Chapter 1: Tulicia

Episode Summary

Title: Chapter 1 - Tulicia Talisha Lee and her 11-year-old disabled son Jordan have been homeless in Oakland, CA for 5 years. They often sleep in their car and struggle to find food and shelter. Talisha has endured a difficult life of poverty, addiction, and instability. In 2019, after a breakdown, Talisha started going to see Trish Anderson, a school district employee who helps homeless families. Trish encouraged Talisha to call 211 to get into the coordinated entry system to receive housing assistance. But after multiple calls over weeks, Talisha never got help. The 211 operators only had shelters for domestic violence victims or unaffordable $1200 rooms. The coordinated entry system never followed up. Trish feels limited in her ability to help compared to previously. Talisha feels forgotten and that the system must be overwhelmed. She continues working temp jobs and living precariously with Jordan, holding onto hope for change. The story illustrates how the current system fails to help many homeless people get off the streets.

Episode Show Notes

Tulicia reaches out for help

Episode Transcript

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Yeah, we gonna go straight. That car right there? Homeless. Most of my interviews with Talisha Lee took place in a car. SPEAKER_00: Come to think of it, most of my interviews with homeless people in general took place in cars. Cars are good as studios. They're quiet, they don't have an echo. They are less good as homes. But many, many people in Oakland are using them that way. So you alright? SPEAKER_09: That fan right there? SPEAKER_00: Talisha is pointing out all the people sleeping in cars on just a few blocks in East Oakland. Sometimes you really can't tell when a car has a person living in it. But often there are signs, blankets covering windows, suitcases strapped to roofs. SPEAKER_09: Them cars right there. This car right here. I know these people right here. I know these people right here. I know them people right there. All homeless? All homeless in their cars. SPEAKER_00: Oakland recorded 727 people sleeping in cars in 2019. Although that's widely considered to be an undercount, especially because folks in vehicles tend to be less visible than, say, people in tents. Talisha is good at spotting these cars because she knows this neighborhood. But there's another reason too. Sometimes she and her 11-year-old son Jordan also sleep in the car. SPEAKER_06: So you see what's up? Yeah, I put my seat back somewhere. SPEAKER_09: I just had to record it right here for a minute. You got all the cover. I wrapped my feet double. So my feet won't be cold because in the middle of the night my feet be real cold. SPEAKER_00: Talisha is in the driver's seat and her son Jordan is in shotgun. She has a round face and a wide smile with a little gap between her front teeth. She wears a beanie to keep her head warm and to cover the short hair she hasn't had the money to get done the way she likes it with extensions. Mom. SPEAKER_06: Yeah? SPEAKER_09: You know what to think about. SPEAKER_09: What you think about, Daddy? We need a house. SPEAKER_09: We need a house. A house core. SPEAKER_06: We need a house, a car. SPEAKER_09: We need a house on wheels. SPEAKER_00: Jordan has his mom's same round face plus a round belly to match. He's gentle and shy. He likes video games and math. And Talisha says she's thankful he isn't trying to act all grown like some kids his age. By the way, Jordan has a disability that affects his speech and language. Wheels. SPEAKER_06: Okay. So we could drive. We could drive and pull over and go to sleep. SPEAKER_09: Yeah. SPEAKER_09: Okay. That's what you want. That's what you're thinking about. SPEAKER_06: Yeah. Okay. A nice one. A nice one too, huh? Even though Mommy liked to drive, we were just the drivers. SPEAKER_00: By 2019, Talisha and Jordan had been homeless for five years. Sometimes they stayed with family or friends, and sometimes they ended up in the car. For five years, they'd mostly just struggled through homelessness on their own. But then something changed, and they finally started trying to get some help. This is According to Need, Chapter One. I want to zero in on the time when Talisha started asking for help so that we can see what that looks like and start to see who the system works for and who it fails. But first, I want to go back. SPEAKER_03: Should I get in with you? We could get in your car. You want to get in my car? SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Okay. Talisha told me about her life in a series of interviews we did in the car. She had never had it easy. SPEAKER_09: The stuff that I went through when I was little, it taught me my survival skills. SPEAKER_00: Talisha's family was poor growing up. Both of her parents struggled with addiction, and she had her first kid at 16. SPEAKER_09: I didn't get a chance to enjoy my teenage years because I was a mom. SPEAKER_00: There were so many obstacles and so much instability in Talisha's life. But somehow, by the time she