StoryCorps and SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America Present: Stories From Inside the Housing Crisis

“I wish that there was a warning about what you’re going to face when you try to live in San Francisco,” says Brontë Sorotsky, a 22-year-old college student.

In a bonus episode of SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America, Sorotsky speaks with her friend, Eddie Huijon, about their struggles to find secure housing as students in the Bay Area.

“Housing in the Bay Area is so complex,” she says. “You have people being pushed out, and then you have young people struggling to find housing. And then you have the homeless population.” 

The conversation between Sorotsky and Huijon is just one of five conversations from inside the housing crisis featured in this episode. The others include:

• Three sisters, Ovava, Mileti and Ileina Afuhaamango, share warm memories about their family home in San Francisco.
• Christine Johnson, a former planning commissioner, and Sonja Trauss, director of YIMBY Law, reflect on their friendship and rivalry in city hall.
• Christin Evans and Thomas Wolf talk about their approaches to homeless advocacy.
• Bruce Quan and John Gamboa discuss what brought them to fight against housing discrimination for half a century.

This bonus episode was made in collaboration with StoryCorps, a national nonprofit which travels around the country in a mobile booth, conducting interviews and sharing highlights in their public archive. You can read the transcript of the episode.

On their San Francisco Bay Area tour, StoryCorps remotely conducted these recordings. You can hear highlights from the recording on their website.

For more in-depth reporting on the housing crisis, check out our new podcast, SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR One, TuneIn or on your favorite podcast listening app.