In the last year, I lost my mother (cancer), my grandmother (old age), and went through a divorce. I spiraled into depression, ended up living out of my car, barely functioning.
But I didn’t stay down. Through therapy, ketamine treatment, and building my own AI-assisted mental health tools (ChatGPT literally saved me), I’ve come out stronger, healthier, and ready to rebuild. My mental health is solid now—I’ve done the inner work.
Here’s my situation:
I’m living in my car, staying in cheap motels when I can afford it.
I drive Lyft/Uber full-time, but my car needs new tires, insurance renewal, and a payment due—without it, I can’t work. $400 for tires, $200 for insurance, $290 for car payment..
I have a desktop computer but nowhere stable to set it up and work.
I’m going back to school soon for computer science, aiming for AI/ML work, but I need to survive until student aid or inheritance (both delayed) arrives.
Here’s my question: What would YOU do in my situation to break the cycle? How can I create a stable base, get back to programming/freelancing, and stop just surviving?
I’m willing to work. I know I can earn 3-4x more doing freelance tech, but I can’t do that from a car.
I’ve thought about renting office space, finding roommates, even setting up a GoFundMe, but I need actionable ideas, not just hope.
How do I climb out of this? What programs, jobs, or options are out there for someone like me who’s got skills, drive, but no resources?
Any advice, ideas, or help you can give—I’m all ears. I’ve rebuilt my mind. Now I just need a stable place to rebuild my life. It's hard feeling constantly like I'm in quick sand and the rope is 5 inches too far away.
I'm in Southern Utah (St George), willing to relocate to SLC area or Las Vegas, I just need to stay local for my kids...4 hour radius from southern Utah.
Get a better job, that can get you stable housing. I don’t know the job market in your area, but try looking for temp agencies. They will do a basic interview and help you find something that uses your existing skills. Until you get stable housing and your basic needs met, focus on what you can do with the skills you have now.
Seconding what others said about going to the library. In my community they serve almost as social workers, and have lists of places like food banks that can help you until you have better employment. Your county will also have resources for you; you can get on the waiting list for housing vouchers (they’re years long, but just in case), get food stamps, get leads for programs local to you.
Yes, it’s possible to end up with a tech job. There’s a big gap between where you are now and there, though, and having stability in the short term will help you get there.
The tax analogy would be the IRS thinks you should be better at stocks, maybe on the basis you had a few good years, then taxes you for that this year instead of your bad gains due to luck/depression/whatever.
https://greensboro.com/ex-hostage-jailed-in-child-support-ca...
I have a relative who worked in family law and I have no doubt there is a subset of the population (or rather the subset of the population who end up in the family court system) stupid and vindicative enough that they would deliberately get themselves held hostage, if they thought it would get them out of child support.
It would be more accurate to say that the court prioritises the welfare of the child above that of the parents.
That is, the system (in theory) should enforce that the child recieves the same level of support and standard of living as it would if the parents had not separated.
Judges take a very dim view of parents trying to escape their support obligations, as if they were allowed to do so it ultimately only hurts the child.
Is it really fair that previously they got to work hard to buy their kid nice things, but now they must work hard to buy them nice things or go to jail?
These sorts of things are accounted for when calculating child support obligations, and in any case judges are not computers and can use their discretion in such matters. As long as you're operating in good faith you shouldn't have any issues. I was specifically referring to incidents where someone is wilfully disobeying the child support order, such as by quitting their job to work for cash 'under the table' so they don't have any official income to garnish.
>Is it really fair that previously they got to work hard to buy their kid nice things, but now they must work hard to buy them nice things or go to jail?
It's not about buying nice things, it's about making sure the child is not disadvantaged by the separation of the parents. That means keeping the same standard of food availability, clothing, access to education, and so on.
Think of the reverse perspective - is it fair for a child to have to, for example, give up after school sports, because one of their parents decided that they would prefer not to pay child support? Or be forced to change schools and lose their social group because tuition is unaffordable on a single income?
This is backwards. You're ignoring that the divorce has to be initiated in the first place and that divorce usually results in the removal of custody by the father and thereby creates an obligation to pay child support on the side of the father. Therefore divorce is causal. A desire to not pay child support does not lead to a child having to give up after school sports in the absence of divorce.
So let's replace what you said with reality:
>Think of the reverse perspective - is it fair for a child to have to, for example, give up after school sports, because their parents divorced? Or be forced to change schools and lose their social group because tuition is unaffordable on a single income?
Yes it is fair, because the divorce was initiated despite the expectation of these outcomes. If a man or woman initiates divorce, they must have had a good reason to do so and we should not question that reason by arguing that school sports or tuition are more important than the reason for divorce.
Correct. My point is that the child should receive the same standard of living regardless of the dispute between parents.
>Yes it is fair, because the divorce was initiated despite the expectation of these outcomes. If a man or woman initiates divorce, they must have had a good reason to do so and we should not question that reason by arguing that school sports or tuition are more important than the reason for divorce.
Parents may divorce and have whatever disputes they like, but it is not fair for one parent to deprive the child of support and resources that they would otherwise receive because of a dispute with the other parent.
Only in a rather crazy partnership is that the case. My child's resources and support absolutely fluctuate with my actual income, preferences, and obligations and as a compromise of financial disputes.
Recently I built a house instead of working, willfully drastically lowering my income to 0. The child had all the necessities met, but anything beyond was less plentiful than before and we had to cook frugal foods. The child was not neglected or abused so nothing illegal, but standard of living significantly lowered. It is fair that the child's standard of living lowers with the parents, but your system would have me a criminal were it I didn't have custody.
It doesn't make sense that married people can willfully lower standard of living but non custodial parents cannot. The standard should be the same uniformly but were it the case it would be voted down, thus is a case of the majority buying a sense of smug moral imposition at no cost to themselves against the evil divorcing sinners, to the great benefit of family law practices who often ruthlessly pursue it for profit.
Of course it does - because both parents are responsible for the welfare of the children, and so if they both decide that they want to lower the standard of living that is a shared/joint agreement.
If the non-custodial parent decides they want to lower their child's standard of living, a) that is a unilateral decision, and b) they (the non-custodial parent) don't have to bear the implications of that lowered standard of living.
> your system would have me a criminal were it I didn't have custody.
Yes, sadly, having children means that sometimes you lack flexibility and can't make the decisions you would like to make.
So a couple points here
1) we've now moved the goal posts, we went from the child needs the same standard of living, to now it is OK to lower it if both decide, to whatever extent that happens in dual custody situations.
2) except the oversight on child support recipients in most states is not that. The set judgement must be paid, and except for some usually minority line items the rest may be spent as the custodial pleases including the option of unilaterally allocating some stuff for stuff of no benefit to the child. As long as the child is not neglected or abused the custodial can unilaterally raise/lower the sol of child and put to themselves. So you are thinking of something else, it is mostly child support in name and is primarily a redistribution payment without oversight that it is all spent on raised qol of the child.
>Yes, sadly, having children means that sometimes you lack flexibility and can't make the decisions you would like to make.
It means they need necessities. It does not mean they need same qol in the event if divorce, except whoops we will move the goal posts as soon as you mention the double standard.
When you’re not married anymore, I’m in favor of the idea of making it easier to change child support payments in situations where things are amicable and jointly agreed to. I am very much aware that is not the situation today.
My point about losing flexibility is that when you have kids, your choices are not your own anymore. You can say all you want that they need “necessities”, but I know from experience that the way people interpret that varies widely. I think the only fair way to do it is to keep QOL as the goal. If you want more accountability as to how the money is spent, sure, though I’m not sure how that would work in practice.
But then they get separated - you no longer have that choice, or you go to jail. It seems orwellian.
If you are married and take a higher pay job that is pretty much always a one way valve where if the spouse doesn't want you to lower it you are trapped. Which of course is how people end up in high stress jobs much longer than they planned, unhappy but no way out.
