When I pulled up to the dog park yesterday (Cosmo and I go every morning), there was a man in a flack jacket standing next to his car, talking on the phone. As I passed, he made a point to say “Good morning” and I said “good morning” and smiled. Cosmo and I went into the dog park where there was a single, older woman with her dog. I said “good morning” to her and she came over and whispered “I think they are living there.” I said “What? Who?” She turned her back toward the man outside the park on his phone and nodded backward, indicating she was talking about him. “I think they are living in that car!” She seemed horrified, and I couldn’t figure out what I was missing. Who is “they”? I only saw one man. Why did she assume he was living in the car? And if he WAS living in the car, what was her concern? She asked if I hadn’t looked inside the car (and of course I had NOT). She said it was full of his stuff. Still, I wasn’t sure of her point. She seemed very disturbed, and I didn’t know if she thought we should befriend him, give him money for a motel room, or offer to buy him coffee, or something else. It turned out “something else” was the correct answer. Another woman–a “regular” at the dog park–came with her dog who Cosmo loves to play with. As soon as she entered and the greetings were over, the first woman came up and whispered to the second woman “Did you see them? I think they are living in that car!” (I still don’t know who “they” are as I only saw the one man who was still on the phone outside his car.) The second woman had a look of horror as she turned furtively to survey the situation. She said “I’ve seen condoms on the ground here some mornings when I come to the park. I suspected someone might be living in a vehicle, or picking up prostitutes and bringing them down here to “do their business.”
So it had escalated quickly. Not only was the man on the phone homeless, now he was either a prostitute or a john. I was stunned. Am I that out of touch that I hadn’t seen the overwhelming danger of this situation? A man living in his car! OMG! The world is coming to an end! I threw the ball for Cosmo and tried to ponder what the big deal was. I listened as they continued to talk in hushed voices, even though the man in question was 100 yards away, outside the fenced-in park, still talking on his phone. It was as if they had just witnessed a terrible crime and were trying to figure out how to deal with it.
Both women (I’ve seen them there on numerous occasions) are church-goers. I hear them talk often about their church, about the congregation there, or the pastor. I thought perhaps they were trying to figure out how to help him without being condescending or hurting his pride. Boy was I wrong. They were trying to figure out if they should call the police or if he would figure out who called and somehow retaliate. And then they tried to figure out what crime he was committing. They seemed sure he MUST be committing SOME crime. They talked about the “prostitution problem” at length. Seriously? We have a prostitution problem? I guess the fact that they have seen condoms on the ground in a public park confirms that, and since a condom was seen a week ago where the man in question was now parked, he must somehow be part of the prostitution ring, or worse yet, a john luring these women of the evening into his car/home. My head was spinning.
It was then that I realized that I was totally relating to the man on the phone. If he WAS living in the car, I was inclined to go over and ask him for pointers on living a tiny life, off-grid. After all, he had completed (whether by his own choice or a twist of fate) the downsizing exercise that I’m in the process of doing. If he WAS living in the car, he had managed to get on the road, figure out where to stay for free, and seemed to be doing it successfully. He was living a bit beyond the small life I am choosing, and that made my living in a Class B van, which will have a stove, frig, microwave, TV, running water, and fold-down bed seem like luxury accommodations at the Ritz. And I realized that the two women looked at him as “one of THOSE people” and I looked at him as a potential mentor. It was then that I knew I had become (if I wasn’t already) “One of THOSE people!”
There are so many lessons here, that I haven’t quite unpacked them all. The first and most obvious (to me, anyway) is how we have to categorize others. Everyone needs to fit in a nice, neat box. If they aren’t in the same box as we are, then they are inherently bad or dangerous. The second thing that came to mind is that soon I’ll be living in a vehicle myself. It will be quite a notch above living out of the back seat of a car, but still, my home will be a vehicle. I had read earlier in the week that van camping was getting harder in many areas. San Francisco has passed an ordinance making it illegal to sleep in a vehicle within city limits. Santa Barbara doesn’t allow parking of vehicles over 20 feet in length, apparently to stop people in RV’s from camping within the city. I wondered why this would be.
The first and most obvious reason is always money. If you live in a car in SF you aren’t paying property taxes, aren’t paying rent, aren’t supporting the city fiscally. That is most likely a big part of the law. But I suspect there is an underlying issue that has more to do with income, and people who live any alternative lifestyle. Can it really be a crime to be homeless? And I ask that in the truest sense of the word. If I don’t own a house, or have a lease on a condo or apartment, am I not allowed to live in your city? Closer to home, if I pull up to a dog park in my Class B Van and get out with Cosmo, will I cause people to talk about me in hushed tones, wondering how they should deal with me? I don’t have the answers yet.
It has given me a lot to think about. How often do I judge someone who lives differently than I do? How many laws is society willing to pass to protect us from people who think differently, and who live differently than we do? I don’t know. But I do know that as I move forward with my plans to sell my property and start living out in the world, I risk becoming an outlaw, being shunned by certain segments of society, and looked down on because I live a different kind of life.
And I have to admit that a smile comes to my face when I think that sometime in the future, someone will ask me “Where do you live?” and I’ll reply “I Live HERE!”