In Reseda, an elderly couple fret about where they will go at the end of the month, when they are forced out of the one-room apartment they have lived in for 29 years. In Tujunga, a retired woman lives in a backyard shed, treating her high blood pressure with tea made from her garden and bathing in an outdoor tub with water heated by the sun. In Arleta, a supermarket employee rents a makeshift room in a house that is home to 10 people, and often waits in a long line to shower before work. I didn't set out last Wednesday to tie these stories together; I was following leads in search of the small dramas that play out daily, beyond the headlines, in homes that do not make the Hot Property column . I traveled the 101 and the 405, the 118 and the 210, and the stories intersected as the highways do, here in a land where all too often plans fall apart, and the daily challenge is to adapt, to endure, to survive. :: "Help!!!!" Caroline Malloy pleaded in an email to me. Her pa...
