Can a homeless person live off the land?

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I apologize; I should have been more clear or altogether silent. I have no ill will and am sorry for being accusatory.

I ask for your forgiveness for my irresponsible haste, lack of clarity and imprudence.
 
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I have been through this experience, having been homeless for about five years. It is not really possible to plant one’s self out in the woods somewhere and survive with out any resources. Realistically, you end up on the fringes of civilization where you can avail yourself of society’s leftovers. This is what we see all the time: tent camps under bridges, etc. I ate out of trash cans and grocery store dumpsters. Sometimes some kind person would give me some food.

After five years, i got tired of it and was ready to go back to work. A dishwashing job appeared and i hung on to it.
 
tootle_toot said:
I have been through this experience, having been homeless for about five years. It is not really possible to plant one’s self out in the woods somewhere and survive with out any resources. Realistically, you end up on the fringes of civilization where you can avail yourself of society’s leftovers. This is what we see all the time: tent camps under bridges, etc. I ate out of trash cans and grocery store dumpsters. Sometimes some kind person would give me some food.

After five years, i got tired of it and was ready to go back to work. A dishwashing job appeared and i hung on to it.
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Just out of curiosity (and I apologize that this is getting off topic), did you get the job while still living on the streets, or did you have a place to go to in order to shower/couchsurf/etc. ?
 
I’m not certain that that commandment REQUIRES living as part of a society, as there have been hermits in Church history.

I do concur that someone who has the abilities (and the stamina) to live off the land probably could get work for less effort. Even going to another city would not be off the table, as most Americans would need to travel hundreds of miles to find a genuine “wilderness.” Farm or ranch land would not be morally acceptable.

Consider what happened to that kid in INTO THE WILD.

ICXC NIKA
 
Theosis said:
I apologize; I should have been more clear or altogether silent. I have no ill will and am sorry for being accusatory.

I ask for your forgiveness for my irresponsible haste, lack of clarity and imprudence.
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I appreciate you saying so but I honestly don’t know why you are. I’m the one being a cranky jerk.

Sorry about that.
 
Beryllos said:
The sin, if any, is in neglecting the commandment to love one another.
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There’s no sin in living as a hermit. It’s not somehow an unloving act to separate yourself from society for a good or neutral purpose. We’ve had hermits and anchorites throughout the centuries of the Church, who chose to live in solitude as a way of becoming closer to God. Often they chose that despite having other options where they could have lived in society or in community - for example, there are saints from the first millennium who turned down bishoprics or moved out of community life in order to live a hermit life.

I suppose it’s possible for someone to harbor hateful thoughts towards humanity while living as a hermit, but then again it’s possible for someone to harbor such thoughts while living in the middle of a big family or large city as well.

As for “malnutrition sets in”, in the centuries when you had saints going off into the wilderness, a lot of people living in monasteries or even in towns and cities also had malnutrition then because access to food was limited and/or people didn’t understand nutrition. Monks living in community often suffered from a number of physical ailments due to their asceticism. It’s also possible that some hermits were very skilled at living off the land wherever they were because they’d been taught how to do so by others who came before them. These hermits likely also had visitors from civilization from time to time, or else we wouldn’t know of the hermits today, but it seems unlikely that they had visitors so frequently and regularly that they relied on the visitor for food.
 
Thanks for your detailed response. I suppose living a solitary life in the wilderness would be humanly possible if the climate is mild and the local ecosystem is sufficiently rich. In the days of John the Baptist, who ate locusts and wild honey among other things, it is thought that the climate in the Holy Land was cooler and moister than today, and therefore I imagine the flora and fauna were more abundant and diverse.

I speculate that visitors or locals might have brought food or drink to hermits if they appeared to be in need, as an act of almsgiving. This would have been a good supplement to the hermit’s diet.

As for sinfulness, I was stretching the imagination – brainstorming – since the OP asked about sin. Even in solitude, the hermit can love and serve humanity.
 
