>>2855822>parking fees, tolls, tickets,Totally optional. The average monthly cost is useless when budgeting for homelessness because of how far some people commute and how stupid many people's car choices are. Tax and title and insurance are time based recurring costs, but almost everything else is mileage based. If you don't have a history of accidents, a cheap, reliable, used car (eg 10 year old civic) with discount insurance can be as cheap as $300/year+ $0.38 per mile. The 38 cents per mile will include the depreciation, maintenance, tire replacement, etc (Average mileage cost is much higher, something like 73 cents, but that's because of the millions of people driving $70,000 pickups). Now, the average person does drive almost 14,000 miles per year, so as far as averages go, your "$500" figure is a lowball, actually, but it's also totally useless for someone living in their car, because what purpose does a homeless person have driving 38 miles per day? When they get into their car, they're home. They need to move from parking spot to parking spot periodically, go get food, and get to work, and they should be able to drive under 10 miles per day. If a Civic owner can keep his mileage down, we're looking at more like $140/month in this scenario, assuming he doesn't run the car for heat or ruin it in some other way.
Obviously, if you've got a record that makes you expensive to insure, or the car you bought before you became homeless was not as practical, then this estimate is a lowball, but a fully depreciated car or driving uninsured, etc etc can reduce costs as well.
