Many people mistakenly lump all individuals not
living a conventional lifestyle together in one giant group. The homeless
community and off-grid community, for example, are often misunderstood and
represented very poorly by traditional media. It’s common for people to confuse
the two groups, but the differences between the group’s stereotypical portrayal
and reality are extreme.

The Homeless Stereotype

Homeless individuals are often depicted as
society’s outcasts or the people who have been cut off from society because of
their behaviors or habits. These individual’s status is often conveyed as
“inferior, undesirable, and even pathological,” as described by Andrew Smith.
They are lumped together as distributing traits of poor character, mental
illness and even dangerous criminal tendencies. They are shunned, rejected and
made to be invisible. Even worse, homeless individuals are envisioned by some
as lazy, freeloaders. They are often seen as taking advantage of welfare
programs, but this is far from reality.

The Homeless Reality

The reality is that only about 11% of homeless
persons receive disability benefits, but over 40% of homeless persons are
eligible for them. Most homeless families are also eligible for welfare, but
only 52% of families receive welfare benefits.
The reality is that many homeless individuals still work but fail to maintain
rent, electric and other payments. People rarely choose to be homeless. The
National Coalition to End Homelessness states that the top reasons individuals
end up homeless include a lack of affordable housing, unsubstantial living
wages, domestic violence, medical bankruptcy and mental illness. Though many
homeless people are victims of crimes, they are rarely the perpetrators of
violent crimes.

Off-Grid Stereotype

The most common off-grid stereotype is that the
individual is some sort of hippie or apocalyptic conspiracy theorists.
Television shows and movies often depict ridiculous caricatures that are social
outcasts with radical worldviews. They show gun-hoarding, extreme right-wing
activists or ignorant farmers that can’t fit in to modern-day life. Another
common misconception is that someone who seeks to go off-grid is doing so to
somehow escape personal responsibility. It is extremely damaging for the
off-grid community to be seen as paranoid, anti-social outcasts that simply
can't fit in with society.Often using dirt floors or moss carpets living in shacks. They plant fruiting trees to eat from for nutrients and nut trees for protein.

Off-Grid Reality

Professor Phillip Vannini studied over 200
individuals living off-grid in Canada over two years and reached some
interesting conclusions. Technology is not the enemy for most off-grid
individuals, rather they use technology in a different way. Vannini concluded
that going off-grid is far from the ‘escapism’ stereotype but rather it’s about
taking personal responsibility for their own environmental footprints. It’s
about being self-involved and not taking the modern-day luxuries for granted. There are many communities that choose to live off-grid and are completely
self-sustaining. The best example of this is the Amish community where about
300,000 reside in the United States.
The group is far from the stereotypical off-grid image, and they continue to
thrive in almost perfect contrast to modern-day life.