
Young, Unemployed and Living on the Street - kunle
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/us/since-recession-more-young-americans-are-homeless.html?pagewanted=all
======
shanelja
It took quite a lot of courage to write this post, but here goes:

I spent a large portion of the past 9 months sleeping rough, maybe 1 in 10
days in total.

I was living in Spain and moved back on my own at the age of 19, with no job
to come to, the promise of a house to stay at for a month and £1,200.

This was no grand entrepreneurial dream, it was simply trying against
everything which told me it was stupid to improve the quality of my life, see
the woman I left behind in the UK and find work within the tech industry.

People these days are too quick to criticize the youth of today for not having
jobs or sponging off their parents but in my opinion, even when you have a
large skill set and are willing to do anything, it isn't easy to find work. I
went to 41 interviews in everything from cleaning to PHP programming before I
was finally accepted on a job.

Even once I found a job, the pay was piss poor and I was living in sheltered
accommodation (a step up from the bedsits and alley ways I never told any of
my friends or families I was 'sleeping' in) to keep a roof over my head, all
the time only being able to afford to eat one meal per day (on a good week!)

Now, 9 months later, I am living in a home which I find adequate, I have a
new, new job which pays me £13,000 per year (almost 3 times what I got paid at
my first job) and my relationship with my girlfriend is stronger than ever.
But more importantly, I feel more happy and more empowered than ever before in
my entire life.

The point of this post is really this: If you are in this situation, you can
make it out, it won't be easy, but it isn't impossible.

 _The area is totally different, but if you are currently homeless, or in
danger of being homeless, or really just in any kind of trouble in the north
of England, you can find my email address on my profile here, fire a message
off to me and I will see what I can do. Somebody helped me out when I was at
the darkest point, it's only fitting I do the same - no one wants to be alone
at Christmas._

 _Also, on a side note, the day I created my HN account on here I was sleeping
rough, sat in the middle of a public park with just a backpack and a laptop,
but dreaming of a better life, just wanted to thank all the people on here for
showing me the better side of humanity when all hope seemed lost_

~~~
guylhem
I sincerely wish you the best, in both your personal life and your career, but
"when you have a large skill set and are willing to do anything" you _DO_ find
work.

And when you are damn good at what you do and productive - more productive
than the "average" mediocre default - you _DO_ get rewarded.

That being said, however being in a weak position is a self reinforcing spiral
where you get fewer and fewer opportunities and become less productive. And
small hits take a tremendous toll - one who has not experienced what you have
should at least read Scalzi's "On being poor" -
<http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/>

Yet for some reason you found the strength to get back on your feet. Once
again, I sincerely wish you the best, and hope you can give a hand to other
people. We all need help at one time or the other, and it's better when you
are on the giving end :-)

~~~
untog
_but "when you have a large skill set and are willing to do anything" you DO
find work._

I think that's the point he's making. HN has a can-do, make your own
opportunities mindset that can often lead to us forget that we are living in
deep recession. Depending on where you are in the world it is still extremely
hard to find work, no matter how clever or willing you are.

~~~
hilko
True, which is why I'm happy to be at a point in life where 'making my own
opportunities' includes packing my bags and leaving for greener pastures. I
truly feel for those who don't have that option, and are in the wrong place at
the wrong time.

------
calinet6
This has scared me for quite some time: <http://i.imgur.com/ZxBWh.png>

and: <http://i.imgur.com/u6aU2.gif>

With a plausible explanation:
[http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/04/the...](http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/04/the-
wedge-between-productivity-and-wages.html)

The only explanation I can come up with is that this happened because it
could. Because money is self-reinforcing, and breeds power, which allows
control.

But I don't think it's sustainable, and I think it's one of the largest, if
not _the_ largest problems with our society today.

1\. I am not an economist. Is this view in any way valid? Am I seeing the
right things?

2\. What are the other causes? Surely the economy is complex and there are
multiple driving factors.

3\. What can we do?

Help us all if this can't be resolved. Because that graph is very, very scary
and I see this going downhill fast if something doesn't change.