was in her 30s, she'd managed to get her GED, her forklifting license, and a good union job with benefits at Berkeley Farms Milk Plant. But then things started to unravel. It felt like there was one family crisis after another. SPEAKER_09: I just went through a lot emotionally. And then my mom, she was sick and using drugs and in and out of hospital. And it just got to the point where I was just tired, Katie. SPEAKER_00: Talisha started missing work at the plant. Eventually, she lost her job. And shortly thereafter, her apartment. In 2014, she became homeless. For a while, she and Jordan found places to crash, and she worked temp jobs on and off. But they could only stay in one place for so long. SPEAKER_09: You know, some people live different from how you used to live. Some people are dirty. Some people are clean. Some people get high, and you don't get high. Somebody be like, you come over here for a few days, you get them some money, you eat and stuff, and then after that, they act funny or feel like they want their space and put you out. SPEAKER_00: They'd stay somewhere for a few months or a few weeks, and then it would be time to move on. Years passed like this. Eventually, the instability started to wear on Talisha's mental health. SPEAKER_09: Because being homeless mentally is trouble. Especially when your child asks you, when you pick them up from school, mom, where are we going to go? Mom, where are we going to eat? SPEAKER_00: Talisha felt like she was treading water, just barely staying afloat. Or maybe she wasn't staying afloat at all, but was actually slowly drowning. She desperately needed a life raft. But there was no one stable enough in her life to grab onto. Everyone around her was also struggling. SPEAKER_09: I was to the point to where I was really trying to figure out where can I place and put my son that's... I can't provide for him the way I want to. Like, let a family member have him for a while, you know, where he can eat, sleep, bathe, be clean, smoke-free environment, you know, stuff like that. And I couldn't picture or figure out one person. SPEAKER_00: In 2018, after four years of bouncing around from place to place, Talisha suffered a psychotic break. For a couple months, she had delusions that she was famous and wealthy, and she got aggressive when people tried to convince her otherwise. SPEAKER_09: When I started doing stuff I don't usually do, that's when I knew I needed help. SPEAKER_00: During this time, while she was driving by herself, Talisha crashed her car, on purpose, into a wall. She didn't want to die. It was more like a cry for help. SPEAKER_09: And I said to myself, if I hit that pole, I'm gonna die. If I hit that brick wall, I can survive, but I'm gonna be f***ed up. So I said, not the pole, and I just turned the wheel. SPEAKER_00: After the crash, Talisha went to a regular hospital and then a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with PTSD, among other things. And then, like she's always done, she clawed her way back to some fragile semblance of sanity. And that brings us to 2019, when Talisha and Jordan, still homeless, had exhausted every last family or friend connection. There was nowhere left to go, except for the car. The car is sacred. Talisha wears her keys on a lanyard around her neck. If it wasn't for the car, she tells me, they'd be living under a bridge. SPEAKER_09: I just put my seat back, put my little thing to cover up the front window. We'll have our snacks and whatever else we eat, our cover, and we'll just go to sleep. SPEAKER_06: Oh, my legs kill me. Your leg? Yup. Why? It's not gonna kill me. SPEAKER_09: It's the way you're laying? Oh, it's tight. You can get in the back seat. SPEAKER_06: Maybe I can find dreams. We can go hang up our dreams. SPEAKER_00: That's how the summer rolled forward. Stiff necks and backs, sleeping in the car, washing their faces at McDonald's. But then, when the school year starts, something kind of incredible happens. Talisha finally gets a life raft. Her name is Trish Anderson. SPEAKER_08: Bless you, girl. Keep it up. OK. You too. Bye-bye. One down. OK. Did you know, because I did not know, that every school district in the U.S. has a person SPEAKER_00: whose job is to help homeless families? Trish Anderson is that person in Oakland. Her title, the McKinney-Vento liaison, comes from the federal legislation that established the position. Trish's office is in a little portable building behind an elementary school. She has about a dozen bracelets on each wrist that clank on the table when she talks. And she lets me interview her between emails and phone calls. Hi, Leslie. SPEAKER_08: This is Trish. Hi. So, Leslie, I have a situation. I have a mom and a daughter. They're not in a car. They have no place to go. SPEAKER_00: Over the course of the 2017-2018 school year, public school data shows that some one and a half million students experienced homelessness across the country. These students tend to move with their parents from one part of town to another to another. And a big part of the McKinney-Vento