Former Homeless Woman acquires LuvIsTheAnswer.com

Jan. 17, 2009 - PRLog -- In these hard economic times people can't help but wonder what would happen if they lost everything. Lots of people today are only a few paychecks away from being homeless themselves. Katrina Thomas knows firsthand what it's like to be homeless. So how did she acquire LuvIsTheAnswer.com and how did she survive being homeless?

"Yeah I acquired LuvIsTheAnswer.com, but it sounds much bigger than it really is," she laughs. "I originally started LuvIsTheAnswer.com after I became homeless and had to let it go because it was a matter of, you know, do I keep it and go without necessities or do I get what I need to survive. As much as I wanted to keep it and find ways to bring more peace, love and joy into the world, I did need necessities more," she smiles. "The wonderful homeless shelters where I lived provided food and some necessities, but others came out of your own pocket."

"Someone else eventually bought the domain name LuvIsTheAnswer.com, but I really wanted to bring more peace, love and joy to the world, so I went without some stuff to buy LuvIsTheAnswer.org. The person who bought the domain name offered to sell it to me for about a thousand dollars or so, but he didn't know that wasn't possible for me. It was all good though, I've been wanting to turn it into a non-profit organization since I started the first site, and so changing from .com to .org was a good thing. The person who bought the domain name LuvIsTheAnswer.com eventually let it go when he saw it wasn't a money maker because of the very small amount of traffic it received, and he couldn't make money by selling it back to the former owner (myself) so eventually he just let it go. So I really only paid about $10 for the domain name LuvIsTheAnswer.com, but I do need it because most people just put in http://www.luvistheanswer.com assuming a domain name starts with .com. So I bought it to point to the first page of LuvIsTheAnswer."

Katrina Thomas (formerly Katrina Wikoff) started LuvIsTheAnswer.com in 2002 while she was homeless. She became homeless through a series of events which started with a divorce, then losing her job, then being evicted and finally was compounded by other family problems which led to her being homeless in her car. At that time she decided to drive to California, where she had always wanted to live, and since she didn't have a residence anyway, it worked out for her. She couldn't afford to pay her car insurance after that and eventually got in a car crash, which led to her briefly being homeless on the streets of L.A. The homeless shelters she had driven by when she had her car looked too scary to her (the locations and the people around it) so she tried sleeping on a cement bench but found it to be too cold so she tried a wooden bench and eventually decided to try to find some shelter in a bathroom she found open. Eventually she decided to try the homeless shelters in the area after trying to get to sleep on a bus and being too worried of what might happen if she fell asleep. The bus driver could tell she needed help and told her of a decent shelter in the area. So how is she doing financially?

"I still need to pay off some tickets I received when I was homeless. I got one because I was so tired one night while sleeping in my car that I didn't pay attention to the fact that it was street cleaning the next morning and it woke me up just as a parking enforcement lady who was following the street cleaning vehicle put a ticket on my window," she laughs. "She explained to me that the law was the law and she was right. Also I got a ticket because I was looking for an address once and thought it was a four way stop, it wasn't, and I almost hit a police car, he wasn't very amused by it and gave me a ticket for no insurance. And then there was the time I was driving with a friend and she didn't want to dirty her ashtray so we threw our cigarettes out the window and a cop saw us, I guess it's just as well because I really don't like to litter anyway. I never really got into drugs or alcohol, so I guess smoking is my only vice. I started when I was 25, which you'd think you would know better by that age. But I did quit for two years once. Right now I smoke some and I quit some, I was never a big smoker anyway, it can take me anywhere from a couple of days to a week to smoke a pack even when I do smoke. I guess the only other vices would be food and chocolate, but I'm about normal weight for my height, so I guess that's okay."

A lot of homeless people get tickets because they have more pressing issues on their mind, like where they will sleep that night, and how they will get food for that day. It's also a common misconception that all or most people who are homeless are homeless because of drug and alcohol abuse.

"I've heard that, and some are, but there are many others who have bad physical problems and others who have family problems like abuse, and others who are too proud to ask for help from friends and relatives to everything in between. The real key to getting through homelessness is to remember that love truly is the answer and we need people to help us through it. Other than that it's all about balancing your life and watching your thoughts so that you see the good that can come from any situation. I'm only human so I'm constantly working on seeing the silver lining just as much as anyone else, but it really is worth it. You can overcome any challenge with the right attitude."

Currently she has been living in cheap hotels and gets her mail at a homeless shelter that she formerly stayed at. She hopes that her site will soon bring in enough money to pay for the first, last and down payment for an apartment as well as paying off her tickets so she can get her drivers license back and eventually another car. She also hopes to fix her teeth soon (as the pain from her cavities sometimes bothers her) and hopes to get a faster laptop so that she doesn't have to run her site from the public libraries and different friends apartments.

Katrina owns and runs LuvIsTheAnswer.org, a site dedicated to peace, love and joy (with a heavy focus on joy (http://www.luvistheanswer.org/joy.html)), which is an entertainment site featuring jokes, free games, message boards, (featuring a gratitude board), chat and over 12,000 free cards for most events, holidays and occasions and articles about peace, love and joy. LuvIsTheAnswer.org can be found in all major search engines or you can go there directly by going to http://www.LuvIsTheAnswer.org.

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LuvIsTheAnswer.org is a site focusing on all things fun and funny with entertainment and wisdom intermixed. It has jokes, funny videos and pictures, a free daily horoscope, tons of free games and over 12,000 free ecards for almost any occasion.