~~~
uiri
I think it may have everything to do with how we're measuring productivity.
The world in 1975 is obviously not the world today. The biggest difference
being the personal computer and by extension the internet. How much of
productivity gains are due to computers? Email can be near-instantaneous and
although the paperless office is probably a pipe dream, filing and paper work
have become less plentiful and are taking less time. Not to mention the
advances in software which improve productivity. Of course, this is just in
offices. You can go ahead and look at factories which are becoming more
computerized and I'm sure the primary sector has benefited from computers too.

So, although workers of today are more productive - per dollar paid per
hour/month/year, is it possible that people haven't actually been working
harder but rather machines have been doing more work? Is it possible that
these productivity gains represent value provided by giving every office an IT
department rather than people working better (or harder or smarter)?

I think it is possible, but I don't think it is a satisfactory explanation. It
could simply be the effects of supply and demand on the marketplace. Beyond a
certain point, money doesn't buy happiness so I see no reason why the upper
end of salaries would increase other than pure greed (which is consistent with
lots and lots of increases in executive pay) and unskilled labour provides
minimal value so why would machines making one interchangeable labourer able
to do the work of two or three interchangeable labourers lead to an increase
in the pay of interchangeable labourers?

~~~
ivany
One way to look at it: years ago, we dreamed that all of the menial tasks that
we do would be done by robots, and that we could enjoy endless leisure while
our robot servants labored under us. The first half of this dream is coming
true. Unfortunately, the second half is not, and consequently we wind up with
robots (or IT) doing the menial work _instead_ of us while we sit unemployed.

~~~
keppy
Who will get paid when robots can do all of the work? Should robots get
paychecks? Are people who use robots stealing from poor people since the robot
is stealing the poor person's job? These are the questions we must answer
before the robots take over hr and accounting.

~~~
flyinRyan
Why would anyone need to get paid if robots are doing all the work? And if no
one needs to be paid, why does anything need to cost?

Capitalism is nothing more than a system for allocating finite resources. If,
for all practical intents and purposes, nothing is finite anymore then there's
no reason to keep around a finite resources system.

------
AVTizzle
I'm torn whenever I hear stuff like this about my high-functioning (non-
mentally handicapped) peers struggling out there.

Half of me thinks: How weak.

Don't they get it? It's not about "money" or "jobs". Those are abstractions.
You have to create value. What do YOU do that's valuable? Why _should_ someone
hire you? Why _should_ someone pay you?

Can't they see? Quit blaming the economy. Quit waiting to be hired. Bring the
locus of control inside. Put in on you. Go to the public library and start
learning. Make yourself valuable. With enough determination and will, you will
find a way. Or you will make one. Less fortunate people than you have done it.
Dumber people than you have done it.

That half of me recognizes that the hard work, the learning, the hours I've
put in to get traction on a strong path of entrepreneurship _wasn't_ handed to
me. It _wasn't_ intuitive. I make sacrifices, I toil, I struggle, but I make
it work. Why can't they?

The other half of me wonders: Why do I realize all that? It's a rather meta
though. But... I can't tell you honestly _why_ my life fell into place so that
I would be so driven. Why my life fell just so, so I would be curious enough
to seek out the books, essays, podcasts, and blog posts that have shaped my
entrepreneurial character.

Why was I drawn towards the heroes and role models that I was - business and
technology leaders, instead of rock-stars or athletes - who inspired me
towards a particular path?

Sure, it has taken talent, drive, hard work, and sacrifice to capitalize on
the opportunity presented to me. But perhaps it was the greatest luck of all -
the lottery of birth - that gave me those gifts in the first place.

~~~
falcolas
I apologize in advance, but I mean every word.

What kind of entitled bullshit is this?

> Quit blaming the economy.

The simple truth is that it's difficult to get money in this economy without
either an established job, and established home, or a reserve of cash from
which to build something. Just because the tech sector is doing well doesn't
mean that all sectors are doing well.

