He is right. When covid hit my husband and I literally lost everything. We ended up in a tent homeless. We weren't on drugs. Just got knocked down by covid. That changed the way I look at things. We had time fight like hell to get back up, but we did. If it wasn't for my mother in law we would never have been able to get back on our feet.

I got to Florida in '94. I had a pickup truck, no money but good credit still. I worked every day at the labor pool. I got an apartment, a studio, for 365 a month. I found a good construction company to work for and they hired me on. I stayed there for over 20 years. I am writing this on a computer in my paid off house. Three things saved me. 1) low rent 2) budgeting software 3) good credit. I drank a 12 pack a day and smoked over 2 packs a day until I checked my future with the budgeting software. Quit smoking, bought the house with a mortgage payment equal to my rent. It had gone up to about 600 a month by then. Then i had to quit drinking so my medicines would work. What I know was the thing that saved me was affordable rent and a budget. I never took government assistance but tried to make it on my own and it paid off. The government needs to build affordable housing and the tenants need to respect the place they live.

After robert started talking it immediately made me emotional. I used to be homeless. In south Florida. Just last night i found a homeless guy begging for food outside a taco bell. I gave him some food and i drove home crying because i remember exactly what hes going through. I hope robert is given another chance like i was.

Im homeless, i live in a van in florida, i dont look homeless but ive been doing this for years. I dont drink or use drugs. I stay to myself and away from other homeless.

He is incredibly thoughtful and intuitive, and understands both the good, and the twisted nature of human beings, and the world were living in. I remember being asked for a dollar or a cigarette by a homeless man in Orlando, I said that I was so sorry and I had neither. I felt particularly guilty like I owed him my kindness. And he looked me in the eyes and said “son, never apologize to someone like me, I am not here because of people like you, you understand that right?” and that seared a hard memory into my brain forever. I’ll never forget that.

Anyone that says living in a tent as a homeless person is lazy has never been homeless.

I had a pretty great life going for me....I was a teacher, had a home built for myself with a pool, I had a lot of friends, I loved life. Then a chronic illness hit me and hit me hard. I became disabled. If it were not for my parents, I would not have survived and I'd have been homeless. Most people are one illness away from homeless.

I used to volunteer in a homeless shelter in a major city. Most of our clients were not criminals or drug addicts, just folks that had large healthcare bills, lost their job, etc.

Great video. I work in the Tampa area and see the homeless people everywhere. I rarely have cash on me, but always have something to drink. I always offer them something to drink and have never been turned down. It’s 90 degrees or more from now until the end of September, so you know their always thirsty. I’ve treated everyone of them with respect and humility.

I was homeless when I met my husband. Thank God for putting him in my life. When you are homeless, you cannot prepare for a job interview. I was out there for 6 years. I now live in a home that we own and it's all due to God and my husband. He loved me unconditionally and I am blessed. We've been together for 23 years now.

Thanks for the report dude.. im from chicago and i moved to broward 2 years ago... bro i never seen so many homeless ppl.. and its sad.. some on drugs .. they dont wanna get a job or nun.. i wake up everyday struggling to ride to sunrise everyday to make ends meat.. so as u say we are one check away from being homeless... BE HUMBLE

I had a friend, here in Columbus Georgia, who said he would rather be homeless in Orlando Florida than live in Columbus. His parents helped him with bus fare and off he went. Haven't heard from him since.

When that guy said the judge deeded 20 acres to the homeless, built a wall and a fence, and the only ones who can go on the land beside the homeless are the Sheriff and the Judge, he described a Correctional facility.

It’s funny that the homeless are telling you you can’t film them. They don’t “want to be seen” by the public. YOU’RE LITERALLY LIVING IN PUBLIC SPACE! 😂😂😂

I have been homeless for 26 years. I used to live under US 275 southbound in st.petersburg. l totally agree with Robert. The homeless people are a true brotherhood. We stick together as one. Show us respect

One wrong turn, and that could be any of us. God bless him.

Love that guy. He is being remotely judged by what he owns. According to him, he could have a rental, IF, IF, IF...rents were like 2018,20,21. Tampa rent is seriously as much as L.A. and NYC where I lived for 25 years.

You do good work bro. Showing the REAL parts of Florida, I love my state. This is my home where I was raised, but tourists and outsiders think were all “we live where you vacation” and it’s all perfect and Disney and amazing places but in reality this is Florida. I love it here, but we have a lot of work to do in this state.

