Homelessness continues to grow and to affect the lives of an increasingly diverse group of individuals. Many scholars have studied people living in homeless shelters and outdoors in tents. An overlooked population is the growing number of the unhoused living in vehicles. We draw on data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s Homeless Demographic Survey to understand the characteristics of people living in vehicles and the extent to which they differ from the nonvehicular unhoused population. Compared to those living in tents, in makeshift shelters, and in public spaces, people living in vehicles are more likely to be women and to live in larger households with children, and are less likely to be chronically unhoused. These findings will help effectively target policies and services. Safe parking programs can provide temporary relief to those living in vehicles and, if done well, the interventions necessary to transition into permanent housing.

In this dissertation, I explore the expansion of hostile designs as conceptualized zones of anti-homelessness and the production of do-it-yourself urban design interventions as tactical responses (i.e., community infrastructure and mutual aid services)—employing mapping, photography, and conversations with unhoused residents in Los Angeles. Historically, scholars have investigated the criminalization of homelessness, achieved through the enforcement of anti-homeless ordinances and the spatial banishment of unhouse individuals. Less study has gone to hostile regulations and spatial design conditions in shelter spaces and public spaces that shrink the capabilities of unhoused individuals to access bare necessities, partake in life-sustaining activities, and realize socio-spatial rights to the city and its public spaces. To intervene in this gap, I review an emerging suite of strategies—quality-of-life ordinances, spatial policing, and hostile soft and hard design controls—that exist across Los Angeles’ anti-homeless landscape. Across four neighborhoods, I interviewed 36 unhoused individuals to understand their experiences with anti-homeless zones and responses to hostile designs within shelters and in public spaces. Additionally, I catalogued the grassroots construction from the part of unhoused individuals of residential and community infrastructure. My key argument is that hostile designs encourage and, ultimately, criminalize and demolish DIY urban design interventions that seek to respond to conditions of homelessness. Hostile designs across shelters and public spaces shrink the socio-spatial rights of unhoused residents to access public spaces and realize capabilities allowing them to partake in life-sustaining activities. I advance the concept of “dwellable inhabitance,” which is a capability afforded through regulation and urban design that allows individuals to appropriate public space so that they can partake in life-sustaining activities when no accessible or reasonable alternatives exist. Here, I critique the processes and outcomes of hostile designs that reproduce homelessness, as experienced by unhoused residents and their DIY urban design responses. Then, grounded in the recommendations and demands of unhoused residents, I suggest how hostile designs can be transformed into just public space designs. My suggested policy and design recommendations follow an inclusive justice framework that addresses distributive, procedural, interactional, recognitional aspects of justice, and care and repair considerations. Instead of fencing off parks, closing public restrooms, and criminalizing non-criminal activities like sleeping, cooking, or hanging out, I advocate for the abolition of hostile designs to render public spaces in LA more socially, politically, and spatially accessible places that provide compassionate services and opportunities for housing.

Problem, research strategy, and findings

Shelter is a necessity, yet approximately 17 out of every 10,000 people in the United States are unhoused. Public attention to homelessness has centered on individuals sitting and sleeping in public spaces. However, as many as 50% of the unsheltered live in vehicles. For people sleeping in vehicles, finding a safe place to park is an ongoing challenge, further complicated by the growing number of ordinances restricting vehicular dwelling. We drew on point-in-time count data from the Los Angeles (CA) Homeless Services Authority to examine spatial patterns of vehicular homelessness in Los Angeles from 2016 to 2020. We tested the relationship between the presence of vehicle regulations and the number of people sleeping in vehicles. Although the data likely underestimated vehicular homelessness, we found that ordinances directly reduced the number of people living in vehicles in particular census tracts. On average, cities with citywide and overnight bans had greater impacts on people sleeping in vehicles than cities with less restrictive ordinances. However, the indirect effects in neighboring tracts were stronger and demonstrate the role of these ordinances in simply shifting the vehicular homeless between areas.

Takeaway for practice

Given the slow pace of delivering permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness, cities should reduce the harm and precariousness of living in vehicles. Strategies to do this include the reform of punitive vehicle towing and vehicle dwelling regulations. Safe parking programs can provide individuals with a safe place to park their vehicles at night, offer ancillary services, and deter harassment from neighborhood residents and the police. Longer term, transformative change will require additional policies and programs to place people into permanently affordable housing.