Many of you may have read my essay on Salon.com. I know so because a couple of you wrote me and expressed an interest in what the van looked like. Well, here she is. In her finer days - like back in 2009, she cleaned up well. But in two years she’s gone downhill. The defroster doesn’t work. The brakes need replacing and there’s about $800 worth of work that needs to be done to get her on the road again. It’s still a comfortable place for me - more so now because I have options. I have a choice between the van and an apartment. Before - I didn’t.

I noticed that some readers mistook my desire to quit my job and travel as a desire to quit my job and be homeless as an adventure. That was NEVER my intention and that is why what happened to me was such a shock. As an avid camper I had always traveled, lived like a free spirit, found work, camped and enjoyed life on the road as many RVer’s do. This time around I thought I’d do it again - only there was no work for me - at age 50. People don’t readily hire people living in crappy old vans - whatever the reason.

What most Americans don’t realize is that homelessness is really a poverty issue - not a housing issue. There are millions of people who live in $250,000 motor homes, tractor trailers, campers, trailers and RV’s and don’t consider themselves homeless and they’re not - why? Because of the financial divide. They have a choice. They have money. They have resources.

What is so odd/frustrating/angering about all this is that I was a full-time customer service rep for Camping World while I was living in my van and THEY considered me homeless! Here’s an industry that caters to van/truck/rv dwelling people, yet they considered my situation and me as homeless. Had I been living in a $100,000 RV and been “workcamping” my situation would have been different. But the fact was, a ratty metal van with a cot and a plywood floor was not, in the eyes of anyone, “Rving.”

If a $100,000 motorhome parks on Walmart property for a week no one bats an eye. If a 20-year camper with rusty bikes strapped to the bumper parks for more than a day the police are there asking why. Financial profiling - that’s why. Money has always been more important to society than people and poverty is the line that people use to distinguish between the homeless and the RV’er/camper/hippie.

Image matters. The car you drive, the clothes you wear, the way you look matter. It’s how we judge people in America - by their financial status - not their character.
We are a nation that trusts a credit score more than history of service, character and quality. Bernie Madoff was a crook - but people trusted him because he looked wealthy. Money is the thermostat we use to judge others. And in this recession many people - including doctors, lawyers, bankers, and the “well-heeled” are finding out that money matters. Your title or job skills don’t matter unless they are generating income. Your bank account is the bottom line of your value - not who you are as a person. People are a commodity - literally. Your birth certificate number? That’s your number on the NY Stock exchange. You are bought and sold. If you’re not earning, you have no value.

The difference living in a van this time around for me was poverty and choices. A person cannot afford to live in decent, safe housing anywhere in America on minimum wage. I opted for the van because as dangerous as it was, it was safer than a room in a crack hotel, or the projects. Like many people, including financial wizard Suze Orman, there’s a time when life gets tough and you do what you do to make ends meet. Orman lived in a van and worked before getting a job in a diner. Many musicians have done the same. Yet in the eyes of the federal government and any law enforcement officer however - that’s “homelessness” and you are called a vagrant and a criminal. What is considered “sleeping rough” in other countries is a crime in America. It is a CRIME to be poor here. Not only are you kicked when you’re down, sick, unable to find work or starving, you’re criminalized for your situation. I was working full-time, never begged - and yet was treated like a criminal simply because I was sleeping in my van until I could find an apartment, a better job or a way out of Denver.

When you’re a teen-ager, a college student, a couple on a camping lark, or anyone with financial options - you are indeed on “an adventure.” But when it gets cold, rainy, miserable and you can’t afford to eat, to get a hotel room, to even drive to a different part of town because you don’t have gas, or gas money - or you’re living in your vehicle because you don’t have other options, you’re homeless (not camping) because you’re poor.

If you don’t understand that - then you have never been poor or homeless.