Too Exposed: The Homeless Living in Cars!
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
Homeless people run many risks attempting to convert vehicles into rudimentary shelters. Their vehicles can be vandalised, ransacked or towed away by local authorities. They can be subject to fines for wrong parking.
The tragic case of Monica Camero De Adams , a 65-year-old homeless person who was buried alive after a driver crashed into her van which was then towed away to a scrap yard where she died dramatically illustrates the dangers they are exposed to. The family of Monica Camero De Adams has just launched a litigation case against the police, a private towing-away company and the local authorities. Such cases are avoidable.
It must have felt unreal! Incredible! A car crashed into Monica Camero De Adam's van at 1.a.m. on the 5th of November 2023. The police arrived on the scene but did not check whether someone was inside this van. Instead, they called for private towing company to take away the van to a scrap yard. Monico lay inside the car helpless, badly injured and dying.
One month later at the scrapyard a work smelt some pungent odour from a van. When they looked inside they were shocked to find the remains of a dead woman. It's a macabre case indeed.
How could it have happened? Why the gross negligence? Perhaps both the police and towing company presumed that nobody could have lived in such a van. May be the private towing company had assumed the police had already checked the van. Or people are in too much of a hurry!
We can speculate. However, the family of Monica Camero De Adama have filed a 50 million dollar claim as a lawyer accused the city authorities of 'burying her alive.' In the suit, the authorities are accused of wrongful death, negligence, and inflicting a torturous death on Monica.
Contrast this case with another response to a homeless person living in a vehicle. {See article in Second City Teachers , March 21st 2021, The Curious Car that Never Moved} In 2021 , a 77-year-old substitute teacher Jose Villarruel had lost his job, couldn't pay the rent, and was forced to live in a car. He lost his job because with the pandemic all the lessons were moved on-line. A young man called Steven Nava noticed a car that remained stationary. Steven was curious about whether someone actually lived in this car or not. He took the trouble of checking the car. What he found took him back. To his dismay, he discovered that the homeless man was no other than his former teacher. Jose explained to Steven how he had ended up in the car. He had lost his job, other sources of income had dried up, and he had to send most of his income to his sick wife in Mexico. Steven and other students recalled that the teacher was a very cheerful, kind, and helpful person.
The teacher was also an optimist. He believed that the bad times would one day lift. He always told his students 'to never give up.' Steven gave Jose 300 dollars to help him out. But he realised that this money would soon go.
So Steven decided to launch a 'Go Fund Me' appeal to raise 15,000 dollars. His friends thought that was too ambitious a target. To their surprise the appeal raised 27,000 dollars ! Perhaps the moral of the story is that people can be better than we believe.
Here we see two ways of responding. In the former people don't check out whether anyone is in the vehicle and in the latter they check it out despite initially having doubts that anyone could live in the vehicle. Just acting on curiousity can help out people.
What is clear is that vehicle residency is increasingly widespread in America and set to rise on and on. The recent public admission by former E.N. Vogue singer Dawn Robinson that she has been living in a vehicle since the pandemic demonstrates it can happen to anyone.
A good question is just how widespread is vehicle residency? Data from the Los Angeles Homeless Authority found 40% of the unsheltered homeless rely on vehicles, cars, vans and SUVs for shelter. According to San Diego Regional Leader on homelessness, more than 6000 people in the San Diego region were counted as either living in tents or vehicles.
We don't know the exact estimate but perhaps 1 in four homeless people are living in cars. There is nothing romantic about such a lifestyle. It is not a free choice or an attempt to return to nature or even a dramatic quest for freedom. The harsh reality is that you are constantly harassed and asked to move out by the police. In addition, you can have your vehicle towed away, vandalised or ransacked. Those people are exposed to many dangers.
Ideally, the local authorities should provide them with special car parks with decent facilities where the homeless can at least feel more security and protection. Instead, the homeless who dwell in vehicles are viewed as an obstacle who should get out the way. They should not be there in the first place, is how some people reason.
A recent point-in-time count in Wisconsin turned up some interesting figures—including an increase in persons living in vehicles and other places not meant for humans to inhabit. A point-in-time count is conducted one night each winter in all states and cities to try to see how many people are living outdoors. The Wisconsin count in Johnson Creek (February 2025) revealed an increase even in rural areas. Volunteers discovered that “In 2024, there was an 18% increase in the homeless count nationwide based on the count taken that January. In rural Wisconsin the increase was 9%.” This percentage translated from the numbers: there were 10 more homeless people than last year in this spot (https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/wisconsins-point-in-time-count-struggles-to-capture-the-states-homeless-population/).
Point in time counts for urban areas are up, also. For example, the 2024 Chicago figure is 1,634 for persons living outdoors, an increase over 2023 with 990 unsheltered persons (https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/fss/supp_info/Homeless/2024-Homeless-Point-In-Time-Count-Report/2024_PIT_Report_FINAL.pdf).
Readers are reminded that these point-in-time counts are ONLY for those persons the volunteers were able to locate and ONLY for those persons living outdoors.
The true homeless number for Chicago (housed and unhoused) is estimated at over 80,000 and the unhoused migrants represent an additional 50,000, according to the City of Chicago.
A lack of curiosity is not limited to why or whether someone ends up in a car. It also extends to questioning the real reasons for homelessness in America. The major reasons lie in an unjust system where poverty in America is so rife {30% of Americans live right at or below the poverty line}, the destruction of social housing and social aid programs since the 1980's, and the closure of so many mental institutions where mentally distressed people ended up on the streets because the government never followed up the fate of all those discharged people. The main aim was 'to save a lot of money.'
Kevin Fagan argues in his new book “The Lost and the Found” {Oxford: Signal Publishers, 2025} that mass poverty is at the root of the problem of homelessness. He states, “When you have that amount of poverty {i.e. 30%} and people struggling, you're not going to get rid of homelessness. You need to attack it at the root, but we are treating it with a band aid for people.” It angers Kevin Fagan when he hears how ignorant people call homelessness a life choice and self-inflicted. He himself was homeless. He states, “It's hard, it's cold , it dirty. People get stuck in their survival mode. And people get stuck in cars dreaming of real homes.”
What the homeless people in cars ask is that they be given perhaps a little bit of dignity. They feel no peace. They experience little or no safety.
Solving the homeless crisis? It will take some major work—and a huge change in attitude by the public.