Welcome to strangers from KCW and Radiotopia. I'm Leah Tao.

And today's story is about two families trying to become one family. One set of parents is white,

one is black. One lives in Portland, Oregon, the other in Miami, Florida. One is Canadian

American, the other is Haitian American. So geographically, demographically, socioeconomically,

they live in very different worlds. But when we started following them more than a year ago,

they'd made a plan to become one family under one roof

with the eight children they have between them, 11 people in all.

You roll in our house, and it looks like we're like running some sort of shift worker boarding house

because there's bunk beds in the laundry room.

That was Melissa, the Portland mom.

And that's not even all of them living together yet.

But there has been a steady migration from the Miami family to Portland.

And the question is, why?

Why are they doing this?

Well, that's the story you'll hear today.

And we hope to follow the gang for many years to come, as the experiment continues to evolve. Sort of like the seven-up

documentaries, if you're familiar with that series. Julie lives in Little Haiti, Miami, one of the poorest

neighborhoods in the U.S. She's a Haitian immigrant who came here when she was an infant.

When I went to see her, she'd been without housing for a few months,

so she and her two daughters were staying with a Haitian friend

in a small apartment complex on the outskirts of town.

Julie came to greet me outside.

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