Lost in the Stacks: Seeking Shelter

Evelyn’s aging Highlander parked near a Los Angeles freeway was primary bedroom, kids’ bedrooms, dining room and playroom. It was where her five kids did their homework, ate their supper, watched videos and eventually slept. Stuffed between the backpacks and bags of clothes, the kids cuddled together while Evelyn, pregnant with her sixth child, kept watch for police or intruders. It was going to be a long night.

In Seeking Shelter Jeff Hobbs traces Evelyn’s increasingly perilous journey to secure housing for herself and her kids. Evelyn’s slow slide into homelessness began with the best of intentions. She moved to a different town to enroll her five children in a superior school system. But with an inadequate salary as an Applebee’s server and her meager savings dwindling, Evelyn and her kids went from a cheap long-stay motel to off-the-books church housing, to vouchers for one-night stays at hotels, to living in Evelyn’s car.

It took super-human effort to keep her kids safe, clean, fed and in school. Somehow Evelyn managed until COVID and another baby made the juggling act impossible. Evelyn’s compelling story, narrated through interviews with her and the kids, illustrates how the trauma of precarious shelter and secrecy affects the whole family. Ultimately Evelyn lucked into a program that saved her and the kids. But Hobbs notes that for so many homeless citizens that lucky break never comes.