A different kind of homeless?

[Reader Rabbit]

Lately, I've noticed several RVs in my neighborhood. Their owners park them in different locations every day or two, but they come back to certain places frequently. An older couple parks their RV in front of the church across the street from my house at least twice a week. There are also a few mini-RVs that park on the street behind the Safeway.

The neighborhood I live in has stores, a laundromat, and a park rec center where people can shower, so I'm not surprised they choose to "settle" here. Are other people noticing this type of homelessness in their communities?

[elocs]

1. That's exactly the type of "homelessness" I'm going for when I retire.

I'll have my car and a small trailer and go where I like. No more making house payments or paying rent. But that is a choice I make.

When millions lose their jobs or homes this is what they may be forced to do. It might not be too bad for a single person or even a couple, but has to be terrible for children. At least having some kind of place of your own where you can sleep and spend time with some security and at least get out of the weather is better than having nothing.

People will do what they have to do to survive and with Republicans being allowed to take more control increased homelessness is what we can expect.

[liberal N proud]

2. They could move from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart

These had to be people who had a fair income at one time if they are living in motor homes.

[Bluerthanblue]

5. there is alot of that around here from april -nov.-

People do choose to retire this way. I'm not sure it's anything new.

[Bucky]

3. Return to nomadry

When the polar ice caps melt, I hope they make RVs that float.

[Buns_of_Fire]

4. It's the way I figure I'll go in a couple more years. I'm looking forward to it. nt

[CBGLuthier]

6. I thnk calling someone with a $50,000+ home on wheels homeless is a stretch

Different strokes for different folks and all. I know a couple who live that way and they aren't of retirement age.

[Reader Rabbit]

9. These RVs cost nowhere near $50,000.

They're ramshackle things, all at least 20 years old. One has tarps all over the roof, secured with bungee cords. I guess I should have been more clear in my description. These aren't snowbirds. I lived in an area frequented by that type of RVer. These vehicles look more like something the Joads might travel/live in. And the people in them really aren't traveling, per se. They're living on the streets, just in a different way that the archetypal homeless person with a shopping cart.

[madrchsod]

7. i know of a retired couple who live in a rv and travel the country

they receive enough social security to travel from south in the winter to the north in the summer.

my city is to small to offer enough for people to do this.

[H2O Man]

8. When I was little,

a man my siblings and I called "Grandpa" (although he was actually our cousins' grandfather) lived year-round in a "camper" he built for his truck. I remember that he had painted it in a way that makes me think he was a "hippie" before there was the "hippie" movement in the 1960s.

He used to tell us about growing up in the Great Plains in the late 1800s. His parents lived in a sod house when he was born, and tales of his childhood were not unlike Laura Ingall's "Little House on the Prarie."

[janet118]

10. What do RVs get for mileage . . .

about 7 miles per gallon? Good luck with that. Also there are fewer and fewer places where you can park a vehicle overnight without getting hassled by the local authorities. I've know people who live on their sailboats. It is not an easy life, especially if you are elderly.

[Reader Rabbit]

11. Not a heck of a lot.

But the people I'm seeing only move about 3–5 blocks at a time. And I figure the reason they move about is so they won't get hassled. I think the couple that parks by the church regularly also make circuits of the neighborhood on trash days and collect bottles and cans for recycling money.

[lonestarnot]

12. Difficult job for the repo man!

:)

[davidthegnome]

13. Not so much here

Not that I've noticed, anyhow. I live in the far north of northern Maine. It's very rural, we have a lot of farmers, carpenters, hunters, fishers, etc. A lot of these folks have significant survival skills - I think they'd be more likely to live in tents than in RVs. It's the winter that worries me.