6 AM: Alarm sounds. It's time to get ready for work. Despite making $25/hr for over a year, you're still homeless. There's no saving when you live in your car and gas is $6/gal. So the next hour is reorganizing a cramped vehicle so that you can drive before the rest area security or cops harass you and write down your name and license plate number, banning you from future use. If you were lucky enough to stretch your legs, this time is allotted for packing up a tent if you were able to park in the woods and not draw unwated noticed from tweaker, junkies, and cops the night prior. Chances are, you've been up all night due to these things no matter where you parked. Make sure to squeeze in a wet wipe bath if you have 'em.
7 AM: The needlessly long commute to work because the spots you can sleep are so few and far between. No breakfast.
8 AM: Work! Nothing like mental or physical labor when you're tired and hungry. It's the grind! Have fun inventing a fake life during small talk with your coworkers, since you'd be viewed with more scrutiny if they knew your real situation. Why yes, I do have plans for Independence Day! I'm going camping, how exciting! Well, that's not technically a lie anyway.
12 PM: Lunch! You're doing well this week since you can afford to eat. Which would you prefer – oatmeal or ramen? Make sure you convince your coworkers that you just really love oatmeal and ramen so they don't ask too many questions and blow up your situation.
5 PM: The workday is over. Now it's time to drive really far for a place to park. Gotta cook up some of that food bank rice if you have any propane left. Otherwise, you can use the microwave at work tomorrow for your next meal. Getting scouted by people trying to steal from you? Cops pay you a visit? Time to move, no dinner tonight. That's extra gas too. Doesn't matter if you're within your legal right to be where you are. You don't have rights. You're not a real person anyway. Why else would you be in this situation?
7 PM: Wash your hair in a gas station or rest area bathroom sink. Time of year dependent, wash your hair in a stream.
10 PM: If it's not too hot to sleep, bedtime! Don't forget to rearrange the whole car. If it's too hot, too sketchy, too many mosquitoes, or you're too hungry to sleep, bedtime might get postponed indefinitely. I've gone 3-4 days on two hours of sleep. Nothing like lying awake in existential dread about how you're only falling more and more behind because there's no way out of this without compromising values integral to who you are at the core (stealing, sex work that you aren't comfortable with, living with someone creepy or dangerous).
Gotta keep moving to stay alive. Sure hope the car doesn't break down again. People drive like maniacs and and chances of an accident are increased when you drive so much, as well. Can't afford that. Life on foot is so much worse when you're trying to maintain appearances at work.
Let's figure out the budget since your mind is racing. Maybe that will help. Damn, no money for food again this week. Wish you could get SNAP benefits but you make too much. Your employer doesn't offer healthcare, so we'll kick the can down the line on that knee surgery that's been needed for years. Lest we forget the stabbing ear pain, breast lump, and wisdom teeth that are all on the backburner till you die. Maybe family could help? Nah sucker, you're LGBT & disowned, not to mention again, not a real person.
Do this on loop till a wrench completely wrecks your plan. Car breaks down, medical issues become unignorable, you get broken into and have everything stolen, student loans find you and garnish your paycheck, cops or sketchy locals have chased you out of town for being less fortunate… and you gotta start over again somewhere else. Back to square one.
Multiply the difficulty tenfold if you're a minority or have pets or children or what have you. Get used to your entire life being on display. You never have privacy. People feel entitled to your space and time. People will call the cops on you for loitering in the shade. You become irritable as time drags on, but you don't want to cope with drugs because that's not you, and you couldn't afford it anyway. You never have a moment of peace without the fear that it will be ripped away any moment.
I keep seeing people say, “if we don't do something soon, we're gonna be homeless.” That's true. Everyone is a paycheck or two away from this reality. But many of us already are living this way. Society kicks you while you are down. It is illegal to be homeless. Holidays become nightmares because there are less spots to camp and people are more likely to get drunk and think it's funny to shoot at the homeless people.
WELL YOU HAVE TO VOTE TO CHANGE THINGS
… how? I don't have an address. I can't register.
I can't even replace my ID if my wallet is stolen.
I'm not a second class citizen. I'm not a person.
I'm future slave labor once they imprison me for trying to live.
Are you fighting for me? Are you doing homeless outreach?
It'll be you too unless we rise to the occasion.
I have no will to live.
Yet, I have no will to die.
Let my body serve a greater purpose
for those that follow in my footsteps.