From Futuro Media and PRX, it's Latino USA. I'm Maria Innojosa. Today, what happens when you're moved out of your house for a highway in Los Angeles?

And then your neighborhood becomes a ghost town.

We follow the families who are reclaiming these empty homes.

Last year, as the state of California was issuing a statewide mandate to shelter in place during the COVID pandemic,

about a dozen unhoused families began to occupy vacant homes in El Sereno in northeast Los Angeles.

Our producer, Julia Rocha, is going to pick up the story from here.

We found this house, and we were so excited.

We were screaming and, like, just overjoyed.

We had community over.

They came and played music.

We had some harocho.

We had rancheras.

That's Marta Escudero.

She's remembering the day she moved into her new house.

It's a two-bedroom on Sheffield Avenue in El Sereno,

a residential neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles.

Marta's living room is filled with books,

and on one of the walls is a banner

that reads, Housing for All. This is the first room we walked into, and when we walked into,

obviously it was empty, and now it's filled with furniture. And some of my art and my rocks.

That's Mesley, Marta's eight-year-old daughter.

Before Martha and her two daughters got to this house,

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