He's bitching about society keeping him down, then he says he chooses to live this way!? Come on, which is it!? 🤔🥴

Thank you. Always good to hear different perspectives. Problems don’t get solved without that.

God Bless you Jose and Katie for making aware the homeless conditions in Fla.

Just some thoughts on the person you interviewed, He says he enjoys being homeless, he says there is no difference between humans, I would argue different. He chooses to be homeless and is ok with it? I heard a lot of double talk. I think he's on drugs and needs help. I'm wishing him the best.

You do an absolutely amazing job covering this. This guy speaks a plethora of truths The American people need to see this and know that there is a new America out there that is growing larger and larger every day. How in the world do we address this problem? In the land of multi-billionaires this is just sick. What kind of a country is this? Thanks - and please be careful out there…

What is REALLY sad he has a 9 year old daughter and is ***NOT*** paying child support. The child has to eat and needs a stable home environment I do not understand why he is NOT paying child support. He should be working if anything just to make child support payments. It's HIS kid. Deadbeat dads should be in jail.

Great video.... Thank you

I’m addicted to having a roof over my head.

Gotta visit "The compound" in Palmbay (Brevard county) i spent 5 yrs in that city and the amount of homeless youd see in any section of town was staggering.

Great job Jose. Your getting better every video love this content. ❤I can’t wait till you reach 100,000 :) you deserve it. Happy to have been here since the start.

Daughter is well taken care of...certainly not by him.

PUTS YOUR TRASH IN BAGS & PLACE IT ON THE ROAD

I found your channel yesterday & have now subscribed. Many thanks from Portsmouth, England. I was homeless when 16/7 yr old. Was scary as fuck. I'm 42 now and been through addiction, gang rxpes, beatings, pissed on. Had my baby kicked outta me & that was all in less than a year. Omg this triggered me. Gonna go have a cry now or as we say in Pompey, a squiny 😢

Comin through. Awesome video. Be careful out there.

Just because you're poor or homeless doesn't mean you can't clean up your shit!.

I live here in florida and 100% drive by this everyday, I loved the words this man said. Awareness needs to be spread!

I'll never understand the mentality of, "I lost my job, and now there's nothing else I can do."

Good journalism my boy!

Jose, an outstanding video! Be careful out there.

There is a utopia as he describes it is called Slab City that's where they go when the chips are down...

Your last comment nailed it. I spent years living in my van homeless working more than full time and still , if you look homeless you get treated like a sub human who has no respect or right to be on the planet. So the reason you get that answer first is due to the fact we get run off from everywhere and treated poorly by so many it becomes the biggest problem on top of all the impossible challenges the hard part is people treating you like sh*t. Many of you haters will join the ranks one day, so be kind !

look at all those needles.. water crystal clear, you could drink that water. lol

Good informative video 👍

His solution of burning garbage omg Indiana my wife because neighbors burning garbage sent her to the er hundreds of times Then we left homeless to relocate to Florida where it’s illegal thankfully to burn garbage. So tell them your burning garbage is harmful to people Don’t burn garbage Bury it Be safe Thanks for the exposure of this mega problem

The man with mask really touched me…my family owned garbage business & it is hard work…Sir so true about GOD…nobody perfect but HIM…May the good Lord Bless you & keep you…TY for your compassion & education Southern Life🙌🙏❤️🇺🇸

This is real journalism. Truly objective. In depth interviews and objective reporting . No nonsense. I commend you.

Keep up the good work brother 👍😃

The end of this video was crazy!!!!! Damn Jose your doing dangerous journalism but I love it!!

I used to live in Titusville, pre-pandemic, and the homeless situation was bad ad it was. Go to Cocoa Beach and you'd often see people hanging around, mostly chill though. Homelessness sure has skyrocketed since the pandemic. I now live in Pensacola we have the same issue.

"They're trying to close down Disney". What?

What Robert is saying is true. When I was homeless I would say "All I want is to be left alone". After being homeless the 2nd time I had no resources to speak of and the VA helped me get back on my feet. People think the VA does nothing to help, I disagree. They have reasonable rules and most just don't want to follow them. I use to dig a hole to do my business and throw dirt on it until full, then dig another hole. And yes it's a mf being homeless in Florida. Peace

The guy ain't lying. I don't live in a " community". Rather be alone. Living in Florida for 11 months, I've learned a lot about life. People here are rich & only think about GREED. Floridas downfall. IDC I'd rather be left alone anyways. Love your videos... Let's me know I'm not alone😢

The homeless people/situation just seems to get worse and worse. Now with the population explosion we are having in Florida, there is nowhere for a person to go. It is really sickening to see people who are just trying to make it.

