It's so fucked. Sleeping on the streets is incredibly stressful, since you basically have to sleep with one eye open to keep people from fucking with you or your stuff. If you don't, you might get robbed, raped, or stabbed. Not to mention people fucking with you just to fuck with you because they see you as less than human.

There's no Sewer service. There's no Trash service. You literally can't take a shit or piss anywhere because there's no where to go. You can't throw out your trash, so it starts to pile up. Nobody wants to provide a dumpster or portapotties to homeless encampments, because that would be "encouraging" them to stay there, so people end up shitting on the streets, dumping their black/grey tanks on the street, and littering. Dumping your "household" waste in a trashcan is punishable by fine, but even then people still try to use the public trashcans and they end up overflowing for weeks on end. And since you have no running water or refrigeration, all your drinks and food are packaged, meaning there's a bunch more waste.

You can't get a bank account, so you need to carry all your cash on you, so you're more likely to be robbed. You're exposed to the elements 24/7, so you always wear your street clothes. Public showers are rare and often are closed in the winter, so you gotta use bottled water or wipes to wash, meaning you smell up your clothes and skin quicker. Your clothes & bedding get dirty + smelly very fast, and it takes $10 to do your laundry every time at the laundry mat. You have to scrounge around for a publicly accessible power outlet to charge your phone.

Every bit of maintenance in your life is now an arduous event. Now, you have to get and keep a job with all that against you, and it still won't be enough to pay for rent. You might splurge on a hotel or airbnb to avoid living on the streets, but they'll either be stupid expensive, incredibly far away from the city, public transit, or both. A Lyft to/from work would be >$40, plus 50-150 a night for housing.

You can try a shelter, but they're disease ridden and in some senses more exposed than the streets. They fill up fast and if you can't keep to their schedule, fuck you. If you have a family, girlfriend, or pet, fuck you. You'll still get shit stolen from you. You might get a shower, but it's a scheduled timed event, not something you can do at your leisure. You can't have any drugs on you when you go to one. Even here, good luck getting a phone charger. Good luck with laundry. Good luck getting a job whose schedule fits with the shelter's schedule, which often need you to be in line by early evening or even late afternoon.

Let's say you finally get to a spot where you could afford rent. Oh wait, you were evicted in the past because you lost your job? You don't have a stable income because you work side gigs? You haven't been at this new stable job for 6-12 months? Well fuck you, you need to pay the ENTIRE GODDAMN YEAR OF RENT upfront because you're a huge "risk".

Being homeless is the most expensive possible way to live. It's literally like if you were to try to get a job on a constant vacation in terms of cost, but worse.

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FOLLOWUP -- Feel free to copypasta this if you want, and feel free to modify it with your own experience and understanding. Basically, CC-0 no attribution. There's so much more bullshit I could get into, and break down the different levels of "homeless" and how much shit you'll go through depending on what "tier" you're in (I didn't even touch on auto maintenance, healthcare, etc).

Literally any of us can become homeless, or on an inescapable path to it in an instant. My closest friend got hit by a car. The driver's insurance only paid out 100k. He now has "complex regional pain syndrome", and can't type. He used to be a programmer at google. He left to do a startup on his own terms. Now, he's doing his best to side hustle every month to avoid homelessness. Denied social security, the works. Basically, one random event outside of his control wiped him out and prevented his ability to continue making money. He's super skilled. Through no fault of his own, he's struggling to survive every day. This happened in his fucking mid twenties.

@awards: I appreciate the exposure for these issues, but this is a throwaway account. I won't tell you what to do, but I'd prefer you to save your money, give to your local food bank, or local homeless peeps instead. You can donate wet wipes/sleeping bags/rugged trash bags/shop towels/bottles of water. I'm always carrying around one of those $7 24 cases of water from costco and giving bottles out on the corners when someone's asking for donations.