> Quit waiting to be hired.

What do you suggest? He build a company from the public library, while living
out of a homeless shelter and eating in soup kitchens?

> Bring the locus of control inside. Put in on you.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. It sounds like something
you'd hear at a bad self-help seminar.

> Go to the public library and start learning.

The man in this story was trying to get a degree (granted, humanities isn't
one of the more employable degrees). He couldn't afford it; a public library
is a poor substitute to a school.

> Make yourself valuable.

With what? He is lacking in resources from which to build his future.

> I make sacrifices, I toil, I struggle, but I make it work. Why can't they?

What makes you think they are not? Would you have been able to make it if you
had been dropped from college halfway through your bachelors degree with no
money? Would you have been able to get VC funding without the contacts you
made in college, or even a home address?

Why do you think you're smarter than he is, and not just luckier?

~~~
bmelton
_Why do you think you're smarter than he is, and not just luckier?_

Did you read his entire comment? Assuming he didn't edit it after your post
(and it appears he didn't, since he starts off admitting that _half_ of him
feels that way,) he concludes that "maybe I was just luckier."

He admits being torn on the subject, but that doesn't change that many able-
bodied, mentally sound people can do more than they're necessarily capable of
realizing while in the throes of despair.

"Pick yourself up by your own bootstraps" may not be the sort of advice that
someone is able to grasp while depressed, but on the off chance they are able
to hear it, it's sound advice. There's little doubt that many people, if not
_most_ people in the world could be trying harder than they do. It's also easy
to get carried away with being down on your luck.

I don't disagree with many of the points you've made, but they also don't
necessarily discount the points of the poster you responded to either. Self-
teaching from a library might be a poor substitute for a proper university,
but it's still miles and away better than sitting on your ass waiting for your
situation to change.

Anyway, I'll apologize as well, because your knee-jerk reaction spurred one of
my own, and I don't mean to seem harsh, but I think the criticism to the
parent was unnecessary, and I feel like perhaps you missed the part where he
bares empathy.

Edit: I completely blew my cool there. I don't think my narrative-voice was
yelling, but it was definitely speaking in harsher tones than I like to, and
for that, I owe you another apology.

I think I'm generally fed up with how unnecessarily mean HN has become lately,
and how knee-jerk everything seems to be. This is me adding on to that, and
for that I am genuinely sorry. I would like to ask though (of myself as well),
in the future, if you could take 10 seconds and re-read a post before blasting
its author, it would make a huge difference over all.

~~~
Tichy
What would you self-teach yourself at a library that would land you a job
later? It might work for programming, but not for that much else? "Hi I'm your
new physician, I learnt how to operate reading books in the library" :-)

~~~
ionforce
Carpentry? Sewing?

~~~
flyinRyan
Carpentry learned in a library! Wow, no wonder that people make ignorant "just
pick yourself up by your bootstraps"-type comments. Complete and utter
disconnection from reality.

~~~
ionforce
Tell us, what are the things you could learn at a library that could translate
into earning income?

~~~
flyinRyan
I don't recall saying there was _anything_ that you could learn in a library
that would translate into earning income. Though if I were in a situation
where that was my only option, I'd personally pick web programming. That
probably has the lowest barrier to entry of anything you could actually learn
by just reading a book.

------
techsupporter
_Two months ago, Mr. Tano gave up an apartment in his native Dallas after
losing his job. He sold his Toyota and sought opportunities in the Pacific
Northwest.

