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Finding L.A.'s Hidden Homeless

Thousands live in trees, under freeways, in caves on the fringes of wilderness

To most people, it's just trash: A scrap of dirty blanket visible under some stairs. A glimpse of blue tarp peeking out of a bush. A bag of recyclables parked discreetly behind a concrete column.

But Courtney Kanagi, an outreach worker, has learned how to decode bits of urban detritus that most people ignore. She knows what these signs mean: the crawl space beneath the stairs was someone's home.

So Kanagi climbed out of her van and, after a few minutes of poking through the bushes, found a woman sound asleep with a white sheet drawn across her face.

Los Angeles County has more homeless people -- estimated at roughly 73,000 on any given night -- than any other metropolis in the country. It also has a topography in which dense urban areas frequently brush up against tiny pockets of wilderness.

For those without houses, this landscape offers many opportunities for ingenious solutions -- aeries beneath bridges, riverbed encampments, ad hoc tree houses with million-dollar views -- to the problem of where to sleep.