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this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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why would you have a car when you don't have a place to live. There's a piece of the logic I am missing
It's america. If you didn't have a car you couldn't go anywhere. In many places this is literally true in all but a very select and completely unaffordable zip codes
A beater car is still probably cheaper than an apartment. Also, you can't drive your slummy apartment away if you don't like the scene wherever it is, nor can it transport you to work. It's also some modicum of space wherein you can lock up what stuff you do own.
If I were placed under the terms of some very specific curse where I had to choose explicitly between a car and a house, I'm sorry to say I would be forced to choose my car. Actually, if I had my druthers I would probably pick my truck over my car, because despite its impracticality for daily transportation it's big enough to live in semi-comfortably as kind of a mini RV and would also allow me to store and transport some tools and stuff. (It'd also be much easier to use my truck to make money than a car, in some manner of hypothetical sudden destitution scenario.)
Ok, yea, it makes sense. I guess I just never heard of a homeless person having a car before
The vast majority of homeless people are not visible, and they are not the stereotype of the drunken incoherent bum sleeping under a newspaper on a park bench like the guy in Back to the Future.
It's startlingly easy to become homeless simply by having a minor upset in your income, which can get you evicted quickly if you're renting and especially so if you live in an area which has weak or nonexistent tenant protections. Lots of homeless people were doing just fine or at least close to okay before something happened. They got injured and thus lost their job. A spouse divorced them and took most of the income with them. Their house burned down but they didn't have enough insurance to cover it. They had to escape from an abusive domestic partner. Etc.
These are just ordinary people who had their home pulled out from under them for some reason. Now they're temporarily living on a friend's couch, or in their car, or in a motel room, or whatever. But the barrier for entry for obtaining housing is so damn high in many places that it's impossible for them to work up the capital to make it over that hump and either make rent plus a security deposit, or magically cough up the down payment on a mortgage.
Many of these people probably already owned a car before whatever it was happened to them and thus they still do. Even if they're still paying off the loan on that car, that monthly payment is almost guaranteed to be less than rent or a mortgage.
Cheers, it makes a lot more sense this way. Appreciate the explanation
Where do you live? Here there's homeless people sleeping in cars and RVs on the side of the road all over the place
It's also possible that I have seen/known homeless people living in their car, without knowing that they were homeless. I live in overseas France (Mayotte), am from mainland France (Marseille)
France generally has good enough public transit in most areas that you can live without a car if you're poor. In America you're lucky if you have anything more than the most thread there public transit system where the bus is only come every 45 minutes and get stuck in traffic. Except in New York and Chicago even the poorest person must own a at least a $1,000 very old used car to get to work. Americans are so dependent on cars as a consequence of bad urban planning that for many the idea of Transportation by a means other than car is literally inconceivable, it's like trying to explain quantum physics to a dog
If you aren't an American, it may be difficult to understand.
Many cities here are very sprawled out and designed for cars, and therefore they're necessary for economic survival, perhaps more so than a home.
Yes I have been explained/shown some of that. I didn't realize it made the car more of a priority than a home. It's insane, but I guess it checks out
If you didn't have a car you would very quickly not have a home either. Having your car break down and not being able to have a replacement is a common cause of homelessness by way of job loss.
It is insane, but that's late-stage capitalism for you. The choice we made was to have a few hundred more billionaires in the population, even if it means millions starving.
You can easily buy a used car for less than two months rent around here. Less if you shop around for a deal. That car provides transportation, shelter, and does not need to be repurchased every month.
Cheers, yes that does add up when you think about it.
A lot of homeless in America are people who had a decent paying job and lost it. So, they had some material wealth before becoming homeless and this could have included a car. At that point, people may prioritize the car because it provides transportation and shelter while the home only provides shelter. It is also likely that the car is cheaper than an apartment.
There are also a growing class of people who live out of their car and migrate across country during the year. A lot of these people are retired or have some disability insurance, want to travel, and see being alone on BLM land as preferable to living in a dying rust belt town.
Thanks for the context. I understand