That's not true. The welfare of the child is already destroyed by separating the child from one of its parents. If the court prioritized the welfare of the child, then it would give out 50:50 custody by default, with the non-custodial parent having to consent to child support to avoid custody.
The welfare of the child is often best served by allocating custody such that a child can stay at one residence most of the time (with regular visitation to the other parent to maintain the relationship), so that the stability of the child's living situation is not disturbed by having to constantly switch between two residences, having their school routine and social life disrupted, etc.
Also, custody split is only part of the issue. Supposing parent A earns 2x parent B's income, they should still be paying child support even if custody is 50:50, so that the same standard is maintained across both households.
How was the court meant to know that? keeping in mind that article was from 1990 and it was a lot harder to share information.
It sounds like the court was sympathetic and he was freed as soon as practicable:
>Sherrill called a family member, who contacted the chief district judge, Sol Cherry. Cherry called the jail and ordered Sherrill's release. He was freed about 7:30 p.m.
"freed as soon as practicable"
They demanded cash only. In the evening.
Practical in my opinion would have been, "yeah sure, as a just released hostage we can sort it all out tomorrow in your case"
But everbody followed their orders and acted as part of the machine.
Which is what happened, after they got in contact with the judge who had the authority to do so.
It's more along the lines of trying to prevent the non-custodial parent from having visitation and that sort of thing.
A story I’ve seen play out several times.
>stupid and vindicative enough that they would deliberately get themselves held hostage, if they thought it would get them out of child support.
It sounds like you're arguing in favor of a broken system. In what world is it rational to get held hostage? In this one apparently.
If someone can't afford gas or tools to work, then the child suffers more.
Even if it isnt the norm, traps and perverse situations abound.
I have met a few people at work who feared jail time whenever there were rumors of restructuring or layoffs. Even with their tech salaries, they had no money leftover for emergency fund. And if they don’t pay child support, they’ll go to jail. How are they supposed to support their children from a jail?
I also fucked up because of taxes many times and just recently a big bad "surprise" hit me. But it's not like it was not my failure of responsibility.
And that is the problem with child support system. It is ready to burn the father as the first option instead of last resort.
Don't want a kid? Use contraceptives. But do not blame it on the government that you now are responsible for another person. Santed a kid but realized the person you have been with isn't for you? Well then it was probably too early to get a kid with them.
Amazing. Has US individualism become so extreme, that it can't even be expected from parents to stand in for their kids, till they are grown up? Yes, metaphorically good parents would set themselves on fire to warm their kids.
If you want to support poor parents the answer isn't "fuck their kids", the answer is "let the rest of us help them".
Great advice all around, but I'll emphasize this part. SNAP is becoming a de facto indicator of eligibility for all sorts of programs, from reduced price transit passes to Medicaid, depending on the state.
https://switchpointcrc.org/ is local to you with food, shelter, etc.
More info from a gov source: https://sgcityutah.gov/business_detail_T18_R270.php
https://switchpointcrc.org/how-to-get-help/
The local access points to the coordinated entry system provide the assessment, information and referrals, and other resources to the person seeking housing.
Stop by or call for more information 948.N 1300 W. St. George, Utah 84770. 435-628-9310
Unfortunately, the tech market is not great right now, and I think remote freelance rates are fairly low right now. But, in your situation, you can probably offer very competitive rates while still building up some savings. Once you have some savings (six months to 1 year is usually the recommendation), it gives you a lot of margin of safety, and you can reduce your usage of the government assistance.
And 211: https://211utah.org/, 888-826-9790. They also have chat and text capability. 211 is "the most comprehensive source of local resources and services in Utah."
OP, good luck.
If you're interested and want to drop a way to contact you, I'll figure out a way to ship it to you. Otherwise, as much as I loathe sending you to Facebook, the local "buy nothing" groups another commentor recommended sounds like a good place to start.
Good luck!
Sounds like you know how to survive, which is perfect… here’s what you do. Ditch uber/lyft and get your CDL. They’ll pay you and train you and give you a job. Plus, you get a nice sleeper truck to sleep in that’s more spacious than your car. (If you have the cash, an RV works instead)
Take the income you make and pay off all your debts using the snowball method. If you don’t have debts, use that money for classes/school/training to get back into the field you want to be in. 6 months to a year and you’re back on your feet, apartment, furniture, money in your pocket, a future to look forward to.
Stay strong.
Kagi was founded in 2018, and I just gave you an example of a shared reality between those two search engines. For your information, the first result of both searches was the same as well.
Obviously given I'm paying for Kagi I believe it has some value over Google, but there's still a pretty significant core of searches that it doesn't really matter which engine you're using.
Thanks to all who responded to the post though. I can see this answer in my results, just further down the list than most people are suggesting due to whatever targeting I'm receiving.
“Define:CDL”
Where I’m from at least, commercial drivers license fills the first two pages.
I would start by getting in touch with extended family, friends, and anyone who trusts me enough to lend me a couch. Then I would make sure that my footprint on said couch was as small as possible. (IE, I'd make sure not to leave a mess.) Finally, I'd be very open about my search for employment so they're constantly assured that I'm actively working on becoming self-sufficient.
For example, my cousin divorced her husband and put a restraining order on him. He ended up moving in with his first wife while he gets his life back together.
---
Assuming someone I know was in a similar situation, my ability to lend them my couch mostly depends on the risk they bring into my household. In the past, I avoided a college friend because he became a heroin addict. I'd give my nieces and nephews a lot of leeway in this situation; and the same for my cousins' children. Older cousins and adult friends would require closer understanding of the situation.
I would seek to understand if alcohol, drugs, (or other vices like video games) contributed to the situation. Substance abuse is not something I want around my family, and it's not something I'm comfortable helping someone else manage.
Get a job that’s not freelance u til you have a home. Restaurant, retail, mechanic shop, whatever that gives you a w4 and a group of people that aren’t assholes.
Reasons: looks good when signing a lease
Likely to get some sort of health insurance I think? I had it in all my w4s in the US. Group of people to start interacting with, you never know what comes out of that. I think out of the options given, retail is the worse for that, but may give you access to bigger companies.
After hours you can do thumbtack like IT for people at home that don’t want to to go geek squad. Old ladies, whatever. I built a pretty decent group when I was younger and it paid pretty well with very low mental effort.
The car is never a good investment unless you work on it yourself. A DIY oil change is $37, at the shop 120 in my area. If you’re living in a car you can’t afford that, so start thinking about dropping uber and Lyft when you can. You could get some used tires for now, otherwise I wouldn’t buy anything but the cheapest Walmart tire.
Sell your desktop. Put it on fb marketplace, get something out of it. You can get a working laptop for almost nothing, unless your pc is ultra undesirable.
Reach out to recycling places, explain your situation, they ,might give you one at cost. If not, eBay, fb.
Take care of your body and looks. Shave, shower, trim your nails, comb your hair or just get a buzz cut, don’t tell people you live in your car unless you’re close to them. Back in Florida $10 at planet fitness or whatever it was called would get you access to a shower and you could also do some exercise that’s good for the mind and the body, maybe there is something like that near you.y
2. Sell or trade in the desktop for a laptop. Portability and space is your friend. Join a local Facebook "buy nothing" group, and ask for a trade or someone's spare old laptop. Any mobility improvement is a win.
3. Immediately make a free account for Salesforce's Trailhead program https://trailhead.salesforce.com/ and start learning everything you can. Badges can be added to your linkedin, and you should go heavy down the path of force.com development if you can.
4. Once you have a few badges, polish up your linkedin (and resume) and start spamming recruiters for salesforce positions.
The ERP/CRM world pays very well but almost all platforms have a stupidly high barrier to entry, EXCEPT Salesforce. You could have a $100k/yr job in a few months if you follow this path, and then branch out to Oracle or NetSuite or SAP from here.
edits (consolidating advice here for posterity):
I should add that ERP/CRM consulting is largely remote friendly and your prospective employers/consulting firms will probably not give a rip where you live. They never did for me.
