In the public imagination, homelessness looks like the man in soiled clothes sleeping on top of a subway grate or the woman peering out of a tent from under a highway overpass. But in cities and towns that have the highest concentrations of homelessness, many — and sometimes a majority — of those who do not live in shelters are in cars, not on the streets, according to the annual census known as the “point in time count.”

In Los Angeles County, for example, two-thirds are living in vehicles. In San Mateo County, which includes part of Silicon Valley, its even more — 71 percent.

“The American dream of owning a home is dead unless you make a gazillion dollars,”