I think that as real estate prices and rents continue to climb on average but wages stay stagnant, we will continue to see demand rise for "affordable" housing.

Yesterday's post from LTD about evicted tenants using U-Haul trucks as temporary living quarter got me thinking about this. I've always assumed that as prices rose and wages or Govt bennies failed to keep up, we'd see more and more homeless. But the American spirit of creativity and entreprenuralism seems alive and well. I could see...

1) U-Haul parks. Like trailer parks, only the "homes" in question are far more mobile. Someone called these homemade RVs...good term! What would stop someone from getting a U-Haul, ripping off the plates, jimmy up some fake plates with a metal press (or stealing them off another vehicle), maybe forge a bill of sale, a little home-done paint job...then moving around the country to various camp groups and/or RV destinations and just paying a very low monthly lot rent for hooking up to power and sewer? Most camp grounds already have a lot of basic necessities such as water, showers, eating tables, play grounds, etc. Drive to warmer climates in the Winter...colder climates in the Summer. Just cruisin' around in you 22 foot "mobile home". I don't think in many places anyone would even care to look so long as the folks didn't make a disturbance. Tax authorities wouldn't be able to keep up with them, so no need to license or register. So long as they didn't drive like idiots, cops would never bother them truckin' down the road.

2) Tiny houses on abandoned lots. As an avid tax-sale investor, I know there are vacant lots all over town. Tiny homes can be bought for less than a car and moved easily. What would stop someone from parking on a lot, illegally tapping into the grid and/or bribing a neighbor whose land lord pays utilities to let them "borrow" some? So what if the local city code inspectors find them or the neighbors call in? It takes about 30-45 days in our fair town to go from the initial complaint to issuing a citation, and it's NOT the tiny home owner who gets the citation, but rather the owner of the lot! So they have to tug their house somewhere else once every 2 months...not a major issue with over 100 vacant lots to choose from on our tax sale list that no one bid on this year. It's a public list...easily accessed.

Good ideas.

What about the NIMBY's?

There are already many "upper class" homeless who live in vans. They may or may not be employed. They shower at friends or at campgrounds every couple of days. They often park in WalMart parking lots. What they don't have is a sanitary place to go to the bathroom.

Richard, you brought up a good point I didn't address: employment. Even boondockers (which I have read up on) need some income, unless they're on SSI or some other Govt bennie. Online Ebay/Amazon store, day laboring, and I've heard Amazon warehouses will often pay pretty good money (relatively speaking) around holidays for temp workers. Lots of options. I know a retired couple who has no retirement savings and so supplements their year SS checks by pulling 2.5 months of heavy work from Halloween thru Christmas, then "retire" for the rest of the year. As long as you're healthy, it's not bad work.

I liked the energy in Richards post.

I think I want to build a room on wheels soon. (I have to build this 1973 Schwinn Stingray first)

I know the cities are drawing in the people. If you can live without a car you have a great financial advantage. At the same time I see small towns staying cheap. If a large employer picks wisely they can plant their new warehouse off a main highway intersection.

I would look around for such towns which may still have a rail head or the ability to become headquarters for a new company.

Also, I a friend builds something that looks like a six unit. Only one of the six has a full kitchen (stove). The other places have just a sink and no space for stoves. These units are rented to single people only.

Check out the micro apartments (studios) in Seattle. They only have microwaves, tiny dorm like refrigerators, and bar sinks. As I recall, the bathroom is a shower and a toilet -- you are expected to brush your teeth in the bar sink.

My uncle did the RV thing for a couple years except in a $350k diesel pusher. In the winter he stayed at an RV park in the keys, the rent was $1400 a month but he was waterfront with a dock, so he bought a 19ft center console and fished.

If you want to rent land to the meth heads which it seems like your talking about go for it. I'd charge weekly lot rent and have them pay in cash. Make sure you carry a gun to collect.

This is a couple of years old, some of you may have seen it before, but there was a guy working at Google living in a box truck in their parking lot. I think he saved like $100K a year!

www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truck-in-parking-lot-2015-10

Our town, like most, has a "no camping" ordinance. Also an ordinance against people allowing RV living on R1 lots for more than 2 weeks at a time. That allows for visitors, but stops permanent living. We get a few hobos who figured out a nice camp in the bushes along the Colorado River isn't too bad a life, in our nice 70 degree winters.

I don't know if it's changed, but in Hawaii you could camp on the beaches for free. Ala Moana park was like a giant homeless camp. Back in the 90's Pleasant Hawaiian had a deal where for $2,000 a year you could get unlimited flights to Hawaii. I thought about buying an old van and leaving it at the airport and just flying over every couple of weeks, but never did it. One of my life regrets! LOL

As we are a seasonal resort here in AZ, we get a LOT of RV snowbirds in the winter. In fact we are considering it ourselves - moving to a cooler climate and just keeping a old trailer at our offices to use during courses.

Our area has dozens of RV parks, ranging from riverfront resorts for million dollar coaches, to rolling meth lab parking. Several casinos permit FREE short term camping in their parking lots for self contained units. I was over there the other day and the lots are pretty full.

I have also noticed a LOT of ratty campers staying overnight at WalMart. Usually in the winter we get 2 or 3 a night, but already this season I'm seeing 6-8. Mostly really old motorhomes, vans and old trucks with campers. Basically the "rolling homeless." I assume most are on SSI or retirement that just doesn't go far enough.

