live rough
Survive without shelter
To live rough is to live outdoors without proper shelter, typically due to homelessness.
The phrase is primarily British and suggests sleeping on streets, in parks, or in makeshift accommodations rather than in a proper dwelling.
After losing his job, he lived rough for several months before finding a hostel.
Living rough implies hardship and exposure to the elements, distinguishing it from voluntary camping or outdoor recreation.
- surviveContinue to exist
- survival modeEmergency coping state
- shelterlessHaving no protection overhead
- bivouacTemporary military encampment
- vagrancyOffense of rootless wandering
poverty · unhoused · no fixed address · housing crisis · on the streets · street life · displacement · endurance · destitution · squatting · social exclusion · off-grid · mental toughness · fortitude · eviction · precarity · marginalization · soup kitchen