The town at the center of California’s climate refugee crisis

When the Camp fire raged through the Sierra Nevada foothills, it turned an existing housing crisis into a growing emergency

After Julia Cheek lost all of her belongings in the Camp fire, she longed for a safe place to lay her head at night. When she finally received a check from the California utility that had caused the fire, Cheek used it to buy the only home she could afford: a 2010 Nissan Xterra.

Cheek didn't have insurance and has struggled to secure permanent housing since the fire, remaining among the growing population of unhoused residents in this northern California outpost.