liaison's job is helping homeless parents enroll and re-enroll their kids in school. Trish does a lot of that, but she can also help with things like bus passes and uniforms. SPEAKER_08: Sometimes they don't want what I offer. I don't need transportation. I need a house. And I mean, that's real. SPEAKER_00: Trish can't offer housing per se. Although she can help parents fill out applications for apartments or search for affordable places on the internet. When a family in her program finally finds housing or shelter, they get a little construction paper house to put on the wall. SPEAKER_08: So this one, someone went from car to shelter. So she decorated hers. Any movement we acknowledge. SPEAKER_00: Trish has a big, warm personality, but there's also something guarded underneath. When I ask her if she ever takes work home, she says she tries not to. She has her own problems at home. She's a caregiver for her son who's schizophrenic and for her elderly mother who needs a lot of help with day-to-day tasks. But every now and again, someone slips past her force field. Talisha was like that. Trish remembers seeing Talisha at the beginning of the school year when she came to pick up a bus pass for Jordan. SPEAKER_08: She was slid down in a chair, had on a hat, looked very tired. So I said, come here every day. Come here every day, have oatmeal, hang out, volunteer, help me with my closet. SPEAKER_09: I was like, okay. That's what I said to her. I was like, okay. Actually I start going every day. SPEAKER_09: Every day. I have oatmeal, eat, get on a computer, look for resources. SPEAKER_00: And while Talisha was there, Trish encouraged her to do something else too. Something she hadn't tried in a while. Call 211 and ask for help. 211 is a kind of hotline for homeless people who are looking for help with things like shelter or housing in Alameda County. SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much for helping. How can I assist you today? SPEAKER_09: Yes, me and my 11-year-old son is homeless. SPEAKER_05: And where have you and your son been sleeping at? Where did you stay or sleep last night? SPEAKER_09: In my car that don't run. SPEAKER_05: Okay. So tomorrow you can go at 1 p.m. at the Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center to do an assessment for the CES program. SPEAKER_00: When the operator says the CES program, she's using an acronym for the Coordinated Entry System. You're going to understand a lot more about this system by the end of this series. But for now, I'll just say that most communities in the U.S. have a system like this. And one thing it does is create a big master list of homeless people that all the nonprofits in a particular community are working off of. This helps to ensure that two different organizations aren't trying to assist the same person without knowing it. Anyway, the operator is telling Talisha she needs to get into this system in order to get help with housing. And that, unfortunately, there are no shelters to stay in in the meantime. SPEAKER_05: There was no mom with child available right now. SPEAKER_09: And I'm just trying to find something before it rains. SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you for calling. Bye bye. SPEAKER_00: The next day, Talisha took the bus to the nonprofit in downtown Oakland that the operator had told her about. While she waited, she eyed the other people who were also there. Everyone homeless, everyone in need. Eventually, it was Talisha's turn, and she answered some questions with a social worker named Yolanda. What is your monthly income? Yolanda asked her. $836, Talisha answered. Talisha didn't have a job at the time, but she got some money from the state because of Jordan's disability. Does anyone in your household suffer from depression? Yes. In the past 30 days, have you had to do things that felt unsafe to survive? Yes. How often? Daily. There were more questions, and Yolanda entered Talisha's answers into a computer while they talked. SPEAKER_00: The fact that they wanted to know so much about her seemed like a good sign to Talisha. She felt hopeful, even though they were still sleeping in the car. SPEAKER_06: So, mom. What? So, what's your favorite food? SPEAKER_06: Spaghetti, chicken, and garlic bread with some salad, fish, french fries, and salad, SPEAKER_09: t-bone steak, potatoes. Mm-mm. A roast. Mm. I like zucchini. SPEAKER_05: Mm. Yeah. What's your favorite dessert? SPEAKER_09: You like banana pudding? No, I like chocolate. SPEAKER_09: Chocolate cake? SPEAKER_06: Ice cream cake. SPEAKER_09: Ice cream cake? SPEAKER_06: Cupcake and some sundae. Sundae? Oh, another has some sundae. SPEAKER_06: You haven't had a sundae in a while? SPEAKER_00: While Talisha waited to hear back about whether she was going to get help with housing or shelter, she kept going to see Trish. SPEAKER_08: It's interesting with Talisha, because you try to have boundaries. And there's always one or two or a few, and I have a few, where the boundary is like, it's really hard to keep that boundary, because there's something