A Camper Called Home
Kim and Rich Mattox with their 6-year-old daughter, Mariah, were evicted from their apartment and had no place to live – except for a 17-foot recreational vehicle. Now the family calls a camper, a mesh dinning tent and a campground their home.
Kim and Rich Mattox with their 6-year-old daughter, Mariah, live in a camper at the Enchanted Shores campground in Peotone. Home is a 17-foot recreational vehicle and mesh dining tent at the private campground at which they will stay through the winter.
Mariah enters the family's mesh dining tent, which also serves as a playroom.
Mariah serves a play Thanksgiving dinner to imaginary friends.
Kim Mattox tries to get air flowing through the recreational vehicle that serves as the family home. Mostly, they make home on the picnic table and mesh dining tent outside the camper. They will move to a larger camper in a month, but for now meals are cooked outdoors and the fold-down kitchenette serves as bed for Mariah.
Rich and Kim Mattox keep an eye on Mariah as she scoots around the campground.
Kim and Rich Mattox try to get their daughter to settle into bed for the night. At bedtime, her father removes the kitchenette table and folds down the bench seats into a bed for her daughter.
Mariah watches a movie on a small DVD player in bed. The family has no television and use a computer and the DVD player for entertainment.
Mariah sits near a space heater before finishing getting ready for school on a late October morning.
Kim Mattox combs the tangles out of her daughter's hair in the public bathroom at the campground. The bathroom in their camper home does not work.
A school bus pulls up in front of the camper to pick up Mariah for school.