We need to come up some better language for people who could afford a house in another town, but prefer to live in the open in order to be in some particular geographic spot. "Homeless" is much too broad. Are you homeless if you prefer "high-profile but low-profit" jobs, as this man did? Well sure, but being homeless does not always mean that conditions outside of your control have left you with no place to live, which is the way it's commonly used. Sometimes you make choices to do things you want.
There was a great story a while back about some guys who came to YC and were living in their car -- they thought that everybody just did it that way. They managed to save, get funded, and graduate YC. They all probably have nice places to live now because they made some choices earlier. Not my thing, and they probably wouldn't make those choices again, but at the time it all worked out for them.
People talk about self-driving cars as being the thing that destroys traditional car ownership, but I'm not so sure. If electricity is cheap enough to be almost free, and cars can take themselves from place-to-place without needing any attention, I imagine there would be a lot of folks -- myself included -- who would consider owning a "room that goes places" instead of a traditional home/apartment. Are those people homeless also? Nyah, the word just doesn't work everywhere we try to use it. Need some other term.
>about some guys who came to YC and were living in their car
Outliers, likely in many ways. Young, talented people, wealthy enough to own a car and smart enough to get into and through YC. They probably had family and a home life to return to if they failed. I agree, that isn't "homeless". You can't point at such examples as the model for most people on the streets, though.
>We need to come up some better language for people who could afford a house in another town, but prefer to live in the open in order to be in some particular geographic spot.
How about "homefree" for voluntary homelessness? Much as people who deliberately choose not to have children have adopted the term "childfree" to describe their lifestyle, as opposed to "childless".
> I imagine there would be a lot of folks -- myself included -- who would consider owning a "room that goes places" instead of a traditional home/apartment
You've heard of a Motorhome or "Recreational Vehicle", right?
I find it hard to understand what circumstances force them into this kind of homelessness. In most cases, within a 1 hr public transit commute, you can find a reasonably priced studio apartment. This reminds me of how poverty can sometimes be tied to behavioral issues, Esther Duflo of MIT has written about this- poor people spending extra money to buy a TV instead of more calories, for example. I wonder if something like that is in play here.
There was a great story a while back about some guys who came to YC and were living in their car -- they thought that everybody just did it that way. They managed to save, get funded, and graduate YC. They all probably have nice places to live now because they made some choices earlier. Not my thing, and they probably wouldn't make those choices again, but at the time it all worked out for them.
People talk about self-driving cars as being the thing that destroys traditional car ownership, but I'm not so sure. If electricity is cheap enough to be almost free, and cars can take themselves from place-to-place without needing any attention, I imagine there would be a lot of folks -- myself included -- who would consider owning a "room that goes places" instead of a traditional home/apartment. Are those people homeless also? Nyah, the word just doesn't work everywhere we try to use it. Need some other term.