Alternative Shelter
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In urban, suburban, rural, and wilderness locations, there are alternatives to the hyper-inflating housing market. All of these are assumed to be temporary, never assume your squat is safe and keep all valuables in your pack and ready to go if the pigs show up.
Contents |
Urban
This page content is now updated and moved to Urban Living and Rural Living this page is now unconnected to the table of contents
Rooftop
Many buildings have a flat roof and parapet to keep people from falling off. You will either have to attach a ladder to the roof from the fire escape or pick or break the inside lock to the roof access. Even then you need to assure regular access to the roof from outside while keeping everyone else from your squat. We have seen people bicycle lock a ladder nearby to get up on the fire escape, and rope it up once on the roof, but this is a real workout to raise and lower it every day. Once you have access to the roof you can build a shack to live in or just camp out in your tent. Take advantage of electricity and water connections running to air conditioners and lights, but be careful these are live deadly electrical wires and there is no way to turn them off to tap in. In addition to a squat your rooftop might have enough space to start a rooftop garden like we discuss in Farm It
Bridge
We all have seen campers under bridges. Bridges offer protection from sun and rain and, if located in a nonresidential area, there are often longer times between camp breakups by cops compared to more exposed camping spots. A careful electrician could tap the street or sign lighting to power their electrically powered gear, hotplates, etc. If trash starts to visibly build up the city will often kick everyone out and come in with a prison work crew to throw everything away.
Spaces between and behind buildings
A bold move is to try to wall off a narrow space between buildings, a professional looking fence gate and brick job must be done at night before a weekend or holiday or you will surely be busted. Install a high security lock on the fence gate. Try to find a location where the alleyway is the entrance and the street side is blocked off. Afterwards you need to plan for preventing the existence of your squat from being discovered and taken away by the police, building owners, or other homeless.
Parks
Many urban parks have overgrown areas large enough to allow real camping. Try to find a place hidden by thorns and briers that will discourage city workers. A regularly used trail will lead other homeless or even park services to your hideout.
Storage Space Rental
What freak has not dreamed of renting a storage unit for a home? Unfortunately the on site management is almost always against this, one inspection by the fire marshal and the manager is canned and the owner is in big trouble. It might be possible to bribe a manager but the trouble of modifying the unit, lack of water or bathrooms, and the locking of the buildings are all problems that make it almost not worth the trouble. In a free country storage unit type apartments would be an option for the very poor.
Bike Locker
It has been rumored that, with a few dollars spent at a hardware store, rented city and college bike lockers can be converted for personal use. The outer lock mechanism must be modified to not lock when you are inside but still allow you to keep the door closed while you are sleeping. Extreme caution must be used as one nosy narc can blow it by calling the cops to kick you out. Even if not used for a camp out this is one of the few places that a homeless person can safely stash some gear, check rules about city inspection of contents.
Suburban
Suburban areas are likely the most difficult to improvise housing. Short of renting a basement or garage for a very small amount, it will be difficult. The suburban sprawl was designed with a petroleum powered vehicle in mind, so most services are a highway drive away. Radically-dressed and -minded outsiders will likely be harassed by the local police
Garden Shed
In older neighborhoods with large lots adjoining park or wetland areas there are sometimes disused sheds or old garages. Look for unkempt yards or long grass without foot trample around the out building this may indicate an elderly homeowner or uninterested renter who has no use for the building. Choose and use a path of approach that does not leave a trail visible from the house or easily noticed from other homes.
Garden Shed Kit
A mini-barn or garden shed can be purchased at most North American hardware stores. All that is really needed is a concrete platform to start. These quick shelters have two benefits in a suburban area they may not be noticed by neighbors if built quickly during the work week, they are also a quick way to get shelter on a piece of land you plan to build a larger alternative home. These were proposed as a third world emergency prefab home after disasters. A good idea is to build on property of a friend who you will share utilities with. If you contact a manufacturer with your plans some will pre-cut the wood to include windows and doors as well as the overall height and size to your liking.
Useful upgrades to a quick build shed home include the following features:
- Normal size house door with proper lock(as opposed to double barn doors)
- Windows
- Overhang and porch
- Garden hose plumbing, drain into a gravel/sand pit next to your shed-house if soil drainage allows
- Electricity, include a circuit breaker of a lower value than the circuit you are connecting to so your breaker will flip first
- Dry wall, paint and insulation
- Shower curtain rail around porch for showering in summer
- Fold away bed and table
- Propane gas for heating and cooking can be plumbed in using camping components
- Fireplace or wood stove for heating and cooking makes sense in some areas
- A directional WiFi antenna mounted on the roof can let you connect to a house even hundreds of feet away
- Toilet plumbing can be a challenge to include on a low budget, an outhouse would be easier
Car
How to camp in you car Cars
An unlocked car is a good safe place to spend for the night when you are cold or need to lock up for safety. Bed down and don't leave anything outside of your pack, be ready to run. If the car is abandoned it will likely be towed in a few weeks so don't use it for storage. Be alert for the owner in the morning, get out quick on the opposite side and scoot before they can call the cops or kick your ass. Lie to the owner and say that you knocked on a door and the person said it was ok to sleep in their car, point at a random house, this should buy you vital seconds to escape while the owner thinks this over, don't try to lie to the cops though.
