Washington Post Before 10 a.m. on another cold Thursday, Monica Diaz stirred in her tent, filled with dread. It had been two weeks since the last cleanup, and city workers would again be here soon, with their dumpster truck and police cars, to clear out the encampment. Every morning was awful, but these were the worst of all, when Monica, who’d otherwise be resting before work, was forced to confront publicly what she did her best to hide: that she’s homeless. That she lives in a tent. That she just turned 40, and that this is somehow her life. “You ready?” Monica asked her husband, after a sleepless night at the base of Union Station, near CNN’s Washington bureau, where the noise never stopped and they’d huddled together with their dog, Sassy, against the cold. “Somewhat,” said Pete Etheridge, 31, sighing. They looked around their tent, which not only held the sum total of their world but also reflected a way of life that has, over the past decade, fundamentally changed the face of American homelessness. As housing costs climb ever higher in booming urban areas, the significant growth in tent encampments nationwide has become one of the most visible signs of the nation’s failure to alleviate widening inequality. In Orange County, Calif., more than 700 people were cleared out of a tent city along the Santa Ana River last year after thousands signed a petition and Anaheim declared a state of emergency. Seattle, meanwhile, has allowed some tent cities to operate as de facto communities — long-term, regulated, even with phone numbers and addresses. And in the District, the number of encampment cleanups has surged, according to city data, rising from 29 in 2015 to 100 in 2018. Monica, a stout, wavy-haired woman now living in her seventh tent after cleanup crews tossed the others, looked down the busy street and tried to gird herself for the indignities to come. She needed to place her clothing and blankets into black trash bags, take down the blue and gray nylon tent and wheel everything out of eyesight in a shopping cart. Then she would watch as workers wiped away any trace of her from First Street NE, wheel it all back, pitch her tent again, take an ibuprofen p.m. and then sleep it all away until it was time to go to the fast-food restaurant for work. “We got to take it all the way down there,” she said, pointing toward the next street. Pete looked over everything that needed packing and was quietly shaking his head when a man in a brown coat approached. He’d come to cover the cleanup for Street Sense, a publication about homelessness, but now told them that the move had been canceled. The city was worried about hypothermia. Monica and Pete wouldn’t have to dismantle their lives — at least not today. “It’s canceled?” Monica said, putting a hand over her mouth and closing her eyes. “Oh my God! We were just about to move all of our stuff!” She hugged the man, and then Pete, the two of them overcome with such sudden relief that they began to cry. Behind them was a sign screwed to a metal post. It showed the date of the next cleanup. Feb. 28, it now said. Ten a.m. Two weeks from today. Life in the tent: Everything looks blue. “Our efficiency on First” they jokingly call it, imagining a different existence. On one side is the “wardrobe closet,” where they store the clothing the church people gave them. In the middle is the “bedroom,” where they’ve laid down blankets and sleeping bags. Off to the other side are the “kitchen” and “bathroom,” where they put the groceries and toiletries that Monica can manage to buy with the biweekly pay from her job. That was where she had to go one afternoon soon after a cleanup. Just past 3 p.m., she unzipped the tent and awkwardly stepped out into the brightness of day. Eyes puffy, hair ruffled, exhausted, she pulled up the hood of her co