He rented a room and set out with his résumé (expertise: fund-raising). But
when his $2,000 in savings withered to nothing, "I ended up sleeping on the
street for the first time in my life," he said. "I just kind of had to walk
around and try to stay warm."_

I'm very hesitant to critique someone who is making what he or she perceives
as the best choice, especially as a mostly-anonymous commenter on the wild
Internet, so I'll frame this as general advice that I think really needs to
get out on the general Internet: Do a little research before making a move
like this. Dallas is one of the lowest-cost large cities in the country.
$2,000 would pay for three months of rent and utilities in several areas of
the Metroplex. Denton is cheap, if you like public transit, even to Dallas or
Fort Worth, and being in a college town; virtually anywhere in the Mid-Cities
is also cheap but lacks transit. And, as the news will tell you, jobs are
booming down there. Seattle, on the other hand, is one of the most expensive
places to live outside of California or New York. $2k will last a month or
two, tops, even down in Rainier Beach or Othello. Yes, Seattle is a virtual
dream land of fairly nice people, decent weather (it doesn't rain _that_
much), and a different brand of politics, but at least someone in this
situation can still eat in Dallas. Young wanderer, if you're ever in this boat
and still feel the yearning to move, try Austin.

(I moved from Dallas to Seattle with a very good paying job and relocation
benefits. My wallet still hurts every month. I can't imagine what it would be
like for someone in these straits to do the same.)

~~~
jjoonathan
This. In high school I was forced to take AP Human Geography (I was meeting a
requirement) and I was genuinely shocked to discover just how much geography
mattered.

Cost of living, cost of health care, job availability, industrial economics,
EVERYTHING is a function of geography. Not in a subtle way, either: economic
metrics that I thought would vary merely by 5% or 10% often varied by factors
of 2 or 3 (health care) or 10 (for industry). If you are willing to optimize
the geography function but haven't computed the value of doing so, you're
missing out big time.

------
joonix
Perhaps Americans can take some cues from more collectivist, family oriented
cultures now. In my culture, sleeping on the street when your sister has her
own place and a couch would be unheard of. I don't care how imposing it would
be or how small my own home is, I wouldn't let my brother sleep on the
streets. And what about parents? Uncles?

I do respect the struggle and pull yourself up mentality, but that's a lot
easier to do when you have an address, a safe place to sleep and a shower. We
have to face the reality that there are economic factors at play here, and
it's not always someone's own fault if they are down on their luck in finding
work.

~~~
Wingman4l7
One of the NYTimes commenters made a good counterpoint to this: just because
you have family with a home does not mean moving in with them is a viable
option -- said family may be drug addicts, violent, mentally ill, abusive, or
manipulative.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/us/since-recession-more-
yo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/us/since-recession-more-young-
americans-are-homeless.html?comments#permid=13:2)

~~~
dclusin
As someone with an older sibling who meets 4 of the 5 aforementioned criteria
I can confirm that no it is not always that easy. Giving him a place on my
floor wouldn't really do anything to improve his circumstances or outcome.
What makes me the saddest is the realization that more than likely I will end
up burying him in less than 5 to 10 years time. That sounds like a rather
callous thing to say, but after watching my parents spend upwards of $100k on
treatment program after treatment program it seems like there isn't any other
choice but let him figure it out on his own. He's pissed away every
opportunity he's had his entire life and it's time for him to take ownership
of his own life. Not expect someone to always come running with an open
checkbook.

~~~
Wingman4l7
I think that commenter meant that the family members with the home were the
ones who had those problems _(I've edited my comment to be clearer)_ \-- but
you raise a good point: sheltering a homeless family member with such problems
wouldn't necessarily help them, and it may be significantly detrimental to
your own situation.

------
jibjaba
There are a lot of very entitled comments to this post. I have a feeling that
many of those commenters have never experience true hardship. It's easy for
such a person to overlook the myriad of advantages they have and have no
conception of the difficulties faced by people without them.

Before making the typical ignorant "you have the power to change your life" or
"stop being lazy" comment ask yourself how much do you really know about what
the bottom 10% of society life is like. This question itself has issues of
course, one of which is that many people do not know how little they know.
Spend some time ding a little research online. Several interesting stories
came out during the run up to last US election. Typically of conservatives
whose idealogical world view proved inadequate when they ran into real people
with real problems.

------
guylhem
"Duane Taylor was studying the humanities in community college and living in
his own place when he lost his job in a round of layoffs"

Read - this guy was not only studying something with a very questionable
market value, but paying through the nose and going in debt for that, when the
actual objective truth reminded everyone that indeed was the truth and that
there was no way around it.