There’s a story that St Paul, the First Hermit, who lived in the desert, was daily fed a hunk of bread dropped by a raven sent by God. One day St Anthony Abbot came to visit him and that day the raven sent by God dropped a double-sized hunk of bread so there would be enough for two.

I have no idea whether this is true or not but it’s a nice story.

St Paul the Hermit also is said to have lived beside a spring with a palm tree, so he could use its leaves to make covering, eat its fruit, and drink the water from the spring.

I can see some later hermits maybe picking a place where they could eat wild fruit and fish or trap game.
 
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People should watch the show, “Alone.” It’s about 10 people placed out in the wilderness with only 10 items they select beforehand.

Anyway, you’ll see how difficult it is to survive off the land and for most, people, it’s impossible.

Either way, it would not be a sin for a homeless person to attempt it, but he/she would end up in the news after their dead body was found.
 
The climate in Erez Israel has worsened since our LORD’s day. Stone anchors have been found three miles from the present Sea of Galilee. Bethlehem – the “House of Bread” in Biblical times, now sits in an arid dust bowl.

I imagine that as the human world becomes ever more crowded, living off the land has gone from merely difficult to impossible for most people.

ICXC NIKA
 
I think we romanticize homesteading and going off grid. It would be surprisingly expensive to build a cabin and set yourself up for farming enough to sustain yourself, never mind yourself and others. I have friends who moved off grid and built a house. They have no power or running water. I think they dug a well and have to hand pump it out of the ground. I remember the husband saying he wished he had thought it through more before trying it. Every little task becomes a huge production. They don’t call them labor saving devices for nothing. In today’s world, I’m guessing would be a lot easier just to get a job and find an apartment. Now that’s not to make light of the difficulty of homelessness. I’m not saying there are easy answers to it. But I don’t think homesteading is anywhere near a good answer. I wish it were though!
 
I really appreciate all the thoughts and comments!

In short, is it sinful to seek to survive (build a shelter, hunt, gather, farm etc) if one is truly destitute and one has done all they can to remedy their plight with the means they have…to no avail from social or charitable means (even if it is on land that one has not been approved to use/have or does not properly or legally belong to them)? No, it is not.
 
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I was still on the street, but had the ocean to bathe in and an island to put up a lean-to on.
 
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Theosis said:
Let’s say a homeless person who is unable to find a job to supply the means he needs to eat, have shelter, clothing etc decides he wants to live off the land to survive, is he guilty of any sin? In other words, would it be immoral for him to seek some uninhabited land (perhaps “state/federal” land) to build a cabin, hunt, farm and gather to supply basic needs without any cost or permit/license etc? While technically “illegal,” would one be under the pain of guilt/sin?
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The answer is no… In Colorado in the national forests they are known as the bus people.
 
So there are a couple things to consider in the op’s scenario.

First, if a person is going to set up a homestead, building a cabin, starting a garden etc, they aren’t going to do it without a lot of tools, a lot of time in one place, and a lot of resources. The typical homeless person doesn’t have these. Can’t build a substantial structure without armload of tools. Can’t prep a garden without an armload of tools and seeds to plant. So that part of the scenario is pretty unrealistic.

Now if a person has the correct skill set, can they survive in the wilderness with what they can carry on their person. Absolutely, but they need skills. Humans survived as hunter gatherers for millennia before they settled down and grew crops to sustain themselves. So if the person has the correct skillset and the right environment they could do it. But it would require that they be on the move pretty frequently. They would need to build basic shelter with what is available to them, start fires, purify water and find enough food sources. However, after a short period of time the resources in a small area would be depleted and they would need to relocate to another spot, starting the process again.

This is a far cry from building a cabin and starting to grow crops.

The first scenario would most likely fall into the sin category because they would be claiming land as theirs which isn’t truly theirs.

The second scenario would most likely not fall into the sin category because they are simply using nature and not having any lasting imprint on the area or environment. They would be surviving similar to other animals in nature. Not many people are capable of doing this type of thing today. There are some, but not a lot.
 
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