Picture the land around any given interstate exit, the massive concrete overpasses,

the bowtie loop deloops of on and off ramps. In California, the agency that maintains the land

around our highways is the California Department of Transportation or CalTrans.

In 2017, CalTrans counted 7,000 homeless encampments next to California roads.

Okay, now zoom in on one of these encampments. In Berkeley, California,

off of Interstate 80 at the University Exit, there are about 70 people living there, scattered

around intense and makeshift structures. For years now, CalTrans has been posting notices for

the people camped at this exit to vacate. And every couple weeks, they attempt to enforce the notices

by coming in with police and cleaning crews and confiscating any belongings people can't pack up

and move in time. It's always incredibly stressful for the people who live there.

We gotta break down his house. That's important.

And then, after the police and CalTrans maintenance crews leave, the homeless campers take the

belongings they've salvaged and move right back to the same spots they were in before.

A couple weeks later, CalTrans comes again over and over, rinse and repeat.

One of the people living in this encampment in Berkeley is Kate Cody, who goes by her initials,

KC. I met KC last year in October when it was starting to get chilly.

The listeners don't know is this is a very misty and cold day.

We almost, you know, that's foggy, huh?

Yeah. KC has long silver hair, so bright, it almost looks like platinum blonde.

And narrow, kind of mischievous eyes. You could mistake her for a hippie, but she's

surlier than most. She wears a leather overcoat. She sometimes growls at people.

She'll read any book she can get her hands on.

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