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Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#151

Post by kelnos »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #13
avgDev wrote: post #4

You can work from a local library. Do you have anyone you can lean on? Cousin? Uncle? Anyone? Just a little financial support could go a long way. Do you have any programming experience? Instead of making school a priority, I would try to get an actual job. Non-tech can be stupid simple, the pay can be decent, definitely better than Uber. Plus, you will have a space to work and a work machine.(this can be a bit hard…

I've got 10 years experience with laravel, lots of PHP, JavaScript, vue, react, MySQL, Python etc...i just don't have a computer unless I can find a place to set up my desktop... that's my biggest hurdle.

If you can sell the desktop for enough money to buy a good-enough laptop, you should do that. The desktop is just dead weight until you have a place where you can permanently set it up, and if you believe you an use your programming skills to help you get back on your feet, you need to be able to use those skills now, while you don't have a place to plug in that desktop.

But really, look for a stable job, any job. Uber/Lyft is not that, especially with the uncertainty in your car situation. Your eventual goal might be to do software freelancing, or to get a full-time job using those software skills, but you may not be able to get one of those kinds of jobs now.

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#152

Post by ENGNR »

waste_monk wrote: post #146
1123581321 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a plaintiff's perspective when there is no concern for the welfare of the other parent. From a broader view of family law, we should be trying to make it more fair and being watchful for opportunities to reform abuses. The public has an interest in the welfare of both parents and any children in a divorce. We want the children to have two healthy and stable parents, and we do not want to incur health…

>That sounds like a plaintiff's perspective when there is no concern for the welfare of the other parent. It would be more accurate to say that the court prioritises the welfare of the child above that of the parents. That is, the system (in theory) should enforce that the child recieves the same level of support and standard of living as it would if the parents had not separated. Judges take a very dim view of paren…

Is this reasonable though? Going from one household to two households raises expenses. People also just go through bad times, mental troubles, skills atrophy. Even just not seeing your kids might make someone lose the will to get up early and give it all they’ve got for another decade.

Is it really fair that previously they got to work hard to buy their kid nice things, but now they must work hard to buy them nice things or go to jail?

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#153

Post by andsoitis »

> I'm in Southern Utah (St George), willing to relocate to SLC area or Las Vegas, I just need to stay local for my kids...4 hour radius from southern Utah.

I suggest you optimize for your own (individual) positive economic trajectory first.

RuPaul has a saying “if you can’t love yourself, how can you love somebody else. Can I get an amen up in here?” An analog to your situation might be: if you cannot be there for yourself, how can you be there for your kids?

Consequently, I suggest you not limit yourself to such a narrow radius of employment opportunity. If you cannot get a well-paying job somewhere else, you shoylr have resources to visit your kids. Watch out for ruinous empathy.

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#154

Post by ceva »

kureikain wrote: post #139
_throw123away4 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im in a similar situation as op. If he doesn't take this up, could I?

Email me your info. I will ship one.

careful the guy created an account 9h ago, I would not trust him.

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#155

Post by waste_monk »

lukan wrote: post #148
waste_monk wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and had arguably some reason to miss payments? How was the court meant to know that? keeping in mind that article was from 1990 and it was a lot harder to share information. It sounds like the court was sympathetic and he was freed as soon as practicable: >Sherrill called a family member, who contacted the chief district judge, Sol Cherry. Cherry called the jail and ordered Sherrill's release. He was freed about 7:3…

Well, he told them. And had evidence. "freed as soon as practicable" They demanded cash only. In the evening. Practical in my opinion would have been, "yeah sure, as a just released hostage we can sort it all out tomorrow in your case" But everbody followed their orders and acted as part of the machine.

>Practical in my opinion would have been, "yeah sure, as a just released hostage we can sort it all out tomorrow in your case"

Which is what happened, after they got in contact with the judge who had the authority to do so.

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#156

Post by liamwire »

john_moscow wrote: post #123
endofreach wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the government is taking the money though... usually it goes to someone who is arguably deserving. So i feel "kicking in the teeth" seems inappropriate. I also fucked up because of taxes many times and just recently a big bad "surprise" hit me. But it's not like it was not my failure of responsibility.

No point in setting yourself on fire to keep others warm though.

If the alternative is that your kids go cold instead, let me be the first to offer you a match.

