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Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

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Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#161

Post by dominotw »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #159
dominotw wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people are dying of starvation in Netherlands?

In the US, homeless people have a much lower life expectancy than housed people and other categories of poor people also generally have lower life expectancies. You don't have to be pronounced dead from literal starvation for poverty to kill you. I guess that's a "yes, well-heeled people really are completely oblivious to what actual poverty means." Which would explain an awful lot of super shitty policies in the wor…

you are really reaching here, Lower life expectancy doesn't mean "dead in a few months". Are you really saying poor ppl in Netherlands have a life expectancy of few months?

Also, lol at all your other irrelevant points, I grew up in one of the poorest parts of Africa. You clearly have no idea what poverty means. Funny how ppl who lived all their lives in a first world country think they know what poverty is.

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#162

Post by clarry »

luckylion wrote: post #140
clarry wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like you could easily pick up any entry level dev job? HN would always surprise me. Don't underestimate the extreme prejudice in tech hiring. Everyone's looking out for "red flags" and excuses to turn down a candidate. It's especially bad if you don't have either 1) recent, relevant education, or 2) recent, relevant industry experience. Open source participation might save you but not as often as you'd thi…

This isn't my experience at all, but that may be due to different companies. I'd expect that in large corporations with very structured recruitment processes, cozy jobs and high pay. They don't want deviation from the norm, so any red flags are "thanks, but no thanks". For smaller companies ( Homelessness is another beast, as might mental health issues be, but degrees don't matter nearly as much in the real world as…

I suspect the differences in our experiences are more regional. I imagine that Germany, having 15x the population and significantly more capital than Finland, would have a much more vibrant tech scene. Being closer to other EU countries probably helps a lot too.

The demand for developers is fierce here, for sure, so it is very much a seller's market. But like I said, medium-large companies are siphoning off all the fresh blood (and no, you don't need a degree, but being a student in a relevant discipline makes all the difference!).

Small companies with productive experts don't want to waste time & money on training juniors and taking chances with them. The rest of the small companies are pretty much on shoestring budget (most of them serving local niches in our small market, or playing startup with government funds which are comparable to unemployment benefits, barely enough to cover rent and food) and a bad hire could genuinely topple many of them.

Sure, that does leave a handful of small companies that will take chances out of desperation, but I think they're a dying breed -- think the kind of shops that maintain some legacy doodles written in php and visual basic. Their services are slowly getting subsumed by the larger companies.

The meme on local boards is that yeah, there's a huge demand for seniors with 5+ years of experience, at junior salaries. :-)

I'm pretty much seeing the same thing in my network; plenty of people are working at small-medium companies that could use more bodies, but at the same time everyone's saying they wouldn't hire juniors (sometimes phrased as "we would hire juniors with relevant experience"). Similar story at my (very small) company..

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#163

Post by DoreenMichele »

dominotw wrote: post #161
DoreenMichele wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, homeless people have a much lower life expectancy than housed people and other categories of poor people also generally have lower life expectancies. You don't have to be pronounced dead from literal starvation for poverty to kill you. I guess that's a "yes, well-heeled people really are completely oblivious to what actual poverty means." Which would explain an awful lot of super shitty policies in the wor…

you are really reaching here, Lower life expectancy doesn't mean "dead in a few months". Are you really saying poor ppl in Netherlands have a life expectancy of few months? Also, lol at all your other irrelevant points, I grew up in one of the poorest parts of Africa. You clearly have no idea what poverty means. Funny how ppl who lived all their lives in a first world country think they know what poverty is.

I'm saying homeless people can die on the street in fairly short time frames and being concerned that such circumstances are a genuine threat to survival isn't just someone being completely histrionic or deluded.

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#165

Post by timwaagh »

Um if you're near utrecht i've got a garden to fix. i never get around to it. i dont know where in the netherlands you are, but if its utrecht it might be the trouble of walking/biking. I will offer a meager ten euro for it. theres some other things that need to be done here as well as i want the place to be ready for paying guests. Do you have any skills like tiling? I want tiles in my kitchen. If you know about phones well my phone needs fixing or replacing. as for jobs, try the dutch post or sandd. anybody can do that. just like me, they dont pay well. but its steady and better than nothing. if you need an address, pay somebody for registration. thats fraud, but fairly common and i dont think anybody cares. you can try working in it after that. you need an address for it. but lots of consultancies need fresh bodies to throw at clients. they wont ask too many questions.

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#166

Post by [deleted] »

herenorthere wrote: post #160
kempbellt wrote: post #144

Oof... Sounds like a shit situation. Honest advice: Quit sitting around waiting for life to drop an opportunity in your lap! Create opportunity for yourself! This post is a great start, but keep going. Approach people in real life with the same friendly and open-hearted attitude, just like you've done here, and your situation will improve - and fast. Anyone who tries to judge your situation and condemn you for it can…

Honest question: what did he say that you would presume he's been "sitting around waiting for life to drop an opportunity in his lap?"

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#167

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

marto1 wrote: post #143
fsloth wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Churches aren't like that in Europe. They are not communities nor are they huge. A church is an office where a priest and maybe some assisting staff work, and the priest performs weekly some ceremonies. But there is really no community as such.

Which Europe ? In orthodox churches and especially monasteries it is essentially mandatory to give you a place to sleep while doing some work for them until you get back on your feet. It also used to be customary for people in villages and towns to always accept a traveler for the night, but not anymore, unfortunately.

Orthodox churches do not feel obligated to provide lodging. Sure, some parishes will let the homeless bed down at night, but this is a small minority, and in general Orthodox parish priests would prefer you take advantage of homeless shelters instead of expecting lodging from a parish church.

Orthodox monasteries larger than a skete are obliged to provide hospitality, but the prevailing interpretation is that this hospitality is limited to three days, and then it is the abbot's call to let you stay further or ask you to leave.

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#168

Post by gnusci »

Come back to the ground. It is easier if you take some steps to evolve. Find a job in a bar, spa, shop, cleaning, or so. Those jobs do not require a CV or ref letter. Then, you may get enough money to pay a room or basement. Once you are self sufficient, work hard to get further in you plan.

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#169

Post by [deleted] »

vertex-four wrote: post #34
csomar wrote: post #13

That’s a bit surprising given that the Netherlands has a generous social system. I’ll try as a first step to ask and look for government organizations that could potentially help and give you free stuff. Next, I’ll drop tech for a while. I’ll look for any job that has low or no barrier to entries. Washing cars, cleaning carpets, collecting garbage, etc... These are jobs with little barriers to entry and that will hav…

The Netherlands has a generous social system that I can't access because I'm not actually from here. It happens to be the last place I was in when I was told I didn't have a home or money any more. Going "home" is kinda pointless - there's not actually any support in the UK for people like me, so I'd be sleeping rough there quickly anyway.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to find work while homeless?

#170

Post by ansq »

It sounds like you're trying a lot of out there ideas (volunteering at cafe, open source donations, helping out at hackerspaces, etc).

My advice is to try to halt all of that and dedicate 100% energy towards traditional ways of finding a job over the next month.

Out of curiosity, what about family?

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