Find a coworking space (NOT a chain one like WeWork) in your town. Talk to the owner and explain your situation, ask for a month or two discount while you get your bearings and attend every meetup they have or know about. Meet everyone, tell your story, share your skills. A small community will help take care of you in ways a Chamber of Commerce chapter will not.
If you are not religious, look for an Oddfellows chapter. They may be a resource to you in a similar way as a church congregation.
And if you have skills but they are outdated, you're now competing with every unemployed junior, fresh grad, and old coder on the market. Update your skill set, and ideally focus on skills that are in higher demand and with higher barrier to entry or with a captive audience/market. Differentiating will help with jobseeking.
For extra side income, attend garage/yard/rummage sales and focus on books. Books are great to flip, because you can immediately appraise the quality, scan the ISBN number to find the going rate, and only buy it to flip if it's worth enough.
Since you're in Utah, I'm going to suggest you find a bishop to ask for help. Even if you don't belong to the LDS church, I _think_ they might be able to help you out. Go to https://maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/ and find a church service to go to on a Sunday morning, and before/after the meeting, try to figure out who is the bishop/counselors and tell them your situation. It may depend on who you get, in which case you can always try other wards/buildings/areas.
Good luck!
It's a Catholic agency, but they're agnostic, in that being Catholic is not a prerequisite and they won't ask about religion or try to convert you. It's a case of walking in the door of their premises and asking for help, or picking up the phone and talking to them.
Best of luck moving forward.
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Disp...
Stop driving Lyft/Uber. It's for those who don't have any skills beyond driving a car.
Sit down and determine what are the skills that you currently possess that are the most valuable on the market right now. Then sell those to the highest bidder.
My two cents, that isn't a job.
> I know I can earn 3-4x more doing freelance tech, but I can’t do that from a car.
Yes, you can. That's a limiting belief; it's just holding you back. All you need is a laptop. Need to make a meeting? Go to a local cafe. Nobody will even notice. More importantly, if you're doing remote contract work, perfectly acceptable to ask a percentage of the total upfront. That will go a long way to get you out of a car and into an apartment quickly.
> What would YOU do in my situation to break the cycle?
1. Stop driving Uber, stop renting motels, stop paying any bills, bring my costs down to near zero.
2. Start taking on as much contract work doing "freelance tech" that I can find, with as much paid upfront as possible.
3. Once I have 10k in the bank, rent an apartment and start cleaning up whatever mess is left.
4. Start making quality of life decisions. Maybe you don't want contract, but want a job? Maybe a nicer laptop? Closer to your kids? Live your life.
#1 is the hardest, because you're risking everything on your ability to deliver. You have to believe in yourself.
Sell it. It's a paperweight for you right now. You can find a really nice open-box/used laptop for $300-400 that will allow you to work from anywhere. You can charge the laptop at a cafe or a library. $5 for coffee and you have a working space to take calls and work.
> Start taking on as much contract work doing "freelance tech" that I can find
Why do you think he could find any?
Go to your local libraries; the most beneficial programs are likely to be local to you, and the librarians are more likely to know about them than we are.
Get a job- anything where they will hire you and pay you. Use that to bootstrap yourself out of your car and into any kind of housing. Anything at all. Work that full time while you do freelance gigs until the freelance gigs pay about 2/3 of your income. Use the freelance money to fix your car etc. Now quit your job and uber 1/3 and freelance 2/3.
Oversimplified? yes. But it's not designed to be a foolproof plan, just food for thought.
Also that's fantastic that you've pulled yourself out of depression. I once had the worst clinical depression my psychiatrist had ever seen. I pulled myself out of it and got rid of the things that caused it, including some pretty bad internal programming.
You've got this. You can do it.
Do you have anyone you can lean on? Cousin? Uncle? Anyone? Just a little financial support could go a long way.
Do you have any programming experience? Instead of making school a priority, I would try to get an actual job. Non-tech can be stupid simple, the pay can be decent, definitely better than Uber. Plus, you will have a space to work and a work machine.(this can be a bit hard right now as tech is going through a down cycle)
You need a job.
After you stabilize your situation you can think about AI/ML imo.
Vue/React/Python are all still huge but they're commodity skills today. Differentiating will help with the jobseeking.
And just because these are areas in which there are many juniors devs have doesn't mean that senior devs are competing directly with them.
But really, look for a stable job, any job. Uber/Lyft is not that, especially with the uncertainty in your car situation. Your eventual goal might be to do software freelancing, or to get a full-time job using those software skills, but you may not be able to get one of those kinds of jobs now.
Have you been trying to get a stable job as dev or data guy? As this is where you should start. You really just need a stable income, so you can get an apartment and space to live.
Once, you have stable situation you can figure out the rest.
With that, a cellphone, and wifi, you actually can work from your car. Certainly from a coffee shop.
https://workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/default/mdf/recruitment/...
Best wishes and good luck with everything
Those two people should not be in a supervisory role over any other engineer, ever.
I’d suggest agreeing to the proposition of the kind person who offered you to ship his ThinkPad. (In this very thread.) If there’s more than one person willing to help, I’d suggest agreeing on getting a couple of laptops, as it will allow you to have a backup computer. Someone offered his MacBook Pro 2012 here too. I have a similar one, and it does the web dev job just fine. It’s like tires to your car, I’d have at least two, the 2nd one can be any that would boot and work, regardless of its state and how powerful it is.
If you feel very uncomfortable about that, I’d suggest you to treat it as a credit. You can buy that laptop from that person later, offering them the market price for that.
Any basic web dev work should not take tremendous resources from your machine, so even if your computer is super powerful, you don’t _require_ it to do the job. Selling or not is your decision, but to me, it’s just secondary. You can get any old laptop for very cheap. Just throw any Linux on it. Fedora or Ubuntu is modest even if you never interacted with it, and they will allow almost any 10–15 years old laptop to work relatively well.
I’d strongly suggest having two, just so you could have any backup option to do the job, even if the primary laptop is down for some reason. It’s real to work from anywhere, your car, a café, a street. You might need a battery for that laptop, but it shouldn’t be too expensive, and should serve you at least for a year or two, which might be plenty for you to get to a better state than yours now.
I have a super powerful desktop for more than a decade now, and due to various life obstacles, I’m unable to work from it most times. It was shelved for a couple of years, and now I’m able to reach it only once or twice a week. If I had no laptop, I wouldn’t be able to deliver anything. I used a 2011 entry-level MacBook Pro till it was broken, now I use a 2014 model, and it’s my primary machine for everything. So don’t underestimate laptops.
Since you’d benefit from a battery life, I’d suggest you to find any cheap second-hand iPad. The newer, the better, obviously, but those that are no longer supported can be very cheap. I have a 1st Gen. iPad Pro, and it works almost full day from its (quite drained) battery. This device can work as a 2nd screen for any relatively modern macOS device (e.g. a 10 years MacBook). Plus, such a device might allow you to have more screen time from a battery, and might be better than just a smartphone when you’re on the go. By juggling these devices, you might have a full-day battery life.
Just my ¢2 about your desktop. Go for laptop and try to find any computer-related job, I’d say.
Once you have shelter and you're committed to saving more than you spend (again, working in food industry is beneficial there because free food), you can start taking on more jobs and slowly work your way out.
I also had decent coding skills at the time, but never got a job out of it. So don't put too much of your hopes on that. I got a couple responses from job ads, but never even got to the interview stage without a degree.
Eventually (two years) I managed to get to the point where I could work and go to school at the same time (with the help of student aid), and subsequently got a degree and a real job. But the whole time it's all about minimizing expenses as much as possible.
You mention inheritance. I recommend putting all that away in some investment and not touching it. Not because the investment is going to be worth a ton in the future, but because doing so will help build the financial discipline you'll need to get through these times.
