Sam Lutzker

Sam Lutzker is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at UCLA whose dissertation research examines the rise of vehicle residency and homelessness in the United States, including both residents’ perspectives and attempts by government and civil society groups to resolve “the problem” as divergently understood. As part of the After Echo Park Lake Research Collective (based at the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality & Democracy), Sam co-authored a widely cited policy report on the mass displacement of unhoused people from Echo Park Lake, as well as an article in Radical Housing Journal and an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. More recently, Sam co-authored a policy report on homelessness in recreational vehicles (i.e., RVs) in San José, CA with Graham Pruss and the Lived Experience Advisory Board of Silicon Valley. He was a co-founder of Palms Unhoused Mutual Aid and has written about state- and city-level homeless policies for the Los Angeles Times and Knock LA. At UCLA, Sam co-founded the Urban Sociology Working Group, for which he serves as a coordinator. He enjoys mentoring undergraduates who are engaged in research on a variety of topics. When not working, Sam loves mountain biking and eating his way through LA with friends.