HOMELESS ~ WHAT Is HOMELESSNESS??? ~ BEEN There DONE THAT!!!

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:28]Hello Americans Grab my hat.

[00:00:33]Another friend and subscribers around the world.

[00:00:36]Back again, man.

[00:00:39]Well, today I'm going to get back after it again.

[00:00:46]It is uh I don't know, man. Probably Probably up to about 38° right now.

[00:00:54]It was uh mid-20s when we got up.

[00:01:00]We checked the forecast. You know how I feel about them.

[00:01:04]Checked the forecast yesterday and it was saying you know, 38, 40° was going to be the low.

[00:01:12]So so I listened to them.

[00:01:16]That was my first mistake.

[00:01:18]And uh didn't cover my tomatoes and stuff, so So uh we may be replanting tomatoes.

[00:01:29]But I didn't cover nothing, man, and it got down and we were up at 4, 4:30 and it was uh I think it was 23° or 22°.

[00:01:45]It just never fails, man.

[00:01:47]Anyway, today obviously I'm getting ready to open this thing back up.

[00:01:54]Um I some stuff on I don't know if you can see it. But I got a whole bunch of I got a lot to haul over but this morning drinking coffee and getting my morning going I was listening to listen to pod or I guess YouTube videos or podcasts whatever you want to call them.

[00:02:17]And today man I was watching a bunch on the folks that are uh you know ended up living in their cars, vans, motels, storage units.

[00:02:35]Man, a lot of people getting living in storage units secretly and getting getting thrown out so you know when I was watching these and stuff I was thinking oh man I had to put a you know put one of my videos together and show some of these some of these folks and I may end up doing that but it got me to thinking about my own life you know and I've been homeless.

[00:03:02]I don't even know how many times you know a couple times we were homeless and we didn't consider ourselves homeless but everybody else did.

[00:03:12]So uh let me find a place. I don't think I'm going to do it out here. It might be windy on that camera right now too.

[00:03:19]We end up going sitting biscuits chilly out here.

[00:03:23]And just like that plans change around here.

[00:03:28]Happens a lot man.

[00:03:30]So now it's still cold man.

[00:03:34]Now here in a couple of hours we're going to head out and go rail hunting for Raina's birthday.

[00:03:49]So that was just a last minute. This dang camera is just It's a last minute thing, so I've got it Now I've got I've opened up my the trailer cuz I was planning on moving a bunch of this crap.

[00:04:05]Yeah, over to that.

[00:04:08]And now we're going to go mushroom hunting, so I've got to go unload my truck all the wood that I got in my truck, unload it, throw a couple of fishing poles in.

[00:04:20]I don't know how the morels will be.

[00:04:22]Anyway, man, I started this video, you know, cuz my mind which is now my mind is kind of wondered.

[00:04:29]But uh you know, talking talking about you know, homeless and people what they're going through and stuff right now and man, I've been there. Been there and been there and done that.

[00:04:45]So I was going to So I was thinking on it and had a couple of things that I hadn't thought about in years or I'd forgot about.

[00:04:55]See back well, let's let's start man with the first time first time I was homeless is man, I must have been >> [snorts] >> 15.

[00:05:07]And I was living with my mom or my mother.

[00:05:14]And I got a mouse in here.

[00:05:20]I'll shoot that mother.

[00:05:23]I got a dang.22 or pellet gun or something.

[00:05:27]Mother. Anyway, so I was living with the my mother at the time.

[00:05:35]And I was working nights and I don't know what she told my grandpa or something like that.

[00:05:45]But my grandpa came in and it was morning time or whatever and I'd worked all night and I don't really know if he knew what my schedule was or anything but whatever she'd told him so he kicked my ass out of the kicked me out of my mom's house so I went down and lived on the Boise River. That was only for probably a week or something like that.

[00:06:14]Then the next time that I was homeless was all in the in that time, you know, from 15 to 16 years old which man back then that years seemed to go on a lot longer than they do anymore.

[00:06:27]But it uh I think it was 16 to 17, you know, and I'd went to live with my father on that hippie commune, Oregon, White City, Oregon.

