The 5 Stages of Losing Your Housing No One Escapes

Indexado: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]So, most people think that when you lose your house, you just lose your house and you become homeless, but it doesn't happen that way. It happens in stages.

[00:00:09]And if you know the steps or the stages, you can slow it down, you can be aware of it, or maybe you can even stop it.

[00:00:15]So, today I'm going to go over the five stages of losing your housing so you can be prepared when this moment hits you.

[00:00:22]Okay, so stage one is eviction. This one seems self-explanatory, but let me give you the details. Most people that are facing eviction is because, you know, you got a two-income family, one of the spouses loses a job, you get behind, you lose your savings, next thing you know, you're you're getting evicted. This has nothing to do with drugs, this has nothing to do with mental health, and it has everything to do with just the way the world works. There's no real safety net for you at this stage except for maybe doing something like a second chance. So, when it comes to, you know, getting evicted, there is a process in which which they have to go through. And that process can take 60 to 90 days, and what a lot of people do is try and get into another place before that eviction hits so that they can at least keep a roof over their head because they're not thinking about the future. People in this stage are thinking about how do I solve my problem now? Hopefully things will get better in the future. And sometimes things don't get better in the future. Okay, so now we've gotten to stage two, which is couch surfing because you've been evicted, you've gone through the whole rent rehab, you've gone through trying to circumvent evictions different ways so on and so forth to now you've lost your place and you are couch surfing.

[00:01:38]This means you're [clears throat] sleeping with family, you're staying with friends, you're finding people that will put you up and will actually give you a place to stay. And you go there saying, "Hey, I'll get a job." Or "Hey, I need to be able to save money." Or "Hey, I need to be able to go through this." And now that you've got an eviction on your record, you're now fighting an uphill battle, and this is what most people don't realize because you've got to either find a slumlord that will that will rent to you, or you have got to go through some sort of second chance rent rehab type thing, or you may even have to wait a period of years because of the eviction, or you may have to pay back that eviction just to be able to at least say it was paid in full so that will open up a few doors for you. There's a lot of different things that that you have to be able to dig yourself out of this, and some people do, but you know, with the stress of being with friends or family and the stress that that adds, and plus the stress of just going through the whole situation, if you make it out of this situation and you're able to get yourself back into a place and get yourself back up and in in a good position, you're doing better than most because most people they they crack under the the pressure at this point in time.

[00:02:48]Okay, so at this process you've probably gone through about 18 months between going through the eviction process, maybe trying to circumvent the eviction process, and then couch surfing. Now, on average most people are about 18 months at about this point in time. So, the your next stage is what we'd like to call the grind. You let's say you just got a job and you're getting things going, but you weren't able to save your place by staying with a friend because just you'd overstayed your welcome cuz people are only kind for so long. Okay?

[00:03:19]And so, now you might be staying with your boss, you might be staying in your car, you might be staying in a hotel room. At this point in time, you're doing whatever you can do. You might even be out on the street corner panhandling all day long just to make enough money to be able to keep a hotel room or to keep a roof over your head because at this point in time you're that attached to it. Okay? And this is when when you start making some of the worst decisions you're going to make.

[00:03:47]Six months, a year, two years, three years from now, you're going to regret this stage because this is when you spend good money after a bad situation and you sit there and think about all that money that you spent that if you would have just held it off to the side, you could have used it for different opportunities. But most people, they don't do that. They think about in the moment and they think about their attachment to housing that all logic and all reason goes to the side.

[00:04:12]Okay, so you're probably about two two and a half years into this stage or into your process at this point in time and we're getting into stage four. So you have been evicted, you've been couch surfing, you've been hoteling and carring it or staying with a boss or somebody else and now you're just like, man, I need to get some sort of stability because you're starting to notice how much of a toll it's taking on your mental health and your ability to just to be able to function and make coherent decisions because you're realizing all that good money that you threw after bad is now coming to bite you in the ass. And so you start applying for housing first programs, rental assistance program, housing programs, this program. You start thinking about getting into shelters and you know, go around and figure out which ones have the best the the the best this and the best that that you're looking for that will help you reach this situation that will help you get out of the situation you're in because everybody who's in this stage, even if through stage one through stage four, you have tried to get yourself out of the situation. Either you your your emotions and your mental health got in the way because of the stress and your inability to deal with that large amount of stress or other things are going on at this point in time and so this is when you should really start realizing that there really isn't going to be any real help out there for you. Okay, so we've hit stage five and it's been about two to three years that you've been that you've been struggling and you've gone from being middle class to being poor to be working poor to, you know, being evicted to surfing on a couch to hoteling it to, you know, begging and pleading with the system to be able to get everything that you need. And now you're on the streets, okay? And you are on a street corner and now you are lumped in with all these so-called drug addicts. But yet you're going, "I'm not a drug addict. I'm not lazy. I want a job. I want to work. Why is this happening to me?" And I'm here to tell you that all that stuff that you've been told are direct lies, misinformation about who the homeless community is.

[00:06:26]They're average Joes like you and me and your neighbor who just through a whole sequence of events got put in the situation. And some people even tell you that, "Hey, this is this is a situation by your choice." But it's not necessarily a situation by your choice because you made every uh what you thought was reasonable choice to be able to get yourself out of the situation, keep your stability, hold on just long enough so that you can actually make it in and and not reach stage five, which is actually being homeless, okay? And if you think that you're going to if you're in stage uh three or stage four or you think you're about to be in stage five at some point in time, uh you should come over and check out my Patreon where I talk about I have a course it's to be able to prepare you for your first night homeless so you know what to do beforehand. It gives you a gear list so you know what to be able to get and uh it also comes with a checklist. It's for $10 over on Patreon. You should come over there and check it out if you think that you're uh beyond stage two or you think you're going to be in this situation at some point uh just because of who you are. Thanks for being here.

[00:07:38]If you haven't liked the video, please do. I'll see you in the next one.