Ultimately, digging out rests on stability and savings more than anything else. Find a job with reasonably stable income (maybe uber is fine? it wasn't an option back when I did this), and save every penny that you can. Then you can start planning realistically for the future. The hardest part may be kids; I'm sure it's tempting to spend everything you have on them, and these days even the cost of gas to visit them may be more than you should be spending regularly. At least budget (strictly!) the number of miles you drive outside of work; that money adds up. But get a handle on your budget and spend less than you make. That's the only way out.
1. Find the local county or city social services agency.
2. Apply for emergency aid and shelter, including Medicaid and SNAP.
3. Apply for section 8 housing. This usually will take a great deal of time.
It frankly wasn't actionable ideas and guarantees that got me back. It was commitment to a plan once I had one, no matter how shitty the interim existence was, and the grace and goodness of other people. You're arguably in a better position if you already have marketable job skills. I was doing performance art for Disneyland. I went back to school after and eventually became this, but that took years before I had anything like an independent, stable adult existence. I was working graveyard shifts cleaning park restrooms and taking 24 credit hours per semester at a community college during the day, for two years, before I got old enough to be eligible for financial aid without having to report my parents' income and assets, and they weren't helping me.
But other people did help. Two women I knew, very good friends from now a long time ago, had parents that let me stay with them. One was a divorced Italian woman who was otherwise alone anyway and the other was a normal family that was rich and had a lot of extra space and didn't mind me taking up a little bit of it. I lived with with those two families when I had nowhere else to go and that was the initial path off the street that gave me the stability to do everything else.
I have no answer for how you find such people who will help you. I would like to say be a kind, gracious person who deserves it, but it's hard to say I was even that. I did nothing to deserve help but people who could helped me anyway. I've spent the past quarter century since then paying it forward and helping out every person I possibly can and even letting a few homeless friends here and there live with me for a couple months at a time, but up to that point in my life, I had done nothing to deserve being helped.
Your priorities sound out of line with your current financial reality.
Concretely, you’re struggling with $890 in car costs that your current income depends on and asking how to escape homelessness. The crappy reality is that you need to maximize the safety of your one existing income stream ahead of nearly everything else. That means building up an emergency fund for car repairs.
Free cash flow, a well maintained car and a savings/emergency fund are the biggest lifelines you will be able to give yourself in the near term.
If you can get a programming job or a cheap laptop (sub $200 old Thinkpad on eBay) and start picking up some freelancing work you can do in a public library or similar, that’s amazing, but for now you’re really all in on your car and it sounds like you need to focus on that until it’s safe and stable.
Hopefully if you’re frugal, not too unlucky and do your best you’ll have more options in a few months.
This sucks and I really hope things get better for you.
From helpdesk you can then move into specializing in whatever you are interested in. Software development is a competitive field and is constantly in technological flux, but there is stable work behind the scenes if you don't chase the latest trends too much. If you want to do it I would suggest looking for a PHP job rather than an AI job. Freelancing is very piecemeal work and hand-to-mouth, which is the opposite of what you currently need.
>I’m willing to work. I know I can earn 3-4x more doing freelance tech, but I can’t do that from a car.
Why not? There are homeless people doing Amazon Turk from cafes in Hong Kong.
Second, you need to focus on fast money making sources. That's Lyft, shoveling snow, micro-tasks (I help people with Solana developer questions in the Raydium Discord for example, earning 100-200$ per small script), food stamps, church handouts, it does not matter. Cash quick. You need some quick money to ease up the stress so you can focus on the next big leap. You'll get to the big tech job, but until then, you need to focus on your current reality.
The problem isn't that it's hard, it's that solving homelessness would undermine a lot of systems that keep rich people rich and powerful people powerful. Fear of homelessness is one of the main reasons people are willing to work in substandard conditions for substandard pay. An artificial scarcity of homes is what keeps housing prices inflated and rent seeking profitable. Homelessness exists not because it's hard to solve, but because there's a strong will not to solve it.
> I know I can earn 3-4x more doing freelance tech, but I can’t do that from a car.
I'm seeing cheap x86 laptops on Amazon for like 120-150 USD. If you need more computing power, you might be able to rent it out via a VPS and other services. VPSes for example charge cheap prices by the hour (cents to single-digit dollars).[1] You don't need that much computing power all the time on your local computer. You can get an inverter to power your laptop from the car. IDK about your available mobile data plans, but you don't need much for work. You won't be able to rely much on YouTube, but you can get by with the textual internet.
Looking at your profile - it appears as though you've worked extensively in technology in the past - and are reporting a cash crunch currently.
First order of business seems to be securing a place to live. Could be a friends couch or a room to rent.
Longer term, resuming employment in the tech industry seems to be a good path to financial security.
A couple of questions - is there a timeline for the inheritance money arriving? Will that enable you to rent a place to live? Do you plan on working concurrently with going back to school?
Again - sorry for all that you're going through - although it sounds like you have developed a positive attitude.
My depression is I believe in remission and I've built resiliency skills. I might be getting a sales job soon, selling astroturfing and rock scaping to homeowners.
It's door to door sales but the pay is good if I can actually set appointments. Plus I'm working on overcoming rejection sensitivity and overthinking, I think sales could help with that..
Freelance, as you said, might be a pragmatic next step. Sell your desktop PC to buy a laptop or get a cheap Thinkpad. Models from a few years ago are still perfectly good for programming. And then you could work from libraries.
I don't know how the tech market is going to evolve, but if the junior to mid level market stays as it is or worse then it might be prudent to think about acquiring additional skills that can't be automated so easily, i.e. plumbing, electric etc. Something I'm considering.
If you have a Gofundme - I'd be happy to contribute.
I'm in.
Reply to this thread, if interested.
I'm asking because I've also accumulated some Mac's in my career and I see others also offering them up in this thread. I've always wondered how common it was to accrue them from past tech companies.
I lived a bit like a bum and had to sacrifice a lot, but it worked. It was temporary. I left where I was because I had a room mate with mental health issues, and rather than subject myself to them (they were becoming violent), I realized I had to take a leap. If I kicked them out, I was inviting trouble for myself and setting them up for a hard fall. If I left, they at least had a space to live and sort themselves out for a while.
This was when I was teaching myself programming. I read books when I couldn't use my computer, but once I could afford a place where I could use my computer, I spent a lot of my spare time doing that, finding freelance work, and getting out of the hard labour scene. It worked out fine. You've got a leg up since you've already got skills and proof of ability.
Good luck. I know it's hard, and it feels like garbage a lot of the time, but you sink in the hours now to get relief later.
Good luck.
My tires were expensive and loved going flat, but I could service my car myself. Someone crushed in the door and fled, so I left it while I scrounged $500 over months for the replacement. Someone spilled beer in my external hard drive and I lost a decade of projects, photos, and source code. I broke my hand and never got it fixed (paying for that now that I can't pick up a jug of milk, play music or type with it without pain). Early on, I went back home to pick up some clothes, and my ex's new boyfriend had already moved in. Stuff sucked.
But people helped me, even when I didn't ask or want them to. I was a lot harder on myself than anyone else was, and that kept me from immediately fixing my situation until I hit what I thought was rock bottom and went to a doctor.
It sounds like you've already done the medical stuff, which is the most important part. If you're unhealthy, everything is harder. I think if you're able to talk about it and ask for help, it means you're a lot closer to what you want than you were. GL.
To the original poster: Check with your local senior citizens' services agencies. See if they have a senior citizen shared housing program. I don't know how old you are, but only one of the parties in a shared housing arrangement needs to be a senior citizen or disabled. Rent could be very low, or could be just maintenance on the home, or just companionship.
Don't have anything constructive to contribute, so I'll just sincerely say good job so far and best of luck.
Here in Norway it stings a bit when I see what's left of my pay after taxes, but stories like yours is a good reminder. Our system here isn't perfect, but helping people in situations like yours get back on their feet is definitely one of the things that makes it feel worthwhile.