else they need or they draw on you. Mm-hmm. And she demanded it. And it happened. It just happened that way. And not everybody does that. SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that long before Talisha started calling Trish Big Mama and telling her she loved her. The two of them recounted this to me in Trisha's office. SPEAKER_08: People don't come in and say, I love you. You know what I'm saying? And then I found myself saying it back, because she needed it. So that was the demand. She wasn't going to accept anything less. SPEAKER_09: I started saying it, because I wanted her to know I really do love her. SPEAKER_00: You're getting emotional. Of course I'm always getting emotional. SPEAKER_09: I'm an emotional creature. SPEAKER_00: I know this side of Talisha, too. I've tried to keep a journalistic boundary with her, but she'd text me out of the blue, like, hey, Katie, what are you doing? Or she'd say, I'm sad. And I'd find myself giving her a pep talk. Another case in point, for some reason, at this very moment in Trisha's office, she was squeezed onto the same chair as me. SPEAKER_09: I just squeezed on the chair with you. I had you on camera. I know, there's this whole other chair right there. I'm sorry. See? SPEAKER_08: See, Tashi? I'm just so demanding. SPEAKER_09: You can't keep a boundary. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. With Trisha's support and a place to be every day, Talisha was finally in an emotional state SPEAKER_00: where she felt like she could work again. And Trish encouraged her to apply at a temp agency. She did, and she got a temporary position in washing dishes for Cirque du Soleil. In the evenings, if Talisha had enough money, she'd buy herself and Jordan something to eat for dinner, and Jordan would spread his homework out on the table at KFC or McDonald's. Sometimes she'd even have enough money to do something fun, like a movie. They were still sleeping in the car, but it felt like maybe things were turning around. SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks after that first call, Talisha tried 211 again. Good morning. How are you doing? SPEAKER_09: Good, thank you. How are you? I'm hoping to see if you guys have any rooms for rent on your listing or any traditional housing results. OK, just give me a second, please. SPEAKER_05: Don't hang up. OK. SPEAKER_09: And are you by yourself? SPEAKER_09: I have an 11-year-old son with a disability. SPEAKER_00: The operator asked Talisha if she'd already done an assessment for the coordinated entry system, and she said she had. Other than referring people into that system, where maybe, hopefully, they'll get assistance with housing, 211 also maintains their own database of subsidized housing options that you don't have to be homeless to get into, just poor. But all of those options have waiting lists. The waiting list is from one to five years. SPEAKER_05: That's the problem. SPEAKER_00: They can also give you a list of apartments on the private market that aren't subsidized, but where the landlords might be willing to work with tenants that have less than sparkling rental histories. But there doesn't seem to be much of anything that would be affordable for Talisha. OK, there is one. SPEAKER_05: Is this a room for rent in Oakland? The price is $600 per person, so you have to pay $1200 for a room. SPEAKER_00: You can tell the operator thinks $1200 for a room is an absolute garbage option. SPEAKER_05: Too much, huh? SPEAKER_09: I mean, for my own room, no, I try to figure it out. It is a little bit expensive, but all we need is our own room. SPEAKER_00: Talisha told me later she didn't end up pursuing that room. It was too expensive. Before they hang up, Talisha asks again about shelter. The operator tells her that the only thing available is for victims of domestic violence and then asks her in a tone that can only be described as hopeful if she happens to be one. SPEAKER_05: Yeah, unfortunately, are you a victim of domestic violence? SPEAKER_09: In my past, but not recently, I can't say. SPEAKER_05: Yeah, unfortunately, there is nothing available right now. SPEAKER_00: Trish told me she tells all of her homeless parents to call 211. But for most of them, it doesn't lead to housing, which she doesn't think is 211's fault. But it's still frustrating. SPEAKER_08: Every time you call, you're getting the same interview over and over and over again. And it's like they're collecting all this data, but there's no movement. SPEAKER_00: What's a case that's really stuck with you, you know, without naming names, but like... SPEAKER_08: The mom who says if I don't find housing this year, I'm going to kill myself. And my kids will be better off without me because at least they'll go into foster care and they'll get housed. I had two attempted suicides last year. SPEAKER_08: No, this year. I never saw that before. So the mental health has really been on the decline for these families. SPEAKER_00: The stories Trish hears all day from these parents are hard. She tells me while she bangs out a few emails how