
“Alexander the Grate” on living in the “interstices of the infrastructure” - whocansay
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/alexander-grate-homelessness-amid-pandemic-180975474/
======
Daub
I was homeless for a period of time that extended to my first year at college.
Was honestly not a bad life. I learned something fundamental... that one can
get used to anything except being cold. I would go to sleep when the parks
closed, around 10. Cold would wake me up at around 3 or 4 in the morning, and
grab some more sleep around mid day. It’s one reason why homeless people have
dogs... they serve as hot water bottles.

One thing it left me with is that it changed the way I walk through the city.
For most people, streets are places they use to get from one place to another.
They do not inhabit them as places in themselves. For me and other homeless,
they were our homes. This changes how you walk a street... gives you something
approaching a swagger.

~~~
ggm
Your inability to "get used to" cold may reflect a survival technique the body
has, to avoid hyothermia. Sleeping cold has very high risks.

Aside from this, I am truly sorry you had to live through this experience, and
that others continue to live through this experience. It has been a revalation
to me how quickly local authorities here in Australia could house rough
sleepers when they had a specific intent (disease prevention) in mind. I
always suspected persisting homelessness was both complex (causative reasons)
and simple (to fix) but what surprised me was _how_ simple: they just had to
decide to do it.

Shame on them, shame on us, for continuing to vote for authorities so
apathetic to the problem of homelessness.

~~~
noneeeed
The same thing happened here in the UK. A relatively tiny amount of money (a
million £/month or so) got >95% of rough sleepers off the streets and into
secure accomodation where many have taken the opportunity to deal with their
addictions, mental health issues, even education and job prospects. Turns out
it's way easier to get off drugs/alcohol and sort your life out when you don't
have to spend all your time finding the next meal or a safe(-ish) place to
sleep.

The problem of rough sleeping can be dealt with using tiny amounts of money
(at least in the UK), but unfortunately the wider problems of homelessness,
where many are inviisble because they are permenantly couch surfing or stuck
in hostels or at chronic risk of losing their homes if they have them are much
more complex and difficult to deal with without changes to how housing works
here.

~~~
082349872349872
At least housing probably works better now than it did in 1931?

 _The Spike_
[http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part1](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part1)

Note that Blair/Orwell is spotted immediately as NRS social grade A, which may
explain why Winston Smith couldn't make the to-me-reasonable jump to the free
proletariat in _1984_ :

> "The terrible Tramp Major met us at the door and herded us into the bathroom
> to be stripped and searched. He was a gruff, soldierly man of forty, who
> gave the tramps no more ceremony than sheep at the dipping-pond, shoving
> them this way and that and shouting oaths in their faces. But when he came
> to myself, he looked hard at me, and said:

> 'You are a gentleman?'

> 'I suppose so,' I said.

> He gave me another long look. 'Well, that's bloody bad luck, guv'nor,' he
> said, 'that's bloody bad luck, that is.' And thereafter he took it into his
> head to treat me with compassion, even with a kind of respect."

~~~
noneeeed
Yep, although that's not saying much.

The housing market in the UK is pretty screwed at the moment, and has been for
a long while.

------
forgotmypw17
I've been living largely outdoors and currency-free for several years. (I
don't like the word homeless for many reasons.)

I've been indoors for a few months (with friends) since Corona started, since
there are few places to work on a computer now.

I'm open to questions here, if anyone is interested.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, my first question is, why? Why do you choose to live that way?

[Edit: Or do you do so not by choice? From your post, I gathered it was by
choice, but maybe I shouldn't assume that...]

~~~
forgotmypw17
I transitioned to this lifestyle gradually over the course of several years,
starting with apartment-job-cat, through couch-surfing and short-term rentals,
living out of a van, and then finally total freedom.

I chose to do it because I wanted to have more control over how I spend my
time. I realized that I was spending most of my time on someone else's
schedule, building someone else's dreams, rather than working on my own.

I also have a very high priority for sleeping. I generally sleep for as long
as I want to, which sometimes means several times per day. This does not mesh
well with having a job.

~~~
raducu
I know you said it was gradual, but did you have any psychedelics experience
or some spiritual experience that facilitated that change?

~~~
forgotmypw17
I had some psychedelics experiences before and after, but I was into the idea
before that. Even after psychedelics, I still resisted the draw, because I was
afraid for my own survival. I felt like the matrix is the _only_ way.

It took some really harsh non-psychedlic but life-changing, harsh experiences
I mentioned earlier to finally pull me away from it and realize that I was
going down the wrong path for me.

As I mentioned in another comment, these experiences were a family member's
illness, a couple of personal physical injuries (related to stress and
rushing), and a stressful work environment.

If I had listened to the cues earlier, I could have transitioned before any of
that happened, avoided a lot of the pain, and had a much easier time dealing
with the unavoidable.

But life is all about lessons...

------
scudd
I pass this guy (as well as the other guy across the street under the VRE
bridge) every time I go for a run on the mall. I was very surprised to click
this article, and think "wait I know this place". I've always wondered how
long they've been there. Alexander seems to get up and move around during the
day, but the other guy I've never seen out of his chair. Feel bad for these
guys situation, and glad to hear they're keeping on.

This is the spot for anyone curious. Like the article touches on, there is an
irony in these guys living on the street half a mile from the United States
Capitol building. And the google maps photo has the other guy who stays under
the VRE bridge.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/349-371+7th+St+SW,+Washing...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/349-371+7th+St+SW,+Washington,+DC+20024/@38.8857275,-77.0228402,430m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x89b7b79d333099a9:0x58eef8bbb4190434!2s349-371+7th+St+SW,+Washington,+DC+20024!3b1!8m2!3d38.885722!4d-77.0219415!3m4!1s0x89b7b79d333099a9:0x58eef8bbb4190434!8m2!3d38.885722!4d-77.0219415)

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awinter-py
if I had not been alexander I would have been diogenes

