On a hot September afternoon, 57-year-old Bebe Reyna walks down a treeless street at the Esperanza Community, a seven-acre site near Austin’s airport that provides temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness. She passes her climate-controlled cabin, a 96-square-foot prefabricated structure painted a warm beige. It’s crowded with Reyna; her dog, Bay Maxx; and her indoor cat, Kasper, but there’s room for a bed, a cooler, and Reyna’s bike. Sometimes, when Reyna finishes her shift cleaning the Esperanza administration building, she locks the door and takes a nap, blissfully undisturbed. In the community center, she checks her mail and greets neighbors waiting to get paid for today’s work—cleaning, distributing food, hauling supplies. Posters on the walls advertise a walking group and meditation meetup called Quieting the Mind.…
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