If an experienced hiker was made homeless and had to live rough would their experience help them? For example, how to keep warm, how to manage food wise, how to find the best and safest places to sleep, what investment would be best if they had some money, a tent, a sleeping bag perhaps?
I don't know if other people have had my experience, when I'm hiking and meet people in rural areas they tend to see me and speak to me as a hiker. But on more than one occasion, when I have been walking through some villages, towns and cities, some people tend to treat me as if I'm a vagrant. I've found these atitudes to be regional as well, I've not often experienced sincere 'welcome' in the south of the UK, not even on camp sites sometimes, the north tends to be much better.
I know I'm generalising but I personally have experienced that for some people, the sight of a man or woman in a certain place with a rucksack on their back and actually walking can make some people rather nervous.