I'm sad for the suffering he incurred, but it was logical and likely.

~~~
purplelobster
I think you're being a bit harsh. He's partially to blame, but everybody makes
mistakes. I think there's a slight lag in what people educate themselves in.
For the longest time, only a minority went to college. When few go to college,
having a degree at all meant you could get a job, so there was this culture of
"study what you're passionate about, it'll be alright". This is unfortunately
not true anymore, but this is what the older generations are telling us young
people, because they haven't realized that things have changed. Today, you
have to be able to make a life determining decision right out of high-school,
with limited and outdated information and years of the older generations
giving you an incorrect view. Soon we'll probably get an over correction with
nobody going into humanities and loads of people going into engineering and
computer science.

What's really needed is mandatory statistics for every degree and school on
the form "1 year after graduation 70% of graduates was able to find jobs, 40%
related to their degree, 30% with salaries of $50k+, do you still want to
apply?". That's what's needed to even remotely be able to make a rational
choice. If you're great at humanities and you love it, it might be worth the
chance, but for us average people, we're better off with something that gives
us a better chance of success.

~~~
kamaal
No, I would say you have to super dumb if you 'chose' to study something that
doesn't have much value or doesn't pay well. Its your life and you have to
make smart decisions. Its not a game, where you can just shrug it off as a
mistake, blame the government and then expect something miraculous to happen.

Looking back, I can tell you about my own experiences here in India. When I
opted to study engineering and before that science for my pre-university
college, there were a lot of friends of mine who wanted to study history or
commerce because it was 'easy'. Really, you have whole life to live on that
and you take a wrong decision just because you want it easy for the next 4
years?

Now after 4-5 years when we were all looking for jobs, the very same people
who consciously studied history and commerce complained that either had no
jobs or jobs that payed very poorly. Most of them either ended either being
clerks(where their jobs are constantly threatened by automation) or working at
call enters. And again you see the same government blaming. How can the
government or people around you help if you make wrong decisions all over the
years?

And not surprisingly it turns out most of such people are generally the kind
of guys who don't very hard and are always looking for short cuts. One fine
day you suddenly wake up and realize its not that easy after all.

~~~
warfangle
Education and the surrounding social structure is basically a bioreactor for
ideas. I know this is HN, but the blatant disregard for how the humanities
effect the enjoyability of your life is vulgar.

Why should we not allow people to devote their life to historical studies? Why
should we look down at those whose studies may inspire the simstim visions of
our great-grand-children?

Society is creating enough wealth to ensure the pursuit of knowledge for those
who wish to undertake it. And pursuit of knowledge is a more driving force for
economic growth than any subsidy, any tariff.

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."

~~~
kamaal
>>I know this is HN, but the blatant disregard for how the humanities effect
the enjoyability of your life is vulgar.

I am not disregarding humanities or history. But it makes more sense to read
them when you have no other better work to do. Sorry for putting it bluntly,
but you should have better work to do than studying philosophy and arcane
trivia about the past.

>>Why should we not allow people to devote their life to historical studies?

Because they don't pay well. And sometimes don't pay at all. Nobody is going
to pay you for just knowing 1000 things that happened some hundreds of years
back. Such knowledge is not useful to solving any pressing problems that exist
currently.

>>Society is creating enough wealth to ensure the pursuit of knowledge for
those who wish to undertake it. And pursuit of knowledge is a more driving
force for economic growth than any subsidy, any tariff.

Which knowledge, not all forms of knowledge are same. Are they?

~~~
zalew
And ironically, while you have a degree and express your opinions about
education, your wording makes you sound like you are in high school. While I
agree with the sentiment that there are other more in demand degrees, calling
humanity studies 'arcane trivia about the past' or saying that 'such knowledge
is not useful to solving any pressing problems that exist currently' reminds
me of all those people for whom news are dumbed down to a 14yr old level
because they don't understand any context anyway. To add more to the irony,
AFAIK your country is quite overflowed with IT graduates who end up in call
centers or other technological slave labor just like their buddies from
commerce. So in the end, your enlightening gospel kind of invalidates itself.