Heat - I’d try to get a laptop soon, and start scouting out your WiFi access points that have A/C. As you know the heat there is no joke, doubly so if using electronics. Reply to this thread if you want a factory reset MB pro, few years old model. I would have to ship it.
LDS - you’re there and sounds like maybe in the church or familiar re: southern UT family? If you’re a Jack Mormon or w/e, sounds like a good time to find yourself back in the church and get w/e help you can source relative to your tolerance for integration. If you’re out, I’d look up ex-Mormon support groups, or consider how LDS you can become in short order to get help.
SLC - tech work is here, and I’d rather be in SLC vs Vegas or St George if housing was unstable due to heat, and the car might not handle a big drive in the future. So I’d plan a move soon. However, CoL in SLC has jumped, and idk how cops there treat homeless. So, I’d expand my work radius to the SW broadly and the Mormon valley from AZ up to Missoula.
Your desktop, can you trade it for a decent laptop?
Recommended plan 1. Find a new-ish laptop immediately. You can get a decent used one for $1K on backmarket.com. Invest in an ergonomic mouse and an iPad for 2nd monitor as well. 2. Do only high value tech work that pays or you learn something that will pay. Be hungry and stay homeless but do not work as an Uber driver it's a poverty trap by design. 3. Find a host family, welcoming community or marry up. You can't beat depression or get back on your feet alone. One suggestion is: go to SLC and get involved in Hacker and / or rock climbing communities.
Def get rid of the desktop computer. You don't have a desk and are unlikely to for long time.
Again my $0.02 please it's hard but you're on the right track IMO
What I would do is just take my skills and find the most valuable thing I can offer.
Example: buy a security camera and offer “I’ll install it and teach you how to use it”
I’ll sell your car online.
I’ll create your online store and capture your products
I suggest you optimize for your own (individual) positive economic trajectory first.
RuPaul has a saying “if you can’t love yourself, how can you love somebody else. Can I get an amen up in here?” An analog to your situation might be: if you cannot be there for yourself, how can you be there for your kids?
Consequently, I suggest you not limit yourself to such a narrow radius of employment opportunity. If you cannot get a well-paying job somewhere else, you shoylr have resources to visit your kids. Watch out for ruinous empathy.
I work from the local cafes, coop grocery store & library-- when I do work. Web App & DevOps stuff.
I'm mostly burned out from the last 2 years (layoff, then sending out ~700 applications and only landing a handful of interviews.)
However, my van has solar panels, a 2kwh battery, and a 12v refrigerator, which makes things much better. A sedan would be tough. I think minivan is a good size-- sure, a bit small to be a cabin, but great gas mileage (e.g. 24 mpg highway).
Why? Because I'd rather have privacy and freedom, than roommates. Can't really afford an apartment at the moment.
This extra roommate(s) poses and presents an extra challenge of your mental health.
The only other recourse is to rent ... alone ... in deep rural areas in the smallest place you can afford, space-wise. Smallest soace, because you'll need extra money for gas, food, transpos.
So, your mental health dictates your willingness to deal with extra people which in turn primarily dictates your ability to expensive living closer (but with roommates) to your kids in the city versus the cost of a living space alone.
Come anytime to our AI Workshop & Playground as my VIP (you'll need to join via Zoom) and share your tools & journey. We have founders, developers, etc.
Package up your mental health tools and start teaching folks how to do the same as you did.
If you can get yourself a tow behind RV, you can drop it on Federal Land and only need to goto a new spot every 2-3 weeks.
Luckily you are in a beautiful place for car camping.
Also, can you work from a library?
Unions greedily guard membership because scarcity is what drives their salary up, at lest in my area.
go moderate discord/telegrams servers for a couple hundred in crypto per server per week. start on fiverr and keep in contact with the client directly. You can do this from your phone but get a laptop
You also need to get back in the credit system, so get a secured credit card through Self.inc
You also need to become judgment proof, so begin contributing to retirement plans again
build build build
I managed many people and had at least two people sleeping in their offices. They had to be secretive about it, sometimes there would be nighttime office inspections and they would always respond they were analyzing a complex problem, which fit in with what we did at work. One guy stupidly was walking the hallway in his boxers once, and a federal officer caught him, that took a bit of explaining to get out of that one. My co-workers that decided to live in their offices, also hung out at work all the time, but I think they had a little more flexibility as there were no fees associated with work.
My house caretaker takes care of our property in another state. He lives in the van I gave him. He was homeless for years and slept in a secret place at a local school, complete with an electrical outlet. He went thru great pains to not get detected. After I gave him our old van, he has not been homeless for two years. He takes care of our property (external) in that remote state and has access to our garage for some equipment for his labor jobs. The arrangement works great, and I recharge his Starbucks card in return for his labor. I also have someone I can trust to check on the property and take care of things like fallen trees, flooding, etc. One thing with him, he is “homeless” with van, but since he does not have a 40-hr a week job, he spends a lot of time at Starbucks. That can get really expensive, but it is a tax he needs to pay to have a place to hand out. If my guy wanted to work from my garage, I'd have no problem with that. Perhaps you could create a prop office that looked like a real office from a Zoom/Teams camera view.
Do get a cheap gym membership to stay in shape. It will also keep you spending less money at Starbucks. Perhaps you can target an eventual job where you can really be dedicated to working a lot and sleeping in your office. This assumes you would get an office. Or a private area. If you could work 4 ten hr days, then you have a long weekend off. Or, work late and then sleep in your car. I think you need a full-time job with an office or work area. This will give you a place to hang out and ensure continuity in getting money. My experience (little) with gig jobs is there are not enough to string together for consistent income to get you into a better place.
I think you have the right idea with the CDL. I was going to suggest Buccee’s for their high pay scale but the CDL will yield great pay quickly and get this guy out of his rut. If not that, start applying now for the fisheries in Alaska for summer season jobs. Definitely pick up a gym membership for the showers to avoid dumping unnecessary money on motels.
I'm a single parent, dealt with homelessness as well (it's a long story). No family, no friends, and no co-parenting either. It was only myself and my kiddo.
I couldn't receive assistance from government NOR churches (but doesn't hurt to still try) because I was working...However, I was unable to get an apartment at the time(another long story). I was living in Airbnbs and hotels for the time.
I was VERY lucky that a random couple who owned their own businesses let me live in their guest house until I was on my feet and was able to get my own place(took me 3 months of saving).
In terms of jobs, I ended up applying at job agencies, because it is the recruiters job to find you work. I recommend contacting the big ones like Robert Half, Adecco, Randstad, etc. Apply for their tech jobs online and maybe go in person to talk to them about it. Typically, they'll reach out to you over the phone and set up an interview, but I'm sure if they see you in person too, it'll show initiative.
Goodluck out there, wishing you the best and hang in there.
I work at the new Kiln co working space (they also have hotdesks), send me an email and let's connect
Stay strong, you can do it!
Lots of people live in vehicles quite intentionally. It's harder and very often not ideal, but I don't think it's your biggest issue here.
They'll not only provide you with a regular income (no need to find your own clients), but will likely provide you with a work computer and an office space too.
A laptop will vastly expand the number of places you can work from.
Lots of tech short term contractor work out there, you'll have a leg up if you can work in office (which may give you access to a shower)
When did Hacker News become Hobo News?
After reading, I kind of agree with you. This guy has a car, a computer, an inheritance/student loans incoming, and is begging for help (while considering renting office space, getting roommates, etc).
Finding myself in that position, I'd probably go to any factory nearby and get a job as soon as possible. Seems like the logical thing to do. You're right. This guy seems like he's trying to get quick donations. Although the loss of a mother, grandmother, and essentially a wife indeed sounds brutal.
