A law student at Yeshiva University in New York City who goes by the pseudonym "David" weighed his options carefully. If he timed his use of university and gym facilities just right, could he go through a semester without actually living anywhere? That is, could he be effectively homeless without misery? David decided to try it. The Observer, a student newspaper at Yeshiva, interviewed him about the experience:
http://www.yuobserver.com/features/homeless-by-choice-1.2736857?pagereq=1#.TwY9etRSScR -via Althouse | Photo of Yeshiva University by Flickr user gezellig-girl.com
The way that it's working out is I have a gym membership, NY Health and Racquet club, and there's one right around the corner from Cardozo and that's my home base. The organization is probably the hard part about this. So I have four lockers and NY Health and Racquet club has showers and I shave there. It has shampoo and soap and all that stuff. [...]
So I have one locker for running clothes and laundry, one for dress shirts, one for dress pants and one for miscellaneous things. And also each locker has a spot for shoes at the top so that's really good.
I had to really reduce the amount of stuff that I had. I had to get rid of everything that's nonessential. I only have, like, five dress shirts, five dress pants, some running clothes that are necessary and then obviously sweatshirts and stuff. Other than clothes I don't really have a lot of stuff, just stuff for shaving and brushing my teeth and books. I have a school locker too, so that helps.
I also have access to my school. Its open until midnight and then opens again at 8 a.m. so I nap there a lot. There's this one room in the library that has couches and I nap there during the day when I have breaks in between classes. At night I try and stay in there as late as possible so I can get the maximum amount of warmth. So I'll leave there at midnight and go find a spot and then NY Health and Racquet club opens at six. So I really only have six hours outside, so its not unbearable.
http://www.yuobserver.com/features/homeless-by-choice-1.2736857?pagereq=1#.TwY9etRSScR -via Althouse | Photo of Yeshiva University by Flickr user gezellig-girl.com
Has it also occurred to him that the expense of all those memberships probably adds up to more than the cost of a room?