By Rachel Belle

Brianna Karp, author of The girl’s Guide to Homelessness

Listen to The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness

Home is a place we pretty much all take for granted. None of us ever expect to be homeless.

But that’s what happened to 23-year-old Brianna Karp, a white, middle class gal from Orange County who was making $50,000 a year at Kelly Blue Book.

“And then, the great recession of July 2008 came around, and I was laid off with over half the company.”

Eventually her unemployment checks ran out and so did her rent money.

“So I moved back in with my mom and step-father for a short and very disastrous stint, because there’s a very toxic abusive history there, and I had five days to get out. And that’s when I moved into a Walmart parking lot, because I had no where else to go.”

That’s the basic story, but the whole story is told in Brianna’s new memoir: “The girls Guide to Homelessness.”

In the book she explains that her father, who sexually abused her when she was little, committed suicide and left her a camper around the same time she became homeless. So she lived in that in a Walmart parking lot.

“It was really scary. It had never occurred to me that I could or would become homeless. It was an issue that was never on my radar, until it happened to me, which I think is often the case.”

So she had to learn some new tricks to survive.

“I bought a $9.95 gym pass at a local mom and pop gym, so if I wanted to shower I had to drive 8 miles every day to do that. There was a local bathroom at a gas station that was open 24 hours.”

One of the most interesting parts of listening to Brianna’s story, is how many people were so drastically affected by the recession. People you would never think would end up homeless.

“In the Walmart parking lot there was a doctor and an older couple in their 60’s living out of the front seat of their car. There was a teacher, there was someone else who spoke four languages. There were people you would never expect to be homeless and they all had really great stories and were, for the most part, really kind, helpful, supportive people even though they had nothing themselves.”

She said she would go to a Starbucks and spend eight hours a day searching for jobs and sending in resumes. When some of the baristas found out she was homeless, they were pretty shocked, just like Brianna was when she met those homeless doctors and teachers.

“I had such preconceived notions and prejudices about homeless people because I was raised to believe the stereotypes that they are all drug addicts or dirty or lazy or mentally ill. But there’s this whole other sub-movement of people that I found, who are like me, who lost their jobs and their homes in the recession and are just sitting in a Starbucks, firing out resumes, who are trying hard to get back on their feet and get back up.”

She says she got to know homeless people from around the world online, which is another thing people don’t expect: for a a homeless person to have a laptop. Luckily, Brianna had hers because she used it to eventually find a new job.

“I work as a marketing assistant now at a local non-profit and I absolutely love where I work.”

But she still hasn’t changed her homeless status. Brianna is living in a converted shed while she saves up for an apartment. I suppose having a new book on the shelves could help with that.