Otherwise Homeless: Vehicle Living and the Culture of Homelessness

Privacy, mobility, dignity―living in a vehicle offers many advantages over life in a shelter or on the street. Michele Wakin broadens our understanding of homelessness by exploring the growing phenomenon of vehicle living and how it differs from other forms of makeshift housing. Incorporating both quantitative data and ethnographic work in California, Wakin takes us into the lives of those who call a car, truck, or RV home. She probes the forces that pushed them out of traditional housing, their unique strengths and vulnerabilities in navigating everyday life, and their complex relationships with local communities, law enforcement, and social service providers. Her analysis of this overlooked population illuminates the dynamics that make it so hard to break the cycle of regulation and resistance that impedes the escape from poverty.