In Lancaster, a woman named Evelyn felt stuck in a dead-end existence.

But what really drove her to pack up and move to Los Angeles was the desperate desire to give her five young children a better education and a legitimate shot at success in America. She zeroed in on Monterey Park and its school district, which was beyond anything her hometown could offer. 

But in Los Angeles, affordable housing was scarce to the point of non-existent and when her husband turned violent, Evelyn, who was pregnant at the time, was forced to flee their temporary motel housing with her children. 

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Jeff Hobbs’ gripping and deeply empathetic narrative nonfiction, “Seeking Shelter: A Working Mother, Her Children, and a Story of Homelessness in America,” follows Evelyn and the children as they sink into homelessness – often sleeping packed into their aging SUV – and then gradually resurface. The lifeboat that rescues them from perpetual crisis and provides safe shelter is a local Pasadena-based organization called Door of Hope that provides housing but also mentoring, therapy and other crucial elements of support. 

Hobbs occasionally pulls back to provide broader context about housing instability – its causes and the impact on those who suffer through it – in L.A. and America. But he only fully departs from Evelyn’s story for a section that tells us the story of Wendi Gaines, who went through a similar cycle a generation earlier before landing at Door of Hope and who ultimately remained there in a leadership role, becoming the beacon who guides a recalcitrant Evelyn through rocky times.

Hobbs previously has written a powerful narrative non-fiction book, “The Short and Tragic Life of Rob Peace” as well as a book about Los Angeles high school students, “Show Them You’re Good,” and one about America’s juvenile halls in “Children of the State.”

So Hobbs, who spoke recently by video, was keenly aware of both “the racism and classism that undergirds the entire primary education system, public and private” as well as the challenges of being a child or the parent of school-age children “when you don’t know necessarily where you’re going to take shelter that night.” Evelyn’s story explores those issues in intimate and unflinching detail.

Hobbs also notes that the crisis facing families on the edge will grow much worse after the recent fires, even though those communities don’t have high homeless populations. “Two days after the fires you saw price gouging start in the rental market and if you’re on the margin then a ten percent hike is the difference between being able to afford rent or not,” he says.

Additionally, the Section Eight voucher waitlist for family apartments was already above 10,000 people in Los Angeles and, he says, “You’ll see a lot of landlords get out of that market for the next year or two because there’ll now be a huge new market of renters.” 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. Why was Evelyn the right person for this story? 

She was a little bit famous at Door of Hope because of what she had survived, which was a lot and because she’s going to ask for a lot and she’s the most protective person of her kids you’ll ever meet. She survived immense challenges every step of that journey while keeping her kids in school 98% of the time. 

When you talk to her, she only talks about her kids – their dance recitals and their sports games and how awesome they are – which is like any parent. In that kind of normalcy, there was something profound. 

Because life was such a crisis every day, I’m not sure Evelyn fully understood the grind her kids went through. With her and the kids telling me their story, she saw the bigger picture and how her kids experienced some of these moments. But I like to think that the constancy of the love there that I hope is very evident in the book will send them all forward in relative health. 

Q. Evelyn refuses to ask for help and hides her housing situation from the school system and the city bureaucracy. Were her concerns about her kids being taken away or losing their place in the school system valid or did she not understand how to work the system? How much of that reluctance to ask for help is tied to her own family and trauma history? 

There were resources in the city and in their local community and even in her family that she was not asking for because of all those issues – her fear of losing their school and her own internal sense of her shortcomings in providing for her kids and that mess of day-to-day life. 

It’s hard to blame her for being scared of the system. Once you’re in the Los Angeles bureau of Children’s Welfare, you can’t easily extricate from it, and they do have immense power over your lives. There’s a lot of shunting around poor people here in Los Angeles 

She doesn’t want our pity, but she was scared and she was desperate. And she saw that elementary school in Monterey Park as a salvation and kind of a symbol that she was doing all right, even though life had spiraled toward chaos and danger. 

Q. How can cities like Los Angeles make change for families like Evelyn or do these problems feel intractable? 

We need to change the ethos on a national level of how we think about people like her. 

The city services are overrun, but governments also lie about the numbers and solutions, which causes dissonance as far as what the collective responsibility is in our city and who should be worrying about these things to meet the needs of specific families, which can be immense. 

