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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?

#21

Post by kevinmershon »

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.

While all those skills are great to have, you're now competing with every unemployed junior, fresh grad, and old coder on the market. You need to update your skill set, and ideally focus on skills that are in higher demand and with higher barrier to entry or with a captive audience/market.

Vue/React/Python are all still huge but they're commodity skills today. Differentiating will help with the jobseeking.

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

#22

Post by steve_adams_86 »

When I was younger I moved somewhere without a backup plan, and took some seasonal work (which actually paid fairly well), then did some construction (didn't pay so well). The seasonal work offered food and boarding so I was able to essentially vanish, coast on the awful camp food and live in a tent, and save every penny. The construction work, I just rode a bike there and did my bit from 9 to 5. Rent wasn't cheap, but I didn't have a lot of other expenses.

I lived a bit like a bum and had to sacrifice a lot, but it worked. It was temporary. I left where I was because I had a room mate with mental health issues, and rather than subject myself to them (they were becoming violent), I realized I had to take a leap. If I kicked them out, I was inviting trouble for myself and setting them up for a hard fall. If I left, they at least had a space to live and sort themselves out for a while.

This was when I was teaching myself programming. I read books when I couldn't use my computer, but once I could afford a place where I could use my computer, I spent a lot of my spare time doing that, finding freelance work, and getting out of the hard labour scene. It worked out fine. You've got a leg up since you've already got skills and proof of ability.

Good luck. I know it's hard, and it feels like garbage a lot of the time, but you sink in the hours now to get relief later.

Good luck.

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

#23

Post by cantrecallmypwd »

I lived in vehicles for 11 years until eventually resettling with family after circumstances changes.

1. Find the local county or city social services agency.

2. Apply for emergency aid and shelter, including Medicaid and SNAP.

3. Apply for section 8 housing. This usually will take a great deal of time.

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

#24

Post by ty6853 »

kaikai wrote: post #9

I’ve been homeless and am now an employed engineer, so I know it’s possible to make the leap. You can’t make it in one go, though. Get a better job, that can get you stable housing. I don’t know the job market in your area, but try looking for temp agencies. They will do a basic interview and help you find something that uses your existing skills. Until you get stable housing and your basic needs met, focus on what y…

If he switches from contract/1099 to a wage job I wonder if child support will start garnishing the fuck out of it. This is the black hole a lot of people get sucked into and end up having to start their own business to buy some runway because the courts very much enjoy kicking non custodial parents in the teeth to the point they cannot get one foot on the ground.

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

#25

Post by qnleigh »

motohagiography wrote: post #16

the hardest advice I've received was to find what you are still hanging on to that is preventing change and let it go. in that spirit: you don't have shelter. I would say you have nothing to offer your kids right now except your emotional need. their mother (or whoever) can take care of them. you're out, done, kaput. accept the failure and earn their forgiveness sometime the future if you are lucky, not now. the beli…

Hopefully it's obvious, but cutting yourself out of your remaining social connections is not good advice. I don't understand what this is supposed to gain you, but it's obviously not worth it, for you or your kids.

Also sounds like you should not get rid of your PC, unless it helps you acquire a laptop.

> this is the harshest advice I can think of

Good job. Did you stop to think if this was -good- advice?

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

#27

Post by timewizard »

> Through therapy, ketamine treatment, and building my own AI-assisted mental health tools

Those do not sound like a pathway to mental health.

> staying in cheap motels when I can afford it.

From what you've said you clearly can't afford it.

> What would YOU do in my situation to break the cycle?

Get a regular job. It's going to feel like a giant step backwards, but, this is what you need right now. You need to stabilize yourself and have some reliable work and housing in your life. You need a routine. You need to socialize with your co-workers. You need to build all of the things that are currently missing in your life. You cannot build a bridge to a fantasy.

> I’m willing to work. I know I can earn 3-4x more doing freelance tech, but I can’t do that from a car.