Having 3 kids, making ends meet everyday, it's practically impossible to think about who's rich & who's poor.

I just want to know one thing. Why are they as messy as crap? Yes, I was homeless once and was nothing like this. In fact, the opposite, I wanted to clean up after myself, so I was no bother to people who let me use their restroom or bathroom to clean up a little. And I didn't want to leave a trace of myself for people to complain.

"I'm having a freakin heat stroke. Where's my phone?" Really? Are you that addicted to your phone even a heat stroke can't make you put it down and grab some water?! As to the Top Golf lights, NO they didn't want to close it down because the lights were too bright. The lights were blinding to drivers on i75.

im a single father with two kids. i been off and on homeless for alot of 15 years. ive been homeless with kids many times. we've slept in our vehicle. motels, stayed with a couple people, lived two years in a local homeless shelter. ive worked for the same job for 7 years. work 56 hours a week. and still off and on have become homeless. never lived in a tent in the woods. yet.. i dont make a living wage. i work here because its the only thing that i could find which is close to what i know.. i could be making alot more money and be fine. but my problem is they refuse to give me a drivers license. and that ended my career of 17 years of towing and repossession. i have no DUI's, no accidents, one speeding ticket... every thing else on my record is driving on a suspended. i had a clean license in florida. and i had been living here for a decade. when i went to renew my license they said i couldnt. no explanation. come to find out. massachusetts suspended my license and it affected my license here.. i hadnt lived in mass in 10 years i dont know how they can suspend something i turned in and didnt even have. they wont even give me a hardship. being a single father with two kids and having bills to pay and needing a roof to live under its very hard and devastating especially for my kids who deserve more. so i owe child support to my ex and the state of mass.. she doesnt want child support and never has. the state took it upon themselves to go after it. so i havnt had a license since 2016. sorry for the long story, but. that leads me to this. im betting most of the homeless population dont have a license either. for whatever reason. there are no programs out there that help you with this. if there was there would be less homeless. they need a second chance law. they need to help people who are fully capable of working, like myself. i could get paid alot better and not have to struggle as much if i could drive. they need to help these people and it will cost them zero, not a dime to do it. give people who deserve it a clean driving slate. give them a license. and let them help themselves get out of homelessness. did you know that in the state of florida, they will give a hardship license to someone that has DUI"S but refuse to give it to someone that owes child support. so they are putting dangerous people back on the road but wont help a father get a job and pay his child support and let him have a life.. im sorry about this long ass story but as you can see it hits a nerve with me.. especially since the last year when we were able to leave the homeless shelter because i worked and saved and got into a house and now im going to lose it because of driving on a suspended charge and being put into jail for 15 days.. and now im two weeks behind on everything and im being told i have to leave the house.. and go back to being homeless.. this system is wrong and puts people behind instead of helping them

Thank you for making these videos, because it’s important as a country we acknowledge these people. They are just normal people in not normal situations. It could be any of us . Empathy and compassion is a problem with Americans , greed has over run this country. It’s time to get back to basics.

Robert says he is an average person like the rest of us. He's not!... 1) He blames all of his problems on society instead of himself. 2) He chooses to live at the lowest level of society: "Don't have to pay a bill" and "I choose to live like this cause I enjoy it." 3) "You ain't no better than I am"? Well...I am. 4) He has a 9 year-old daughter. How is he being a good father? He does nothing to support her. 5) "Addiction" to coffee is not the same as being a drug addict! A coffee addict doesn't end up living a bum's life. 6) Robert feels bums are entitled to free land, free garbage pickup, free laundry and showers (free utilities), and other city services I pay for! 7) "I'm a normal person." Well, Robert, you're not. Obviously, you don't know the definition of normal. Normal folks don't choose to be a bum.

The thing that gets me is, there's tons of garbage wherever there is homeless.

I was homeless in Pasco County for a good while. That place has always been a black cloud for me but I still miss it.

This video struck me at my core. What people want is acceptance. Lesson learned!

This guy is perfectly right. i agree with him 100%.

This guy is good with ideas and answers my questions

Great interview

Interesting content

Anybody got ideas on where the millions of illegals coming across the border are going to live?

These camps wouldn’t be so bad if the people living in them would at least pick up their trash!

