Living In My Car

Approximating Humanity
5 min readMar 29, 2019

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I mentioned being homeless in my previous story and wanted to expound upon that here. I’m not sure if that time in 2009 really counts, since I still had an address to send mail to. In the fall of 2016, I didn’t. I had to set up a mailbox with the Department of Transitional Assistance when I made the choice to live in my car for close to two months while I waited to see my psychiatrist. He couldn’t see me any sooner than that, and it would certainly take longer than two months to get set up with a new psychiatrist back home in California, so it seemed like my only option at the time. I couldn’t afford housing for two months after leaving my mold-infested house. Why not just save money and live out of my car? It was fall and the weather would be on my side. In my manic state it seemed like nothing more than a practical decision.

I was confident I could do it without issue. I had lived out of a conversion van for 10 days on a roadtrip in 2013 and we made do by showering at KOA Campgrounds and staying in Walmart parking lots that allow overnight parking (there is a website that has a full listing of such locations). In Boston, there were no KOA Campgrounds nearby, so I solved the shower problem by getting a $10 membership to Planet Fitness. I would put in minimal effort on the elliptical as to not look suspicious, then retire to the bathroom where I enjoyed a hot, clean shower. It was the highlight of my day.

Being manic at the time, I couldn’t be homeless without starting to write a book. The book got thrown out with the rest of the stuff I believed was possibly covered in mold, but I’m sure it sucked. Nothing I wrote during that timeframe is even remotely coherent.

I racked up an enormous data bill watching videos on my phone to fall asleep to at night. I’d set up my pillow — with one of my dad’s 3XL shirts as a makeshift pillowcase — and blanket in the backseat, and rest my phone on the center console like a miniature TV. I got stopped by the cops once because I was watching the presidential debate on my phone while parked in a shady location. I was doing absolutely nothing illegal, but chilling there for hours apparently drew attention to myself, and so the police got called by some concerned neighbor, I’m sure.

You learn the importance of staying organized when you live in your car. You have to have everything you need to survive, yet also have to have enough room to move around. If you’re not organized you’ll feel like you’re living in a big pile of trash.

I kept all my foodstuffs behind the passenger’s seat. I subsisted mostly on $1 jalapeño cheese puffs I got at Family Dollar with food stamps. Yes, for the first time in my life I actually qualified for food stamps, something like $180/month. To make $180 last all month you have to eat things like cheese puffs. Food stamps are a great way to get fat, actually. I put on a few pounds being homeless just because it was such low-quality, fattening food. Better food was too expensive to be an option. And you couldn’t turn food down because you didn’t know when the next meal would come, if at all.

Laundry day was no different than before — I didn’t have a washer and dryer in my old house, so going to the laundromat and doing my laundry was no big thing. I got a little embarrassed though when someone saw me pack up my clean clothes in a suitcase, obviously without a home to take her clothes to.

The most embarrassing moment came at Costco. I learned that their food court is one of the most inexpensive places to get a meal, and I would often frequent it. One day, I had a bunch of change — nickels and dimes, mostly. The hot dog came out to $1.50 and I stood there nervously counting out my change. The man standing in line behind me actually took pity on me and offered to pay for my hot dog. I declined, so thoroughly embarrassed at the kind of person he must think I am, and continued counting out my change. I had counted it before I entered the store and knew I had enough. I walked away with my hot dog and a lot less pride than I had the day before.

I never felt too terrible about my predicament though because it was all self-imposed. I’m the crazy person who decided living in my car was a good idea when I could have easily stayed with family in California instead. I worried my mother senseless with my lifestyle choices, this being one of them. I actually got incredibly lucky that no harm came to me in all that time of waking up in a Walmart parking lot.

I learned quickly that crime is tied to homelessness. Homeless people have to put themselves in situations where they’re breaking laws. Like if they have to pee at 3 AM and there’s nowhere open to use the restroom. You’ll risk a charge of indecent exposure and pull your pants down to take a piss on the side of the road. Because you have no choice. And a lot of people are homeless because of no wrongdoing on their part, like myself, so it’s pretty shitty that good people get caught up in criminal charges simply because they’ve fallen on hard times. I was charged with a DUI based on “marijuana” which was literally an empty container my friend had left in my car, and because I was homeless, I had a bunch of trash in my car, that included. Fuck that shit.

Homelessness is not in and of itself a crime. I’m probably the only sober homeless person to have ever existed, but I had other issues (bipolar disorder). That’s the long and short of why I was homeless. In that mental state, I actually relished the opportunity to be free of obligations and live a nomadic lifestyle. Now that I’m stable, I crave routine and stability.

Sometimes I think I do things just because they’ll make an interesting story to tell later, and being homeless kind of falls into that category. It was an interesting experience. Needless to say, I hope I never have to experience such a predicament again. You never know what life will bring though, so at least I’ve proven to myself that I’m resourceful enough to survive if it really came down to the wire. I often liken myself to black mold: determined to survive.

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Approximating Humanity
Approximating Humanity

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