When Your Car Becomes Your Home

KQED's Forum

KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An under-studied segment of our country’s homeless population are those who are experiencing “vehicular homelessness.” These are people who sometimes choose, but are often forced, to call their cars their home. The reasons are manifold, including unmanageable rents, bad credit, too much debt, and often just bad luck. For her new article, “I Live In My Car,” New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi went to the outskirts of Seattle to spend a few days with a family living out of their sedan in a church parking lot. We’ll talk to Callimachi about the dozens of people she met, both car dwellers and those trying to help them. And then we’ll speak to a researcher from UCLA to find out how they’re studying the topic in Los Angeles. Guests: Rukmini Callimachi, correspondent, The New York Times Madeline Brozen, deputy director, UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.7	From KQED.
0:50.3	The From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, this is Forum.
0:53.4	I'm Mina Kim.
1:13.9	An understudied segment of our nations unhoused are those who live in their cars, sometimes by choice, but often because they can no longer afford rent and are forced to call their vehicles home. In California and across the country, dozens of parking lots have been set aside to provide some level of safety and support for this growing population, but challenges remain.
1:28.7	As part of our in-transit series, we talk with UCLA's Madeline Brozen, who studies vehicular homelessness with New York Times reporter Rukmini Kalamaki, who spent time with a family living in their sedan in a church parking lot near Seattle, and we talk with you. Do you call your car home? Join us.
1:37.4	From KQED in San Francisco, welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. For her story, I live in my car. New York Times reporter Rukmini Kalamaki
1:45.9	spoke with dozens of people who resorted to living in their vehicles and the people trying to help them.
1:52.7	Kalamaki provides an intimate look at daily life for one of the fastest growing segments of the unhoused
1:57.0	population, people experiencing what's been called vehicular homelessness. Kalamaki found
2:02.6	that many she spoke with, including in California, Colorado, and Washington State, are caught in
2:08.3	what she calls an unforgiving middle, where they earn too little to afford rent but can afford a car.
2:15.7	Rukmini Kalamaki joins me now. Welcome to Forum, Rukmini. Thank you for having me.
	...

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