Van Life

Around the corner from my home one can often find a tan minivan. Which, at least for right now, is someone else's home.

I live in the suburbs of Seattle, where homelessness isn't as apparent as it is in the city proper. I've come across panhandlers, outside of stores or at the expressway off-ramps, but the sprawling clusters of tents that one encounters in the city are few and far between, and the ramshackle half-tent, half-improvised structures that one sometimes finds next to (or on) Seattle's sidewalks are largely absent.

But one does find the occasional car, van or RV that's been pressed into service as a substitute home. My previous home was in an apartment complex, and lived-in vehicles tended to draw a resident's attention after a few days, which lead to someone showing up and telling them to move on. I suspect that not much thought was given to where they were going to end up.

But here, the van sits on a public street in a greenbelt, the windows covered from the inside for whatever privacy that affords. Often the driver's side window will be open, presumably for ventilation; even out of direct sunlight, I suppose it would become stuffy otherwise. It's not always there; sometimes, the spots where it usually parks (one to either side of the street) will be empty. But it will always have returned by the next time I pass that way, so I presume that these are short trips for food, gasoline and/or hygiene.

Not surprisingly, given that this is the suburbs, there are no services for the homeless anywhere nearby; at least not that I'm aware of. And the one place that I've seen host the Tent City is a couple miles away or so. I wonder if they have any means of support outside of whatever savings they have left.

And maybe that's the problem. I've done things to assist the homeless population of the area before, but it's always been at some level of scale - taking lunches to encampments or other places where the homeless congregate or loading up my car with items and hauling them over to wherever the Tent City happens to be that weekend. But when it comes to helping individuals, it tends not to occur to me unless I encounter them directly over and over. I suspect that they're working to stay under everyone's proverbial radar, but since they're on mine, perhaps I should treat them as more than a curiosity.