she manages to hold so many sad stories. SPEAKER_08: My faith is what makes me have the most capacity to do the work. SPEAKER_00: I'm not with this person, so I don't know what it feels like to have faith drive you like that. SPEAKER_04: Well, it's just a place to put it all so you don't carry it. SPEAKER_08: All the things you can't solve, all the things you can't carry because you got to carry something else. It's a place like, you know, your purse, you put all your things you need for the day in the purse or bag or it's kind of like that. And so you're able to carry more. SPEAKER_00: Still, Trish says the purse is filling up and she's not sure how much more it or she can carry. Yeah, you can't do this forever. SPEAKER_08: I've done it for a long time already. SPEAKER_00: Part of what's hard for Trish is that she doesn't feel like she has as much power as she used to to make a difference in people's lives. A couple of years ago, Trish could help the family she worked with get into shelters. If she had a family walk in at 4 p.m. who had nowhere to sleep that night, she'd start making calls. But then the county shifted to a system where everyone has to go through 2-1-1. And now she can't do that anymore. It's hard to know that someone's on the street and you can't make a phone call and get them SPEAKER_08: into a shelter. You know, in this position, you have to be careful that you don't become a complainer because you're having families interact with a system that you don't think works or it has challenges and the family's already feeling that. So you walk a fine line in your frustration. SPEAKER_09: Yes, I was calling to see if you guys have any shelter. SPEAKER_00: This call was the last time Talisha tried 2-1-1. It's about three weeks from her first call and she sounds tired. The operator tells her that the only shelters available are for single adults, not for a woman with a child. SPEAKER_00: Just jumping in here to say that Talisha is right to be worried about Jordan falling behind academically. Data from public schools in 2017-2018 showed that only 29 percent of homeless students were proficient in reading and they were similarly behind in math. But it isn't just poverty that makes them slip. It's instability. Homeless kids' test scores are below even other low-income students who are stably housed. Before they get off the phone, the operator suggests Talisha get into the coordinated entry system, not seeming to realize that she was already in the system. She'd been in it for weeks now. She hadn't gotten any help. SPEAKER_09: Nobody never called me back and checked on me. I've been going through this now for so long. SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that is? SPEAKER_09: There's so many people all over that's experiencing the same thing as me. They probably just never got to me on the list. I just feel like somebody, they forgot about me. They forgot about me and my son. SPEAKER_00: In other words, for Talisha, the fact that help never came wasn't personal and it totally was personal. A couple months after those 2-1-1 calls, Talisha still hadn't gotten any help with housing from the system. She had a new job at Napa Auto Parts where she made about $500 a week, but she hadn't been able to save much yet. She had found a spot where she and Jordan could stay inside with some regularity. Not their own place, but somewhere to crash at least. It didn't feel like home though, even though she had a roof over her head. She still felt homeless. SPEAKER_09: There's nothing else for me to do but keep trying. I think about Jordan more than I think about myself. Every night I just keep listening to that song. Hold on, change is coming. I just keep holding on. Everything's gonna be alright. Just hold on, change is coming. SPEAKER_09: I'm on it right now though, like right now. SPEAKER_00: Thanks for talking to me. You're welcome. I always appreciate it. SPEAKER_09: Yep, I feel better too. Oh good. SPEAKER_00: I feel like I wore you out but I'm going. I was already wore out before you got here. SPEAKER_00: Alright, well I hope you get some good sleep tonight. SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I hope so too. SPEAKER_00: The place where Talisha and Jordan were staying was a one bedroom basement apartment where a bunch of other people also lived. One guy slept on the couch, another person slept in a recliner. Talisha and Jordan slept on a bare mattress. Sometimes there were tensions in the house though. People mad at each other over bills or food or what to watch on TV. And then Talisha and Jordan would end up back in the one place they'd always been able to count on, the car. SPEAKER_06: I see stars. You see stars? SPEAKER_09: Yeah. SPEAKER_09: Why don't you look at them and count them and make a wish. SPEAKER_06: I see a bunch of stars. It's the big dipper, the little dipper, the small dipper. SPEAKER_06: A mini dipper? SPEAKER_09: Yeah, a mini dipper. SPEAKER_06: Oh man. Yeah. I feel so sorry for the dinosaurs. SPEAKER_09: You feel sorry for the dinosaurs? SPEAKER_06: Yeah, they