I guess social isolation and insulation play a role in all of this. If you have vulnerable assets, then there are issues of those assets being at risk. I could guess that's where you end up having to play the shell game of property management, vs control vs ownership along with the "some rules are made to be broken" rules, but the closer you get to a government structure breakdown, the more realistic people must become, because there is no big momma state to whine to and get things your way when you get drunk and wrap your truck around a telephone pole.

We are also a militia forum here, and by default we are implying that these activities would be taking place in enclaves where we are operating more or less with public consent.

Example, the roadhouse lodge operated by an individual or group on an old farm, maybe obtained for free, maybe leased, maybe bought cheap before the collapse, maybe inherited. Maybe corporate property your controlled before the breakdown.

Life would go on, kids get born, poverty would be common but I think a lot of people would cope. The displaced would be everywhere, people living out of their cars, maybe out of backpacks. They don't have insurance any more, can barely pay for gas and repairs. A lot traded their stylish sport sedans for RVs just prior to the collapse and travel in family convoys, maybe following the fair weather and jobs that go with it, college degree holders living out of vans and doing farm labor work for minimum wage. Decent folks on hard times. That's the kinds of people who would be staying at the various speakeasy lodges, sometimes trading bartering work for room and board, other times paying cash out of their meager salaries when they get work. Nobody within the networks actually outright turned away.

Staying in a bunk in a barn loft with access to the outhouse, shower house and the stewpot in the evening $10 or equivalent. Cheap booze passed around, maybe buck a drink stuff served to 2AM then a communal breakfast served between 6Am and 8AM. Those who have work locally head out, those who don't have work will lounge around, maybe work on vehicles, do local maintenance, then chop wood for the fires an hour or two, or work in the gardens a couple hours harvesting some vegetables for the evening stew. Maybe someone goes hunting and gets a wild boar at night which will feed the lodge for a day or two, with roast meat the first night, with leftovers making the stew more hearty on a few other nights.

Mutual defense would be expected, although a localized security cadre would keep a lot in order.

A lot of the people would be on the run in one way or another, having ditched debts, maybe skipped out on onerous government regulations, people on the run from tax related offenses, maybe some felons in the mix, like those who made money illegaly for a while, or broke gun laws, or got caught in some anti-government vigilante action.

Nobody should be expecting absolute free handouts without contribution in such networks or lodge places, but likewise, lodge owners, whether individuals or groups would be engaged in trade, and alcohol would be one of the many things used to ease the hardships of the entire neo-depression lifestyle.

Not every day is a gunfight, but weekly, monthly, someone might be having an incident somewhere, a group of travelers rolling in with shot up vehicles, telling stories about how it got bad for them at some particular truck stop in some town, or how they were hit with a detour on a freeway, channeled into a bad neighborhood and had to shoot their way out.

My take on it, whoever owns the impromptu lodge would be smart to trade in alcohol, and whoever is traveling around in convoy might be smart to stock up on certain trade items when they become available, as the cargo weight to value ratio for the alcohol is not half bad. That, and if you are trading alcohol, it looks less sinister than simply rolling in and being a merchant of death wheeling and dealing in contraband weapons which everyone keeps but often don't admit to having.

I know that's how some lifestyles work right now in a lot of parts of the entire "Jefferson State" area of northern California and southern Oregon, since that area is well removed from federal centers of power and somewhat removed from state centers of power, although the federal government has been flexing its way to southern Oregon lately.