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#157

Post by [deleted] »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #13
avgDev wrote: post #4

You can work from a local library. Do you have anyone you can lean on? Cousin? Uncle? Anyone? Just a little financial support could go a long way. Do you have any programming experience? Instead of making school a priority, I would try to get an actual job. Non-tech can be stupid simple, the pay can be decent, definitely better than Uber. Plus, you will have a space to work and a work machine.(this can be a bit hard…

I've got 10 years experience with laravel, lots of PHP, JavaScript, vue, react, MySQL, Python etc...i just don't have a computer unless I can find a place to set up my desktop... that's my biggest hurdle.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#158

Post by zmgsabst »

waste_monk wrote: post #142
zmgsabst wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those vindictive people sometimes the custodial parent, as well?

Oh, there are plenty of vindicative custodial parents, but I haven't heard of one reducing their own income as it wouldn't increase the child support, just hurt their own wallet. It's more along the lines of trying to prevent the non-custodial parent from having visitation and that sort of thing.

My implication was they’d demand unfair child support which left the non-custodial parent destitute and unable to recover, even though that’s not in the interest of the child, as an act of retribution.

A story I’ve seen play out several times.

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#159

Post by lukan »

waste_monk wrote: post #155
lukan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he told them. And had evidence. "freed as soon as practicable" They demanded cash only. In the evening. Practical in my opinion would have been, "yeah sure, as a just released hostage we can sort it all out tomorrow in your case" But everbody followed their orders and acted as part of the machine.

>Practical in my opinion would have been, "yeah sure, as a just released hostage we can sort it all out tomorrow in your case" Which is what happened, after they got in contact with the judge who had the authority to do so.

He was handcuffed and put into prison. In my world it is outrageous that this happened at all and it counts only a bit, that he was released that evening.

Re: Ask HN: How do I escape homelessness after rebuilding my mental health?

#160

Post by wltr »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #13
avgDev wrote: post #4

You can work from a local library. Do you have anyone you can lean on? Cousin? Uncle? Anyone? Just a little financial support could go a long way. Do you have any programming experience? Instead of making school a priority, I would try to get an actual job. Non-tech can be stupid simple, the pay can be decent, definitely better than Uber. Plus, you will have a space to work and a work machine.(this can be a bit hard…

I've got 10 years experience with laravel, lots of PHP, JavaScript, vue, react, MySQL, Python etc...i just don't have a computer unless I can find a place to set up my desktop... that's my biggest hurdle.

Why would you stick to your desktop so much? It looks like any laptop is a better device for you right now.

I’d suggest agreeing to the proposition of the kind person who offered you to ship his ThinkPad. (In this very thread.) If there’s more than one person willing to help, I’d suggest agreeing on getting a couple of laptops, as it will allow you to have a backup computer. Someone offered his MacBook Pro 2012 here too. I have a similar one, and it does the web dev job just fine. It’s like tires to your car, I’d have at least two, the 2nd one can be any that would boot and work, regardless of its state and how powerful it is.

If you feel very uncomfortable about that, I’d suggest you to treat it as a credit. You can buy that laptop from that person later, offering them the market price for that.

Any basic web dev work should not take tremendous resources from your machine, so even if your computer is super powerful, you don’t _require_ it to do the job. Selling or not is your decision, but to me, it’s just secondary. You can get any old laptop for very cheap. Just throw any Linux on it. Fedora or Ubuntu is modest even if you never interacted with it, and they will allow almost any 10–15 years old laptop to work relatively well.

I’d strongly suggest having two, just so you could have any backup option to do the job, even if the primary laptop is down for some reason. It’s real to work from anywhere, your car, a café, a street. You might need a battery for that laptop, but it shouldn’t be too expensive, and should serve you at least for a year or two, which might be plenty for you to get to a better state than yours now.

I have a super powerful desktop for more than a decade now, and due to various life obstacles, I’m unable to work from it most times. It was shelved for a couple of years, and now I’m able to reach it only once or twice a week. If I had no laptop, I wouldn’t be able to deliver anything. I used a 2011 entry-level MacBook Pro till it was broken, now I use a 2014 model, and it’s my primary machine for everything. So don’t underestimate laptops.

Since you’d benefit from a battery life, I’d suggest you to find any cheap second-hand iPad. The newer, the better, obviously, but those that are no longer supported can be very cheap. I have a 1st Gen. iPad Pro, and it works almost full day from its (quite drained) battery. This device can work as a 2nd screen for any relatively modern macOS device (e.g. a 10 years MacBook). Plus, such a device might allow you to have more screen time from a battery, and might be better than just a smartphone when you’re on the go. By juggling these devices, you might have a full-day battery life.

Just my ¢2 about your desktop. Go for laptop and try to find any computer-related job, I’d say.

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