The ‘Almost Homeless’ Subreddit Is a Stark Glimpse at Soaring Wealth Inequality
The ‘Almost Homeless’ Subreddit Is a Stark Glimpse at Soaring Wealth Inequality
Reddit 上的“准无家可归者”板块：贫富差距日益扩大的严峻缩影
One Reddit user writes about living in their car and running out of money for gas. Another says they’re going to be evicted in 48 hours and will have to give up their dog. Many are waiting on federal disability insurance payments that seem as if they will never come. Somebody asks if Richmond, Virginia, has any decent homeless shelters. And everyone agrees that social welfare services have been stretched to the limit—where they still exist at all.
一位 Reddit 用户写道，他们住在车里，且油钱也快花光了。另一位用户说，他们将在 48 小时内被驱逐，不得不放弃自己的狗。许多人正在等待联邦残疾保险金，但这些钱似乎永远不会到账。有人询问弗吉尼亚州里士满是否有像样的收容所。大家一致认为，社会福利服务已经捉襟见肘——即便在这些服务尚存的地方也是如此。
These are the posts you’ll read on Reddit’s r/almosthomeless, where people trade tips and moral support as they face the prospect of living on the street. With a subscriber base that has swelled from 69,000 to 85,000 in the past year, according to third-party analytics tools, it’s one of various online communities for those pushed to the brink by financial struggles, whether due to a poor job market, illness, injury, addiction, or the need to escape domestic violence. Here, they can share their experiences without judgment and come away knowing how many others are in the same boat.
这些就是你在 Reddit 的 r/almosthomeless 板块上看到的帖子。在这里，人们在面临流落街头的困境时，互相交流建议并提供精神支持。根据第三方分析工具显示，该板块的订阅用户在过去一年中从 6.9 万激增至 8.5 万。对于那些因就业市场低迷、疾病、受伤、成瘾或为了逃离家庭暴力而被推向绝境的人来说，这是众多在线社区之一。在这里，他们可以毫无顾忌地分享自己的经历，并意识到还有许多人正处于同样的境地。
“The ground can give way beneath any of us,” reads the subreddit’s description. “Here, we build bridges, share maps, and steady each other’s steps.”
“我们任何人的脚下都可能随时塌陷，”该板块的简介中写道。“在这里，我们搭建桥梁，分享地图，并稳住彼此的脚步。”
At a moment when economic inequality is skyrocketing in the US (as Elon Musk, the richest man in history, at least temporarily became a trillionaire), it seems that such distressing and dangerous situations are more common than ever. As of 2025, the wealthiest 1 percent in the US control $55 trillion in assets, roughly equivalent to the net worth of the bottom 90 percent of Americans combined—with those households continuing to fall further behind.
在美国经济不平等现象急剧加剧的当下（史上最富有的人埃隆·马斯克至少暂时成为了万亿富翁），这种令人痛苦且危险的境况似乎比以往任何时候都更为普遍。截至 2025 年，美国最富有的 1% 人口控制着 55 万亿美元的资产，这大致相当于美国底层 90% 人口的总净资产——而这些家庭的处境还在进一步恶化。
Shaun, 41, tells WIRED that he’s currently “cowboy camping,” or sleeping in the open, in Payson, Arizona. He says that he completed a detox program there but was involuntarily discharged from a sober residency. He visits r/almosthomeless because it helps to put his difficulties in perspective. “Seeing there are people that have it harder than me allows me to be grateful for the help I do receive,” he says. “I can’t believe the amount of people in similar circumstances. It breaks my heart.” (Shaun, like everyone interviewed for this article, agreed to be identified by their first name while withholding their last name so as not to preclude future employment prospects.)
41 岁的肖恩（Shaun）告诉《连线》（WIRED），他目前在亚利桑那州的佩森（Payson）进行“牛仔露营”，也就是露天睡觉。他说他在那里完成了戒毒项目，但被强制要求离开戒毒康复中心。他访问 r/almosthomeless 是因为这能让他客观看待自己的困境。“看到有人比我过得更艰难，让我对自己所得到的帮助心存感激，”他说。“我无法相信有这么多人处于相似的境地。这让我心碎。”（与本文采访的所有人一样，肖恩同意仅使用名字，隐去姓氏，以免影响未来的就业前景。）
While users of the subreddit are not permitted to make financial requests or share crowdfunding links, moderators encourage them to share actionable solutions and focus on what they can do to survive. Based on where an individual is, they may be pointed toward local resources or warned to avoid certain areas.
虽然该板块的用户不允许提出经济请求或分享众筹链接，但版主鼓励他们分享可行的解决方案，并专注于如何生存。根据个人所在的位置，他们可能会被引导至当地资源，或被警告避开某些区域。
Scotty, 39, lives in a decommissioned ambulance he got from a friend who was formerly homeless. He uses it to travel around New England, occasionally picking up seasonal work on farms. He says that he fled an abusive long-term relationship in 2024 with almost nothing, then spent weeks unable to claim a bed in a domestic violence shelter. “Eventually I gave up and figured it out myself,” he explains. Scotty says that the volume of activity on r/almosthomeless—14,000 visitors and 700 posts a week—matches the reality of homelessness as he sees it from day to day. “It wasn’t this common a year ago,” he says, noting that he sees more people living in their cars these days. The forum, Scotty says, helps members realize that losing housing is not a result of something “intrinsically wrong” with them.
