As police crack down on homelessness, unhoused end up in Mojave desert

Ashley Hanson lives in a remote stretch of the Mojave desert in southern California where the summer weather is brutally hot and there is no running water for miles. Photograph: Barbara Davidson/The Guardian

In a remote stretch of southern California desert, at least 200 unhoused people live outside, battling the extremes: blazing hot temperatures in the summer, snow in winter, rugged terrain inaccessible to many vehicles, a constant wind that blankets everything with silt, and no running water for miles.

For Candice Winfrey, the conditions almost proved deadly.