161–170 of 284 posts
And then people sent this guy over $40k? For no reason?
I need to get into the sob-story business.
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I'm sure there's financial sense behind it too. Americans aren't just cowboys firing off their "freedom" guns at every major decision we come to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugged_individualism Which works fine until you realize you don't operate in a vacuum, and your destiny is influenced by forces outside of your control.
Let me just say we should be spending a lot less money on war and a lot more money on welfare. Yet let me also say that the genesis of many ghettos was in a "war on poverty" that pushed for low-income housing. You're not being immoral by trying to evaluate each side and it certainly does not make me a rugged individualist.
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Uh.... no. Read my original post. Medicaid is available to low income individuals. In fact, it was expanded (in most states) up to ~175% of the federal poverty level. You can get it even when you have a job!
Have you tried to get Medicaid in a state? Because I have for a family member (Indiana). There's a waitlist, and even on it, your monthly out of pocket costs are very high (the person in question had zero income , and was still required to cough up $400-$1000 for prescriptions and copays, with no income!).
Medical works better, at least in part because Californians want it to work better.
I recently sold everything I owned and started living out of my converted dodge caravan while I was prototyping what I wanted to build next. With an eye on my burn rate, I lived as cheaply as possible. I can tell you without a doubt that there is no natural system in place for homeless to get out of that rut, and it looks and feels dehumanizing. I wasn't completely broke but I couldn't keep affording rent as expensiv…
There is absolutely no comparison between having to sleep on the street and having a vehicle to sleep in, especially during the fall/winter in seasonal areas. I would absolutely live in a converted van if it meant saving money. Sadly, I don't have a van to convert ;-)
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Aren't you hijacking the topic of homelessness here then? When people say homeless they don't mean someone who is homeless out of choice and can get out of it whenever they want to?
I'm just relaying my experiences and what I've seen.
You completely appropriated the topic of homelessness to give more credibility to your project. And then you have the AUDACITY to pretend to be amazed at the community response when you wrote a huge blog post basically crying about choosing to be homeless and wishing people would give you free shit?
People like you are what is wrong with tech right now. I hope you fail.
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Except if you don't have 3k rents you might be able to just find a place to live. This is not "I've lost everything and am homeless with no way out" it's "I wanna build a startup so I'm going to go live in a van".
This is a pretty important point. You can get a very small apartment in Austin, TX, for $500 (and many other non-SF cites). If you're able to, spending ~$16 a day versus living in a van makes a lot of sense. Completely different if you don't have that $16.
Landlords very often just won't take you on at all if you don't show evidence of preëxisting stability. No proof of stable income? No housing—you can even offer to pay up-front or whatever, and they just won't bother dealing with you as a special case, because why would they deal with the special case when there's a dozen other safe, predictable, normal people in line behind you?
Got an income, but can't prove it to be consistently enough? Congratulations, no housing for you. And thus begins the downward spiral.
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As an aside - I think we should start a ground-up movement to buy up as much of detroit as possible and create 'Silicon Detroit' as the land value is ridiculously low - and tech could move in where the biggest expense would be bringing in only strong connectivity. Other initiatives like urban farming could be done as well. I think detroit is super fertile. Imagine what just a billion dollar fund could do for tech in…
Got to be careful with urban farming in those areas - lots of lead ended up in the ground during the 20th century. That said, I'm in on the concept. For a few months a year (at most), I just need a small, private, quiet room with net, electric, and heat. Other amenities can be shared. With a good plan and some solid leadership, I'd put money into it. But, there'd have to be some sort of contractual way to slow gentri…
Alameda naval station chose to just try to build a big metal wall in the ground to capture the leakage as opposed to spending the money to clean up the toxicity...
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It's difficult to sleep in a public library (especially if you look homeless).
I think you misunderstood my remark. I don't sleep in the library. I get most of my work done at a library. I am medically handicapped and this substantially interferes with my ability to be productive. But finding a place to work mostly boils down to making sure I have access to a decent public library. I sleep in a tent. I blog about that.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugged_individualism Which works fine until you realize you don't operate in a vacuum, and your destiny is influenced by forces outside of your control.
What are you talking about? I said it probably makes financial sense too. I know the HN community abhors things like budgets getting in the way of universal healthcare & longer unemployment benefits, but there's a limit to what can be spent. Let me just say we should be spending a lot less money on war and a lot more money on welfare. Yet let me also say that the genesis of many ghettos was in a "war on poverty" that…
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I'm not trying to be rude when asking this but why would you choose to become homeless to prototype a business/product?? I've seen this come up several times on HN over the last few years and every time it blows my mind, especially when the person then goes on to talk about how difficult life is. I'm guessing you're in tech as you're on HN - why not keep your day job and work on your business from 7pm-3am every night…
For me I've noticed a huge difference in creativity and authenticity in my products when I've devoted 100% of myself to it. There is a major problem in the industry. There is no one path to a successful business. I find my time is more valuable than my comfort. To each their own.