39 岁的斯科蒂（Scotty）住在一辆退役的救护车里，这是他从一位曾经无家可归的朋友那里得到的。他开着这辆车在新英格兰地区旅行，偶尔在农场打些季节性零工。他说，他在 2024 年几乎一无所有地逃离了一段充满虐待的长期关系，随后花了数周时间却无法在家庭暴力收容所申请到一个床位。“最终我放弃了，只能自己想办法，”他解释道。斯科蒂说，r/almosthomeless 上的活跃度——每周 1.4 万名访客和 700 个帖子——与他每天所见的无家可归现实相符。“一年前还没这么普遍，”他说，并指出他现在看到更多人住在车里。斯科蒂认为，这个论坛帮助成员们意识到，失去住房并不是因为他们自身存在“本质上的错误”。
Dana, 46, and Calista, 43, are two women in Florida who turned to the subreddit as they reckoned with the possibility of being evicted due to prolonged unemployment. Calista tells WIRED that she has applied to more than a thousand full-time positions since losing her remote job in February 2024 but can’t seem to land an interview. She says she’s three months behind on rent. “I’ve never been close to homelessness like this before. It’s a new experience,” she says. “It’s very helpful to see the stories from other people, see the things they’ve tried, just that solidarity.”
46 岁的达娜（Dana）和 43 岁的卡莉斯塔（Calista）是佛罗里达州的两名女性，她们在面临因长期失业而被驱逐的可能性时，转向了这个板块。卡莉斯塔告诉《连线》，自 2024 年 2 月失去远程工作以来，她已经申请了 1000 多个全职职位，但似乎连面试机会都拿不到。她说她已经拖欠了三个月的房租。“我以前从未像现在这样接近无家可归。这是一种全新的体验，”她说。“看到其他人的故事，看到他们尝试过的方法，感受到那种团结，真的非常有帮助。”
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, in part 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. “So many people are in similar situations,” Dana says of the stories she’s read online. “It’s honestly been the most helpful from a mental perspective. I don’t feel so alone.” This is contrary, she says, to the stigmatization of poverty that she feels in her own city.
达娜在软件开发领域拥有丰富的工作经验，她说自新冠疫情开始以来，她已经被裁员四次，最近一次是在 11 月，部分原因是人工智能的兴起。作为一名单身母亲，她已经和刚高中毕业的儿子讨论过住帐篷的可能性。“有这么多人处于相似的境地，”达娜在谈到她在网上读到的故事时说。“从心理层面来看，这确实是最有帮助的。我感觉不再那么孤单了。”她说，这与她在自己城市所感受到的对贫困的污名化形成了鲜明对比。
Politicians and commentators who demonize the homeless population as mentally ill drug addicts—such as former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who ran a failed mayoral campaign in Los Angeles that characterized them as “zombies” on “super meth”—are distorting the issues at play, says Margot Kushel, director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at UC San Francisco. “What we’re seeing in the numbers of people experiencing homelessness isn’t that we suddenly have this increase in people with mental health or substance use problems,” she says. “What we have is that the rent is too damn high.”
加州大学旧金山分校贝尼奥夫无家可归与住房倡议中心主任玛戈·库舍尔（Margot Kushel）表示，那些将无家可归者妖魔化为患有精神疾病的吸毒者的政客和评论员——例如前真人秀明星斯宾塞·普拉特（Spencer Pratt），他在洛杉矶市长竞选中失败，曾将无家可归者描述为吸食“超级冰毒”的“僵尸”——正在歪曲问题的本质。“我们从无家可归者人数中看到的，并不是患有精神健康或药物滥用问题的人数突然增加，”她说。“我们面临的问题是，房租实在太高了。”
The cruel ways unhoused people are depicted in the media add “to the already very heavy burden of homelessness,” Kushel continues, with groups like r/almosthomeless countering those narratives and making people feel seen.
库舍尔继续说道，媒体对无家可归者残酷的描绘“加重了无家可归者本已沉重的负担”，而像 r/almosthomeless 这样的群体正在反驳这些叙事，并让人们感到自己被看见了。
Keith, 35, in South Carolina, says he attempted suicide in 2023 after a long battle with alcoholism. He recounts how he survived jumping off a bridge but broke his back. After he received a spinal fusion, he found it difficult to work or do much of anything physical because of his injury, and finally he wound up homeless. He took to sleeping in the woods outside a hospital where he says he regularly sought assistance. “I was just staying there, like trying to get into the mental health department or something like that,” Keith says. “They would…”
南卡罗来纳州 35 岁的基思（Keith）说，他在长期与酗酒作斗争后，于 2023 年尝试自杀。他讲述了自己跳桥幸存但背部骨折的经历。在接受脊柱融合手术后，由于伤势，他发现很难工作或进行体力活动，最终变得无家可归。他开始睡在一家医院外的树林里，他说他经常在那里寻求帮助。“我就待在那里，试图进入心理健康部门之类的地方，”基思说。“他们会……”