The majority of the people that ride my bus are homeless.

They don't have anywhere to go.

You're listening to assignment on the BBC World Service. I'm Saris Voboda.

It's At a station next to an empty mall parking lot in San Jose, California, more than a

dozen waiting riders form a line. Their faces obscured by the coat hoods and

scarves they've bundled themselves in during these cold months.

Hold on, hold on. My name is Shannon Barnes and I am a coach operator. I drive the route 22.

In what's become a nightly ritual, Shannon loads passengers who carry bags and pull carts brimming with belongings.

Okay, there's nowhere for you to what you're gonna stand up.

As people board, the rows of two hard blue seats quickly fill up from front to back.

Riders settle in one with their items piled at their feet or in the seat over.

You should have been in the front.

They take up a lot of space and people want to put their bags on the seas and lay on them.

Most people don't want to ask somebody to move their stuff out the way, you know,

and they'll inconvenience themselves and possibly fall trying to get to the back of the bus.

The 22 bus runs an endless loop during the day it shuttles commuters.

By night it's a shelter on wheels.

Block 2255, I am running late, so I'm not going to make it downtown for that connection.

But I don't think there's anybody that's getting on the train. Before the Silicon Valley became known as the birthplace of Big Tech, it was a world famous agricultural hub.

In the decades since, fields have been paved over,

office parks and tract housing developments sprang from the fertile soil.

Today it's a flat suburban patchwork surrounded by rolling foothills.

...