[00:06:39]And uh he went off and chased his uh girlfriend at the time and went off chasing her, took my brother and sister, went and chased her over to Washington, you know, and sold the sold the place up there and everything and man, I was you know, I ain't going nowhere.

[00:07:05]And uh so I ended up homeless, man. That time I was homeless for probably a year.

[00:07:14]And then I remember you know, when he uh left it must have been the end of the summer time, you know, so it wasn't too bad but I was living I had a 1968 Chevy pickup truck three on the tree, man, it was awesome.

[00:07:30]And uh and that's all I had, man. So I had stuff in the back of it, you know, and ended up losing everything I owned and I pretty much lost on that on the mountain.

[00:07:44]And uh I remember one time I was going through Jacksonville, Oregon, you know, which is just a little little podunk little podunk town.

[00:07:57]And I don't know what time it was. Dark, man. It was cold. It was wintertime. I was homeless.

[00:08:04]You know, which I didn't really think about it being being homeless. I was just I was surviving is what I was doing. At that time, man, it was so cold, man. It was in the wintertime and it was so cold and I had no heater in my pickup truck. The heater didn't work. Heater core was out.

[00:08:21]And uh it was so cold for I don't know how many couple of week at least a week, maybe 2 weeks.

[00:08:31]I went and the only thing that I had besides that pickup truck was a post office box in White City.

[00:08:39]And it was so cold that I was going in by the post office box and I'd lay down by it, you know, cuz you walked in you could you were kind of kind of hid.

[00:08:48]Man, I'd lay down and go to sleep and as soon as I'd hear somebody cuz it's open 24 hours.

[00:08:53]And when I'd hear somebody coming in, I'd jump up with my key like I was getting in my post office box, man, and I did that man, night after night just to keep warm cuz it was cold.

[00:09:06]But anyway, man, so I was over in Jacksonville, Oregon.

[00:09:10]And uh it was late, you know, late at night.

[00:09:15]And I had the window cracked cuz the defrost nothing nothing working, man.

[00:09:18]There was no heater whatsoever. And I had the window cracked, you know.

[00:09:24]Why? I don't know. Trying to thaw the window or to be looking out the window.

[00:09:28]I don't know I don't know what I was doing. You know, I was 16 or 17 years old, man.

[00:09:33]And uh I I ended up getting over.

[00:09:39]And uh uh remember the cop coming up, you know, and what he was telling me, man, is they watch for people with their windows down freaking because that's a sign of a drunk driver. So, he pulled me over cuz my window was down. And then the other thing that they do if the if the drunk driver is behind them that they're suspecting, they'll kind of go over they'll swerve over a little bit. And if the freaking drunk driver follows them, then they're usually pretty drunk. So, that was just some tricks after we started talking cuz anyway so, he is he came up to my window, man, and you know, obviously I wasn't drunk.

[00:10:18]And uh came up there and talking to me and gets my license and all that stuff, man. I'm just man, just shivering, man, cuz it was so cold.

[00:10:28]And he's all, "What are you What are you shaking for?" And I'm all, "Man, I'm cold, man. The heater don't work in this truck." He's all, "Come over here and get Get my car." Man, I actually sat in the front seat, man, not not the back seat. You know, that's always a good sign.

[00:10:42]Sat in the front seat and just talking to him stuff, and you know, he's questioning me, you know, trying to get the lowdown thing. He probably wanted to put me in jail.

[00:10:53]But uh he's all, "So, where do you live?"

[00:10:57]And I was all, "Well, right now I'm nowhere. I you know, camp out and sleep in my truck."

[00:11:05]You know, cuz I used to go set camps up down the river so but it wasn't freezing. I mean, it was it was cold, man. It was like December or January cold.

[00:11:14]And uh he's all, "So, you're a transient." And I'm all, "What the What is that?"

[00:11:22]I didn't even know what a transient was.

[00:11:26]And uh well, I guess I am.

[00:11:30]Dude, crazy. Anyway, man, he freaking ended up talking to me, man, wished me luck, and away I went, man.

