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Prologue

Ira speaks with Richard Dorsay, who became famous in 2004 when police learned that for years Richard and a friend had been living inside of a Chicago bridge. And this was no ordinary bridge.

Act Three: Throw the Book at Them

Isaiah Thompson tells the story of the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami, a bridge that became home to a population of sex offenders, after a powerful lobbyist named Ron Book helped make it illegal for them live almost anywhere else in the city. Isaiah Thompson is a reporter and columnist for the Philadelphia City Paper.

Act One: New Guy on the Job

Dave Hill continues his story. When he talked to a co-worker the morning after his first shift as a night supervisor, he learned that the place isn’t quite what he thought it was.

Act Two: Boy Interrupted

Growing up, Clevins Browne moved all over New York with his mother, in different apartments and homeless shelters. But that all changed when he was 12, and they got an apartment in a public housing complex in Brooklyn.

Act Four: Refugee Cat

We end this show about people and animals who return against all odds with a story about some people who fear they may not be able to return: New Orleans public housing residents whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Katrina and now are slated for demolition by HUD. New Orleans resident Cheryl Wagner asks who should be more ashamed of themselves: The people who think that the public housing complexes in New Orleans should be torn down, or the ones who think they should stay.

Prologue

At the Astrodome complex in Houston, charities from Colorado and Florida and other states are competing to take in the hurricane's refugees. But Colorado, which offers the best package of any state, just can't get New Orleans residents to relocate there.

Act Two: No Place Like Dome

Host Ira Glass talks to evacuees about what it's like to live on a cot in the Astrodome and the Reliant convention center next door. The lights never go out, and the p.a. runs announcements all day.

Act Three: Land Grab

As a half-dozen families—including a pregnant woman having contractions and another with a four-week-old baby—are driven around Houston looking for housing, they confront potential neighbors who they believe don't want them...and neighbors they themselves don't want. This American Life producer Lisa Pollak reports.

Prologue

Host Ira Glass tells the story of Chris Sewell, who was living on the street and yet somehow managed to find $610,940 of lost money that belonged to the city of New York, hidden away on the Internet.

Act Three: To A De-luxe Apartment In The Sky

Producer Blue Chevigny used to have a job that was all about Moving Day—and people who didn't want to move. She worked for an agency in New York called Project Reachout, part of Goddard Riverside Community Center, that moved homeless, mentally ill people into their own homes.