Ask HN: What to do as a programmer about to go homeless

While 'patio11's post is (as usual) a valuable contribution, yours is far more useful in this particular case.

To the OP, having come close to your situation before, my advice is to focus on finding a day job. If visas are an issue, look for remote work or cash work (or, I suppose, a long-term "freelance" gig--for example ad agencies in Canada frequently employ programmers to do work in-house as contractors), but focus on finding anything that will let you wake up every day without worrying about how you'll pay rent or buy food. Freelancing/consulting is great, but there are a number of factors which make it a lot more difficult to dig yourself out of a hole that way, especially if you don't have a track record of consistently filling your time with valuable client engagements. You can always re-visit that path once you have savings in the bank.

EDIT: This is a subject that's fresh in my heart and mind, having transitioned from (some of) the starry-eyed delusions of youth to (some of) the miserable realities of adulthood more recently than many here. Guys like 'patio11 mean very well, and they are giving actionable advice which I've made work for myself many times over, but they are taking a few things for granted which they maybe shouldn't, and de-emphasizing the importance of a few things which programmers have a tendency to over-emphasize:

1. You cannot charge $100/hour if you can't demonstrate any previous success at all. It's true that programmers over-emphasize the importance of this most of the time, but you do need something.

2. You cannot charge $100/hour if you're not able to act like a professional. This includes communicating professionally, dressing professionally, etc. Again, programmers over-estimate the importance of this, but there is a basic requirement (which is probably on par with most North American white collar work).

3. You will never be able to bill 100% of your work time and it's probably not realistic to even get 60% in your first year of solo operation. (That, by the way, is part of why $100/hour is on the low end of what you should be charging.)

4. You will almost never get paid on time, and it's not unusual (a few times a year) to face expenditures which represent more than a week's work (tax season, etc), so you should have at least a month's worth of cash float available.

5. Regardless of your overall market value and the value you're able to create for any business, there are many parts of North America where businesses will not justify spending more than $100/hour on your work. Your options (as a freelancer/consultant) are basically moving or trying to work remotely (see 6).

6. You're not going to get a "freelance job" at $100/hour working remotely unless you're $INSERT_INTERNET_FAMOUS_NAME. You might get a consulting engagement, but only if you've met the client in person previously, or you've been referred by someone, or you have some very serious Fu. (I am probably overstating the difficulty here, but not by much.)

7. It's near impossible to pull off #'s 1 through 6 if you don't have food to eat this week. (I'm speaking from experience, although in reality I have a wider support net than most people. This list is doubly true for those without a support net.)

In other words, 'patio11 and 'tptacek and the other good people giving wonderful consulting advice are right 100% of the time, but they're making reasonable assumptions about functional professional adults with a few connections and a bit of money in the bank (again, they're optimizing their advice for people who have the resources but lack the confidence). If you're not there yet, get a job for a while--it has its own set of challenges anyway. (And when you do, check out http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ for some excellent advice about salary negotiation.)

Have you considered applying for employment insurance?

"Employment Insurance (EI) provides temporary financial assistance to unemployed Canadians who have lost their job through no fault of their own, while they look for work or upgrade their skills."

Government assistance should be a safety net that is intended exactly for temporary situations like this, right? It's definitely not optimal, but perhaps it would be one avenue to follow up given the situation?

Search job listings for jobs in your area that list python. Doesn't need to be a python shop, as long as they use python somewhere. You can call up or email HR, or better yet hiring managers/decision makers, and ask if they need any contract developers.

ALWAYS get a competent/savvy friend to review your resume/CV. (Also, dating profiles.)

But seriously, you need someone to be brutally honest with you about these things and employers will NEVER tell you what you need to know.

I apologize, my previous comment must have been quite poorly written for you to have misunderstood it to the extent that is apparent. I didn't intend to make any assertions about writing books or wearing suits, and I certainly do not object to $100/hour rates (having charged more than that in markets much smaller than Chicago). The crux of my point was that freelancing isn't the optimal way for most people to pick themselves up from nothing.

It's not helpful to suggest that a person just needs to go check out the local $INSERT_PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE_HERE developer meetup and ask people to hire them for freelance work--that sort of environment is not the norm in most of North America.

Of course freelancing is a perfectly viable option for lots of people, and I will generally agree with your party lines (ie. businesses typically value developer skills on a completely different axis than programmers do, and programmers typically underestimate their ability to provide that value) but offering it up as a panacea to someone who's on the verge of homelessness seems... a bit strong.