1. Air/Oxygen (duh)
2. Clothing
3. Food/Water
4. Shelter
5. Sleep
6. A Purpose/Something to do
I am just starting this on Oct. 29, 2018 and I did not have a plan for how I’m going to organize my ideas and info yet but I’m working on it and I will probably edit this later as I go.
The list above is probably not in the right order but I’m just brainstorming here and I don’t know if any one of the above things is more important than the others except you better have clothes if you have to go out in public to get the food, water, etc. or you could get arrested for indecent exposure unless you are in a nudist colony or on a nude beach.
So let’s start with clothing – you can probably find cheap clothes at yard sales or thrift stores that will work at least to get by. They may not be what you like or want but as long as they fit right and look good enough to be able to walk into a store they should do fine. The shoes are most important because if you have to walk, you need good shoes that fit right. If your feet hurt then you won’t be able to walk to get the rest of the things you need or do the things you need to do. I used to wear 11½ but somewhere the shoe and boot makers decided that half sizes were no longer needed. I now have to buy size 12 since a half size to small would hurt my feet.
Food/Water
This is really hard to find things that are cheap & good (or good for you) but sometimes people have to buy things from stores they are close to in order to save time, energy, gas if you have a vehicle. If you have some place to put the stuff and find a good deal, buy extra if it will not spoil. Canned food is usually good to store for at least a year and rotating the cans by using the first one bought first is the best way to use canned food. You’ll need a can opener I bet.
Water should be free but sometimes it isn’t. People pay a utility bill at houses and I’m sure the cost is added onto rent at apartments but there are some places where you can still get water from a drinking fountain and if you have a re-usable bottle or cup I’m sure nobody would complain if you fill it & go. Parks, schools, etc. should have drinking fountains and some of those can be accessed 24/7 if they don’t lock all the gates at night.
I do not recommend going onto school grounds at any school you do not have children attending in the daytime when there are children in classes since there have been way to many problems at schools lately. There are colleges and universities that should have drinking fountains and should be accessible even to people not attending the school. How else could a “new” person enroll or check out the campus if they were not allowed to walk into the grounds. But being there at night may be a problem if the campus police want to be stupid and harass someone.
Shelter
This could be a problem if you become homeless but I’ve been doing some research (just in case) and I’ve got prices in my area for self-storage places and am planning what I could fit into a storage, what size I really need and trying to get a plan formulated just in case I lose the place I’m living now. Some storage places are open for customers 12 hours a day, except holidays at some. Leaving a vehicle in the driveway in front of your storage unit for 12 hours may not be a good deal for anyone that might need to get into the storage on either side of yours but there should be some place to park out of the way and “sort” your stuff inside your storage unit where you might not be disturbed while you are there. I haven’t figured out how you could keep someone from locking you inside your own storage yet but I’m sure there is a way even if you happen to be napping.
Sleep
Did I mention napping? Yes well that brings me to the next thing that most people need. Sleep is very important to the human body, especially the brain. I won’t go into all the medical detail here but lets just say that if you don’t get enough good sleep you can have hallucinations and delusions – I’ve done a search on google and found THIS and THIS if you care to read about that. Another place to get sleep if you don’t have a place to live could be any park that is open, and even some at night if you don’t mind being harassed by homeless people, cops, animals, bugs …
I seem to have slipped into the no place to live type of thinking but anyone can or could become homeless in an instant. There are many reasons including natural disasters, weather problems beyond our control, fire burns home or apartment, vehicle runs into your house, etc. I know there are “agencies” that are supposed to help with things like this but sometimes it’s only a temp fix and then what? Insurance? Um yeah well I don’t have renters insurance, so I guess I should look into that expense.
Which brings me to the last thing on my little list at the top, A Purpose!
I’m trying to find information on everything I can and I am trying to share it here in my articles site hoping to help someone, somewhere and keeping the info in a kinda organized way for myself. I may be posting links to things I find in my articles and each new article in any category will post above the old ones so it might be good to start at the bottom of any page with the oldest thing posted.