It’s a drizzly fall afternoon and Briantae Woods, 15, is holed up in a room on the third floor of Superior Creek Lodge.

Sitting in a chair between the room’s two double beds, she makes small talk with friends Pam Craig and Rosemary “Rosie” Keltch.

Ms. Keltch’s 20-year-old son, Russell Johnson, slouches at the end of one of the double beds, playing a video game with 4-year-old Hunter Gilreath, who lives next door with his grandparents.

The room is filled with activity and boxes of clothing. The nightstand between the beds is cluttered with empty soda cans, a blue lava lamp, a can of cookies, an ashtray and a bottle of antacids. Framed family photos are arranged along the top of the heater. The family dog, Cookie, a poodle-Shih Tzu mix, whines for attention from behind the bathroom door.

“We’re all out here for one reason: It’s because we don’t really have enough money to go to a better place,” Briantae said. “Nobody out here thinks they’re better than anybody else because we’re all in the same predicament.”

In addition to being cheap and convenient, extended stay motels also are providing many residents with a sense of community, built on the acts of sharing a meal, watching after the children and having someone to laugh with. Their camaraderie seems to help transform otherwise meager accommodations into what they all ultimately seek — a home.

Ms. Keltch, 39, has shoulderlength blonde hair, cut short on top and long behind the ears. She jokes around with her cobbled-together family and explains why she cares for them like her own.

“That’s the way I was always raised up,” she said. “If you see somebody in need, you help that person.”

Mr. Johnson opens the minifridge and passes Briantae a slice of American cheese and a box of crackers.

That’s how a lot of people get by at the motel, Ms. Keltch said. Whenever anyone has food, they share what little they have and the next week, someone else reciprocates.

“The world’s not easy to get along with, but you have to make friends,” she said. “If you don’t, then you aren’t going to have anything and that’s what I’ve learned here is that we’ve got friendship with everybody.”

Her own clan formed after she moved into the motel with her boyfriend in September and ran into Ms. Craig, 26, whom she used to baby-sit when they lived near each other in Rossville.

Together the group keeps Hunter occupied, taking him downstairs to ride his little skateboard, giving his grandparents, Philip and Carol Reynolds, a much-needed break.

‘ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD’

The Reynolds have a lot on their minds these days.

In the two years they have lived in the motel, they have spent $16,227 in rent but have little to show for it.

Ms. Reynolds, 42, sits on the bed in their single room wearing her only set of clothes: a gold Tshirt and Christmas pajama pants. Mr. Reynolds is dressed in the same red T-shirt and blue jeans.

“I have $7 in my pocket to do me for the rest of the week,” said Mr. Reynolds, 46, who drives an ice cream truck for a living.

“We’re supposed to be the wealthiest nation in the world? Why are we in the situation that we’re in now?” he said. “It’s either keep a roof over your head or feed your family. That’s what I do, I have to let one or the other go.”

Barefoot and shirtless, Hunter struts around the room, pushing out his chest and chugging a soda from the fridge.

“That baby needs clothes,” Ms. Reynolds said, sounding defeated. Their friends help them any way they can. When the food ran out one week, Briantae brought by a couple of packages of noodles for Hunter.

Mr. Reynolds said he worries that Hunter will have no Christmas presents this year.

“I’m just to the point where I’m going to have to ask for help because I can’t do it all by myself,” Mr. Reynolds said.

TWO FAMILIES

PULL TOGETHER

Down the road at an extended stay off exit 353 in Ringgold, Ga., the Bonine family members are doing what they can to maintain their slippery grasp on stability.

Formerly a Knight’s Inn, the Cloud Springs Lodge motel is behind the BP gas station, on the doorstep to Interstate 75. At sunset, the shadows of passing vehicles flicker on the wall of Jonathan and Jennifer Bonine’s single room, like a strobe from a life-sized film projector.

“It’s been rough,” said Ms. Bonine, 31. “It’s been hard for me finding a job, my husband finding a job. It’s just been rough. And with the deposits on lights nowadays, it’s outrageous.”

The family came to the motel from Hunter Hills Trailer Park, the sixth move they have made this year. They had been staying with friends Heather and Thomas Ellis and their five children, until the lights were shut off. Because they didn’t have the $350 they needed to turn them back on, the families decided to team up and rent two rooms at the motel.

“It’s like one big family,” Ms. Bonine said. “We all pull together and we put stuff together, fix dinner, wash clothes together and everything.”

Her day starts early, when she leaves at 6:15 a.m. to drive her son, Matthew, and the two younger Ellis children to the bus stop, and to take Mr. Ellis to his job at a moving company. Around 6:40 a.m. she returns to pick up the rest of the children. At 8 a.m. she drops her husband, Johnny, off at Dodds Avenue Tire and Wheel where he works as a tire changer. She later brings Ms. Ellis to her job as a cashier at Dollar General.

While everyone is gone, Ms. Bonine goes grocery shopping at Save-A-Lot, does the laundry and cleans. Around 2:15 p.m., she starts shuttling everyone back home, a process that continues until dinnertime.

In the evenings, after the kids’ homework is done, the families watch television and play. Mr. Bonine wrestles and flies paper airplanes with Matthew and the two younger Ellis boys. Bathtime is at 7 p.m. and bedtime at 8:30, with two boys in the bed and one on the floor.

Ms. Bonine said the situation is temporary. Together the Ellises and Bonines hope to find somewhere they can share the rent and build on the partnership they have created. In the meantime, she’s grateful to have a home for her son, though disappointed that a motel is all her family can afford.

“I’d 10 times rather be in a house than this. But it’s a roof over our head, and it’s warm,” she said. “And it’s better — it’s better than nothing.”