Near the shores of California’s Salton Sea, where the road gives way to barren desert, is a place where many have gone to park their troubled lives.
Bill Ammon has lived in what’s known as “Slab City” for 13 years.
“This piece of property is public-owned,” he said, “and it’s so useless, so desolate, that nobody wants it and they let us be here.”
Slab City takes its name from the concrete slabs it sits on — all that’s left from a World War II training camp. Now it is home base for more and more people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.
There are nearly 2,000 people living in Slab City, many refugees of the Great Recession.
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