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It's true that the "privileged" homeless are increasingly preferring street-squatting in vans these days. The trend's been growing.

The practice was already widespread across Europe for decades (the "caravans", but they might just be a continuity of the centuries old Romani subculture) yet have only been burgeoning in NA since the '00s. Some ppl realize you're often just better off in an old minibus or van parked at the right spots, as long as you can afford the license and insurances. "Stealth-camping" is how they call it, I think. Then if you're lucky after a while you may find some vacant lot that cops don't care about, or the backyard of some friendly people in exchange of a little help for some daily needs. Schools with gyms provide with accessible showers outside of busy hours. Public in libraries with a quiet place where to breathe and read Time and Being (lol). The thing is that you can't really be evicted out of a moving "house", which is a plus over the actual squats, that in NA seem to me, overall, like some intense paranoia trip (I hope I'm wrong) or just aren't the good life you'll get in Euro or SA squats. As long as you stay away from the brutally-policed orwellian nightmare cities/areas, you might be fine, but I haven't tried it a lot personally for now, tho that's my plan for later this year. As you're saying it'd be potentially easier to develop intermediary infrastructure that supports autonomy and solidarity among people living in the same way, like over the public utilities that aren't made freely-available to randos.