You can enter Mexico, and they have only checked I had paperwork/passport about one times of ten. No reason why you can't do the same thing if you want to do currency arbitrage. Paraguay will give you a residence permit pretty much just for showing up if you can get ahold of a USA passport, or you can avail yourself of the compact of free association and live in Micronesia without a visa. The arbitrage game is for everybody.

That works for a bit but eventually friends get sick of it, and if they don't a baby is born and it suddenly becomes real weird and very obvious you are intruding on the baby. There is a timer ticking in this scenario. By the time all your friends have kids the chance you can stay anywhere reaches ~zero.

Having actually built, planned, and done all the paperwork for a house myself most the extra costs that can't be worked around (you can DIY everything if you want) is permitting, inspection, and codes. I just didn't get my house inspected nor did I submit engineered plans, so saved tons of money, but most people don't have the option to bypass 'safety' inspections and they get gutted like a pig following all those rules.

The actual materials cost of a house, you can build one for $60k no problem and absolute shit-tons of cheap land near jobs (ex: unemployment extremely low in the Dakotas, cheap land, high demand for homeless-tier labor in the fields in bumfucklandia as ICE deports illegals making farmers desperate for anybody).

That works as long as they don't strip out all the copper wiring, appliances, doors, windows, and anything else of value either because of drugs or some other unmet real need or other issues that come up when inevitably they can't be monitored 24/7. Which probably will only happen sometimes, but it only takes a few to destroy the whole program due to the sky high cost of construction in the US.

You probably need some buy in, like have the homeless people go into a wood with an axe and build their own cabin. Then it's all their own labor if they lose it.