[00:11:37]You know, I don't know what the heck I was doing. That was just something that I was, you know, watching or listening to these people talk about homelessness, man, and that for some reason came back to me. I hadn't thought about that or whatever in a bazillion years.

[00:11:55]So, so then, you know, life goes goes on as it does.

[00:12:02]But now when that the time, man, let me tell you, at the time I was actually working two jobs. I was working at Wendy's and I was also working at uh a retirement place, you know, where the where the folks would buy the um buy the their apartment or do is come quite the scam, man. So, they'd pay all this money and buy this deal. Where I was working I was serving food, you know. I'd go out and serve food and stuff.

[00:12:30]to them, you know, cuz they had a big ballroom or whatever.

[00:12:34]So, I was working two jobs, man. Two jobs I was working and, you know, still didn't have a place to live. Man, this is this is back in like, I don't even know, man, 19 87, I guess, 86, 87, somewhere in there.

[00:12:50]So, anyway, man, life goes on and you know, me and Miss Kitty found each other again and all that.

[00:13:00]And uh when me and Miss Kitty got back together, here we are again, man.

[00:13:10]It's me and her this time. Now, now we're homeless. We ain't got nothing. We were going around and sleeping on people's couch, man, together. With that, man, once we found each other again, we weren't you know, no way.

[00:13:23]No way letting go. So, we slept on people's couches, camped out, done a lot of camping.

[00:13:31]You know, took our and we were both working. Man, both working.

[00:13:35]She was working at Taco Bell or no, Taco Time. She worked at Taco Time at the time. She gave up her bank job and worked at Taco Time.

[00:13:44]And uh Oh, where was I? I was probably building Northwest building modular buildings.

[00:13:56]So, I'm working again, man. Just taking, you know, trying to save up. And I was making like $4.75 an hour and she's probably making, I don't know, $3 three Well, the minimum wage is $3.35. So, she probably wasn't making over $4 an hour. Can you leave that, man?

[00:14:14]But uh So, we did that. So, we were homeless, man. We, you know, pinching pennies, man. Saved every cent we could and ended up renting the place down in Garden City.

[00:14:27]You know, which is right there in Boi- It's right in the middle of Boise. But ended up renting uh it was a travel trailer, you know.

[00:14:35]Probably 1960s travel trailer that they had set up. It was all skirted and everything. You know, and it had a bedroom.

[00:14:44]Then you walk through the bedroom, there was the bathroom into this little kitchenette thing and then the little front room, man. I don't know. It was probably just uh I don't know, 35 ft long maybe.

[00:14:55]Maybe.

[00:14:57]It was just a little thing.

[00:15:00]So, we finally ended up renting that. We We were there for quite a while. Then I went and went from Northwest, quit, and went was a mobile home service guy.

[00:15:13]Traveled around and, you know, the one time I was out traveling or whatever and Miss Kitty had that place, you know, but she'd go and stay with my mom and stuff like that while I was gone cuz I'd go out they'd tell me I was going to be gone for a week out doing mobile home service work and then I'd end up being gone for 2 or 3 weeks at a time.

[00:15:33]So, one time I called and freaking Kitty was going through something with man was crying on the phone and I told her right then I was all that's that's it. I won't I won't uh this will be the last trip I made and that's when we got ended up getting married, too.

[00:15:48]When I got back that time we got married and then I don't think I ever went back out, you know, I uh quit, you know, which actually then when I was mobile home service guy Kitty was picking up the checks and at the time I think I was pulling in about a thousand dollars a week and I was just out on the road so I didn't wasn't spending it so she was putting this putting this money away.

[00:16:11]And uh ended up ended up getting married we got married you know, and that was uh 1990 36 years ago.

[00:16:24]36 years ago.

[00:16:27]And then uh from there so man we had, you know, she had to I don't know how much money we had it was I mean to us it was a god man it was probably I don't know five grand if that you know, two three four grand I don't know how much it was.

[00:16:42]But from that we ended up renting uh a basement apartment you know, the conversion and I'm really starting not to go into this homeless damn town going off telling my my life history.

[00:16:57]>> [laughter] >> Anyway, so we rented this basement apartment and lived down there and Miss Kitty man she's you know, she's pretty hot now. I think she's pretty dang hot always.

