“I definitely remember sleeping in the car while you’re in the emergency room and the kids have passed out in the back seat. I would barely sleep at night because I was watching

for security guards,” Charlotte Wheelock tells her husband, Nick Hodges. Their family moved to Seattle in 2014 after Charlotte was offered a job in the city. Soon after arriving, the job fell through and Nick became sick with spinal stenosis, a condition that left him paralyzed from the waist down. No longer able to afford a place to live, Charlotte and their two boys—then aged 6 and 4—began sleeping in their car in the hospital parking lot while Nick was being treated. The couple talk about their experience with homelessness and what it was like to finally get keys to their own affordable apartment.

Their story aired on KUOW in July of 2015. Two months prior to the broadcast, StoryCorps producer Eve Claxton interviewed Charlotte and Nick at a community event at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center. That interview is included in this clip, courtesy of KUOW.