Growing numbers of homeless sleep outside 'Hotel Walmart'

Tens of thousands of people in the US are thought to be living in cars outside Walmart superstores because of an unofficial company policy that allows vehicles to park outside the stores overnight for free.

It's thought tens of thousands of people across the US are permanently spending the night in Walmart's parking lots because of a little-publicised policy allowing vehicles to park outside some superstores overnight for free.

Dateline reporter Nick Lazaredes travelled to Flagstaff, Arizona, to meet some of the people calling Walmart's carparks home.

He said the unofficial policy has been in place for decades and although it wasn’t promoted, word got around.

Since the beginning of the housing crisis, the carparks have become a haven for America's so-called hidden homeless.

There are almost 5,000 Walmart stores blanketing the United States, a number of which have become de facto shelters. (Dateline)

"It's a secure environment – there’s always security guards and the police patrol around," Mr Lazaredes said. 

"Well over 50 per cent of the people we met are struggling in some way. They either don’t have a job or are looking for a job; looking for a break."

"We met a couple that had fled from California because social security had taken some of their children and they had a little baby and they didn’t want to lose the baby so they drove to Arizona."

Watch the full story on Dateline, tonight at 9.30pm on SBS ONE.