Squat a House
At the edge of the suburban rural boundary and near parks there are often pockets of older neighborhoods where a house may sit for years unoccupied waiting for inheritors to sue each others asses off until the lawyers take the house and divide the spoils amongst themselves. Look near large construction projects for houses slated for destruction. An old weathered for sale sign might be a house open to squat, but could also mean regular visitors.
Deciding to squat a house takes some good detective work. Find a place where it is apparent that the yard work is not being taken care of, peek in the windows has anyone been home in a few months. Does it appear that the house has been squatted or burgalarized without cleanup? All of these are good cause to stake the place out. Put a padlock on the front door and see if it is removed, camp out in the back yard if you can do so discreetly just to be sure. Try before you pry, an open door or window might remove the charges of breaking and entering if you get busted.
Squat the place. While you are squatting light up your devices you use and go outside to see what is visible at night, pull the shades and check again, light and motion will give you away most easily. Keep your travel in and out infrequent, at night only if possible, no music or noise. Cooking fires and grilling might be noticed from the smoke and smell. If you kept clean you will be hard to spot. To the average WASP the homeless are dirty and distant, the suburban and rural townies and cops won't tolerate filthy bums, but will they notice a clean one?
Always make your living space as near as possible to the back door on the ground floor, clean that room up first for occupation. Since this is not your house be ready to run if you hear someone trying to enter through the front, legit owners drive up and enter through the front door 99% of the time without doing a walk around, pile up junk in front of the front door to make noise and slow them down. Always have your bags packed for a quick escape, if confronted be apologetic but be sure to get away before anyone gets violent. It might help if you tell a story of your dead grandfathers house in this town that you thought you were squatting in, this is just a distraction to get out the door and prevent violence, be cool, smile, grab your pack, don't let anyone get their hands on you, know your escape routes have at least two. Expect the cops in the area soon so get away from the property and into a store or movie theater, stash your bike and pack safely nearby, the pack really gives you away.
Rural
If you are able to obtain permission or not be noticed, almost any type of shelter could be used. Many rural communities are very insular and everyone knows everyone else. Strangers are viewed with suspicion and often due to boredom snooping and gossip are the only entertainment.
Recycled Sea Shipping Container
Super strong and designed to be waterproof, the standard 24 and 40 foot shipping container can be made into a house by cutting holes for and installing a door and windows. It is cheaper for a company to sell a well-used container than to scrap and recycle it.
Straw Bale
Straw bale is one of the easiest, simplest, cheapest ways to build a house. All you really do is create walls out of hay bales, sometimes coating the outsides with concrete, mud, leaves, or wood to keep the walls dry. This is not necessary. With properly placed support beams, the house will stay safe through wet times and rain. Straw also acts as an insulator. In you will be living in a cold area with an abundance of hay, I would suggest doubling up walls.
Yurt
For a few grand a decent sized yurt can be purchased. The mountain peoples of China, Mongolia, and even part of Afghanistan use yurts for mobile housing. A canvas roof, round wood walls, and a smoke hole or plastic skylight are normal features. A quality yurt will last up to ten years in a damp climate and longer in a dry one.
Ferro-cement
Ferro-cement is an extremely strong, easy-to-deal-with material. Not to mention cheap, and ferro houses can take just about any shape, making them easy to hide in places the pigs would never think. Below is a free e-book about ferro. Very informative.
http://ferrocement.com/casa-contents/contents.en-ferroHouse-web.html
Greenhouse
PVC tubing arches and UV resistant plastic make for an acceptable shelter and an excellent source of food for under $100. These are most effective in low wind areas which have mild winters but become unbearable to live in in summer. Black plastic sheeting over the soil and a perforated garden hose under the sheeting allow irrigation and conservation of water slits in the plastic allow plants to grow. Twine hanging from the arches can be used to hang overloaded cucumber and tomato plants.
Peace Corps Building Manual
Visit the website http://home.comcast.net/~kellyjmorris/build_docs.html which has a free download of the Peace Corps Construction Manual which teaches how to make block and brick construction with minimal concrete or local soils, it also covers digging wells. Like military manuals the Peace Corps publications are written under government contract with your taxes and are in the public domain, feel free to print, bind, and even sell these books.
School Bus
Even if it will never run again a school bus is still a possibility for shelter, tow it to your site put it on blocks and remove the seats. The upsides are a reasonably large living area and potential for relocation. A bus cabin is real cleanup problem when you vacate, it will also invite police attention so place this option towards the bottom of your list.
Immigrant Labor Camp
If you happen to appear somewhat browner skinned, most rural WASP's will look right through you if you play to their expectations, taking on Latino laborer dress and keeping your mouth shut can work as great camouflage. Migrant labor camps are usually provided for workers as part of their pay. Conditions are often sparse to tragic as CorpGov and independent farmers just want to make a buck, these are usually not the place to look for shelter unless you look and speak like a native of the lands south of the Rio Grande and are in a very tight situation.