At the local level, those needs are being met here mostly at the level of shelters like Door of Hope and other locally based organizations. But the waitlists get pretty long. I hope people understand that childhood success really hinges on whether or not you feel like you belong and we should be making space in local communities for people to feel like they belong. 

There are about 120 distinct residential neighborhoods in Los Angeles and if every one of those just had one place for six families that were vetted, like Door of Hope, there would be almost no family homelessness. So I think if there’s a value to a story like Evelyn’s; if people could think about incorporating families like hers into their communities at a grassroots level, rather than shunting them aside it would create room for more organizations like The Door of Hope.

For families that don’t have stable shelter, it’s about money, but it’s mainly about time. There’s no time to be curious or to talk to your kids about what they’re curious about. There’s no time to meditate and breathe. Having more organizations provide that kind of support could make a huge difference – you’re not just giving them a place to live, you’re giving them the support that they need to give them a chance to breathe and to think and to find a path. 

There were many special reasons more than 2,500 people chose to start the new year with a midnight 5K run along the Tournament of Roses parade route in Pasadena, but for Alexandria Calopiz and Joe Isaac Becerra of Chino it was all about romance.

“I thought, ‘What better way to start off our wedding year than running a 5K when the ball drops,’” said Calopiz, who will wed Becerra on June 5, 2025. “What a way to start it — being active and just doing it together.”

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For the second year in a row the Lululemon-sponsored “Run With the Roses” 5K was a sellout among runners, joggers and walkers. Along with participants, there were also hundreds of people in attendance that were already camped out along Colorado Avenue for the parade, who cheered the runners on fervently as they ran.

“We just thought there was this unique opportunity to program something within the parade course because there are so many folks that come out to camp and get ready for the parade and so we really decided to use that built-in cheer section to give them something to cheer for while they wait for the parade to begin,” explained Kara Schlosser, vice president of North America community for Lululemon.

“We’re just so thrilled with the partnership,” she said. “It’s incredible to be able to offer our community something to do on New Year’s Eve.”

With a wall of music thumping out of speakers on West Colorado Blvd., just west of Pasadena Ave., on the bridge overlooking the 210 freeway, a mob of runners gathered well before midnight. Picking spots along the starting area based on how fast they expected to finish, with the fastest runners toward the front of the pack, the mood was much more celebratory than serious, with many runners posing for selfies, filming themselves as they ran along, sharing hugs with friends and dancing to the music as the old year drew to a close.

“I feel like Lululemon’s my favorite brand and I always wanted to run a marathon, so I thought this was the best time,” said Vanessa Lara of Paramount, whose New Year’s resolution is to run more.

She, in turn, inspired her friend, Desiree Shack of Los Angeles, to also take part.

“I thought it would be fun,” Shack said. “She was doing it already so I thought I’d try.”

Along with promoting the Lululemon brand, along with their Rose-related limited edition merchandise, the race also served as a fundraiser for both Fostering Dreams Project and Women’s Sports Foundation.

The course headed east along Colorado Blvd, with runners looping back at Hill Ave., and finally finishing at Los Robles Ave.

Kenny Houser of San Bernandino ran the race last year.

“It was the loudest run I ever ran,” he said, with the screams and cheers of overnight parade patrons overwhelming. “It’s awesome. It’s very electric.”

He said that while there were some runners taking part who were very experienced and fast, it was really to be considered a recreational experience.

“It’s just a fun event,” Houser said. “It’s great to do it with the Rose Parade. It’s great to run the Rose Parade route.”

Schlosser echoed that the race was not meant to be competitive.

“We don’t necessarily have a prize for the winner, but they’ll get lots of high fives and good vibes,” she said. “It’s really about everyone who starts the race being able to finish it, so we’ll be here until the last runner crosses the finish line.”

Asked what had motivated her to come out at this late hour on New Year’s Eve to run a race, Angelica Cruz of Fullerton said, “I’m showing up for myself.”

She said earlier this year she ran in a 10K event also sponsored by Lululemon, and had an excellent time.

“That was so much fun,” she said. “I love their races. I love the vibes and environment, and I think it’s just a great way to start the new year.”

Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.