1. why his wife kicked him out
2. why none of his friends would let him crash on their couch
3. why his best buddy is a sycophantic robot
The donation thing isn't malicious I think, but an indicator of poor moral character. Donations should go to selfless people who are working hard to better society. Not someone who does drugs and sleeps in a car. I'm sure he thinks he's a very good person who deserves to have the money to live a bourgeois life. But if he were a good person, he would know it's not about him. It's about getting a rational return on investment for society. If he wants to reform himself, then he needs to stop thinking about how tough his own life is and start devoting himself to others.
I think we all needed to hear this. Good perspective. Yeah, I skipped over the OP and went directly to the comments. Bad judgment on my part.
It's funny though, I checked his profile, and he indeed has PayPal and CashApp links. facepalm. It's clear what his intentions are.
Now are you ready for the smoking gun?
He told a nearly identical story on Hacker News back in July and managed to raise $765.
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40714641
- https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-patricks-fight-for-stabil...
It's like I said earlier, whatever you incentivize, you'll get more of it. He's apparently been doing this since 2014!
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7854029
- https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=1&prefix=false&qu...
1. Get a laptop (Buy or Borrow)
2. Get a gym membership (i.e. shower, keep up fitness)
3. Apply for local dev jobs (work out of the library)
If you have a plan but can't afford e.g. a gym membership or laptop, then use gofundme or equivalent to get help from others to execute on your plan.
I mean, you could even just visit local tech meetups and tell them what you need, I'm sure there'll be some people that can help you out.
But please, don’t lose hope. There are ways to navigate through this difficult time, and I’d love to share some ideas that might help improve your situation.
Steps to Rebuild and Find Stability: 1. First of all, get out of the whirlpool of despair. These few articles can help you.
https://www.themoneyprinciple.com/what-to-do-when-you-have-n...
https://www.quora.com/How-can-someone-deal-with-hard-times-i...
https://www.lifelords.com/lifestyle/how-to-be-happy-again-in...
2. Seek Temporary Shelter: If you have a trusted friend with their own home, consider asking if they can provide you with a place to stay for a short time (2-3 months). You could later offer some financial contribution as a gesture of goodwill. If that’s not an option, look for affordable housing on the outskirts of the city where rent is cheaper.
3. Explore Freelancing Opportunities: If you have a place to stay and access to the internet, freelancing can be a great way to earn money. Depending on your skills, platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, or Freelancer can provide opportunities to work remotely and generate a stable income.
4. Leverage Your Assets: If you own a car but are short on cash, consider renting it out or working with a ride-sharing service like Uber or Lyft to earn quick money. These services provide a flexible way to make an income when you need it most.
5. Take Any Job to Get Started: I know of someone who, despite being highly qualified, struggled to land a job in his field. Sometimes, tough times demand tough decisions. He took a temporary job as a waiter in a three-star hotel, saved money, and eventually secured a stable place to live. With time, he regained his footing and pursued his original career path. Today, he is a successful manager in a reputable company.
6. Trust the Process and Keep Moving Forward: Starting over is never easy, especially during difficult times, but have faith in yourself and in the journey ahead. Every small step counts. Believe that this phase will pass, and better days are ahead. Stay strong, keep going, and trust that life will turn around.
You are not alone in this, and there is always a way forward. Stay resilient!
Successful people usually take it slow. Your goals are (in order):
1.) Any housing.
2.) ???
3.) Average housing for the developed world.
If we take your situation and do a SWOT analysis, your biggest weaknesses are a lack of housing and the fact that nobody cares. The fact that nobody cares is also your biggest strength and represents your biggest opportunity. However, all of that is balanced out by the biggest threat - the longer you are homeless the greater the chances that you will be victimized. If you become a victim, the fact that nobody cares will only be a weakness.
As a consequence and since your goal is any housing, you’re going to have to change your career goals. Uber/Lyft are too expensive for you right now. Freelance tech will not be an option because you won’t be an attractive candidate until you secure housing. Your goal right now is any job so that you can secure housing.
Once you have any job, the fact that nobody cares becomes an advantage. Here’s a nasty fact of post-homelessness - it’s really hard to rent anything without an existing address. But, if you have an easily verifiable job and are willing to accept questionable housing, you can secure some housing. It might not be great because the landlords don’t care. But the system is designed to err on the side of the housed, so they’re stepping stones.
Once you have housing, you have three readily available options - a fixed address, easy cleanliness and a place to set up your desktop. You can start dreaming then. The size of the dream/leap though depends on income so for the first few years, you may find that your career/housing goals scale with where you are financially at the moment.
Once you secure housing, you’ll get to deal with all sorts of magical issues. Anecdotally, you’ll have a bit of trouble adapting to becoming housed after being unhoused for about six months per year that you were unhoused. The most common one that I hear is that you’ll mourn homelessness while simultaneously feeling like a real fucking loser for mourning homelessness. That sounds fun, said no reasonable person ever.
The most important thing right now is to remember that you have got this. Asking this question here means that you have all the skill you need. You’re going to go through the darkest of humanity for a spell, but I’d bet all I have in you. You’ve got this homie.
In your spare time, it may be good to visit the Switchpoint center to help get their advice and support:
https://switchpointcrc.org 948 N 1300 W, St. George, UT 84770
With regards to the $890 you would pay to continue driving the car you use to work as a cab driver for Lyft/Uber, I would ask:
- The $400 for tyres - there are 20+ tyre shops in St George, Utah. Which tyre shop did you visit in St George for your quote? It might be possible to get a better deal. I don't know, but it's possible. If you google "Tyre shop St George. Utah", you will see the list of options there.
- With regards to the insurance, if there is a price comparison site in the US for insurance, try it out and see if you can reduce that amount. I know in the UK there is comparethemarket.com and gocompare.com as examples, so I presume that there has to be something like that in the US?
I would ask "how much do you make weekly doing this job?" alongside "how much are your weekly expenses?" to help workout your income and outgoings to work out how sustainable your current situation is, and where changes can be applied to make it not just sustainable, but actually getting you to a place where you are good.
In terms of programming, what are your skills like?, what programming have you/are you doing? Do you have a GitHub profile where you have code that you can show to people?
If you are programming right now, then it might not be necessary to go and attend classes in school/college/university to study this subject. I can confirm that from 1st-hand experience. I studied a course in University in the UK that was a mixture of Business and Mathematics, but I ended up becoming a software developer.
What programming languages/apps/tools/frameworks are you familiar with?
It may be enough to sit down at a job interview, ask someone to pair program with you on a coding scenario, and demonstrate your capabilities right there and then. If the time allows.
In terms of finding local programming jobs, that will require searching for those.
Also, if you have a desktop computer, like others have suggested in the HackerNews thread, having a laptop will be far easier. See if you can find options to exchange the desktop for a laptop computer - donations, part exchange, part-payment anything. The mobility will enable you to be more mobile and suit you.
Lastly, you mentioned Ketamine. Please be careful because that is a very addictive substance and in the UK recently a public figure by the name of "the Viviene" died from consuming it.
Lastly, I hope that for your case that you manage to get to a better place. Life is a journey and not necessarily a smooth one - we hope for better times, but you can't rely on hope to gift you that - you have to strive for it.
I will leave you with one of the most inspirational talks I've ever watched - Jim Carrey's commencement speech at the Maharishi International University of Management class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYAk295MZZM
Can’t say enough good things about libraries.
Try and get a job in food service. Mostly evenings + free food-and it leaves your days free to work.
1. I really believe that you need housing. Spending on motels and office space is counterproductive. (But many folks who need showers and hygiene will register for a gym membership, or use a municipal rec center.)
2. Figure out whether you're part of a special population, or have any distinguishing qualities, that would match you with a particular program. You are confident about your mental health, but would a psychiatrist award you a diagnosis?
3. HUD Section 8 funds regional and municipal programs, and also programs for "chronically homeless" folks. Familiarize yourself with entry-points into this. There are waiting lists, and they're long. Figure out how to get notified when a waiting list opens and apply online--Internet-savvy users are a step-ahead of the hoi polloi.
