Squattersville For Recession Refugees: Welcome to Slab City

Salon.com - How George Carranco wound up in Slab City, a squattersville at the end of the earth, is a story for these hard times.

Carranco, an ex-Marine and jack-of-all-trades, lost his job at a factory in San Diego when it shut down, lost his apartment when he couldn’t pay the rent, lost his temporary home when the city towed his van, and lost the van for good when the parking fees climbed to unattainable heights. More than a thousand dollars — might as well have been a million.

Three years of bad breaks later, Carranco had had enough. He revived an ’83 Dodge camper that he picked up for free and, with his girlfriend and five Chihuahuas, headed east, 155 miles from San Diego, to where the roads give up and the desert takes over.  Read more.

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