When I was younger I lived for a number of years on a sailboat on the east coast, and occasionally in a VW Van. Had some GREAT times with my van on the beach in Key West, "back in the day." For a short time I even owned a homemade houseboat and dock on the "infamous" Houseboat Row in Key West. My sailboat though only 28' was an ocean going yacht - we spent a summer at the "Bahia Mar" marina in Ft. Lauderdale made famous by the "Travis McGee" book series. We could order room service from the hotel. Ah - that was the life! :)

SID,

My fascination with the creativity of tiny houses led me to videos of folks boondocking, solar panels, etc.

There are TONS of YT videos by folks living off $1000/mo SSI in self converted vans, minivans, even compact cars.

Free parking at BLM lands, WalMarts, casinos...

MY town has 2 WalMarts so a person could just alternate nights at each WM.

My easily workable plan to solve homelessness:

1. They can get a cellphone for $5 per month if they qualify. This helps them get a job and make appts.

2. Give them a used minivan, a mattress, some water jugs, and a membership at a fitness center for $10 per month for showers.

3. Their SSI or disability check goes for food and fuel.

They can now communicate to get a job, drive to it, have shelter, and park at WM.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8VWOMj9t8Q

Fast Forward to 5:17 to see a popular WM on the Alaska Trail.

I watched a video where the guy explained his seasonal route, much like migrant crop pickers.

He had several easy, clean jobs for part time seasonal work like Amazon in Dec. All the hours he wanted, inside, no heavy lifting...

YT search JOBS FOR NOMADS.

If the RE market crashes I've learned how to survive in my 1994 minivan!

Another good site and idea on this is workcamping. Google it. Many places will allow you to park free and some even pay you to do little odd jobs around the RV Parks. Many state and national parks also have campsite hosts/greeters who get to camp free for a tiny bit of work s day.

The camp hosts thing is great for some people. We were driving along the upper Colorado near Moab UT last winter. There's a bunch of campgrounds there. Nobody uses them in the winter because it's a little nippy, so the camp hosts had the place to themselves. People in my town pay a million buck plus for a riverfront home!

I once had a friend who lived in an old USP type van that had been a plumbing truck and still had the name on the sides. He put in roof air and a couple of vents and built in a camper. Had a couple of solar panels to run TV and fans.

Oh,... well,..I'll probably never get around to doing it but one of my fantasies was to get some of those stainless steel pontoons and build a pressure-treated wooden deck wide enough to nice camper on it. A place for a outboard motor in the back and a servo controlled smaller one in front for tight maneuvering. It takes a very small amount of horse power to move a heavy barge 5-10 miles an hour compared to the amount of horsepower needed to take a small boat to do 60 miles an hour.

I might like to travel with my houseboat up the Hudson River through the Erie Canal or through the locks to Lake Champlain. Anchoring offshore in small bays during the night, moving during times of weather permitting. Fishing, swimming during summer months. Servo controls from the motorhome chair and steering it from there. There are motorized anchor systems that also can be deployed from that chair.

The Motorola would be secured to the barge by the methods by semi trucks to secure heavy loads. I'm thinking of a ramp system in which one could drive off the barge and use the motor home as a regular motorhome if one wanted to. Quick disconnect to the servo motors etc.

Of course one could use a few motor scooters for trips into town for supplies without using something that big.

At one of our Marianas they have a small bubble system to keep the area ice free,..There are several choices to put up for winter,.

All these are some of the things I worked out on paper.and in my mind.. I've been too busy to really put too much thought into it but it's a fun thing every once a while to plan on even if it never gets done.

My friends and I are looking to do exactly that next year. Google great loop.

I'm going to look at a potential boat for it next weekend, its a Sabre 36.

I have done the ICW up and down the east coast many times, its quite pretty. However we did it in a sailboat with a 62ft tall rig, so we were very limited. A smaller fast powerboat opens up a lot of possibilities.

The idea would be to keep the boat somewhere between NC where my friend lives and George Town Bahamas in the winter. Up north in the summer, ie Maine, Great Lakes one season etc.

I read an article a while back about how Amazon was having trouble staffing it's distribution centers during the holiday season. Someone had the bright idea of getting the retired RV'ers to come and do the seasonal work. Offers them a free RV hook-up.

My parents used to be world travelers, spending around 4 to 5 months a year out of the country. People with motor homes used to park in front of their home and attach it to the water supply and use my parents trash cans for disposal of waste, etc. The police (LADP) and traffic control would do nothing. I tried to reason with these free-loaders to no avail. When I locked off the hose bib so they couldn't get to the water, they simply cut off my lock and continue stealing water.

So one evening I went under their motor home and disconnected the drive shaft and emergency brake cable. Then I attached my 10 ton Truck to the front bumper/frame of the motor home and towed it slowly to the middle of the main street a couple of blocks away. The occupants were drunk and asleep. They were woken up with the City towing their motor home away, blocking city traffic.

YouTube: Gone With The Wynns.

Fun cute couple - traveled the country by RV and now the Caribbean by catamaran. Great videos of their adventures.

Most recent video was a hike to the top of Panama to see the Pacific and the Gulf from one spot!

There is always another option......