~~~
kamaal
Are you seriously suggesting the people continue to study things which don't
pay them well or don't pay them at all?

And if that happens, they follow their passion and when they come out of
college and don't find jobs who should they blame? How is the system's mistake
that your passion is not in demand and doesn't pay well?

Look I'm not saying you should study philosophy at college. But at the same
time you shouldn't look too surprised if with that degree you don't get a job
that pays well.

~~~
zalew
I said none of those things and I won't explain what's already written in
front of you (talk about understanding context). Just keep in mind that excess
of labor force in a sector leads to decrease in wages and increasing demand in
neglected markets. Between 'we demand jobs for philosophers' and 'everybody
should just study IT' there are more balanced scenarios. Trends don't change
in one year cycles - when you notice that something went wrong it's already
too late and it takes long years to fill the gap, and only assuming a too
agressive correction doesn't happen.

------
html5web
I've recently arrived to NYC with Green Card (permanent residence program),
I'm from Uzbekistan I've worked in my country as Web Designer, I've applied to
more than 100 Web related jobs, in NY I but no result. since November 20th (my
arrival date) I've done almost all jobs, moving helper, Dunkin' Donuts baker,
Delivery helper at supermarket, Busboy at restaurant (all part time jobs).
Nobody gonna hire me. I feel myself lost in the big NYC. I hope 'll find a job
I want.

~~~
nlh
Welcome to NYC, and I hope you end up doing something you love and that pays
you well for it.

I'm curious -- how are things here compared to back home? Are you earning more
in your part-time jobs here than you did back home? I know it's only been a
month, but I'm just curious about your perspective.

I ask because I've heard a lot of stories from a lot of immigrants and they
cover a HUGE range. I've had some guys tell me that they're thrilled to be
earning $7/hour, that they love living in a home with 10 other people, and
that they're happier than they've ever been because compared to back home,
they're earning 10x as much, living with heat, hot water, eat well every day
(McDonalds is well for them), and are _still_ sending money home.

So it's a matter of perspective -- just curious to hear your story...

------
angrycoder
Puts a whole different light on the glamorization of couch-surfing and
minimalist lifestyles.

~~~
ionforce
What do couch surfing and being minimalist have to do with earning a living?

------
dmd149
I wrote a blog post not too long ago about my experience moving to a city with
no job or apartment. I detail what my "unfair advantages" were and what the
emotional impact was like. I think my experience would most likely to apply to
young people from middle to upper middle class backgrounds.

The most surprising part to me was how little I got done with my side
projects, especially considering all the free time I had. You get into a funk
and you just really don't want to do anything. Small wins make you really
happy, but the rest of your free time is spent in this kind of depressed funk.

Here's the link if you care to read it:

[http://dalethoughts.com/2012/11/what-its-like-to-move-to-
a-c...](http://dalethoughts.com/2012/11/what-its-like-to-move-to-a-city-with-
no-apartment-and-no-job/)

------
moultano
It was quite a shock the first time I saw a homeless person who was younger
then me. Until then I had been able to rationalize them away as the
responsibility of the previous generation, but no longer.

------
cloudshoring
It is difficult to imagine the plight. Is there a way, some of us could join
hands and create a fund to help the needy.Perhaps create a micro financing
system,that can help some of them who could get a job and pay back or if they
are entrepreneurial and they could attempt and succeed.

There are jobs outside the US,I have met youngsters from the UK and US who
work here in India in the IT and Financial companies for reasons such as this.
perhaps the qualified can temporarily get a reprieve until the economy becomes
better, make sure there is a predictable job and earnings.

Some or many of us could join hands to explore how we could help and if there
is a possibility act on it.

All these may be wild thoughts, but a lot of things are possible if we could
try .Even a small up-liftment may be of significant help.

Let me know your thoughts. sankar@cloudshoring.in