4. Keep all your paperwork in order. I hope you're filing taxes and tracking your income/expenses. I hope you've got a bank account. If you work with any entitlement program then you'll need to pull out that documentation when it's requested. Libraries have printers, and your cloud/email account has online storage. Organize everything and back it up.
5. You'll find social-services networks that blanket communities with services, and you may need to travel a lot between agencies during the work-day hours. You can get fed at soup kitchens or in public parks or at a church with no questions asked, but they may preach at you and invite you to accept Jesus as true food... unfortunately, programs for employment development are ill-equipped to deal with IT professionals and certified high-tech workers, because those careers are expensive, and blue-collar types have difficulty being accepted to company cultures. Get assistance to polish your résumé and print it out, because job development program may send you to job fairs and provide listings for blue-collar work, but they can also provide useful coaching and support for your job search and disability-related concerns, before, during and after the hiring process.
6. I have also seen agencies that will take in people and have a lot of services on-site. The central homeless shelter does this in my area, and also facilities for the disabled. Just because you have a car, you can still stay in a shelter. This may be a "bunking only" arrangement where you need to leave the premises during the daytime. Seems like a great fit!
7. In a nutshell, while it feels good to have freedom and feel like a professional #vanlife worker, if you want to rebuild your life, you will find yourself going where homeless street people go to do this. Your clinic, shelters, rec centers, and libraries will have postings and representatives to help you navigate. Sticking around, returning on a regular basis, and abiding by program rules will determine your potential for success.
There are always changes in funding, in types of support, in areas of coverage, and qualifications to get that assistance. 9 times out of 10, when I pick up a flyer where someone's compiled dozens of resources, the numbers are disconnected, the addresses changed, and the services are no longer offered.
So you can collect scraps of paper and promising websites, but it's important to tap into knowledge/insight from people who are on-the-ground and know the landscape, in terms of what is offered in your region, in March 2025. And that may include fellow homeless folks, who are surprisingly good at spreading word-of-mouth type information, if you can discern the truth and usable facts.
Cooking on a camp stove or something is possible but can be very risky depending on location and other factors. Living out of your car it's extremely important not to draw police attention to yourself, you do not want them to start to recognize your car.
I don't mean to be hostile but this is one of those things that is extremely basic knowledge if you've lived through it but almost completely invisible if not. It makes me wonder how much of this advice is based on conjecture rather than experience working with (or being!) homeless people.
If cooking meals in that situation, I'd suggest using a camp stove outside at parks and for lunch. The more you look like everything is under control, the less police will focus on you. Flip the norms and eat something that doesn't require cooking at night (less clean up in the dark, etc) like a sandwich.
If you're not going to be in the car long term, buy fresh to cook or stash things you can keep in a cool bag or that are shelf stable. You can't justify a 12v fridge and battery, and buying ice for a cooler is annoying and adds up. No shame in tins or whatever else if it's all short term.
Eat and do any other sleep prep in one place, then drive to your likely overnight spot and do little more than move to the back and go to sleep. Minimise your visibility in that "person about to sleep in their car" phase. Look for spots near mid-range apartment blocks where residents don't keep track of exactly which car belongs to who and won't call police because they're suspicious. The police are mostly looking for people creating visible trouble (belongings spilling out of vehicle, pissing everywhere, yelling) or because residents have called to get you moved on.
I said in another comment, but ultimately the desktop computer is the major hindrance. Get even a simple laptop and you can study/work from a library or park and improve the employment situation as a priority. Others have given tips for options there.
FWIW I don't usually give general "advice for the homeless" in these threads either, despite having directly experienced it myself and volunteered with homeless people for years after getting out. The choice of action depends too much on local/regional institutions and dynamics, and individual particulars.
I hope op finds the resources they need, and gets to a better place in life, as you have.
Immediate Steps:
1. Work. Keep driving full-time or more until you pay off the tires, insurance, car payment and amass some savings. Working a lot will keep your mind focused and bring in income while you start to get other things in life in order and apply for other jobs.
2. Living. There are probably great & beautiful campsites in Utah. Probably avoid hotels as much as you can in order to save money. Sleep in your car or better in a tent at a campsite or in a state or national park (backpack out a bit, pitch your tent and sleep). To take showers and exercise, join Planet Fitness or something similar for $10 / month. If you're not familiar with backpacking, it's easy to pitch a tent. Try sierra.com to find a cheap tent and supplies.
Other Living idea: check out couchsurfing.com. Folks will house you for free.
3. Food. If you camp, you can use a small propane powered stove to cook inexpensive meals e.g. rice, beans, pasta, etc. Eat a lot of nuts, inexpensive fruits & vegetables.
4. Get a Laptop. A laptop will be critical to getting a resume ready & sending it out. Check out Free Stuff in Craigslist, NextDoor, or Facebook Marketplace. Check out real cheap laptops (for less than $100) in Craigslist, NextDoor, or Facebook Marketplace.
5. Internet / WiFi / Unlimited Mobile Data. I recommend visible.com for like $25/month. There are tons of places with free WiFi like libraries which you can use as well.
6. Upskilling / Up-job-ing. To get a new job or learn or other things, you'll need a laptop and an internet connection so first get that. If you already have ready programming skills, then you need get your resume together and start applying and or reach out to your network. Make sure you're in a stable position to work both mentally and otherwise before you start this process. You will get tons of job rejections and it will be disheartening because you're working very hard, so be prepared and don't worry, something will eventually work out.
7. Roommate / Living / Health Insurance --> once you have some savings (a few thousand) and a reasonable stream of income at least from driving, you could look for a roommate situation. If you don't have or lost your health insurance, you probably qualify for an affordable health care act plan (off-schedule) and can get that -- list income very low and you won't have to pay much. You could try Medicaid, but I think the affordable care marketplace is probably simpler and you plan anyway to have income soon.
8. Networking. I highly recommend networking with other professionals in your field in your area. One good way to meet them is to join relevant meetups and check for other events. Some meetups on specialized things like ML or online privacy, etc. can have really excellent and relevant attendees you can network with. These are all generally free.
9. AI/ML work. If you already code, you can start tinkering with the AI platforms and such to get some experience. I'd look for a job with your current skills and simultaneously keep learning -- after you get a bit stable via the current driving job.
Those are my thoughts. Feel free to message me if you have any questions or need any resume editing help (ChatGPT is probably a more effective editor than me :-). I'm not in your area, but hopefully other folk in your area are messaging you already with some potential job opportunities. Focus on small steps, small wins. Good luck, you are and will make it.
(2) Are you using all 12 of your driving hours on Uber/Lyft? You should be able to make $200-300 / day if you’re in a good area. If the area you’re in is yielding less than that, move somewhere else.
(3) Save $3k or so then get a cheapass apartment or trailer and build from there
Before all of these, apply to local shelters. If they’re going to stop you from working don’t go in. If there are questions they’re going to use to keep you out then lie.
I would warn against AI-assisted mental health tools regardless of any advertised claims or promotions. AI is more likely to harm than it is to help for a number of reasons I won't get into here. It can create convincing lies where you are worse off later.
If you want to do better, you will need to start networking with people that can help. There is no power as a lone wolf, members in a community people help each-other.
On a personal level, you need stable working space, and living space. Mental health is tied to stable spaces, isolation and food/shelter security will drive you mad faster than anything else.
You will only be as good as the working space you are currently in allows.
> I drive Lyft/Uber full-time ... without these costs I can't work.
You will need to properly project and evaluate whether this is sustainable. From what I've heard of Uber, I'm guessing it is not.
You shouldn't be doing work and trading time that doesn't move you forward to a better place than you started at. There are predatory companies out there that will suck you dry and spit you out. There is an opportunity cost to being a wage slave.
It sounds like you will need to figure out your expenses, and your average income for 40 hours including breaks at regular intervals (for health).
If you can't make a sustainable profit factoring in seasonality, you can't do that work and must find something else.
