You've probably already read about how I was homeless by choice in grad school and the last year of undergrad. In undergrad I slept in the physics undergrad lounge, and occasionally the library or CS building. In grad school I slept in my office. The most common criticism people seem to bring up is: "Isn't that MOOCHING???"
Let me get this straight. I'm some kind of parasite because I sleep in a building, in a room which would otherwise be empty? Does the building have an oxygen shortage, or something? Never mind that I pay tuition (in the undergrad case). Never mind that I teach and grade and do research (in the graduate case). Never mind that I'm not using any resource, hurting anyone, or that the building's owner doesn't know I exist (and may or may not even consciously pay attention to the fact the building itself exists, on an average day). I could cite these things to try to convince you I was somehow paying for my stay, or at least that the owner was pulling even. That would be defensive, but I'd rather take the offensive.
Our housing system is broken. People are denied the fundamental human right of sleeping, unless they're sufficiently privileged to afford an apartment or hotel. I had money and could've afforded an apartment with ease, but what if I didn't have money? Should I just die? Take out massive loans and go into debt for the next couple decades? Give up half my waking life working at some job so I can have the privilege of sleeping? Wander the streets while sleep-deprivation quickly drives me insane, until I'm one of the stereotypical homeless?
I'm not some break-down-the-machine anarchist. I live in the system and I love the system. But like true patriotism involves questioning your leaders instead of blindly following them, loving the system involves questioning the parts that are broken. The current system of rent is broken. It's broken because people are compelled to pay huge portions of their income just to occupy space. Let's say you make $30,000 a year, which is pretty generous; many people make less. If you pay $500 a month in rent (which is fairly cheap in a lot of cities, especially if you live near anything at all), that's $6000 a year, or one-fifth of your total after-taxes income. That means if you work 40 hours a week, you're working one full 8-hour day just to pay rent (and this is ignoring taxes!). Maybe we should rename "Wednesday" to "Rentnesday".
I don't want some Stalinist government to put land owners under the axe. I'll be honest, I don't even know how to fix the problem. Most people don't even realize there is a problem: like a disease that every human has from birth, we grow used to it and eventually think it's normal. Neither are landlords or bankers evil; they, too, are afflicted by the disease. All I know is one temporary fix for one particular lifestyle. Specifically, if you only use your house as a place to sleep and maybe eat, and you don't have a family to take care of, then give yourself a "rent vacation". It's no more "mooching" than the landlords and bankers "mooched" off your parents, making them pay around $100,000 or more over 18 years while they did their best to buy you food.
Millions of people endure back-breaking, family-destroying fees just to occupy the space owned by the wealthy, and the guy who decides to sleep in an undergrad lounge when the building's empty, that guy's the leech? To put it in comparison, this is like complaining about a fruit fly while a shark is devouring your leg.
Before you complain about me sucking at the teat of society with my sleeping and my existing, how about the wealthy landlord or banker who's charging you right now to sit in your house and read my article?
If "mooching" means taking up space without forking over more money every month than I made in the first 17 years of my life, then I'll be happy to mooch, thank you very much. See you Rentnesday.
FURTHER READING
The lifestyle is not for everyone, nor something you'd wanna do your whole life. But if you're only using your house as a place to sleep and maybe eat, why not just cut the "house" part of that equation out? Read my article, Four Reasons To Go Homeless By Choice.
As for me, you can read about my own time as a homeless student in the main article, Homeless By Choice.
If you follow such an unusual lifestyle as I did, you'll probably need to teach yourself, since they don't exactly offer college courses on this stuff. Read my article, Autodidact: Be A Self-Teacher, for more on the art of self-teaching.
Let me get this straight. I'm some kind of parasite because I sleep in a building, in a room which would otherwise be empty? Does the building have an oxygen shortage, or something? Never mind that I pay tuition (in the undergrad case). Never mind that I teach and grade and do research (in the graduate case). Never mind that I'm not using any resource, hurting anyone, or that the building's owner doesn't know I exist (and may or may not even consciously pay attention to the fact the building itself exists, on an average day). I could cite these things to try to convince you I was somehow paying for my stay, or at least that the owner was pulling even. That would be defensive, but I'd rather take the offensive.
Our housing system is broken. People are denied the fundamental human right of sleeping, unless they're sufficiently privileged to afford an apartment or hotel. I had money and could've afforded an apartment with ease, but what if I didn't have money? Should I just die? Take out massive loans and go into debt for the next couple decades? Give up half my waking life working at some job so I can have the privilege of sleeping? Wander the streets while sleep-deprivation quickly drives me insane, until I'm one of the stereotypical homeless?
