Anyone ever been homeless?

[Bateman]

i would work some cash jobs, fruit picking , manual farm work for the summer, maybe head down to the west country.look to get enough cash together then get the f'out of here.....

it all about having a plan...

[Wiegieboard]

I have a friend from inverness who offered me their floor for a while and a friend from Lanark who did the same. I'm lucky enough to live in the country near a few fisheries which can be fished at night and where I live is a haven for rabbits etc. The problem with rabbits though is that you don't really get as much out of them as you put into them. I'd be looking to trap birds more than anything as we have all sorts up here. All it takes is some boiled off sapp on a branch and there they stick.

My plan was originally to go to Australia when I had enough money to get there but when I cancelled all of my direct debits it ended up putting me a couple of hundred in the red.

I'm reading about a Scottish law just now which I'll have to delve into for a few more hours. Basically it seems to be saying that if you haven't a house or food or money, you're actually legally allowed to enter a shop and take a bottle of water or a loaf of bread. It's probably not as simple as that though.

It's odd though, I never thought that I would have to look into this sort of situation in my lifetime, but it's interesting all the same to see how things change.
I sent off three more c.v.s today and am filling out another Tesco application form tonight. I know that I will be able to get by on the equivelant of a 35 hour minimum wage job quite comfortably as I was used to having less than that when I had to keep a car to travel to a minimum wage job that I had before.
If I get a job it'll be problem solved.

[payner]

DO NOT turn to crime, a homeless jobless criminal will for sure be at the bottom of the heap, I would suggest, based on experiences of friends who were in similar situations: get down to your local Social Security offices, explain that you have nowhere to live or friends that could help you, tell them you have not eaten for several days & that you are desperate, this will help even if it were short term e:g emergency accomodation, be it a hostel or B&B (which is what they do here), a little privacy, warmth, food etc, gonna be hard getting a job with the economic climate but get the ball rolling sooner rather than later.
Good luck mate.
Chris

[van-man]

yes, i have...

Wiegieboard - PM me mate if you wanna chat.

[tinerrz]

Cheers Bateman and also to the crew haha.

Basically it's so that I know what to do when it happens to me. My Idea was getting out of the city also. I can hunt, fish and trap very well as I grew up in the country and I also know how to live off the land by building shelter, keeping warm and dry and eating. Eating is becoming harder in the U.K. though with less wild animals and much less edible natural vegetation. Also , if you're caught on the land you're probably going to end up in jail also as you have the old 10% owning 80% thing going on. Even the wilds aren't wild anymore. I walked across the most remote stretch in Britain in under a day which doesn't make it all that remote by my standards.

I've been doing that old living off couscous thing for 4 weeks now like Bateman did with the crackers and there's still no sign of benefits or work in sight. Been using the library a lot lately also, (like right now) in finding out what I can do. I'll be allowed support when I move off my brothers floor and onto a friends floor which is good. I also have a hearing on Monday for my circumstances and the woman who is dealing with me is confident that I'll get support which is also good, but if the worst comes to the worst it looks like I'm gonna be doing a bit of an Evan Tanner for a while.

Come on folks, surely a few of you must have been homeless at one point??

Scotland. Diff land laws

[Dave Hirst]

How come you can't get benefits?

[Wiegieboard]

Van-man, Cheers dude, I'll probably give you a PM at some time. I've just found a little bit of cash in hand work just now so I'm on my way to do it. Maybe tinkering about with cars all those years wasn't a waste of time afterall!

Basically they told me that my family were supposed to keep me which was why I apparently couldn't get benefits before. Even if I explained that I was having to leave, they were like "come back to us then" which was a bit shit really as I'd have to be homeless or stay with a friend which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place. When you have no address, it's not so easy to get a job.The same would probably go for my bank account I imagine but I can't be certain as I haven't read into that yet.
I talked to a woman in the job centre at the beginning of the week who told me that there has been a change due to the recent economy and I'm now going for a meeting this coming Monday at my local job centre. She said that when I tell them the circumstances surrounding my current situations, then theres a good chance that I will get jobseekers or something like that even though I left my previous place of employment. She also told me to try and draw up a lodging agreement with my brother in the hope that he will be persuaded to keep me at his. He isn't well off and I know he could well do with the cash.If I do that, there is a chance that they will give him cash as my diggs to him which will basically keep me in a home.

It's a fecker of a situation to be in.

A few of you are probably wondering why I'm in this situation. The story goes like this.
I was a fitter, metalworker, welder and engineer and had planned to move to Australia. I'd cleared my debts and was close to going to Australia when I took ill with ongoing lung problems at the end of last year. I didn't get sick pay with my job and by the time I found out that I could apply for governmental sick pay I was already cash down again. I was ill for around 3 months and my doctor wanted me to go back to work even though I still had problems breathing properly so I basically had to leave. The last time he told me to go back to work with the problem and I worked with cleaning fluids, I was hospitalised and took ill for a long time. It was the reason I had to give up MMA. I now work with welding fumes, gasses and industrial chemicals to I thought fuck that and handed in my notice. One thing led to another and I got more into debt, selling most of my posessions including the car etc. for food and to pay my brother electric and heating money for taking me in.
I cancelled my direct debits and insurance etc. which cost me an extra few hundred pounds and here I am now, 400 odd in the red with no job and not going to Australia.

Fuck me that was a prattle and a half but if someone reads it, maybe they can avoid getting like this theirself. Better someone learning from my mistakes than making them I guess?

[simmy]

Really sorry to read that mate...I hope everything works out for you!!!

[Wiegieboard]

It will do in the end. Just bad timing as per usual.

[Le_Divin_Marquis]

How old are you? What are your plans? What about joining the army for the shortest possible period of time, save some cash and start again in maybe a couple of years from now? In that kind of financial situation maybe you'd better look for something a bit adventurous that would guarantee you a solid income and change your mindset.


http://www.legion-recrute.com/en/

The US army recruits foreigners as well.

Or teach english for a couple of years in asia.