[00:17:13]And back then like holy ooh la la if I think about it, I'll put a picture in here. Holy smokes.

[00:17:27]So, but anyway, so uh we had a rabbit. We had this pet rabbit.

[00:17:33]And you weren't supposed to have no pets at this place.

[00:17:36]And there was no way that the landlord, which he lived right there, no way that this landlord could have known we had this rabbit unless he came in our place.

[00:17:46]And Miss Kitty had noticed that her her drawers were, you know, gone through and stuff like that. I think that freaking landlord pervert was going down there and looking at my my wife's panties or something. I don't know. Weirdo. So, we got the hell out of there.

[00:18:03]And rented Then we found a little house that we lived in, had kids and all that in that house.

[00:18:10]And then after that house, back to homeless. If we didn't think we were homeless, we had a motorhome.

[00:18:18]You know, and of course all this time I'm doing, you know, same thing even when I was in the pickup truck in Oregon, I'd still do flea markets, you know, I'd go out and throw some out.

[00:18:30]You know.

[00:18:31]On a weekend here, not in the winter though.

[00:18:34]But they had a war or a uh Oh, what was that little town out there?

[00:18:40]I think it was called Talent. They had a storage unit place where they had a flea market.

[00:18:46]I can't remember if it was year round, but used to So, anyway, see, I'm telling you, man, I'll go I start going about this. This is stuff that it just starts coming to me cuz I haven't thought about it in so long.

[00:18:58]So, anyway, so me and Miss Kitty, you know, flea markets all day.

[00:19:03]And uh we ended up having our third kid, and I've told this story on here, so we won't go into all that, and ended up moving into the motor home, which does, man, we're like, all right, we actually own, you know, cuz I owned the motor home, owned our own home, but, you know, you're still considered homeless, man. They considered you homeless.

[00:19:28]So, we lived in our motor home for, I don't know, 6 years or something, until it until it blew up.

[00:19:38]And I was renting a uh we called it the shop, but it's just a warehouse, you know, with one big slider door, and wobbled the the motor home into there, and was renting, like I said, renting this this or this warehouse.

[00:20:01]So, I ended up, you know, I can't remember if I got it towed or what I did. Got the motor home or hobbled it in there, cuz it was running, but I mean, it was bad. Bad, bad thing Thank goodness it happened close to, you know, close to the area.

[00:20:18]But anyway, hobbled it in, so then we were still homeless. Homeless and had the motor home out there on the you know, put it on the side of the shop, so then we started living out of the motor home in the warehouse.

[00:20:35]That was a That was a pain in the butt.

[00:20:39]And uh And at the time, man, when when the motor home blew up, other than paying rent on that that warehouse or shop, other than paying rent on that, we were 100% debt free.

[00:20:52]And then, I ended up having to borrow some money. I borrowed uh I think a thousand dollars from my mom to buy a van, so I could still haul my junk.

[00:21:03]And from there, man, from there just got into, you know, and then I had to make her the pay her back, you know, so then I was on our way to going back into debt, so as far as I was concerned.

[00:21:17]And then the years go by.

[00:21:19]Trying to make sure I don't miss any in this homeless homelessness.

[00:21:27]Man, we've lived in uh I don't know if you I guess you'd call it homelessness or whatever cuz we lived in that We lived out of that shop, then I rented the whole shop, then I broke my foot off.

[00:21:40]And then uh we were back living at the shop, and I had a hospital bed inside that same shop, that warehouse.

[00:21:48]Had a hospital bed in there, all my junk, you know, piled up everywhere.

[00:21:52]And had a hospital bed in there, and I was in a wheelchair for 6 months.

[00:21:58]You know, wheeling myself around.

[00:22:00]And uh that was pretty homeless this man.

[00:22:05]That was pretty That was pretty rough. But the places we lived is what I was getting at. We've lived, you know, in a We've been homeless, man, where we had nothing but a tent and and people's couches.

[00:22:19]And then we've uh This is just our time together, not counting the times before we got back together or whatever one call it.