Keep it up thx.

i wish most could understand we were all born to this set of living arrangement and current society. be glad you were born in the US. been all over the world. people in other third world countries live with nothing but the space they were born on. Many have never even seen what money or wealth looks like. You may think they are savages' but they live well. they need nothing, they want nothing because they never seen nothing. they make their living on the land they were born to, growing own food, using whatever resources are aviaible to them. they make there own home, protect their family in there own way. We were not meant to live this way so far out of balance with the natural world around us. This society we were born to trains us to conform and we end up slaves to system and feeds on our desires to have what other have, to conform to the order to have a house, car, job, money and pay taxes. Go back 2000 years and majority of people did not live like this. they were born and lived to about 40 to 50 and died like the rest the natural world around us. we are no better the other animals in the natural world. We are all living in other extinction event because of what we have done to this planet in last 2000 years so live simple, live as large as you can, be safe, help others aways where you can and love those around you.

It's a shame they don't clean up there damn trash.

This man is speaking some real stuff❤

Daytona Beach is Volusia County.

I live in St Pete - i have been looking into affordable living myself and would like to build an aircrete home (dome is easy enough but you can make bricks for vertical walls) and its DIY and relatively extremely cheap. I have seen a couple for sale in central florida with the property and the US has recently approved it as a lightweight, workable (cuts like wood) building material. You can keep adding rooms if you want, or more domes, and it's😢 concrete so it resists wind, water and bugs. The air circulates well for cooling things down and it has a goid thermal rating. It costs a few thousand per build. You can attend a workshop or just DIY with instructions and nominal equipment. If you own land, you can sponsor a workshop and have one built for you while you learn to build more. i hope if it worls for me, i can get a team together and make more, ppl could qualify for financing. There is a tiny home community that just opened up in Jacksonville and ppl living on SS are moving in. Some previously homeless. They are building a community in Tampa i think next year it will open. Its not clear how to be on the wait list. Some agencies might be working with them. Thanks for the video. Hope this helps.

The mosquitos must be INSANE out there!

It is unreal how hawks, owls, turtles, alligators, and even scrub jays can live and nest whereever they want and their nests are protected by law, yet the homeless who are out there for whatever reason have to struggle. There's not a lot of help for the homeless. They should be allotted a piece of land, and it should be protected like the scrub jay, hawk, etc. No building where they dwell, etc.

it would be so easy and so cheap to put trash dumpsters out there for the homeless, and porta johns,and showers

United we stand and divide we fall

That must be up by Wildwood. Or maybe between live oak and Lake City. I'm trying to remember

I've been homeless in south Florida and I must admit it was freeing. If the weather was better it would be perfect. I was lucky and had a nice van with a bed and in the winter it was beautiful

He ain’t wrong about WE THE PEOPLE & the government. Great video dude 👍

What happened between talking about Top Golf lights and in the car, “Go Go Go they are following me out of the woods!” .?.?.?.?

This is unbelievable. I can’t believe it.

This is wild.

It's difficult for me to be sympathetic as you're stepping over massive amounts of needles. Hopefully these folks get the help they need and can make it back into society if that's truly what they want to do.

The girl not driving away when you asked her gave me anxiety lol

This guy is smart. The things he says are truth.

Iv always thought about how many people had setups on those medians on 75 or 95.

"Give us a place to stay" That is not how the real world works. You are not just handed free shit! You have to work for it.

Robert was speaking some very wise words.

Im a normal person I just dont contribute to society~ only when i need those free services like medical and food and medicaid etc..

People who sweat a lot are healthier than those who don't. But, I hate sweating. I love cool air. 😓🌞

They've given up on having a place to live a long time ago . There's only survival out there .

Nice video

I watch this and it practically blows my mind I remember a couple they interviewed in Gainesville back in 2010 who both worked minimum wage Jobs but couldn't afford a roof over their heads 😳My wife and I SHOCKED ☝🏾"Tent City" out towards the airport the amount of Vets Homeless was sad in itself 😞

Thanks Jose 🙏💪

Give us...give us. Would you pay taxes?.You mentioned how free it is to live for you.

The homeless is a huge problem in Pasco county and really no help for them. Especially Moon Lake area where it's wooded. I have to say that most of them are addicts unfortunately. I don't know what the answer is but the officials need to stop looking the other way

My mom put me on the street before I was out of high school. My wife put me back on the street before I was 40:)

Plenty of people out there will always hire reliable day crews. Problem is, they don't want to work. My buddy has hired, or tried to hire many times, they quit after a day, or just don't show up.

What do you do for them in exchange for interviews? I know most don't like being on camera.

Great work. THESE interviews should be shown to the governor. Instead we're suing a mouse. It hurts seeing them living out there. 🥺😢