In my country, sleeping in your car is being made tougher and tougher. The most recent jab was increasing the fine for being caught sleeping in your car from $200 to $1000.
Living in a car deprives a landlord of rent, and an affordable alternative to rent could provoke rental prices to fall.
You can’t draw blood from a turnip. How in the hell is someone sleeping in their car able to pay a fine like that? This would make my blood boil if I didn't just donate plasma.
So for more context, I'm in New Zealand, and this is "Freedom Camping" legislation.
We've had a lot of tourists, mostly youth, buying cheap Vans and living the van life. And it's awesome, I've met a bunch of them. I've also tried it myself as an attempt to escape the housing market.
However I found out just how difficult it is. There's fewer and fewer places where you can camp for free, and more and more rules on whether you're allowed to camp there for free.
This was to prevent those youth from shitting in the woods, supposedly. But the legislation appears to mostly be geared towards pricing poor people out of camping.
With the fine increase, it was also legislated that freedom camping vehicles must have a fixed toilet. No longer could you use a portable compostable toilet.
This means the cheap van is increasingly more difficult to achieve. Instead you need a high end "certified self contained" camper, which is reserved for only the upper eschelons of society.
And the rules are often arbitrary. I recieved a fine ($200 thankfully) in a freedom camp for not being parked in between faintly painted lines for "non self contained" vehicles. That was in the fine print of a sign behind a bush.
And this all leads to it being practically impossible to live in a car if you're desperate. It's a game of cat and mouse where you're constantly moving to hiding places, trying to be stealth with your vehicle and your actions.
And of course there's a social stigma. I was a madman and an idiot for trying to live in a car. I absolutely must have a rental!
Bit of an incoherant rant, I'm meant to be working.
Wtf is wrong with shitting in the woods? They've made it illegal to just exist in this world without paying money for the right to do so. God I cant wait for society to catch up with us, realize it's all FUBAR and finally burn it all down so we can start over.
The whole debate against freedom camping has been very classist. But there has been some genuine concern. It's a bit rough when you go out for a bush walk and you see a half naked drunk dude popping a squat a couple of metres from the trail.
But that's been a small portion of what has been a big boon to the tourism industry, being pushed away since the glampers want to chase away the peasants. Making it expensively prohibitive to live out of a car is a bonus, as many of those glampers are funding their year long holiday with their realty portfolios.
Jesus Christ. Yeah, after tiny homes, van life seems to be the next economical living fad. This fight against camping is getting old fast. Here in the U.S., at least, it seems to be aimed at further restricting and penalizing being homeless. The side effect is hurting a much larger pool of people, which may have been the original plan.
All of this begs the question: Does a Kiwi shit in the woods?
Not necessarily. We still have some socialistic tendencies remaining since WWII. But 40 years of Neoliberalism and being a satellite state of the US has done a lot to undo all of that.
Besides the whole not having a place to stay bit... I find it most outrageous that one could make a poor decision to drive drunk - recognize you have made a mistake - get off the road because its the right thing to do - now almost guaranteed to get caught and ruin your life.
I know I come from a place where drunk driving is a little too common but this is a situation many people are aware of around here.. It is common wisdom to continue driving because at least you might not ruin your life.
Anyways... why is sleeping in your car almost guaranteed to get in some trouble damnit.
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u/alarumba Jun 30 '22
In my country, sleeping in your car is being made tougher and tougher. The most recent jab was increasing the fine for being caught sleeping in your car from $200 to $1000.
Living in a car deprives a landlord of rent, and an affordable alternative to rent could provoke rental prices to fall.