Homless in a Honda CR-V -- signs of trouble in suburbia

Sixstrings · Tar Sands Joined: Jul 08, 2008 Posts: 43

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/127523.html

If things get bad, I think this is the sort of thing we'll see more of: nice middle class folks living in 20,000 dollar vehicles, with their akc registered dogs.

ohcomeon · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 10, 2006 Posts: 122 Location: USA

That's just sad... and so many are one or two paychecks from a crisis like this...

You're right. I think as time goes on we'll see more and more of this.

We are nice middle class folks, well, lower middle probably, and it's scary. We've had lots of things happen recently like a 3 year old with major heart surgeries to deplete us and now we are on the edge, too. Even with insurance, between deductibles and expenses of months staying at the hospital with her, I can see how it can happen to folks. And not all of us are the like the stupid people who went out and bought more house than they could afford. Sometimes smart, practical people have bad things happen to them. Thank goodness we still have one good income and can at least pay the bills.

Anyway, I guess because of our situation right now, I just feel for that woman.

Pretorian

I wonder how much better off that womman could be if she started to live like this since 18 or whenever she left parents.
She'd save a million bucks on rent/utilitiess/taxes, got used to it, and wouldn't have any dogs. Now a homeless with $1M and an SUV is not as pathetic.
How much did YOU spend on exsessive housing?

syrac818 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 01, 2005 Posts: 113

Ok seriously, not to be a dick, but what the hell are these people doing in Santa Barbara? These people ddo know that Santa Barbara is one of the most expensive, exclusive cities in America, right?

I was wondering that for the entire segment, and then they pretty much flat out said it - "When she was laid off, it was hard for her to find new housing in a town where homes average well over a million dollars."

I guess there is some reason keeping them there, and I'm sorry to sound judgemental. I just think the segment would be much more powerful in a middle-lower class suburb.

kokoda · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2006 Posts: 422

Sadly my first thoughts were that we are going to have to build a lot more car parks.

veliger

The woman in the CRV is a perfect poster woman for “Hungry? Eat Your Import!”

Maybe if she and millions of other American’s hadn’t exported their money to Japan on Honda’s, she would still have a job.

BigTex

It only takes a small amount of creativity to come up with an outstanding Plan B, C, D, etc.

The key is you have to think it through beforehand.

I used to own a nice 25 ft. RV I purchased used for $6,000. I was single and when I sold the home I was living in (it unexpectedly sold the first day it was on the market) I decided to try living in my RV for a while.

I parked it at a campground and rent was $200 a month, which included all utilities except a phone, which I didn't need because I had my cell phone. The park even had basic cable.

I lived like this for about six months and it was amazingly simple and inexpensive.

My space in the campground was small, but I could have easily put in a nice container garden if I had wanted to and raised some vegetables.

What was strange was that a lot of people I knew seemed to feel sorry for me because I was living in a way that they couldn't relate to. Dealing with that was very strange.

One of the funny things about the experience was that my girlfriend (wife now) was working at a Lexus dealership and always drove a new Lexus demo as a perk. She would come over to my little home to watch a movie (or whatever) and the sight of this brand new Lexus parked outside my 1980s era trailer in this campground was amusingly incongruent.

When I sold my RV I got about $4500 for it (I had owned it for about three years), so the cost of housing was nominal.

I didn't do this because of some disaster, I just did it to see how it would be. It was fine. I wasn't suffering. My bed was actually quite comfortable. This arrangement would obviously be more challenging with kids, but the point is that this is an easy way of living pretty well on a fraction of what most of us spend on living expenses.

The truly ironic thing about the experience was that, far from being broke, I could honestly say during that time that I owned my home free and clear and had virtually no other debts. If I had needed to, I probably could have gotten by on about $600 a month.

There were a few moments when in my reverie I even felt a little like Thoreau might have felt out on Walden Pond. Those moments were invariably interrupted by my less enlightened neighbor cranking up his Molly Hatchet albums.
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aflurry · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 829

aflurry · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 829

veliger

3aidlillahi

Here's a suggestion: Get the hell out of that soon-to-be death-trap! Not the slightest degree of pity for that woman.
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Riches are not from abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented mind.

The_Toecutter · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 18, 2005 Posts: 1736

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 882

http://www.boondocking.org/

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 882

Some cities are very hard to afford nowadays. My Mom has some friends from from the Orient that live in LA. They rent a nice apt near the Miracle Mile and pay about $3000 a month. Then 8 of em split the rent and they live packed like sushi.

That is how you live in L.A., unless you can pay the big bucks on your lonesome. I couldn't afford it any longer so moved out of L.A. in '89 to NE US. Only thing I miss is polluted Santa Monica beach with the beauties tanning their bare boobies, sunflower greens from Erewhons...and my fig tree!

PrairieMule