One Woman's Fight to Rejoin the Middle Class

 Found this interesting article on yahoo which made good reading. Hope this does not happen in Malaysia.


A few months after losing her administrative job in the summer of 2008, 23-year-old Brianna Karp got rid of her furniture, a beloved piano, and most of her books so she could move back in with her parents. When that didn't work out, she moved into an old trailer a relative had left her, settling into an informal homeless community in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Brea, Calif. By the summer of 2009, she was living without electricity, regular showers, home-cooked food, and most basic conveniences.
Karp held tight to her laptop, however, and began writing a blog about her experiences. That generated attention that helped her land a part-time magazine internship, and eventually ink a book deal. Although her book, "The Girl's Guide to Homelessness," was recently published, Karp still lives in a dilapidated shed that the state of California considers not fit for human habitation. I spoke with her recently about her experiences. Excerpts:
What happened?
I lost my job in 2008. I kept up my rent payments with temp work, which lasted for a couple of months, and I had a few thousand in savings. But I was basically living from paycheck to paycheck. I moved in with my parents, and that was not a good idea. I had to get out. I'm not connected to my parents any more. I ended up living in a trailer in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I had inherited it from a relative who committed suicide earlier that year.I have a couple of close friends, but they were all living with their parents or with roommates and wouldn't have been able to put me up. You think you have that to fall back on, but not really.
That's obviously an abrupt change. How did you adjust?
You go into survival mode. Becoming homeless is not the kind of thing people foresee happening to them. I didn't think I'd stay homeless for that long. I'd go to Starbucks with my laptop and send out hundreds of emails and job applications. I really crave stability. A lot of people are nomads, but I don't like moving. It gets depressing very fast when you're homeless.

Courtesy: Brianna Karp

What did you miss the most?
My old piano. I missed playing piano. Playing with my dog in the back yard. I had to board my dog. He's a Neopolitan mastiff. He's really big. I kept him for one month, until it got hot. I tried boarding him at a kennel, but then I put out a tweet asking, anybody want to board a dog? I found somebody out in the boonies within 36 hours.
I miss stability. Electricity -- clicking on a light switch and staying up late at night cooking or reading. I'm sick of eating crappy food. Your health takes a beating. I miss having my bed. I've been sleeping on a couch or on the floor for a really long time.
Anything you didn't miss?
Furniture. You can always find more. And it's easy to get rid of. It was a lot harder to give up books and movies. The bigger stuff, it's easier to cut the cord. When you're in survival mode, you slash everything.
How'd your blog get started?
A friend suggested I write a blog and promote it on Twitter. I said, "I still don't get Twitter." I sent out one tweet and said to my friend, "There, are you happy?" Then I started getting followers. It turns out there are a lot of homeless people online. Even rough sleepers have laptops, because nothing is more valuable than keeping you connected to the outside world.
Read the full story here.http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112801/fight-to-rejoin-middle-class-usnews