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Moving Out Of The Living Room

May 10, 2023

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“My dream at that moment was to have a pillow, to have a restroom that worked, because I remember visiting my counselor’s house, and I went to use her restroom and I could flush the toilet. I could just turn on the faucet and it's hot water.”

Ismael Chamu had been homeless his entire life. His family moved around a lot, living in garages, RVs or shared living rooms with other families, separated by nothing more than a curtain. His father took whatever work he could find. Ismael was forced to adapt, and avoided getting close with his classmates, because he knew he’d just be sad when he inevitably had to move again and leave his friends.

In spite of his hardship, or perhaps because of it, Ismael was a really good student. He found he could disappear into his schoolwork, hyper focus and escape from the chaos of his life.

“If all you know is chaos or pain, and school or that history class – for example, for me, I loved history – was the only outlet of just being able to not feel pain or sadness, I could like escape everything from my life and just hyper focus on that and just learn about that,” Ismael says in this episode.

Man and his mom smiling, man in graduation robes with flower necklaces around his neck.
Ismael and his mom at his graduation.

He had a 4.0 GPA, and his counselor encouraged him to dream beyond the life he’d always known. So he started applying to colleges, and in the fall of 2014, he began his freshman year at the University of California, Berkeley. He ended up majoring in sociology, and learned about the social forces behind his own family’s homelessness. He became an advocate for affordable housing, even as he still struggled to find a permanent place to live.

During Ismael’s senior year, he and his siblings lost their housing – an RV parked on some guy’s front yard – very suddenly. He was homeless again. But when a journalist wrote about his story, he went viral. Ismael’s friends started a GoFundMe, and someone offered to let his family rent out their home at an affordable rate that they could pay with the money brought in from the donation campaign.

Things were starting to look up after so many years of hardship. But for the Chamus, finally having permanent housing presented a whole new set of problems.

“How do you respond to safety finally for once?” Ismael says.

Man smiling at a tank of small fish and greenery.
Ismael posing with one of his fish tanks.

To hear how they learned to cope with the PTSD of chronic homelessness and feel at home in their own space, listen to “Moving Out Of The Living Room” now.

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Learn more about the host of Home. Made., award winning journalist Stephanie Foo on our host page.

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Episode Transcript