[istjohn]

There's a place for policing language, but you're not doing anyone any favors by gatekeeping homelessness. This is not involuntary homelessness, but then a large number of unhoused people could live under a roof if they were willing to accept certain tradeoffs, whether that be living with an abusive spouse, with an estranged parent, in a sober house, or far away from a community of friends. There are unhoused people who could scrape by in menial, arduous--and possibly dangerous--jobs who instead choose to live life on their own terms.

Trebaol was not forced into homelessness, but he was not play-acting or apeing a lifestyle for kicks. He was in a situation where he judged squatting four and a half months illegally in the jungle was worth saving a mere $2,000.

If you prefer to describe your past lifestyle as bandit camping instead of homelessness, by all means do so. But don't insist the rest of the world conform to your arbitrary redefinition of a term from its everyday meaning because it doesn't always fit your preconceptions.

Are you really helping the unhoused by insisting that someone is only truly homeless if they are schizophrenic, strung out on fentanyl, or otherwise totally incapable of being a productive member of society?

[righthand]

No but it definitely normalizes the issues around homelessness as no big deal when you write something where you’re intentionally homeless for financial gain.

[jwilber]

Does it? How so? If anything it showcases some of the trials otherwise unknown to those who don’t face them (eg weather, tent mold).

[throwanem]

Those are trials of camping. The cops coming and tossing your tent and everything else you own in a dumpster, that's a trial of homelessness.

[mholm]

This was specifically addressed in the blogpost. This is illegal in Hong Kong too.

[yusina]

And it didn't happen and if it had then he'd have crashed on a friend's sofa. And his laptop and two suits would have been safe in a locker at university.

An actual homeless person would have a quite different experience of a bust.

[luckylion]

> And it didn't happen

"I decide who is homeless and who isn't in retrospect by analyzing whether something happened to their tent in the woods or whether they were not discovered".

[locallost]

Yes it does. A real homeless person doesn't go to the gym everyday to shower, or avoids bringing food to his tent but it's ok because "I can eat at the university", or charges his devices every day at the same university, or sleeps at their friend's place when the weather is too dangerous.

If was an interesting read and experiment, but it has its limitations as a real world comparison to homelessness.

[5mv2]

You're right that this situation was very privileged. But there's not such thing as a "real homeless", it's a continuum. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44215698

Also, virtually all the "real homeless" I met went to the gym to shower.

[gosub100]

A real homeless person defecates on the ground and dumps his trash wherever he goes. That is the reason they are unwanted