I'm not some break-down-the-machine anarchist. I live in the system and I love the system. But like true patriotism involves questioning your leaders instead of blindly following them, loving the system involves questioning the parts that are broken. The current system of rent is broken. It's broken because people are compelled to pay huge portions of their income just to occupy space. Let's say you make $30,000 a year, which is pretty generous; many people make less. If you pay $500 a month in rent (which is fairly cheap in a lot of cities, especially if you live near anything at all), that's $6000 a year, or one-fifth of your total after-taxes income. That means if you work 40 hours a week, you're working one full 8-hour day just to pay rent (and this is ignoring taxes!). Maybe we should rename "Wednesday" to "Rentnesday".
I don't want some Stalinist government to put land owners under the axe. I'll be honest, I don't even know how to fix the problem. Most people don't even realize there is a problem: like a disease that every human has from birth, we grow used to it and eventually think it's normal. Neither are landlords or bankers evil; they, too, are afflicted by the disease. All I know is one temporary fix for one particular lifestyle. Specifically, if you only use your house as a place to sleep and maybe eat, and you don't have a family to take care of, then give yourself a "rent vacation". It's no more "mooching" than the landlords and bankers "mooched" off your parents, making them pay around $100,000 or more over 18 years while they did their best to buy you food.
Millions of people endure back-breaking, family-destroying fees just to occupy the space owned by the wealthy, and the guy who decides to sleep in an undergrad lounge when the building's empty, that guy's the leech? To put it in comparison, this is like complaining about a fruit fly while a shark is devouring your leg.
Before you complain about me sucking at the teat of society with my sleeping and my existing, how about the wealthy landlord or banker who's charging you right now to sit in your house and read my article?
If "mooching" means taking up space without forking over more money every month than I made in the first 17 years of my life, then I'll be happy to mooch, thank you very much. See you Rentnesday.
FURTHER READING
The lifestyle is not for everyone, nor something you'd wanna do your whole life. But if you're only using your house as a place to sleep and maybe eat, why not just cut the "house" part of that equation out? Read my article, Four Reasons To Go Homeless By Choice.
As for me, you can read about my own time as a homeless student in the main article, Homeless By Choice.
If you follow such an unusual lifestyle as I did, you'll probably need to teach yourself, since they don't exactly offer college courses on this stuff. Read my article, Autodidact: Be A Self-Teacher, for more on the art of self-teaching.
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4 comments:
I've got no problem with your urban camping adventure - as you point out, you did not consume any resources that were in any way limited.
However, arguing that it required being born into privelege to afford an apartment is a silly statement that is unbecoming. Anyone can afford to sleep indoors if they choose to work at even grunt labor. I do not assert that choosing to spend your money that way is morally better than choosing to spend your time and money other ways - merely that you're conflating one good issue with a less logical point.
Also, I have zero resentment for the bank to which I pay a mortgage. Why should I? I decided to buy a house, and yet did not have the full amount of cash on hand, so I borrowed it from a bank. It was a freely undertaken contract between consenting adults.
You're right. Housing is a basic requirement. Let's fix the system so everyone has a place to sleep, whether they can/choose to pay for it or not. And while we're at it, food is a basic requirement. Let's make it so no-one has to pay for food.
Electricity? Hey, this modern age, we need it everywhere. No-one has to pay for electricity either. Or phone lines, for that matter. Communication is a Basic Requirement.
It's easy to see where I'm going with this, and yes, it is a rather extreme example, but it still has merit as an example. Providing housing to you is a service. The landlords put in their money, and the good ones put in time and effort, so that you can purchase that service from them, and experience the benefits. You certainly aren't obligated to partake of that service; certainly your urban camping experience shows that. However, if you wish to experience the advantages of your own private living environment, you have an obligation to pay the provider of that service. In this case, the provider is a private individual; if the provider was the government, with free housing or at least free dorms for everyone, your payment would be in taxes. Either way, you can't escape the basic requirement of exchanging money for goods or services. To do otherwise is cheating someone, somewhere. It may be more "fair" to you, but not to them.
I think that by agreeing to be homeless you're actually doing others (not including landlords) a genuine service. If you enjoy not renting or owning a property, demand goes down, however slightly. And assuming our capitalistic system is working properly, then people who DO "need" those homes, i.e. people who have children or simply derive more value from them than you do, can rent or own them for less money. And so they can use their income for other things.
The convention of having a true home is perhaps forcing an inefficient allocation of resources. If more people were interested in being homeless we could have big auditoriums with storage lockers where people could, for a very nominal fee (a couple dollars a day), put their belongings in a locker, sleep on a mat in a big public space and take a shower.
I know you've referenced a mathematician before (Erdos?) but my favorite homeless person would have to be Socrates.
I’ve been trying to convince one of my co-workers to buy a pull-out chair bed and start sleeping in her office, half-jokingly, because she tends to stay after work and watch TV in the lounge.
But seriously, I always thought the rooming house was a great idea. I remember seeing a lot of old movies set in rooming houses. They seemed to charge much less than a small apartment and provide some basic level of social interaction, therefore were ideally suited for a single person. Plus, they made efficient use of space and encouraged conservation of resources (with the shared bathroom and all). Maybe with the current economic environment being like it is, they’ll make a comeback.
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