Different Ways to Live

My family had always lived in a house, although sometimes college students in our family would rent apartments. We lived very traditionally and intergenerationally, and that is what seemed normal to us. Our home lives changed so much as our house was sold.

In January 2025, my two grown children and I started living in hotels. We lived in an Extended Stay America and then in the Estancia Hotel in Miami, Florida. My daughter was seventeen years old and my son was thirty years old. It was much easier to live in a hotel than it had been to live in five bedroom, three bathroom house with a front yard and a back yard and an outside shed. The house we had lived in was over fifty years old and needed so much constant cleaning and work done to it. By contrast, I loved the convenience of life in a modern hotel with kitchen amenities, such as a refrigerator, microwave and stove. Extended Stay America also had an onsite laundry.

Under the Overpass

After months at Extended Stay America, our financial resources were getting depleted. We still had clothing, medicine and stored food enough for months to come, though. Ultimately, the last day of our time at Extended Stay arrived, and after a sojourn at Estancia Hotel, which had cheaper rates, we had no more paid options for housing. We moved our personal items under a nearby overpass that was positioned well back from the street. It seemed quiet and we hoped our things would stay dry during Florida rains. It was all we could manage at the time.

Tent Camping

We bought two tents at Walmart in late summer of that same year. We set them up under the overpass, near a canal so that we would have a water source. Our items stayed dry between the overpass and the tents during the many rains that summer. There were free- ranging hens and roosters as well as our dog to keep us company. There was a man named Cesar who lived there and who knew how to cook in a cast- iron pot over an open flame, and he often cooked our rice, vegetables and lentils for us. There was also a fisherman there as well, and his name was Ariel and he shared his fish with us.

SUV

I was given a gold-colored Chevrolet Traverse by a relative in December, and put most of my personal belongings inside it. It seemed that I didn’t have to worry about losing our things or them being destroyed anymore. I began living out of the SUV, and continued doing that for at least seven months. My things stayed dry in the SUV, and I would often sleep in it. SUVs are not ideal for living in, but it is possible. I would often wake up with my legs numb from being cramped. We had an ice cooler for drinks and mostly ate already-prepared food out of packages that we kept in food bags, or else we ate fast food. Some of our food sources were convenience and grocery stores, fast food chains and wild- harvested berries from the local bushes and mangos that had fallen from the trees as well.

The SUV had two sun roofs, which made life more interesting. It was possible to recline in the drivers’ seat and watch the birds flying from bough to bough in the branches of the overhead trees. The sunroof also added necessary extra ventilation, and helped us air the vehicle out, and stay cool.

There seem to be so many answers to housing needs. We have lived in unusual housing solutions for nearly a year and a half. There are as many possibilities as one can even imagine. Have you ever lived in creative housing?