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When she first moved to Monterey in 2012, Tia Fechter volunteered with a street ministry, serving hot breakfasts on Sundays to local people in need. She noticed that a certain population of women, in their 50s and older, were living out of their vehicles. They kept their homelessness a secret, dressed well, and attended church services. But at night, they drove from place to place, looking for a safe location to park, worried about being harassed by the police or worse.

It was clear to Fechter that their cars were the last thing keeping these women from the black-hole spiral down to life on the street—and that they were often just one parking ticket away from having their vehicles impounded. Across the country in Maine, Fechter’s own mother had bounced in and out of housing