Our society frowns heavily on homeless people. "Bums, drugs addicts, alcoholics, dumb people who can't manage money, con-artists or lazy." Homeless shelters, community programs, friends and family will just help you get back into the system. But what if you don't want to be part of the system?
Gone are the days of traveling west, finding a homestead and building a life for you and your family. Farming, owning a retail store, fixing things. Every inch of our country is either privately owned or owned by a government agency. It's not illegal to be homeless, as long as you keep moving. If you stop on private property you are a vagrant who is either squatting, trespassing or loitering.
I once watched a group of homeless people sit in a park who chose to be homeless. They "didn't want to be part of a broken system."
"But you're wearing commercially made clothing paid for by someone else, using a commercially made toothbrush paid for by someone else, using commercially made toilet paper also paid for by someone else and eating food made and paid for by someone else." I said. "How is that NOT being part of the system?"
Choosing to live out of the system requires intelligence and resourcefulness. Living alone or in pairs, understanding sanitation and cleanliness, making money and buying your own food, clothing and necessities. Living that lifestyle because of life events is another story.
I've seen and experienced people going from relationship to relationship, family member to family member utilizing their kindness until the welcome wears out. The family members still have to pay for shelter, food and comforts. One can't "mooch" off those who are "in" the system, find those you can join that are not "in" the system.
Living in monasteries, work in exchange for room and board situations or finding a remote location are about it. If you're quiet, clean and don't start too many fires it can be done in smaller towns. Our system has been set up so no one gets out. While no one can force you to get a job, pay rent or buy their crap laws have been set up to make living homeless in the open almost impossible.
The only way to not be part of any system is to be dead and even then your ashes are now part of the earth or your body is taking up space in the ground someone had to pay for. Getting into the system to get out of the system is another way.