stink. I want them. SPEAKER_09: All the dinosaurs gone. The little dinosaurs, the stars, the pink rats. SPEAKER_06: I think some of them not gone. SPEAKER_09: Some of them not gone? SPEAKER_06: Yeah. SPEAKER_09: They in a cage hibernating? SPEAKER_06: Maybe, yeah. SPEAKER_00: I wanted to understand why Talisha had never gotten any help with housing. Who was the system helping if not her? One thing I did know was that when homeless people wanted help, they were almost always advised to call 2-1-1. That seemed to be the starting place for everyone. If I wanted to understand how this all worked, maybe I should pay them a visit. That's next time on According to Need. When we come back from the break, a preview. SPEAKER_01: When you're working on the go, how can you make sure the confidential information on your laptop screen is safe from wandering eyes? 3M has the answer with the new 3M BrightScreen Privacy Filter. 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We're talking marinated chicken wings, organic chicken sausages, hot dogs and more. And if you really want to step it up, catering makes tailgates a breeze. Explore the Whole Foods Market catering menu at shop dot w FM dot com. And don't sleep on the build your own taco bar. Everyone loves a taco bar. Plus, from September 20th through October 17th, you can save 20 percent on your next catering order with promo code fall catering. All one word terms apply. If you're heading over to a friend's house, bring snacks from Whole Foods Market like late July tortilla chips, Primal Kitchen queso dip or buffalo sauce, beef jerky, cheese, pickles or salted nuts. Grab football ready sides that are already prepared like mac and cheese, potato salad or sushi. I am telling you, the prepared foods at Whole Foods cannot be beat. They have saved my bacon so many times. It comes to feeding anybody who's coming over. Elevate game day at Whole Foods Market. SPEAKER_00: Next time on According to Need. My name is Hara. I'm calling from Alameda County. SPEAKER_03: Two one one. Just checking the shelter space. OK, thank you very much. They don't have anything available. SPEAKER_07: She's like, so what do I got to do? It's nothing. It's nowhere. So me and my child literally about to be on the streets tonight. Good morning. Thank you for calling Alameda County. Two one one. How can I help you? I'm homeless in Alameda County with a two year old son. SPEAKER_09: But I'm willing to move anywhere that I can get help. I would like to know. Do you know anybody to give a Washington? SPEAKER_05: I'm 93 years old. SPEAKER_08: No one here. There's no one here. Help me. I'm stuck. SPEAKER_07: You need to get over to EOCP by 6 p.m. SPEAKER_02: I'm coming out. I'm coming out right here. SPEAKER_07: OK, you may want to hurry. She wants to say she's literally homeless, but I think she's actually been staying at a friend's house. SPEAKER_03: Or she's going to end up saying that. People really get frustrated when you tell them they're not literally homeless. SPEAKER_07: I'm sleeping in my effing car and I just got let in last night. SPEAKER_00: Why some homeless people never even make it into the system and what it's like to answer their calls. That's coming up on According to Need. SPEAKER_00: According to Need was produced by me, Katie Mingol, with associate producer Abby Medan and managing editor Whitney Henry Lester. Roman Mars was the executive producer. Invaluable editing from Lisa Pollock, Emmett Fitzgerald, Delaney Hall, Christopher Johnson and Joe Rosenberg. Kevin Ramsey was our sound engineer. Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Beautiful music by the beautiful Shawn Real. Branding and design by much more dot IO. Kurt Kohlstedt was our digital director. Additional support from Sofia Klatsker, Vivian Lay and Chris Berube. Special thanks to all the people who spoke to me for this series, as well as Marisol Medina-Cerena, Alison DeYoung and Chelsea Miller. According to Need is a project of 99% invisible, which is distributed by PRX. SPEAKER_01: Radio Topia from PRX. SPEAKER_01: Great sleep can be hard to come by these days, and finding the right mattress feels totally overwhelming. Serta's new and improved Perfect Sleeper is a simple solution designed to support all sleep positions. With zoned comfort, memory foam and a cool to the touch cover, the Serta Perfect Sleeper means more restful nights and more rested days. Find your comfort at Serta.com. SPEAKER_04: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Affiliates, Columbus, Ohio. SPEAKER_02: Look around. You can find cars like these on Auto Trader, like that car riding your tail. Or if you're tailgating right now, all those cars doubling as kitchens and living rooms are on Auto Trader, too. Are you working out and listening to this ad at the same time? Well, multitasking pro. Cars like the ones in the gym parking lot are for sale on Auto Trader. New cars, used cars, electric cars, maybe even flying cars. OK, no flying cars, but as soon as they get invented, they'll be on Auto Trader. Just you wait. Auto Trader.