Keeping It Secret as
the Family Car Becomes a Home
By Keith Meyers
April 2, 2006
Originally published in the New York Times

FAIRFAX, Va. — After being evicted from his apartment last year, Larry Chaney lived in his car for five months in Erie, Pa. As he passed the time at local cafes, he always put a ring of old house keys and several envelopes with bills on the table to give the impression that he had a home like everyone else.

Richard Pyne, his daughter, Kristinlyn, and wife, Suzanne, moved into a shelter after living in their car.

While Michelle Kennedy was living in her car with her three children in Belfast, Me., she parked someplace different each night so no one would notice them, and she instructed the children to tell anyone who asked that they were "staying with friends."

Last year, William R. Alford started keeping a car cover over the station wagon where he sleeps. "I originally just had drapes, but the condensation on the inside of the windows was a dead giveaway," said Mr. Alford, who has been homeless here in Fairfax since May 2005.

As with all homeless people, finding food, warmth and a place to clean up is a constant struggle. But for those who live in their cars, remaining inconspicuous is its own challenge, and though living this way is illegal in most places, experts and advocates believe it is a growing trend.

"It's most often the working poor who find themselves in this situation, teetering on the border between the possessed and the dispossessed," said Kim Hopper, a researcher on homelessness for the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, which is based in New York.

The number of "mobile homeless," as they are often called, tends to climb whenever the cost of housing outpaces wages, Dr. Hopper said. Last year was the first year on record, according to an annual study conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, that a full-time worker at minimum wage could not afford a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country at average market rates.

In 2001, officials in Lynnwood, Wash., a suburb of Seattle, passed an ordinance imposing penalties of 90 days in jail or fines of up to $1,000 against people caught living in their cars.

Peter Van Giesen, a code enforcement officer for the town, said that up to 20 cars a night were found with people parking near a park where there were complaints of people using the bushes as a restroom.

"Most of these people were trying to find work," Mr. Van Giesen said.

Living inside their last major possession, the mobile homeless have often just fallen on hard times, advocates and social workers say, and since they are more likely to view their situation as temporary, they are also more inclined to keep it secret.

Though the average duration of homelessness is four months, it tends to be shorter for the mobile homeless, experts say.

"You spend a lot of effort just trying to pass," said Ms. Kennedy, a former Senate page who wrote a book, "Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America" (Viking Adult, 2005), about her experiences being homeless for several months in 1997 after her marriage fell apart. But residing — and hiding — in plain sight takes guile, and that starts with deciding where to park.

In cities, steep streets with no sidewalks, no overlooking windows and adjacent to woods are ideal because they have the least foot traffic and offer the easiest ability to enter and exit the car unnoticed, according to many who have been through the experience.

The best location is one sparse enough to avoid nosy onlookers but populated enough that the car does not stand out, they say, near enough to walk to a restroom but far enough to avoid passers-by. Parking lots of big-box retailers are a popular choice. If free, hospital parking lots are also an option. Guards often take pity when told that you are waiting to visit a sick spouse, many say.

Finding a place to shower can take ingenuity.

"The key is to be smart about when you enter and leave the building," said Randy Brown, who for the last three months while living in his car has been sneaking onto a college campus near where he waits tables in Fredericksburg, Va., and using a shower that security guards do not realize is publicly accessible.

Like several others interviewed, Mr. Chaney said that when he lost his trucking business after Hurricane Katrina and was evicted from his home, he was lucky enough to have already paid for a yearlong gym membership.

"That was probably the most important thing I had for keeping up appearances," said Mr. Chaney, who moved to Pennsylvania to be near his son, who was in college there.

Mr. Chaney said that while he looked for work, he did not reveal his situation to his son, who was going to school on a basketball scholarship, because he did not want to become a distraction.

While pride is usually the motivation for not telling friends or family, worries about the law and harassment are more often the reason people give for keeping their situation hidden. Safety is also a concern, advocates say, since homeless people are frequently targets for crime and physical abuse.

"A lot of what people do to keep the secret sounds paranoid, and some of it probably is," said Michele Wakin, who wrote her doctoral dissertation about people living in their vehicles in California and who is now a professor of sociology at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. "But when you're trying to be discreet and you're spending a lot of time in one area, little things get noticed."

People often develop severe back problems because they resist reclining their seat while sleeping, Ms. Wakin said. If questioned, they wanted to be able to tell the police that they were just napping, she added. People also built elaborate compartments in their cars, she said, to hide bedding.

Mr. Alford said he had learned to move slowly to avoid attracting attention by rocking the car when he was inside. When he has a lot of items to take from his car to the library where he spends much of his time, he makes several trips rather than load his arms and seem like a "bag lady," he said.

"It might seem crazy, but the stakes are pretty high in the suburbs when it comes to staying invisible because it's supposed to be sanitized out here," said Mr. Alford, who works occasionally as a Web developer. "People call 911 in the city to report seeing a homeless person, and the cops laugh. Out here, the cops are out the door in no time when that call comes in."

Experts say there are 2.1 million to 3.5 million homeless people nationally. Ms. Wakin said that the vigilance required to live in a car was one reason there tended to be fewer people who are drug addicted or mentally disabled living in their cars, compared with those living on street grates.

"Keeping the car in working order with the license, registration up to date, figuring out an address where offices can send things, and all the while trying to stay off the radar of police and neighbors becomes like a full-time job," Ms. Wakin said.

For some, secrecy can be an obstacle to needed services.

Richard Pyne, who was evicted from his home after losing his job at a factory in North Philadelphia, said he did not seek help because he feared losing custody of his 17-year-old daughter, Kristinlyn, who was living in their car with his wife, Suzanne, and him.

Last April, a social worker noticed the family asleep in the car at a park, and after explaining their rights, the worker persuaded them to move into a shelter.

The strain of constantly finding a place to wash up and the stress of avoiding detection became unbearable, Mr. Pyne said, adding, "You have no idea how exhausting it gets to survive like this."