[mycologos]

> A lot of the homeless are on disability due to some physical issue that prevents working , or are seniors. The social security checks do not pay the bills and you need an under the table side hustle in the bay to afford a room and be on social security checks.

Naive follow-up question: why does such a person need to live in the bay area? If you're living off disability, why would you try to do it in the most expensive place in the country? Is community that important?

[metalforever]

The explanation I got was that you can't live outside in many other locales and that the cheaper places cut the social security low enough that it's hard to live there too. The social services and weather situation here is such that from a healthcare and social security check perspective it works out better and is less risky to the tenuously housed.

[anoncake]

If you're homeless, what else do you have?

[mycologos]

I think the literal answer is that if you move somewhere else, you can have a home? There's something about the circular logic of "I don't have a home, but I have friends" --> "I can never leave this place with friends" --> "I don't have a home ..." that requires the person to either lack any kind of long-term planning or place a really high weight on their current friend circle. Or maybe I'm just clueless about how hard it is to save social security/disability income in that situation.

I realize this line of inquiry sounds callous ("why can't they just save some money?"), but I genuinely don't follow why somebody with a regular income who's not tied to the bay area by a) drug addiction, or b) a job would put up with homelessness to stay there.