Before the Billions: Housing Insecurity in The Inheritance Games

Jennifer Lynn Barnes is the New York Times bestselling author of the wildly popular YA series, The Inheritance Games. If you are unfamiliar with the series - the first installment in the series has sold more than six million copies worldwide - it is part mystery, part thriller as it follows the trials of the main character Avery Kylie Grambs, who just inherited an unknown-to-her billionaire’s fortune. 

Tobias Hawthorne, the billionaire in question, was a lover of puzzles and riddles. His last hurrah perhaps being the riddle he left when he bequeathed his fortune to a seeming stranger, Avery, rather than either of his two daughters or one of his four grandsons. The catch to Avery’s windfall is that she must live in Hawthorne House - itself full of secret passages and hidden messages - for a year … with the spurned offspring of Tobias Hawthorne.

Before this turn of luck, Avery is living in her car. She is a seventeen year old high school student and supposed to be under the watchful eyes of her older half-sister, Libby, who was granted custody two years prior after Avery’s mother passed away.  However, it is from the verbal harassment and barbs of Libby’s on-again/off-again boyfriend, Drake, that Avery escapes to her car.

The next day, I paid a price for sleeping in my car. My whole body ached, and I had to shower after gym, because paper towels in the bathroom at the diner could only go so far.

Although the plot twists and turns that span the series may require some suspension of reality, this particular plot line is not that far-fetched from reality for an unfortunate number of youth in the United States. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than 770,000 people experienced homelessness on a single night in 2024 - the highest number ever recorded. The National Center for Homeless Education, identified nearly 1.4 million public school students experienced homelessness during the 2022-2023 school year. And, while these numbers are heartbreaking and staggering, these statistics do not reflect what has more recently been termed the “hidden homeless.”

The “hidden homeless” are individuals residing in shelters, couch surfing (or “doubling up”), or sleeping in vehicles. And, while technically unhoused, these individuals may not meet the formal definition of homeless as defined by the U.S. federal government or many state governments. Further, obtaining an accurate count of the “hidden homeless” is extremely challenging, and even more challenging is estimating the number of children and teens living such circumstances. Thus, the number of youth experiencing homelessness could be much larger than the above numbers suggest.

The reasons for the “hidden homeless” are extensive but include things like lack of affordable housing, increased costs of living, decreased public housing, and - perhaps most notably as it relates to youth - barriers to accessing any resources that may be available. For example, most shelters or emergency services require parental or guardian consent, which is a challenging barrier to overcome for a youth that is a victim of domestic violence or abuse or a self-supporting individual, not unlike Avery Grambs. Currently, two states - Missouri and Hawaii - enable limited ability for certain unaccompanied minors to consent for housing services. 

The number of "hidden homeless" continues to increase with some areas, like King County Washington, seeing a 2,858% increase in vehicular homelessness over the past 20 years. This dramatic increase in individuals living in their vehicles has led to the creation of “safe parking programs.” These programs are designated places where people living in their vehicles can stay overnight sometimes under the watchful eye of a security guard and some providing access to sanitation stations, amenities like Wi-Fi, and other supportive social services. Although the first programs started in California, there are now safe parking programs located in multiple states across the country.

Although a relatively minor plot point in the series, Avery Grambs's less than humble life prior to becoming "The Heiress" sheds a small, if poignant, look at a significant issue facing our nation's youth.

To learn more about the “hidden homeless” in the U.S. or youth homeless in general, consider the following resources:

• The National Center for Homeless Education’s Report on Student Homelessness in America for the school years 2020-21 and 2022-23.

  
  

• The Youth Homeless Index provides statistics and policy resources for each state, including the rate of youth homeless as well as extensive analyses of state regulations affecting unhoused youths.

  
  

• The School House Connection’s policy page provides an overview of state laws supporting youth experiencing homeless.

  
  

• This 2022 article from The Guardian ("'My car is my home': the California students with nowhere to live") offers firsthand accounts from Long Beach City College students who lived in their cars after being unable to afford housing and to continue their studies.

  
  

• This 2023 article on Invisible People about the rise of vehicular homelessness.

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