‘It’s the most stressful thing’: rising US gas prices are new blow for homeless
For the past five months Anna Hokuf has lived in her car with her cat after she left an abusive home environment. Trying to save enough money to secure an apartment doing odd jobs while homeless has been hard enough for the 19-year-old. Now rising gas prices have made it all but impossible.
“I don’t have the ability to save much money and gas prices being as high as they are at almost $4 a gallon really makes being homeless tough,” said Hokuf, of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, area. “I have to keep my car on all the time to stay warm and to keep my cat warm, which wastes more gas and has caused a strain on my car.”
It takes about $60 to fill up Hokuf’s car’s tank and about $40 a day for gas to keep warm at night. Her food options are limited as she doesn’t have any way to heat food. She showers and does laundry intermittently whenever she can scrounge enough money for a hotel room for a night or two. “Unfortunately all the money I’m able to receive generally goes to gas or food for my cat,” she said.
Gas prices have soared over the past year and areexpected to continue climbing as the Russian invasion of Ukraine further disrupts oil production, production that was already suffering from the impact of Covid-19. Last week the price of oil hit its highest in more than seven years and the war threatens to stoke the US’s already troubling inflation issues.
The Biden administration has pledged to take action to curb rising gas prices with the announcement of economic sanctions on Russia, which is the second largest oil producer and exporter in the world. So far the sanctions have not included Russia’s oil and gas industry, as Europe is heavily dependent on it and doing so would cause oil prices to spike even further.
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