SF pols: The City is a tow-away zone for RV dwellers who refuse to get with the homeless remediation program
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Finding a parking spot in SF was never easy, but van life hasn’t helped. Since 2022, the number of homeless people living in their vehicles has jumped 37%. Residents are fed up with litter and dangerous behavior. Now, if perma-parkers don’t accept the City’s compassionate offer to house or support them, Mayor Breed says they'll tow their RVs. LA Times’s Corinne Purtill reports.
Following complaints from businesses and residents about the occupied vehicles, Mayor London Breed said the city will make parking between midnight and 6 a.m. a towable offense for oversized vehicles whose occupants refuse offers of housing or other services.
“San Francisco is a compassionate City that will always lead with offers for housing and shelter, and other supportive services, but we must enforce our laws to ensure that our streets are safe, livable, and accessible to everyone,” Breed said in a statement. “Our message has been clear: accepting our help is not just an option, it is the option.”
The city counted 1,444 people living in vehicles in its most recent census of unhoused individuals, a 37% increase from 2022. Ninety percent of the 130 unsheltered families the city counted were living in a vehicle.
San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio told the San Francisco Chronicle that he receives frequent complaints from residents in his Sunset District about parking problems, litter and concerning behavior related to the inhabited vehicles.
“We need to support and create the construction of new housing and shelter for people, but we just can’t let people park on the street indefinitely and create problems for the residents,” he told the paper.
Read the whole thing here.
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