[00:22:27]We've pretty much been together for always. I took a 2-year hiatus or something.

[00:22:32]But uh um back when I was Well, when I went to live with my father cuz I Me and Kitty were together, and then I went to live with my father against my better judgment.

[00:22:46]Anyway, that That's a whole different story in itself.

[00:22:49]But man, we've lived in, you know, had a tent, people's couches, camp trailer, motor home, warehouse.

[00:23:03]We lived We I opened up a store and ended up living in the back of the store and then the kids by then they were teenagers and they were living in camp trailers out behind the store.

[00:23:15]The trading post.

[00:23:17]And then then we moved into this gross grossest I was supposed to be buying it was a scam.

[00:23:26]That was a uh It was a It had a bunch of tweakers that lived in this old mobile home. It's actually where I started doing these videos, man, was from the back of it, man. I had junk everywhere, dude. But uh tweakers had lived in they'd cut holes through the floors and stuff, man. They had it they'd go down there and there's little little camps where they could be looking out the skirting. There It was crazy.

[00:23:49]Anyway, man, I was supposed to be buying that and the dude was scamming me the whole time. For 2 years he scammed me.

[00:23:55]You know, so basically it ended up being rent, but it was supposed to be payments towards buying this place and yeah.

[00:24:03]It's just one of those deals. So anyway, from there that's pretty much where we bought when we bought the uh you know, the creek bottom. And the creek Thank God we bought this place when we did.

[00:24:17]But the creek bottom you know, people would consider us homeless. Especially when we moved on here, man, there was a a pump house. There was power, a pump house.

[00:24:27]And and that was it. You know, that was all that was out here, man, living in the '49 Vagabond, 1949 Vagabond. I had the '69 Chinook motor home.

[00:24:43]And then, you know, I had two or three camp trailers I had stuff piled in.

[00:24:49]Once you Once we got our own land, man, there is no you know, you ain't homeless then.

[00:24:55]But I don't even know how I got on all this and and it kind of took a different avenue than I was thinking about talking, man.

[00:25:03]But, I was going to show clips and do a bunch of that with, you know, some of the clips, man. My heart, man, thoughts and prayers to any of y'all that are living the living that way and you know, doing what you got to do to survive. And I was in there after I was watching those things and Miss Kitty was kind of listening to them, too. And we're talking and she's all, "Well, back when, you know, back when you were staying, you know, living out of your truck and back when we, you know, were jumping couches and living in a tent and stuff like that, did you didn't have the internet and all these people? So, was there more, you know, was there quite a few people living like that at the time? Even, you know, back then?

[00:25:52]Who knows, you know, you didn't hear about it and if, you know, if you're, you know, when you're working at at like Wendy's or whatever, man, I didn't None of those people knew that I lived in my freaking truck. I didn't tell people nothing.

[00:26:08]Crazy. Crazy times. But, uh But anyway, her point was, do uh did we live like, you know, did Was there more people living like that than you actually knew of? Maybe.

[00:26:25]Well, it's been going on for a long time and then, you know, and now you see it and you hear about it on the internet all time and the van life and you know, van life and living out of your cars, living in storage units, man.

[00:26:40]People are I was watching one this morning of them getting thrown out of storage units, getting busted. You know, you just can't live in a storage unit. Not legally.

[00:26:50]But, hey, you do what you got to do to survive, and I completely understand that. And then the one I was watching this morning, they were a bunch of them Man, they were leaving living [snorts] in motels, and it was cheaper to live in a motel than it was to pay rent.

[00:27:07]I'm insane, man.

[00:27:10]So, my advice to you I don't Man, in these times, I don't know. Man, do what you know.

[00:27:21]Do what you got to do, I guess, man.

[00:27:26]Thoughts and prayers for all of us all of us in this crazy world.

[00:27:32]I think now I'm going to go out and load the truck. So, the next one will probably be a probably out there mushroom hunting, maybe a little fishing.

[00:27:43]Some time in the woods. It sure is windy and cold out there, so we'll see how it goes. Good Lord willing and them creeks don't rise, we'll be back in tomorrow.

[00:27:54]See you.