Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA Luskin, appeared on an episode of KQED’s Forum devoted to the growing number of people who are using their cars for shelter. Brozen shared research showing that nearly 19,000 people in Los Angeles County are living in their vehicles, many of them women living with children, or older Americans, or people who are employed yet cannot afford rent. Some municipalities have set aside areas for safe overnight parking, but Los Angeles has only 500 such parking spots. While these sites provide a short-term solution at best, Brozen called on Los Angeles to act with creativity and flexibility to allow more of its vast stretches of paved spaces to be used to keep the vehicular homeless population safe. “The more rational and compassionate approach would be to allow a space for people to really have safety and security on a path to being housed,” she said.