I think one thing people here are not addressing in this topic are the clear levels of comfort various vehicle dwellers experience.

If you are employed and decide to save money living in a van or already were able to live that way for work and travel, etc. that is a lot different than having no choice and struggling to get your shit together while not having a standard secure home.

I plan on living in a converted box truck within the next 1.5 years and registering it as an RV. I'll have to save up a total (at the absolute minimum) of about $8k (vehicle+additional work/older one set up for living in) just for a basic conversion van without real amenities that just runs enough to not scrap it (or pay that much to fix up a crappier one, and both common ford/chevy vans are hard to find in good condition with lower miles as those gas engines top out at like 250k usually), and I am shooting for more around $17k total for a better more reliable box truck (diesel truck like NPRs with 400k mileage life engines.) to convert into a 7wx14Lx10H living space.

All that said, that is a significant savings plan to mitigate expenses over the next 5 years for myself, not everyone can easily do that (it's not easy for me and I somewhat have my shit together netting about $35k annually), and I'm still on the low end of costs when it comes to living somewhat comfortably in vans/RVs/etc.