T&T: Land VS Water

[capteric36]

  <snip>

  I will stick with my contention that (purchases 
aside) living in a marina is not significantly 
cheaper, if at all, than living in a house.
  Joel
<snip>

 Really?
 Well here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is 
just no comparison.
 Let's talk only about ongoing expenses, sans 
mortgage costs.
 I am paying $425.00 a month to rent my 
live-aboard slip here in South San Francisco. I 
have been living aboard here for over 10 years. 
Way back in 1997 I moved out of my tiny little 
studio apartment in Sunnyvale (in the heart of 
Silicon Valley) because the rent, which had risen 
100 bucks in 1 (ONE) year was going up another 100 
bucks to 525 a month.
 Right now if one wanted to get a studio apartment 
anywhere in the Bay Area one would need to be 
prepared to pay about $1000.00 per month, minimum, 
in bad neighborhood etc.
Now I admit I had an insurance buyout so I was 
able to pay cash for my boat, but it only cost me 
$18,500.00 so any loan payment would be a lot less 
than the difference between my slip fee and 
shoreside rents.
 Also I am NOT insured, except for liability, so I 
am taking the risk of loosing my home if the worst 
happens. But then again ask thousands of folks in 
the Gulf Coast how well their insurance paid off 
after Katrina...
Without my boat and this very fine marina I would 
be homeless, just another statistic, disabled and 
a further drag on the nation's economy and a 
blight on whatever neighborhood I chose to sleep 
in. Or dead from exposure (most likely).
 My disability income of $1324.00 per month is too 
small to let me improve my boat much, and I can 
not go sailing or cruising because the boat is not 
capable of any of that, but the lower cost of 
living on the water is all that makes it possible 
for me to continue to sleep out of the rain and in 
a warm place.

P.S. Don't spread the information around! I really 
don't need all the local agencies to realize that 
a small investment of 20,000 bucks or so could 
reduce the homeless population by 1 person, or 1 
family.

 P.P.S. I have MORE room on my boat than I did in 
that tiny studio apartment!

Eric Thompson
S/V Procrastinator
South San Francisco
capteric36 at sbcglobal.net