Depending where you live there are alternative shelters. The alternatives are not for everyone, and they are usually not "easy", but there are advantages and disadvantages to not owning (a house) and to not renting.
example? I mean, assuming one wants to live within society and not as an "outlaw" wanderer, I'm having a difficult time thinking of how you can avoid buying or paying for shelter.
You could live with your parents, or couchsurf with an understanding friend / partner. Richard Stallman famously lived out of his MIT office for a long period of time.
Of course, these lifestyles all have costs, just not necessarily financial ones.
So do you plan to continue your genetic lineage? Um, I mean, have kids and reproduce? If not, cool. You can die alone in your office.
If you do plan to have kids, where are you going to house them? Okay, so they're going to share the RV with you. Do you plan to home-school them? Do you have time? Okay, maybe take advantage of the public system then. Whoops, you need a permanent address for that. I guess you're going private. Hope you saved up.
Unless you are RMS, you know, or otherwise really, really difficult to replace, the boss is unlikely to let you 'establish residence' in your office. The tax implications alone are complex. insurance, housing law, zoning law, man, it's a pain in the ass. I mean, I always was /that guy/ and I was a little annoyed the boss wouldn't let me live in the office, but now that I am the boss? I see why. It's cheaper to buy a cheap apartment than to deal with the bullshit.
that said, if I was single, I'd probably get a nice live-work place and let the chips fall where they may come audit time, just 'cause I think it'd be really cool and because some of those issues (like the 'establishing a residence' - you really don't want to have to call the sheriff and go through evictions when you fire the guy.) go away if the owner is the employee, too. but as I'm not single, yeah, having that separation of space (and having "my space") is pretty nice, too.
> Okay, maybe take advantage of the public system then. Whoops, you need a permanent address for that.
False, at least in NJ.
> For instance,
the commissioner of education found that year-long residency in a local campground in violation of zoning laws had no impact on the determination of domicile under New Jersey’s school residency law. It is therefore unlawful for a school board to deny admission to a student on the basis of the legal status or physical condition of his or her home.
First off, sure, there are circumstances that make it difficult to seek alternative shelters, but the root poster in this thread said "the alternatives are not for everyone." If you have have kids, you're not gonna be couch surfing. The idea, however, is that for some people, alternative housing is definitely an option, and that point seems perfectly valid.
Secondly, there's no need to be negative in your reply. Some people might have different goals than you and it's not very kind to disparage them for that. There are people that don't continue their genetic lineage and have fulfilling lives. Perhaps you're just exaggerating to make a point, or the humor didn't quite convey over text and I'm just taking it too literally, but I don't see what you're trying to achieve with that harshness.
sure, sure, I can avoid paying taxes, too, if I talk my mom (or more realistically, my boss) into paying them for me... but that's not what I was asking about.
I travel the world country hopping every month or so and stay almost exclusively in places sourced off airbnb or wikitravel. Works fine, I don't know if I'd qualify as an outlaw wanderer? Perhaps not.
Or you could buy an RV and travel whatever land mass you're stuck in, or you could buy a yacht and travel the seas, or the options are fairly limitless. Buying a house and settling down is just the path most frequently taken, not the only one by any stretch of the imagination.
AirBNB (and hotels in general) are still renting. sure, short-term renting, but you are still renting a residence, even if it's for a day.
Note, by 'outlaw' I did not mean "breaker of the law," I mean "not materially protected by the law" (or, more correctly, protected less by the law.)
If you don't have a place to keep your stuff, well, you aren't going to receive the same protection for that stuff as someone who does. You also aren't going to receive the same level of personal protection against, e.g., harassment that you would in your own space.
Property protection is amusingly tenuous when you expand the playing field to the entire globe. In my opinion; live minimalist and have insurance for what you have. Has worked for me through Vietnam and Thailand and I am about to try Cambodia.
Sure, you could buy an RV, or yaht, but now you are just lawyering the definition of 'housing' - I would argue that putting wheels on a house doesn't make it less of a house. Same with floating it. And both of those solutions are way more expensive than traditional housing.
And both of those solutions are way more expensive than traditional housing.
Citation needed.
My understanding, from people who have done it, is that living in an RV is equivalent to a cheap apartment, and living in a boat can be even less expensive than that.
From what I remember of my research looking at boats and boat births on the peninsula, the boat space cost was about the same as an apartment, then you needed to pay to buy and maintain the boat. (anything in water needs... a lot of maintenance to remain floating.) - certainly around silicon valley, there aren't free places to park your boat. (the economics may be different elsewhere.) also, I did this research around the first dot-com bubble, it's likely the numbers have changed. But still, there is a reason why they call them 'holes in the water into which you throw money'
RVs are a bit more of an open question; where are you parking it? I mean, you /can/ boondock for free, switching between walmart parking lots and the like, but that requires an RV that can move when the owner of the space wants it to move, (and when the wastewater tanks need to be emptied.) and functional RVs are pretty expensive, and they require maintenance. is that more than what an apartment would cost? certainly if it's a nice RV. Could you buy a cheap RV off craigslist and keep it running for a year for $12K in depreciation and maintenance? maybe? but it'd be a close thing, and it wouldn't be a nice RV, and you'd have to move about often. but maybe. I do see a whole bunch of people boondocking on Stockton Ave near one of my co-lo facilities.
