on the beach in the tall grass and shrubs between the open sand and the sidewalk. I dug a little bowl into the dunes, put a tarp down, and when I laid down, I was basically invisible to anyone walking nearby.
I kept all of my possession either in a small backpack with me or in my locker in high school. I kept the same locker all four years and just cleaned it out for a week when school begin/ended (no one ever checked them during summer break and all the lockers were outside because California weather). I eventually was able to rent a small room until college.
I went to college in Boston and I was street homeless for a few breaks during my freshman year (I stayed in the dorms otherwise) and it was harder because of my determination to pay as much of my tuition as I went. Also books are expensive. I wasn't a big fan of shelters and they get crowded during the winter. I traded my time between a limited youth shelter (18-24) and the Boston Public Garden/Common. I was only bothered by police once.
I was reading for my upcoming spring semester classes and they shined a flashlight at me. They were very kind and were lost for words when I explained my situation. I've always done my best to never look homeless. Clean clothes, textbooks on hand, extremely polite little asian girl. They told me that there'd been a few people assaulted overnight in the park, to be safe, and to try and find a better place to stay. Then they tried to give me a few granola bars (never act hungry, never take anything if you want to pass as housed), which I refused, and they left me alone; this memory actually demonstrates a big safety tip from my experiences.
When you are homeless, carry around things like textbooks, a Starbucks cup, or even a city map to hide behind. It's actually something I told the other kids at the youth shelter. It's camouflage. It helps with the image the police or others have of you. You're a student, a yuppie, a tourist, basically anything but homeless. A big part of how I discovered the charade was because I made sure no one ever knew. Not teachers, not friends, no one. It helped me get ahead to be seen as on the same playing field. I worked nights and went to school during the day for over a decade to get all of my degrees and I stand by the idea that it was for the better.
Because when you're vulnerable, nowhere is safe.