By ZEKE MINAYA, The Press-Enterprise

Residents of Needles, Calif., talk about their desert city in contradictory terms.

They decry high gasoline and electricity prices, the crumbling houses in half-deserted neighborhoods and the sleepy downtown. In the next breath, they express fierce loyalty and a desire to live nowhere else.

ONTARIO, Calif. -- Explaining how she came to live at a homeless encampment, Barbara Wirth, a 27-year-old originally from the East Coast, said "love makes you do stupid things."