Off the Grid in Slab City, California | TIME

[Music] and to bring them to it we did what we were told we were supposed to do you know get an education my house and suburbs two cars run your credit up I pay it off slowly when the economy tanked Joanne Gio and his wife Anna lost their home and business in the Chicago suburbs with debts piling up they bought a motor home and drove to slab city the squatters camp deep in the Southern California desert we're looking for somebody to let us come experiment the off-grid living getting more for our buck out of our environment rent free living comes with a price of course there's no electricity or running water on the slabs paid work is scarce and so is the law but the NGOs insists the lean lifestyle has given a boost to their marriage and health along with their savings we went from spending anywhere from two to three grand a month to now our outputs less than 200 a month recession refugees like them are just the latest tribe to call Slab City home for decades the anything-goes atmosphere of the World War 2 era military site has attracted drifters and dropouts of all kinds had all the toys I was living in a real nice condo overlooking the Manhattan skyline I came to the conclusion that if you're smart enough to figure out how to get out of the rat race well then you're pretty damn bright yeah I belong in a rest home but I don't want to go ahead and kill me I died whatever brought them here one rule has always applied respect your neighbors for stay the hell away pretty much as close to the Old West as you ever gonna get yeah I mean we don't most of us don't own guns or none of that garbage but we we have problems we take care of it over the years one of a kind community has emerged with coffee clubs in an internet cafe thermal hot springs nearby and campfire gatherings almost every night [Music] there's even an 18-hole golf course oh wow nice still as one might expect in a place this remote the slabs have a darker side I can't tell you how many fistfights have been in I can tell you I've been shot at four five times I can tell you being stabbed a couple of times in his 40 plus years as fire marshal of Nilan the nearest town Michael x'q has been a busy man while crime has always been a problem in the area he says a crystal meth epidemic has made things worse I went back with my wife and the guy steps out with a shotgun and says you're trespassing he's wearing coveralls I said okay my wife's gone wait trespassing this state land we can come in here if we want to shut up woman he's got a gun you got a gun he's got a shotgun pointed at us so anyway we ended up busting busting a meth lab back there two weeks later [Music] in hard economic times lawlessness has not deterred some families from coming to slab city that's Ali their alley shotgun Vince Neil lost his home in audio-visual business in Northern California so the wife and I am and while seven of our eight kids ended up out here he first visited the slabs as a boy and returned last year with his wife and kids to cut costs and get back on their feet the great outdoors have since become a classroom there are scorpions and rattlesnakes and everything but I've been training them to be scorpion and snake Wrangler so they're getting more of an education out here than they would in a regular city it's a challenge you know it's harder for me you know to really be more open to people out here this is home for now but hopefully this summer we'll be back in LA and trying to get work the NGOs are also planning to leave before the infernal summer heat arrives but they've managed to adapt to the demands of the desert well almost sorry my toilets always flushed up until two months ago for time video this is Jason Laughlin in Slab City you

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Keywords: Crime, freedom, recession, Slab City, lawless, solar, California, Foreclosure, U.S., Grid, youtube, off the grid, energy, Warming, United States of America, United States, Solar energy, Power, Morning, Iowa Energy, Global, AngelesTime, time magazine, magazine, time (magazine), time.com, news today, world news, interview, science, technology, health, politics, entertainment, business, news, breaking news, live, lifestyle, video

Id: h26z63bQ_3E

Length: 5min 16sec (316 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 22 2012