You should be including the required tax withholdings for business. Being a contractor must make sense. Net not gross for viability with at least a 20% profit margin for unexpected expense.
I would not recommend Information Sciences to anyone at this stage. It is a pipe dream now. Those that have the experience already can leverage it, but those that don't, now is not the time and it will only get worse from here-on-out without providing marketable skills.
Homesteading/farming might be an option though not one I'd recommend without a background/community that can help you with it.
You should focus on practical skills like handyman type blue-collar trades. Plumbing, HVAC, Pools, Electricians, Welding, Steelwork, or Machining. It doesn't take long to learn, and doesn't require a lot of equipment (much of which you can get second hand very cheaply).
Once you spend roughly 60% of your time doing the work part of whatever you choose (not the management), and bringing in a net profit, you should look at hiring your first hire as a business (without debt). Distributing labor is how we got to our current heights at a technological society.
Most white-collar work will be fully disrupted by AI in the next 2-5 years blocking off the sequential career pipeline by replacing entry-level work in these fields with AI. Business monopoly through integration has made the decision to force a deflationary cycle as we approach the end of market-driven business in 2030 (business stops doing business when profit in purchasing power cannot be made, those tied to money-printing can continue long after business fails).
Soon monopoly will have won so much that they force everyone (including themselves) to lose everything.
1 in 4 people are out of work right now, it will be much worse a few years from now because the economic cycle is reaching its inflection point (zenith) with liquidity drying up fast, followed by economic armageddon in 2030 (stage 3 ponzi; outflows/debt growth exceeds inflows. Kicking the can no longer works and these are the consequences of the last 100 years of economic and monetary policy.
I don't know your location's job market but you will need to go where the jobs are, and those places are shrinking. A local economy that is contracting will leave fewer options unless you are near the bottom level of the producer market.
The situation is not just you, the economy is and has been in the shitter, because of the Fed (boom bust cycle design, and the terminus from it to ECP/SCP chaos economically speaking). Shortages are prominent and sustaining. Famine driven by artificial supply constraint is likely to be next if history is any guide.
You will need to find a community of people who are self-sufficient, and become self-sufficient yourself. Many such communities do not welcome outsiders because most people today do not contribute reciprocally and act parasitically.
Before asking for help you should always offer help in something. This shows you are willing to work, above what lip service gives.
Staying afloat is about having the skills to navigate life in any economy. Producing what you need from little to nothing.
Many people have been robbed of this. The non-hollywood mythology of the American Dream is Self-sufficiency, Faith, Freedom, Independence and No taxation without representation. This is the True American Dream.
in that spirit: you don't have shelter. I would say you have nothing to offer your kids right now except your emotional need. their mother (or whoever) can take care of them. you're out, done, kaput. accept the failure and earn their forgiveness sometime the future if you are lucky, not now. the belief that you have or can be something for them today in these circumstances creates the constraint on the location of opportunities in front of you, and they will sense they are your anchor and resent you more for it.
get rid of the desktop computer as well. pawn it and use the money for something useful like a spare phone or battery pack or whatever car things you need, it provides no opportunity.
you need relationships of any kind, somewhere else. get a job selling something, even if it's in a mall kiosk, it doesn't matter, so long as you are in front of people.
this is the harshest advice I can think of. I can't say whether it's good or advisable, but anything else you get can be compared against it. good luck.
Also sounds like you should not get rid of your PC, unless it helps you acquire a laptop.
> this is the harshest advice I can think of
Good job. Did you stop to think if this was -good- advice?
however, if you want to drill down on it: what is a guy going to do with a pc he needs secure shelter to operate? what kind of decisions is he going to make that protect it? what kind of promises is he going to make and break to his kids when he can't take care of himself?
if they're indeed safe somewhere, get into a position with something to provide. it would be smarter to sell the pc and buy a guitar as at least he can busk with it.
You are right that he needs to ditch the PC, but he needs to ditch it for a laptop.
depression is a terrible disease because it's like an addiction that gnaws at your humanity and makes you a slave to it, and a lot of parents use their kids as enablers and a source of supply. if change were easy, everyone would do it.
laptops are generally more expensive than an old PC, children aren't assets to be used as connections or leverage to get himself out of this situation, they are people he has a responsibility to that he has failed to be able to meet.
nobody has to follow this, but they have to face the possibility and then decide whether it reflects the truth.
Frankly most of the people who do "make it out" accomplish that because someone had the resources and decided to use it on this, for them, out of love or obligation or simple charity. I believe very very strongly, based on my experiences and observations directly, that you should never advise people facing homelessness to break any ties that are not actively harmful to them. Even then it's not always clear.
Those do not sound like a pathway to mental health.
> staying in cheap motels when I can afford it.
From what you've said you clearly can't afford it.
> What would YOU do in my situation to break the cycle?
Get a regular job. It's going to feel like a giant step backwards, but, this is what you need right now. You need to stabilize yourself and have some reliable work and housing in your life. You need a routine. You need to socialize with your co-workers. You need to build all of the things that are currently missing in your life. You cannot build a bridge to a fantasy.
> I’m willing to work. I know I can earn 3-4x more doing freelance tech, but I can’t do that from a car.
You can earn 3 to 4x more doing construction or day labor. Which, given where you live, is going to be far more reliable and afford you more opportunities to matriculate into better positions.
> I’ve thought about renting office space, finding roommates, even setting up a GoFundMe, but I need actionable ideas, not just hope.
Those ideas aren't even hopeful. I think your endpoints have been moved and you didn't notice.
> I just need to stay local for my kids
We go through all of the above to finally out with the fact you have dependents? I fear that you've just been mollycoddling yourself and not being honest or serious about your future.
I'll leave you with this. Wake up. There ARE fates worse than death out there and I hate to see you wake up to that kind of regret.
If you don’t consider therapy a pathway to mental health I’m not sure what could be
When you fail to fulfill your role, or when you consciously reject it, or when society simply has no role to offer you, the world around you begins to fall apart, and you find your mind adapting to the raw, unfiltered, unconditioned chaos that surrounds you in every unpredictable moment.
It's called madness. It's a natural response that a human has to the falling away of social bonds. One would like to believe that pre-industrial, non-totalizing societies knew a thing or two about the workings of that particular stable configuration of the human mind, and what role it can be made to fulfill in the collective "organism" of the community.
Our society, on the other hand, well... it simply blames you for being a "no good" person, and puts all the responsibility on you while robbing you of all power to resolve your situation. Because it's better that way - for everyone else, but you, the very person whose fault it most certainly isn't. Which is, fundamentally, unjust. But what can one do - we're all taught in childhood that "life's not fair", so that's exactly the kind of life we end up setting up for each other.
(FWIW, of those three "pathways", the only one I've personally witnessed to accomplish anything at all is the one that's the least socially accepted. We do remain, after all, subject to the pressures of natural selection. Sapienti sat.)
>We go through all of the above
I'm awfully sorry, but what the hell of the above did you go through just now? Reading a post about a situation?
Some damn empaths we have here, mind.
(FWIW, I stopped reading at "ChatGPT".)
"We go through all of the above to finally..." means "We read everything you wrote before finally reading that you have dependents"
There's a fellow hacker stranded in a bad place (unless the whole thread isn't just ChatGPT fishing for mentally concerned people to meatpuppet, or, more generously - learning about how humans react to fellow humans in dire straits) and the parent poster is whining about being made to read a thing.
6.GIVE UP YOUR FANTASY OF TECH. A bachelors in IT is worthless. They don't even care about certs anymore after the DEI culture shift. They destroyed the lower levels to hand take the future from Americans and give it to Indians. There is no way to build up the initial skills sets because the number in the top of the pyramid is declining. It will take years to rebel against Microsoft's attempt to hold all private information. Give up It. 7. Your kids need a dad with a plan doe a room and burgers. Pride is worthless. Become a social worker and save 50 percent of your student loans for six years.
Best wishes man,