Profiles from the Edge: A Month of Couch Surfing

By Erin Bush

As of this coming weekend I will be homeless. I am moving out of my old place in San Francisco and embarking on a month-long adventure of couch surfing. I’m hitting the streets. My current apartment that I have for about 24 more hours is great — clean, quiet, updated with a great roommate. A girl couldn’t ask for more. For whatever reason, my roommate and I have decided to go our separate ways – he moving to another part of the city and me becoming a part of it. Rest your worries, this will only be for a month. I can shower at my gym, there are comfortable places to sleep, and it’s not like I won’t be able to meet my friends for happy hour after work. It will certainly be hard but I think I will manage.

Yes – I am living without a lease, but only for a month, and I’ve actually got several people to stay with after building a great network of friends in SF over the last few years.  Plus, when unfortunate situations like this happen where the waiting period between my old great place and my new great place put me in a state of limbo for a month, it’s actually a great opportunity for me to save nearly a month’s worth of rent. City rent. We all know that SF is not a cheap place to live, and with rental rates getting completely out of control, more people are taking on more roommates even as they march on into their thirties… and some their forties.

I have the first and last week of July locked down with a place to stay, and I have plenty of places I can crash in between. Because of that great network of friends, and their great networks of friends, I may get set up with some house/condo sitting gigs. Getting paid to live in someone’s penthouse and feed their bird and kill their plants — life is so hard.

Even though I may be pretty set for the month, keep your phone on San Francisco, I might need a place to crash on short notice.