What is your 'day job' when you aren't supporting CSPI: I am the Director of the National Vehicle Residency Collective, an applied anthropologist, strategic advisor and consultant on vehicle residency for continuums of care, municipalities, legal advocates, and service providers

How do you connect personally with CSPI mission: My work and research has focused on the habitation of vehicles in public parking and in parking programs for the past decade - including helping developing the first Safe Parking Program in Seattle, two years working as street outreach with vehicle residents, and appointments to the regional continuum of care executive and policy boards. These experiences, alongside a history of homelessness when I was a young adult, connect me personally with the CSPI mission.

What other volunteer work do you enjoy: I enjoy volunteer community organizing and regularly attending large gatherings of vehicle residents while car camping.

What is your hometown? Although my original hometown is the California Bay Area, I've been in Washington State for the past 25 years (Seattle and now Snohomish).

Things you enjoy doing outside of volunteer/professional work: I enjoy travelling, spending time with family, attending cultural events, playing music and camping with friends.

Do you have a chosen or pet family you'd like to brag about? I am a proud father of two amazing humans, Baley and Donovan, and grandfather to Elio.

Brief bio:

Graham J. Pruss, PhD is the Director of the National Vehicle Residency Collective. His research focuses on the intersection of lived experiences, social services, legal systems, and public policy. Prior to his current position, Graham joined the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California San Francisco’s Center for Vulnerable Populations as a Postdoctoral Scholar in 2020 after receiving his PhD from the University of Washington Department of Anthropology as a National Science Foundation Fellow.

He was inspired to focus on the habitation of vehicles in public space by extensive travel with his family in vehicles during his childhood and close relationships with long-term vehicle residents throughout his life. He brings diverse perspectives to research on housing adaptation and instability, as a former social service outreach specialist for vehicle residents (2013-2015) and previous recipient of social welfare programs as a homeless youth and teen parent in the 1990s.