Nov 26

Free Clothing in West Hollywood

Annual Free Clothing Give-Away Sunday December 6, 2015

8:00 a.m. –  12:00 noon

Rain or Shine

National Council of Jewish Women Parking Lot

543 N. Fairfax Avenie

(1 block south of Melrose at Clinton)

Los Angeles, CA 90036

Thousands of pieces of clothing – all free

No Suitcases, Backpacks or Bags Allowed

They will provide bags for you.

For More Information 323-651-2930

Free Clothing

Nov 18

Create Overnight Parking Lots Now!

City of Los Angeles Should Act Quickly To Provide Overnight Parking For Folks Living in Vehicles (FLIVS)

Now that the City of Los Angeles is moving forward to tackle the massive issues of homelessness, they could do one thing quickly that does not cost a lot of money and would go a long way to help out those living in their vehicles.  Here are a few suggestions from the Gypsy Cool Council:

1.  Find parking lots where FLIVS (Folks Living In Vehicles) can park safely overnight

2.  The lots should have some kind of bathroom facilities, at least porta-potties.

3.  Rules and hours clearly posted.  Suggest start at 6pm with all FLIVS to be out of the lot by 9:00am.

4.  No drinking or illegal drug use allowed.  No loud or bad-behavior will be tolerated.

5.  Security to be on site for the protection of the vehicle’s occupants.

6.  This is to be a place of refuge, not a place for police to troll the lot to issue citations for minor vehicle violations, like expired license tags.  These people need help of all kinds.  They do not need to have their situation made worse by cops harassing them over minor vehicle issues.

7.  Possibly social service folks could at times be on hand to provide whatever services are possible.

8.  Information should be made available about local places to get free or low-cost food.

The City could contact other cities who have run such overnight lots to learn from them about the issues that have surfaced, like trash and other problems.  San Diego and Santa Barbara have run these types of facilities in the past.

Another thing that could be immediately done is to revise the “No Overnight Parking” signs that the Department of Public Works has put up all over town.  An example would be Riverside Drive, south of Griffith Park, where FLIVS and especially RVs used to park. The City has posted “No Parking from 2am – 5am” signs, eliminating the street for overnight FLIVS.  These signs should be taken down.  The street can be controlled from permanent camping by simply having 2 hour parking from 9:am to 6pm signs put up.  It is really cruel and discriminating to put up signs all over the city to keep poor folks, visitors, and vacationers from parking in those areas at night.  The signs should start coming down now.

Posted by Uncle Paulie

If you have comments on this issue send to gypsycool@live.com

Nov 18

Los Angeles Homeless Capitol of America

City of Los Angeles To Appoint  “Czar” To Coordinate All City Activities for Homeless

On November 17, 2015 the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution to create a position to oversee all the City’s activities and departments dealing with the massive homeless problem. The resolution passed unanimously.

Homeless Motion

As the American economy continues to collapse for the poor and middle class, more and more folks are forced into the streets or to living in their vehicles.  Rents in major cities like Los Angeles continue to escalate, leading to an increase in folks with no hope of even getting a cheap apartment, much less a house.  Meanwhile, the City continues to defy logic by allowing thousands of luxury apartments to be constructed and thousands of houses to be “mansionized”.  If there really is a drought, then why is the City promoting the wild out-of-control construction of thousands of more housing units for the wealthy?

This is America.  We Don’t Need a “Czar”

Many questions remain unanswered.  The City claims that new Federal regulations from the various  bureaucracies have to be addressed by new coordinating efforts of the various City departments dealing with homeless issues.  No one has yet been named as the new “Czar” of the homeless.  The term itself is somewhat demeaning, it conjures up references to a long-ago time when Russia was ruled by a Czar, an absolute autocrat eventually toppled by a popular revolution that led to the creation of the Soviet Empire. This is America.  We don’t need a “Czar” – which is language actually used in the Council’s official motion.  A Department Director would be fine.

Nov 01

Comment and Review of Gypsies of the New Millenium

Old Gypsy Wagon

Old Gypsy Wagon

A straightforward, no-nonsense manifesto on living the nomadic underground life. Clearly maps out the current insanity of today’s world situation while offering invaluable tips on food, health, security, money, van living, and dealing with cops. Gets you well on your way to dropping out of this oppressive system, then lists over 1,300 additional books where you can find everything else you need to help weather these uncertain and chaotic times.

Ed Murray

Oct 28

How To Live in Your Van and Survive

New Edition of Famous Underground Handbook Now Available

IMG_3165

A straightforward, no-nonsense manifesto on living the nomadic underground life. Clearly maps out the current insanity of today’s world situation while offering invaluable tips on food, health, security, money, van living, and dealing with cops. Gets you well on your way to dropping out of this oppressive system, then lists over 1,300 additional books where you can find everything else you need to help weather these uncertain and chaotic times.

This handbook covers everything you need to know to live on the edge and survive.  The author, Skip Freedman has lived the nomadic life in his van for over 10 years.  He knows every angle of how to survive in these urban mini-police states.  And by the way, a vast preponderance of folks who live nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles have jobs and work when they need to.  As we have said on this website, if you have an indication that you are going to lose your job and not be able to pay your rent or house payment, do not wait for the ax to fall.  Do yourself a favor and prepare now.  Get a van, RV, or other suitable vehicle now, and trick it out.  You will be glad you did.

There are thousands of folks in the Los Angeles area who are living nomadic lifestyles.  Most of us work, but we were tanked by the economic collapse that started in 2000 that wiped out the good factory jobs, literally exporting them overseas.  It meant that many of us had to get lower paying jobs, and we soon found that after paying rent and bills we were underwater financially.  The solution was to cut living expenses:  move out of the expensive apartment, get a storage unit, join a health club for showers, and live in a vehicle. There are many articles on gypsycool.com about how to do this, with many more coming. We still work for a living, but have money to spend on what we want, not give it to some landlord for an overpriced roof over our heads.

I wish that everyone could get Skip’s book and read it.  The print is small to save printing costs, but the information is the best around.  As an added bonus, Skip spend several years compiling a fantastic bibliography of books on the subject that he has written about.  You can get most of these at your library, even if the library has to order them for you.  There is also youtube.com, which has thousands of great videos on the subject of van, nomadic, or semi-nomadic living.

Order this book today.  It is not available anywhere else, at least for a while.  That’s right, this website is the ONLY place you can get the book. At this time it is not on amazon.com or any other place, meaning that the price to you is a low direct price from the publisher and author.  Amazon wants as much as 60% of the price from small publishers.  That means if it does get to amazon that the price will be $20-$40..00

Where to get the book:.

The book is 8 1/2 X 11 size with a comb binding so it will lay flat or open fully by folding the pages around.  The book is available in the United States through www.Biblio.com for $15.00.

Aug 12

Bernie Sanders in Los Angeles

Bern Baby Bern!  Bernie Sanders Packs L.A.’s Sports Arena

Bernie Sanders packs the L.A. Sports Arena

Bernie Sanders packs the L.A. Sports Arena

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders rolled into Los Angeles on Monday, August 10, 2015.  He had a message for the 1 percent who owns most of the wealth in the United States:  Things are about to change.  He is not going to tolerate millions of homeless folks and millions of food deprived children in this country while a few uber rich families have amassed billions, like the Walmart family that has as much wealth as the bottom 40%.  Click on the box below to listen to some clips from this event.