Fremont City Attorney: Why permanent (not just time-limited) parking bans make our streets and schools safer
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Fremont let its homeless population double to over 1,000 between 2019 and 2022. Now, facing potential funding cuts from Sacramento, their City Council is targeting "perma-parkers." Outreach teams already visit homeless encampments to offer housing, but City Attorney Rafael Alvarado points out that parking must be banned on certain streets (e.g., next to school playgrounds) to avoid future safety emergencies. SJ Merc’s Kyle Martin reports.
The Fremont City Council, which represents the Bay Area’s fourth largest city, last week discussed the possibility of amending city policies to add a 72-hour parking limit for residents on city streets, a potential “oversized vehicle parking” ban on recreational vehicles parked in residential areas and a ban on camping on public property. The council also discussed options for a permanent ban on RVs near schools, educational facilities and churches.
Newsom said previously that local governments which did not deliver results could suffer funding cuts from the state.
According to the most recent study of the homeless population, the city reported this year that the number of people living without shelter in Fremont dropped 21 percent, matching a countywide trend. But that’s after Fremont’s homeless population nearly doubled between 2019 and 2022, from 608 unhoused people to 1,026, according to the point in time count, a government census measuring homelessness.
Housing Manager Lucia Hughes told [Vice Mayor Desrie] Campbell that “outreach teams” go to the camp regularly and offer a number of things to residents, such as possible housing services. City Attorney Rafael E. Alvarado added that unless the council wants to implement permanent parking bans on certain city streets, it is inevitable that homeless residents “will come back.”
For Councilwoman Teresa Cox, it remains important for school zones and places where children play to be free of encampments. She worried that “a lot of the people are not going to be background screened around children and families.”
Read the whole thing here.
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