Title pretty much says it all, I spent 13 years homeless. Did a lot of hitchhiking. I have spinal stenosis and CES but did get a nice 9-month break through a veteran’s group which ends on September 30th, when I’ll return to tent life in the sticks. Ask me anything!
My advice – write them down. Hopefully you won’t need them. But if it does happen, the initial panic overrides logic. You’ll end up packing stupid things like a lamp and completely spacing out the important things like your birth certificate, social security card, and DD-214 if you were military. I’ve seen more “new homeless” do exactly that and those documents can take months to years to replace. Things like silverware are not necessary, you won’t be cooking and most fast-food joints have plastic utensils you can get for free. Find out if there’s any homeless day centers you can use for mail, find out where your social services office is so you can apply for EBT and Medicaid. I can’t stress enough about credit cards, make sure to get the balances down to zero if not already. It’s hard to make payments when you’re on the streets, and having that kind of borrowing power is an absolute must should an opportunity come your way like an out-of-state job. With any luck, you won’t need any of it and you can throw that plan away later. But it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. And be sure to check out www.freecampsites.net, that at least eliminates a lot of the “where will I go” worries.
I have one of those fireproof safes with important docs. need to do a review of it but hitting a lot of paperwork things for the next month or so. I should be able to go pretty far on savings if I go into the ira as im over 50. Ill be honest I have almost a phobia about trying to figure out for exactly how long. if I have to I will take the 10% penalty on the ira but im hoping not to since that is 10% less time it will last. what kinda sucks is I could get a phone call which would reverse everything (well not exactly reverse as I will be vulnerable to the same thing with less savings to deal with it. Honestly even if I get something decent im not sure I can save much in the next decade to get to where I was.)
Similar position here, I’m 52. My best case scenario is SSI, which only pays $900 per month plus back pay from November of 2025. If it goes through, great, I’ll be getting a used vehicle and going campsite-to-campsite with it. If not, I’ll hitchhike down to Houston and set up at my old camp and see how long it takes the police to sweep again. Those are my only two options, and one of them I have zero control over. The frustrating part is you spend a majority of your life paying into all these “safety nets” that seem to evaporate when you need them most. At this point, I’d rather Uncle Sam just refunded every dime I’ve paid in taxes and call it even. I’d likely be better off!
yeah basically until all my retirement savings is down to the few thousand you can have max with ssi we can’t get it for my wife who should more than qualify. heck I should with the depression.
Yeah I think my limit is $2k for all assets minus a vehicle. So I’ll never be able to have more than $1,100 in savings because the monthly $924 deposit would put me over the limit and they’d kick me off. First, last and deposit to rent a place cost way more than they’ll allow me to save.
yeah I noticed that. that is going to be the tricky part if it gets that far. can’t go for it till you have something that won’t even last a month.
Yup. You have to have less than 2k in assets to apply. Then the application process can draw out into years. My case literally sat on a desk for 9 months until I finally got an attorney. If you have to go the SSI route, make sure you have plenty of medical documentation and get a lawyer first.
yeah medical documentation sux to because its all over the place and we don’t have a central thing as a society. So she has all sorts of scans showing her back things but nothing recent and she has ones for her brain tumor stuff. and then stuff for her hip and such. honestly I can’t even keep track of her stuff and I think she likely does not. its comical all the stuff. I mean dark comical. Its sad because if we were smart we would get divorced and not give her anything and then go and do it but its hard to be a dispaionate vulcan in that way but that is how society wants us to act apparently.
Yeah it’s totally hosed. I had a friend (electrician) whose wife had MS. He had to turn down any amount of overtime even though they really needed it, because anything over his 40 hours would cancel her benefits and really put them in a bind. And that’s without counting the monthly asset cap. I finally got all my documents in one spot (Google Drive) – stenosis stuff, CES stuff, PTSD stuff… Makes it a lot easier. I submitted it all to SSA just to find out they have you sign a document giving them access to all of your doctors anyways. But at least it’s all there for any other entities that might be able to help but need the records.