You can earn 3 to 4x more doing construction or day labor. Which, given where you live, is going to be far more reliable and afford you more opportunities to matriculate into better positions.

> I’ve thought about renting office space, finding roommates, even setting up a GoFundMe, but I need actionable ideas, not just hope.

Those ideas aren't even hopeful. I think your endpoints have been moved and you didn't notice.

> I just need to stay local for my kids

We go through all of the above to finally out with the fact you have dependents? I fear that you've just been mollycoddling yourself and not being honest or serious about your future.

I'll leave you with this. Wake up. There ARE fates worse than death out there and I hate to see you wake up to that kind of regret.

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

#28

Post by nonameiguess »

Something reasonably close to this happened to me in 2002. I worked for Disney at the time and they cut back to the entertainment department and laid me off. My wife at the time OD'd, got herself committed to a psych ward, got us kicked out of our apartment, and we ultimateley divorced. I was forced to live out of my car for a while.

It frankly wasn't actionable ideas and guarantees that got me back. It was commitment to a plan once I had one, no matter how shitty the interim existence was, and the grace and goodness of other people. You're arguably in a better position if you already have marketable job skills. I was doing performance art for Disneyland. I went back to school after and eventually became this, but that took years before I had anything like an independent, stable adult existence. I was working graveyard shifts cleaning park restrooms and taking 24 credit hours per semester at a community college during the day, for two years, before I got old enough to be eligible for financial aid without having to report my parents' income and assets, and they weren't helping me.

But other people did help. Two women I knew, very good friends from now a long time ago, had parents that let me stay with them. One was a divorced Italian woman who was otherwise alone anyway and the other was a normal family that was rich and had a lot of extra space and didn't mind me taking up a little bit of it. I lived with with those two families when I had nowhere else to go and that was the initial path off the street that gave me the stability to do everything else.

I have no answer for how you find such people who will help you. I would like to say be a kind, gracious person who deserves it, but it's hard to say I was even that. I did nothing to deserve help but people who could helped me anyway. I've spent the past quarter century since then paying it forward and helping out every person I possibly can and even letting a few homeless friends here and there live with me for a couple months at a time, but up to that point in my life, I had done nothing to deserve being helped.

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

#29

Post by prewett »

soared wrote: post #11

Ignore 95% of comments here. Research your options for local support through the government and religion. Religion may be more helpful in your area, even if your beliefs don’t exactly align. There is housing, food, etc available to you but you’ll likely need a social worker for help find it. https://switchpointcrc.org/ is local to you with food, shelter, etc. More info from a gov source: https://sgcityutah.gov/busine…

+1, definitely. Social workers are there for exactly your situation. There are generally state programs for housing, housing assistance, food, and health care, which they can help you locate. You paid for this previously with your taxes, take advantage of them now. They are probably also aware of other religious / independent options. They may be able to advise you on whether moving somewhere like SLC, which has local tech, might or might not provide more support.

Unfortunately, the tech market is not great right now, and I think remote freelance rates are fairly low right now. But, in your situation, you can probably offer very competitive rates while still building up some savings. Once you have some savings (six months to 1 year is usually the recommendation), it gives you a lot of margin of safety, and you can reduce your usage of the government assistance.

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

#30

Post by jaco6 »

(1) Why are you wasting money renting motels? If you need a shower, use a gym. Get a membership at a cheap one that has a shower (walk in and ask for a tour), or just idle around the sidewalk in gym clothes and walk in after someone. Sleep in your car in a Walmart parking lot or other 24 hour business lot. Conceal yourself properly so you aren’t a target for police or criminals. Motels are too expensive for you to save the money to live

(2) Are you using all 12 of your driving hours on Uber/Lyft? You should be able to make $200-300 / day if you’re in a good area. If the area you’re in is yielding less than that, move somewhere else.

(3) Save $3k or so then get a cheapass apartment or trailer and build from there

Before all of these, apply to local shelters. If they’re going to stop you from working don’t go in. If there are questions they’re going to use to keep you out then lie.

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