Dana, 46, and Calista, 43, are two women from Florida who turned to the subreddit due to the possibility of eviction due to long-term unemployment.
Calista told WIRED that since losing her remote job in February 2024, she has applied for more than a thousand full-time positions, but is unable to pass interviews. She says she’s three months behind on rent. “I’ve never been this close to homelessness before. It’s a new experience,” she says. “Seeing other people’s stories, seeing things they’ve tried, just seeing that togetherness is so helpful.”
Dana, who has extensive work experience in software development, says she has been laid off four times since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, most recently in November, partly due to the AI boom. A single mother, she has discussed the possibility of living in a tent with her son, who recently graduated from high school. “There are so many people in similar situations,” Dana says of the stories she’s read online. “It’s honestly been the most helpful from a mental standpoint. I don’t feel so alone.” This, she says, contrasts with the stigma of poverty she feels in her hometown.
Politicians and commentators who portray the homeless population as mentally ill drug addicts — such as former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign in Los Angeles that portrayed him as a “zombie” high on “super meth” — say Margot Kushel, director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at UC San Francisco, who says they are distorting the issues.
“What we’re seeing in the number of people experiencing homelessness is not that there’s suddenly such an increase in people with mental health or substance abuse problems,” she says. “What we have is that the rents are very high.”
The brutal way homeless people are portrayed in the media “adds to the already heavy burden of homelessness,” Kushell continues, adding that groups like r/AlmostHomeless counter those narratives and make people feel seen.
Keith, 35, of South Carolina, says he attempted suicide in 2023 after a long battle with alcohol addiction. He tells how he survived jumping off a bridge but broke his back. After receiving a spinal fusion, he found it difficult to work or do any physical work due to his injury, and eventually became homeless. He began sleeping in the woods outside a hospital, where he says he regularly sought help. “I was just hanging out there, like, trying to get into the mental health department or something,” says Keith. “They’ll just turn you down.”
Later, Keith says, he secured a spot at a local Salvation Army shelter, got a job at a gas station, and moved into a studio apartment in January, staying sober and “creating something that resembled a normal life,” he says. Yet recently he has begun to worry that he is “watching years of progress disappear in slow motion.” A series of restaurant jobs, including dishwashing and preparation work, have proven impossible due to his back problem, and he has avoided further medical treatment out of fear of the cost. Now he is expecting to be evicted, and he is afraid of returning to a non-residential existence.
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